Page 325 of Desires of a Duke Collection

After the twins were born...

Charles glanced over at his sleeping wife. Careful not to awaken her, he grabbed a chenille throw from the back of the sofa and gently covered her sleeping form. The soft, late afternoon light filtered through the lace curtains, casting a warm glow on the room’s elegant furnishings.

Every bit as beautiful as the day he married her, Charles took a moment to admire the curve of her cheek and the slight smile on her face. CeCe seemed to have fewer and fewer resting hours now, with the twins walking about everywhere. Who would have guessed that two little gremlins disguised as infant daughters could be so much trouble?

Charles ought to have known that the moment they fixed their identical turquoise eyes upon him, they would cast a similar spell of enchantment upon him, just as their mother had all those years ago when he had first met her spying with her brother.

Feeling a tug on his buff trousers, he glanced down. Ellie, the eldest twin, gazed up at him in complete adoration. She had a talent for somehow sticking her entire fist into her mouth and yet still grinning around it. There was quite a lot of drool involved.

“However did you escape your nanny?” he whispered, picking her up.

“As if our mere nanny were a match for my daughter.”

Charles turned his head towards CeCe. “I’m sorry, darling. We didn’t mean to awaken you.”

“I wasn’t sleeping,” CeCe insisted, discreetly wiping a bit of drool away from her cheek.

“Of course not,” Charles wisely agreed. He was no fool.

Their old nanny came rushing in with Lizzie perched on her hip. Her gray hair was pulled from its pins, and her smock was coming undone. “I’m so sorry, Mister Charles and Mrs. CeCe! I don’t know how she keeps escaping; if it isn’t Ellie, it’s Lizzie! I just know you’ll want little old me to turn in my post, and I’ll be out on the streets!”

Nanny burst into tears. Charles, faced with a sobbing woman who was not his wife, did the only honorable thing that a gentleman could do. He scooped up the twins, bid them au revoir, and exited so quickly that CeCe wasn’t certain he even paused for breath.

Coward, she thought with a smirk.

“Nanny, please don’t fret so! We are not upset with you! You are family. The girls are high-spirited, is all. We are not turning you out, not today or any other day. There is something I’d like to discuss with you.”

Nanny, hearing these reassuring words, tried to compose herself. She took the offered hanky and was feeling quite a bit more the thing after a rather frightening blow. “What is it, Mrs.?”

“Nanny, I’d like to hire maids to help you in the nursery. Now, before you get upset, it’s not that I don’t think you are doing a fine job. But the girls are growing older and getting more challenging, and well, I am pretty certain I am increasing again, so we will need all the support we can get.”

Nanny sat there silently for a moment, not responding. CeCe began to worry that perhaps she had pushed the woman too far.

But then she seemed to gather her courage, squared her aging shoulders, and looked CeCe right in the eyes. “I shall require two maids and a third when the child is born. We can renegotiate more help from there.”

CeCe eyed her shrewdly before laughing. “You’ve been taking advice from Eli again, I take it?”

Nanny colored sweetly. “Too much?”

“Probably not nearly enough!” CeCe laughed. “Just promise me that when Eli has children, Nanny, we make a pact to say his are much worse behaved than mine, even if it’s not true—or perhaps especially if it’s not true. He is so insufferable.”

CeCe momentarily pondered. “I really ought to wager him on it. I’m sure his children will be much worse than my little darlings. We could say... triple or nothing?”

---

As Charles wandered the estate with his twins, he reflected on the twists of fate that had brought him such happiness. He had once dreamed of this life with CeCe but had worried it was just that… a dream. Their journey together had been anything but smooth, yet every challenge had only strengthened their bond.

Eli, now an established and respected figure in London society, often visited with updates from the city. His romantic entanglements with the lovely Sophie, a debutant who had staked her claim in Elias, were a source of endless amusement for the family. CeCe’s brother had grown into a man of great character and charm.

CeCe’s father, the Baron, lived the remainder of his life much with the same selfish abandon he always had. He’d never come to meet the twins and as far as CeCe was concerned, never was too soon.

Their mother, Eloise, was a warm and loving grandmother. She doted on the twins and found every excuse to come and cuddle them. CeCe was only too happy to have her mother by her side. It was a blessing to have been able to remain so near.

Elizabeth and Robert, who had once seemed to despise each other, were now almost unrecognizable in their relationship. The love that had blossomed between them was evident to all who saw them. Initially, their marriage was one of convenience. Yet even in the darkest of hours, love has a way of bringing the dawn.

As for the Widow Abbot, she continued to be a guiding presence in Frances’s life until her passing a few years later. To everyone’s surprise, the widow left a considerable fortune to her niece, Frances. What they had thought was a frugal existence turned out to be a well-managed estate. Once so fragile and lost, Frances bravely decided to set up her household in London, certain that love and romance would never come her way.

