Page 8 of The Duke’s Price (Wayward Dukes’ Alliance #18)

EPILOGUE

TWO YEARS LATER, SHARDMORE BURKENSTONE, ENGLAND

“ H ow did I not remember that this is awful,” Perry grumbled to those waiting with him in his library at Shardmore Burkenstone. Caspian raised an eyebrow in question. One of the best parts of returning to England was meeting his son, and discovering a mature and responsible young man who claimed not to blame Perry for a lifetime of running away.

“Childbirth,” Perry explained. “They throw us out and we do not know what is going on.”

“Just as well,” said Haverford, with a shudder. His old friend had been cautious at first, but once he’d come to see that Perry was truly a different and better man, he had welcomed Perry back to England. The duchess was initially polite to him for Ruth’s sake, and because Haverford asked her to give him a chance, but even she had warmed up to him in the past few months.

“When Sally was born, I was there,” Haverford explained to Caspian. “I do not recommend it. And they say that women are the weaker sex!” After seven years of marriage, Haverford’s wife had presented him with a daughter. Haverford was besotted. Perry would be happy with a daughter. Perry would be happy with any result that included Ruth safe and well.

“I will keep it in mind,” said Caspian, who was still unwed. Since he was twenty-seven, it was time for him to begin considering a wife, but Perry, who had made a mess of his first marriage and had not married again until he was forty-three, did not feel qualified to recommend the marriage mart to the young man.

Indeed, their relationship was more friendship than father-son. If Caspian had a father, it was Perry’s brother-in-law, the Earl of Garrick. Garrick, or Uncle Garrick, as Caspian called him, was cradling his brandy and saying little. Morwenna, Perry’s sister, was upstairs with the other women, attending Ruth.

“How long does this take,” Perry complained, striding across the room in another restless circuit.

Those who had children—Garrick, Haverford, and the Earl of Chirbury—all looked at him with pity. Chirbury—who had put his poor wife through this experience not once, not twice, but eight times—said, “As long as it takes, Richport.”

Perry wouldn’t go so far as to say that Chirbury liked him. But Ruth’s beloved Anne had stopped glaring at him every time the Richports met the Chirburys, and Chirbury was here, after all. Perry was grateful.

“What did the Princess Isabella say in her letter, Father?” Caspian asked. Of all the men in the study, he was the one with the greatest grievance, but also the one who had welcomed Perry home with open arms. “Mama Ruth was about to tell us when her… um.”

When her waters broke, sending Perry into a panic. He had insisted on sending for the midwife and carrying Ruth up to the chamber they had prepared for the birthing, though Ruth insisted she could walk and was perfectly well.

If anything happened to Ruth, he wouldn’t want to live. Why had he not insisted on taking precautions against a pregnancy? He knew the answer to that. Ruth wanted to have a baby if she could, and he could never refuse Ruth anything.

That had been yesterday afternoon, and now it was sixteen hours later. What was happening up there?

“Father?” Caspian said.

Oh yes. The young man wanted to know about Bella’s letter.

“All is well in Las Estrellas,” he reported. “Her highness writes she gets on well with the council. As you may remember, it is headed by her three guardians, Mother Catherine, the bishop, and the general who served with her father. In the will they found—her father’s real will—that was what he’d had in mind from the beginning.”

“Are they still having difficulties with the remnants of Don Carlos’s men?” Chirbury asked.

Perry shook his head. “They think they have expelled the last of them. Expelled or imprisoned for crimes while in Estrellas. As long as Carlos was in charge, they thought they were untouchable, you see.”

“Your princess sounds like quite a woman,” said Garrick.

“She will be. She had a good teacher,” Perry said, proudly. And his thoughts, which had never left the struggle upstairs, returned to their primary preoccupation.

“We have lost him again,” Chirbury commented.

“Another brandy?” Haverford asked Perry.

He blinked as he replayed the sound of their conversation and figured out what he was being asked. He shook his head. “It is too early,” he explained. Ruth would not approve if he turned up to meet his new son or daughter smelling of brandy.

He stood when Walter entered the room. He had stationed his faithful friend in the passage outside of the birthing chamber, with instructions to come for him when it was time, and the smile on Walter’s face immediately soothed his worse fears.

“You are a father, Your Grace,” said Walter. “Her Grace and the baby are both well. You are to come upstairs, please, Lady Chirbury says.”

Perry emitted a shout of relief and joy mixed, and hugged Walter. “Have a drink, man. Chirbury, pour Walter a drink,” and without another word, he charged upstairs, stopping his wild rush at the door of the birthing chamber.

His somewhat tentative knock was answered immediately. “Richport,” said Lady Chirbury. “Good. Come in. Ruth is asking for you.”

His eyes were already eating her up. She looked tired but triumphant. She looked up from the little bundle she was holding and her smile beckoned him in.

“Perry. Perry, my dearest love. Come and meet your daughter.”

Perry bent over the pair of them in the bed, looked into the unfocused blue eyes of the tiny mite Ruth held, and—for the second time in as many years—tumbled deeply and irrevocably in love.

He had the strongest of feelings that he would never be bored again.