Page 7 of 1797 Club 2nd Epilogue Collection (The 1797 Club #11)

W hen Graham Everly, Duke of Northfield, looked over the moments of his life he always put them into two categories. There was before he’d met Adelaide, the love of his life, his duchess, his best friend and lover…and there was after her.

Before had been dark. A dark and violence-ripped childhood, a lonely and uncertain young adulthood, an almost marriage that he had accepted because he hadn’t believed he deserved love and happiness.

And then she had sauntered into his life, looked down at him from her place on a stage and changed…

everything. And now, ten years and four children into a very happy marriage, he almost couldn’t recall the “Before Adelaide” times.

Or, at least they didn’t haunt him like they once had. That was her gift to him.

He’d been thinking a great deal about gifts lately, as it was Christmas and soon all their friends, every duke, duchess and all their children, would descend upon their manor in Northfield.

It would be raucous and filled with laughter and fun.

And yet, he would always find himself moving toward her.

Finding her in the crowd. Stealing time with her.

A good idea, now, actually, since he was just sitting at his desk in his study, musing over her.

He pushed to his feet and stepped out into the hallway where he found their eldest child, Madeline, carrying their youngest, Edwin, in her arms. Maddie was eight, with the blonde hair and blue eyes she’d inherited from both her parents.

She had reached the stage where she was all spidery arms and legs that she had yet to grow into.

And she was smart, so damned smart that it made Graham almost giddy. So much like her mama in that way.

When she saw Graham, her face lit up and he felt his do the same. “Maddie, my love, you have quite the armful there,” he said.

Edwin was eighteen months old and could walk, but with his elder siblings running around, the child hardly ever did. He smiled up at Graham with a drooly grin, thanks to his current state of teething.

“Papa!” he said, accentuating each syllable.

“Good morning, Bubs,” Graham said, using the nickname they all still called the child. Their much adored and very unexpected Bubs who had come four years after their third, and they’d believed last, child. “Do you know where Mama is, Madeline?”

“She was in the music room with Mrs. Westin,” Maddie said.

“Very good. And where are you off to?”

“I’m taking Bubs to the playroom to join Harry and Cordelia,” Maddie explained. "We’re going to play pirates.”

“Excellent,” Graham said. “I assume you are in charge of the story and the stage directions?” Maddie giggled and shifted her round little brother in her arms. “Oh, Papa.”

“Go on then,” he encouraged. “I’ll come play the wicked pirate captain with you later.”

“G’bye!” she called out before she staggered toward the stairs and adventure beyond.

He watched them for a moment, laughing at how they half crawled up, with Maddie talking to Edwin the entire way and he laughing with pure adoration of his big sister. Then Graham refocused on the matter at hand, which was finding his wife .

He made his way down the hallway toward the music room and he heard Adelaide even before he entered the room.

She was talking to Mrs. Westin, the wife of his estate manager.

The two had started as friends back in London, and a very terrible thing had bound them even closer all those years ago.

Close enough that Mrs. Westin and her husband, Toby Westin, had been granted escape, and Westin’s position, out at the country estate.

But when they were alone together, Adelaide and Melinda often fell back into their friendship as if they were absolute equals.

“Oh, do tell me more about the performance,” Mrs. Westin was saying. “I’ve heard so much about Bertha Green as an actress, I want to know everything!”

“I thought she was even better than her reviews say,” Adelaide gushed. “She had such good timing, Melly! I was captivated by her every line.”

Graham leaned on the wall for a moment, just enjoying the passion in her voice. They had been in London, just the two of them, for a few weeks and he’d taken her to every play available just to see her eyes light up and listen to her wax poetic about a subject that she had intimate knowledge about.

As they continued talking, he pushed from the wall and stepped into the open doorway, rapping lightly on the door. “May I interrupt?”

Mrs. Westin pushed to her feet with a smile, but it was nothing compared to Adelaide’s bright expression as she moved toward him. “Graham!” his wife said. “I thought you were busy with your ledgers all morning.”

She reached him and leaned up to kiss his cheek. Their eyes met and a full-body shiver worked through him. How could it still surprise and delight him so entirely that this was his wife? Even after a decade of life together and children and joys and heartaches?

Mrs. Westin cleared her throat and a tinge of a blush filled her cheeks. “I should return to the cottage.”

Graham smiled at her as she moved toward the door. “Oh no, please stay and enjoy the library for a while. I was with Toby this morning. I think he intends to have lunch with you later.”

Mrs. Westin’s eyes lit up, both at the offer of the library and the idea of the time with her beloved. “Oh good. Thank you for telling me, Your Grace. Good day to you both.”

She slipped from the room and closed the door behind herself. Both Adelaide and Graham tracked the action and then smiled at each other.

“Do you think she knows us so well?” Adelaide asked as she wound her arms around his neck and pushed up on her tiptoes to kiss him lips.

He swept her a little closer when he put his arm around her waist. “I think all of them are aware that if they come into rooms unannounced they might find things they wished they hadn’t seen.”

He guided her to the settee where he took a place and then pulled her into his lap. They kissed for a while and the stirring for her mounted, making him ache. But there was no rush. He rather liked the anticipation.

“I’m surprised you could wait so long to talk to Melinda about the plays we saw in London,” he said, reaching up to tuck an errant curl behind her ear. “We’ve been home ten days now.”

She shrugged. “Well, we don’t get much time together. She’s busy running her own household and with her children and Toby. And I’m not exactly lounging about.”

He patted her backside with an arched brow and she laughed, as he had hoped she would. “This hardly counts, Graham. You are practically holding me hostage.”

He shook his head. “When you’re being held captive, you’ll know it. I haven’t even taken off my cravat to tie you to a piece of furniture.”

She wiggled a little in his lap, her bright eyes dilating with desire. “You’re a tease.”

“I learned it from the best,” he murmured and drew her down for another kiss. When he pulled back, he wrinkled his brow. “ Sometimes when I hear you talk about the theatre, to me or to her, or to anyone really, I hear this…wistfulness. This longing. Even after all these years.”

A smile fluttered over her expression but he knew her well enough to see the sadness beneath.

“I suppose there are times when I think of those days walking the boards, when I was playing a role and hiding from my true identity. But, Graham, my life here with you and our children is entirely satisfying. I wouldn’t change a thing, I promise you. ”

He saw she was being truthful and it was a relief. She ground down in his lap again and he groaned, all worries fleeing his mind and being replaced with something much more pleasurable.

“Where are all those children of ours?” she asked as she leaned down and almost let her lips touch his.

“Upstairs playing pirates,” he murmured back, closing his fingers against her thigh and loving how she let out a little whimper.

“Good, then we have time,” she said. “Just enough time…”

They kissed again, this time with far more purpose. Together they pushed her skirts up and she shifted in his lap to straddle him. He cupped her backside, grinding them together, reveling in her pleasure and his own as they built to an inevitable joining of bodies.

And yet, beneath it all, he felt a keen desire to give her the gift back of those moments on the stage. And he had a little idea of how to do it. One he would explore once he’d finished exploring her on the settee.