Epilogue
Spenwood
Three Months Later
Katie quietly closed the book she’d been reading aloud and set it on the table next to Helmut Berg’s large, overstuffed wingchair.
She tiptoed from his private sitting room and closed the door noiselessly behind her.
She’d just turned toward the stairs when her mother-in-law’s voice came from behind her.
“Katie!” the older woman chirped. “I was just coming to relieve you.”
Katie raised a finger to her lips. “He is asleep,” she whispered, leading the dowager away from the door before speaking in a normal tone. “He seems much better today, but I thought it best to let him rest whenever he needs it.”
Betje nodded vigorously enough to set the pink bows in her hair—which matched her pink gown—dancing. “That is wise. I’m afraid my reading voice is not nearly so restful as yours.”
It wasn’t the tone of the older woman’s voice that kept poor Helmut’s eyes open but her non-stop chatter; not that he didn’t love it. “Your presence is always a balm to him,” Katie said, which was no more than the truth.
“Oh, you are so kind, my dear. Were you looking for Gerrit? He is in the library with Mr. Turner but should be free within the hour.” Betje looped her arm through Katie’s.
“Come and walk with me inside as we cannot enjoy our usual walk in the garden today.” She pulled a face as they strolled past a window that showed a snowy, blustery day outside.
“I hate the winters here. I always have.” She smiled.
“I am a frivolous creature of spring and summer.”
“Then you should come to Wych House with us when we leave tomorrow—it is not too late to change your mind,” Katie said, issuing the invitation not for the first, or even fifth, time. “Although I cannot guarantee it will not snow there, too,” she added.
“No, no. I could not do that—although I appreciate your invitation to spend Christmas at your family home.” She sighed and gave Katie a beatific smile. “I never even imagined that Helmut and I could go anywhere together as guests rather than mistress and servant.”
“You would both be welcome at any of my sisters’ or brother’s gatherings.
” Indeed, several of the Bellamy sisters had some rather unconventional friendships with their husband’s ex-lovers and had invited them to Christmases in the past. None of her siblings or their spouses would judge Betje and Helmut for their love.
“Perhaps next year, if Helmut continues to mend as he has,” Betje said.
And then her eyes widened. “Oh, I almost forgot. You will never believe what the vicar said to Mr. Benson!” The dowager proceeded to regale Katie with gossip about her neighbors, most of whom Katie had met over the past three months.
They strolled companionably through the corridors of Spenwood as Betje chattered, but when they entered the gallery, the older woman’s feet stopped in front of the portrait of the last Duke of Dulverton.
She wore a fond but sad smile as she regarded her long-dead husband. “They are so alike—all three of them.”
That was an understatement. Katie had seen a painting of the last duke at Briarly, of course, but he had been quite old in that one.
This one had been painted when Boon was Gerrit’s age and the resemblance between the two was startling.
She’d also seen a miniature of Helmut that Betje kept in her chambers.
It had been painted not long after Gerrit was born, when Helmut was five-and-thirty.
He bore an almost eerie resemblance to his half-brother and, as Gerrit had said, everyone who saw him would know he was related to the old duke.
“How often did Helmut and the duke see each other after, er—” Katie broke off, at a loss how to phrase her question more politely.
“After Boon told me that he wanted me to have a child with another man?” Betje suggested, uncharacteristic bitterness creeping into her normally happy voice.
Heat rose in Katie’s cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Mama. I never should not have asked you that.”
“Nonsense! You can ask me whatever you like, Katie. Quite honestly, it is a relief that somebody else knows the truth after so many years.” Betje’s smile slid away, and she gestured to the ancient gilt bench across from the portrait and they sat.
“After Boon spoke to me on our wedding night, I told him I needed some time to consider what he proposed. Naturally, I was… shattered. I thought I could never agree to such a thing, but—as matters turned out—I had my answer for Boon in less than a week.” She cut Katie a wry look.
“Perhaps that reflects poorly on me, I don’t know.
In my defense, I was young, in a foreign country, and I’d just married a man who did not want me.
I had known Helmut since I was a girl and was comfortable with him.
Of course I had never considered him in a romantic light, but after Boon’s rejection I just—I just needed somebody to want me.
” She gave Katie a watery smile. “After I gave Boon my answer he spoke to Helmut.”
