Epilogue #2
“Quite well,” Penelope replied. “Imogen is proving an exemplary countess. She’s a caring soul, just the right sort of person to take charge of the staff at Moran House.
As for Frederick, the dowager was correct in predicting that he would make a much better earl, at least from the family’s perspective.
Courtesy of the dowager’s final family dinner, he’d learned of his relatives’ financial difficulties, and as soon as the reins were firmly in his hands, he set about assisting the others out of the holes they’d fallen into. ”
“On a broader stage,” Barnaby said, “I have to say that I, together with many of Frederick’s peers, such as my father, are quite impressed by what we’ve seen of the new Earl of Moran thus far.
Frederick’s taken up the reins without any sense of ill will toward Gordon, and when I spoke with Frederick after the formal reading of the wills—both Gordon’s and the dowager’s—he seemed resolute in righting the Fitzhugh ship.
” Barnaby smiled. “I crossed paths with him more recently, and he actually had a spring in his step. He was confident that all had been resolved and that none of the family were any longer under stress in any way, and more, he’d just come from the legal firm who managed Gordon’s investments, and they’d informed him that all the current investments were performing well and looked set to continue to rise in value. ”
Thomas raised a hand. “I can verify that. The late earl might have been an impossible-to-live-with miser, but in choosing investments, he had a golden thumb.”
Curtis arched his brows. “So despite all, the late earl was the investing genius he thought he was.”
Montague pulled a disapproving face. “Up to a point.”
“That point,” Thomas clarified, “being when he eventually risked too much on some chancy endeavor and his house of cards came crashing down. Trust me, with men like him, at some point, it would definitely have come to that.”
“Indeed.” Montague nodded sagely. “Such a reckoning always comes.”
“It seems the one thing the late earl didn’t understand,” Griselda observed, “was that being an earl and managing an earldom wasn’t all about him.”
Spooning up the last of her blancmange, Penelope nodded.
“Exactly.” Spoon poised, she went on, “He didn’t understand that, in this life, no man is an island, existing solely by and for himself, with the outcome of his actions confined only to himself.
Family is the most fundamental aspect of human existence.
Gordon Fitzhugh chose to ignore that and reaped his just rewards. ”
“The dowager must have felt pushed to her limits to act as she did,” Violet said.
After swallowing her last mouthful, Penelope explained, “Given her illness and her encroaching death, she felt she had no choice. Her time was nearly gone, and she had to make a stand, and when Gordon refused all her entreaties, from her point of view, with her promise to her husband to keep, she had no option but to act decisively. She didn’t have much time or any other way to put right what was so amiss. ”
Glancing around the table at the others finishing their desserts, Penelope reflected that, in many ways, for her, it had been a privilege to have known the dowager, even for so brief a time.
To have heard her reasoning and witnessed the unwavering commitment to family that had guided and driven her.
Mary laid down her napkin and, looking up the table, said, “In a letter to me that accompanied her will, the dowager explained that she didn’t continue to protest my dismissal because she knew she would soon die, and to her mind, it was better not to have me and Julian involved in the escalating situation between her and the late earl.
” Mary’s smile was fond as she went on, “She bequeathed us—me and Julian—a very tidy sum. She also left generous gifts and personal messages for all the staff. She was truly a gracious lady.”
Barnaby grinned. “This case was a lesson in never discounting a gracious old lady. Given her age and infirmity, no one would have expected her to seize control of the earldom’s reins in the way she did, and by acting so decisively, she definitely achieved her aim.”
“That aim,” Penelope said, “being to put the Fitzhugh family, including all connected branches, back on an even financial keel, as they always should have been, there being no reason they shouldn’t have been.”
She looked around the table at the familiar faces of her and Barnaby’s closest friends and smiled. “I suggest that the moral of the story of the killing of the Earl of Moran is to never underestimate the power of a grande dame, no matter how frail she appears.”
Some chuckled, and everyone grinned. All clearly agreed.
At the other end of the table, Barnaby reached for and raised his glass. “To the late Countess of Moran, who succeeded in saving her family.”
