Page 43 of The Duke Decides

“Oh, Your Grace!” came a chorus of sighs.

“A duchess! Matron Louisa! Can you conscience such a thing?”

“Take me too!” Alice cried.

“And me!” Eleanor elbowed her way in.

“And me,” Margaret added. “Every duchess needs a seamstress, and your embroidery’s lovely, mum, but you can’t sew straight to save your life.”

“Fenton will accuse me—”

“I’ll brag about your vanquishing one of Napoleon’s generals all on your own. You’ll be lionized in the papers. They’ll put a statue to you in Westminster.” He rubbed her captured hands against his chest. “Marry me, Louisa Bickford.”

“Do, Matron!”

“Oh, ye can’t say no!”

“If she won’t, I’ll have ye, yer Grace.”

He held her gaze steadily, the light in his eyes burning steady, strong and true. Louisa melted into his arms.

“Oh, very well,” she said. “Since I can’t bear to be a disappointment, I suppose I must.”

“Finally,” Gabe breathed, pulling her close. “I thought I was going to have to steal you, and that would look rather poorly on me in this modern age.”

“I go willingly,” Louisa whispered against his lips. “Since you seem determined to take me on.”

“And I am determined to be worthy. I’ll show you, my love.”

“You already have,” Louisa promised, and allowed him a kiss. Then another. Then, because the girls were laughing and cheering, sobbing and throwing their caps, and because her beloved was an excellent kisser, and because Louisa’s heart was bursting to a joy that flooded her senses and chased away all her better scruples, she kissed him again.

Epilogue

London, November 1830

“The post, Your Grace. A letter from France,” Alice reported, entering the spacious parlor with a salver in her hands. Behind her, a second parlormaid, for Alice had underlings of her own now, came bearing a tray with fresh tea and more scones.

“Bring the tea to us, Alice,” beckoned Gabe’s mother, who sat at the card table with the Duchess of Rutland, Lady Katherine, and Lady Emmeline, involved in a game of whist. “Shall I pour for you, Eloisa, dear?”

“Yes, please, Mother, though do remember the Duchess likes a squeeze of lemon,” Louisa said, taking the letter Alice pressed into her hand. She stood in the center of the larger room, draped in lengths of velvet, while Margaret crept around her on the carpeted floor, muttering “six feet of train,” “four bars of ermine,” and “more miniver” at regular intervals. Margaret had the duty of making up the Duke and Duchess of Barkham’s coronation robes for the crowning of King William, and she had immersed herself entirely in the task.

“Lady Thomas,” the Duchess of Rutland said, setting aside her cards, “your cook makes a delightful scone. She must give mine the receipt.”

“That would be Eleanor, one of the girls from the Benevolence Hospital,” Gabe’s mother said, arranging a scone on a plate for the Duchess. “Though we call her Mrs. Crockett, for all her youth. I think a good two dozen of our staff came from there, as maids for the house and my girls. We’re like to take more with us when we remove to Barkham for the holiday season.”

“Good, sound girls, they are,” the Duchess approved. “Louisa taught them well. You might hire from the Hospital when you set up your own households, Katherine, Emmeline, my dears.” She passed the tray of scones along to her granddaughters, then narrowed her eyes as she watched Louisa place a hand to her midsection as she read the letter. “And will you be staffing a nursery soon, Duchess?”

Flustered, Louisa folded the letter and turned her attention back to her guests. She had consulted a midwife and was taking a tea. Gabe had said he could live without children, but she wanted to try.

So many old, unanswered dreams he’d awakened.

“I have no announcement to make, not yet. But I hope in time to give Gabe an heir. It will make his grandmother, the Dowager Duchess, forgive him everything.”

“And it would make me so happy.” Gabe’s mother’s eyes filled with moisture. “A piece of my Thomas, still alive in the world. Oh, Eloisa, you are so good for him. I would put my arms around you right now were you not stuck full of pins.”

“Thank you, Mother,” Louisa said. Gabe’s mother had received her with a cautious welcome that soon warmed to genuine affection. Not for nothing had Louisa been raised among three sisters of her own, then spent fifteen years living in an institution made up predominantly of women; she knew how to make herself agreeable.

But Gabe’s mother was not a woman it was difficult to deal with. Lady Thomas, as she was still styled to the polite world, though in private she called herself Mrs. Powlett, had not a thing to say against how Louisa conducted herself, the household, or her duchessing duties. At their marriage Louisa had moved with Gabe into the townhouse with his mothers and sisters, who quite enjoyed having Louisa to chaperone them in all their social engagements, and Louisa had no doubt the house on Cavendish Square would be hosting a succession of marriages soon.