Page 106 of Project Duke

“Is that—?” asked Richard.

“Spencer?” finished Preston.

Grandmama wrapped her arms around herself, her handkerchief at her mouth. “My vinaigrette,” she demanded. “I need my salts.”

While Jane searched in Grandmama’s reticule for the vinaigrette, Calliope, Preston, and Richard all hurried towards their brother.

“Spencer!” cried Calliope, her chest aching, her eyes burning from tears. “Oh Lord, it’s Spencer!”

Her brother’s dark eyes widened and searched for the source of the voice, finally landing on her.

She couldn’t really see the expression on his face, the detail of him—if he had any scars, if he was in pain, if he was all right…

All she knew was that he was finally here.

She ran towards him, pushing aside everyone who was in her way, until she finally reached him and fell into his hard embrace, the sheltering arms of her older brother she’d loved her whole life.

“Spencer…” she whispered as she looked up into his face, wiping her tears away, finally able to see every detail of him. He had scars. New wrinkles. A beard of several days. He smelled like brine and the sea and the ship.

Her brothers now found him, too, and she and Spencer were both enveloped in their strong embrace, finally the family they were supposed to be.

Preston and Richard clapped him on the back, on the shoulders, shook his hand. She wondered what Preston thought now that Spencer, who had loved Penelope, was back. What would Penelope think?

And as she looked into his eyes, she knew this was no longer the brother she had known. She saw hardness as well as sadness and pain. This was a different Spencer, and she needed to get to know him once again. Anew. But he would need time to open up.

For now, he was safe. He was alive. He was back home. But the mystery of who had gotten him press-ganged was still unresolved. Did he have any idea who was responsible? Was the danger to him still present? Had he been safer fighting a war than he would be walking the streets of London?

She looked up at him. “You must tell me everything!”

“Of course,” he mumbled.

But he wasn’t looking at her.

With a gaze full of surprise, ache, and hope, he was staring at Penelope.

EPILOGUE

Eleven months later…

“Happy birthday, Nathaniel,” said Calliope, looking at him with so much love.

They stood in front of Roxburgh Place. It was his thirtieth birthday, and his heart was squeezing with joy and love—and not because he’d finally received his rightful inheritance and his sisters their proper dowries. Nor because he was now the richest man in the whole of England.

But because the two people who constituted the greatest happiness of his entire life stood by his side: his gorgeous, brilliant wife holding their two-month-old son, Ethan. The little bundle, its sweet face peeking out from folds of white lace swaddle, gurgled with tiny, cute sounds. Those big blue eyes looked at Nathaniel, making his heart lurch and sending currents of joy through him.

“Thank you,” he replied, watching how the slight breeze played with Calliope’s auburn hair. “What a difference this year has made. Not because of my inheritance. But because you’re my wife. And because you gave me Ethan.”

Calliope beamed at him. “This day one year ago you caught me at your office.”

“And that was just the beginning,” he murmured.

“Please, give me my nephew,” said Hazel, who reached out to Ethan, her appearance almost regal and absolutely stunning with her gown of the latest fashion and her hair done in a perfect chignon by her personal maid. “Or you’ll suffocate him in your embrace. I know you two.”

Calliope chuckled and gave Hazel the little bundle, Hazel’s eyes warming up and melting as she cooed over the tiny face.

“I’m next!” said Violet, who held Miss Furrington on a red velvet pillow in her arms. “As soon as I deposit Miss Furrington on her favorite chair.”

“It’s been moved to Roxburgh, right?” asked Poppy, who could barely keep hold of the leashes of three very agitated dogs. “Miss Furrington got used to it during the last ten months in Grandhampton Court.”