Epilogue
Jilly hated him.
“Calm yourself,” Nick, who had come down himself only a week ago, chided as he idly flicked a page of his paper. He cast a speaking glance at Ravenhurst, who had availed himself of the bottle of port on the sideboard. “He’s making too much of this, wouldn’t you say?”
“Wearing holes in the carpet,” Ravenhurst confirmed, pouring the liquor down his throat. He tipped his empty glass toward James in a parody of a toast. “Better you than me, though, eh?”
“For God’s sake, Rushton,” Westwood snapped. “It’s a baby, not a death sentence.” He paused. “Though I suppose it might as well be. They do tend to stick around for an inordinate amount of time.”
But it could be a death sentence. And Jilly had been screaming for hours. Each piercing shriek had set his teeth on edge, contributed to the excessive pallor of his face. He felt he’d aged a score of years since her labor had begun in the morning.
Even summoning a slew of the best doctors from London had failed to calm his frazzled nerves.
“I’m going,” he said, turning in his tracks and stomping toward the door.
“You can’t go,” said Westwood. “It’s women’s work. Fathers stay downstairs and white-knuckle their way through it.”
“I’m a bloody duke, and I’ll be damned if I’m told where I may or may not venture in my own house,” James snapped back. “I’m going.” He wrenched the door open so violently that it cracked against the wood paneling. Jilly’s screams rang in his ears, and he took the steps two at a time, dashing for the bedroom in which Jilly was undergoing the most dangerous event of her life.
“Your Grace!” A bespectacled doctor drew back in horror as James burst into the room. “You can’t be in here!”
“I invite you to try to throw me out,” James snarled, wending his way through the throng of medical personnel to reach the bed where Jilly lay, sweating and pale, her face twisted in anguish. Eleanora, who had been sitting beside her, opened her mouth to lay into him for bursting in where he didn’t belong, and promptly closed it again as she saw the expression on his face. Instead, she vacated her seat to make room for him. He took the chair beside Jilly, reaching out to stroke her hair away from her face, and the strands were damp with her sweat, lank and dull.
“How do you feel?” he asked, brushing a kiss to her forehead.
“Like I’m having my insides scraped out with a knife,” she replied in a hiss from between clenched teeth. A savage expression crossed her face, a vindictive, accusatory glare. “I’d be happy to show you.”
Her vicious tone surprised a laugh from him. If she was well enough to threaten him with bodily harm, then despite her bloodless lips and ear-piercing shrieks, she was healthy and hale.
He took her hand in his, astonished by the strength in it as she ground his bones together hard enough to bruise on the next contraction. “Lemonade,” he barked over his shoulder at no one in particular. “For God’s sake, get her something to drink. She needs to be comfortable.”
Two more contractions passed, each with bone-splintering intensity, and he spoke to her through the pain, until she cordially invited him to be quiet if he couldn’t make himself useful.
Finally the long-awaited glass of lemonade arrived, pressed into his hand by a faceless servant, and he helped her to sit up enough to take a few small sips before the next contraction hit her.
This time she breathed through the pain with her face buried against his throat, and he smoothed the fingers of his free hand down her back until her death grip on his other hand eased.
“It’s nearly time, Your Grace,” a doctor said with a quick glance beneath the sheets draped over Jilly’s legs.
Nearly time turned out to be a wait of more than an hour. But James bore with good humor the vitriol that his distressed wife slung at him, until finally, with a fierce push and a good number of coarse words Jilly had no business knowing, the thin wail of an infant split the air, climbing high over Jilly’s steady stream of curses.
James had climbed onto the bed beside Jilly, who now lay, panting with exertion, back against the pillows, and it was to him that the doctor handed the wriggling, angry bundle of swaddling. Nudging the fabric away from the tiny face beneath it, he stared down into the wrinkled, red, furious face of their newborn child.
“A girl,” the doctor pronounced, apologetically. “But Her Grace came through her labor beautifully, and you have plenty of time yet to get your heir.”
