A Fiery Escort For The Roguish Marquess (Extended Epilogue) Read online

  A Fiery Escort for the Roguish Marquess Extended Epilogue

  Extended Epilogue

  Two Years Later

  Ernest leaned back in his chair and smiled as he brought a glass of brandy to his lips. Lady Katherine’s garden party was in full swing; a dizzying array of feathers and laces and clinking glasses. Champagne was overflowing, and hunting stories abounded.

  Lady Katherine flittered around the tent on the arm of her husband, the Duke of Harrington. Dressed entirely in pale pink, she was all airy laughter and exaggerated hand gestures.

  “Five and thirty years older than her,” Archie told Ernest over the top of his glass. “Wonder what tricks the old dog has up his sleeve to keep her giggling like that.”

  Ernest chuckled. It was a little secret that Lady Katherine and the Duke were madly in love.

  Ernest’s gaze was quickly pulled from Lady Katherine as he heard Rachel’s bell of a laugh rise up from the crowd. His smile widened as he watched her. As always, there were men and ladies clustered around her, laughing along with her as she engaged them in one of her many stories. A part of Ernest didn’t dare think what bawdy secrets she might be revealing about this duke or that marquess. Another part of him loved that Rachel had been made so welcome at events such as this.

  Neither Rachel or Ernest had made any secret of how they had met. They had told their story openly, had steeled themselves for the shocked expressions and whispers behind their backs. And the shock and whispers had come, of course, in great supply. In the first months after their wedding, they had been shunned from social events out of principle.

  Then Archie and his wife had invited them to their Christmas ball, and the ton had fallen in love with Rachel. The new Duke of Armson’s wife, it seemed, could breathe life into any room—and tell a few interesting stories while she was at it.

  Nor had Ernest made any secret of the events that had unfolded at Graceton Manor, resulting in his father’s death.

  He had lived among secrets for far too long. Secrets had destroyed his family. And so he would be nothing but honest, even in the face of scandal.

  The ton had pretended they had known all along. Had seen it coming, of course.

  I could tell the man was no good, couldn’t you?

  At first, their know-it-all reactions had made Ernest angry. Still, he reasoned, he supposed it was easier to pretend they had seen it coming than admit they too had been blinded by the Duke of Armson’s charms.

  Rachel flitted over to her husband, grazing gentle fingers over his shoulder. Ernest felt a shiver go through him. Two years of marriage had not dampened his desire for Rachel. He reached for her hand and looked up at her with hooded, desire-filled eyes.

  She was dressed in a simple pale-blue gown, a pearl-studded comb sweeping her blonde hair back from her face. Ernest loved how simply she dressed. Though she was the wife of one of the highest-ranking men at the party, she never thought to festoon herself in ribbons and laces. What need did she have for such a thing, Ernest thought. She was already the most beautiful lady here.

  She smiled down at him. “We ought to leave. We’ve somewhere very important to be.”

  Ernest grinned. “Of course.”

  Making their goodbyes, Ernest and Rachel headed for their waiting carriage. Ernest reached for her hand as the coach rolled through the gate. She shuffled across the bench and pressed herself against his side.

  “See,” she said, “that party wasn’t so bad now, was it?”

  Ernest chuckled. “These things are far more bearable now I have you.” He held his lips against hers for a moment.

  Everything is wonderful now I have you.

  Soon they were clattering through the crowded streets of Covent Garden. Their driver drew the horses to a halt as they reached the edge of the Strand.

  Ernest pointed through the carriage window to a shop front on the corner. “It’s that one,” he told Rachel.

  She grinned. “Oh yes. I see your mother and William.”

  She bounded from the carriage without waiting for Ernest and hurried toward her mother-in-law. She scooped her son from his grandmother’s arms. “Thank you for bringing him,” Rachel told the Duchess, planting a kiss on the baby’s rosy cheek. “I know he’s very glad he can be here to support his auntie.”

  The Duchess smiled broadly, tucking a lock of hair beneath her grandson’s cap. “Of course.”

  Ernest joined them on the street, sliding an arm around Rachel’s waist and pulling her and their son close. When they had welcomed William eight months earlier, Ernest had come to see that the Duke had been right about one thing. Fatherhood was the greatest of joys. And it was made all the more sweet by having a wife he loved to share it with.

  He peered through the window of the shop in front of them. Shelves lined the glass, filled with cakes and sweetmeats of every color.

  It had taken months of persuading, but Ernest had finally convinced his sister that her bread and cakes were good enough to be sold to London’s wealthy upper class. Though Betsey was fiercely determined to keep her bakery in Bethnal Green running, she had agreed to open a second shop here in Covent Garden.

  Betsey and her husband had provided jobs to a number of older children from the workhouses, teaching them to make the same baked goods that filled Bethnal Green with such delicious aromas each day. Today, the new bakery would open to the public for the very first time.

  ***

  In the back of the new bakery, Betsey wiped her hands on her apron and pinned a stray strand of hair back into the knot on her neck. She smiled as her husband appeared behind her, sliding his arms around her waist.

  “We did it,” he said, close to her ear. “Everything is ready. And your family is outside waiting.” He turned to face her. “Shall we go and see them? See these doors open?”

  Betsey smiled.

  My family.

