Lusting for an Enthralling Earl – Extended Epilogue

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A warm late summer wind blew through the boughs of an enormous oak tree on the periphery of Bembroke Wood. From her seat on the old wooden bench nestled within the shade of the old tree, Lady Annabelle Nightbridge drew in a satisfied breath. She could not recall the last day the air had been so clear and warm and beautiful, nor the last time she had paused to reflect on how lovely the ancient tree was with its leaves rustling in the breeze.

I should have listened to William long ago, the old woman thought as the sunshine passed overhead through a constellation of shady leaves. Spending a bit of time on my own instead of involving myself in others’ business is a wonderful tonic.
A happy babbling noise brought her attention back down to earth, reminding her that she was not entirely on her own at the moment. She smiled at the sight.

“Yes, Edward, I know,” said Lady Annabelle to the tiny infant cradled in her arms, as though continuing a spirited conversation with an old friend. “But really, I’ve told you, there is nothing at all wrong with that father of yours. He and your mother will be back before you know it.”

Lady Annabelle rocked her grandson to and fro in her arms. Though he was only a few weeks old, he was a most happy baby, and she relished this rare moment to dote on him alone, while the rest of the family was engaged. She found herself holding him up under his arms and dandling him in the cool summer shade as he giggled and drooled happily.

“Oh, I wish you could know just how lovely it is that everyone is settled and happy, Edward,” Lady Annabelle continued. “I can’t say I went about achieving it properly, but this is exactly what I wanted for everyone from the start—not just to have an heir to the Bembroke name, but for William to be able to share in the boundless joys and love of family. He is clearly so happy to be married to your wonderful mother, and now to see him spending his days with you all, spoiling you and your sister most horribly…it feels as though it is all just one endless happy dream.”

Her thoughts stumbled there, remembering the circumstances of how such a happy union had taken place. Or rather, how they had nearly not taken place thanks to her meddling. Chastened, Lady Annabelle felt herself slip into a somber silence, a cloud passing in front of the sun overhead…but Edward’s happy gabbling brought her back to reality, and she found herself relating the whole convoluted story to the happy infant.

“Really, though,” the lady found herself concluding with satisfaction, rocking the baby back and forth as she stared off over the sunlit fields of the Bembroke estate, “it is most wonderful how your mother has come into herself as a lady of London society. I know William was worried—truthfully, I was worried as well—but between her kindness and her quick wit she has been heartily accepted in all the spaces allotted to women. It hardly seems believable considering her humble origins, but she has served in the role of the Earl’s wife far better than many who are born into such a role.

“Then again, I suppose she spent her adulthood serving in the home of a countess, and being such a clever young woman…oh, that’s right!” Lady Annabelle sat up straighter in her seat, ignoring the twinge of pain that shot through her back as she did so.

“You haven’t heard—well of course you haven’t, sweet boy, but I mean no one has, really—after years of trying to woo any nobleman who would have her, Lady Pebbleton has found herself engaged to a Mister Kipps. Not a lord, as she had hoped, but a merchant—a fishmonger, of all things! A successful businessman, by all accounts, but the look on her face when she showed herself at Lady Granham’s salon after the engagement was announced!” She giggled at the thought, and hearing her grandson share ignorantly in her laughter made her feel still jollier.

Lady Annabelle paused, hearing the bells of the Bembroke chapel echo over the hills and dales, and she gave yet another sigh of contentment. “That will be your Great-Aunt Victoria now. Oh, I do hope she finds this marriage more satisfying than the last.”

She looked longingly in the direction from which the bells tolled—then again, as pleased as she would have been to have attended the ceremony, she knew from experience that Lady Victoria was a terror as a bride. Let one of her toadies go through what I was subjected to at her last wedding, she thought with a naughty grin. My well wishes will be no less sweeter for having been delivered after the fact, nor my gift any less precious.

“Really,” Lady Annabelle continued to her grandson, “what has been truly remarkable has been seeing your father grow into his adult self so exuberantly. You truly are a lucky young man, you know. Seeing William so happy in fatherhood has been my greatest joy—apart from you and your sister, of course!”

In truth, at times Lady Annabelle could hardly believe that the happy father and husband she had seen over the last two and a half years was the same person as the dour man he had been before meeting Betty, or the wastrel pleasure-seeker before that. It was almost enough for Lady Annabelle to begin to forgive herself for having tried to push him into marriage with such force…

Then Lady Annabelle heard a peal of laughter from not too far off, followed by footsteps coming closer. She shifted the infant boy in her arms, keeping him comfortably supported though she had been holding him for more than an hour—she was growing weary, but for this purpose her body was made of steel.

