Epilogue
Ava surveyed the drawing room with satisfaction. It was full to bursting with family and friends gathered to celebrate Christmas. It had taken a lot of work, but the gardens had been transformed into a riot of color.
The house renovations had been completed, along with a complete redecoration of the rooms, to Ava’s design.
The objective was to banish the shadows of the past. The portrait of the sixth Marquess of Ravenshaw had been exiled to the attics.
Jerome had wanted to burn it, but Ava stopped him.
“Your descendants will want to know about your father. He is a part of the family history; you can’t erase him.
Time will heal the wounds.” He’d agreed reluctantly.
Ava moved among her guests, content to see her husband across the room, deep in conversation with his friends and his half brother Jeremiah, who had been welcomed into the family despite the blemish on his birth.
The addition had been welcomed by her brother, Ashford, and Pendrell.
The four men were as brothers and they could do no less than sponsor Jeremiah’s introduction into society.
It ruffled a few feathers, but the Laynes were gaining a reputation for doing the unconventional, and only the most stickle-backed refused to receive the dark-haired giant with the unmistakable stamp of the DeVere good looks.
And she finally felt grown up enough to be a sister to the other men’s wives. Even her former governess, Annis.
Letty had birthed her baby safely. A boy at last. Her husband John was home now and delighted to welcome his heir. Ashford was, of course, a doting father to the new addition to his house, Isabel. And Emily was big and nearing her time.
Ava placed a hand on her own belly where she suspected might reside the next Marquess of Ravenshaw and caught Jerome’s eye as she did it. His expression froze a moment before he plunged across the room to her.
“Are you?” he asked quietly.
“I’m not certain yet, but possibly,” she admitted with a wide smile. And her husband kissed her, in front of all their family and friends.
Her mother and sisters, catching the news, came around her like a flock of geese and Ava laughed for sheer joy. “I don’t know yet! Really, I will tell you all when I am certain.”
Her sisters-in-law, the Misses Watson, clustered together by the window listening to Miss Ruth read to them from a book of poems, watched quietly by her brother Hereward.
And Kenrick lounged at his ease beside his wife, also big with child.
Ava had reluctantly revised her opinion of her newest sister-in-law.
Deborah was missing, but Ava smiled, knowing that at last her dear friend Rey had his happily ever after, too.
The nursery upstairs was full of babies and children, and the drawing room bursting with happiness.
My cup runneth over!