Epilogue
One Year Later
“If Lady Whitcombe asks whether the lemonade is sweetened enough, you are not to reply that it depends upon whether she has brought her own bitterness.”
Edmund looked across the garden path at his wife. “Was that instruction meant for me or my aunt?”
Petalia considered this while a footman hurried past with a tray of glasses and the air of a man transporting national treasure. “Both, perhaps, though Lady Maria is less likely to obey.”
“Then why begin with me?”
“Because you are nearer, and because you sometimes make a handsome effort at reform when asked properly.”
The word handsome should not still have pleased him after a year of marriage. It did. Particularly from Petalia, who used compliments sparingly and with such precision that he had come to suspect each one had been sharpened before delivery.
The summer gathering at Wrenfield had begun as a modest idea and become, under Lady Maria’s influence, a county event of carefully controlled informality.
Petalia had refused to call it a garden party until Lady Maria threatened to call it a rural assembly instead, which sounded worse.
There were tables beneath striped awnings, bowls of strawberries, musicians near the terrace, a small display of Declan’s maps, and Mary’s botanical sketches arranged with dramatic labels that made three harmless plants sound like conspirators against the crown.
The county had come.
Not all of it, and not all with pure motives.
But enough. Lady Carrowmere had arrived with sincere flowers and insincere surprise at the elegance of the arrangements.
Mrs Ashby had brought two daughters and one apology for not having called sooner.
Lady Whitcombe had arrived exactly seven minutes later than fashion required, because she preferred people to notice her entrances and then pretend not to.
A year ago, Petalia would have braced herself at the sight of those carriages.
Today, she had received them beneath the pale arch of climbing roses by the terrace, wearing a cream gown, a straw bonnet, and the brass hairpin holding one dark coil of hair at the nape of her neck.
She looked composed, warm, and utterly at home.
Edmund had spent much of the afternoon failing not to look at her.
“You are staring again,” she said now.
“I am observing the success of your campaign.”
“That sounds very ducal.”
“It was meant to conceal admiration.”
“Poorly.”
“I am out of practice concealing it from you.”
That earned him the softened look that had become, over the past year, his private reward for honesty.
Petalia glanced towards the lawn, where Mary was explaining to an elderly colonel that some flowers were poisonous and others merely misunderstood.
Declan stood nearby with a map board, waiting for his turn to explain the drainage improvements in the lower park to anyone wise enough to listen.
He had grown taller over the year, less folded into himself, and he now spoke with the grave confidence of a boy who expected his thoughts to be heard.
Mary, meanwhile, expected hers to be obeyed.
The combination kept Wrenfield lively.
“They are doing well,” Petalia said.
“Mary has informed Colonel Ames that his waistcoat resembles a medicinal fungus.”
“Then perhaps not entirely well.”
“He laughed.”
“Because she is seven. In three years, that sentence will require supervision.”
“In three years, all of us may require supervision.”
Petalia smiled. “Lady Maria has already volunteered.”
From across the lawn, Lady Maria, who could not possibly have heard them and yet had heard them by some unnatural force, lifted her fan in warning.
Edmund inclined his head gravely. “Terrifying woman.”
“You adore her.”
“Do not spread slander at my own gathering.”
Petalia took his arm, and they walked slowly towards the shade of the terrace. Wrenfield spread behind them in full summer warmth: windows open, servants moving confidently, guests laughing, children crossing the lawn with improper speed.
Once, the house had seemed to hold its breath. Now it frequently spoke too loudly, misplaced ribbons, hosted arguments, lost pencils, and rang with Mary’s declarations. Edmund had discovered that he preferred noise when he trusted the people making it.
Lady Whitcombe intercepted them near the lemonade table.
“Your Graces,” she said, smiling with a polished edge age had not dulled. “A delightful afternoon. Wrenfield looks quite altered. One might almost believe it had always been a cheerful house.”
Edmund felt the old warning rise in him, but Petalia answered before it could settle into his face.
“How kind, Lady Whitcombe. I have found that houses, like people, sometimes require only open windows and useful occupation.”
Lady Whitcombe’s eyes flickered. “And a capable mistress, of course.”
“A capable household,” Petalia corrected pleasantly. “I have learnt that nothing is achieved alone, though one may receive too much credit if one stands nearest the flowers.”
Lady Whitcombe’s smile tightened.
Edmund nearly smiled into his lemonade.
“You manage praise very neatly, Your Grace,” Lady Whitcombe said.
