Thank you to all of you who, read reviewed, alerted and favourited this story- have a nice long chapter as a token of my gratitude :)

I would like to take the opportunity to appologize to anyone who got an update for this story and got a repeat of the first chapter. I don't know what happened- sorry.


Helen Kingsleigh was fighting off a headache. Her head was swimming with the three issues at hand…

Alice had come back.

Alice had come back with a husband.

Alice had come back with a husband and… and was currently in labour in her old bedroom- with said husband sticking by her side despite the impropriety of it all. The father's place at a time like this was outside the room, worrying and pacing.

A summons had been sent out for a doctor and Helen was the one pacing outside her daughter's bedroom.

She didn't know what to make of Mr Hightopp- on the one hand he was most probably certifiable. He was about as far away from the kind of man that Helen would have picked for her daughter as it were possible to be. The crux of the matter was; not that Helen would ever admit to it; that she knew absolutely nothing about this lunatic who her baby girl had consented to.

The other side of the argument was that Alice accepted him. Alice wasn't a naïve little girl anymore; she would not allow herself to be taken advantage of. She wouldn't have married the fellow if she didn't love him.

"Madame" Rachel, one of the household maids curtsied. "Mr and Mrs Manchester are here to see you"

Helen repressed a groan. 'Why today?'

"Thank you Rachel, show them to the sitting room please; tell them that I will be with them shortly."

"Yes madam" Rachel curtsied once again before descending the stairs

Helen slipped into Alice's old bedroom. Mr Hightopp was holding her close talking to her in hushed tones and wiping the sweat away from her brow.

"There's no sign of the doctor yet" she announced.

"Nae sign o' teh wee one yet either" Mr Hightopp replied curtly, wincing as Alice cried out right next to the poor man's ear.

"I ken it hurts Cricket" Mr Hightopp returned his attention to his wife.

"If we were at home right now Tarrant I'd have been given a calming draft by now!" Alice cried. "And this little… would probably be out of me!"

"I have to go downstairs dear" Helen told Alice. "Your sister and Lowell are here, but I'll have the doctor sent up as soon as he arrives."

Alice merely nodded as another contraction hit.

"Thank you Mrs Kingsleigh" Mr Hightopp winced as Alice clenched his hand in a death grip. "I just hope that the fellow shows up soon."


Thankfully the doctor arrived just as Helen was reaching the bottom of the stairs. Doctor Thomas Liddell was a respectable aging gentleman who had helped to deliver both Margaret and Alice; and treated them throughout all of their lives- Helen found it somewhat fitting that he was assisting in the delivery of Alice's child; despite her qualms about the father.

"Thank you for coming" Helen smiled tiredly. "You know where her room is"

"I must confess" Doctor Liddell admitted. "That I am finding it hard to believe that young Alice is the one who is giving you your first grandchild"

Helen understood this- Doctor Liddell had known Alice for her whole life, he knew what the young woman was like.

"How do you think I feel Doctor?" the flustered Gentlewoman replied, smoothing her greying hair. "You remember the scandal she caused when she ran off last year- I thought I might die of shame. Now she turns up, heavily pregnant with a Husband who looks and acts certifiable."

"Never let it be said that your husband wasn't without an outrageous idea or two of his own Helen" Doctor Liddell advised. "It has always been obvious that Alice is her father's daughter. Now; you and I shall talk more at a more suitable time- right now I have a baby to deliver."

Doctor Liddell had never seen such an attentive father to be as the peculiar red haired fellow who sat with young Alice. He was wiping the sweat from her face and stroking her hair. Most fathers to be that he'd come across stood back when their wives went into labour and allowed the women folk to handle the delivery.

"Well, well" Doctor Liddell addressed Alice. "Young Alice Kingsleigh- what have you been doing to yourself?"

"Tis Alice Hightopp naw" the father burred in a deep Scottish brogue. "Are yeh teh Doctor?"

"I am." He nodded. "And unfortunately for you sir, I'm going to have to ask you to step outside while I deliver the child"

"Buh…?" Mr Hightopp began to protest

"Hatter" Alice snapped. "I know that at home the father is with the mother through delivery but you have to do as Doctor Liddell says- it's just the way this is done here, love"

"Alright" an English accent came out of Mr Hightopp's mouth. "I'm not happy about it though cricket"

"You may come back when my job is finished sir" Doctor Liddell informed Mr Hightopp. "I brought your wife into the world so I'm sure you can trust me with your child"

Mr Hightopp nodded curtly and moved towards the door. "I love yeh Alice"

"Love you too Tarrant" she replied through gritted teeth and closed eyes.


