Epilogue
Four Years Later
His Grace, Lucas Kennerly, the Duke of Marlow
She’d left a calling card on my pillow.
It read,
Her Grace
Georgiana Kennerly
The Duchess of Marlow
She’d had it newly embossed, the lettering framed with gold. The old ones, she’d said, were out of fashion. Trust my wife to know.
I lifted the card and flipped it over.
The library, she’d written.
Smiling, I tugged on my banyan and slippers and stole from the room, careful not to make a sound as I closed the door to my chamber behind me.
We hadn’t been alone in a week, not since her family had descended upon us—Wood, Amelia, little Penelope and Frederick—plus Maggie’s family and Gabriel as well.
They came like clockwork. Every summer since the morning, not long after our declarations in Georgiana’s hay barn, when I’d taken her in front of the vicar. The day I’d made her mine in every way.
I crept around the corner, stilled just inside the doorway, and watched her stitching something by the fire with a book balanced in her lap and my grandmother’s ring on her finger.
This library was different from ours in London.
More open, double in size, with a table and chairs under the wide windows and several oil paintings of fox hunting and landscapes.
My eyes, however, hung on Georgiana as she drew her bottom lip between her teeth and grinned down at the page.
“Dare I ask?” I raised a brow and sauntered over.
She jolted. “Lucas! You frightened me.” Guilty as ever. Valancourt, or worse—Captain Wentworth.
I perched on the arm of her chair. “What’s this?”
She lifted her embroidery proudly. “Albert wanted a lion on his blanket. I am obliging him.”
Ah. I could see the oranges, yellows, and browns taking shape beneath her fingers.
At freshly three years of age, Albert lived and breathed lions of late.
He wanted to know their habits, diets, how and why they roared.
We’d pulled every book from the library that mentioned them in the slightest to try to appease him.
“Stole it straight from his chubby little fingers, did you?”
Georgiana nodded, covered a yawn, and set her bundle aside. “Did you see my new calling card?”
I leaned down and kissed the top of her head. “I had hoped it was an invitation to a more private space,” I admitted. Then again, we’d formed Eloise right here on a blanket in front of the hearth.
I should’ve closed the door behind me.
Georgiana followed my gaze and smirked. “Did you tell Gabriel what I said?”
“No more gifts larger than the size of his fist, yes.” I tugged my wife to standing then took her seat and settled her on my lap. “He was not pleased. Said something about the new heir needing to enjoy his childhood while he can.”
“That stuffed lion he brought is twice the size of Albert, Lucas! How will we ever fit it in the carriage?”
Not to mention the wooden horse taking up a whole corner of the nursery. And the little bow and arrow set. The perfectly sized foil and glove. The pony in the stables she did not yet know about. I winced.
Gabriel had come into quite a lot of money since his railroad venture had taken off. “He means well,” I told Georgiana. “He loves Albert.”
“He needs to give someone else his love for a time.” She wrapped her arms around my neck and leaned her cheek against my chest. I inhaled apple blossoms and sweetness.
“The house is quiet . . . everyone has gone to bed . . .” I mused. I shifted her higher in my lap until her nose brushed mine.
Her eyes warmed. “Good evening, Your Grace.”
“Your Grace.” I leaned in, and—
“I said if you won all three rounds.” Gabriel stalked into the room. “There! He is here. Ask him yourself.”
In came Wood, smirking, then Thomas, who quietly beamed with humor. I wouldn’t mind seeing them if I hadn’t just spent the last three hours with them at White’s.
And if I hadn’t come home with particular plans for this beautiful woman on my lap.
“Georgiana.” Wood smiled at his sister. “Forgive us, but your husband must remind his cousin of the bargain he made.”
“Wood goes three rounds at the tables, and Gabriel rewards him with a view of that letter in his pocket that he’s had tucked away all week,” I said. “Now, all three of you get out.”
Wood held out his hand to Gabriel expectantly. “I’d like my view, now, please.”
Georgiana leaned her head against mine. “Peter, leave him be. Let him have his secrets.”
“I won this fair and square.” Wood chuckled. He’d taken some time to warm to us, but he’d fit seamlessly into the family all the same.
“Peter?” Amelia wiped sleep from her eyes as she waited in the doorway.
Wood’s playful demeanor instantly changed. He was at her side in three wide strides, Gabriel’s letter easily forgotten. “. . . still awake?”
Gabriel blew out a breath. He eyed Thomas, who’d already started for the door. “Don’t you say a word. Either of you. I need a drink.”
Georgiana and I looked at each other as Gabriel helped himself and sat down in front of the hearth.
I laced her fingers with mine, then grew impatient. “Come to bed,” I whispered. “Your bed.”
She brushed her nose against my cheek and kissed my jaw. “As you wish, Your Grace.”
I bounded up and lifted her in my arms. She laughed like she had years ago, before Albert had come out screaming and changed our lives forever, before Eloise stole her heart with the roundest, most perfect hazel eyes and little pink lips.
Like we could be forever in that library in London, having every hope but no true idea what wonder the future held.
We couldn’t have known her first London party as a hostess would be such a success.
Nor that she’d end it in tears for how cruelly an older woman had critiqued her for dancing so much and kissing me at the end of the night.
She’d kissed me anyway, several times at her parties since, regardless of what the ton deemed appropriate.
We’d faced it all side by side.
Her laughter was a cornerstone in the legacy we were forming together.
It helped me believe the letters that she wrote to me.
The ones she tucked under papers on my desk, in drawers, even in the bottom of my boots, declaring her love.
Toole always fought his smile when he discovered them in front of me, looking at me like he understood.
Like, perhaps, his wife worked in similar ways.
I carried Georgiana Kennerly, Duchess of Marlow, all the way down from the library, shushing her laughter with kisses until she was breathless, until she was lowered to her feet, pressed against the closed door of her bedchamber, and encased in my arms.
“You are more beautiful now than you have ever been,” I whispered against her lips. “Thank you for this life you’ve given me.”
She took my face in her hands and kissed me roughly, pulling back only to whisper, “Ours is my very favorite story, Lucas.”
Our story.
Our legacy.
Ours.