Epilogue #2
“I’m still getting accustomed to your actual name,” she teased, squeezing her husband’s arm and reveling in the fact that she could call him ‘her husband.’ “Bertram!”
“It’s not so different from Bernard!” he protested, a grin creasing his lips.
“Yes, which makes no sense to me,” Lucy pointed out as a croquet ball whizzed past their shins.
“Fore!”
“‘No sense’?” Bertram continued, as though they had not almost been kneecapped by her cousin Samuel.
“No,” Lucy said lightly as they reached the house and stood in its shade, grateful for the momentary relief. “No, if I was going by an alias, then I would want a name completely different from my own. Get into character, you know.”
“Funny, that is what your cousin Rose said,” Bertram mused with a shrug. “She would know, I suppose. She is the actress, isn’t she? I will be honest, I am starting to lose track. There are a great deal of you.”
Lucy giggled. “Right on the actress front, but she’s not my cousin.”
His face flickered. “But she’s a Chance—”
“She married one. And now I’m not a Chance,” Lucy said thoughtfully. “Which is a very strange experience, indeed.”
Lucy Moray, Viscountess Moray.
It was not that she had ever specifically wanted to marry a particular title. In a way, she had not thought much of matrimony at all. That was for the future, perhaps, but in the present, there was always a letter to write or a judge to pester or an event for the Prison Reform Society to host.
Matrimony to anyone would have to come after all that. That was what she had thought.
And now she was a viscountess and would soon depart with her husband to visit the home he had left years ago, planning never to return. That would be interesting.
“I still think I made the right call.”
Lucy blinked. “With what?”
“With my false name, obviously,” Bertram said happily, squeezing her hand. “To tell the truth, I wanted something to which I could adjust if I accidentally slipped up and started saying my actual name.”
And she laughed, his chuckles joining hers and causing a few of their wedding guests to look over in curiosity before returning to their conversations, or their games to the death—that was, to the croquet game.
“You really are ridiculous, you know that,” Lucy said lightly.
Bertram leaned forward. “Ridiculously in love with you.”
The kiss was passionate, needed, for he had not kissed her properly these last twenty minutes. Lucy gasped in his mouth at the ardor Bertram poured down upon her, her hands reaching quickly for his lapels to pull him closer.
But then, she wouldn’t be able to get him close enough until they were alone this evening…
“Put the man down, Luce!” called her father’s voice from one of the marquees.
Lucy broke the kiss with a flush of heat to her cheeks. “You know, I don’t think my father has ever grown accustomed to the fact that my sister is wed,” she said ruefully, smiling up at her husband. “I wonder if it will ever sink in that we have?”
“All I know is that he keeps calling me ‘Dixon’ and I haven’t the heart to correct him,” said Bertram with a wry expression. “Though I suppose at least I have the relief of never having to think up a name again. Honestly, it was getting exhausting.”
Lucy bit her lip. “In that case, I… I think I have bad news, then.”
A shadow flickered over her husband’s face. “‘Bad news’? You’re sick.”
“In a matter of speaking, yes,” she admitted.
It was too difficult not to laugh as she saw Bertram’s face lose all its color. “Well, why the devil didn’t you say so? We need to get you inside, into the cool, get you lying down, call a physician—”
“There’s no need. No, honestly, Bertram,” Lucy said hastily, seeing that this was no longer a teasing matter. “I have seen a physician and I am perfectly fine, for the most part.”
But her husband was clever, far too clever for his own good. “‘For the most part’?”
“For the time being,” Lucy added, wondering if this was truly the right time to tell him. But keeping this secret from him the last few weeks had been killing her—and when had keeping secrets ever ended well between them? She had only wanted to be sure. Wanted to be sure their child was safe.
Bertram was examining her closely, evidently unconvinced of her absolute health. “Then why do you have bad news?”
Lucy took a deep, slow breath. This was it. “Because… Because you are going to have to think of another name in about…seven or eight months.”
“Why?” was the question that he asked, but before the single syllable could pass his lips, Bertram froze, his eyes wide. “No.” He grasped both her arms, holding her still as he stared deep into her eyes. “No!”
“Yes,” Lucy said with a shy smile, hoping to goodness this instant denial was not disappointment, merely shock.
Her question was answered immediately by the passionate yet awed kiss placed on her mouth.
“Oh, Lucy!” Bertram’s eyes were swiftly filling with tears, and it was a smile, thank goodness, that was appearing on his lips. “Oh, Lucy, a baby!”
“A baby,” she said tenderly. “One we’ll have to name.”
“Well, we’re not calling it ‘Obadiah,’ I can tell you that,” he said with a laugh, his eyes shining. “A baby! And you’ll teach it to swim—”
“I’ll have to teach both of you to swim,” Lucy said wryly.
“—and I can teach it to sharpen a knife—”
“No knives are going anywhere near our baby,” Lucy said firmly.
“—and we’ll love it. Him. Her, whoever they are,” Bertram said lovingly, pulling her into his arms. “Oh, Lucy, after giving me a chance in that courtroom, then giving me another chance when I completely ruined things between us…” His hands moved her back, just a few inches, then moved to her stomach, where he placed them reverentially. “Now you’re giving me another Chance.”
“A Moray,” Lucy whispered, her own eyes filling with tears at the adoration with which he looked at her. “A Chance, yes, but also a Moray. An opportunity to…well, not rewrite the past, but to write a better future.”
A future for both of them. For all three of them.
Bertram smiled tenderly and pulled her in for another kiss as he whispered, “A better future, for all of us.”