Tamed By The Marquess (Extended Epilogue) Read online

  Tamed by the Marquess Extended Epilogue

  Extended Epilogue

  Girl on Horseback

  Ten Years Later

  Lady Hannah rode her thoroughbred into the courtyard of Gresham Manor at a gallop. “Whoa, girl,” she said to the sweating filly, pulling up on the reins. She and the horse had been out jumping stone walls, and it was a hot morning.

  Lady Hannah was nineteen, and astoundingly beautiful. She was tall and slender like her father, with the dark auburn hair and flawless, fair complexion that had made her aunt, the former Lady Henrietta—now a Princess in far-off Prussia—the toast of the haut ton twenty years before.

  What lifted Hannah’s beauty beyond that of the standard English rose was the hint of exoticism she had inherited from her strikingly lovely mother. She had unusual eyes, one golden brown like topaz, one glittering green like jade. And her movements were lithe and graceful, like some untamed wildcat.

  Lady Hannah had just finished the London Season, to great acclaim. Like her aunt in her day, she was the most beautiful girl to come out that year. Many young men pursued her—men with lofty titles and great wealth—but she found them boring.

  “Boring, boring, boring,” she muttered to herself. In fact, she found all London boring. She was very glad to be home.

  Lady Hannah had announced to her parents the previous summer that she had no intention of doing the London Season. “It’s like a cattle market,” she protested. “If I were a son, not a daughter, I wouldn’t have to do this.”

  A shadow of pain passed over the face of her mother, the Duchess. Lady Hannah knew her mother felt she was to blame in that she had never given her beloved husband a son, one who could carry on his title and inherit his wealth. They had three beautiful daughters. But that did not solve the entail problem.

  Still, her father brushed over the moment, saying, “That’s exactly where you’re wrong. I was a son, and I didn’t want to do the Season back then, any more than you do now. But my father, the old Duke, insisted on it. He said it was my duty to the Dukedom to find a proper wife.”

  “But that’s not where you met Mama, was it?” She loved to hear her parents’ romantic love story.

  “No,” said the Duke. “We were childhood sweethearts, as you know. But that’s neither here nor there, Hannah. With the estate entailed, we have to get you and your sisters settled in good marriages. Otherwise what will happen to you once we die?”

  “Oh, I imagine that brash Australian cousin you mentioned will show up here and throw me out onto the streets, while he turns all of Gresham into a sheep ranch,” Lady Hannah said flippantly.

  Her parents laughed. Life at Gresham Manor was quite secure. The Duke and Duchess were openly beloved by their people—as was their high-spirited, charming daughter, Lady Hannah.

  There had been years of good harvests, and the Duke’s retainers were living well under His Grace’s caring leadership. It was likely that the current occupants of Gresham Manor could plan on many happy years in residence there.

  ***

  “Still,” said Joanna to her husband, “we must think about the future. Hannah will have very little of her own when we die, unless she has married well. And then we still will have to worry about little Lady Rosamund and Lady Violet. All thanks to that bloody entail.”

  The Duke laughed. It amused him when his lady wife, so proper in public, cursed like a sailor in private. It reminded him of what she had been like as a tomboy, so many years ago, when he had first fallen in love with her.

  She was eight-and-thirty now, and he was soon to be forty. But time had made no difference in their passion. In his eyes, Joanna was as beautiful now as she had been at eight-and-ten, when they had first lain together beneath the rocks of Stonehenge and conceived Hannah.

  And she was as hot-blooded now as she had been then. Thinking of this, the Duke found his desire suddenly aflame for her. “Come here, woman,” he said huskily, reaching for her as she lay on the parlor chaise longue.

  “Christopher, it’s the middle of the afternoon,” she protested, laughingly. But she raised her arms and drew him to her, loosening the bodice of her elegant tea gown to give him the freedom of her bare breasts.

  It aroused him to see how quickly she always responded to his lust for her. Never, in all these years, had he found her unready. Always, like now, when he raised her skirts and opened his breeches, he found her wet, eager, and welcoming.

  When they had sated themselves, they lay for a while on the chaise, cradling each other. The Duchess began to speak again, as if her prior thoughts had merely been interrupted.

  “Seriously, though, Christopher, even if I can give you a son, we will have to find Hannah a good husband

  .”

