Page 29 of Where Have All the Scoundrels Gone (Dukes in Disguise #2)
Five Years Later…
Nathaniel strode through the front doors of Ashbourn House and felt, as he always did, the weight of cares slip from his shoulders the moment he stepped inside.
Tossing his hat and gloves onto a side table, Nathaniel breathed deeply of the air of quietly joyful serenity that permeated his home.
It was a marked contrast to the cheerful chaos of the home he’d just left—the Augusta Lively Home for Orphaned Children.
Set in the Wiltshire countryside not far from Little Kissington, the Augusta Lively Home comprised a large, comfortable manor house on spacious grounds with plenty of room for small humans to explore, run, and play.
When Parliament finally voted against Nathaniel’s proposal for the government to resume funding of the Foundling Hospital, it had been a crushing blow. But founding their own children’s home had given Nathaniel and Bess the freedom to organize and run it exactly as they wished.
Kindness and encouragement were the order of the day. Pragmatic instruction in skills that would help the children find jobs, balanced with plenty of time to roam the woods and fish in the stream, to build castles of imagination and simply be children.
The Augusta Lively Home tolerated no unreasonable barriers to entry or prohibitive “morality” clauses. Anyone who needed help was welcome within her walls—and there were many who flocked to her, in hope and despair.
The demand was overwhelming, the need staggering, but whenever Nathaniel began to feel swamped by it, he had only to look at Bess, and his entire life came into focus.
Bess. His wife.
Nothing, not even the good they were doing and all they’d accomplished with the Home, filled Nathaniel with more pride and satisfaction than the simple fact of Bess as his wife.
Hungry for the sight of her after several long days visiting the Augusta Lively Home and several of its most important benefactors, Nathaniel made his way deeper into Ashbourn House.
The air was redolent of evergreen from the boughs wound round the banisters and laid across the mantelpieces, but there was a warm undertone that made Nathaniel’s mouth water.
Dark sugar. Cinnamon. Cloves. Butter. Ginger.
He knew exactly where he’d find Bess.
Nathaniel quietly descended the stairs to the kitchen and stood for a moment on the threshold, observing the scene within.
Amidst the bustle of kitchen maids cleaning and prepping vegetables for supper and Monsieur Anatole barking French-accented instructions for the roast, Bess was an island of calm.
She stood over a small form swaddled in a far-too-large apron, a radiant look on her lovely face. With gentle encouragement, Bess appeared to be demonstrating the correct application of a mixing spoon to a bowlful of flour to the child who perched atop a tall stool and stared into the yellow crockery bowl in fascination.
Their daughter, Kitty, demanded her own turn with the spoon, and immediately began knocking puffs of flour from the bowl with her vigorous stirring. Bess laughed and let her have at it, her warm, brown eyes sparkling with happiness.
Nathaniel felt his heart swell so that his chest could scarce contain it.
He must have made some motion, because Kitty looked up and caught sight of him lingering in the doorway. Wriggling with more excitement than her three-year-old body could handle, Kitty pointed a chubby finger and beamed at Nathaniel, whose throat clenched with emotion.
He would never become inured to the joy, the fulfillment, his family brought him.
Putting a hand softly atop their daughter’s riotous honey-gold curls, Bess turned to the doorway. That sunshine smile he so loved, the twin of their child’s, bathed Nathaniel in welcome.
“You’re back,” she cried, lifting Kitty in her arms and moving swiftly to meet Nathaniel at the door. Within a heartbeat, Nathaniel found himself enveloped in the sugared almond and vanilla sweetness of home.
“I missed you both,” he said, low and with deep feeling. Time away from his little family was akin to torture for Nathaniel, but he bore it for the good of the Home.
And for the pure distilled happiness of returning to the loving embrace of his wife and small daughter.
“I’m making gingerbread, Papa, look!” Kitty released her exuberantly tight clasp of his neck to show the dark streaks of treacle that now no doubt also adorned his collar.
Taking her dimpled hand in his, Nathaniel very seriously drew one sticky finger to his lips for a kiss. “Delicious. I’ve never had sweeter,” he told her.
“We’re having gingerbread for tea,” Kitty said with satisfaction.
“I can’t wait to taste it.”
“Mine isn’t finished!” The realization had Kitty squirming to be set down. One of the kitchen maids hurried over to take Kitty’s hand and lead her back to her stool. Kitty clambered up and attacked the bowl with renewed vigor as the maid looked on indulgently.
“I can finish up the lesson, if you like, Your Grace,” she offered with a smile.
Bess had never quite gotten round to hiring a nursemaid to take care of Kitty, preferring to spend most of her time with their daughter herself. The rest of the household, as smitten with the new duchess’s kind, practical nature as Nathaniel was, leapt at the chance to lend a hand in watching over the small, sweet-faced despot who ruled Ashbourn House.
Nathaniel could see Bess hesitating, and put a thumb lightly on the scales by pulling her closer than was proper, relishing the feel of her trim, strong body all along his front. Bess’s pretty brown eyes went heavy-lidded.
“Yes, thank you, Dolly,” she said, a bit dazedly. “I’ll be back in a bit to take her off your hands. Kitty, mind what Dolly says and don’t go near the oven!”
Nathaniel let the door swing shut on Kitty’s blithe “Yes, Mama!”
The moment they were alone in the hall, he secured Bess against the wall and let his legs tangle with hers amidst the material of her skirts.
