Epilogue #2
“So,” Kate said, passing the bread basket to Vikram. “What news from London? You mentioned them yesterday.”
Vikram’s eyes lit up with that particular sparkle of someone bearing a juicy piece of gossip. “Oh, I have news. Where should I begin?”
“The beginning is usually traditional,” Gina said taking a piece of bread into her mouth, she was smiling though.
“Very well. First, the business—the spring shipments have exceeded expectations. Jane sends her regards and a rather impressive accounting of the quarterly profits.” He pulled several documents from his jacket. “The new routes to the Mediterranean are proving quite profitable.”
“Excellent. What else?” Kate prompted, knowing there was more.
“Well…” Vikram smiled widely. “Lady Rutledge is engaged.”
Kate nearly choked on her coffee. “What? How?”
“With whom?” asked Gina, her eyes wide as saucers, while Mary smiled in wonder.
“Viscount Perry.”
There was a moment of stunned silence. Then Gina laughed—that full, genuine sound that still made Kate’s heart skip. “Perry? Really?”
“Really,” Vikram confirmed. “Apparently he’s been courting her quietly for the past year. The announcement was made last month.”
“Perry,” Kate repeated, shaking her head in wonder while smiling widely. “I suppose stranger things have happened.”
“Society is having an absolute fit about it,” Vikram continued with obvious delight. “A divorcée and a confirmed bachelor in his forties who everyone had written off as unmarriageable. The scandal is delicious.”
“Good for them,” Gina said warmly. “Perry’s a good man. He stood as my second when few others would have. And Lady Rutledge deserves happiness after everything she endured with Rutledge.”
“I’m glad for them both,” Kate agreed. “Though I imagine the gossips are having a field day.”
“Oh, they are. But Lady Rutledge apparently told Lady Melbourne that she’d already survived one scandal and found it rather liberating, so she saw no reason not to pursue a second.” Vikram grinned. “I believe her exact words were ‘Society can accept me or not, as it pleases. I’ve made my choice.’”
Kate and Gina exchanged a knowing look. They understood that sentiment intimately.
“What about Ramsay?” Gina asked, her tone neutral. “Any word?”
Vikram’s expression sobered slightly. “He’s still in the country. Gloucestershire, I believe. Keeps to his estate, doesn’t come to London anymore. Word is he’s turned quite reclusive.”
“Probably for the best,” Kate said before taking another sip to her coffee.
“Indeed.” Vikram affirmed. “Though I did hear one interesting piece—apparently he’s taken to breeding horses. Quite successfully, from what I understand. Found something productive to do with himself, at least.”
Gina nodded slowly. She’d never spoken much about Ramsay after they’d left London—about the history there, the complications, the pain. But Kate knew it still sat with her sometimes, a weight she carried quietly.
Kate looked at her. Gina looked back. No words were needed between them.
“Any other scandals worth reporting?” Mary asked then, deliberately lightening the mood.
“Oh, dozens,” Vikram said. “But none as interesting as Perry and Lady Rutledge. Who would have thought?”
“Love makes fools of us all,” Mary said quietly. Then she caught herself, flushing slightly. “Begging your pardon. That was presumptuous.”
“Not at all,” Kate said warmly. “It’s true. Though I’d argue it makes us brave rather than foolish.”
“Both, perhaps,” Gina added with a smile. “Bravely foolish. Or foolishly brave.”
“…like getting a monkey?” Céleste blurted out suddenly, hope making her little eyes sparkle. She had remained silent throughout the adults’ conversation—always listening, but silent—exactly as she had been taught.
“Not like getting a monkey,” Kate and Gina said in unison, and the table erupted in laughter.
The conversation shifted then, drifting to business—Vikram’s preliminary projections for expanding trade routes toward Constantinople, the details of recent shipments, updates on various ventures and investments.
Céleste listened with the patient tolerance of a child accustomed to adult conversation about commerce, occasionally asking questions that showed she was paying more attention than they might have guessed.
“If you expand to Constantinople,” she said thoughtfully, “you’ll need someone who speaks Turkish. And Greek, probably. And Arabic.”
Vikram blinked. “That’s… actually correct. How did you know that?”
“I pay attention,” Céleste said with a shrug. “And my tutor showed me maps. Constantinople is where lots of languages meet.”
Kate felt a surge of pride. “Perhaps we should add languages to your studies more formally.”
