The Scoundrel’s Daughter by Anne Gracie
Epilogue
The biggest, splashiest wedding of the season was over—and nobody had been strangled. The large and lavish wedding breakfast was coming to an end, and Lucy was upstairs with Alice and Mary, changing from her wedding dress into a traveling outfit. She and Gerald were going to Paris for their honeymoon.
“Are you sure you like the murals?” Lucy asked Alice, while Mary removed dozens of tiny pink rosebuds from her hair. “If you don’t like them, you can always paper over them.”
“Never!” Alice said, shocked. “The girls adore them. I don’t know how you came up with such charming designs, each one so different but so perfect for each child. Lina is in love with her fairy dell, Judy adores her horses, and Debo—well, we could hardly get Debo to leave her room once she saw it. She’s named every single cat—all thirty-five of them!”
Lucy laughed. “I’m so glad.”
The door opened, and Gerald poked his head around it. “Ready?”
Lucy looked a query at Mary. Mary stepped back, beaming. “All done, miss—I mean, Lady Thornton. You look beautiful.”
“Thank you, Mary.” Lucy wrinkled her nose. “So strange to be Lady Thornton. It doesn’t feel like me at all.”
“You’ll get used to it,” Alice assured her. Gerald entered, followed by James, who had been his best man. Alice had given away the bride, an action that raised more than a few eyebrows.
“The baggage is all packed,” Gerald said. “We’re driving to Dover and will spend the night there, then catch the packet to France in the morning.” He glanced at Lucy. “Or the next day.”
Alice looked at Lucy. Something in Gerald’s expression suggested that she and James hadn’t been the only ones who had anticipated their wedding vows. The house at Bellaire Gardens had been empty, after all . . .
But there was a faint crease between Lucy’s brow, and she was looking at Alice in a very particular way. At a very particular part of Alice’s anatomy. “Alice . . .” she began on a query and stopped.
Alice raised a brow at James, who nodded.
“Yes, Lucy, what you’re wondering about—it’s true,” Alice said softly.
“Really?” Lucy gasped. “Oh, Alice, that’s wonderful.” She embraced Alice.
Alice placed a hand on her swelling midriff and leaned back against James. “I know. It’s our little miracle. After all those years of being barren.”
“You must have been mistaken.”
Alice smiled mistily. “I don’t understand it. Thaddeus had a son, after all. But who cares about the whys or wherefores. All I know is that I’m expecting a child, and I’m over the moon.” She glanced up at James and said softly, “We’re over the moon.”
“Congratulations,” Gerald said. “But this son of Uncle Thaddeus’s—when was this?”
“He was born shortly after Thaddeus and I were married. His mistress, Mrs. Jennings, went to the country, where she gave birth to a son in secret. The baby was raised by one of his tenants in the country. Thaddeus made no secret of it to me—far from it, he was furious.”
Gerald frowned. “So this son would now be nineteen or twenty then?”
Alice nodded. “I suppose so. Thaddeus never let me forget it. If old Lord Charlton had allowed him to marry Mrs. Jennings instead of forcing him to marry me, that son would have been his legitimate heir.”
Gerald snorted. “I doubt it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve seen Mrs. Jennings’s son, and he is definitely not related to Uncle Thaddeus.”
“What are you saying? How could you have seen him?”
“It was when we were sorting out Uncle Thaddeus’s will.” He gave Alice an embarrassed look. “He’d made a number of bequests to her, you see. Papa got me to deal with it—dealing with a mistress being beneath his dignity. So I went to her home, and her butler answered the door. I also met a young man there, nineteen or twenty, who called her Mother.” He paused for dramatic effect. “That young man was the spitting image of her butler.”
There was a short, shocked silence.
“That would explain why she never brought the boy to the city,” Alice said after a moment. “Thaddeus claimed it was too painful to meet the son who should have been his heir.”
“I wonder if he knew,” Gerald mused.
Alice thought about it, then shook her head. “No, he would never forgive infidelity, let alone being cuckolded by a butler. And if he’d known, he would never have left Mrs. Jennings a penny in his will.”
She thought about all the years of guilt and shame she’d endured for her apparent failure as a wife. And then dismissed them forever. She was no longer that woman. James’s arm slipped around her waist, and she smiled and leaned into him.
She had a new life now—a husband who told her daily he adored her, and demonstrated it in the most blissful ways. Three little girls who filled her days with joy and laughter—and cats—and a goddaughter who’d begun as an unwelcome imposition and became a beloved daughter and a friend. And soon—Alice laid a hand on her burgeoning belly—a baby.
Life was wonderful.
“Well, are you ready to go now?” Gerald asked Lucy. “The carriage is waiting, and everyone’s gathered downstairs to see us off.”
Lucy glanced around the room, checking that she’d left nothing behind, then kissed Alice and James goodbye, as well as Mary the maid. Then she turned to her brand-new husband. “I’m ready.”
Gerald bowed and gestured gracefully toward the door. “After you, Lady Thornbottle.”