“Hear! Hear!” rolled around the room, and everyone raised their glasses and drank.
Several hours later, Curtis followed Mary and Julian onto the porch of the Adairs’ house. Mostyn closed the door behind them, and they descended the steps to the pavement.
All the others were still inside, chatting in the drawing room, but Julian and Curtis would be working from first light tomorrow, hunting through Islington for an old lady who had wandered off from her home.
They were determined to find her and would need their wits about them to do so and had opted to go to their homes and get a decent night’s sleep.
Julian glanced up and down the street—presently devoid of hackneys—then turned to Mary and Curtis. “I’ll go down to Piccadilly and hail a carriage and bring it back.”
Mary said, “All right,” and Curtis nodded, and Julian hared off, loping down the pavement toward the bustling thoroughfare at the street’s end.
Curtis stood beside Mary, and they waited.
After a moment, Curtis glanced sidelong at Mary. In his eyes, she was a beautiful, mature lady who personified comfortable practicality with a touch of gentrified elegance.
After all she’d been through and with what he saw as her steady courage in the face of disruption and near-disaster, he thought her quite perfect.
He’d been dithering and dallying over speaking to her for weeks. Now, after spending the evening with their friends, he screwed up his courage and, thinking furiously, ventured, “All that talk of family and how the dowager valued family so highly she killed to protect it.”
Mary turned and fixed her fine eyes on his face. When he hesitated—not certain anymore about where he was headed—she nodded. “Yes. I thought she was very brave.”
He hauled in a breath and said, “I’ve seen”—he gestured vaguely at the house behind them—“that family is central and important. It’s a critical element for living a good, satisfying life.” He paused, cleared his throat, then holding her gaze, managed to say, “I was wondering…”
After a second, she tilted her head. “Wondering what?”
Resisting the urge to close his eyes, he blurted out, “If you might possibly see us—you, me, and young Julian—forming a family of our own.”
Her eyes widened, and he rushed on, “I just thought, what with you both being alone now, and me being alone as well, rattling around in my big house just across the square, and it just seemed…”
When she blinked, he swallowed and croaked, “I don’t know how these things ought to be done. Perhaps I shouldn’t’ve asked. I don’t want you to feel awkward or anything if that’s not what you want. Heaven forbid! The last thing I’d want is for you to feel in any way obliged, but?—”
She stepped closer, came up on her toes, and pressed her lips to his.
For an instant, he froze, then his senses reeled. But before he could decide if he dared kiss her back, she drew away, leaving him stunned.
She looked into his eyes, then smiled and patted his arm. “You’re an admirable man, Ronald, and if you’re trying to suggest that you’re amenable to making me Mrs. Curtis, then I would like you to know that if you made such an offer, I would accept.”
He felt his eyes grow round. “You would?”
She nodded decisively. “I would.” Holding his gaze, she said, “You’re not the only one who values the comfort—and the strength—of family. Oh!”
Her exclamation came as he swept her into a tight embrace and kissed her as he’d dreamed of doing, soundly and thoroughly.
The sound of hooves clopping on the cobbles finally penetrated, and they broke apart, Mary holding on to her hat, and Curtis holding on to her.
A hackney drew up at the curb beside them.
On the box beside the jarvey, Julian was beaming fit to burst. He cheered, leapt down to the pavement, rushed to them, and flung his arms about them. “Yes! Yes! ” He looked up into their bemused faces. “I’m so glad! So very glad!”
Curtis smiled and hugged him back. “So are we, lad. So are we.”
From the corner of his eye, he glimpsed movement in the window of the house behind them. He turned his head and saw Penelope, Barnaby, Stokes, Griselda, and all the rest, beaming down at them.
He looked at Mary and Julian, tipped his head to the window, and shifted so that they, too, could see.
Huge smiles broke over Mary’s and Julian’s faces, delight there for all to see.
With his new family-to-be, Curtis beamed and waved at their joyful friends, then they turned, climbed into the hackney, the three of them squeezing onto the seat, and with a final wave to their well-wishers, they set off on their next adventure, on the next stage in the journey of their lives.