Epilogue
“Ithought you said that it’s snowy out here all winter long,” Phoebe complained as she looked out at the muddy, gray expanse that had once been the rolling, picturesque, snowy hills of Aaron’s country estate.
Her country estate, too, now. It still gave Phoebe a little shiver of satisfaction to think about this, not so much because of the land itself but because of the life it represented—the life she was building with the husband that she loved so dearly.
She would have been more satisfied, however, if there was still snow. She’d been promised snow!
“I am very powerful, my darling,” Aaron drawled, coming up behind her. “But I am not nearly so powerful as to command the weather.”
Phoebe sighed, leaning back into his embrace. “I’ll have to keep that in mind for my next husband, I suppose.”
He nipped her at the place where her neck met her shoulder.
“Imp,” he scolded. He sounded amused, though.
He sounded amused a great portion of the time in these past few weeks—ever since they had opened up about their pasts and their emotions on Christmas. There was a new lightness to him, and it drew Phoebe in, as though she was a plant reaching toward his sunshine.
Sunshine that was desperately needed in the dreariness that had greeted them when they’d come back to the countryside after the holidays and Hannah’s wedding.
“Phoebe, have you—oh.” Clio’s question cut off as she saw Aaron and Phoebe standing together. “Are the two of you flirting again? I’m going to leave if you two are flirting.”
Clio had offered to remain in London when Aaron and Phoebe had returned to the countryside.
“I know you are not technically just now newly married,” she said, “but you have the—” She waved a hand that was somehow both fond and disgusted at the same time.
“—energy of people who have been newly married now that you are all happy and in love. If you need time alone, I will understand it perfectly.”
“Absolutely not,” Phoebe insisted. “You have only just come home, too. We aren’t banishing you.”
“Certainly not,” Aaron agreed. Then he bobbled his head. “Though you might want to sometimes make yourself scarce.”
“Good Lord,” Clio had muttered as she left the room.
But she’d come to the country with them, and Phoebe could tell that it made Aaron intensely happy. Not that it was hard to tell, what with the way he was often caught smiling absently at his sister.
Phoebe wasn’t certain what had possessed her to try her hand at playing hostess. Maybe it was the delight of the season—Christmas, followed by the New Year, followed by Hannah’s wedding.
This last event had been small, intimate, and utterly charming.
Lady Loyd—now Dowager Lady Loyd—had ended up spending the whole ceremony weeping into her handkerchief, which Phoebe had first thought to be a poor sign, except, after the vows were recited, the older lady had embraced Hannah so exuberantly and pressed so many kisses to her cheeks that she left a smudge of rouge on Hannah’s cheekbone.
It had blended in nicely with Hannah’s happy blush. Evidently, the Dowager had been informed of her upcoming grandchild and had welcomed the news with open arms.
This happy ending had clearly poisoned Phoebe’s brain because she had gotten the bright idea to host a ball.
In February.
“We aren’t flirting,” Phoebe said now to Clio, reasoning that it was only somewhat a lie. They were as minimally flirting as they ever were in any case.
Aaron grumbled, clearly not pleased with this characterization.
“Phoebe was telling me that the next time she marries, it will be to whomever controls the weather,” he reported dryly. “So, if I expire unexpectedly, please know that it was because my wife wants to marry up.”
Clio cast a very tired look between the two of them. Phoebe had seen a lot of that look recently.
“Well,” she said, “I think that would be God, and any vicar would tell you that he is not eligible for such things. So, Aaron, I think you’re likely safe. Phoebe,” she went on with the air of a weary parent, “I came to tell you that the first guests have arrived.”
This cheered Phoebe, and she was even more cheered when she learned that nobody had been trapped in the sucking pits of mud that had overtaken the roads now that the snow was all gone.
This wife and hostess business was not for the faint of heart; she’d learned in the planning of the winter ball that would truly announce the Duke and Duchess of Redcliff to Society.
Ariadne and David were the first to arrive. Their estate wasn’t close enough to Phoebe and Aaron’s for them to arrive just for the ball, so they would be staying in the guest rooms in the east wing.
“Phoebe, Phoebe!” Ariadne cried, rushing forward to embrace her friend. They hugged warmly while, behind them, their husbands shook hands.
Ariadne pulled back to frown at Aaron.
“I have a bone to pick with you,” she said.
