Extended Epilogue

"Is Grace joining us?" Emily asked.

Frances and Evan exchanged a quick glance before Frances shook her head.

"She said she'd prefer to stay home," she said, mouth twisted to reveal her concern. "She said she didn't want to see all of us be ‘disgusting and in love' but I think it's more that…"

Diana scowled fiercely. "The gossip?" she asked in a tone that made Frances fear for anyone Diana might overhear spreading rumors about Grace.

Frances nodded. She had Evan had left London for an abbreviated wedding tour and had returned to find the gossip about Grace had grown more widespread and rather more replete with innuendo. It sickened Frances and infuriated Evan.

It was appalling, she thought, that Grace could survive abduction for years, thankfully staying physically unharmed, and members of the ton would make disgusting comments about Grace's apparent lack of virtue. The whispers had grown louder, more brazen; when Frances and Grace had taken a walk in the park the other day, she'd seen several debutantes hide their faces behind their fans as the pair walked by.

The shrieking titters of laughter had made it quite clear what they discussed. Grace had had to bodily prevent Frances from running them down to give her a piece of her mind.

"And to think, you're supposed to be the timid one," she'd muttered, hauling Frances along. "It isn't worth it, though, Frances. It will only make it worse."

Frances wasn't convinced. It was getting worse anyway. And it still might have been worth it.

But she'd seen the tension around Grace's eyes, which was becoming more and more obvious with every passing day, and she'd relented.

"Why do people have to be so awful?" Emily asked with an aggrieved sigh that had her husband bundling her under his arm, like he could protect her from every bad thought in the world.

Grace might, Frances though with an inward chuckle, have a point. They were all rather disgusting and in love.

"Can't we do something about it?" Diana demanded. "We've two dukes, a duchess, a marquess and marchioness, and an earl and a countess. What's the point of all those titles if we can't help someone we love when she's being hurt?"

"If by two dukes you include my father," Evan said in a drawl that scarcely hid his irritation, "I can assure you he is not useful in this manner."

Indeed, Evan had almost come to blows with his father over the duke's callous comments when the topic of gossip had arisen one night over dinner.

"It's just talk," he'd said, one eye on the omnipresent stack of papers that seemed to indicate that he was perpetually ensconced in important things that the rest of them couldn't possibly understand. "Ignore it. As long as you don't turn up pregnant, Grace, it will die down."

Evan had surged to his feet as Grace gasped. Frances seized his arm. Even the duchess had murmured, "Oh, dear."

The duke had taken one look at them all and given a dismissive eye roll. "Don't pretend you don't know what they mean when they say ruined," he drawled. "They mean harlot. If Grace is telling the truth, it will all die down. They'll remember that she is my daughter. I wouldn't stand for such behavior."

And then he'd neatly tucked his papers under his arm and quit the table without so much as a by your leave.

Evan had paced their bedchamber for an hour.

"'If Grace is telling the truth,'" he mimicked. "The gall of him. If only he'd remember for one minute that there's more to life than politics!"

Living back under his father's roof, however temporarily, had been challenging for Evan, Frances had quickly learned. They were searching for a house of their own, as Evan's bachelor quarters were not suitable for a man with a wife, in his words. They simply had not yet found a residence that suited their needs.

Or rather, they had. But it had been rejected.

"You want to live in Bloomsbury?" the duke had asked in the precise tone he might have used if they'd suggested they wanted to live in a gutter by the docks instead of the second most fashionable neighborhood in London. "No son of mine is going to live in Bloomsbury."

Thus, their search continued.

"You know, my parents might have had similar objections," Frances had pointed out when Evan was pacing their bedchamber over that comment. She imitated her father's low voice. "By God, Frances, you managed to marry a marquess and you still ended up living in as hovel? Only you could ever muck things up like that."

Evan paused, regarding her levelly.

"That doesn't make me feel better about my father, you know," he said. "It just makes me wish to also punch your father."

She searched her mind. "Would it make you feel better if I took off my clothes?" she offered.

He considered this for an instant. "Yes, actually."

So she had. This had resolved the issue for the evening, as they were much too distracted to worry about anyone but themselves for hours to come, after which they were too exhausted to do anything but sleep.

Inevitably, however, the duke would say something to irritate Evan within minutes of their being in the same room together, and the cycle would begin anew.

And there were only so many times per day Frances could take off her dress. Her maid would start to get suspicious.

Now, Evan leaned his head back against his armchair with a groan.

"Now I want to hit something," he muttered. "Why do I always want to hit something?"

"Common side effect of having a father," Andrew said in commiseration. "I'd recommend running off to the wilds of Canada until he has the good sense to die, but I suspect your wife would have something to say about that."

"I would," Frances confirmed.

"And your wife would have something to say about it," Diana added, poking Andrew in the side, "because I don't want his wife to be sad."

Andrew looked down at Diana, then back up at Evan.

"Sorry, Miller," he said. "You have to stay. Go to Canada and I'll drag you back. M'wife said no."

