Page 113 of The Ladies Least Likely

EPILOGUE

“ I f a man has a library in a…woman of beauty… Aree fah ! I’ll never get this.” Ned tossed the shred of paper with its Latin inscription onto the library table.

Amaranthe looked up from her easel near the window and the parchment pages anchored with her wooden bar. The library at Hunsdon House had even better light than the workroom in her own little house.

“Where are you picking up your Cornish expressions, Ned? Eyde? Derwa? Or Tamara?” Tamara was the little Cornish costermonger who, with her cronies, looked after Amaranthe’s house after she removed to the ducal mansion.

Ned gave her an abashed grin. “You, mum.”

There’d been a happy settling of Amaranthe’s staff into Hunsdon House in the sixth months since her marriage.

Mrs. Blackthorn ran the kitchen with its small army of undercooks and scullery maid.

Mrs. Wheatley had proved a hopeless cook but a natural born housekeeper, and she and Mrs. Blackthorn ruled their empire with wisdom and munificence.

Amaranthe was allowed to make menu suggestions and choose which scents she wanted in the linen closets, and which guest to put in which room, but otherwise she was not obliged to decide on a single household issue.

She found this arrangement a great relief.

Ralph, now Mr. Biggs, was the most loyal and devoted butler to be found in all of London, and his dignity was to be marveled at.

Davey, first footman, enjoyed his task of instructing and advising the second and third footmen, keeping them in their place.

Eyde had ascended to the role of dresser to the duchess and spent hours tending to Amaranthe’s hair and gowns, carefully and with much delight building a new wardrobe for her mistress after Sybil stormed through the house and took every last glove and pin with her.

Derwa was companion to Camilla, and all summer the two had racketed about the gardens like hooligans, whooping and shouting and neglecting their lessons.

Amaranthe vowed that next year they would remove to one of the country estates for the summer, but Mal had needed these months to settle into his new role.

Joseph looked up from his book. “You’re switching the object with the prepositional phrase, Ned. Look at the declensions again.” He passed the paper back to his pupil. Ned heaved a sigh.

Amaranthe hid her smile. Joseph had had a less blissful summer than she, but at least he had ceased drowning his sorrows in spirits.

“I’m home!” Mal strolled into the library, dressed in a beautifully embroidered brocade coat and matching breeches. He tossed his small wig into a chair and ran a hand through his shorn hair.

He had taken up wigs, following the fashion in the House of Lords, though he kept threatening to wear his natural hair.

Amaranthe suspected that many other men would abandon their bag wigs and periwigs to imitate the new Duke of Hunsdon, who had caused quite a few ripples through the beau monde when he was formally invested at the close of Parliament’s spring session and assumed his coronet and robes.

With the Lords assembling again for the fall session, Mal had taken his seat with pleasure, and found the arguing, negotiating, networks, and factions of politics his true milieu.

Amaranthe smiled to see him full of confidence and self-assurance, his sense of justice and his persuasive talents put to good ends.

“What is everyone working on? I demand an accounting,” Mal said.

“Latin.” Ned sighed.

“Travel plans.” Joseph returned to his copy of Thomas Nugent’s The Grand Tour , the volume on France.

Camilla, without taking her eyes from the pages, raised a thick volume entitled The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire .

“And you, my love?” Mal strolled over to drop a kiss on her hair and glance at the pages where Amaranthe was scraping away a mistake. Her mind had been wandering of late, and she’d made two errors already.

“My new commission to make a preservation copy of the Book of Nunnaminster. It’s an Anglo-Saxon prayer book from the Harley Collection in the British Royal Library.

Ninth century Latin, the earliest thing I’ve ever worked on.

I’m still astonished that the librarian would have contacted me about making a display copy for them. ”

“I’m not surprised at all.” Mal rubbed her shoulders, working out the knot that had developed from bending forward over the fine script. “You’re a duchess, and the best copyist in London. No one can quite get over that combination.”

“I can think of half a dozen copyists equally good who have more need of the commission,” Amaranthe murmured.

“But I couldn’t say no. Do you know who was first to hold and read this book?

Ealhswith, wife of Alfred the Great. I’m holding a prayer book made for a queen.

” She reverently traced the line she was to copy next.

“A woman of beauty requires a library? Bah!” Ned sputtered with frustration. “Millie, won’t you lend a fellow a hand here?”

“Not on your life.” Camilla’s eyes were glued to her book. “Commodus is about to be murdered by the praetorian guard, and I can’t say he doesn’t deserve it.”

The door opened and Ralph entered, back straight as a doorjamb, his livery gleaming. “The post, Your Grace,” he intoned. “And the cards that have been left today.” He brought the salver mounded with letters and cards to Amaranthe, who put down her quill and picked up her letter opener.

“Viktor called? He seems at loose ends lately, as I haven’t the time to racket about with him,” Mal observed.

“The rotter,” Joseph added from the depths of his chair.

“Come now, don’t be bitter. You both share the honor of having been thrown over by Miss Pettigrew, which should make you friends,” Mal said.

He swiped a missive off the salver, noting the return address of Eton.

“Hugh wrote! I hope the food is getting better, he’s put that bully boy Southwood in his place, and he’s not already asking for money. ”

He threw himself into a chair beside Amaranthe, already lost in the letter.

Whatever Hugh needed, she knew Mal would send it at once without question.

They’d gone together to deliver Hugh to Eton for the Michaelmas term, and it was clear that school was just what the boy needed to take his mind off his change in circumstances.

Mal had coached him at length about what to ignore and what to answer with his fists when he was insulted about his bastardy, and he had concluded the lessons with demonstrations of precisely where the fists should be placed.

