Clara nodded, face serious. "You are a good Duke. And Aunt Nancy is a good Duchess."
Oscar laughed. "That is all I ever wanted to hear."
Nancy kneeled with them, arms around her strange, beautiful family. They were together. They were safe.
She looked at Oscar, and he at her, and in that single moment, all the hurt and chaos of their lives seemed to collapse into something bright and perfect.
"Let us go inside," Nancy said at last, the future opening before them like a new day.
Oscar smiled, rising and brushing a lock of hair from her face. “Yes—come along, all of you. We have a Christmas tree to make.”
Clara gasped. “With ribbons and oranges?”
“And sugar biscuits,” Henry added eagerly.
Nancy laughed, her heart swelling as Oscar took her hand. “With everything,” she promised.
Together they walked back toward the house, the sound of the children’s laughter drifting behind them, the scent of pine and winter in the air. Inside, the hearth waited, bright and golden—ready to welcome them home.
EPILOGUE
ONE YEAR LATER
"You are cheating!" Clara shrieked, her voice skimming over the snow-covered lawn.
"I am not!" Henry countered, his small legs springing as he charged for the safety of the garden path.
Oscar, discarding all pretense of dignity, loped after them with arms outstretched, his shirt-sleeves rolled and the knees of his breeches grass-stained from prior skirmishes. The chase ended as most did: with Henry swept off his feet and upside-down in Oscar’s grip, while Clara circled like a hawk, shrieking with glee and plotting her brother’s rescue.
Nancy watched from beneath the great oak at the garden's edge, her back pressed to the trunk, her fingers tracing the uneven rise of her belly.
Five months had advanced her from "slightly round" to "patently expectant," and she found the vantage point afforded by the treerather to her liking. From here, she could survey the whole of her small kingdom: the children, the house, the man who had once seemed the least probable of all these joys.
She marveled again at how Oscar had changed. He was still unmistakably himself—commanding, sharp-witted, a force that bent the world to its purpose—but the edges had softened.
Laughter sat more easily on him now. He wore happiness the way he wore his shirts—reliable, and with no regard for how it scandalized the household staff.
Henry, wriggling, declared, "Unhand me, villain!" and Oscar, obliging, dropped him gently to the grass. Clara darted in at once, shouting, "Reinforcements have arrived!" and attached herself to Oscar’s leg with all the ferocity of a barnacle.
"Mercy!" Oscar said, falling to one knee in dramatic defeat. Both children swarmed him, hands full of grass and dirt and the wildflowers they had plundered from Nancy's borders. He submitted to their tickle assault with the stoicism of a martyr, but when he saw Nancy watching, he stilled, and for a heartbeat the world shrank to just the two of them. He smiled, and she felt the answering warmth all the way to her toes.
This was the part she had never expected: that after so much loss and fury and struggle, the hardest thing to accept would be peace.
She shifted her weight and pulled the edges of her winter cloak tighter, watching as Oscar levered himself up, both twinsclinging to him. "If you do not release me," he warned, "I shall be forced to deploy my ultimate weapon."
Clara's eyes widened. "The Tickling of Doom?"
"The very same." Oscar nodded, solemn.
Henry, who feared nothing except the Tickling of Doom, released his hold at once and retreated to Nancy’s side. Clara, made of sterner stuff, held fast and prepared herself for battle.
Nancy snorted. "Do not come here for refuge, Henry," she said, as the boy collapsed in her lap. "If you choose to wage war against the Duke, you must accept the consequences."
Henry peered up, green eyes bright. "But you are the Duchess. You outrank him."
"Do not bet on it," Nancy said, smoothing his hair. "I have been losing battles to him since the day we met."
Henry seemed to consider this, then shrugged and burrowed closer, his head resting against her side.
