The year turned.
Autumn crept into Merrow Park not with a dramatic storm, but with a subtle sharpening of air. Mornings held mist that hung low over the fields; evenings smelled of woodsmoke and damp earth. The first leaves browned and let go their tenuous grip.
Livia woke on a late September morning with the vague sense that something had shifted.
At first, she thought it was the weather.
Then she realized she was alone in the bed.
“Rowan?” she called softly, pushing aside the coverlet.
The sheets on his side were cool. A faint draft brushed her bare shoulder where the linen had slipped. She shivered, tugged a wrapper around herself, and padded to the window.
From the east-facing casement, she could see part of the lower fields. Tiny figures moved—men and women bent over, cutting, binding. The harvest had begun.
Near the edge of the field, where the land dipped, a familiar tall shape stood apart, arms folded, head bare.
Rowan.
He watched as Eames shouted and pointed, as lads and lasses trundled carts. A dog barked. Even from this distance, Livia could sense his restless energy.
He had thrown himself into this year’s harvest as if he could, by sheer will, drag Merrow back from every bad decision his father had ever made.
She understood the impulse.
“Your Grace?” Alice’s voice came from the dressing-room door, tentative. “Mrs. Talbot sent up hot water.”
“Thank you,” Livia said. “And it is Livia, Alice. At least when I am wearing nothing but linen.”
Alice squeaked, then giggled nervously.
Livia smiled faintly. The girl had grown less easily shocked over the months, but the sight of her mistress in so much as a loosened wrapper could still turn her pink.
“Will you be dressin’ for the fields, miss?” Alice asked. “Mrs. Talbot said as how there’s to be a harvest supper for the tenants. She’s in a proper state about pies.”
“Yes,” Livia said. “Something I do not mind spoiling. I shall ride down and see what mischief Rowan is making.”
Alice’s eyes brightened. “He were up with the sun,” she confided. “Pacin’ about like a caged lion till Mrs. Talbot told him to get out from under her skirts.”
“Wise woman,” Livia murmured.
She dressed in a sturdy gown of brown wool with a plain bodice and hem she did not mind dragging through stubble. Her hair she plaited and coiled firmly. There were parts of the day where looking like a duchess was useful; this would not be one of them.
Downstairs, the household thrummed.
Mrs. Talbot presided over the kitchen like a general, directing an army of scullery maids and footmen pressed into temporary vegetable-chopping service. The smell of roasting meat, stewing apples, and fresh bread filled the flagstoned room.
“Don’t you go pokin’ your nose in here, Your Grace,” Mrs. Talbot warned, waving a spoon. “You’ll get flour on your fancy sleeves.”
“These sleeves have seen worse,” Livia said. “Shall we have enough?”
“Enough for the tenants and half the village,” Mrs. Talbot said. “Not enough for the vicar if he brings that brother of his again. The man eats like the wrath of God.”
“Miss Hartley?” Livia asked.
“Has already been,” Mrs. Talbot said dryly. “Left a list of children what oughtn’t be allowed more than one honey-cake in case their mothers riot.”
Livia laughed.
She slipped out the back door, where her mare, Puck, waited already saddled, courtesy of a footman with more enthusiasm than experience.
“Mind the left stirrup,” she told him kindly. “It has a tendency to… sulk.”
The ride down to the fields woke her fully. The air was crisp, the sky a high, pale blue. Crows complained overhead. The land, which had been a comforting constant backdrop these past months, now exerted a magnetic pull.
Harvest.
For merchants, harvest was an abstraction—a line on a schedule, a date when grain would begin to move downriver. For landholders, she realized, it was… personal. The culmination of a year’s choices. Too much rain? Too little? Seed bought cheap or dear? Every decision written now in sheaves.
She found Rowan near the lower edge of Long Field, surrounded by a knot of men.
“…told you that corner would never take to wheat,” Eames was saying. “Should’ve put barley in from the start. But would you listen? No—”
“Good morning,” Livia said, drawing up Puck and dismounting with easy practice.
Rowan broke off mid-retort, his annoyance sliding away the moment he saw her.
“Duchess,” he said, the word warm and private despite the audience. “You’re up.”
“Unlike some people, I do not need dawn to prove my virtue,” she said. “I leave that to saints and dukes.”
Eames snorted. “She’s got you there, lad.”
