The Marquis At Midnight (23 page)

Epilogue

‘I swear, Hester, if you grow any larger you
will pop!’

Hester Woodward groaned, lowering herself
into a chair in slow degrees. ‘Just you wait,’ she said bitterly,
while a maid slid a footstool beneath her ankles. ‘In another three
months we shall see who is making fun of the fat woman.’

Grace smiled, touching her own swollen
belly. She wasn’t as bad as Hester, but she rather felt as if she
were playing catch up. Her normally slender waist was a thing of
the past.

It seemed that the Marquis
of Morvyn
was
the
kind of man to succeed where others had failed.

They were staying at Maylands, the Woodward
country estate in Essex, where Hester had retreated in September
for the rest of her confinement. She had written to Grace when she
had arrived, begging her to come and keep her company as almost
everything was becoming intolerable to her, specifically Porter’s
doting presence, and she needed the leavening influence of her best
friend.

Grace and Morvyn had arrived the following
week and time had passed most pleasantly, the summer heat finally
dissipating, replaced by cooler autumn days.

‘Who would have thought,’ Hester said rather
dreamily, ‘that we should be sitting here together like this? It
all worked out very well.’

‘It certainly did,’ Grace agreed softly.

For really, who would have thought it? At
this time last year, she had been alone, living by herself in an
empty house in Yorkshire. She had not been unhappy, no. A little
empty, a little lonely, and with the prospect of many long years
stretching out before her. She had been a young widow, still
hurting from the inexplicable death of her husband. It wasn’t until
she had met Morvyn and, consequentially, understood what had
happened in the past that she had begun to live again.

The war in France continued on. While
Lovington had been taken and had met his inevitable end on the
gallows, they were still hunting the mystery man who was playing
havoc with England’s intelligence network. He was a shadow, it
seemed, and shadows were damned hard to catch. Or so said Porter,
whose job it was to try.

Grace leaned back and put her own feet up,
smiling as she felt the small creature inside her give a hearty
kick. She closed her eyes and, like her friend, she drifted into
the light doze that seemed to catch her up all too frequently these
days. Even so, when a door open somewhere, Grace’s sleeping self
knew who had arrived and she smiled. And when a pair of hands
settled on her shoulders, she leaned her cheek against a by now
very familiar arm.

‘The two of you are a sight to behold,’ her
husband murmured in her ear.

Grace opened her eyes and gave a chuckle. ‘I
am not nearly as bad as poor Hester, surely.’

‘You are beautiful,’ he returned and she
grinned and came fully awake.

‘That is the kind of thing one likes to hear
from a man, especially when one is as puffed up as a Christmas
pig.’

Moving around to stand before her, he held
out a hand. ‘Walk with me? I promise you, I shall move slowly.’

‘Excuse me,’ she retorted, taking his hand
and allowing him to pull her to her feet, ‘but I am not as bad as
all that, thank you very much! Now, if it were Hester…’

Both of them looked at the lady who remained
comfortably ignorant of the conversation, soundly asleep among her
nest of pillows.

‘Point taken,’ Morvyn grinned.

Truthfully, Grace had experienced a trouble
free pregnancy so far. Ever since she had met Morvyn – really met
him, as opposed to a fleeting introduction followed by eighteen
months of prejudice – her life seemed to have taken on a far
smoother course than previously. She had never felt so loved, so
protected. That night in the gardens with Lovington had made her
marquis more determined than ever to shield her from the more
unpleasant aspects of life and he had ensured that she was troubled
by nothing. Grace appreciated his efforts on her behalf, but, more
than anything else, she appreciated the man himself; his
companionship, his love, his willingness to share himself.

She doubted there was a happier woman in all
of England.

They wandered out onto the terrace, covered
with yellow leaves now from the row of silver birches nearby. It
was a perfect evening; cool and clear, the sun just beginning to
dip towards the horizon. Morvyn slipped an arm around his wife and
together they stood surveying the garden.

‘Dearest Grace,’ he murmured, lips against
her hair. ‘I am quite sure a man of three and thirty should not
feel like this. Especially not in October.’

His wife smiled. ‘Like what?’

‘As if it is springtime and I am a
lamb.’

The idea that her marquis –
so solid, so steady, so infinitely,
wonderfully
reliable – should be a
lamb made her laugh. Turning in his arms, she looked up at him,
looked into his eyes. ‘You may gambol with me for the rest of our
lives, my love. In fact, I insist on it.’

Sherry bent his head and kissed her, long
and hard. Baby or not, some things did not change. It was still all
too easy to become lost in passion, but now, they were at least
allowed some privacy, so embarrassing situations could be
avoided.

A sound broke the moment, a small shriek
through the open French doors. Morvyn and Grace drew back,
startled.

‘What the devil?’

‘Hester!’ Grace breathed, just before
another squeak came, followed by a long, drawn out…

‘Grace
!’

‘Go and find Porter,’ Grace said
comfortably, stepping out of the circle of his arms, ‘and I’ll have
the midwife sent for. The fat woman is finally ready to pop, thank
heavens. I thought she would never get there.’