“Oh, now, listen to me carry on,” the tired old woman said to the boy, rocking her grandson gently from side to side. “Never mind your old grandmother, Edward. All you need to know is that everything is all right. Everything will always be all right.” She brought her lips down to his soft, downy head and gave him a tiny kiss.

Little Edward looked up at her with those big, familiar gray eyes and laughed. Lady Annabelle could not help but share in his joy, and she was still laughing when the rest of the family walked up to her place in the shade, Judith toddling ahead of them on her short, chunky legs.

“Is the sixteenth Earl of Bembroke already telling you jokes, Mother?” William asked gaily. “I knew we’d let Captain Percy around the house too much.”

“Just a private little joke between the two of us,” Lady Annabelle answered as Betty withdrew the baby from her arms. The lady stretched vigorously, trying to ignore the pops and creaks that emerged from her joints, then leaned in to speak to her granddaughter. “Hello there, what’s our little lady gotten up to now?”

“Grandmother!” the little girl squealed, reaching out for a hug that Lady Annabelle was only too glad to give.

Betty smiled at the sight. “Playing at being an athlete again, you’ll be sorry to know. We practically had to tie her down to keep her from running up and down the aisle during the ceremony. Lady Victoria was most upset, and did not hesitate to make her feelings known.” She shook her head with an embarrassed smile.

“A proper young lady, running about like a poor urchin child?” Lady Annabelle smiled at William. “Reminds me of some other Bembroke children I have had the good fortune to know.”

Her son met this chiding with a grin and a blush. “It was a lovely ceremony, Mother.”

“Well, thank goodness I missed it, then,” the lady said good-naturedly. “The last thing a lovely ceremony needs is a fractious old widow getting in everybody’s way.”

“Grandmother! Up, please!” Judith pleaded cheerfully.

“Now, Judith, let’s let Grandmother rest a while,” William said gently as Betty bounced her son gently up and down, swaying in place. “Mother, are you sure you aren’t chilly in this breeze? I should have had a blanket brought to you so you don’t catch a cold.”

Betty nodded her agreement. “You remember what the surgeon said. You must rest if you don’t want to fall ill again, especially as your condition has been poor of late.”

Lady Annabelle could only laugh in response to these inquiries. She grunted as she got to her feet, then happily picked up young Judith and accepted a kiss on her cheek. “It sounds as though carrying my granddaughter is not at all a suitable choice for me at the moment. If only there hadn’t been a dour young man not long ago who taught me to mislike the word ‘suitable,’ I might be persuaded to care.”

“Really, Lady Annabelle, we don’t want you to overexert yourself,” said Betty, though she laughed at her mother-in-law’s words. The family began their slow walk up the hill together to Bembroke Manor—before long Judith was already squirming to be put down so she could try to race up the hill on her own, and Lady Annabelle happily complied.

“Oh, nonsense,” Lady Annabelle snapped amiably. “I feel wonderful! Besides, I’m following that dratted surgeon’s advice to spend as much time in the open air as possible. At least this time he has prescribed a course of treatment that allows for a bit of enjoyment.”

“Still, we worry about you, Mother,” said William as he reached out a hand to help his mother steady herself on the walk. “I can’t abide the thought of you sitting here in pain all day long.”
“None of us can,” Betty added.

But Lady Annabelle just shook her head with a roguish grin. “My son married to a wonderful woman, with a beautiful daughter and a handsome young heir? My sister married and off to enjoy her life once more?”

A twinkle came to her eye that William had not seen since he was a child, but nowadays appeared nearly every day. “How could little aches or pains ever bother me with such comforts surrounding me? Now, come on, Judith,” Lady Annabelle said to the young girl, who looked up at her adoringly.

“I’ll wager your Grandmother can get to the top of the hill even before a spry young thing like you!” And with that she and the child chased one another up the hill, laughing and shouting.

The young couple laughed, amazed at Lady Annabelle’s cheer and her youthful stamina. Betty shook her head and stepped closer to her husband as they paused beneath the shade of a hawthorn tree, the quiet form of their youngest child held between them.

“It really is hard to believe just how much things have changed,” said Betty softly as William put an arm around her hip and pulled her into a slow, intimate embrace.