Diana preened as Emily laughed.

Evan snorted. "My father would drag me back himself, dead or alive. Doesn't look good to have your son flee the bloody continent because you drive him positively mad, does it."

"We could go hit something," Benedict offered in the most helpful suggestion so far—which was, Frances thought with a tinge of wonder, really saying something about the quality of suggestions in the room. "I know a good boxing club."

Evan picked up his head at this. "Perhaps," he said musingly. "Although I learned how to beat you years ago, Hoskins."

"You did not," Benedict grumbled. Evan ignored him.

"You didn't learn how to beat me," Andrew put in cheerfully. "And I will remind you that reason my father was killed was not just our good luck; it was because he was hanged as a murderer."

"A murder he didn't commit," Diana pointed out reasonably.

Andrew shrugged. "Everyone believed he did it, which tells you a bit about the kind of fellow he was, don't you think?"

A general murmur of acceptance greeted the room.

"Not to be dreadfully boring," Emily put in gently, "but do you think there is a better way to manage your feelings than hitting one another?"

"No," said all three men, sounding surprised she'd even suggest such a thing.

"Men," Diana muttered, the word sounding like a prayer of aid.

Her husband grinned down at her with a kind of wicked look that made Diana blush.

"And yet," he reminded her, "you all love us so."

Frustrated with masculine antics or not, none of the three friends were prepared to deny it.

Evan, Andrew, and Benedict—who all got along remarkably smoothly, as it happened—detached themselves from their womenfolk to make plans to reconvene later that evening at Benedict's boxing gym.

Diana, who had slid closer to Frances and Emily while their husbands schemed to gleefully do violence to one another, rolled her eyes.

"I will remind Andrew of the merits of not infuriating one's wife," she said dryly. "That should keep the injuries to a minimum."

A smile spread across Emily's face, and she chuckled, shaking her head.

"Marriage," she said with feeling. "Isn't it the strangest thing?"

Neither Frances nor Diana, as it turned out, had any objection to that.

The three couples spent a little while longer in one another's company before they separated for their evening plans. The men, of course, were going to bludgeon one another. Diana had a new gothic novel that she had graciously put aside to entertain her friends for the afternoon. Emily was going to dine with her sister Rose and Rose's new husband, Lionel Cartwright.

"Naturally," she said dryly, "I have arranged to meet with Amanda beforehand to lecture on why it is kind and generous to not torment one's new brother-by-marriage."

"It has not henceforth been effective," Benedict commented, coming up beside her.

"It has not," Emily acknowledged grimly. "But hope springs eternal. If all else fails, I'll tell her to torment Benedict twice as much for a while to even things out."

"You'll what?" Benedict demanded, looking down at her.

She patted his arm fondly. "We'll discuss it later, dear."

Benedict looked appropriately apprehensive, all things considered.

"I'm dining with my sister," Frances told them. Cordelia looked approximately as rotund as Diana had in the weeks before giving birth to Gracie, so Frances assumed this would be her last chance to meet with her sister for some time.

"And that is…good?" Diana prodded cautiously.

"Yes, I think so," Frances said with a nod. "I'm not sure we'll ever be the closest of friends—"

"Good," Diana interjected vehemently. "You already have friends. Cordelia can get her own."

"—but it is nice getting to know my sister. I think Harry is meant to come, too."

"Which is why I shall be happily elsewhere," Evan announced. "As Johnson still looks at me like he's considering stabbing me. I think it's occurred to him that if he kills me now, Frances will be a respectable widow."

"He's not going to kill you," Frances assured her husband. Probably, she mouthed to her friends, who each had to hide their grins.

Despite their intention to part ways, it took the group several more minutes to disperse, as various members—primarily the women—remembered just one more thing they had to tell the others.

Diana was in the middle of telling Frances all about how Gracie was nearly crawling, and certainly she'd manage the thing for real any day now, when Andrew clamped his hand down on her shoulder in a manner that made Diana blush furiously. Evan, meanwhile, lifted Frances by the waist and deposited her directly into their waiting carriage.

He closed the door and rapped on the roof to indicate to the driver that they were ready, while Frances crossed her arms and glowered at him.

"I was speaking with Diana!" she insisted.

He grinned, entirely unrepentant. "You can speak with her again tomorrow and every day after that—don't pretend the four of you don't have a hundred plans lined up already."

"More like the three of us," Frances muttered, her mind temporarily going back to Grace.

"Yes, well." Evan reached out and tugged at her arms until she uncrossed them, and then kept tugging until she came across the carriage to perch in his lap. From there, she wrapped her arms around his neck of her own free will. "Let me have some time with you to myself, as your husband. What do you say?"

"Oh, very well," she said with a teasing sigh as she leaned heavily against him. "But only if you make it very much worth my while."

"Oh, my darling," he said, arms coming around her as a devilish glint came into his eye. "If only you knew how much I intended to do just that."

The End