Dropping kisses across the bridge of her nose and the graceful lines of her cheekbones, Nathaniel relished the fine-grained texture of her skin. The heat of the flush he was bringing up. The damp strike of her breath as she parted her lips on a gasp.
“Goodness,” she said with a shaky laugh. “You did miss us!”
“Like I’d miss breathing.”
She petted at his shoulders and down his arms in a habitual motion, the same way she used to check him for injuries and sore muscles after a fight at The Nemesis. Nathaniel hadn’t been in a fight since the fire—at least, not a physical one. Fights in the House of Lords left their own kind of marks.
“Well, you’re home now,” Bess said.
“Home.” The curl of satisfaction in Nathaniel’s chest wrapped round his entire heart.
Nestling more firmly into the cradle of his body, Bess said, “How were the trustees? Is Thornecliff behaving himself?”
“Shockingly, yes.”
No one had been more surprised than Nathaniel to discover that the person who’d pulled him from the burning Nemesis was none other than the Duke of Thornecliff.
An uneasy truce had sprung up between Nathaniel and Thornecliff, based partly upon that entirely out-of-character act of heroism, but also due to Thornecliff’s role in uncovering the culprit behind the fire.
His erstwhile friend, Lord Phillip Dewbury, also known as Lord Pup, had turned up at Thorne’s townhouse the day after the fire in a drunken stupor, raving about deliberately setting the blaze in an attempt to get revenge upon those he felt had wronged him.
Rather than helping Lord Phillip to escape London, Thorne had summoned the authorities and handed him over to justice—an act that had prompted Bess to wonder if there was, perhaps, more to the worst duke in London than met the eye.
At his wife’s urging, Nathaniel had offered Thorne the chance to become a trustee of the Augusta Lively Home, never for a moment expecting the rotter to actually accept—only to find himself saddled with Thornecliff for good when the infuriating bastard handed him a sizable donation.
Now he had to see the blasted man every time he gave reports before Parliament and the trustees about the state of the Home. Never mind that it had been several years since Nathaniel had truly wished to pound Thornecliff’s face into a pulp.
“I met him at The Nemesis for a drink,” Nathaniel told Bess. Madame Leda had accepted Nathaniel’s help in funding the rebuilding of her beloved tavern. The least he could do, she’d sniffed, since The Berserker wouldn’t be fighting there any longer.
“How are Leda and Rufus?”
“Busy. She says the sheen of respectability from having a duke for a patron has kept the place full every night since it reopened.”
“And how is Thorne?”
Nathaniel grimaced. “He asked after Lucy. Not in so many words, you know how he is. But I know what he’s after.”
“Do you? I don’t think even Thornecliff knows what he wants with Lucy,” Bess observed. “Did you tell him she’s abroad?”
“And hinted strongly that she wasn’t coming back anytime soon, so he might as well forget about her,” Nathaniel growled. He might have softened a bit toward Thorne, but he’d be damned before he indulged the reprobate’s idle interest in Nathaniel’s sister.
“I’m not sure that’s true,” Bess said. “Her last letter sounded a bit homesick to me. Perhaps the life of a globe-trotting explorer is wearing on her, finally. I predict she’ll be home before the last day of Christmas.”
The mention of Nathaniel’s favorite season brought a smile to his lips. Advent was upon them, Christmas Day only a couple of weeks away. Since the very first December after he and Bess had wed, they’d hosted the entire family at Ashbourn House for the holiday.
In the early years, it had been Gemma heavy with child and Hal buzzing round her like a particularly proud, protective bee, and Henrietta taking tea in the kitchens with Mrs. Drummond. Leda and Rufus had joined them on Christmas Day, still worn and reeling from the fire that had upended their lives.
Every December since, the entire house rang with laughter and carols, and smelled of spiced wine and pine boughs and the same gingerbread Kitty was now learning to bake.
And every December, Nathaniel felt as if he was wandering through a long-forgotten dream, the fulfillment of a wish he hadn’t even known he harbored.
Nathaniel was so busy thinking about Christmas, he almost missed the slow, secret smile that curved Bess’s lips. But he knew her face. He knew and loved every inch of her, better than he knew himself.
He knew what that smile meant.
Going still, his focus narrowed to take in the details of her face and figure, more sharply obvious after several days apart. He catalogued the softness of her breasts and hips, the beautiful roundness of her face, the lush antique gold gleam of her hair.
“Bess. Do you have another reason to expect Lucy will make the trip home from Europe before Twelfth Night?” he demanded thickly.
Her tiny smile grew. She took one of his large hands and placed it on the gentle swell of her stomach. “I do. Our family is growing.”
Nathaniel let out a shaky, gut-punched breath. Overcome, he buried his face in her neck. “My Bess. My queen. My wife. What a wonder you are.”
“I didn’t do it all by myself,” she protested, laughing, her hands unbearably tender as they stroked through his hair.
“You never have to do anything by yourself. I’m with you. Yours, always.”
“Forever.” Her voice wobbled, tears close to the surface. “Nathaniel. Are you happy?”
“Bess.” He straightened to scan her beautiful face. “You need to ask? I’m home. With you. I’m happy. Are you?”
She melted against him, trusting him with the weight of her body and the full width and breadth of her feelings. “I didn’t know it was possible to be so happy.”
And he knew it was true, and that he’d had a hand in it. He had made his wife happy, and he would continue to make her happy, every day, for as long as they both lived and beyond.
Because when it came to this love he’d found with Bess, this love that had turned his entire world upside down and rewritten the very fabric of his soul—he would accept nothing less than forever.
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