AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Epilogue
The Following Autumn, 1812
“My lady?” Walden, the butler at Redford Manor, scratched upon the open door to the sitting room where Anne was composing a letter to Isabella. This after the missive in response to Harriet’s complaints of everlasting tedium had been finished and folded.
Walden, whom she’d learned was the older brother of Wilson, who occupied the same position at the Larchmont abode.
“Different mothers,” Wilson had explained that long-ago morning after the betrothal announcement, when he’d been up early, overseeing the staff as they righted things from the party the night before, and she was just seeking her bed after hours with Ed and the wonder that she’d agreed to marry him.
“Wilson, you welcomed Lord Redford with ease,” she’d said, “mentioned seeing him again. You have met?”
“Not only met, known the rapscallion since he was a lad. My half brother, Walden, he’s been their butler since well before Miss Harriet joined the family and started livening things up.”
Same pater, different mothers; which is why she hadn’t noticed a resemblance between the two men. But also explained why Wilson knew her betrothed, as his brother had known the Redford men for years and, like Ed’s mother, had a particular favorite.
“Yes, Walden?” She tucked a stubborn strand of hair behind her ear. “Come to issue complaint about the housekeeper again?” A woman he was sweet on—sparking behind their backs, if she read things correctly—but made it a point to bluster about as though the competent female had no idea how to direct maids in the polishing of silver nor the dusting of frivolities. “Has she once again failed in her airing of the linens?”
He coughed into his gloved fist, eyes alight. “Not this time, my lady. I do believe there is a carriage whisking down the drive you might have a keen interest in.”
“Visitors?” She sprung from her chair, barely grappling the pen back into its holder, and not without ink splotching the unfinished letter.
Ed had left for London the morning prior, and the house had been dreadfully quiet without his amusing, irritating presence. “Whoever might it be?”
They hadn’t been married overly long, and no one had written ahead to announce their arrival.
When she reached the front door, opened wide by a smiling Walden, one footman hovering just behind—at least with the decency to bite his grin—Anne raced to look out the door, only to falter to a surprised halt.
Ed?
’Twas his carriage that flew down the drive.
His voice that bid their coachman take the carriage back to the mews.
His strong body that jumped to the ground before the steps were down, his bright eyes that shone like the deepest blue of a hot flame as his powerful legs devoured the distance between them, took the stairs two at a time, and presented his unexpected carcass directly before her.
“You are home a week early!” Not that she minded, for the exuberant, hearty hug he gave her had the servants melting into the background and her body doing the same—melting in readiness for this most excellent of men. “What a delight! But why?”
He’d gone to London—or so she thought—to look at three different townhouses his man of affairs had found, planning to choose one to rent or buy before the upcoming parliamentary sessions, his first as a peer (the prior year not one to count, given all he’d endured).
“Even one night away proved misery.” Ed leaned back and loosened his arms, raising his hand to brush back that loose fall of hair. “And I was to endure several more? Nay, either you come with me or we find someone else to inherit. This parliamentary minutia is not for me.”
Not the first time he’d rattled on about a lack of interest in taking his place alongside a bunch of other “pompous bastards, pardon”, stuffed into the city like “rats on a barge”.
“Ah. Dear Mr. Edwards,” she rose up on her toes to whisper in his ear—something she only called him when no one else could hear. “Do you need to start training horses in London? Would that help?”
“Impracticable. But having you there might.”
“If that is what you wish. I know Father always used the time away to visit the hells, do some gambling, coze with his cronies.”
“You have met my two cronies. I doubt any of us are bound for the hells. Warrick’s still attached to wheels. Frost in the thick of wavering between caring for his estates while avoiding his mother. I’ve never met the woman, but gather she goes out of her way to be a maggoty trial.
“Me? I want to be in the thick of you. Damn me. Didn’t come out right. Pardon.”
By now, more than familiar with the informal way he expressed himself when they were alone, she just smiled and adjusted a fold in his neckcloth. “I think you express yourself just fine.”
“Speaking of, I stopped at Warrick’s, to visit with him for the night.”
“Wonderful. I was hoping you might.”
