Extended Epilogue

Six Years Later

“Penelope, do not run so fast from your brother!” Madeleine called out to her daughter—five years old, and an absolute menace.

Her twin brother, Patrick, raced after her, trying to keep up on his short legs.

“Clearly, Penelope inherited one of our natures, and Patrick got the other,” Alexander mused, looking over the garden, where the children played among the falling cherry blossoms.

“Are you calling me short?” Madeleine scoffed. “Patrick is a lovely runner. Utterly graceful.”

As she said that, her son tripped over his own undone laces that he had not stopped long enough to let his governess tie.

“Patrick!”

“I am fine!” he called quickly over his shoulder and chased Penelope with renewed energy. “I will catch her!”

“No, you will not!”

The cry came from Matthew, Tessa’s son, who was five years old, like the twins.

Tessa’s other child, Elizabeth, sat on her knee, and she was rounded with her third. She and Colin had already decided on naming their unborn child Jonathan, for Colin and John had grown closer in the last several years.

It was Colin’s sister, in fact, who walked out with John in that moment, her hand clasped in his.

As brothers-in-law, John and Colin had grown closer, but it had also brought them closer into Alexander and Madeleine’s world. Now, they met at least monthly, the Easthalls and Halthorpes making the journey to Silverton.

“I imagine you will not be able to make the journey to Silverton soon,” Madeleine said to Tessa.

“However, it will be lovely to use the townhouse a little more for when we attend your residence in London.”

“Nonsense!” Tessa insisted. “I shall not simply sit down and be pregnant while everybody comes to me. I wish to travel and—”

“You shall rest,” Colin insisted. “As you did with all of our healthy children, Tessa, and I will not have it any other way.”

“He is quite right,” Madeleine giggled. “Alexander is very much the same. When I was having the twins, I could not move to even slip off my nightly robe.”

“And soon, we shall have such protection again,” Alexander swore to her, kissing her forehead.

Madeleine smiled at him, caressing her barely swollen stomach. She and Tessa, once again, found themselves with child at the same time, although Tessa was much further along. Madeleine still had at least seven months left until she gave birth.

She had not told Alexander yet but she had already begun thinking of names. If she had another girl she wished to name the child Maria, after his mother.

“Alexander, you have to be giving that wife of yours some breathing room.”

The joke came from the doorway into the sunroom, where Horace stood alongside his wife. She was an older lady, a woman who had once run a modiste in Bath, and had retired to the London countryside.

Together, the two of them made a rather distinguished older pair.

“And if I do not?” Alexander laughed.

“Then Madam Henrietta shall give you a good what for. Wives need space to do their… lady things.”

“Lady things,” Henrietta laughed. “Oh, Horace. You are as funny as the day I met you. And I have insisted many times, you do not need to call me Madam.”

Horace shrugged as he dropped into a chair outside. “Yes, well, it’s respectful, ain’t it?”

“I love this accent of yours,” Henrietta laughed. She brushed back a stray curl, tucking it into her hair, long and braided, and streaked through with gray. “Are we to attend the Raven’s Den tomorrow? We must see how our dear boy is getting along.”

They had not adopted one of Alexander’s former young employees, per se, but they had certainly taken them under their wing.

With both of them having felt too old to begin anew with families, they had looked out for the young boys entering the dangerous waters of the gambling hell employment.

“How is Frederick doing?” Alexander asked. “I recall him bursting into your office one day many years ago, claiming to see a ghost. I do not think I ever apologized for not believing him.”

“Oh, he’s doing just grand. If you thought him overworked that day you ought to see him now. We can barely get him to leave the place for longer than five hours for a good night’s rest.” Horace shook his head, smiling. “He’s a good boy, and making us very proud.”

“He will do well when Horace retires,” Henrietta said, smiling widely. “As it is now he barely lets Horace do any of the work. He is very keen to take up the mantle.”

“I am sure we all have a group of fine children to guide,” John said, hoisting his own young daughter onto his knee.

Grace was only one year old and already her eyes had the same hazel-green Madeleine had in her own eyes. Her niece reached out arms for Alexander, who took her happily.

“Oh,” Madeleine spoke up. “We must not forget the party for the twins next month.”

“Mrs. Turner has already arranged everything,” Alexander assured her, placing a hand on her own. “The twins shall be celebrating in a very grand style. I have commissioned them a carriage with small ponies for their use. They shall be carted around London and the countryside in it.”

Madeleine giggled, imagining her children’s heads popping out of a smaller carriage than theirs, going alongside her own with Alexander.

Soon, Mrs. Turner brought out refreshments of cake and tea, and both Colin and Horace dug right in. Beyond the garden of Silverton House, the sun began to set and Madeleine sighed, looking out over her life.

“I truly never thought I would have this,” she said quietly to him, reaching for his hand. She squeezed it tightly. “And I am so grateful that I do.”

“There will never be a day that you are without it,” he swore, kissing her knuckles. John called out, laughing.

Tessa berated him, while Henrietta tried to get Grace to come to her. They were a family, all of them, and Madeleine could not be more grateful for what surrounded her.

“You are a perfect husband,” she said to Alexander, “and a perfect father to the children. I never could have done any of this without you.”

He kissed her cheeks, letting the touch linger, as he smiled against her face. “I love you, Madeleine. My Duchess.”

“And I love you, Alexander, my Duke.”

The End.