Aaron cringed. “Yes, I know—I was wretched to Phoebe, and I thank you most sincerely for providing her with a safe, warm, kind place to go.”
Ariadne rolled her eyes. “No, not that,” she said. “Though it’s a nice enough apology. No, I’m mad that you made up, and now, she lives in the country which is very far away from me.”
On this last word, she wrapped an arm firmly around Phoebe’s shoulder and yanked her tightly to her side.
“If you think about it differently,” Aaron said with a nervous sort of aspect that told Phoebe that he wasn’t entirely certain the extent to which his cousin was joking, “because I married her, she’s now part of your family?”
His words lilted up at the end, turning them more into a question than a statement.
“I’ll consider it,” Ariadne said with narrowed eyes. “Oh! Look! Clio, good afternoon!”
And then she bustled off to greet—much more cheerfully—her younger cousin. David followed behind her, looking perfectly happy in this role.
“Is she really cross with me?” Aaron asked out of the corner of his mouth.
“No,” Phoebe muttered back.
“Oh!” Aaron said, visibly perking up. “Good.”
Ultimately, Phoebe was extremely proud of her husband, less because he was an effortless host and more because he was clearly trying very hard to attend to all the social mores required of the role.
He was, at his core, still more the no-nonsense military man than a smooth social operator, so there were, of course, some moments that went less than perfectly.
When Lord Turner arrived, for example, Aaron’s mouth set into a hard line.
Phoebe had planned to remind her husband to be polite to her father—Aaron had no plans to forgive Turner for his history of unkindness to Phoebe—but she was too busy gaping, open-mouthed, at the fact that her father was arm-in-arm with Dowager Lady Loyd.
Hannah appeared from behind her father and mother by marriage and grinned at Phoebe’s expression.
“I know,” she said quietly while her husband looked around the room with a vague curiosity before returning to his preferred pastime of looking adoringly at Hannah.
“What is happening?” Phoebe asked, not certain if she was delighted or horrified by what she was witnessing.
Hannah shook her head. “Nobody knows. She rode out to the country with us, and she immediately began telling Father all the things he was doing wrong. And instead of getting angry, he just… started doing what she said.”
“He seems… to be happy?” Phoebe observed, though there was considerable doubt in her tone, not because her father didn’t look happy but because she couldn’t quite recall a time when she’d seen her father smiling.
“It’s extraordinarily strange,” Hannah agreed, her hand resting on the curve of her stomach.
She was visibly increasing now, and everyone was politely ignoring the fact that she’d only been married for three weeks and was very obviously several months along in her pregnancy.
It likely helped that Loyd would periodically reach out to lightly touch her protruding abdomen and get the softest, most awestruck look on his face.
It absolutely also helped that Aaron had stood up for Loyd at the wedding and glared daggers at anyone who had dared to utter so much as a whisper during the wedding.
“We will have to talk about this so much more,” Phoebe whispered hurriedly to her sister as she and Aaron turned to greet the next guests in the receiving line. Hannah gave her a nod and a wink before letting Loyd lead her away.
As they moved out of earshot, Phoebe heard him muttering solicitous things about getting Hannah a comfortable seat—“Since you ought not be on your feet in your condition, sweet,” he said softly.
It was annoying to be proven wrong, but in the case of her sister’s husband, Phoebe supposed she could live with having misjudged him.
In addition to their nearest and dearest, who had traveled to attend the party and would be staying in the guest rooms, Phoebe had invited various local personages to the event.
The room filled—not to a full crush, but Phoebe preferred room to breathe over the social clout that came with a crammed ballroom—and she smiled as couples began dancing.
She enjoyed a waltz with her husband before he—looking entirely anxious over the possibility of being scolded again—accepted a turn about the room with Ariadne while David danced with a delighted elderly woman who was eighty if she was a day.
Phoebe retreated to the table of refreshments, where she found Clio also taking a break from dancing after a rousing country dance with Jacob, whose cheerful demeanor and good looks had made him a popular partner.
“Are you having fun?” Phoebe asked Clio. “Not that I mean to play hostess with you, of course—since this is your home, too.”
“I am having fun,” Clio agreed, bumping her shoulder against Phoebe’s fondly. “It’s nice to see the place so bright and happy. I wasn’t certain that I’d ever get to have this again.”
Just for a moment, Phoebe laid her head against Clio’s shoulder in a commiserative gesture.