Page 71 of His Hazard of a Duchess

“You refused to marry him when he asked you,” Leonard explained. “You insisted that he believe in love and keep reaching for it. I don’t know that he would have had the strength to do that without your encouragement, so he owes you a debt of gratitude for his current happiness. And so do I for that matter.” He smiled. “I think all the time about the fact that I was almost cowardly enough to throw away everything I hold most dear, and it was only you that stopped me. You are truly the most courageous of us all, Prudence.”

“Well, if I do have some sort of courage that has given strength to those around me, I wish I could find a way for the benefits to reach my cousin,” Prudence said, looking sadly at Bridget, who was standing alone to one side of the dance floor. “She’s still onher own. I had so hoped that the season would prove successful for her, but I think she finds it too difficult to reach out and make connections with people. If only I’d devoted more time to her, I might have been able to help. It makes me ever so sad that my mother and father are not of more help to her. I don’t know what’s going to happen to her.”

“It will all work itself out,” Leonard said reassuringly. “Remember, this is the same way I felt about Peter until quite recently. I thought there was no hope for him and that eventually I would just have to accept that he’d never marry and that I would spend the rest of my life getting him out of trouble. It hasn’t turned out that way at all. He needed to do things in his own time, and so does Bridget. You’ll see.”

Prudence beamed at him. “You really always know what to say to make me feel better about things,” she said. “I’ll never know how you do that, Leonard, but please know how deeply grateful for it I am.”

He took her hand and squeezed it. “Not as grateful as I am for you.”

Gabriel laughed. “If ever you needed evidence that things will work themselves out in time, look no further than the two of you,” he said. “I seem to recall serious doubt between you that you would ever learn to love one another, and now it’s very difficult to imagine you apart.”

“I know I don’t want to imagine it,” Leonard said fervently.

“Are you going to dance with your wife, then?” Gabriel asked him.

“Not yet,” Prudence said. “I want to watch the others a little longer. It’s so nice to see Peter so happy.”

“Well, I’m going to dance,” Gabriel said. “I saw the most beautiful young lady on the way in. She had such enchanting green eyes, I can hardly wait to ask her.” He got to his feet and wandered off.

“The way he speaks of his own wife,” Prudence said fondly. “He talks about her as if he is always seeing her for the very first time.”

“I think that is how he feels,” Leonard said with a warm smile. “He certainly has told me often enough what it’s like to be in love. And now that the same thing has happened to me, I can say with confidence that he has been right all along. Every time I look at you, I do feel as though I’m seeing you for the very first time. It’s marvelous, Prudence. If I wasn’t so happy all the time, I think I would be taken by horror at the thought of what I so very nearly missed out on. To think that I might have been sitting here today without ever realizing that I could have had a love of my own. It’s the worst thing imaginable, and yet, if it had happened, I wouldn’t even have realized it. I would have thought I was perfectly whole and happy.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Prudence said with a smile. “You don’t have to worry about what might have been. Wecan devote our energy and our attention to whatwillbe. We can think about the future we’re going to have. Our lives together..”

“Oh, there’s no need to remind me of that,” Leonard said warmly. “I think about that all the time.”

“And when you do, what do you think about?”

He hesitated only for a moment. These were thoughts he hadn’t yet shared, but after all, nothing was too private to be shared with Prudence. Not anymore. “I think about what it will be like when we’ve started a family,” he confessed. “Our home but with a flock of children running around.”

“I think about that too,” she said with a smile, but then her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by aflock, exactly?”

“I like to imagine that we’ll have five or six. Maybe more,” he suggested. “After all, you and I were each so close to our siblings that it’s wonderful to think of creating a big family in which everyone can be similarly close to one another. Don’t you think that sounds lovely?”

“Intheory,” Prudence said with a laugh. “I don’t know that I want to spend the next decade of my life bearing children, though!”

“How many did you think we would have?” he asked her.

“I agree that my relationship with my sisters has been one of the joys of my life,” she said. “I thought three children would be ideal—a model of my own family.”

“Well, I suppose I might be persuaded to compromise,” Leonard said with a smile. “The important thing is that they will be ours and that we will be raising them together. Any number of children would be special under those circumstances.”

“I agree completely,” Prudence said, giving him the soft smile that he loved so much and holding out her hand to him.

He took it. “Are you ready to dance?”

“More than ready. If I have my way, I won’t leave your arms for the rest of the night.”

“I think we can arrange that,” Leonard said. He smiled as the joined the dance. “I have no wish to let you go; you can count on that.”

As they lost themselves in the familiar steps, Leonard looked around and was warmed by the sight of so many loved ones. Peter and Rosamund seemed unable to look away from one another. Leonard had gotten to know his new sister-in-law well over the past few months, and he found her an utter delight. There were times when he couldn’t believe such a lovely and charming lady had fallen in love with his brother, but he could also see how Rosamund had brought out a new and improved aspect in Peter. Peter was ten times the man he had once been because he knew that was what she deserved and that he wouldnever have been hers if he had offered anything less. Leonard had to respect his brother’s willingness and ability to change.

Arabella and William were dancing together as well, and as Leonard passed them with Prudence in his arms, William raised an eyebrow as if to indicate that the two of them had something in common. Leonard nodded. They were brothers in a sense now, married to two of the most beautiful and desirable sisters in all of London.

As for the third sister, she was nowhere to be seen, but that was no great surprise. It was quite like Caroline to sneak off during a party and find a quiet corner in which to read a book or have a conversation. No doubt, her husband would have gone with her. Maybe they were out in the garden taking advantage of the solitude it offered. Either way, Leonard was sure she was very content.

Everyone is very content. And truly, that’s all I ever wanted for the people in my life—and for myself.

He pulled Prudence ever so slightly closer, not wanting to appear indecent. Then he thought,Never mind how I appear. She is my wife, is she not?And he pulled her closer still.

Right there on the dance floor, in front of everyone, he kissed her. They ceased to dance and simply held one another.

Maybe people saw them. Maybe they didn’t. Leonard no longer cared. He had spent enough of his life worried about the way people saw him and what they would think.

At long last, he was ready to put the matter of reputation aside and to focus on the woman he loved.

The End?