Epilogue

December 25, 1812

“Happy Christmas!”

The voices rang out all around the drawing room at Stanphrey Lacey, and Edie smiled shyly at the raucous it caused.

Her family had always been small. Herself, and her father. Then Mrs. Teagan. And now…

“My goodness, this brandy is excellent stuff,” her father said happily, emptying his glass. “But you young people have far more stamina than most—I’m afraid I’m going to have to retire.”

Edie had been surprised her father had managed to keep up with what he called “you young people” for so long. After all, he was getting on in years, and the last few months… Well. They could hardly be described as restful.

“I will accompany you to bed,” said the new Lady Stewart, flushing at the mention of a bedchamber. “I… Ahem. Yes. Tired.”

Smiling broadly, Edie squeezed her stepmother’s hands. “Thank you for a wonderful day. Your company has been invaluable.”

Her former chaperone flushed, demurred, and very happily took her new husband’s arm—a husband that, to Edie’s eyes, looked ten years younger.

The luxury of Stanphrey Lacey had undoubtedly had its effect. Edie had never seen a manor house more ideally suited to hosting, and the Cothroms had been insistent that everyone join them for the festive season.

The drawing room had been decorated to the hilt, covered in ribbons of red and gold, holly and ivy garlands festooning all over the place, and more candles than was surely safe. And yet Edie rather had the impression that the place was dazzling at any time of year. The marble statues situated in the small alcoves were stunning, as were the huge portraits that lined the walls, elegant vistas and refined landscapes that told of a family who had been on the Grand Tour for many generations.

And within the splendid room: a family.

“Oh, such a shame,” said Alice, the Duchess of Cothrom, with a sparkling laugh. “But does this mean you’ll be sufficiently rested for the Boxing Day hunt?”

“I hope so, my dear lady, I do hope so,” said Lord Stewart, beaming. “Good night, all! Good night, my flourishing rose.”

Edie permitted her father to brush her head with a kiss, squeezing his hand as he and the new Lady Stewart departed the drawing room.

He truly loved his daughter—and he wanted the best for her even if they had, at times, disagreed precisely on what the best was. Her mother had been his flourishing rose, and he had been determined, for a while, to hold on to her daughter in much the same way.

But he had given her his blessing, freed her from the constraints of being the perfect flourishing rose Society had wished for. And that had meant she had—

“You do look rather dazzling,” said Frederick quietly, seated by her on the sofa. “A flourishing rose, indeed.”

Edie snorted quietly as she pulled his arm around her, snuggling into him with a level of intimacy she would have been mortified at mere months ago.

No longer. The Chance family, rowdy and busy and confusing as it was, had welcomed her with open arms. Though she was still growing accustomed to so much noise about the place, it was impossible to deny that she was not a part of this boisterous family.

“I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m just saying that I am right,” said John, the Marquess of Aylesbury, in a teasing voice.

The oldest Chance brother, William, Duke of Cothrom, was standing beside him with a testy look on his face. They had been helping themselves to drinks, as far as Edie could see, but had got waylaid with an argument about—

“I am not about to give you a second wedding present,” William said warningly. “You married an heiress!”

“Excuse m-me,” pointed out a beautiful woman with fiery-red hair and a twinkle in her eye. “I can hear you, you know!”

Laughter echoed around the room as the two men flushed. Florence, the heiress wife of the Marquess of Aylesbury, grinned as she sat in an armchair near the fire.

“Don’t worry about them,” said George Chance, the Earl of Lindow, in a mock-whisper that surely carried. He was seated on another armchair, his wife beside him scribbling down something in a notebook. “I’m the easy brother to get along with. You don’t have to worry about them.”

“I’m sure,” said Frederick quietly beside her.

Edie tried to ensure her smile did not falter. She could hear the pain in her husband’s voice, even if no one else could, and it hurt to think that so much time had been lost between men who should have been the heart of each other’s lives for so long.

And yet the Earl of Lindow and Frederick had been… Well, not at loggerheads. That was perhaps too simple.

The frostiness had melted, however. Edie watched as Frederick met George’s glare, and though both of them looked discomforted, there was no denial of the latter’s words.

They were trying. Trying was all one could ask.

“You boys are taking too long with those drinks,” Alice called over. “Hurry up!”

“Yes, my love,” said William quietly, hurrying over with a glass of lemonade for his wife.

Edie gave a sigh of happiness as Frederick’s fingers curled around her waist, pulling her closer.

It was bizarre, indeed, to see a man as stiff and formal as the Duke of Cothrom call anyone something as intimate as “my love”—but then, it was impossible to deny the deep affection that was so obvious between William and Alice. Between each of the Chance brothers and their brides.

She sighed happily. This was a family in which affection and friendship were important. It was more than she could have ever hoped for.

“Lemonade never tasted so good,” Alice said, taking a large gulp. “You know, ever since I discovered I was with child, I’ve lost all taste for liquor. It was the same with Maudy.”

Maude, Alice and William’s daughter, had gone to bed long ago. Edie had not completely worked out how that had happened—from what she had read, the Cothroms had married but six months ago, and Maude was at least three years old, though she had been delicate enough not to remark upon it. Another scandal , she mused with a wry smile, the Chance family had weathered .

“Oh, I’m just the s-same,” said Florence lightly. Then her cheeks pinked with a scarlet that looked almost painful and she covered her face with her hands.

“Florence!” hissed John, hurrying over to her. “We said we weren’t—”

“I know, I d-didn’t mean to!” Florence stammered behind her hands.

Edie’s lips parted. “You mean—”

“You can’t mean!” said Alice, leaning forward with evident delight on her face. “You’re not!”

All the Chances had seated themselves now around the fire: Edie and Frederick on one sofa, Dodo and George on another, William standing behind his wife’s chair, and John kneeling at Florence’s feet.