James couldn’t think of a single thing he cared about less. “A daughter,” he said, counting tiny fingers and toes, and marveling at the infant who had been placed in his arms. She flailed her small fists, her face screwing up in displeasure. And even through the ear-splitting wail she emitted, James thought he had never seen anything more beautiful in his life. “Jilly, look,” he said, nudging his wife. “We have a daughter.”
“Lovely,” she said through a huge yawn, and promptly fell asleep.
He dropped a kiss into her hair and scooted off the bed long enough to allow the doctors and maids to work around him, carefully changing the sheets and making Jilly comfortable after her exhausting ordeal. And he lingered in the corner, cradling his squalling child in his arms.
“Your name is Olivia,” he told her, bussing a kiss to her wrinkled little forehead. “Your mama picked it out for you. I expect she’d have liked to tell you herself, but you did take your own time in arriving, and she’s quite worn out.” He offered her his finger, and she wrapped her whole fist around it and quieted, blinking hazy blue eyes up at him.
James blinked back the burn of tears in his eyes. “Welcome to the world, little one,” he said, and as the extraneous people filed out of the room at last to provide the new family a few precious moments of privacy, he crawled back onto the bed next to Jilly, tucking little Olivia, secure in her swaddling, between them. In the tiny face of their daughter he saw the future stretching out before them, golden and precious and underscored with so much love.
“She’s so beautiful, Jilly,” he told her, his voice breaking through the words. “Thank you.”
And even in her sleep, she smiled.
Notes and a Mea Culpa
Dear Reader,
I’ve really George Lucased the hell out of this, haven’t I? If you’ve read my other title, His Improper Proposal, you will probably recognize Nick Winter, the Marquess of Sinridge (here referred to as Viscount Clifton, as he has not yet come into his father’s title as of the events of His Favorite Mistake).
The truth is that His Favorite Mistake was intended to be my first book, but I had a bit of trouble with it, and when I have trouble writing, I tend to shift my attention to…more writing. I liked Nick and his just general goodness, so I moved him to a new story, found him a lady, and wrote his story instead.
Of course, James and Jilly remained an integral part of Nick’s life as his cherished friends, so I did eventually revisit their story and complete it, but the end result is that the book that should by all rights have come last ended up being the first book I released.
As I worked on this book, I discovered another character I wanted to explore a little further—David Kittridge, Jilly’s feckless brother.
I will be releasing his story in January of 2020, and it will fall chronologically between James and Jilly’s and Nick and Ella’s. Each book can be read as a stand-alone, though there are recurring characters.
For those of you playing along at home, the proper reading order is:
His Favorite Mistake (Nov. 2019)
His Reluctant Lady (coming Jan. 2020)
His Improper Proposal (Sept. 2019)
As you can see, I have most definitely chosen exactly the wrong order to write in. Please forgive me.
Love,
Aydra
(Keep reading for a preview of His Reluctant Lady.)
Preview of His Reluctant Lady, coming Jan. 2020
Prologue
“Debauchery!”
Poppy flinched at the shrill screech, and tea sloshed over the rim of her teacup, splattering the skirt of her day dress. Before she could utter a single word, the book held in her hand was wrenched free, and her fingers grasped only air.
“Debauchery!” Lady Winifred screeched again, waving the thin volume before Poppy’s nose in much the same manner as she might brandish a rolled-up newspaper at a dog who had messed on the carpet.
Poppy resisted the urge to hold up her hand to ward off a potential blow. “Now, Lady Winifred—”
“I won’t have this…this depraved literature in this house! I won’t! What sort of example are you setting for the girls?” Lady Winifred’s birdlike features contorted as if the mere thought of delicate young minds being so grievously tainted was enough to send her straight to St. Peter’s pearly gates.
“It’s only a gothic novel,” Poppy said, rather defensively. “It’s fiction, Lady Winifred. Harmless fiction.”
