Epilogue

One Month Later…

“You know, you might have warned me,” Anna said, shielding her face from the sun as she stretched out on the picnic blanket beside her friends. It was an engagement party of sorts, at her childhood home of Greenfield House, though it felt rather more like an ordinary, wonderful gathering of her best friends.

Matilda raised a mischievous eyebrow. “About what, exactly? Do you require the manuscript of my new book? Someone might as well read it, as even Beatrice fears it is too scandalous to ever reach the bookshops. Although, I still maintain it is a book of science. Of biology. Of anatomy. It is not something we should be shy about, when it is?—”

“About weddings!” Anna hastened to interrupt, blushing furiously.

Ever since she had announced her engagement to her dearest friends, Matilda had been finding every opportunity to try and get her to read her newest manuscript. She had conceded a fortnight ago and been given two pages. Those two pages were more than enough for her, remembering the details making her blush twice as hard.

“You did not warn me that weddings could be so stressful,” she added.

Caroline sat up, resting her parasol on her shoulder. “Are they? I have always thought it must be so lovely to plan one’s wedding. I have been planning mine since I was perhaps eight or so. When I finally find a suitable gentleman, I fear I shall have to wage a war of compromise with my mother, for she has an abundance of ideas and all of them to do with lace and freesias.”

“I want something… quiet,” Phoebe’s sister, Ellen, said from her position next to Caroline. “Something more akin to this. An informal sort of thing with those I cherish the most.”

Caroline nodded eagerly. “Oh, that does sound pleasant. Does it not, Joanna?”

“It truly does.” Ellen’s twin, Joanna, sighed with a smile. “There is nothing so marvelous as an intimate garden party, where the gentlemen are elsewhere.”

The three young women had become a rather sweet subsidiary of the Spinsters’ Club, spending as much time with one another as calendars and other engagements and distance allowed. It forever warmed Anna’s heart to see them becoming their own sisterhood, as close and dedicated now as Anna and her four beloved friends had once been.

Of course, Anna and her friends were still close, and as sisters to one another, but there was no denying that the intertwined friendships had changed somewhat. It was inevitable, forever evolving but forever the foundation of who they were and what they had become. There was beauty in that—a beauty that Anna could now see clearly, as she too prepared to become part of the Wives’ Club and, perhaps one day, the Mothers’ Club.

“Name your task, dearest Anna, and I shall see it done,” Phoebe vowed, picking a strawberry from a bowl and biting into it.

Olivia nodded. “I am entirely at your disposal. Phoebe and I were saying, just the other day, that we should offer our services.”

“As long as you do not mind three wildlings running around, I am also at your disposal,” Leah said eagerly. “Indeed, I would relish the opportunity to help. I have been waiting for your letter, asking us all to gather to get preparations underway, but it has not yet arrived.”

Anna gazed at them in astonishment. “I… thought you would all be too busy.”

“Heavens, no!” Phoebe cried. “We have been waiting desperately for this day for eight years—more, I suppose. We are your servants, to ensure that you do not have to worry about anything in the approach to this wedding.”

Anna flushed with heat. “Truly?”

“Of course!” Olivia agreed. “We all know you will be nervous enough on your wedding day, fearing the worst, and that is why we are determined to lift any additional worry or weight from your shoulders.”

“Not that there will be anything to fear,” Matilda cut in. “You know I have never been particularly soft of heart, but I have not seen any gentleman more besotted with a lady than Percival is with you. I am including Albion in that.”

Leah chuckled. “I have to agree. Nathaniel loves me with all his heart, and I adore him with all of mine, but your love is the kind they write about.”

“My goodness, when you told us of how he confessed.” Olivia feigned a swoon. “I about died, and I was more than a little envious.”

Phoebe swallowed her strawberry. “Who would expect anything less from The Matchmaker?” She winked. “Face it, dearest Anna, you found the most extraordinary love. You have beaten us all, and we adore you so much that we cannot even be annoyed about it.”

