Epilogue

T he road through Derbyshire was just as Gyles remembered it, and the lane from Upper Cross to the Audeleys' country house felt as familiar as well-worn buckskins. Louisa had never seen his little corner of England, and he spent the last part of the drive showing her the landmarks, from their neighbour Miss Morrison's farmhouse to the boundary stone that marked his own land.

Cosette and Jacques were no longer with them. Jacques had been loath to leave his carriage and horses behind and Cosette, as it turned out, had been loath to leave Jacques. In recognition of services rendered, Louisa had offered Cosette all the dresses and jewels left behind in Paris. The unlikely pair had departed from Calais to go south again while Gyles and Louisa searched for the sheltered inlet on the east side of Calais. The boat in Mr. Smythe's letter could be characterised as nothing other than a smuggler's vessel that owed a favour to the Crown. The bearded captain took them aboard without question, and the crossing to Dover took less time than a tour of the Empress Josephine's greenhouse.

When they had arrived in Dover, Gyles insisted on calling at a bank to withdraw his own funds instead of visiting a pawn shop with Louisa's sapphires. "I may not be a duke, but I'm not exactly a pauper," he had assured her. With guineas in his pocket, he had secured a coach from the livery stable for himself and his sister, as Louisa's reputation would suffer if anyone recognised her name.

From Dover to Derbyshire was the most insufferable part of the trip. Gyles was possessed with a longing to be home, and an even greater longing to have Louisa presiding over his home as mistress of it now and always. He had never struggled to play the gentleman while in the presence of a lady, but being alone with Louisa in a closed carriage for three days was more temptation than he had bargained for, and he had been hard pressed to maintain his reputation as a preux chevalier . Finally, as the coachman pulled to a stop in front of the door, he leaped from the carriage door without even bothering to use the step. The February wind whipped at his coat and ruffled his chestnut hair as he helped Louisa disembark.

"Ah, Archie," he said, seeing the butler's nephew goggling at him from behind the open front door. "Can you tell my mother that I'm home?"

"Mrs. Audeley?" asked the silly gudgeon.

"Of course, Mrs. Audeley," said Gyles, tucking Louisa's arm under his as he led her up the stone staircase and into the house.

"Oh, but Mr. Audeley, beggin' yer pardon, she isn't here anymore, and she isn't Mrs. Audeley neither. "

"Why, what do you mean?" asked Gyles, shutting the front door that Archie had left open as Louisa began to remove her bonnet and her gloves.

"I believe he means that your mother is now Lady Kendall," said Louisa perceptively, and Archie, overcome with the visitor's golden-haired beauty, could only stare open-mouthed and nod like a stippled brook trout.

Startled, Gyles looked from Archie to Louisa and back again. "Well, then, I suppose there will be less confusion about the place, for I must present to you the soon-to-be new Mrs. Audeley." His face took on a worried look. "But Louisa, I don't know what we shall do without a chaperone until the banns—"

"Congratulations," said a world-weary voice, and the sound of one pair of hands clapping filled the hallway. Gyles wheeled about swiftly to see a tall, brown-haired man, with wide shoulders and handsome jaw, applauding their announcement from the door of the parlour.

"Warrenton!" he uttered with surprise.

"Uncle Nigel!" echoed Louisa, and for the first time in a long while, Gyles heard the sound of fear shimmering in her voice.

"What are you doing here?" demanded Louisa. Her arm tightened around Gyle's firm forearm.

He cannot take you away. He cannot. Gyles will do something about it and stop him.

"That," said the Duke of Warrenton, "is a long story. Perhaps we should sit down in the parlour so I can explain?"

Warily, Louisa walked into the parlour with Gyles and sat down next to him on the sofa. His large, calloused hand covered hers and pressed it gently.

Why are you so frightened? Gyles will take care of you as he always does.

Uncle Nigel sat across from them on an old armchair. A black and white cat came over from its place by the window and leaped up onto his lap. The duke's hand began to stroke it gently, his thumb rubbing a circle just between the ears. He looked strangely at home in the armchair, at home and yet adrift.

