A Chance in a Million (The Chances #5)

Epilogue

March 1, 1840

W ell, she’d done it. She could hardly believe it, but she’d done it.

“Now, you mustn’t attempt to memorize all the cousins in one go,” Thomas said blithely, patting her hand as he led her through corridor after corridor. “There are quite a few of us.”

“I’m still astonished you know your way around this place without a map,” said Victoria in awe, gazing around herself and trying to take in every tiny detail.

Her new husband’s laughter rang out as they stepped into the next room.

“Look, this is all a bit much,” gasped Victoria, staring around herself in astonishment. “Didn’t you ever consider a smaller home? I mean, only one smaller home?”

It was magnificent. Oh, she had heard Stanphrey Lacey was one of the most impressive mansions in England, but that was easy to say. Only now she had been here a few days, still getting lost every morning in an attempt to find the breakfast room, could Victoria admit she had never seen a place so wonderful in her life.

The architecture was exquisite, the selection of furnishings phenomenal, and every time you thought you had seen the best room in the place…

“What? It’s just an orangery,” said Thomas with a shrug. “Ah, there they are. Uncle John and Aunt Flo only arrived an hour ago, apparently.”

Victoria allowed herself to be pulled over to the gaggle of elegantly attired people standing several yards away, though she spent most of the time staring around her.

Just an orangery? Did her husband have any idea it was not normal for a house to have an orangery this size, the glass towering above her, the stars blinking in their heavenly settings, the scent of oranges and green earth filling the space?

When she blinked, she was being introduced to what felt like half the Chance family—which, now she came to think of it, she probably was.

“And Uncle John and Aunt Flo,” said Thomas, “my unruly uncle and his charming wife.”

“You little toe rag,” Uncle John said with a charming grin. He was remarkably similar to his older brother, the former Duke of Cothrom, but there was a little more gray in his hair and a little more mischief in his eyes. “How dare—”

“Oh, I d-don’t know, he’s got a p-point,” said the beautiful woman on his arm with a laugh. Her dark eyes contrasted with her pale skin, and her lips pressed together in a teasing smile. “How lovely to s-see you again, my d-dear. The wedding itself was s-such a rush and we couldn’t seem to f-find you at the wedding breakfast.”

Try as she might, Victoria could not prevent her cheeks from pinking. Well, there was a reason for that…

“It was such a crush there, Mother, I wouldn’t worry,” came a refined and snooty voice. “How pleasant to meet you again, Miss Ainsworth—I do apologize, Your Grace .”

Victoria tried to smile. “Oh, please, Lady Lilianna, we are family. Call me ‘Victoria.’”

The woman raised an eyebrow and Victoria immediately wondered what sort of etiquette she had breached this time. She had been raised well, gently and genteelly, yet the Chance family was quite literally a cut above the rest.

“Ah, and here are some of our local friends,” said William Chance, striding forward to clap his son on the back. “I’ll go and greet them. Lil, there are a few gentlemen I think you may wish to meet again. Lord Zouch in particular was very desirous of having the pleasure of your—”

“I am sure he was,” said Lady Lilianna, causing her mother to elbow her in the ribs. “But you will have to make my excuses, Uncle William. I am indisposed.”

The dowager duke cocked his head, his concern for his niece evident. “‘Indisposed’?”

Victoria felt a pang of affection for the man who could never replace her father but who had done a sterling job in welcoming her to the family.

“Yes, Lord Zouch makes my stomach churn,” Lady Lilianna said with a haughty laugh. “I’m going to the music room. Your Graces.”

For a moment, Victoria was not sure to whom the lady was talking, but her cheeks burned as she realized that the woman was taking her leave of them—of herself and Thomas.

She was not the only person in the gaggle whose cheeks were red.

“You must excuse m-my d-daughter, Your—I mean, M-Victoria, if you insist,” said the woman Victoria had been instructed to address as “Aunt Flo.” “She is… Well. Sh-She’s a Chance.”

“And if that doesn’t tell you enough about us by now, I don’t know what will.” Thomas winked. “Come over here. I want to show you something. Excuse us.”