Lady Winifred shuddered as if the word were the basest of curses. “You pollute your mind with these lurid novels, Miss Fairchild. Perhaps you cannot hope to make an advantageous marriage at your age, but your sisters still have a chance, I daresay. You ought to have a care for them, at least.”
I am thinking of them. The words were on the tip of Poppy’s tongue, but she dared not voice them. Lady Winifred was, after all, sponsoring Victoria and Isobel for the Season. Although she was being paid for her services, she was well within her rights to resign her position if she pleased. Not that Poppy suspected she would, given the desperate circumstances that had lead to her sponsoring them.
“I do have a care for them,” she said, striving to modulate her tone. “It is why I have brought them up to London.”
Lady Winifred gave an inelegant sniff and looked down her nose at Poppy. “Miss Fairchild,” she said, “Although you may have gained some manner of wisdom, having reached the grand age of twenty-eight—”
“Twenty-six,” Poppy corrected stiffly.
“—You simply do not understand London society as I do.” She brandished the novel again. “This sort of lewd reading material is not well-received.”
“I’m not sure that’s true,” Poppy said. “I had to visit five separate book shops to find it. The first four had sold out all of their copies.” A fib, but only a small one—she had been informed of its scarcity.
“Miss Fairchild, you would do well to bow to my greater wisdom in these matters,” Lady Winifred snapped. “No one who is anyone would purchase such rubbish let alone read it.”
That was not quite true, either. Poppy had heard more than a few people discussing it at the last ball she had attended, while chaperoning her sisters along with Lady Winifred. Miss Merriweather’s Downfall had shocked and titillated the whole of London society. Gothic novels were all the rage, and this one had been especially popular.
Delicately holding the volume between her thumb and index finger as if its taint might permeate her gloves, Lady Winifred scowled. “A gentleman does not wish to marry a lady who chooses to rot her brain with such drivel,” she reiterated.
Poppy opened her mouth. Closed it against the unwise remark that had risen to the forefront of her brain. Then opened it again. “As I’m not in the market for a husband, I fail to see how that signifies.” Setting down her teacup, she rose from the low sofa, cognizant of the fact that she quite towered over the petite Lady Winifred. “I would like my book back, please,” she said. Although her words were polite enough, they were also firm, and they did not invite argument. Which was not to say that it would have stopped Lady Winifred from offering it anyway.
“Miss Fairchild—”
“Lady Winifred, I bow to your wisdom of London society where it concerns my sisters,” Poppy said, “And I will ensure that I keep my reading material out of their reach, lest my choices in literature corrupt their fragile minds,”—this, with more than the slightest touch of sarcasm—“but I am a woman grown, and I will make my own choices. You are not my mother, Lady Winifred, to condemn me. You are my employee.”
Lady Winifred gave a startled gasp, her free hand touching her chest in dismay. “Miss Fairchild, I must ask that you not speak of such things so openly,” she said, color bursting high in her sallow cheeks.
Poppy gave a disdainful, decidedly unladylike snort. “I don’t see why not,” she said. “It’s only those with money who can afford not to speak of it.” But for Poppy’s patronage, Lady Winifred, a woman who had never taken on the marriage mart despite being the born with all the right bloodlines, might have withered away in genteel poverty. Still, she did not want to give the impression that she thought herself any better, so she added, “My sisters and I might have starved, were it not for the modest bequest our Grandmother left to me,” she said. “Cousin Rupert couldn’t wait to throw us out after Papa passed away.” Nor had he waited to move his whole terrible family into the only home Poppy and her sisters had ever known, pushing them out of it at the very same moment.
“Be that as it may,” Lady Winifred said tightly. “It is not good Ton to talk so freely of such matters. For your sisters’ sake, remember that.”
Poppy extended her hand. “My book, please.”
