Epilogue
“The beginning is always today.” – Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Six Months Later
Ursula picked up her old favourite book – she’d already read it more times than she could count – and swayed over to the window seat.
It was the nicest spot in the library, the seat being padded, the light good, and the view beautiful.
Carefully, she lowered herself down, lifting her feet onto the seat beside her.
In another month, I shan’t be able to do this, she thought wryly, opening her book.
The very first lines were auspicious, she thought, and were stuck permanently in her mind.
“You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings.”
Yes, she was reading Frankenstein once again. There was something thrilling about the story, something which drew her in time and time again, despite the fact she knew all too well how it would end.
And with my current situation, I ought to pay a little more attention to the idea of parenthood and creating life, Ursula thought wryly, dropping her hand to the swell of her stomach.
As always, her peace did not last. Footsteps echoed along the hallway, and Ursula knew whose footsteps they were before ever he appeared in the doorway.
“Good morning, my beautiful wife,” Graham remarked, beaming down at her. Ursula beamed back.
“Good morning, O handsome husband of mine. Tell me, has Ruthie finished altering my dress? I wanted to wear my green silk to the wedding tomorrow, but of course it requires…” she trailed off, patting her belly, “… alternations.”
“I believe she is nearly done,” Graham assured her, settling himself on the window seat beside her. Wincing, Ursula lifted her feet onto his lap, and he began to absently massage her swollen ankles.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, concern in his voice.
“Oh, I am quite all right. Tired, but that’s to be expected. I do not think pregnancy agrees with me. The sooner our little angel enters the world, the better.”
Grinning, Graham leaned briefly forward to press a kiss to Ursula’s stomach. “Reading Frankenstein again, I see?”
“Yes, I quite adore it. My thoughts turn to you whenever I read it.”
He gave a hoot of laughter. “Of me? I cannot decide whether to be insulted or not.”
“Oh, enough! I only mean that when we walked into each other at the book shop, you commented on the book I was holding. Which happened to be none other than Frankenstein.”
“Ahh, I see. Not that I appear to be a ghastly, eight feet tall creature cobbled together out of corpses?”
“No, not at all.”
He chuckled again, shaking his head. “On a more sombre topic, have you heard anything of your cousin lately?”
The smile fled from Ursula’s face.
“No,” she murmured softly. “I have not. I last heard that she was in France, and her father still gives her a small allowance. I hope she uses it wisely.”
Considering Georgie, that was not likely.
Ursula would not have revealed Georgie’s part in the scandal, and nor would Graham. Sir Roderick had fled London and disappeared entirely, and Lady Margaret Sinclair seemed at last to have learned the value of silence.
According to Graham, however, a man of Sir Roderick’s acquaintance had overheard the story of how Sir Roderick had attempted to take Ursula’s virtue. He had been quite disgusted by the story and may have overheard Georgie’s part in the scandal.
Ursula considered this quite likely. Nobody was quite able to pinpoint where the rumours had come from, pointing the finger of blame directly at Miss Georgiana Worth for her cousin’s almost-ruin, but once the story had taken hold, it would not go away.
Friends and acquaintances told stories of Georgie’s overwhelming jealousy towards her cousin, her veiled threats, and her nastiness.
The doors of Society swung closed all at once, with echoing snaps.
It was over for Georgie. There was nothing for her in Society. The very last thing that sealed her fate in society was when she attempted to trap a man into matrimony by ‘ruining’ herself to force him to wed her, clearly hoping that she would snag a viscount, just like her cousin had.
She was destined to be disappointed. The man in question, a bland second son with no fortune and few prospects, was not about to displease his powerful father and older brother by entering into matrimony with a girl like Georgiana Worth, and hastily took himself off to the country.
Georgie had been ruined. It was over, irrevocably so. Ursula heard that her cousin left the country some months ago, with only a maid in tow.
I hope she is safe, Ursula thought, with a pang. She meant a great deal to me, once.
Graham reached out, gently taking her hand.
“You seem upset,” he murmured.
Ursula shook her head. “I am a little, I suppose. I wish Georgie well. If she ever comes back to England…”
“No,” Graham said firmly. “She is not welcome here. I have struggled to forgive my mother, but you were nearly harmed because of Georgiana. You were harmed.”
“It could have been worse.”
“Ay, and if things had gone the way she planned them, they would have been worse.”
Ursula sighed again, nodding. “You are correct, of course you are. It is a pity, though. I cared for her so much.”
“You have plenty of friends, have you not? You and Charlotte are closer than ever. I declare, Charlotte has been a permanent fixture in our house since you announced the pregnancy, and she announced the wedding.”
Ursula chuckled aloud at that. “Yes, we’ve had a great deal to discuss.
And I must say, now that Charlotte is to wed a man such as Lord Hartwell, all those unkind gossips who were so cruel to her look rather silly.
She won’t be a spinster anymore; she’ll be Lady Hartwell.
A good many women have tried to catch Jonathan, but none were successful in their endeavours. ”
“Tried and failed,” Graham agreed, grinning. “He is much too serious for them.”