Rowan rolled his eyes, but his lips twitched.
“Your daughter-in-law is undermining my authority,” he told Eames solemnly.
“Good for ‘er,” Eames said. “You need underminin’.”
Livia hid a smile.
“What crisis have I interrupted?” she asked.
“This corner,” Rowan said, gesturing toward a patch of field where the wheat grew sparser. “I insisted on wheat. Eames wanted barley. Eames was right. I am now obliged to let him gloat.”
“Obliged?” Eames muttered. “He’s the one what insisted on bettin’ half a guinea on it. I told ‘im not to tempt fate.”
“You bet with your steward?” Livia demanded.
“Yes,” Rowan said calmly. “And I am paying in pie. Mrs. Talbot has been informed she must bake one of disproportionate splendor for Eames’s private consumption.”
Eames looked smug. “I like that one with the sugar on top.”
“Shocking,” Rowan said dryly. “A man who likes sugar.”
Livia shook her head. “Men are children,” she told Eames. “You know that.”
“Aye,” Eames said affably. “But some’s learnin’. This un asks more questions now. Don’t just plough over sense.”
Rowan accepted the rare praise with a small nod.
“And you?” he asked Livia lightly, perhaps to divert attention from his faint flush. “Come to tell me all the ways I mismanaged the weather?”
“I thought I’d start with the scarecrows and work my way up,” she said. “May I?”
He knew what she meant.
“Of course,” he said.
She walked the field with him and Eames, boots sinking slightly into the soil. She ran her fingers lightly over the heads of grain, feeling the weight.
“Better than last year,” she said.
“Thank God,” Rowan murmured.
“You can thank him later,” she said. “For now, I suggest you thank the men and women who cut and stack this for you.”
“I intend to,” he said. “With pies and ale and my own poor attempts at dancing.”
She laughed aloud, picturing his long limbs attempting a country jig.
“Do I get to see that?” she asked.
“If you are very cruel,” he said. “And willing to shield me when Miss Hartley inevitably begins a lecture on proper reel steps.”
“I shall toss her at Eames,” Livia said. “He has more experience with steps.”
Eames snorted. “Dancin’s for folk with knees what don’t crack.”
They walked the length of Long Field and back, then moved to the smaller plots near the river, where tenants worked their own strips.
Mrs. Dobbins waved a sheaf at them. “You’ll be dancin’ tonight, Your Graces!” she shouted. “I’ll hold ye to it.”
“Oh, good,” Rowan muttered. “The people are arming themselves.”
Livia’s gaze drifted, as it so often did these days, to the cottages.
Children ran, played, “helped” with the harvest in ways that mostly involved getting underfoot. Her chest warmed.
She had not spoken yet to Rowan of what the physician in London had said before her journey back—of the subtle shifts in her cycle she had belatedly noticed, the faint persistent queasiness in the mornings that might be nothing… or might be everything.
She had wanted to be sure. To sit with it. To test, in the silence of her own mind, her reaction.
Terror.
Joy.
Both, braided.
She had not sent word to him.
Some things, she felt, must be said in person.
“Livia,” Rowan said.
She started.
“Yes?”
“You’ve gone pale,” he said, eyes narrowing. “Are you unwell?”
“Just… the sun,” she lied.
“There is not enough of it for that,” he said.
“I am fine,” she said, a little too briskly.
His gaze lingered a moment longer, clearly wanting to press, then he let it go.
“Very well,” he said. “But if you swoon in the middle of the harvest supper, I reserve the right to be smug.”
“You have no idea,” she murmured.
“What was that?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “Go and count Eames’s sheaves. I wish to speak with Mrs. Pike about her preserves.”
He studied her, then nodded.
“Do not let Miss Hartley recruit you for Greek declensions in the hayloft,” he warned, stepping away. “We need you for the accounts.”
“I make no promises,” she called after him.
***
The harvest supper that evening transformed Merrow’s big barn into a riot of light and sound.
Lanterns hung from rafters. Tables scavenged from house and village alike groaned under the weight of food: roasted joints, platters of sausages, mountains of potatoes, pies sweet and savory. Barrels of ale lined one wall; Mrs. Talbot’s assistants moved among them with practiced efficiency, filling and refilling mugs.
The tenants, scrubbed and dressed in their best, filled the space with laughter and chatter. Children darted between legs until Miss Hartley corralled them into a semi-orderly game of some sort.
