Page 33 of The Governess and the Rogue (Somerset Stories #6)

Eight months later…

C hristmases at Beasley Park had always been celebrated to the utmost, and this year was no exception.

All of Jack’s siblings and their families had come to stay.

So had his parents. Hannah and Charles’s parents, Arthur and Phyllida Heywood, were there too, having made the journey up from their Somerset estate a week early in order to spend more time with their children and grandchildren.

A towering Christmas tree dominated the drawing room.

It was decorated with gilded fruit and nuts, and illuminated by dozens of small wax candles.

Most of the children were on the carpeted floor around it, amid a pack of dozing dogs and a profusion of discarded wrapping paper and ribbons.

They chattered and laughed with each other as they played with their new dolls, toy trains, and the hand-painted, eerily lifelike battalions of miniature soldiers that Jack had commissioned for each of them on a recent trip to London.

“The girls too?” Bea had questioned when he’d placed the order.

“Especially the girls,” Jack had replied. “Beresfords enjoy strategy. And we’re none of us afraid of a fight.”

Bea had only laughed. She wasn’t afraid of a fight either, he knew. Not if the cause was just.

But it wasn’t her courage that had most impressed Jack since their marriage.

It was her softness. She’d already been revealing it to him by degrees before they’d wed.

But since they had set up house at the Priory, since their days—and their nights—had proven so blissful, so fulfilling, the starchy facade Bea had hidden behind when first they’d met had all but vanished.

Jack understood why.

She was safe with him. Secure in her home, and in her happiness. And she trusted him absolutely.

A humbling fact.

Every day, Jack endeavored to deserve it. To be worthy of her friendship, her trust, her love. Given the glow in Bea’s face and the lightness of her step as she moved through their new life together, he flattered himself that he was, in some small measure, succeeding.

“Your gifts to the children are always a success,” she remarked from her place beside him on the overstuffed drawing-room sofa. Dressed in a green velvet gown, she held a glass of mulled wine in one hand. Her other hand was firmly in Jack’s.

“Indeed,” Kate agreed. “Jack’s presents put the rest of us in the shade.” She was seated near the crackling fire with her husband, holding her new baby in her arms—a little boy who had been christened George.

Jack idly moved his thumb over the back of Bea’s knuckles as he replied to his sister. “You’re not honestly comparing the effect of my humble wooden soldiers with that of a new pony?”

The cream-colored Shetland that Captain and Mrs. Heywood had bought their youngest granddaughter had arrived earlier that morning, with a red satin ribbon on its little arched neck and an engraved silver plate on its halter proclaiming its name: Sugar Plum.

Charlotte had been ecstatic. So had the other children.

It had taken a Herculean effort to get them all back to the house.

Jack had ended up carrying two of his nephews in over his shoulders, thanking God that his leg had healed well enough that he could now get around tolerably well without his cane.

Kate pulled a face. “Point taken.” She directed a look of mock severity at her in-laws. “It was the pony that eclipsed everything else.”

“A grandparents’ privilege,” Captain Heywood replied with faint amusement. A tall, somber gentlemen, with graying black hair, he had served with distinction in the Peninsular Wars. He still walked with a stick on account of his injuries.

His wife, Phyllida, was next to him. She was a profoundly gentle lady, possessed of a striking feature: a pair of mismatched eyes, one blue and one brown. “We had no idea that the dear little creature would cause such a stir.”

“It was a generous gift,” James said graciously. He stood with Hannah near the fireplace, his arm around her waist.

“And a well-thought one,” Hannah added. “It’s past time Charlotte had a mount of her own.”

“Very well thought,” Jack’s mother remarked wryly, sipping her wine. “One wonders how my husband and I are to compete?”

Mrs. Heywood smiled, no doubt recalling the lavish gifts Jack’s parents had bestowed on the children in previous years. “It’s not a competition, thank heaven.”

“No, indeed,” Jack’s father replied. “I’m happy to say that our grandchildren want for nothing.”

“We must take care not to spoil them,” James said.

Jack scoffed at his brother. “We can surely spoil them a little today. It is Christmas after all.”

“I shall spoil myself with all this gingerbread,” Meg said, finishing her second piece. She was with Ivo on the settee, the two of them seated particularly close.

“You must eat,” Ivo encouraged her. “It doesn’t do to abstain in your condition.”

Meg was expecting a child in the new year. She and Ivo had announced the good news last month, to everyone’s delight.

Jack raised Bea’s hand to his lips. He pressed a kiss to it. She smiled warmly at him in return. They had been the recipients of happy news of their own very recently. But it was too soon to share it. For now, it was their secret.

Across the drawing room, Jack’s mother surveyed her children and grandchildren with a satisfied eye. “Another year nearly done,” she said. “How gratified I am that you are all happily settled.”

“And settled so near,” Mrs. Heywood said.

Captain Heywood took his wife’s hand. Their fingers twined together with intimate affection. “There’s much to be said for the West Country. And Somerset in particular.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Jack’s father said.

James raised his glass. “To Somerset.”

“And to Devon,” Kate added, joining their toast. Her and Charles’s estate, Satterthwaite Court, was located in the neighboring county.

“Hear, hear,” Charles said. “To Somerset and Devon.”

“To the West Country!” The Beresfords and Heywoods lifted their glasses.

As his family toasted, Jack raised his own glass to his wife in a private salute. “And to us, my love,” he said softly.

Bea’s porcelain blue eyes shone as she raised her glass to him in return. “To us, my darling,” she said. “And to all the happiness to come.”