Ursula shifted her position, wincing at the twinges in her back.
She had not known much about the state of pregnancy, since pregnant women stayed away from Society, and she had had no younger siblings.
As far as she could understand, her back hurt, her feet and ankles swelled, and she had developed an incomprehensible desire to eat turnip-peelings.
She had also developed an irrational hatred for apples in all shapes and forms and had nearly burst into tears when coffee was served at a tea party she had attended recently.
It will all be worth it, though, she thought, patting her stomach. I’ll be a mother. We’ll have a baby.
She had already decided on a name. If it was a boy, she planned to name the baby Adam. If it were a girl, Elizabeth.
When she had told Graham the names she had chosen, he had only laughed and told her that she could choose whatever names she liked, since she was the one who would birth the baby.
“It only seems fair for you to choose,” Graham had said, leaning forward to kiss her forehead.
He kissed her forehead again now, leaning forward to tuck himself between Ursula and the windowpane, wrapping his arm around her middle. Ursula rested her cheek on the top of his head, watching birds flit from branch to branch outside the window.
They hadn’t been intimate in quite a while, on account of the pregnancy. While Ursula had other things on her mind, naturally, she missed the closeness. Even now, she felt a familiar spark of desire in her chest whenever Graham looked at her and smiled.
“Will things go back to the way they were, I wonder?” Ursula murmured absently. “After the baby is born, I mean.”
Graham considered this for a moment before answering.
“There will be differences, I imagine,” he said at last. “Bringing a child into the world is no small thing. But you and I will be unchanged. More importantly, my love for you will not be changed.”
“Of that I am positive,” she laughed, kissing his forehead again.
“I’m a little afraid, to be truthful. Raising a child is not easy.
My parents did not do it well. Mama talks often of coming to stay with us here, out in the country, after the baby is born.
I think I should like to see her, but I am not sure that she would know what to do with a baby any more than I would.
I was raised by nurses and governesses.”
“My upbringing was a little different,” Graham admitted.
“My mother at least tried to raise me herself. There were nurses and tutors, naturally, and when Father thought I was old enough I was sent away to school. But Mother was always there. She tried, very hard, to raise me. I believe she always wanted her own children.”
Ursula bit her lip, conjuring up an image of Margaret, alone in her small house in Bath, spending her days wandering to the spas and taking the water, always alone.
A spark of pity lit up in her chest, and Ursula closed her eyes.
“If you wish to invite your mother here after the baby is born, I would not object.”
There was a silence, and then Graham sat up a little, twisting around to look at her in the face.
“Do you really mean it?” he whispered. “My mother betrayed me, and she lied to you. She tried to drive us apart. I have struggled to forgive her.”
“I am aware,” Ursula said nodding. She lifted a hand, caressing Graham’s cheek.
She found his unshaven chin, with its pleasant scratch, a comforting contrast to the smoothness of his cheek.
“And I know that you still love her very, very much. Perhaps a little forgiveness is in order. This will be her first grandchild, after all.”
Graham nibbled his lower lip, in a thoughtful manner.
“She has been writing to me,” he confessed at last. “She does not beg or plead. She asks for forgiveness but says that she understands if I cannot grant it. She asks after your health and says that you are a finer Lady Sinclair than she ever was. She has asked to be allowed to see her grandchild. In a postscript, she adds that if she cannot see the baby, she hopes that we might consider sending a lock of the baby’s hair and perhaps a miniature for her, as a keepsake.
I said that we would consider it, but that I would have to consult with you. ”
Ursula paused, thinking. Margaret had succeeded in driving her out of her home and had nearly succeeded in driving a wedge between Ursula and her husband.
“It never felt as though it was me she loathed,” Ursula said abruptly.
Graham lifted his eyebrows questioningly, and she continued.
“I believe that it had nothing to do with me. I had a scandal attached to my name and was not as rich and well-bred as the woman she believed you deserved. Her wish was for you to wed Lady Annabella, because she believed that Lady Annabella was the best Society had to offer. And, like any mother, she wanted you to have the best.”
“Perhaps,” Graham acknowledged, “She overstepped the bounds of propriety.”
“Yes, she did indeed. My point is that perhaps we might forgive her, though. You should write to her and extend an invitation to stay after the baby is born. Not too long, perhaps only a week, and we can see how it goes. I shall invite my mother, too. Papa does not seem to want to come, although he congratulates me on the pregnancy. They cannot understand why we chose to leave London.”
“You left London because I wanted to leave.”
She shrugged. “That was part of it, but to be truthful, I do not miss London. Not one bit. And now that Jonathan and Charlotte are going to settle out here near us, after the matrimony, my happiness is complete. You have made my happiness complete.”
Graham rested his head against Ursula’s shoulder, thoughtfully stroking the curve of her belly.
“You are the best woman in the world, Ursula,” he whispered. “My entire heart belongs to you.”
She smiled, closing her eyes, and rested her cheek against the top of his head.
“As does mine my love…as does mine.”
The End
I hope you had a fantastic time reading “The Viscount’s Diamond Bride”!