Livia, in a gown one shade finer than her morning dress but still plain enough to move in without worrying about a torn flounce, stood near the entrance with Rowan as people arrived.
“Your Graces,” Mrs. Baines said, curtseying. “It’s a fine thing you do. My da’ says there’s some landlords don’t give so much as crusts.”
“The grain was good,” Rowan said. “You helped make it so. You should eat some of it.”
Mrs. Baines beamed.
Mrs. Dobbins swept in, three children in tow, hair somewhat subdued into a bun.
“Your Graces,” she said. “You’d better dance. We’ve all got bets on who trips first.”
Rowan groaned. “I am surrounded by vultures.”
“Cheerful vultures,” Livia murmured.
When everyone had arrived and found a place, Rowan cleared his throat.
The barn gradually quieted.
Livia felt his hand brush hers under cover of the table.
“My friends,” Rowan began, and even now, months into this new life, a part of Livia marveled that he could say that word and sound like he meant it, “thank you for coming. Thank you for your work. This year’s harvest is… better than we had any right to expect.”
A murmur, pleased and proud.
“It is,” he went on, “a testament not only to the weather—though we will thank the Almighty for restraining his storms—but to your labor. To Eames’s stubbornness. To Whitlow’s ledgers. To my wife’s insistence that we stop gambling away seed money.”
Livia, startled, laughed along with everyone else.
“I have made,” he said, “many mistakes. My father made more. Some of you still bear the marks of them. This”—he gestured to the food, the lights, the gathered bodies—“does not erase those. But it is, I hope, a sign of what we mean to do now. To mend. To build. To do better. Together.”
Heads nodded. A few men lifted their mugs.
“Tonight,” Rowan said, “we eat. We drink. We dance. Tomorrow, we argue again about where to plant barley. But for now—” He lifted his mug. “To Merrow. To all of us. And to good years to come.”
“To Merrow!” voices echoed.
“To all of us!”
“To years to come!”
Livia raised her own cup, cider bright and sharp on her tongue.
Years to come.
The words lodged in her, heavy and light at once.
After the first round of eating, the fiddles came out.
Eames, to no one’s surprise, turned out to be murderously adept at country dances. Mrs. Pike, fierce as ever, pulled Mrs. Dobbins into a set. Miss Hartley eyed the proceedings as if preparing a treatise on their historical inaccuracies.
Rowan tried, valiantly, to avoid the floor.
He failed.
“Up,” Mrs. Talbot ordered, hands on hips. “You’ll insult ’em if you don’t take a turn.”
“I do not wish to insult anyone,” he said gravely. “Except perhaps the vicar, and he is not here.”
“Up,” Livia said, hiding her smile behind her cup.
He groaned, but stood.
“Will your Grace do me the honor?” he asked, mock-formal, extending his hand.
“Gladly,” she said.
They joined a set.
Livia had learned these dances at London balls, under chandeliers, in silks.
Here, the straw underfoot, the smell of sweat and apples and ale, the laughter, transformed them.
Rowan was, predictably, not graceful.
He was, however, enthusiastic.
He misjudged a turn, nearly collided with Eames, and only just managed to catch Livia’s hand in time to swing her back.
“You are trying to kill me,” she gasped, laughing.
“I am trying,” he said, breathless and grinning, “to demonstrate why I avoid Almack’s.”
“That is not why,” she began.
“Grain,” he muttered, and she burst out laughing so loudly three people turned.
By the time the dance ended, both were panting.
“Sit,” Miss Hartley ordered, fanning herself with a book. “You are both red as beets. You’ll frighten the children.”
“They frighten easily,” Rowan wheezed.
Livia’s head spun slightly—not unpleasantly, but with an edge.
She sat on a hay bale, fanning her face with her hand.
Rowan dropped beside her, his thigh pressed to hers.
“You are sure you are well?” he murmured under the cover of the noise.
“Yes,” she lied. “Merely winded.”
He eyed her, doubtful.
“Come,” he said. “Walk a little. The air is close in here.”
He helped her to her feet, his hand steady.
They slipped out the barn’s side door, into the cooler dark.
The night wrapped around them, thick with the scent of cut grain and distant smoke. The moon hung low, a pale coin behind thin clouds.