'Bloody Londonlanders' Tarrant thought, pacing the corridor like a caged Bandersnatch. 'Makin' mah Alice go through childbirth withou' meh- I wehs there all teh way through an' mah place is by mah wife's side'

He didn't like hearing his wife cry out like that- he felt helpless not being able to go and help her. His beautiful Alice.


Down in the sitting room Helen sat with Margaret and Lowell.

"What is that caterwauling?" Lowell asked glaring at the ceiling

"It's… Alice" Helen sighed. She wasn't particularly fond of the son in law that she approved of. "She came back earlier today"

"Alice? Where has she been?" Margaret caught her mother's hands. "What's wrong with her? She sounds as though she's in great pain"

Helen sighed again, wondering how to answer her older daughter's questions when she didn't know all of the answers herself. "Well, I trust you remember that she vanished on what was to be her wedding day to Lord Kensington…?"

"Damned scandalous if you ask me" Lowell muttered

Helen ignored him. "Well apparently she ran off with a man who was… more to her tastes shall we say. The sounds above us are the sounds of your first niece or Nephew entering the world"

"Outside of wedlock?" Margaret clapped her hands to her cheeks, the scandal of it all- her flighty little sister had returned to bring a bastard child into the family

"Have you such little faith in her?" Helen glared at her. She might not wholly approve of Mr Hightopp but he was family whether she liked it or not. "When I said your sister ran away I suppose a better word would have been… eloped- the man in question goes by the name of Hightopp."

On hearing the 'E' word Margaret's whole demeanour changed as her repressed inner romantic broke out.

"They eloped?" the eldest Kinglseigh daughter was practically swooning. "How truly romantic"


Doctor Liddell was amazed. What looked to be a very long child birth suddenly became a very short one. As soon as the top of the babe's head came into view Alice suddenly began screaming. Not twenty minutes later the tiny baby came into the world. Now Doctor Liddell had seen a lot of babies born over his years in medicine but never one born that quickly.

The Doctor cut the umbilical cord severing the child from its mother. He quickly cleaned it and wrapped it in a conveniently located blanket.

"It's a girl" he announced laying the child in her mother's waiting arms and went to let the father in.


Tarrant had only once before seen such a beautiful sight as the one that he beheld when he entered his wife's room- that was on their wedding night when he'd seen her for the first time lying waiting for him clad in naught but a petticoat and the hat he'd made for her.

"Hello" she smiled tiredly, bringing him back to the present.

She was reclined against the pillows cradling a white blanket to her breast.

"Hello" he replied, not really sure of what else to say

"There's someone else who you might like to say hello to" here she looked at the bundle in her arms.

"Our child" he murmured taking a shaky step forwards

"Our Izabella" Alice nodded- they'd decided on Izabella for a girl- spelt with a Z because Tarrant insisted that his daughter would be both beautiful and unique with Jasmine as her middle name in honour of the tea they'd been drinking on the day Alice's pregnancy was discovered; should they have a son they would have named him Benjamin in honour of Tarrant's father and Charles as his middle name after Alice's.

Tarrant sat on the edge of the bed and Alice moved the baby away from her chest.

"She's sew wee and bonnie" he burred as his daughter was placed in his arms; tentatively he stroked her soft warm brow- her eyebrows were red gold, as was the tuft of hair which poked out from the makeshift hood of the blanket. "Hello mah wee Izabella"

The baby yawned and her large eyes drifted open. Her irises were a healthy spring green.

"Why aren't her eyes blue?" Alice asked sleepily

Tarrant giggled at his wife's silliness. "Honestly cricket- why ever would her eyes be blue; she's a new born?"

"I was brought up to believe that all new born babies had blue eyes" Alice yawned

"Nae love" he paused to kiss their daughter's brow. "Bairns are born wi' green eyes- like spring time. Sleep naw love- I'll watch after ye; mah two angels"


Now it hasn't escaped my notice that I haven't given you a story about Alice and Tarrant's wedding- my reason for this is that my idea contains lemons; something which I struggle to write; how many of you lovely readers would like me to attempt to do my idea justice?

Let me know what you think of the chapter and my question and I'll be back before you know it

Fairfarren All

MyraValhallah