Without giving her the option to say goodbye to those to whom she was talking or welcome those new guests entering the orangery shepherded in by William, Thomas pulled Victoria through the orangery and through a door she had not noticed. It led them into a corridor she had not yet walked down—though thanks to the size of Stanphrey Lacey, that was not saying a great deal.

“Your cousin Lilianna, she is… Well…”

“Arrogant, I think is the preferred family term,” Thomas said with a laugh. “Yes, I suppose she is arrogant. Very certain of what she is worth is Cousin Lilianna.”

“You’re not that different, though, all of you,” Victoria pointed out wryly as Thomas pulled her into a room that looked nondescript. “You all have the sense that you are slightly above everyone around you.”

Thomas adopted a ridiculous hauteur as he shut the door. “But aren’t we?”

She could not help but laugh. The man was infuriating, yes. He sometimes had bad judgment, and if she didn’t keep a close eye on him, he was liable to give away all their money again.

Too big a heart, that was Thomas Chance’s problem.

“You Chances are too arrogant by half,” Victoria said, stepping forward into waiting arms. “There you were, thinking you could marry my dowry—”

Her husband groaned. “I thought we were past that!”

“You think I am ever going to let you forget your utter nonsense over my money?” Victoria kissed him hard and swiftly on the lips. “Never. It’s the perfect thing to hold over you for the rest of our lives.”

His laughter echoed through her chest and Victoria could not believe how happy she was. How had she managed it?

Oh, there had been the little something of a seduction. Thomas had to claim at least some of the credit too, she supposed. Not much. But some. And that accursed coin deserved a little credit, too.

But in many ways, it was a complete coincidence that everything had worked out so well. They certainly could not have predicted such a wash of happiness surrounding them each and every day.

“I should have known I was marrying a merciless woman,” Thomas murmured, trailing a kiss down her cheek and toward her ear.

Victoria shivered. “We mustn’t…”

“Why not?” he shot back with a chuckle. “We’re married. This is our home, our family’s home, at least. If not here, where?”

It was tempting indeed to permit her husband to remove just enough of her skirts to give her a good loving, but Victoria managed to maintain some decorum.

After a few more minutes of kissing, that was.

“Look, I mean it. You can’t just drag me away from your family to kiss me,” she said a little breathlessly.

Thomas raised his head and straightened yup. “Dear Lord, you’re right. This isn’t why I brought you here at all.”

He released her in a rush and Victoria wavered, unsure precisely where her husband had gone. “You didn’t?”

“No, I wanted to show you…this!”

With a sudden sweep of silk, Thomas had removed a sheet of fabric that had been covering up a table in the corner. Though now Victoria came to look at it properly in the candlelight, it wasn’t just a table. It was…

A model. A model of a building. A large building. On the front was a little carved sign.

Sts. Thomas and Victoria’s Orphanage.

Victoria sighed.

“You don’t like it,” said Thomas immediately. “I should have known it was foolish. I don’t know why I—”

“You are far too kind for your own good,” Victoria said softly, reaching out to touch the model with a delicate finger. “You will bankrupt us, you know.”

When she looked around, some of his excitement and confidence had gone. She ached for him. How would she love this man? To the best of her ability, yes, but where was the balance between enthusiasm and practicality?

Wherever we find it , she realized, joy bubbling up inside her. They would make mistakes, yes. But they would make them together.

“It’s going to be an exciting project,” she said quietly.

Thomas perked up. “You think so?”

“It’s ambitious,” Victoria said, placing her hands on her hips. “You are certainly thinking big, my love, and I applaud that. How long do you think it will take?”

“Oh, years—years to do it properly,” said Thomas eagerly, pointing here, and here, and here, his mind clearly excited as his smile broadened. “I was thinking we could do it cheaply, yes, but then wouldn’t we just end up doing it again, and again, and again, replacing the shoddy workmanship? So I thought…”

Victoria could not help but beam as she watched her ridiculous husband babble on about his project.