Livia drew a deep breath.
Better.
Rowan watched her.
“You are pale,” he said again. “And you drank only cider. Which suggests it is not… overindulgence.”
“I am fine,” she said, but there was no heat in it.
He stepped closer, tilting her chin up gently with his fingers.
“Do not lie to me,” he said softly. “Not about this.”
Her heart thudded.
“Rowan,” she whispered.
“Yes,” he said.
She swallowed.
“There is… something,” she said. “I wished to tell you. I was waiting until after the harvest, when you would not be running about counting sheaves and imagining barley plots.”
He went very, very still.
“Livia,” he said. “Do not toy with me.”
“I am not toying,” she said. “I am… delaying. There is a difference.”
He looked, suddenly, near-frantic.
“Tell me,” he said.
She drew in a steadying breath.
“The physician in London,” she said slowly, “before I came back—he remarked upon certain… signs. I told him it was too soon to be sure. I wished… not to hope too quickly.”
Rowan stared.
“Signs,” he repeated. “Of…?”
She met his gaze, letting him see it.
“Of… an heir,” she whispered. “Perhaps. Of late… courses. Of… sickness in the mornings. Of… change.”
For a heartbeat, he did not react.
Then he exhaled, a sound half-laugh, half-sob.
His hand, still under her chin, trembled.
“How sure?” he asked, voice ragged. “How—”
“Not entirely,” she said. “Not yet. It may be… nothing. A trick. My body… taking its time to adjust to being used so thoroughly.” Her mouth quirked, despite herself.
He groaned faintly. “You are impossible.”
“But,” she said more seriously, “he was… optimistic. I did not wish to tell you on paper. Or to rush to you in panic. I wanted… to sit with it a little. To see if it… remained.”
“And it has,” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
He drew in another breath, as if the air had grown thin.
Livia, who had imagined this moment a dozen ways—from jubilant to horrified—felt suddenly… calm.
“This is… not certain,” she repeated. “We promised each other we would not let… possibility… rule us. If it does not… become more… we will mourn. But we will not… blame.”
“Blame?” he echoed, horrified. “How could I—”
“We are very skilled in self-recrimination,” she said. “I wished to head it off.”
He laughed, the sound wet.
“You are lecturing me,” he said. “About not blaming myself. While telling me I may be about to become a father.”
“Yes,” she said. “We are efficient.”
He made a choked sound and then he was on his knees in the straw-dusted yard, arms around her waist, his face pressed to her still-flat stomach.
“Rowan,” she hissed, shocked. “Get up, you fool, someone will see—”
“Let them,” he said, voice muffled. “Let the whole damned world see me on my knees before my wife.”
Her throat closed.
His hands clenched in the fabric at her back.
“Thank you,” he whispered. “Whatever happens. Thank you.”
Tears pricked her eyes.
“I have done… very little, so far,” she managed.
“You have done… everything,” he said. “You have… allowed this. You have… *wanted* it.”
He tilted his head back, eyes shining in the dim light.
“I am—” He swallowed. “I am… terrified. And… so happy I could scream.”
She laughed, the sound breaking.
“Yes,” she said. “That… captures it.”
He rose, slower now, his hands sliding up to cradle her face. He kissed her, a kiss that was not like the heated, hungry ones they shared in bed, nor like the reassuring ones at breakfast.
This one was… trembling. Awed.
She kissed him back, fingers curling into his coat.
Behind them, the barn’s noise continued—laughter, music, shouted jests.
Here, in the dark between lamp and moon, something small and vast shifted.
“It may be nothing,” she said again, because she needed him to understand.
“It is not nothing,” he said. “Even if it… fades. Even if it never… it is not nothing. It is… proof. That we can. That you can. That… something in this battered house wishes to grow.”
She closed her eyes briefly, resting her forehead against his.
“Then,” she whispered, “we will let it. As best we can.”
He exhaled, shaky.
“Come,” he said at last, his thumb brushing her cheekbone. “If we do not return soon, Miss Hartley will assume we have run off to Gretna Green for a second wedding and stage a rescue attempt.”
She smiled.
“Let her come,” she murmured, slipping her arm through his as they turned back toward the barn. “She will only end up organizing the chairs.”
He laughed.
They stepped back into the light.
The dance whirled on.
Only they knew, yet, that some new rhythm had begun.
***