“It is all anyone can talk about,” Caroline chimed in excitedly. “Everyone thinks you revealed your secret identity deliberately, to make the news all the more thrilling!”

Joanna smirked. “I have heard several ladies say you did it to improve your legitimacy as The Matchmaker. If I did not know the truth, I would believe that. You must have been born on a lucky day or something, Anna, for I doubt it could have worked out better if you had meant to create this outcome.”

“I have been very fortunate,” Anna said quietly, suddenly shy about having all of the attention on her. “But enough of all of that—you have undoubtedly heard enough to last you a lifetime. Someone else must have an entertaining subject to talk about?”

“I am with child,” a voice squeaked.

Anna’s head snapped toward the voice, but it was unclear who had spoken. However, Phoebe was staring at Matilda with such utter shock that it soon became quite obvious.

“You are?” Anna gasped.

Matilda nodded slowly. “I have known for a month, but Albion’s mother insisted it was prudent to keep it to oneself until the quickening.” A nervous smile graced her lips. “I felt the child kick for the first time last week, but I did not want to write to inform you all. I thought it deserved to be mentioned at an informal meeting of the Spinsters’ Club.”

A moment later, she was bombarded, all four of her friends knocking her—gently—to the ground as they smothered her with their hugs and kisses and congratulations.

“You shall be the most wonderful mother,” Anna murmured, hugging her friend tightly. “Oh, they will be a force to be reckoned with!”

Matilda laughed and grabbed all of her friends, hugging them in return.

They were still like that, entangled together on the picnic blankets, laughing and smiling in their mutual pride and happiness, when the sound of gentlemanly voices drifted through the gate of the ornamental garden.

One of the gentlemen cleared their throats. “I wondered if I might borrow my betrothed for a moment?”

Anna sat up, grinning as she saw Percival standing there at the garden gate with a bouquet of orchids in his hand.

“I truly did ask Max if it would be all right, this time,” he said.

The other gentlemen were standing around him, clapping him on the back as if he was making his first attempt to woo a lady. It was a rather endearing scene, and one that gave Anna such hope for the future. Although, there were three faces missing: Max, Dickie, and Norman.

The former was at Harewood Court and was due to arrive later that afternoon. Dickie had imbibed too much and retired to his chambers until he felt better. And Norman was enjoying his honeymoon with Victoria in Scotland, with firm promises to return in time for the wedding.

“We helped,” Albion said, standing closest to Percival. “I showed him how to cut the stems properly, so it would not affect the growth of the plant as a whole.”

Matilda beamed. “I taught him that.”

“You have taught me a great many things,” Albion replied, smiling at his wife with such pride in his eyes. Indeed, there was no greater supporter of Matilda’s work than her husband.

“Not before he trounced us at shooting,” Nathaniel said with an irreverent grin. “You should have told us he had such tremendous aim! Then again, he shot love’s arrow through the most difficult—and worthy, of course—of hearts, so I suppose we should have known.”

Leah nodded, patting Anna gently on the back. “She is worthy indeed. And you, my darling, are a terrible shot. I imagine that is why you were trounced.”

“Ah, she knows me too well.” Nathaniel laughed. “There is nothing as fine in this world as being entirely known by one’s wife. Truly. I am not often serious, but you have everything to look forward to, my good man.” He clapped Percival on the shoulder.

“This may sound peculiar, Percival,” Evan said, “but we have all been anxiously awaiting you. Have we not, Olivia?”

Olivia chuckled, unable to hide her love for her husband as she nodded in agreement. “We have. And you, Percival, have saved the best for last.”

“What you have to understand,” Daniel added, “is that when you marry into the Spinsters’ Club, you become as invested in them as if you were part of the club yourself. Of course, they have their secrets between them, but the happiness of one is the happiness of all. It is the most bizarre and wonderful thing, so I trust that you will ensure dear Anna’s happiness forevermore.”