There was so much about him she had not known when she had fallen head over heels in love with him the first time. Things about him that no one, she was almost certain, could guess. The eldest Chance son of the eldest Chance brother, one would have expected him to be mostly rake and partly rascal.

Yet here he was, dedicating his time and energy on something that would benefit not himself, nor his family, but those who could never repay him.

“—and something here for when they are of age but not ready to leave,” said Thomas with a flourish of his wrist. “So tell me what do you think? Do you love it? Do you hate it? Do you think I’m being foolish—I am, aren’t I?”

Victoria responded the only way she could: with a kiss. “It’s marvelous. You’re marvelous.”

His cheeks colored and he looked at his hands, as he always did whenever Victoria wrongfooted him. “You don’t have to say that, just because we’re married.”

“You’re right, I don’t,” said Victoria cheerfully. “And yet here I am, saying it anyway. Though if I may make one suggestion…?”

Her voice trailed off as her stomach lurched. Thomas was watching her, waiting for her to continue, his patience clearly warring with his desire to say something of his own.

“‘One suggestion’?”

Victoria nodded. It wasn’t exactly the way she had planned to reveal the news, but was there only way to do it? She did not think so.

“If I were you, I would see if I could make the project—at least the first, major part of it—organized so it was complete in seven months,” she said softly.

Her husband’s eyes widened. “S-Seven months? From now?”

He looked back at the model. The candlelight was flickering around the room and Victoria could not help but feel a sense of foreboding.

This wasn’t part of the plan. At least, not part of her plan. Who could plan such a thing? But they had not yet discussed… After all, they had only been married for a few days.

“Why seven months?” Thomas said with a frown.

Victoria took a deep breath and plunged ahead. There was, after all, no going back. “Because in seven months I will be finishing a project of my own.”

Surely, that would make him understand…

“You haven’t mentioned a project before.” Her husband’s frown deepened.

She had to laugh at that, and finally, the words spilled out from the very depths of her heart. “Thomas, I’m… I’m with child.”

The words echoed around the room and Victoria stood there, lungs constricting with anticipation, as she saw her revelation sink into her husband’s mind.

“You… You are?” he said hoarsely. “Oh, Victoria!”

“I know it’s soon, perhaps sooner than we would have expected,” she said quickly, desperate to get the words out. “I know we haven’t talked about—”

“We haven’t because—well, I thought that would come in time, but not immediately!” Thomas’s expression was one of unadulterated delight. “And for it to happen so soon… Oh, Victoria, you clever thing!”

“I’m not sure I’d go that far,” Victoria said wryly. “If I’d been more careful—”

“If we ’d been more careful, I think you mean,” said her besotted husband, reaching out and taking her hands. “Oh, a baby. A baby!”

A baby. Victoria had hardly been able to believe it when her courses had not appeared, but there was no other explanation for it, or the horrendous nausea that had arrived just a few days ago. She was ready to say goodbye to that.

“God, I am so fortunate to have you.” Thomas sighed, ignoring the model and pulling her toward him.

Victoria allowed him to do so, knowing she could never have expected her plan—such as it was—to have gone so well. A husband she loved and who adored her, a child of theirs to come, and a lifetime of looking after those who could not look after themselves.

And the Chance family, heaven help her.

“I love you, Victoria Ainsworth.”

She tilted her head with a laugh. “You know, this may have passed you by, but I actually changed my name recently. You may not have seen it in the paper.”

“Oh?” Thomas raised a quizzical eyebrow and Victoria wondered, with a jolt to her thighs, how she managed to ever stop kissing him. “It sounds like a happy marriage.”

“Oh, very happy,” she said, grinning. “Husband’s a bit ridiculous, but—ouch!”

“And even after that dreadful slander, I am still fortunate to have you,” Thomas said genially, his warm gaze resting on hers. “A one-in-a-million chance, and here you are.”

Victoria raised a hand and stroked his cheek with the back of her fingers. “A one-in-a-million chance, and here we are. Together.”

“For the rest of our lives,” breathed Thomas as he leaned forward.

And from that point on, for a very long time, talking was neither possible nor necessary.