Page 61 of The Marquis' Game of Seduction
Suddenly, Duncan began to leap up and down. He let out a little shriek and said, “Rose! You must answer him! You could be my auntie!”
Rose turned and beamed at Duncan. He’d given her a necessary push toward the answer that had always hung on her tongue. Tears sprung into her eyes once more and she whispered, “Of course. Of course I’ll marry you. I want nothing else.”
Colin drew her into a hug and pressed a tender kiss on her cheek. Duncan leaped forward and hugged them both, while Laurence beamed.
“I must say,” Laurence began. “I truly didn’t expect this to come from today.” He reached up and grabbed Colin’s shoulder—an act that seemed friendly, despite their wretched past. “Congratulations, Colin. And welcome to the family, Rose.” He leaned down and kissed her cheek.
Rose waved her hand across Duncan’s wild head of hair. “Oh, but Duncan, I must tell you. I will visit you often, if you promise to visit me.”
Duncan beamed. “You’ll still read and play with me?”
“Of course,” Rose said. Her eyes flashed from Colin to Laurence and back again. “And we’ll all come together frequently, as families. Won’t we?”
Laurence and Colin exchanged strained smiles. Rose wondered if slowly but surely, she could work to mend the wounds between them. It would be a struggle. But everything worthwhile was.
“I’m going to help Duncan pack up his toys,” she told both men. “Perhaps we can have a spot of lunch before Duncan and Laurence depart for the day. Something to celebrate.”
“Oh yes. We must celebrate,” Laurence said. Even now, his voice seemed even more sincere. He beamed at his brother-in-law. Slowly, Colin grinned back.
“We’ll speak with Judith and arrange something,” Colin affirmed. “Hurry back down.”
Duncan slipped his hand into Rose’s and tugged her back toward his bedroom. As they walked, Rose felt like she was floating. Her eyes grazed through the halls, bouncing off the walls. She was mesmerised with the realisation that all of this—all of it—was now hers. The orphanage felt like fourteen lifetimes ago. She was safe, warm, well-fed, and happy. And she had the little hand of a ten year old in hers, tugging her along.
Her future would play out before her: afternoons of play, of light, of love and laughter. She couldn’t have imagined it better.
Epilogue
December 18, 1814
A Christmas Wedding. Today, this morning—it’s just mere hours away. I could hardly sleep last night; I tossed and turned throughout, lost in fear and anticipation. Before I know what’s happening, I will be Colin’s wife.
After Colin proposed, we didn’t want to waste any time. Although the holidays were approaching, Colin wanted to shrug off modern tradition and arrange for a wedding almost immediately. This allowed for very little time in terms of modern engagement affairs (nothing I’ve known anything about—only whispers of what is “proper”).
We had a single engagement party, a small affair with only close friends and family members. Duncan was allowed to attend, as was Emily—and the two of them took to one another once more like twins or a villainous duo. I have the idea that if they were left to their own devices for too long, they would rule the world.
The engagement party allowed me time to meet Amelia for the first time. It was only a few weeks after she was cleared to leave her home, and admittedly, she really didn’t seem up to her full strength. But when she hugged me, she whispered her thanks that Duncan had been in my care. “My undying love to you, my new sister, for not only filling my Duncan’s head with imagination and love, but for bringing necessary love to my only brother. He has been nothing but lost and alone over the years. And I’ve yearned for this day.”
Admittedly, it was a bit awkward at first between Laurence and Colin and Amelia. The conversation felt stunted, which meant it was up to me to coax it along. It seems that Colin knows very little about their time in the West Indies—nearly a decade of their lives—and of course, Amelia and Laurence and Duncan can think of little else.
Slowly, I pressed them for stories of their travels, and they were more than happy to deliver some sterling tales. It’s true that Colin has always longed to travel, something I hope to rectify at some point in our marriage. His eyes were alight with wonder as they drove from tale to tale, painting a backdrop of this other world, one so difficult for us both to understand.
Regarding Emily, I really couldn’t sit well with her living out in the tower, or in secret, without any sort of “family” to call her own. The realisation struck me that Judith knows very little about her own family. And thus: we’ve begun to introduce Emily as Judith’s orphan niece.
She’s allowed to tear through the halls at will, call on me to play with her whenever she pleases. In time, she will begin to work as a maid of the household. But until then, she is just a reckless and imaginative little girl, and I’m getting increased practice on this whole “mothering” thing.
A secret is that I never imagined I’d be allowed to be a mother. I always imagined that I’d have to flit from governess position to governess position, until—hopefully—someone took pity on my crooked little old woman body and allowed me to die in some little cabin, with enough food to get me through to the end.
I tell this to Colin, sometimes—not about the motherhood, but about the dying alone. He translates that he also felt sure he would die alone. I think it’s a miracle that we found one another. I can’t imagine what would have happened to Colin. Surely, he would have stirred around in this enormous house, keeping Emily a secret, awash in sadness about the past.
It’s up to us to build a new future together…
Rose paused her writing and lifted her head to gaze out the window. The tower was dark, as it had been ever since Emily had returned to the mansion. It was perhaps six in the morning, and the sunlight was grey and weak, just a whisper of what would come later.
Rose still slept in her tiny governess bedroom, the one directly beside Anna, although Colin had offered her a host of other bedrooms, all of them decorated glamorously. She’d insisted that she wanted to remain close to her friend, for the time being, until she took to bed with Colin. (Admittedly, they’d stolen a few brief encounters—lust-filled and quiet and wild, atop mattresses or against bookcases, at any time of day). But just then, she took a brief pause to glance about the tight quarters, the walls closing in on her. This was the last morning of her maidenhood.
She felt the years clambering toward her: years of marriage, of children, of finding wrinkles wrapping themselves around her eyes and creeping around her mouth. All of it, God willing, would involve Colin close to her side. She prayed they would find a way to laugh through the aging.
There was a knock at the door. Anna snuck into the bedroom, still wearing her nightdress. She dotted herself on the side of Rose’s bed and splayed her hands on her cheeks and beamed at her friend. Rose leaped back from her desk and joined her friend on the bed. They sat next to one another in silence, sharing the softness of the morning.