“We had said we’d wait,” said John with a laugh. “And yet it appears that we can’t!”

“Oh, but why hold on to such good news as that!” Edie said, unable to help herself. When the entire room turned to look at her, she swallowed. It was going to take some getting used to, this family. “I mean, a child!”

“Quite right too,” said Frederick.

Edie’s heart lurched.

They hadn’t spoken on that topic much. There were so many other things to discuss, so many things to do—so many carnal desires that they ended up getting distracted by, hungry lips reaching to give pleasure, now that they could. Now that they were married.

Children had not precisely been the top of the list, when it came to discussions.

Perhaps now, it would…

“Well, in the spirit of not holding on to good news like that,” said Dodo slowly.

Edie stared as George took his wife’s hand.

“We hadn’t even decided when to tell people,” he said, an unusually shy look on his face.

Alice threw up her hands in her excitement. “Not you as well!”

Dodo’s blushing nod caused even more calls of congratulations to flow through the room.

“Goodness me, all three of us,” said Alice in wonder. “No offense, my dear.”

“No offense taken,” said Edie, laughing as she leaned into Frederick’s comfortingly strength. “Why, we’ve only been married ten minutes!”

“Not that that stopped us,” he murmured into her ear.

She flushed, but thankfully, it did not appear that anyone had heard him.

Not that it would have been the end of the world. Edie was no great mathematician—certainly not in comparison to her sister-in-law, Dodo—but by her reckoning, it shouldn’t be possible for the Lindows to know whether they were with child yet.

Which meant…

Well . She had certainly married into the right family.

“—ch-children all over the p-place,” Florence was saying with a grin.

“It’ll certainly make things more interesting,” said William dryly.

“Just think, cousins for Maudy, as well as a brother or sister,” his wife said so softly that Edie only just heard him.

The only response her husband gave, as far as Edie could see, was a squeeze of Alice’s shoulder.

Everyone in this family was so different, so unique in their expressions of affection. And yet they had true affection for each other, that much was plain. Even Frederick and George. Of a sort.

“Congratulations on the impending expansion of your family,” her husband was saying to the earl formally.

George’s jaw appeared a little tighter, just for a moment. “Thank you.”

Edie saw the tension in her husband’s face and spoke into the silence. “Well, I shall have to hurry up and join you all—I wouldn’t wish to get left behind!”

Laughter and other conversation flowed at her remark—so much so that when Frederick leaned his mouth close to her ear and murmured, Edie was certain no one else could hear him.

“You’re right, my love,” he whispered, his breath on her neck. “And I think we’re going to have an awful lot of fun trying.”

Thankfully, Edie was able to blame the nearby fire for the heat in her cheeks when Dodo asked if she was feeling well. Wild horses would not have dragged from her what Frederick had just said.

She smiled, trying to show him in the silence of her expression just what she thought of that suggestion—and Frederick’s answering look told her that he knew very well.

Oh, this man. To be sure, they had not perhaps married in the most traditional of ways. Their clever scheme had ended up tricking both of them into something they could never have predicted.

Standing against Society and all their expectations had never been something Edie had thought would be a part of her future.

But she would not change how things had happened for the world. He was her world. Frederick Chance, Viscount Pernrith, and all his pain and joy and complexity? He was the one she wanted, and would want, for the rest of her life.

The conversation had continued while they had shared their moment.

“—think they’ll get on?” William was asking.

“Who?” asked Edie, eager to rejoin the conversation.

“The cousins, of course,” said John with a laugh. He had sat on the floor beside his wife’s chair, leaning against her legs as her fingers played with his hair. “Poor old Maudy isn’t going to know what hit her. A sibling and two cousins, all in the same year?”

“I suppose they’ll get on splendidly,” said Dodo. “The odds are—”

“What, like we all do?” George said dryly.

There was a moment of silence as he met Edie’s gaze. His eyes flickered over to her husband beside her.

Edie held her breath. It was a delicate moment.

Frederick chuckled. “I suppose so.”

“We are all very different people,” said William solemnly.

“But we are brothers,” John pointed out with a snort. “We always stand by each other. And we always have.”

Edie watched as the four men—three of them so alike in appearance, and then her husband, Frederick—exchanged looks. Nods.

Some of the tension that had suddenly built melted away, and if the expressions on the other three wives were anything to go by, she was not the only one.

“We shall just have to hope the next generation goes on to be as lovely as we are to each other,” John said cheerfully.

George snorted. “Or more so.”

“As long as they don’t make all the same mistakes you lot have,” said William darkly.

“ William !”

“Well, they have,” he protested against his wife’s remark. “All the nonsense they’ve put me through—”

“You don’t think we’ve had to suffer you?” remarked John with a teasing grin.

Frederick slipped his hand over Edie’s as the good-natured teasing continued around them. He squeezed her hand, and she squeezed it back.

This was what she had wanted. Not just a husband—her future had always contained her a husband. That was simply what ladies of the ton expected.

No, she’d wanted this. A family. Laughter, and nonsense, and teasing—and yes, the awkward moments. Disagreements slowly worked through, and misunderstandings that in time only brought people closer together.

And a man, like Frederick, who adored her. Who was worthy of being adored in turn.

“—that’s what I think, anyway,” said George firmly. “What say you, Pernrith? You’ve been awfully quiet.”

Edie sensed the tension cascade through her husband. He did a remarkable job hiding it. How long had Frederick been hiding his true thoughts, his deep feelings? How long had he felt like an interloper in a family in which he so obviously belonged?

And the tension somehow disappeared, his hand soft and loving once more.

Frederick grinned. “Well, I’m only half a chance,” he said easily. “But the way I see it? I think the next generation of Chances will have plenty of new mistakes to make of their own… “