They had left Hugh eager to fit in but also ready for battle, and Amaranthe wondered if a bit of scrapping to prove his worth wasn’t exactly what the lad needed to lift his spirits.

“Will you look at this,” Amaranthe said in surprise, picking up a creamy square of vellum. “The Duchess of Cumberland left a card. And the Duchess of Gloucester and Edinburgh as well. Good heavens! What do they want with me?”

“You’re the newest duchess in town,” Mal answered, without looking up from Hugh’s letter. “Out to curry favor, I don’t doubt, especially since Queen Charlotte was so taken with you at your presentation.”

“If they’re in league with Sybil, I rather wonder if there’s some plan to humiliate me,” Amaranthe said. “Ought I call on them, do you think?”

“Might as well,” Mal answered. “I’m about to become rather unpopular.

In our last session in Lords I voted to support the younger Hartley’s patent on fire protection—it’s something very clever, using iron plates—but I also endorsed the resolution he presented in the Commons, declaring that the slave trade is contrary to the laws of God and the rights of men. ”

Amaranthe sorted through the large stack of calling cards. “Well, it is.”

“I know that, and you know that, and everyone in our household knows that. But an unpopular stance nevertheless among those making a great deal of money from slaving ships.”

“I support you, however far you wish to take it,” Amaranthe said. “Only think of what Mrs. Blackthorn and Mrs. Wheatley went through. And how many hundreds, no thousands of souls have it as bad or worse.”

Mal passed her Hugh’s letter with a fond smile. “That’s my duchess. Champion of lost causes. Collector of strays.”

“I don’t collect them, you daft man. They choose me. And that’s been my great fortune.”

“As you have been my fortune,” Mal returned. “No one can accuse me of ill luck any longer. Is that another letter from your dratted cousin Reuben? What is he after now, asking again for money? He didn’t even come to our wedding.”

Amaranthe passed him the letter. “Perhaps he’s wishing us well.”

Mal tossed the letter aside, unopened. “I chose you,” he said abruptly.

Amaranthe paused to smile at him. “You did not,” she said. “Oliver told you to marry and you cast your gaze about, and I happened to be convenient.”

Mal sat up in his chair. “Did you see me married to anyone before you?” he demanded. “Did you see me pay my addresses to anyone else? No. Ergo you are the woman I chose, the only woman for me, and that’s that.”

“Of course, my love,” Amaranthe said. She enjoyed teasing her husband about the way he had courted her, but in truth she was supremely happy with her lot. Marital relations had proved a joy beyond her wildest expectations, in every respect.

And with the conventional results. She put a hand to her belly, feeling a small movement inside. Gas, most likely. She would wait to say anything until she was quickening. Favella was her reminder of how terribly much could go wrong.

“Maria Walpole was illegitimate, wasn’t she?” Camilla looked up from Gibbon. “And now she’s the Duchess of Gloucester and Edinburgh.”

“Yes, dear. She married an earl, and then a royal prince,” Amaranthe answered. “So don’t fret about what your prospects might be when you come out.”

“I might decide not to marry,” Camilla said defiantly. “Derwa and I might decide to travel. Or take up a trade, like you.”

“Which sounds lovely,” Amaranthe agreed. “In fact, I may very well ask to accompany you if you travel. I haven’t been further than Cornwall, you know.” She selected a small note with familiar handwriting from the salver beside her.

“The Duchess of Northumberland invites us to one of her assemblies Tuesday next,” she told Mal. “I’ll accept, shall I? I do adore her assemblies.”

“And she adores you.” Mal chuckled. “Hasn’t she promised to be one of the first patronesses of your shop, as soon as you open?”

“Which will be soon,” Amaranthe said, feeling a flutter in her belly that was all excitement.

“We went over today, while you were in meetings, to put up another set of shelves. And Mr. Thorkelson dropped off the consignment he promised from one of his client’s estates.

Mr. Karim will come Wednesday to help me catalogue and arrange them. ”

“How eager Mr. Thorkelson has proven to please us,” Mal remarked. “I may keep our business with him after all, since he’s terrified to cross me.”

“The Duchess of Northumberland is a baroness in her own right, isn’t she?” Camilla put a finger in her book. “And she’s the one who made her husband a duke, when he started out a mere baronet.”

Mal laughed. “My duchess did her one better,” he said. “She made a duke out of a bastard.”

“Why do you keep calling her that?” Camilla demanded, setting her book aside and crossing to their chairs, perching on the armrest of Amaranthe’s.

“My duchess? Because she is.”

“But that is her status,” Camilla said with exasperation. “Not her name .”

“Well, you can’t call her Amaranthe, as that’s rude,” Mal said.

“I have it!” Ned crowed from his place at the table. “A man who has a beautiful woman in his library lacks for nothing.” He rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Bah! All that work for a love note that you wrote, Mal.”

His guardian grinned. “I did. But it wasn’t meant for you. Joseph set you to it, I suppose?”

“I thought it was an assignment from you.” Joseph’s face reddened as he passed Amaranthe the slip of paper.

“You remind me that I need to decide what to put on the sign over my shop,” Amaranthe said. “Amaranthe Delaval, antiquarian? Amaranthe’s Antique Books?”

“The Antiquarian Duchess,” Joseph proposed.

“Hunsdon Books and Antiquarian Artifacts,” Ned said.

“My Talented Wife,” Mal said with a teasing grin.

“Well, I know what I want to call her,” Camilla said, curling against Amaranthe’s side. “Mother.”

“One of my favorite titles,” Amaranthe murmured. “In fact, it may be my favorite above all.”

“Better than duchess? Or wife?” Mal affected outrage.

She smiled and reached out her hand to him. “And to think I was once Amaranthe Illingworth, orphan. You are the one who has elevated me, dear. And I wish to be no place else in the world but here with you.”