“Yes, please,” Céleste said. “Then when I’m grown and running the business, I’ll be able to negotiate with everyone.”
“When you’re grown?” Gina repeated with amusement. “You’re already negotiating with everyone you meet.”
“Yes, but I need to get better at it,” Céleste said seriously. “You said ‘almost’ isn’t the same as success. So I need to practice until I win every negotiation.”
“Every single one?” Kate asked.
“Every single one,” Céleste confirmed. “Except maybe with you and Maman Gina. I’ll let you win sometimes.”
“How generous,” Gina said raising her brows, her eyes soft with affection.
Mary began clearing the plates, and Vikram excused himself to retrieve more documents from his room. Céleste asked if she could go play in the courtyard, and with permission granted, ran off with her usual boundless energy.
For a moment, Kate and Gina sat alone at the table, the morning sun streaming through the windows, the sounds of Paris drifting up from the streets below.
“Perry and Lady Rutledge,” Kate said softly. “Who would have imagined?”
“People finding happiness where they can,” Gina replied. “Against all odds. Against all expectations.”
“Like us.”
“Like us,” Gina agreed. She stood from the table, and Kate rose to meet her. They came together naturally, Gina’s hands finding Kate’s waist, Kate’s arms slipping around her neck. “Do you ever regret it? Leaving London? Giving up the life we had there?”
Kate considered the question seriously, as it deserved. “Sometimes I miss certain things. The grand house. Being closer to the business. Having Vikram nearby.” She paused. “But regret leaving? Never. Not for a single moment.”
“Even though we can’t—” Gina gestured vaguely. “Be ourselves. Publicly. Even here.”
“I am myself,” Kate said firmly. “Here, in this apartment, with you and Céleste and the people who matter—I’m more myself than I ever was playing the role of Mrs. Moore-Sullivan, dutiful wife to a respectable gentleman. That was the disguise.” She caressed Gina’s cheek. “This is real.”
Gina brought Kate’s hand to her lips, pressing a kiss to her palm. “I love you.”
“And I love you.”
Gina’s smile turned mischievous. “Remember when we were the scandal?”
“How could I forget? Mr. Moore-Sullivan, fighting a duel over his wife’s honor. Very dramatic.”
“I thought it was rather heroic, personally.”
“You would,” Kate said with a laugh. “You were the one doing the heroics.”
They laughed together.
And then they stood for a moment, facing each other, simply enjoying one another in silence, while the morning seemed filled with ordinary possibilities.
“Come on,” Gina said eventually, taking Kate’s hand into hers. “Let’s go watch our daughter attempt whatever acrobatic feat she’s currently attempting. Before she breaks something.”
“Or herself,” Kate added.
They walked to the window together, Gina’s arm around Kate’s waist, Kate’s head resting on Gina’s shoulder. Below, in the courtyard garden, Céleste was indeed attempting a handstand, while Mary watched with amused tolerance.
“She’s going to rule the world someday,” Gina murmured.
“Probably,” Kate agreed. “She certainly has the determination for it.”
“And the negotiation skills. Almost got us to agree to a monkey.”
“Almost,” Kate emphasized. “We’re not complete pushovers.”
“Not yet, anyway,” Gina said. “Give her another year or two.”
Kate laughed, the sound light and genuine. Gina joined her at last.
Below, Céleste successfully completed her handstand, held it for three impressive seconds, then tumbled over onto the grass with a delighted laugh. Mary joined her a second later, laying next to her and laughing as well.
From the window upstairs, her two mothers kept laughing at them both.
“She’s fearless,” Kate observed.
“She learned it from you,” Gina said softly.
“From both of us,” Kate corrected. She turned in Gina’s arms to face her properly. “We built this together. This life. This family. This impossible, improbable, wonderful life.”
“Against all odds,” Gina agreed.
“Against all odds,” Kate repeated. She leaned in and kissed her—soft and unhurried, the kind of kiss that spoke of certainty and permanence and home.
No more secrets were held between them. No more walls. No more pretending to be anything other than what they were—two women who had found each other against impossible circumstances and chosen, every day, to build a life together.
Because love can achieve anything. Because love don’t accept defeat easily.
It wasn’t the life society would have chosen for them. It wasn’t the life they’d imagined for themselves when they’d first married out of mutual convenience and careful pragmatism.
But it was better. So much better.
It was only, and truly, theirs.
The End.