“That must have been an interesting conversation.”
“Helmut told me about it later, once we—well, once we knew each other better. He said Boon had been aloof but respectful and oddly humble. That he had made a request rather than issuing an ultimatum.” She paused, a mischievous smile curving her lips.
“Helmut said to me that he had wanted me for as long as he could remember but had always accepted that I was too far above him to ever hope. He said his heart leapt at the duke’s offer, but that he had a condition of his own: if he took me, he would want to keep me.
” She paused, coloring prettily. “He told Boon he would not share me.”
Katie already liked Gerrit’s quiet, gentle father a great deal, but now she was a little bit in awe of him, too. Helmut was so soft-spoken that it was hard to imagine him confronting a man like the last duke, who was said to have been every bit as daunting as Gerrit.
“It was no hardship for Boon to agree as his heart had long been engaged elsewhere.” She sighed.
“I have hated Amelia St. Clare for so long. Not because Boon loved her, but because I believed she had taken Gerrit. I should have defied Boon and gone to Briarly and brought Gerrit back. But I allowed myself to be intimidated by him.” She shook herself, her naturally ebullient nature quickly rising again.
“It is a long time ago and there is no point in wishing I’d done differently.
Besides, everything has worked out well in the end.
I am so delighted that you came to Spenwood with Gerrit, Katie.
I believe he would have visited Helmut, regardless, but he would not have stayed nearly so long if you’d not accompanied him. ”
“These past months have been wonderful,” Katie said. That was no lie. It had warmed her heart to watch as Gerrit became close to both his parents.
Betje looked pleased, her gaze lowering to the very slight swell of Katie’s midriff. “I wish you were not leaving tomorrow, but you will come back here to have the child, yes? The Dukes of Dulverton have always been born at Spenwood.”
“We will come back, Mama,” Katie promised. “And you and Helmut will come and stay with us at Briarly often. I want my son or daughter to grow up knowing their wonderful grandparents.” And Amelia, too, of course, but Katie wisely kept that thought to herself.
Betje gave a sigh of pure happiness. “Isn’t life wonderful, my dear?”
Katie slid her arm around her mother-in-law and squeezed her tight, her lips curving into a smile as her thoughts drifted back to that unhappy day all those months ago in Chatham’s library, when her reckless behavior forced a proud, aloof man to coldly offer her a marriage of convenience.
“Yes,” Katie murmured. “Life is wonderful—wonderfully surprising.”
***
Gerrit watched his mother’s diminutive form become smaller and smaller as his coach pulled away from Spenwood. When she disappeared entirely, he realized that his throat was tight with emotion and was stunned by the ferocity of his feelings.
“I will miss her,” Kathryn said, echoing his thoughts. “I will miss both of them, but I will dearly miss your mother.”
Gerrit met her green, cat-eyed gaze and the swell of emotion inside him grew more powerful, more insistent.
I love you.
The thought should not have surprised him as much as it did. Deep down, for months, he had known that love was the name for the singular emotion he had been feeling. Love. Who would have believed he was capable of feeling such a powerful, moving emotion?
“What is it, Gerrit? You are looking at me in the oddest way.”
He opened his mouth, but Kathryn suddenly leaned forward and took his hand. “You will miss them too, won’t you? You have come to care for them deeply. That is what you want to say? It is alright to admit to such a thing, you know.”
And now the moment has passed…
Gerrit swallowed his regret. “Yes, I will miss them.” He moved onto her bench, his body crowding hers. “Is this uncomfortable?” he asked, angling himself to give her more room and also to see her better.
“I like it very much.” She gestured to the traveling chess set they had brought along with them to while away the time. “But it will be difficult to play chess if we are both on this side.”
“For some reason, I would rather sit beside you than play a game just now.”
“Coward!”
“Guilty as charged.” Gerrit took her slightly thickened waist in his hands and easily lifted her onto his lap.
She immediately snuggled closer. “Mmm. You are so warm.”
He adjusted her green velvet cloak so that it sat evenly on her shoulders. “You are cold?”
“Not anymore.” She glanced out the window, to where snow was swirling. “Do you think we will make it to Wych House in time in this weather?”
It amused Gerrit that she had been asking this question for days.