The Marquis’ Game of Seduction – Extended Epilogue

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Eight Years Later

Rose awoke mid-afternoon in the glowing light of the late-August sun. She was stretched out on an outdoor couch, her cheeks red and her heart happy, although she didn’t entirely know why, yet. She was still in that bleary in-between, stuck between sleep and waking. Moments later, she yanked her head around to spot Anna directly beside her, her own chin dipped against her chest. At her feet, Anna’s two babies—twins, born three years before—played with little toy trains and gabbed quietly. 

“Oh goodness! Anna. We fell asleep,” Rose cried. She bucked up and rubbed at her eyes. She’d been awake much of the night before, with her youngest—a boy of five years old, who had a wild imagination, and thus nightmares to match. She’d had to convince him that nothing lived under the bed, nor in the closet, nor in the hall. And only when she’d checked all areas and cozied herself close to him, could he fully fall asleep. 

Anna bucked up and performed a similar rubbing-of-the-eyes technique. She moaned and said, “Did we fall asleep in the midst of our catch-up again?”

“I’m afraid we did,” Rose said, giving a heavy sigh. “And goodness, it’s growing late. I expect Emily has had her hands full with the children.”

“Only a few moments more,” Anna said. “It’s just been me and the babies for hours-on-end this week. Ernest has been away far too long, and I’m painfully lonely. Goodness, sometimes I miss the early days. When I knew that you waited on the other side of the wall. All I had to do was leap over and knock on your door and you would let me in and we would be safe.” 

“And now, it’s as though the world is on our shoulders, isn’t it?” Rose said, her words contemplative. 

“Who knew two children could feel like the entire world?” Anna said. She gave her a sad, tired smile and a little shrug. 

“It will be a distant memory,” Rose assured her. “Although Walter has kept me up many nights this week with his nightmares, Penelope hasn’t asked me to sleep with her in quite some time.”

“And she’s… seven?” Anna asked. She gave a rueful look, like she couldn’t imagine the next four years of lackluster sleep.

“I’m afraid so,” Rose said. 

Anna grinned. Regardless of their very different positions—Rose, the wife of the Marquees, and Anna, the wife of a farmer, they’d remained very close friends. Anna had been by Rose’s side throughout both of her births, for Penelope and Walter, and Rose had been right there for the birth of the twins. Anna had struggled to get pregnant for many years, and the birth had been troubling, leading Rose to think back to poor Margaret, Emily’s mother, and pray that this wouldn’t repeat it. 

Luckily, thanks to God and good luck and everything in between, both Rose and Anna had had healthy births and healthy children. Now, they were at the mercy of them—watching them grow up, grow passionate, grow interested in art and poetry and the outdoors. Someday, rather sooner than they both expected, they knew, they would grow old. They would move from the tender homes that each of them had created for them. And they would lose the memories that Rose and Anna held tight around them—memories of them as sweet little babies. 

Time would press on, as it always did. 

“Ernest will be home tomorrow, correct?” Rose asked. Her heart ached with sadness, hating that her friend was there in that little house alone with her babies. 

“Yes. That’s right,” Anna answered. She lifted the boy into her arms as she stood. The girl hobbled beside her, gripping her hand. 

“You know you can always spend the night with us,” Rose said. “Whenever you want. The house is yours.”

It took a tiny bit of prodding, but finally, Rose helped lift Anna’s two babies into the carriage. Anna paraded in after, followed by Rose herself. Rose told the stable boy to take them back to the estate. She gripped Anna’s hand with excitement, knowing that soon—terribly, wonderfully soon, the two of them would be back in the place it had all began. Anna hadn’t returned to the Kensington Estate in perhaps two years. Her babies had been little, swaddled things. 

When the carriage reached the estate, Emily, Penelope, and Walter sprung out from the front of the mansion. It seemed they were in the midst of yet another game. Although Rose was now 32 years old, her muscles still itched for such a game—to rush about the moors, through the gardens, her chest aching with how fast she ran. When the three of them spotted the carriage, they stopped and then rushed back toward the stables, eager to greet them.

Emily was now sixteen years old, which felt remarkable to Rose. When she ducked out from the carriage, she couldn’t help but acknowledge the young girl’s beauty. Emily beamed at Rose and jumped forward to give her a kiss and a hello. Then, she turned to Anna, looking contemplative at first, then sure of what she was about to say. 

“You’re Anna! Of course, you’re Anna. So good to see you again,” she said.

“And you, Emily,” Anna said. She beamed at the girl, in the same way she’d done years ago. “I see you’ve taken on the governess position with ease.”

Penelope reached up and grabbed Emily’s hand, tugging at her. Emily grinned and said, “They keep me young, that’s for sure. I can’t imagine that I ever had such energy.”

“Oh, but you did,” Rose and Anna both said at the same time. Then, they broke into laughter. 

“I’m sure. Colin has told me stories,” Emily said. “Shall we go to the garden? It looks as though yours have an interest in playing as well.”