Nathaniel laughed. “Indeed, or we shall have to pretend we are angry with you on their behalf, then secretly invite you to meet with us. You see, we have our own club—the Spinsters’ Husbands’ Club. It is extremely elite.”

“Anna’s happiness is in careful hands,” Percival promised, smiling at her. “And I look forward to the day we are finally married, just as I look forward to the day that I may attend my first meeting of the Spinsters’ Husbands’ Club.”

The other men chuckled at that, congratulating Percival on his sense of humor. The mood between them was friendly and comfortable, as if they had all known one another since boyhood, and nothing could have delighted Anna more. In the past month, Percival had gone from strength to strength, becoming the sort of gentleman she knew he had always dreamed of being: popular, at ease in his own skin, optimistic, and deeply in love.

She got up and dusted the stray blades of dried grass from her skirts, making her way toward her beloved.

“Now, now, should you not have a chaperone?” Nathaniel teased.

Anna waved the suggestion away. “We shall not go far, and you are all here. You will serve quite well as distant chaperones.”

Percival offered her his arm. “Shall we?”

“Yes, my love, we shall.” She took the proffered arm and, together, they walked through the gardens of her childhood.

It was a unique situation, in that there was not a corner of those grounds and barely a room in that manor where they did not have some sort of shared memory, in all the years they had known one another. They told stories as they walked, reminding one another about this incident and that remark, both laughing at their former enmity.

“You tripped me here,” she told him, pointing to a bench at the far end of the rose garden. “I had come to show Max my debutante gown.”

“I did not trip you,” he protested. “You tripped on the skirts and blamed me.”

She frowned, wondering if that could be possible. “The hem did need shortening, but I still say you tripped me.”

“It may have been a little of both,” he conceded, smiling. “I promise never to trip you again. Goodness, how can you love such an idiot?”

She stopped him and reached up to stroke his cheek. “Because you are not an idiot anymore. And even if you were, you would be my idiot.” She chuckled, but it faded as she gazed deeply into his eyes, marveling at his sweetness, his beauty, his humor. “I could not love you more, my darling. My heart is so full, and I cannot wait to be your wife.”

“I would say that I could not love you more, but every morning I wake up, I remember that this is not a dream, and I find that I love you twice as much as I did the day before,” he told her. “You are a gift, Anna, and I shall never stop thanking the heavens for you.”

Happy tears pricked her eyes as she rose up on tiptoe and pulled his head down, pressing a kiss to his lips. He gathered her up in his arms, meeting her kiss with a hunger that thrilled her. After a month, she was still discovering all the kinds of kisses that were possible when one was so very, very loved.

She kissed him in kind, feeling as if the rest of the world did not exist. There were only the gardens and the two of them, enveloped in their own bubble of bliss that could never be burst.

In the summer warmth, surrounded by the scent of blooming flowers and the buzz of honey bees, they held one another close and kissed as if it might be their last. A feverish, searing rush of ravenous lips, slowing to something fiery and powerful, before slowing again into a kiss so intimate and magical that it was as if everything around them was holding its breath.

“Careful,” she whispered, breaking the kiss for a moment.

He paused. “Careful?”

“I do not want to crush the orchids,” she told him, smiling.

He grinned and gently set the flowers down on a nearby bench, before walking back to her and sweeping her up into his arms. “Never again,” he murmured.

“I love you, dearest Barnacle.”

He kissed her lips. “I love you more, my sweet Catchweed.” He kissed her again. “And please, do not argue. I cannot be distracted from the very important task of kissing you well and kissing you often.”

“Very well, I shall not protest one bit.” She laughed and as they swayed and kissed in the afternoon sunlight, as if they were alone upon a dance floor, she kissed the man she loved and knew that eight long and nerve-wracking years had been worth every minute. For this was a love to last a lifetime, and they were only just beginning.

The End?