“Oh, you have me, Miss Downing. You’ve had me from the start.”
“And I know just what to do with you, my lord.” Emma dropped a playful kiss on the end of his nose.
Samuel chuckled as he eased her onto her back and pressed his lips to the tempting red ones he loved so well. “Do you, indeed? What’s that, then?”
Emma gazed up at him, her blue eyes shining. “Keep you forever, Lord Lymington. Keep you forever.”
Epilogue
No. 26 MaddoxStreet, London
December 1795
“I do believe I’ve overindulged in Mrs. Beeson’s biscuits.” Emma licked the corner of her lip where a smidgen of sweet quince preserves lingered, then dropped her handto her belly.
“It’s the preserves that make us do it.” Georgiana pushed a crumb-filled plate away from her with a sigh. “We’re all helpless against the preserves. For pity’s sake, my stomach is nearly as swollenas Cecilia’s.”
Predictably, Cecilia’s cheeks turned as red as a peony. “I beg your pardon, Lady Haslemere, but that’s a shockingthing to say.”
“Really, Georgiana, you’re too ridiculous.” Sophia snatched up the tufted pillow on the settee beside her and stuffed it behind her shoulders. “It’s plain to see no one’s stomach is as swollenas Cecilia’s.”
Lord Darlington rose from the table in the corner where he was playing chess with Lord Haslemere, and went to his wife’s side. “You’ve never looked more beautiful,” he murmured, kissing her cheek.
“You’re leaving the gamenow, Darlington?” Lord Haslemere abandoned the chess board and squeezed onto the settee beside his wife. “I was one move away from beating you.”
“If I recall, Sophia, your own belly was swollen not so very long ago.” Emma shot Sophia a sly look. “And Georgiana’s will be too, before long.”
“My goodness, Emma, Lord Haslemere and I have only been wed for six months! It’s much too soon for children yet.” But a dreamy look came into Georgiana’s eyes, and she let out a yearning, very un-Georgiana-like sigh. “Though perhaps a little girl would be rather sweet. Lord Haslemere says he wantsa half-dozen.”
Lord Haslemere chuckled. “At least half a dozen, and allof them girls.”
Sophia snorted. “Why, that’s a litter! Shame on you, Lord Haslemere. Your wife is a countess, nota hunting dog.”
“My wife can do anything she sets her mind to.” Lord Haslemere dropped a kiss on Georgiana’s forehead, making her flush up to the roots of her hair, and setting all the girls off into gales of laughter. Georgiana had never been one to blush, but her handsome husband’s teasing pinkened her cheeks every time.
“Still, I can’t help but agree with Lord Haslemere,” Sophia went on. “Little girlsaresweet, especially little girls who have their father’s beautiful gray eyes.”
“And their mother’s beautiful face.” Lord Gray looked up from the bundle he held in his arms to give his wife asecret smile.
“Gray eyes are lovely. One might think they’d be cold, but they’re not.” Emma dropped her voice to a murmur as she turned to smile at Lord Lymington. “Not at all.”
Lord Lymington was reclining on a chair across from the settee, a glass of port in his hand and his lips quirked with amusement as he listened to them banter, but the gray eyes in question transformed to a soft silver at Emma’s words. “I prefer dark blueeyes, myself.”
The drawing room at the Clifford School wasn’t a large one, but it had never looked quite so small to Lady Amanda as it did now, with all four of her girls and their growing families crowded around the fire.
It was strange, how things seemed to go on very much as they’d always done, until all at once they didn’t, and everything changed, seemingly in the blink of an eye. With one unexpected event coming on the heels of the last as they’d done this year, was it any wonder Lady Amanda had startedwoolgathering?
Her four dearest girls, two of them now countesses, and the other two marchionesses, of all things. A smile twitched at the corner of Lady Amanda’s lips. One might have predicted Sophia would turn out to be a countess, if only through sheer force of will, but sweet, tenderhearted Cecilia, a marchioness? Lady Amanda hadn’t predictedthat, nor had she imagined her practical Georgiana would find love with the Earl of Haslemere, London’s mostnotorious rake.
Or hehadbeen a rake, before he’d found Georgiana.
Such was the transformativepower of love.
Then there was Emma. Of all her girls, Lady Amanda had feared Emma’s ghosts would haunt her forever, but Emma had found her own love in a man who knew her worth, and treasured her heart.
“How does Helena do, Emma?” Lady Amanda asked, rousing herself from her musings. She’d had a notion she might take Helena in at the Clifford School, but Lady Lymington, of all people, had taken a liking to the girl, and invited her to come live at Lymington House.
Emma smiled. “Very well, indeed. Lady Lymington and Lady Flora—that is, she’s Lady Lovell, now—both dote on her. Helena gets on so wonderfully in Kent, I begin to think they’ll never part with her. Will it trouble you if she doesn’t return to London, my lady?”