  How do I say this to her? How do I help this woman, whom I love more than my own life, to face reality—without making her feel she is inadequate or to blame?

  “Joanna, my love

  we must be honest with ourselves. While I might have loved a houseful of noisy, messy boys running up and down the Manor stairs, I feel perfectly happy—perfectly blessed—to have the three wonderful children we do have.”

  “But—?” Joanna pressed him.

  “But this talk of still having a son

  I think we must be realistic. In my eyes you are ageless, my darling. But the fact is that you are rapidly reaching an age after which it would be quite dangerous for you to bear a child, even if you conceived one.”

  Joanna was crying softly. Christy had touched a very painful place in her heart. “What are you saying we should do, then?”

  “I’m saying it’s time we reached out again to my cousin in Australia, the heir to the Dukedom. We can’t hide our heads in the sand, Joanna. There is so much he will need to know, if he is to manage all this when I am gone.

  “It’s time to start getting him ready for the destiny that’s likely to await him.”

  “I could still have a son, Christy—I know I could—”

  “Joanna, love, I don’t want to put your health at risk. Women die in childbirth, you know

  you mean more to me than any son ever could. But if, against all expectations, you find yourself carrying another child, a son

  then Mr. Albertson of New South Wales can go to the devil. All right?”

  “All right.”

  “Meanwhile, I will write to this cousin tonight. Just to break the ice. He hasn’t heard from us, you know, since when he gave evidence against my former wife almost a decade ago.”

  ***

  At eight-and-twenty years of age, Rowley Albertson sat on horseback, gazing at his lands. They stretched to the horizon and far beyond.

  But what use was it all? His life, as far as he could see, was in ruins.

  On the prior evening, Peggy Flynn, the most beautiful girl in New South Wales and the brightest star among the English colonial families there, had refused his offer of marriage.

  Peggy Flynn was stunningly lovely. She had waist-long, silken-smooth strawberry blonde hair, almost apricot in color. Her eyes were turquoise. A very light dusting of freckles blessed her pert little nose and her slender white arms. Every young man in the colony wanted her.

  Unlike a well-bred girl back in England, she could have married for love alone. With her father’s money behind her, she was not bound to marry any particular class of man.

  Because people didn’t look too closely at antecedents here. Whether you had come here freely, or whether you started fresh after paying your debt to the Crown, it was all the same, whoever your ancestors were—so long as you pulled your weight and worked hard. It was a new start in a new world.

  Now, as the second generation of colonists—Rowley’s generation—came to the fore, about ten
families had risen to the top of the heap. The Albertsons were among the richest.

  But apparently that wasn’t enough for the lovely Peggy Flynn. In this new, rough-and-ready world, she hungered for the imagined gentility of the Old Country. She dreamed of titled gentry and well-appointed drawing rooms. Last night, she had made it clear to Rowley that her preference lay with another fellow in their wealthy young circle. He was known for neglecting his father’s profitable business, while dreaming of unearned glory in far-off lands. Rowley had little use for him.

  “Yes, you see, his father knows he’s meant for bigger things than staying here earning shillings in a penal colony. His father has contacted friends back in England, in the House of Lords, about getting him appointed to a governor’s post in one of the smaller colonies. Barbados, maybe, or the Galápagos Islands. Oh, Rowley, can’t you see me as a Lord Governor’s wife? Lady Margaret, they’d have to call me—much more elegant than my nickname ‘Peggy,’ that’s such a common, low sort of name.”

  “The answer to me is no, I take it?” Rowley inquired coldly.

  “Well, I’m sorry, but—Rowley, I do love you, but—I was born for finer things, can’t you see that?”

  So Rowley rode away. He considered the last four years of his life wasted. He should have been focusing on continuing to build his late father’s empire, right here in New South Wales.

  Two months later, the letter came from England.

  For years, Rowley had put all thoughts of the Gresham inheritance out of his head. After that brief scare about the Duke’s health ten years ago, he had received a follow-up letter from the family lawyer. The poisoner had been hanged, the adulterous wife had committed suicide. Putting such tragedies behind him, the Duke had recovered his health and had soon remarried.

  Having heard nothing since, Rowley had assumed the Duke had sired a houseful of children in the meantime. He wished him luck. Rowley had his own fish to fry, here on the other side of the globe. Now this letter had arrived.