Together, they wandered around the side of the mansion and eased into the rose garden. The buds had flung up to full bloom in the previous weeks, and the garden was speckled with endless color: magentas and reds and light pinks and yellows. The children leaped through the gate, beginning their own little games, while Emily and Anna and Rose wandered in after. They perched on a bench, watching their babies scamper about. 

“Have you seen Colin?” Rose asked Emily. She felt a pang of sadness, as she hadn’t yet seen her husband that day. Ordinarily, they took time every morning to go for a walk, speak privately, cuddle close in sun-drenched sheets. 

“He hasn’t yet arrived back from Amelia’s,” Emily returned. “I imagined he’d be home before you, but he must have gotten held back. He and Laurence really do talk endlessly when they’re together.”

“It’s quite funny, isn’t it?” Rose said. “They were at one another’s throat years ago. Couldn’t stand to be around each other.”

Emily arched her brow. “That’s so difficult to imagine. They’re the best of friends.”

It truly was. It was a strange thing, how quickly everything had shifted since those early days. Colin and Laurence had found a way to patch things up, even finding common ground. One afternoon, when Rose had first been pregnant with Penelope, she’d found Laurence, Duncan, and Colin all outside on horseback. They had their horses walking slowly alongside one another, and they spoke tenderly, their eyebrows furrowed, as though they were exchanging real secrets, the inner workings of their own heart. Since then, as Duncan had grown into his teenage years, Colin had had a real role in Duncan’s upbringing, acting very much like a “favorite” uncle and taking the boy out on hunting expeditions, into the city for various errands and meetings, and even occasionally to important balls and parties, which sometimes Rose couldn’t attend due to pregnancy ailments. 

Slowly but surely, their family had stitched itself together, becoming stronger than ever. 

Emily turned toward Rose and said, “Colin actually mentioned to me that there was a possibility that Amelia and Laurence and Duncan may stay with us for a week or so, as their mansion is being redecorated.”

“Oh, of course. I’d forgotten,” Rose said. “It’ll be quite nice to have everyone under one roof again. Although it was all so brief and so long ago, I still miss having Duncan around. Not that he’s so little these days. Eighteen years old! A man. And incredibly bright. He always was. But in my mind, it seems that he’s on the brink of taking over the world.”

Emily’s cheeks flushed pink. This seemed rather curious to Rose, as Emily hadn’t seen Duncan, as far as she knew, in several months. 

“I remember being children together,” Emily said. “I always struggled to keep up with him. His mind was whip-fast, always cranking away, finding new stories and new games. I coveted it. And I wanted him to be my very best friend.”

“For a time, he was,” Rose said. “Don’t you remember? He was the very first young person you ever met.”

Emily’s eyes grew distant. Rose did wonder if those times in Emily’s life, when Emily was tucked away from the rest of society, were difficult for her to return to. Fortunately, since then, she’d been allowed near free-reign of London and its surrounding areas, making friends her own age and experiencing what it meant to be English. 

“I remember seeing him there so clearly that night,” Emily whispered. “His eyes were enormous and glowing, just as big as the moon. At first, I thought perhaps he was a ghost, like I’d read about in books. But then, he asked me if I was a ghost. And of course, I knew that was silly. I was quite real.”

Anna and Rose exchanged a glance over Emily’s head, both remembering how Anna had assumed Rose had seen a ghost upon her first view of Emily. 

“But just as quickly as we arrived at the fact that we were both real, Duncan hopped out of bed and we started to play. It was so simple, so easy. I think I’d expected that every person in the world was a bit like Colin or Judith. It’s not as though I don’t love them both a great deal. Goodness, I owe them the world. But it was always a bit of a struggle to get them to play with me. That was sure.

“Duncan was proof that there were better things in the world. That there were surprises,” Emily continued. “I’ve always been allowed hope because of him. I’ve always known there’s something better around the corner.”

The back door of the mansion bucked open. Colin walked out, his black hair wild, his eyes stern and searching. When he spotted them in the rose garden, his smile grew broad. Rose leaped up and rushed toward him. When they met, they shared a passionate kiss, caught there on the other side of an enormous rose bush. Just a small moment of privacy, in the midst of the chaos of having their own children. 

“Darling, Amelia and Laurence and Duncan are on their way,” Colin said, breathless after the kiss. 

“Of course,” Rose said. “We can accommodate everyone. And Anna is here as well. It’s a marvelous reunion.” 

Rose rushed inside to request lemonade and biscuits from the cook. When she passed through the corridor, she nearly tumbled into Judith. She stitched her brows together with confusion. 

“What are you doing in such a hurry, Rose?” she asked. 

“Oh, Judith, all chores are off today,” Rose told her. “Come to the rose garden. Laurence and Duncan and Amelia are coming, and Anna has brought her babies. I insist that you take lemonade with us.”