With a grimace of distaste, Lady Winifred extended the book and placed it in Poppy’s outstretched hand. “Pray keep such things to the confines of your room,” she said. “For your—”
“I know. For my sisters’ sake. I will remember it.” Poppy forced her legs to bend in a stiff curtsey with the aim of soothing Lady Winifred’s ruffled feathers. While she might not agree with all of the woman’s pronouncements, certainly Lady Winifred had done her job ably enough thus far. Victoria and Isobel could not be in better hands. They would have the chance that Poppy had never had herself, and with any luck they would both make good marriages.
She removed herself from the drawing room, retreating toward the stairs. A skitter of movement from the second floor caught her attention. Twin blond heads poked out over the railing, identical pairs of green eyes peering down at her. The mischief glinting in their eyes suggested that they had both been eavesdropping.
“Did you get in trouble?” Isobel asked, her voice pitched low.
“Just a bit,” Poppy whispered back, grinning. The girls tittered like the pair of delightful eighteen-year-olds they were, and for just a moment Poppy wondered if she had ever been so young, so carefree.
“I want to read it when you’re through with it,” Victoria said, her eyes sparkling with glee. “It sounds delicious.”
Poppy glanced over her shoulder, ensuring that Lady Winifred hadn’t followed behind her. “Darling, you may read it now, if you like,” she said. “Just don’t let Lady Winifred catch you with it, or she’ll have my head.” She lifted herself onto her toes, offering the book through the railing, and Victoria’s hands closed upon the coveted volume with a gasp of near-rhapsodic joy.
“You are the best of sisters,” Victoria opined, and Isobel made a small sound of shock and elbowed her straight in the ribs. A good-natured sisterly squabble broke out, and Poppy could only smother her snickers in her hand. She probably should have put an end to it, taken the opportunity to reinforce the fact that grace and dignity were qualities a lady didn’t surrender even in private.
But it had been so long since they had laughed like that. So long since they had had anything at all to laugh about.
How could she possibly have taken it from them?
Chapter One
“Miss Ainsworth,” the viscount intoned, his face half-shadowed in the glow of the moon. “I must warn you not to prowl these halls at night.”
Julia suspected that she was meant to be intimidated by the words, that perhaps he had deliberately chosen this particular room to highlight his devilish demeanor to dramatic effect. But her curiosity was piqued, and she found herself moving closer instead.
“Are you suggesting, my lord, that perhaps the rumors are true? That Carrowith Manor is truly haunted?”
The visco
unt’s grim smile was a slash of white in the corner of the room. “I am suggesting, my dear, that there are worse things living in the shadows than ghosts. That you would be better served to…”
To…
Damn. She’d hesitated too long, and a blotch of ink began to spread across the page. Poppy absently grabbed for a handkerchief, blotting at the drop of ink as carefully as she could in the hopes of keeping it from leaking through to the pages beneath. Then she recalled, with no small amount of horror, that she had few enough handkerchiefs that remained free of ink stains, and she’d certainly just cut down her remaining supply down by one more.
Blast. The first three books had come so easily to her. But this one had been a struggle from the first. Despite the round criticism from the papers, her novels were being devoured voraciously all across London and beyond. People might say that they reviled such lurid novels, but they certainly snapped them up quickly enough. The public simply could not get enough of them, and her publishers had been struggling to meet demands. Miss Merriweather’s Downfall had been the best seller yet, and it had put coin enough in her pockets to see her sisters through a Season, perhaps two if they did not take immediately.
Only now she was running out of ideas. She had whetted appetites for salacious novels, and as vivid as her imagination might be, she had certainly never lived a life that could be said to be even salacious-adjacent. How could one be expected to write of things they’d never experienced, hold a reader in thrall with words that held little meaning and certainly no understanding?
How was a woman who had never sailed across a dance floor in a man’s arms, who had never conducted an illicit rendezvous or anything that might be called a liaison by any stretch of the imagination, meant to describe such a thing? How much more scandal could she splash upon a page without revealing her own lack of knowledge?
With a sigh, she corked the ink bottle and set down her pen. The words would have to wait—it was going past two already, and the twins were scheduled to attend a garden party in the morning.
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