  Apparently, the Duke and new Duchess had not been blessed with any sons. The communication, from the Duke himself, suggested delicately that the Duchess was approaching a time of life when further children would be unlikely. Mr. Albertson should be prepared for what appeared to be his eventual destiny.

  “The Dukedom is a large enterprise, with extensive holdings in a number of countries. The title might be enticing to some, Mr. Albertson, but it is little recompense, I assure you, for the hard work involved in running the Dukedom!” the Duke had written.

  “Still, so many people will be depending on you for their very sustenance, that you may find great lifelong satisfaction in the job, as I have.”

  The Duke urged him, as soon as it might be possible to make the long voyage “home,” to come visit Gresham and learn what he could about its management. “My Duchess, my daughters Lady Hannah, Lady Rosamund, and Lady Violet, and I will make you very welcome here at Gresham Manor, as part of our family.”

  Rowley’s first thought, upon reading the letter, was that he must tell Peggy immediately about his new, noble prospects. “Lady Governor”? Why, with me, she’d be a Duchess of the realm, with only Queens and Princesses taking precedence over her socially!

  But some stubborn sense of self-worth held him back. If she did not want me as plain Mr. Albertson, then she would not deserve me as the 11th Duke of Gresham.

  His businesses here were running smoothly. He could leave everything in the hands of his trusted factors for a year or so.

  He rode his horse to the shipping office in town, to find the soonest passage he could book to England.

  ***

  It was shortly after Lady Hannah had returned from her first London Season that she learned Mr. Albertson would be paying Gresham Manor an extended visit.

  “Oh, bloody hell, Father! There goes my entire summer, ruined.”

  The Duke, who secretly adored everything about his daughter that reminded him of his Duchess as a girl, attempted sternness. “Hannah, I have told you this before—a proper young lady never talks in that coarse manner. It is simply unacceptable.”

  “You laugh when Mother talks that way, so long as no one else is in the room to hear her.”

  “When you have survived as much as your Lady Mother has, with as much grace and dignity, then I give you leave to curse like a drill sergeant, if you wish. So long as it’s done in private. Hopefully, I will have gone to my heavenly reward by then, and I will not hear you.” The corners of the Duke’s mouth twitched in amusement. Father and daughter understood each other very well indeed.

  ***

  Lady Hannah had been looking forward to a peaceful summer. The London Season had been a sore trial. Her suitors had been, without exception, a bunch of empty-headed fops with thoughts of nothing but horses, cards, and fine clothes.

  Lady Hannah had been spoiled by growing up the close confidante of a father well-read in philosophy and history, one who took his duties as a Duke as a sacred trust. She cared very little about titles or wealth. But she would not marry a man with no dream, no vision of what his role in the world should be.

  Noble mothers and grandmothers tried to push their weak-chinned sons on her. She had no interest in them.

  Lady Jersey—who was still a force among the haut ton, even though her Prince had abandoned her well before he took the throne as His Majesty George IV—tried to attach herself to Lady Hannah. The aging courtesan was full of unsolicited advice about matches for Lady Hannah. She tried to take her under her wing, claiming “old family ties.”

  Lady Hannah avoided Lady Jersey like the plague, although she could not explain why the nasty old harridan gave her goose bumps.

  Her aunt, the estimable Henrietta, Princess of Gdansk, came to England on a visit to share in her niece’s triumphant first London Season. She tried to influence her. “You’re bored? So was I, my dear—London is a pit. Come to visit the Prince and me in Gdansk for the summer—there you will see true culture. We’ll find you someone worthy of you.”

  So it was with great relief that Lady Hannah escaped all this attention and returned to the simple beauty of Gresham Manor for a summer of freedom.

  And now, this Mr. Albertson was to join them, spoiling everything. His carriage from the port of Southampton was expected momentarily. No doubt he would be awkwardly stiff and proper; no doubt he would be empty-headed. And it was too much to hope that he might be even passable in appearance.

  She sat at her dressing table. Bloody hell. If they want me to play the part of the Duke of Gresham’s eldest daughter, I may as well dress for it.

  She called her personal maid—her closest friend, in truth—and said, “All right then, let’s give them quite the show. Make me look my best. It’s not like tonight really matters, anyway.”

  The End

 

 

  Scarlett Osborne, Tamed By The Marquess (Extended Epilogue)

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