Page 22 of Duke of the Underworld (Regency Gods #2)

EPILOGUE

M artin looked suspicious.

“So, I would be the owner,” he asked, looking at the papers in front of him as if they were arcane texts and even reading them constituted heresy.

“You would,” Hugh agreed. He hoped he sounded patient, but this was about the seventh time he’d run through this, and he was eager to get home to Persephone and the girls.

“And you would be…?”

“An investor,” Hugh said calmly.

“And this would mean what exactly?” Martin asked, pulling the papers toward him with a single finger.

Hugh let out a breath very slowly. “You would continue doing your job. Eventually, you’d be able to buy out a higher stake of the club. I would keep a small portion, but the more you owned, the more money you would make. I, in turn, would make less, but I’d put those earnings into other endeavors. We can revisit if you’d like complete ownership at some point, as well.”

Martin tapped two fingers on the paper now. Hugh felt like he was luring a stray cat out of a corner with a choice cut of meat.

“And why do you want to do this?”

“Because—” Hugh’s voice was tight. “—the club is a great financial asset but is also a social detriment. If I have cleaner sources of income, so to speak, I can keep the estate afloat without risking any effect to the girls.”

Martin’s nod was so slow and so thoughtful that realization dawned.

“You bastard. You’re mocking me.”

Quick as lightning, Martin’s grin overtook his face.

“Aye. Damn, you got me. I wanted to see if I could get you to explain it a full dozen times before you caught on. Must be losing my touch.”

Hugh ground a knuckle into the space between his eyes as Martin laughed uproariously.

“Oh, come off it, then. You can hardly blame me. You’re so busy at home these days that I’ve nary a chance to give you a hard time about things. And if I don’t do it, who will? Can’t have you going all insufferable nob on me, can I?”

“No risk of that,” Hugh grumbled.

Indeed, there wasn’t. Not only was Persephone startlingly adept at keeping him even keeled—though in his case, this tended toward quelling his self-recrimination rather than self-aggrandizement—the girls, now that he spent more time with them, had revealed an astonishing proclivity for keeping him humble.

The other day, for example, Lucy had looked at him during a trip to the menagerie and asked, “Do you wear a beard so that you can look like one of the monkeys, Uncle Hugh?”

It had been made all the more gutting because she hadn’t intended the question to mock him. She’d really thought this was a possible origin for his sartorial choices.

Persephone had laughed so hard she’d nearly fallen over.

“Ah, perhaps not,” Martin agreed. “I do like that wife of yours, though, even if she is stealing my favorite past time. As to the business matters, however.” He pulled the contract toward him. “I’ve learned enough in this life to know a man should never sign his name to something without asking a solicitor first, but I’ve learned enough knowing you to know that you’re trustworthy. I’ll consult the paperwork, but I’m sure any changes will be minor. I’m rather flattered, Hugh; thank you. I’ll do your club proud.”

Hugh had no doubts, even if he suspected that most of the pride in the place was Martin’s, not anyone else’s. He, for one, spent his days now worrying about things that he found far more entertaining.

“I’m sure you will,” he said. He stood, then extended his hand for Martin to shake. “Congratulations on your new acquisition.”

“Ah,” Martin said, suddenly bashful. He shoved his hands into his pocket. “Go home to your gaggle of wee women, would you?”

Hugh was only too happy to comply.

Back at the house, the girls offered him no more than a cursory greeting as they went through the complicated motions of some game they were playing in the garden. Their governess was looking on indulgently as Lucy gesticulated as broadly as any politician giving a grand speech before Parliament. Grace was watching, rapt, but Martha looked suspicious. He waved back at them and then moved inside. He had no doubt that the girls would give him all the details—including sharing any blame for disputes that arose—over supper that evening.

He headed directly inside and, after shedding his coat and hat, went upstairs. He found Persephone where he expected her to be—in the corridor outside their bedchamber, pacing back and forth.

When she saw him, she smiled.

“How was Martin?” she asked, not stopping her motion.

“A regular pain in my arse, as usual,” Hugh said, crossing to her and dropping a quick kiss on her lips. “But never mind him. How are you? How’s baby?”

He reached out to caress the large bump of Persephone’s stomach, which was growing bigger by the day, it seemed.

“Oh, we’re up to our usual tricks,” she said with a smile as he fell into step beside her. “He’s kicking me mercilessly unless I’m moving about, so I walk and walk and walk.”

“’He?’” Hugh arched an eyebrow.

“He feels like a boy,” Persephone said confidently. “He’s rambunctious.”

Hugh used the arm not helping his wife to obscure his smile.

“It is very intriguing to me that you say that, given the three little girls who live in our home,” he commented when he was confident that his tone was neutral. Persephone’s reactions were a touch unpredictable now that she was increasing, and he’d fallen afoul of her moods more times than he cared to admit.

When Persephone was cross, the girls unilaterally took her side. Only the week prior, Hugh had ended up with the entire household cross with him because he had observed that they’d had quite a lot of soup for dinner these past weeks. It had turned out that Persephone had become rather fixated on soup in her pregnancy.

To his horror, Persephone looked at him with wide eyes.

“Hugh,” she said, “what if there are three babies in there? Triplets exist, Hugh! Think of the girls.”

“It’s not going to be triplets,” he soothed.

Like a flash, she was irate.

“You do not know that, Hugh!” she wailed. “Why would you say that when you don’t know that!”

“You’re right,” he said. “Of course you’re right.”

He could have offered that he had seen the girls’ mother when she was increasing; she’d looked as big as Persephone did now many months earlier. Logic, however, seemed less likely to take hold at the moment than did instant capitulation.

Hugh loved his wife. He loved being married.

But goodness, he would be happy when the baby was here.

Persephone gave him a skeptical look. “Are you merely humoring me?”

“Yes,” Hugh admitted.

“Is it because you love me?”

“Yes.”

She harrumph ed. “Very well, I accept.”

He pulled her toward him and kissed her cheek, which she accepted with a happy little hum as if this was nothing less than his due. And indeed, it was. She deserved every tiny piece of happiness she could get.

“You know,” he told her, “the girls are busy playing, and I know they have their lessons afterward. We have a few hours all to ourselves.”

“Is this what I can expect all the time now that you are an idle aristocrat? Leisurely afternoons with nobody trying to steal away your attention?”

“Indeed you can,” he told her. “Do you think you’ll grow sick of me?”

She grinned and leaned more heavily into him. When she spoke, it was with absolute confidence.

“No,” she told him. “Never.”

The End?