  It had been two years since her family had grown to include a mother and brother—from the top of the nobility, no less. Sometimes Betsey still had to pinch herself to believe it. Other times she felt as though she had known Ernest and her birth mother forever.

  She nodded to Matthew. “Let’s go.”

  He caught the strings of her stained apron, tugging her back toward him. “No need for this,” he grinned, undoing the laces and tossing it on the table.

  Betsey returned his smile. Daughter of a duchess or no, she still felt the most comfortable in a flour-stained apron. So much so, she usually forgot she was wearing it.

  Clutching her husband’s arm, she made her way out into the shop. She looked around at the perfectly-decorated shelves, the delicate decorations on the cakes, thought of the shiny new oven she had installed in the back. Her two workhouse apprentices were waiting eagerly behind the counter to serve her customers.

  Drawing in her breath, Betsey turned the key in the lock and opened the door. In rushed the crowd of people that made up her family now. There were her three children, as noisy as ever, herded inside by their two grandmothers. Betsey’s adoptive and birth mothers had become close friends over the past two years. Both Betsey and her adoptive mother had been anxious when the Duchess had requested an audience with her former lady’s maid. After all, the Duchess had sworn Mrs. Miller to secrecy, and her inability to do so had almost resulted in several deaths.

  But their anxiety had been for nothing. When Mrs. Miller had arrived at Graceton Manor in a flood of nerves, the Duchess had pulled her into her arms.

  “Thank you,” she gushed. “Thank you for keeping my daughter safe for me for all these years. I can never thank you enough. It was unbearably difficult not having her in my life, but it made it that tiny bit easier knowing she was safe with you.” Both had erupted into tears, and they had been near inseparable since.

  They stood on either side of Betsey now, each clutching one of her arms and bombarding her with congratulations. She felt a swell of warmth in her chest. What a joyful thing it was to have two mothers—and what a joyous thing it was that she was somehow managing to exist on both edges of society.

  Behind her mothers were Ernest and Rachel, William clamped to his mother’s hip. Ernest caught Betsey’s eye and gave her a knowing smile.

  Betsey had been reluctant to attempt this venture the first time Ernest had suggested it. She had been reluctant the second, third and fourth time he had suggested it too. But the sight of the shop filled her with an enormous sense of pride. She was glad she had listened to her brother.

  He wove his way to her through the sea of customers who had begun to flood into the shop.

  “Yes,” said Betsey, before he could speak. “You were right. I’m very glad I decided to do this.”

  He grinned and kissed her cheek. “Congratulations.” He gripped her hands. “A celebration tonight at Graceton Manor. I know you’d rather have it at your house above the bakery, but I’m afraid we just won’t all fit around your dinner table.”

  Betsey laughed. “You won’t all fit through my front door.”

  It had taken many visits before Betsey had begun to feel at home in the monstrous house she had been born in. She was still not sure she was entirely there yet. But while Graceton Manor did not feel like home, she no longer felt like an intruder in the place. And that, she knew, was something.

  She smiled at Ernest. “That would be wonderful.”

  ***

  Rachel lowered her son into the crib and smoothed his fine auburn hair. She stood watch
ing him as his little chest rose and fell in sleep, an enormous smile spreading across her face.

  She had not wanted a nurse for William. He was her son, and she would be the one to care for him. She had laughed at the shocked expressions on the faces of the other noblemen’s wives.

  “But you’re a Duchess. You can’t be expected to clean up after a baby

  ”

  Rachel had laughed to herself. She had done far worse things in her life than clean up after a baby.

  She bent to give William a final kiss, then pulled the nursery door closed and made her way downstairs. She could hear voices rising up from the parlor; the loud, boisterous laughs of Ernest and Betsey’s husband and the giggles of William’s three cousins.

  She slipped through the door to find the men with brandy in their hands and the children midway through a game of ninepins. The Duchess and Mrs. Miller sat together on the chaise, while Betsey chased after the children’s ball as it hurtled toward a priceless porcelain vase sitting beside the door.

  Rachel grinned. She wondered what the other noblemen’s wives would say if they saw this chaotic affair.

  Their maid, Mary, scurried to her. “Would you like something to drink, Your Grace?”

  Rachel smiled at her. “Wine, thank you.”

  Mary bobbed a curtsey and hurried to the kitchen.

  Even after two years, Your Grace, still felt odd. She was a woman from the slums of Bethnal Green. A woman who sold herself to greedy men so she might scratch together a living.

  No, she had to remind herself regularly. She was that woman no longer. Nor would she ever be again. Now she was Your Grace, but far more importantly, she was Ernest Jackson’s wife and William’s mother. She was happier than she had ever imagined was possible.

  Ernest sidled over to her and slid an arm around her waist, pulling her close. Rachel could smell the faint hint of brandy on his breath, and it took her back to their nights of drinking together in that tiny room above the White Lion.

  “William is sleeping?” he asked.

  Rachel smiled. “Somehow. Don’t know how he’s managing it with all this noise going on down here.”

  Ernest grinned. “I’d have it no other way.”

  Impulsively, Rachel reached for the collar of his shirt and tugged him into a kiss. His lips were hot against hers, and they sent a rush of desire through her. She pulled back and looked him in the eye. “No,” she said. “I’d have it no other way either. No other way at all.”

  The End

 

 

  Scarlett Osborne, A Fiery Escort For The Roguish Marquess (Extended Epilogue)

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