“Have they?” asked William with a playful smile. “You don’t mean you are somehow the only woman to go from a lady’s maid to the wife of an Earl, do you?”

“Quite impressive for a country girl, isn’t it?” she answered as they shared a laugh.
“Not bad, I suppose. Though I seem to remember at one point you took on the position of the Moon. The wife of an Earl and mother of another is well enough, though it is a step down from serving as a celestial body.”

William cocked an ear as a sniffle came from his bride, and he looked down to see tears forming at the corners of her eyes. “Here now, what’s this?” he asked, concerned.

“Nothing, really,” said Betty as he brushed a tear away from her cheek. “I’m just so terribly happy. I still feel as though I will wake up some morning and find that this has all been nothing more than a dream, that I am still a maid and my father is still living in that falling-down house in Woolshire.”

William grimaced. “I meant to tell you that I received a letter from Mister Harding yesterday, actually. He said he is tremendously happy tending the flock on our Highland estate…though he is expecting a visit from his grandson before the weather turns cold.”

“Then he will have one,” Betty said with a laugh of relief. “I just…still somehow cannot believe that everything has turned out so well. For all of us.”

“Perhaps not all of us,” William said with a coy grin. “You should hear the most appalling rumor Mother has been spreading about Lady Pebbleton.”

Betty looked up at William and their laughter turned to feelings of rapturous joy. She saw the same stars of exaltation that she knew twinkled in her own eyes, and she drew closer to him even as she shifted young Edward’s position so he would not be pressed between them. Their lips came together in a slow, passionate kiss, drinking pure life from one another’s breath in a way that filled them with bliss that burned hotter and brighter than they could ever expect. It was only the babbled noises of contentment coming from the infant Edward that pulled them both back down to earth, ending their kiss with a loving sigh and another long gaze into one another’s eyes.

“How is it,” William asked, drawing in a deep breath through his nose, “that no matter how many times I kiss you, I always feel as giddy as the very first time?”

“At the Horse and Rider? I feel the same way. Don’t you think every couple share that same moment of ecstasy every time?” replied Betty. “Or is it only the two of us who are so blessed by life?”

William laughed at the thought. “Judging by what I have heard at the St. George club, the prospect seems unlikely. Then again, I suppose we could always compare the experiences, if you really are that curious. What do you say you and I dress as common servants and slip down to the public house once again? We could drink that terrible cider, watch me embarrass myself at dancing—”

“And conversation. You were rather rubbish at that on that occasion, if memory serves,” Betty interjected, tapping him playfully on the nose.

“That as well. And then, when we are good and sweaty, we could sneak out into the alleyway and try kissing once more, to see how it compares to the conjugal bliss you delight me with now.”

Betty kissed him again, more deeply this time at being reminded of such a stimulating memory.

“Mmm, that does sound entertaining. Somehow walking away from nobility to play at being commoners does seem more appealing than really working as a maid. I can see why you kept it up for so long.”

“I kept it up for so long so I could do this,” William said, kissing her back and nipping at her lower lip. His hands pulled her closer still, so he could feel the shape of her still strong, taut womanhood pressed against him through her sheer dress. “We could even try what we were both hoping to do right there in the street before your friends interrupted us, I imagine. For the sake of an adequate comparison, of course.”

“Why, husband!” Betty said in a tone of mock disapproval. “How unbecoming of a nobleman. Or even a nobleman’s butler! Inviting a girl, a married woman even, for a roll in the hay like some common—”

Among the many pleasures that married life had presented to him, one of William’s favorite discoveries was this game of kissing Betty into silence in the middle of a sentence. From time to time he felt a bit guilty at interrupting her thought, but he knew she would not hesitate to complete her thought when they were finished, assuming they did not kiss all the sense out of themselves in the process.

Now, by the time they pulled their lips apart, lips flushed with arousal and breath catching in their throats, it was William who finished the thought, whispering, “And what of a husband for a wife?”

“Most unbecoming of all,” Betty whispered back, her eyes half-lidded and heart pounding within her. “Unless, of course, he intends to make good on his flirtations at his first convenience?”

A soft snoring sound broke the reverent exchange between William and Betty. They looked down as one to see that young Edward had fallen into a deep slumber in his mother’s arms. From the top of the hill Lady Annabelle looked down on them with Judith in her arms, the two of them waving.

Once more their eyes locked, and their lips each curled in a smile, then met in another sweet kiss. Perhaps this pleasant dream really would go on forever for them all—all they could do, they knew, was continue to dream.

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