Bonus Epilogue
Sussex, Christmastime
Lucy Stanthorpe had every intention of making the very most of the Christmas season. She was returning to her childhood home, the first Christmas she had spent there as a married lady.
She would get to introduce her beloved Reed to the many traditions and celebrations that had made this time of year so wonderful growing up.
There would be games and singing. Christmas Eve would see them all gathering greenery, creating Christmas boughs, decorating the drawing room, sitting room, and entryway.
They would visit neighbors, attend services at the chapel, assemble baskets for the tenants.
Before their two weeks at the family home came to a close, they would celebrate Twelfth Night with all its singing, games, food, and merriment.
This Christmas season would be utterly delightful.
“You will love Christmas at Mapleforth Hall,” Lucy said as the carriage rolled along the familiar path toward the front door.
Reed leaned forward enough to look out the window. “I do enjoy Christmas. It is such a peaceful time of year.”
“Last Christmas was not very ‘peaceful,’” Lucy said with a laugh. “Not calm, at least.”
He smiled broadly. “Moving house is not very conducive to peace and quiet, is it?”
She leaned her head against his shoulder, smiling at the memory of that bit of chaos.
The timing of Reed’s inheritance of a tidy estate in Oxfordshire had not been ideal—they were relatively newly married in addition to it having been the holy season—but they loved their home too much to be truly upset about the disruption to their previous Christmas.
“This year, we will have our quiet Christmas at last,” Reed said.
“Oh, dear.” Lucy straightened her posture once more with all the earnestness of a lady about to stumble into a difficulty she had passed through once already. She turned enough to face him more directly. “What do you anticipate this ‘quiet Christmas’ involving?”
“Very little,” he said. Then his eyes pulled a bit wide. “Oh.” Reed took her hands in his. “We had best decide on our balance for the next few weeks.”
It was the agreement they had made during the Season: whenever they discovered that they had very different expectations for a situation, they would discuss it and decide how to balance what each of them wanted and needed.
“Which Christmas activities are most important to you?” Reed asked.
“Gathering greenery and decorating on Christmas Eve,” she said. “An evening or two of games or music. Twelfth Night.”
He nodded. “I would appreciate at least two evenings each week without obligations, having time together with just the two of us.”
“I’m certain we can claim at least two.” She gave him a slightly saucy smile. “Perhaps even three.”
He chuckled. “You spoil me, Mrs. Stanthorpe.”
“Will you tell me if you find your quiet evenings insufficient rest from the chaos of the family?”
“I will.” He pressed a soft kiss to her cheek. “And please tell me if there is an activity that arises that you would be disappointed to not share with me.”
“I will.”
The carriage stopped in front of the house in the very next moment, fate having provided them with precisely enough time to avoid the trouble they’d waded through in London.
They were greeted warmly by Lucy’s parents, siblings, and siblings-in-law, as well as her two little nephews, both of whom were excessively fond of their uncle Reed.
Lucy would need to remember to discuss with him how he could let her know, without wounding the boys’ feelings, when he needed an escape from their exuberance.
He loved children and was the most delightful uncle, but Reed needed time spent on his own without noise and people every bit as much as Lucy needed the opposite.
They balanced each other. And now that they understood each other better, they appreciated their differences.
Neither expected that they would never have moments of frustration or misunderstanding, and they knew they would need to keep working at the balance they needed.
But they would work through those difficulties when they arose.
Being together and happy was well worth any effort.
“You have arrived just in time,” Father said, hugging Lucy tightly. “The Grahams mean to host a dinner party this evening, and it promises to be every bit as festive as in years past.”
When it came to Christmastime dinners, Father’s definition of “festive” was, in essence, “deliciously extensive.” He would be the most enthusiastic about the evening’s invitation, though Clarissa, Lucy’s sister, would be a close second.
She loved the games that were almost always played after holiday dinners.
Their brother, Charles, shared Lucy’s enthusiasm for greenery gathering and the raucous ridiculousness of Twelfth Night.
Lucy could feel her own excitement bubbling over. She turned to Reed, standing at her side. “Are you equal to a gathering this evening, having been traveling all day?” She hoped he was, but she also didn’t intend to ignore his needs.
“I am,” he said, taking her hand. “You have mentioned the Grahams often enough that I am eager to make their acquaintance.”
“They are wonderful hosts, especially this time of year,” Father said.
“Their gatherings are so very long this time of year,” Mother countered. “The other hostesses in the neighborhood are left with far too little time to plan our own gatherings.”
“Are we planning more than one to be held here with the neighbors?” Amelia, Lucy’s sister-in-law, asked.
Mother shook her head. “One with a guest list, but the rest of our entertainments and traditions are for family.”
Robert, Lucy’s brother-in-law, stood on Reed’s other side. “A bit of good fortune, Reed. We won’t be run off our feet entirely.”
“That will be my Christmas gift,” Reed said with a teasing grin.
Lucy pressed her free hand to her heart, as if deeply relieved. “That is my bit of good fortune: I can avoid getting you an actual gift.”
Reed lifted her hand to his lips and lightly kissed her fingers. He then slipped away with Robert.
Father pulled Lucy’s arm through his. “We have a plan, dearest, for filling the house with greenery. It will involve an extended hunt for evergreen boughs and mistletoe and holly but will be well worth the effort.”
“Will we be decorating beyond the usual three rooms this year?”
Clarissa nodded eagerly. “All the public rooms, we have decided. And if we find enough, we might even decorate bedchambers. Wouldn’t that be delightful?”
Mother overheard and gave Father a look of horror that held just enough amusement to take off any true edge of criticism. “This ‘extended hunt’ could take hours and hours.”
“All the better,” Charles declared.
Amelia and Robert moved to stand beside Mother. They were creating a united front.
“Not everyone wishes to spend an entire day out in the cold snipping branches and climbing ladders,” Amelia said.
“It is a tradition,” Charles insisted.
“The tradition is a brief greenery hunt,” Amelia insisted. “If you wish to make it such an enormous undertaking, you will have to do so short-handed.”
“You will refuse to participate?” Clarissa’s tone turned just the tiniest bit defiant.
Lucy’s eyes darted to Reed, who was watching this exchange with a look of misgiving that matched what she was feeling. His gaze met hers and, rather than look frustrated or exhausted with yet another bit of head-butting among her otherwise lovely family, he winked at her.
He stepped forward and faced Father with an air of almost ridiculous theatricality.
“I will not be deterred, old man.” Reed’s tone matched his posturing.
“Resign yourself. You will not reduce our Christmas to a battleground akin to the one we barely survived in London.” He tugged Lucy away from her father and spun her into his embrace.
“Never fear, my lady, I have come to rescue you from this place of Yuletide disagreements. We will flee where’er we must to escape the battle brewing before us. ”
Lucy giggled, recognizing his dramatic speech from his “rescue” of her from her family’s London home, adapted in that moment for their current situation.
That her family also began laughing told her that they, too, understood what Reed was pointing out and the ultimatum tucked underneath it.
“We will behave,” Mother insisted. “No battles, we promise.”
“Shall we believe them, my love?” Reed asked Lucy, keeping her tucked in his arms.
“I think we should, darling.”
Father’s good-natured grin relieved the last whispers of tension in the room. “Reed and Lucy might be the most newly married among us, but we all know perfectly well that they are more than willing to teach the lot of us a much-needed lesson in love.”