Page 25 of A Virgin for the Cruel Duke (In War and Love #1)

Five Years Later

“‘Tarlot! ‘Tarlot! ‘Tarlot!” Little Celia Selina was wriggling in Stephen’s arms as Elizabeth struggled with Henry Perceval Drake, their five year old in an attempt to get him into some state of presentable before the guests arrived.

It had been a busy few years since their headstrong, loving wonderful son had been born. The arrival of Celia had been a delightful surprise, and Elizabeth had been even more delighted to find that her dear friend was pregnant with her first at the same time.

Charlotte Elizabeth, Celia and Perceval’s first child, was as good-natured as her father while Celia Selina, affectionately called Ceecee by the family, was as much of a little trouble-maker as both Elizabeth and Stephen had been when they had been children.

The three children loved each other and welcomed any chance to play together. While Ceecee was definitely a bad influence on Charlotte, which Celia fondly termed an ‘adventurous experience’ and Perceval called ‘corrupting his princess’; Henry felt like a big brother to both of them and from quite young would toddle along telling them about all the flowers and plants they were looking at and advising them of danger.

Elizabeth had never laughed so hard as when she had come across Ceecee trying to lure Charlotte into a fountain with cooing noises while Henry stood at the side and said ‘Ceecee, that’s water, babies aren’t meant to be in the water.’

She would not have them any other way and she knew that the rest of their group felt the same. Whether their Aunt Diana was teaching them music or their Aunt Selina was reading them books or their Uncle Herbert was taking them on rambling walks around the estate, it was a family of beautiful bridges build between generations and so different from everything that Elizabeth had experienced in her own childhood that she would sometimes have to cry.

“Yes indeed,” Stephen said, bouncing Ceecee on his knee. “Charlotte will be here soon, and your godparents. And then mother and father are going to go away for a few days for a little peace and quiet.”

“You don’t need peace and quiet, Papa,” Henry said as Elizabeth finally managed to button up his shirt. “Uncle Herbert says that if you ever met peace and quiet it would make you ill.”

“Your Uncle Herbert is a very naughty man to be telling you such abominable truths,” Stephen said with a grin. “However sometimes your mother and I would like a little time to celebrate special moments together.”

Their eyes met over the heads of their children and Elizabeth felt her cheeks flaming at his wicked expression.

“What is happening that is special?” Henry asked. He was very fond of asking the Important Questions, as Selina liked to say, and often trailed around his oldest aunt trying to peek at whatever book she had and asking her to explain any images to him.

“Where go?” Ceecee added, wrapping her little pudgy arms around her father’s neck and pressing kisses to his cheek in an attempt to convince him to stay. Elizabeth hid a smile behind her hand. No matter how much Stephen had adored being a father to a son, he was so completely wrapped around Ceecee’s tiny little finger that Elizabeth wondered how it was that Diana and Selina had ever had anyone say no to them in all their lives.

“Not too far,” Stephen assured her, pressing her to his heart. “You will have a wonderful time with Aunt Celia and Uncle Perceval and before you know it your mother and I will be back with cake.”

“Cake!” Ceecee latched onto the most important word immediately. “Cake! Tarlot! Cake!”

“Yes, Papa, but why?” Henry persisted, wriggling from Elizabeth’s grasp and turning to look at her. “Mother, why are you going?”

She glanced again at Stephen and he nodded at her, eyes full of love and warmth and excitement. “Well, darling,” she said, crouching down to sweep his hair out of his eyes. “Your father and I have discovered some lovely news. I am going to have another baby, another little sibling for you. And we want to go celebrate it before -”

“Before your mother is too sick to want to leave the house,” Stephen added, standing up and doing a little dance around the room with Ceecee squealing in her arms.

Elizabeth laughed and rolled her eyes at him. It was true that in the later months of her pregnancies she had felt more than commonly ill, all smells were too loud and her head ached, but she still thought that it was delightfully sweet that no matter how often they had done it Stephen would sit by her side and bathe her forehead and make sure that whatever smell she hated was removed from the house. “Exactly that, sweetheart.”

“A new baby?” Henry looked thoughtful for a moment before his face broke into a huge smile. “A new baby! I’m going to have a little brother!”

“Si’ter!” Ceecee demanded from her perch.

“No we already have one of you,” Henry said, going over to have this very serious conversation with his two year old sister face to face. “We need another boy so I can have a boy to play with.”

Ceecee screwed up her face, waving her hands about to emphasize her point as her papa put her down and came over to stand next to Elizabeth, his hand warm on her back. “Si’ster fo’ Ceecee! Si’ster!”

“Boy,” Henry said, giving up on his usual arguments and settling for what Ceecee would understand.

