They returned to London three days later. There was no problem with needing more clean clothing for James since he wore no clothes whatsoever for those three days.
Catherine sent for Arabella immediately. Once Arabella arrived in London from Bath—where she had been partaking of the waters with her sister Mary and Mary’s husband—Catherine took her to the morning room. They sat on the sofa and Catherine could see that Arabella was the same height as Catherine now.
“Arabella,” she said. “I am to be married.”
Arabella used the flat of her palm to press out a crease in her gown that had been wrinkled in the coach. “To His Grace? The Duke of Middlewich?”
Catherine was astounded. “How did you know?”
Arabella laughed. “Oh, Mama, I saw how he looked at you at Christmas. He looked at you the same way that the Earl Drake looks at Harry and how David, I mean, the Viscount Tregaron looks at Mary.”
“I hope the match meets with your approval,” Catherine said, trying not to betray her worry.
Arabella threw her arms around Catherine. “Anything you do, Mama, would meet with my approval. You know that. And I like the duke for you.”
“And there is to be a baby, Arabella.”
“A baby?” Arabella pulled back from Catherine.
“Yes, you will have a brother or a sister. At the end of September, perhaps. It is not the usual thing and I feel I should explain more. I tried to have this conversation with your sister Harry a year ago, before she was married—”
“You needn’t explain, Mama.” Arabella blushed. “Mary had quite a good talk with me last month when we were in Cornwall. I think I understand.”
But Catherine wanted to be clear. She spoke of anatomy and of desire and of love. She spoke of the rules of society and how some made sense and some did not but woe betide those who broke the rules.
“I have broken those rules, darling girl, time and time again. I have been lucky to have made my way as I did despite that.”
Arabella still looked embarrassed and made a gesture with her hand that indicated she wanted Catherine to stop talking. “I see, Mama. You want me to do what you tell me to do and not do what you have done.”
“In short, yes. But no matter what, I will, of course, always love you.”
“And I you, Mama.” And the two embraced and Arabella smiled, clearly happy that all talk about urges and loins and seed had ceased.
James knew that traditional Catherine wanted to have the banns read for three weeks. The couple even went with Arabella in tow to meet the Bishop of London at St. Paul’s Cathedral to discuss the banns. That meeting turned out to be exceedingly fortuitous as Harry and Thomas and Harry’s physician Dr. Alasdair Andrews happened to be meeting with the bishop at the same time. James noted that Catherine was pleased to make the acquaintance of Dr. Andrews for the first time at that meeting, since she had hoped to meet him at Christmas but Dr. Andrews had been too busy.
However, Arabella seemed even more pleased to make the acquaintance of Dr. Andrews.
And then James suddenly realized that reading banns would mean that they would not be married until July, and he decided he couldn’t wait. He wanted his Kate legally bound to him, and he wanted to be sure the baby would be born after the wedding. After all, some babies did come two months early. A June wedding was much safer than a July wedding. He obtained a special license from the Archbishop of Canterbury and they married four days later, in the garden of his town house in London, surrounded by the few flowers that had bloomed since James had snipped all the rest of them for the proposal bouquet intended for Catherine.
His excited sisters and his disapproving mother were there. He had already made arrangements for his mother to move to her own house on the far end of the estate. “She can dowager duchess all she likes from a distance,” he told Catherine. “When you come to the castle, there will only be one Duchess of Middlebury there.”
His sisters, for now, would stay in the castle. He had high hopes that Catherine would like his sisters and vice versa. Their first meetings had been promising. His oldest sister had whispered to him that Catherine was charming and, after all, one stepdaughter had married a viscount and the other exceedingly peculiar stepdaughter had married an earl, and perhaps Catherine could do even better for a set of rather normal duke’s daughters.
Arabella and Harry and Thomas and Mary and Mary’s husband David Vaughan, the Viscount Tregaron, were all at the wedding, as well. Thomas seemed to rest his hand frequently on Harry’s waist, which James thought was unremarkable until Catherine commented on it with surprise in her voice. James suddenly remembered his conversation with Thomas at Christmas and thought perhaps Harry had discovered a new interest outside of mathematics.
Mr. Bulverton and Isabella were not at the wedding, as they were off on their own wedding trip to the Continent. Isabella was finally going to see Paris.
And, as James reminded Catherine as he carried her over the threshold into her bedchamber in the town house, just as he had promised, she was dry and warm and unhurt.
She whispered in his ear, “I don’t know about dry.”
It must be said that the white satin and silver tissue wedding dress was ripped in the groom’s haste to find out.
And then in September, at the castle of the duchy of Middlewich, Catherine gave birth. It was an easy labor and an easy birth, despite James despairing ahead of time that Catherine was so small.
“James, you are tall but not wide. The size of your head is quite normal. My hips are quite adequate. The baby will come out either short or long, but either way, he will fit.”
“Or she.”
Catherine had felt certain it was a boy. James was certain it was a girl.
The baby was a boy. James had mixed feelings when the midwife came to tell him. He was happy, first and foremost, that the baby had fit and that the baby and Catherine were well. And of course, he was happy to have an heir and recognized that this relieved Catherine of some censure she might have suffered if she had produced a girl. But he had longed for a little daughter.
And then he went upstairs and kissed a flushed, tousled, and tired Catherine, and he saw his son and he forgot anything about the daughter he had thought of before.
“I think the little blond fuzz on his head will darken to golden brown like yours, Jamie,” Catherine said as she put the baby in his arms.
“He’s so little,” James breathed. The baby yawned but kept his eyes closed. “What color are his eyes?”
“Blue. But many babies have blue eyes at birth. They may turn gray yet.”
“You got your boy, Kate. Let me have blue eyes.”
But in truth, he would not trade this boy for anything in the world.
“What shall we name him, Jamie?”
“We have had far too many Williams, Dukes of Middlewich, in our family. Let’s name him something else.”
“James, perhaps.”
“I know you, Kate. You will call him Jamie and I will have to share. Let me have my name. But I had a thought.”
“Yes, darling?”
“I’d like to name him for a man that was important to us both. A man who cared for you before my chance to love you. Our son could be Edward. You could call him Ted or Teddy, then.”
Catherine put her hand on James’ cheek. “It’s a very sweet tribute, Jamie. But Teddy Cavendish, Marquess of Daventry.” She rolled her eyes. “He sounds like a rake already.”
“What was your father’s name, Kate?”
“John.”
“I like the name John.”
“Jack Cavendish, Marquess of Daventry. They all sound like rakes!”
“Unless we name him Algernon or Percival, Kate, he will have a rakish name. What about Edmund? It’s not Edward, exactly.”
“I think we should call him Algernon.”
The baby went without a name for a week. Then Harry and Thomas came to visit with news of their own future happiness.
“Dr. Andrews tells us the confinement will be in March,” Thomas told James and Catherine.
Harry looked at the baby, sleeping in his little basket, for a long time. Then she looked up at the ceiling as if she were reading an answer there.
“Sebastian,” she said.
Catherine and James reached for each other’s hands and squeezed.
“Viola’s twin brother,” James said.
Sebastian he was.
