Epilogue
One Year Later
The children’s laughter floated over from the lakeside, their frolicking figures darting in and out of the generous shade created by the shadow of Beniton Hall.
Richard sat back against the rock he’d chosen as his chair.
He was hardly old at three and thirty. But between a war fought and a long path to love, not to mention the other challenges his brothers had to face, today’s serenity felt particularly hard-won.
And while the rest of the growing Avington clan might prefer mingling or stalking around amidst the informality of the family picnic, Richard was happy enough to occupy his own corner, his eyes perfectly aligned with the view of his beautiful wife.
Richard smiled to himself as he admired his young wife, her ladylike form adorning the other corner of their picnic blanket.
The bundle in her arms stirred, and Adelaide cooed at it sweetly.
It had taken little convincing for them to relocate to Beniton Hall for Adelaide’s first confinement, particularly given Granville’s isolation and their collective lack of experience with childbirth.
Both Richard and Adelaide might be well-trained in binding a broken limb, but midwifery was another challenge altogether.
Alfred and Tiffany, as this generation’s master and mistress of Beniton Hall, had made them feel nothing but welcome. And the fact that Adelaide and Tiffany were both expecting babes within a month’s time from each other only solidified the wisdom of the temporary relocation.
One day, his son might ramble around in Granville as a proper landowner, his limbs growing ever-longer the way his older cousins’ did. One day, John would hover at the brink of adulthood, bringing both pride and trepidation to his parents.
But for today, Richard was entirely content to remain where he was—not at war, not in grief, and not trapped in the stuffiness of a London club or ballroom. All he had ever wanted or needed already occupied the blanket with him.
The way things unfolded in his life might once have caused Richard to feel a little listless at being so far behind. But one look at his beautiful Adelaide was all it took for him to understand that it had all worked out for the best.
No one could stir his blood and yet calm his soul all at once the way Adelaide did. No one else could make him feel a hero all day long and yet nurture him with infinite gentleness, in heart and body and soul, behind closed doors.
His journey to a settled life of leisure might have taken longer than the others’. But the longer journey only made the destination all the sweeter.
Tiffany walked over and settled herself beside Adelaide. She peered over the latter’s shoulder at a swaddled John.
“You simply must let me know how you make him to sleep so soundly,” said Tiffany. “Eloise is an entire week older and yet not at all in any way wiser.”
“He likes the chatter, I think.” Adelaide smiled.
And chatter there was, for the entire Avington clan had been gathered at Beniton Hall.
It was a rare feat to have everyone present, a feat that required a good many rounds of correspondence to identify one sole week in the span of the entire summer when all five families did not have any business engagements, prearranged social obligations, or impending new arrivals.
Both little Eloise and Johnny had obligingly arrived healthy and at their respectively expected time, making the reunion all the more celebratory.
“I think Eloise wants to be the one chattering,” Alfred joined the conversation with an easy smile. “She can’t even talk, and she’s already every bit as wriggly as her mother. We shall have to lock away all the china to avoid those flailing arms.”
Richard laughed as Tiffany gave her husband a playful shove. Her penchant for accidents was universally known, even if Alfred was the only one allowed to tease her about it.
“Do you truly have no expectation at all for your daughter to be ladylike?” Tiffany responded. “Even if I have nothing to contribute in this regard, she has a veritable collection of perfectly poised aunts to learn from now.”
Richard observed his other sisters-in-law, acknowledging briefly that they were indeed mostly quite graceful.
Felicia, who married their baby brother James, was no longer the termagant he remembered from the two families’ shared childhood.
Edgar’s wife was the elegant daughter of a viscount.
And Clara was as delicate as she had always been.
But none of them held a candle to Richard’s own Adelaide.
“She might have her aunts as examples,” Alfred carried on in response to his wife, unperturbed by the accusation, “but it’s still our blood in her veins, my love. I have no high hopes for a dainty debutante.”
“Allona sits properly.”
“Allona is an anomaly. The girl was born an adult. Poor Harold had to redo our family portrait thrice because everyone else could not sit still. If Eloise were not in your womb at the time, she would have been sprawled on the floor.”
Tiffany rolled her eyes, as if exasperated. But Richard could detect the ever-present affection that seemed to thrum between the current master and mistress of Beniton Hall in the subtle way her cheeks twitched.
With a contented sigh, Richard lifted his eyes to the large main house behind them.
Generations had made their memories here before them, and generations would after them.
It was humbling to be able to have a part in that shared history.
And it was even a greater blessing that the brothers and their families got along well.
Only that harmony rendered this sort of reunion a joy rather than a pain for all parties involved.
“Speaking of portraits, did you hear the latest news about the Earl of Brigmore?” Harold chimed in just then, his smile bright. “I have just been commissioned to do a series of portraits for the new heir.”
“Did you not just do that last year?” asked Alfred.
“That never happened, for the poor chap had been dead by the time they traced him down in India.”
“So they’ve found a new heir then?”
“Yes, in America.”
The expected chorus of reactions rippled through their group, even as the older children played in blissful oblivion farther away.
The men began an immediate discussion about the difficulties of assimilating an heir who’d grown up an ocean away, with a few deciding to ask Edgar’s wife about her opinion, given that Heather had been raised amidst the nobility.
As for Richard, he glanced across it all to catch Adelaide’s gaze.
She smiled at him—gentle, beautiful. The hubbub and cacophony of voices swirled around them. But it might as well just have been only the two of them in a quiet room, their son in her arms.
Earls and viscounts and heirs might all be very exciting, but Richard knew he had all he needed right where he was.