Judith did as she was told. Rose helped assemble several platters of cookies and biscuits and carry them out to the sun-drenched garden. Walter—every bit the spitting image of Colin himself—cried and rushed toward her and demanded to know where she had gone and why she had left him. Rose sighed and gave Emily and Anna a knowing look. “It’ll all be fine, love,” she told him.

The Thornton carriage yanked up to the stables moments later. Duncan hopped out first. He was all spindly arms and legs, and he cast them an eager smile as he burst toward the garden. He was quite handsome these days, far better looking than many other eighteen-year-olds Rose had encountered in the city, and there was a brashness to his smile that was quite charming. When he reached the garden, he bowed his head and shook hands with his uncle and then wrapped his arms around Rose and whirled her around in a circle. Rose cackled with delight. 

“Duncan! Put me down this moment,” she said. 

Duncan did, winking at her. Rose blushed with delight. “You’re simply horrible, aren’t you, Duncan?”

“I’m only as good as my old governesses, you know,” Duncan said. “Whatever they taught me is in my blood.” 

Duncan’s eyes traced away from Rose to find Emily. His smile faltered for a moment. He took a slight breath, as though he was struggling to decide what to say. 

“Hi, Duncan,” Emily said, beating him to it.

“It’s you, isn’t it?” Duncan asked. 

Rose realized that it had been quite some time since Duncan had been at the Kensington Estate—perhaps three years, since he’d been bogged down with his own studies, and Rose and Colin and the children had frequently met at the Thornton Estate instead. 

The air between Duncan and Emily shifted and grew oddly tense. As the silence stretched on, Amelia and Laurence approached from behind. They greeted Rose and Colin and Emily and Anna, and Amelia passed over a freshly-baked loaf of sourdough bread and grinned at the children. 

“They’re growing up so fast! Oh goodness, I wish we’d had more. How painful it is to see your only child grow older,” she said, her voice heavy with a sigh. 

Duncan rolled his eyes and stepped closer to Emily, seemingly deciding that he didn’t wish to worry himself with whatever the older adults were busy with. 

“Last I spoke with you, Emily, you’d been in the midst of reading your first few Shakespeare plays,” he started. “I don’t suppose you’d like to sit with me for a moment and discuss…”

“Of course,” Emily said. “My goodness, since then I’ve read almost every single of his plays. I couldn’t get enough for a while. I was just telling Rose that I have a soliloquy memorized…” Her eyes were bright, eager, hungry. She looked at him in a similar way to how she’d looked at him as a girl. Like he was the very first human who could really see her for herself, rather than just a little girl. 

Now, Duncan spread his hand across Emily’s back and led her toward the side of the garden, stepping around the younger children in the midst of their play. Rose’s heart leaped into her throat. She felt heavy with memory, but light with possibility. 

Penelope slipped up alongside her brother and showed him the purple rose she’d taken from the ground. The wind had yanked it from its thorny branch. Walter splayed out his hand and accepted the rose, murmuring, “This is so beautiful.” He then jumped up and raced toward Rose, passing the flower to her. “It’s for you Mummy,” he said. 

“That’s quite sweet of you, Walter,” Rose murmured. She lifted the flower to her nose and smelled it, her eyes closing. In this tender moment, she no longer remembered that she hadn’t gotten a lick of sleep the night before. She no longer remembered that she was a fatigued mother of two—and that soon, she and Colin would consider having a third baby. 

“How is old Allan doing?” Amelia asked Colin then. 

“He and his children are vacationing in France,” Colin said. “He was married only a few months after we were. That’s right, isn’t it, Rose?” 

“It is,” Rose affirmed. “And they came to stay with us last summer for a good two weeks. It’s a funny thing to see Colin and Allan together again. It’s as though they become teenagers all over again.”

“Oh, how dreadful,” Amelia said, rolling her eyes playfully. “Then you get a bit of what I went through during those last years before I left for the West Indies. Oh, I forgot to mention! Laurence and I were thinking of going to the West Indies to visit. It’s been a painfully long time since we saw some of our friends out there. Especially with Duncan going to university so soon. He’ll be out of the house and we won’t quite know what to do with ourselves.”

“Oxford,” Laurence said, his voice low. “Duncan doesn’t wish that people know yet, but I feel it’s important to tell you here today. Although—when he does decide to tell you, you must promise to act surprised.”

Rose’s heart leaped into her throat. She gazed out across the little garden at Duncan and Emily, deep in conversation. She felt their story brewing up beneath the surface—a story that had been written in the stars years and years before. Rose slipped her fingers through Colin’s and squeezed hard, wanting to ground herself at this moment. Before long, all would change. But she was entirely grateful and humbled by all they had. 

She was no longer the orphan, dreaming up another life in the gritty alleyways of London. 

Now, she was the wife of the Marquees, with two beautiful babies and a wealth of love. She couldn’t have written it better, not with all the imagination in the world. 

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Grab my new series, "Lust and Love in High Society", and get 5 FREE novels as a gift! Have a look here!

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