Epilogue:
Tommy woke up vaguely aware of a strange light shining. He opened his eyes to find Barbara holding her pendant up to her bedside lamp and allowing the light to fall across her swollen stomach. He smiled but still asked, "What are you doing?"
"Making sure he knows he's safe," she replied seriously.
Tommy snuggled up next to her and laid his hand gently where the green light was pooling. "I'm here and I'll keep you both safe."
"Hmm, I know," she said then kissed him. They were interrupted by a noise in the next room.
"I'll go," Tommy said. He was exhausted but Barbara was far too pregnant to get out of bed easily. She was almost a week overdue and the doctor was threatening to induce her if nothing had started by Monday.
He returned to their bedroom a few minutes later with Charlotte in his arms and James trailing behind him dragging his teddybear across the carpet. "Charlotte has wind I think," he said as he handed their daughter to her mother. "Come on young Sir, up here with us."
"No!" the boy replied petulantly, "you want a new boy."
Tommy looked across at Barbara and frowned. James had been moody all week but this was the first time they had understood why. Tommy scooped him up and climbed in beside Barbara and gently placed their son between them. He looked him straight in his little green eyes then pushed up the lock of dark hair that flopped over his left eye. "Is that why you've been sad?"
The boy looked up and nodded. Tears welled in his eyes and he was fighting to stop them running down his cheeks. "You're going to love Ed-a-mund now."
Charlie had cuddled into her mother and gone to sleep oblivious to the drama. "We're going to love all of you James," Barbara reassured her four year old.
Tommy lay down next to his wife and pulled his son down into his arms. "Do you remember how excited Mummy and I were when we found out we were going to have Edmund?"
The boy nodded. "You kissed Mummy so long Gran took us out to play."
"Well when Mummy and I discovered we were going to have you I picked her up and swung her around the kitchen."
James giggled. "But she's too heavy! You said so."
"I wasn't always the size of a whale," Barbara cut in making Tommy laugh.
"We wanted to meet you so badly that waiting was really hard. We loved you before we met you. We used to talk to you just like we do to Edmund. It was the same with Charlotte. Love expands James. We love each of you more than anything else and we won't stop loving you when Edmund comes. We promise."
"Except Mummy."
"Mummy loves you too," Tommy said wondering why his son struggled to understand that.
"No," his son said with the same exasperated tone Tommy knew he also used at times, "you love Mummy more."
Barbara intervened. "Mummies and daddies love each other differently to the way they love their children. It's not more or less, just different. We both love you and Charlotte and Edmund very much."
"Okay." Their son seems satisfied and snuggled down between them.
Tommy leant over and kissed Barbara gently. He wriggled around so they could cuddle their children between them and still touch each other. It was a well-practiced move and Tommy wondered how they had ever found the time or privacy to conceive Edmund. Of course he knew, it had been during their picnic up on the cliffs when his mother had been minding her grandchildren. He smiled at the thought. In their five years together they had never tired of making love.
Tommy liked living at Howenstowe for large parts of the year and being able to teach his children how to ride. When they were older he would teach them to sail and maybe to fish. Even Barbara could ride now. They had both given up the Met just before James was born and neither of them regretted it. Family was important to them and neither could survive the loss of the other but in the end it had been as simple as wanting to be with each other everyday, not just for a few hours at night.
Back here in London they were kept busy with the children and estate business and Tommy wondered how they had ever had time to work. To his great amazement Barbara had taken to the family business easily and had a remarkable eye for real estate. It had been important to her to put something back into the community too and they had made money and made a valuable contribution by renovating dilapidated inner city slums in south London into respectable, affordable housing.
Tommy had almost drifted to sleep when his son tugged at his sleeve. "Daddy! Daddy!"
"What James?" he asked wearily.
His son climbed up close to his ear and whispered, "Mummy wet the bed!"
Barbara was trying hard not to cry out and frighten the children. "It's time."
"Kiss your mother James, we're about to meet Edmund." Tommy swept them up in his arms and took them to the room his mother was staying in. "It's finally time," he informed her, "but James has been a bit upset tonight about Edmund arriving."
"I remember you being the same with Peter," Dorothy replied. "We'll be fine."
"But I was ten, not four!"
"Exactly. James is so like you Tommy but fortunately has inherited his mother's practicality."
Tommy kissed them all before he ruffled his son's hair then went to call the hospital. He helped Barbara to his car for the short drive. "I love you," he told her.
"I love you too, and this time I'll try not to curse all of the eight earls."
"Oh I don't know. I like your birthing room rants against the aristocracy and what your poncy husband has made you into. It reminds me of the old days. Do you ever miss it Barbara?"
"Yeah, sometimes I miss discovering who did it and bringing someone to justice but I wouldn't go back. Five years ago I would never have believed it but I like our life with our children. What about you?"
"No, it's not a loss when you find something far more important and we have that don't we?"
"We do Tommy, we certainly do."