She was mistaken.

The youngest Rotherford brother had become quite a scholar. Spencer had dedicated years to his studies and life in academia. However, fate had other plans for him. One evening, as he walked through the dimly lit streets, he was bludgeoned by a thief. How could he have known his assailant was actually a lady? This unexpected encounter would lead to an adventure he never anticipated.

His parents, Mariah and Richard, were as constant as the tides of the sea. With their sons married and grandchildren popping up everywhere, was it any wonder Mariah and Richard turned the bulk of the businesses over to their sons? They wanted all the time in the world to be with the grandkids.

CeCe joined Charles in the garden, where the twins played among the flowers. She slipped her hand into his, and they stood together, watching their daughters’ laughter fill the air.

“Life has turned out quite wonderfully, hasn’t it?” CeCe mused.

“Indeed it has,” Charles agreed, pressing a kiss to her temple. “And I wouldn’t change a single moment of it.”

As the sun set on their idyllic estate, the family gathered together, ready to face whatever the future held, confident in their love and strength as a family.

Two

This scene takes place after all the Rotherford brothers are married to their ladies…

“Lizzie, stop being such a baby. Just throw off your night dress and jump in. The water is fine!”

Lizzie regarded CeCe incredulously, “You realize you are saying that through shivering teeth. What could have ever possessed you to think that this was fun?”

A war cry sounded behind her as a shift went flying. And then CeCe was flashed by a very naked Bex who had gone sailing into the water with the grace of a gazelle in the moonlight.

She came up sputtering, clutching her frozen nipples and aching breasts, “CeCe, this actually hurts!”

CeCe rolled her eyes, “Good grief, you lived on the streets of England, Bex. Surely, you can withstand cold nipples. I am telling you, you will get used to it. Just swim around a bit.”

Bex laughed at her and began her way. Lizzie decided to tiptoe down to the water, noting that the other women sounded like they were having fun. Sticking her toe into the pond, she felt the coolness of the water. Yes, her sisters-in-law were utterly insane.

“You know that you want to!” CeCe shouted out to her from the middle, and Bex grinned, looking like the sleek mermaid she undoubtedly was.

“Oh, what I do for the two of you,” Lizzie whipped off her nightdress and flung it on the grass beside her.

The girls began making catcalls at her, to which she flashed them a lewd finger gesture they’d all learned from Bex. CeCe and Bex fell back into the water, laughing themselves silly. Lizzie couldn’t help but smile at their antics; slowly, she crept into the water, adjusting to the coolness.

CeCe was right; it wasn’t so terrible after one got used to it. Although it was a bit alarming to be swimming in the water, Lizzie seemed to find herself doing all kinds of alarming things when CeCe was involved.

When she got close enough, she noticed that the girls were floating on their backs. They looked like sea nymphs with their hair floating all around them and their alabaster skin shining against the moonlight. Their bodies were so very different in shape and size, yet each was so beautiful in its own way.

Lizzie lay back into the water and joined them as they floated until CeCe got a wild whim and grabbed her foot to pull her under. From there, it was dunking and playing until they were all completely worn out.

As the girls pulled themselves out of the pond, they gathered up their clothes and dressed hurriedly. It was much colder now that they were wet and open in the breeze.

“I am getting too old for these things,” CeCe complained as she trudged back toward Rotherford Hall, her feet sloshing in her shoes.

Bex laughed, “It was your idea, sister dear.”

Lizzie chuckled, “It’s always her idea. We will be eighty; running around in our wrinkled altogether, and it will be all CeCe’s idea.”

CeCe grinned, “But at least we’ll be together, and isn’t that what really matters? I love my sisters. Thank you for coming out on this crazy scheme of mine, especially since I know that I have been unreasonable since the twins were born. I just needed something fun to take my mind off things.”

Bex and Lizzie leaned in to hug her.

“I know all about the crazy emotions of a new mother. I am trying to get them under control myself,” Lizzie sighed, “But I will always be here for you, CeCe, and you too, Bex.”

Bex grinned, “I hope that I have a while yet before any babies start coming to Spencer and me. But I adore my nieces and nephew, and I love having sisters.”

The ladies snuck in the servant’s door and departed to their separate chambers.

**

“You have got to get your wife under control,” Robert’s voice was harsh in the darkness.

“Can’t say I’ve ever seen anything like that before in my life,” Spencer replied, his voice quiet in wonderment.

“We will not speak of it again—ever!” Robert’s voice was resolute.

Charles smiled in the darkness. “But we may think about it from time to time—because… Damn.”

And then he ran into the night, his laughter floating above as his brothers attempted to catch him.

The End… for now.