Dalliance with the Duchess (Seducing the Duchess #3)

Epilogue

Two years later

T hey had arrived in Berkeley Square from the country this morning, and Sophia wanted nothing more than to lie on her bed and sleep until her stomach settled. Fern and Hugo would be here soon, as well as Ellis and Owen, and Catherine and Albury, with their families. And as much as she was looking forward to seeing them all, right now she wanted nothing more than peace and quiet.

“The screaming and crying, the pounding of feet up and down the stairs!” she had said to Nicholas, which made him laugh.

“Are you not fond of your nieces and nephews?” he had asked with a grin.

“In moderation.”

“Then it is just as well we do not have any of our own,” he had said.

There had been an uncomfortable pause. She had felt the tension in his arm where it was tucked around her shoulders, and she had not dared to meet his eyes.

Not a good start, she told herself now, trying to get comfortable on her bed.

Nicholas had headed off to Westminster soon after, and she wasn’t sure what he was up to. Some secret government business. Far from retiring, he was still engaged in his work. He wasn’t quite as diligent as before, but he had told her that he had to do something now his time was not taken up searching for his missing sister.

“Although it was you who found Fern,” he always said, with a smile. He still smiled at her as if she was his everything.

Sophia closed her eyes with a groan and lay perfectly still on the bed. She felt queasy from the coach journey, at least that was what she had told Nicholas. Sophia had had her suspicions for some months now but hadn’t wanted to say anything in case she was wrong. Well, she wasn’t wrong.

She was with child. Nicholas’s child. The idea filled her with a sense of trepidation and wonder. Wonder because Sophia had wanted a child ever since she had watched Ellis with her newborn daughter. But she had given up on having a child of her own. All those years with Oldney and then two more years with Nicholas, and nothing. And it wasn’t as if she and Nicholas hadn’t spent many rigorous and enjoyable hours doing their best to reproduce. Recently she had begun to accept the fact that their lives would be lived without a baby of their own. And what did it matter really? They had Hugo, and her nieces and nephews.

She and Nicholas were very happy together. Even if she suspected he would like a little Blake to carry on his name, he had promised her he was perfectly content.

And trepidation? Well that was because of his comment earlier, about it being just as well they did not have a child of their own. Was she wrong about him wanting a child? Would he be glad or just pretend to be glad? What would he say?

Either way, Sophia could not wait any longer. The baby was due in five months. She would have to break the news to him when he returned from Westminster and before the others arrived. Her sisters would know at once she was reproducing, and she could not let Nicholas learn the news secondhand. By then she hoped she would be feeling less queasy. With a smile, she drifted off to sleep.

*

Nicholas bounded up the stairs. They had kept him too long at Westminster, but he had finally escaped. He knew he should be flattered that the Prime Minister believed him to be indispensable, but sometimes he wished there was someone else they could call on in an emergency. Thank goodness Gordon was at his side, a sort of apprentice, with the assumption that one day he would take Nicholas’s place entirely.

Quietly he opened the bedchamber door.

Sophia was lying curled up on the bed, her eyes closed, her hair loosened, the bedcovers tucked around her. This bed had seen a lot of happy moments between them, and he often thought of the early days, when they had fallen in love. He wasn’t sure what he had expected to happen, but he supposed children had come into his thoughts. But he refused to be sad about not having any, because Sophia was more than enough for him.

Nicholas was sorry he had upset her earlier. She did not speak to him about her own disappointment on that score, but he suspected that was how she felt, and with her family descending on them, it would hurt even more.

Her steady breathing suggested she was asleep. Nicholas shouldn’t wake her—she had been deep in her own thoughts lately and restless at night. Again, he suspected it was this family reunion that was weighing on her mind. Perhaps he could interest her in another charity by way of distraction? Sophia and Fern were always busy with ways in which to help the less fortunate. He was very grateful that his sister and his wife were so close.

He had long ago put aside the heartbreak of his sister’s disappearance and forgiven her for not coming to him for help. He understood why she hadn’t, and he was just glad she had returned to him. Chatham and his friends had returned to London briefly only to be banished again by Mountfitchet and the Prime Minister once Fern’s story was told to them. It was not widely known, and Nicholas was glad of that—he did not want his sister gossiped about by the ton .

As if she sensed his presence, Sophia’s eyes flickered open. As soon as she saw him, her face lit up in a smile.

“Nicholas. At last.”

He chuckled as he climbed up beside her, lying on his side and reaching to fold her hands against his chest. “I’ve only been gone a couple of hours. And I told them I will not be available for the next two days.”

She pulled a face. “Two days? You will have to do better than that when...” Her voice drifted off. “The house will be awfully noisy when everyone arrives tonight,” she said quickly, and he wondered at the change in subject.

“I don’t mind that,” he said, watching her curiously. Was she thinking of what he had said earlier? “You know how fond I am of your sisters and their husbands. As for the children, I know they can be noisy and demanding, but we love them. Don’t we?”

“Yes,” she whispered, and her eyes filled with tears.

Nicholas was worried now. “What is it?” he asked anxiously and leaned in to kiss her brow. “Duchess? Tell me, please. I can’t bear to see you unhappy. Whatever it is... we can face it together. I truly believe we can face anything if we are together.”

She gave a watery chuckle. “I hope so, Nicholas. Because the child we are going to have is part of us both.”

He wasn’t sure he had heard her right, but she was watching him intently, looking as if she might start weeping in earnest, and he knew he wasn’t mistaken. Nicholas was not the sort of man to usually become overemotional. He liked to think he was steady. So it was to the household’s amazement when they heard the duchess’s husband shouting at the top of his voice.

Sophia was shaking with laughter. “Nicholas! Hush! They will think... well, I don’t know what they will think.”

He held her to him and kissed her once, twice, and then again. “I am over the moon, Sophia. I don’t think I have been this happy since our wedding day. Are you...?” He leaned back and his dark gaze searched hers.

Her brown eyes were shining with joy. “Oh yes,” she said, “so am I. There was a time when I thought... when I feared we would never...” Her lip trembled.

He wrapped his arms about her and held her close to his heart. “You know as long as we have each other I am happy, but this...” He looked at her again, his expression full of wonder.

“I waited, to make sure,” she said. “I didn’t quite believe it.”

“When will he be born?” he asked.

“She. It may be a ‘she.’”

“I don’t care, my love. When will this amazing child of ours be born?

She laughed at his worried look. “Not immediately, don’t worry. In the summer. We can stay in the country. There will be no trips to Westminster, either. Gordon can deal with that.”

Nicholas lifted her hand to his lips. “Yes, Duchess,” he said with a grin.

They cuddled together in the warmth of the bed, whispering of the future and their happiness.

Soon the others arrived, and there were tears of joy and congratulations. At dinner, Nicholas rose to his feet at the head of the long table and lifted his glass.

“To the Mallory sisters,” he said, with an affectionate smile at the faces smiling back at him. “The Disgraceful Duchesses!”

Laughter and then glasses were lifted high in response.

“To the Disgraceful Duchesses!”