"When you disappeared from London, I came looking for you, Louisa—in the company of Lord Kendall and Mrs. Audeley. We thought you were bound for the border at first, thanks to the direction set by the Audeley coach." He nodded to Gyles, a compliment to the diversion that he had orchestrated. "But the trail actually led to Derbyshire, and to this house in particular." The cat adjusted its position on his lap, and the duke adjusted his own position in the chair to accommodate the feline's desire to stretch out fully.

"Imagine your mother's surprise when only her coachman was here with an empty carriage, and the both of you had disappeared without a trace."

Gyles' jaw set like concrete. "A regrettable but unavoidable result in keeping Lady Louisa safe from you."

"I don't deny that I'm to blame in this," said Uncle Nigel, and Louisa was surprised to see him take a conciliatory and even penitent tone. "In fact, if I'd never bargained with Digby, then Louisa would never have run away."

"There would have been no need! But your own greed wouldn't allow me to make a match of my own. It had to be someone of your own choosing who would pay you handsomely for the opportunity."

Again, Uncle Nigel did not disagree. "And how well I have been served for that selfishness. You see, Louisa, I've been forced to run away from London as well. I took an advance from Digby, and I spent it on all the fripperies I used to love so well. And now I can't show my face until I've paid that debt back—or my face will never look the same again."

Louisa wrinkled her nose. No wonder her uncle had been so adamant that she accept Solomon Digby's advances. He was under the thumb of a moneyed ruffian, and Digby was not above employing physical violence to get what he wanted.

"You seem…different," she said. And he did. The rakish Uncle Nigel of the last two years had almost disappeared. He was more like the kindly Uncle Nigel she remembered from childhood, playing spillikins and riddles with her at Christmas when her parents had forgotten that she existed.

"Do I?" His face was drawn, worn, pale. "I've had a disappointment of sorts—no, nothing to do with the money. Something else." The circles he was rubbing on the cat's fur became more agitated.

"So, you won't try to marry me off to Digby any longer?"

"No, no, that's all over. I'm sorry I made that arrangement in the first place."

A wave of relief came over Louisa, and the tension in her shoulders dissipated like steam from a kettle. She had been bearing up under that awful arrangement for so long that she did not even remember what it felt like to have the burden lifted.

"And you'll give your consent to me marrying your niece?" interjected Gyles .

Louisa lifted her eyebrows with eager anticipation. If her guardian would comply, she and Gyles could be married in three short weeks instead of waiting almost three months for the happy day.

"Yes, I don't see why I shouldn't." The duke looked at Gyles consideringly. "Your mother's become a friend of mine, you know—that's why she let me take refuge here—you have her eyes, and something of her generosity, I expect."

"I would be quite happy to let you live here for three more weeks," said Gyles with a smile, "so that you can serve as our chaperone before the wedding. But then it's back to London for you, for I shall want my house, and my rose garden, and my wife all to myself."

"Of course," said the duke sensibly. "I've been considering where I shall go next. Not London, but to my estate…or what's left of it. I need to make things right. Or at least, as right as I can make them."

Overjoyed to see the solution to all their difficulties, Louisa rose from the couch and ran forward to take her uncle's hand in her own. "Thank you," she said. "I don't know how much of a compliment this is, but I think, in time, you'll be a better duke than any of the Lymingtons ever have been."

"A low bar indeed," agreed her uncle, "but I shall strive to meet it."

The gentlemen stood up from their seats, and the black and white cat leaped off the duke's shifting lap to take refuge in the cushioned window seat across the room.

"I know that cat," said Gyles speculatively. "It belongs to my neighbour, Miss Morrison. She'll probably come by the house looking for it. "

"Yes, you're right. She did come by the house looking for it. More than once. But she's stopped coming by now." The Duke of Warrenton sighed. "And therein lies my disappointment…."

FINIS