“I had an excellent education in managing difficult conversations,” Petalia replied. “First in schoolrooms, and then in drawing rooms. The principles are surprisingly similar.”
Lady Whitcombe gave a small laugh, whether genuine or defensive, even she might not have known. “I shall leave you to your guests.”
When she moved away, Edmund looked at Petalia with open admiration.
“You frightened Lady Whitcombe.”
“I did no such thing.”
“You smiled at her while answering every question she had not dared ask. That is much worse than frightening her.”
Petalia accepted a glass of lemonade from the footman. “I learnt from you.”
“I do not smile.”
“No, but you have always understood the value of making people reconsider their approach.”
He leant closer, lowering his voice. “And you have made me reconsider mine for a year.”
Her eyes warmed. “Only a year?”
“Since the alley, if we are counting honestly.”
The brass pin caught the sun when she looked down.
Even now, after diamonds had been offered, pearls accepted for formal evenings, and Lady Maria had quietly placed half the family jewels at her disposal, Petalia wore the brass pin whenever the day mattered.
It had become less an ornament than a declaration, a sign no longer of defiance but of memory transformed into belonging.
The afternoon passed in a golden confusion of introductions, laughter, small crises, and mild victories.
Mary spilt lemonade on Lord Ames and called it an experiment in absorbency.
Declan saved the map display from a gust of wind with the seriousness of a general preserving troop movements.
Mrs Holroyd supervised the servants with a pride she disguised as suspicion.
Pritchard accepted compliments on the arrangements as if each one were a personal burden.
Lady Maria told three people that marriage had improved her nephew beyond expectation, and Edmund made no attempt to deny it because Petalia was within hearing.
Near sunset, when the last of the guests had begun to depart and the lawn looked pleasantly defeated, Petalia slipped away towards the side garden. Edmund found her near the low wall where the lavender grew, one hand resting lightly upon the stone.
“You are tired,” he said.
“A little.”
“That is the answer you give when you mean considerably.”
“Marriage has made you observant.”
“Marriage has made me interested. Observation followed in self-defence.”
She laughed softly, then grew quiet.
He stepped beside her. “Petalia?”
She looked towards the lawn, where Mary was attempting to instruct Declan in how to bow to departing guests with theatrical misery. “There is something I wished to tell you before Lady Maria announces it from intuition alone.”
Every part of him went still.
Petalia turned to face him. The evening light rested gently on her face, on the brass pin, on the mouth he had kissed that morning before the household had stolen her into hostess duties.
She took his hand and placed it lightly against her waist, where no sign yet showed and everything, somehow, had already changed.
“By Christmas,” she said, “Wrenfield may have another small tyrant to educate.”
For a moment, he could not speak.
He had thought, once, that joy would arrive loudly if it ever dared return to him. Instead, it came as a silence so full he could scarcely breathe around it.
“Petalia,” he said.
Her smile trembled. “Yes?”
“Are you well?”
She blinked, then laughed. “That is your first question?”
“It is the only question that matters before the other thousand.”
Her eyes softened. “I am well. A little tired. A little nervous. Very happy.”
He looked down at their joined hands. His own hand was large against her waist, careful as if even the idea of life there required reverence.
“I am going to be unbearable,” he said. “I should warn you now.”
“I had prepared for that before marrying you.”
“No. This will be worse. Physicians. Broths. Chairs in every room. No stairs without supervision.”
“If you attempt to forbid stairs, I shall call Lady Maria.”
“She will agree with me.”
“She will agree that you are impossible and then tell me how best to manage you.”
His laugh came rough and shaken.
He drew her close, careful even in joy, and kissed her brow first, then her mouth. The kiss was soft, reverent, and full of everything he could not yet arrange into language. When he drew back, she touched his cheek, her thumb near the scar without ceremony or fear.
“Are you happy?” she asked.
He covered her hand with his. “I did not know I could be this much and remain standing.”
Across the lawn, Lady Maria’s voice rose. “Edmund! Petalia! If you are having a sentimental moment, do finish it before Mary reorganises the musicians!”
Petalia laughed into his chest.
Edmund closed his arms around her and looked at Wrenfield, the lit windows, the trampled lawn, the family gathering itself into evening. A year ago, he had married Petalia to protect her name. Somewhere along the way, she had made his name worth coming home to.
“We should go back,” Petalia said.
“In a moment.”
“You are delaying a duchess.”
“I am holding my wife. The duchess may wait her turn.”
She smiled against him.
They returned to the lawn together, not quickly, not because anyone called, but because the life waiting there was theirs.
The End
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