Epilogue
Readers will be pleased to learn that Lady St. Clair has borne a son, christened Algernon Jordan Lennard, heir apparent to her husband, the Viscount St. Clair.
Both mother and son are doing well, and the viscountess will return to authoring this column soon.
The Honorable Mr. Edgar Lennard, the viscount’s uncle, has reportedly left England to reside on a plantation he purchased in America.
We wish him and his family all the best in their new home. ”
Three identical blond heads bent over Felicity as she sat propped up in the huge master bed at Chesterley, cradling her three-day-old son. “Give poor Algernon room to breathe, boys,” she admonished as the triplets crowded around her. “You’ll have plenty of chances to look at him, I assure you.”
“Why is he so wrinkled?” Ansel asked. “He looks like an old man.”
“So did you when you were born,” she told him. “All babies look like that when they first come out.”
“Does he know we’re his uncles?” William asked.
“Not yet. But he will. And think how lucky he will be to have four uncles living in the same house with him.”
Georgie peered more closely at the baby. “He sleeps an awful lot, don’t he?”
“Doesn’t he,” a stern female voice automatically corrected behind him.
“Doesn’t he,” George repeated, with a furtive glance at the woman who towered over him.
Felicity smiled up at Miss Greenaway. “You’re making progress, I see.”
Miss Greenaway rolled her eyes. “Yes. Now I only have to correct Master George ten times a day instead of twenty.”
“I ain’t—I’m not—all that bad,” Georgie grumbled.
Both Felicity and Miss Greenaway burst into laughter. That woke the baby up, who immediately started caterwauling.
Miss Greenaway cast her most governess-like look on the triplets. “Come now, you three, we’ve got Latin lessons to finish. And your sister needs a rest.”
Their chorus of groans didn’t deter the young woman, and in seconds, she had all three boys marching out of the room like real soldiers.
Felicity shook her head in amazement. That had been the best move she’d ever made—asking Miss Greenaway to be the boys’ governess.
The woman had a natural ability with children, if her work with the triplets was any indication.
Miss Greenaway had leapt at the opportunity as well, since a woman with a bastard child would have difficulty finding suitable work.
Lately Felicity had noticed Ian’s unmarried man of affairs eyeing Miss Greenaway with something more than idle curiosity. Miss Greenaway had rebuffed his initial attempts at courtship, telling Felicity that a man of his intelligence and position deserved a “pure” woman.
But Felicity knew the man would wear Miss Greenaway down. When the only thing that stood in the way of love was a dark past, the principals in the affair never had a chance. Love would always triumph. She’d wager all her pin money that there’d be another wedding at Chesterley soon.
Little Algernon’s mouth was opening and closing like a fish’s.
Quickly, she lowered her gown, and he fastened his tiny mouth to her nipple, dragging on it lustily.
He was perfect, she thought, surveying the little snip of a nose, the shells of his ears, the still-blue eyes that would probably soon turn black to match the fuzzy raven hair that whorled around the center of his delicate head.
He looked like his father, of course. A little sultan to match the big one. Well, there’d be no harem for her darling boy, if she had anything to say about it. No, he must have a nice, presentable girl ... some lovely earl’s daughter or even a duke’s—
She groaned. She’d better watch it, or she’d turn into one of those women she always criticized in her column.
He’d finished suckling and had fallen into a sated sleep against her. Carefully, she drew her gown back up over her breast.
“No need to do that on my account,” came a rumbling male voice from the doorway.
She looked up in delight. “Ian! You’re back!”
“So I am.” With a smile, he entered, then lowered his heated gaze to her now covered breasts. “I see I should have been a few minutes earlier.”
“Don’t tease me,” she warned. “We’ve got six more weeks, you know, before we can indulge ourselves.”
He groaned. “Believe me, my love, I’m well aware.” He sat down beside the bed, reaching out to trace his son’s cheek. “He’s beautiful, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” she agreed with maternal pride.
“And now he’s the proud heir of an entire estate.”
She gazed up at him eagerly. “It’s settled then?”
He nodded. “Uncle Edgar can’t touch us. I think he’d already realized it the night of the Strattons’ ball.”
Mrs. Box bustled into the room. “His lordship has come and— Oh, there you are, milord! Beat me up here to tell her, I see.” She approached the bed, smiling broadly. “Shall I take the little master for you, luv? Looks like he’s nappin’ again.”
Felicity handed the baby to Mrs. Box. The woman had proven an excellent nurse, and Felicity had no doubt she’d continue to be one through many more little Lennards.
As soon as Mrs. Box was gone, Ian stretched out beside her on the bed.
“I found something interesting while I was at the solicitor’s in London.
” He drew out a folded sheet of paper. “Apparently, my father had left instructions that I was to be given this if I succeeded in having an heir before the appointed time.”
She tried to guess from Ian’s expression what it said, but he merely stared at her in that inscrutable manner he still sometimes had. Taking the paper with trembling hands, she opened it and scanned the lines:
My son, if you are reading this, then you have not disappointed me. No doubt you think my methods extreme. You always did. But I had to be sure that you would care for Chesterley in my absence, and this seemed the best way of forcing you to acknowledge your responsibilities. Forgive me if you can.
Felicity tossed the paper down angrily. “And this is all he wrote? No words of apology for driving you away? No hint that he believed you innocent all along?”
“This was his apology, my love, or the closest my father could ever come to one. Jordan once said that if my father had truly believed me unworthy of being his heir, he wouldn’t have arranged that strange will.
He would simply have left the estate to my uncle.
But he didn’t. Because he wanted to make sure I came back for it. ”
Noting the resignation in his tone, she took his hand. “You’re not angry at him for it? All those years of torture, of thinking he despised you—”
“I’m more angry at myself than anything. If I’d stayed, we might have worked through our differences. But I let my pride drive me away.” He smiled. “Then again, if I’d stayed, I might not have met you.”
She grinned. “Oh, I’m sure you would have. You’re such a troublesome man, you would eventually have done something to merit mention in my column. And then you would have strode into my study and warned me about crossing you—”
“And seduced you and laid the most careful strategy to have you.” He squeezed her hand. “You’re right, querida. It would have made no difference at all. One encounter with you would have been sufficient to make me want you. It certainly was all it took the first time.”
“What? You didn’t act as if you wanted me that day. You acted like a bully.”
He raised an eyebrow. “For all the good it did me. You merely continued to write precisely what you wished about me.”
“Speaking of which,” she said, a twinkle in her eye, “it’s time I return to writing my column.
What should be the subject of my first column since the baby’s birth?
How the Viscount St. Clair roused a doctor out of bed the moment his wife first complained of birth pains?
How the good viscount’s notoriously even temper deserted him when the doctor said it might be hours, and he should sleep a while longer?
How the baby arrived amid the constant advice of a father who seemed to think he knew something about physic when he most decidedly did not? ”
“I have a better idea,” Ian said with a dangerous smile. “Why not write a column on the various ways the good viscount intends to torture his wife with pleasure once the doctor approves marital relations?”
“Oh no, I couldn’t write about that!” she said in mock horror.
“Too scandalous even for you?”
“Not at all,” she said coyly. “Too long. That would take far more than one column.”