“Girl,” Ceecee said back, a stubborn frown forming on her face.

“Oh I do not envy Celia and Perceval,” Elizabeth murmured to Stephen. “They will be having this debate until the baby is here.”

“And beyond that, I am sure, until we have at least two of each,” Stephen said, bending to kiss her cheek with a merry look sparkling in his eyes.

She laughed and batted at him. He had always wanted a large family, children to be each other’s friends the way that he had his siblings but also parents to be there to take care of them the way his parents hadn’t been able to take care of him and his. She didn’t mind. The more family she had the happier she would be.

“Oh why are you two fighting?” Celia exclaimed, being ushered in by a servant with Perceval behind her and little baby Charlotte in her arms. “Come along now, whatever baby your mother has you will love it either way. Come on.”

“But Aunty,” Henry said seriously. “Ceecee already has Charlotte. I don’t think it’s wrong for me to want a boy.”

“Not at all, young lad,” Perceval said heartily. “But perhaps my wife will have a son and -”

“Perceval!” Celia gasped, but the damage was done. Elizabeth flew over to her and they embraced, laughing and crying while Stephen crossed to shake his hand.

“I thought we swore to never have them pregnant at the same time again, old boy,” Stephen said to Perceval who laughed loudly enough that little Charlotte started crying in her mother’s arms and had to be shushed and soothed.

***

It was many kisses and cuddles and promises of gifts and quick returns later before Elizabeth and Stephen were at last alone in their carriage heading to a small summer house.

“Do you remember when we met?” Stephen asked, a lazy smile on his face as he looked at her. “That dreadful morning in your father’s estate?”

“Where he acted out some scene from a Shakespearean farce?” she asked, laughing. “I remember. I thought you looked very well, and I thought you were some terrible beast who was going to carry me off and imprison me all over again.”

“I thought you were lovely,” he said. “Witty. You intrigued me.”

“You didn’t show it.”

“I was possessed with rage,” he said slowly. “I sometimes think you do not know how much you rescued me, Elizabeth. Before you my life was vengeance and work. I had very little joy.”

“I also,” she said simply, reaching over to squeeze his hand.

It had been beautiful to learn to know him the way that husbands and wives know each other, the way that people who have a heart joined with love and time truly become one. She knew what he looked like when he was deep asleep, how he liked to take his coffee in a morning and what his favorite time of year was. She knew what his footfall sounded like when he was excited and he knew when she needed to go to bed and be held and have her back rubbed. She knew when he needed to be woken from a dream or when he could sleep on. He knew when she wanted to go with him to the woods and ride with their birds and their horses, astride the saddle, wild and free.

They were in sync, in love, in tune.

“I always knew that morning was going to change the course of my life,” Stephen said softly. “But I never knew how much better I would be for it.”

She leaned forwards and captured his lips with a kiss before moving so she could sit pressed to his side. “So you want four children, my lord?”

“At least that many, if it please you my duchess.”

“Do not all Sally’s children fill the house enough?” Elizabeth asked, laughing. Ever since Sally had married the nice young groom, they had been pregnant once a year. Sally had taken to motherhood as easily as her own mother and all the little Robins mixed happily with the servants and the family on the estate while Mrs. Adams ruled like the grandmother she was born to be.

“I must try to at least match William in number,” Stephen said drolly. “Or he will think that he can try for a revolution.”

“Join forces with Perceval and you will have him matched,” Elizabeth said, poking him in the side. “There is no need for me to have five babies for such a silly reason.”

“I will love every child we have,” Stephen said, suddenly serious. “The little people that they are and the wonderful adults that they will be seeing as the good of you always outweighs the bad of me.”

Elizabeth had to swallow past a lump in her throat. “Nonsense, the good of us both is why they are so delightful, and the bad of us both is why they are so charming. No one should be all good or all bad.”

“Your brother certainly tried,” Stephen said, bending to kiss her forehead.

“Dudley was always going to be a sad, violent man,” she said with certainty. “I am simply glad that he ended up in prison before he could actually kill anyone. And I am also glad that we must no longer see those who would claim to be my family.”

“Amen to that,” Stephen said, and wrapped his arms around her to kiss her again, fire blooming between them and his strong hands wrapping around her waist. “Be mine forever, be mine always.”

“Always, my love, always,” Elizabeth said, kissing him back with all the fervor and love in her heart..

The carriage rocked onwards and Elizabeth could feel nothing but excitement and joy about her future, once so bleak and cold ahead of her. Laughter and love had healed something deeply broken in her heart, and she who once had been alone in the world now had so many friends and family that she was rich indeed.

The End