A Duke’s Skillful Seduction – Extended Epilogue

Six months later …

The wedding of Samuel and Elizabeth was not nearly as grand as their own wedding, but it was met with as much happiness and excitement from the people who attended. In a small chapel in Cornwall, they were married, surrounded by friends and family, and Louis was surprised to see that even the innkeeper, Samuel’s father, was smiling and looked close to tears. The sight was welcome after so many years watching the man rant and rage at his son, assuming that he would never amount to anything. 

“How does it feel to be a married man?” Louis asked afterwards in the chapel yard, clapping his hand on Samuel’s shoulder as Elizabeth clutched hold of his arm on the other side. 

“It feels like a relief,” Samuel admitted with a slightly uneasy chuckle. “I was beginning to think that our ladies might drive us mad with the planning.” 

“Oh, Samuel, you would not have wanted it to be any different or this day would never have been so special,” Elizabeth insisted, smiling from ear to ear as though she just might be the happiest woman alive. She was beautiful, though her gown was much simpler than Caroline’s had been. Had she been asked, Caroline would have likely insisted upon a simpler dress, but many of her friends had insisted that if she were to marry a man who would one day be a duke, she must do it properly. 

She now stood a few feet away with a woman who looked as though she knew Caroline well, an elderly woman who was talking most animatedly and seemed all too willing to touch his wife. 

“Please, excuse me for a moment,” Louis said to Samuel and his new wife. “I fear that if I leave Caroline alone too long she might snap someone’s head off.” 

Samuel and Elizabeth smiled at him with affection and amusement and hurried him on, promising they would see him at the church hall where the reception was being held. He waved goodbye over his shoulder, wishing them congratulations as he went, and just seemed to reach his wife in time for he could see the way her lips were pursed and her cheeks were ballooning as though she was about to say something that she could hold in no longer. 

The moment he placed his hand upon the small of her back, she appeared to relax a little, and he smiled warmly. “Forgive me for leaving you alone, my love. Are you well?” 

“Well, well, this must be the father,” the elderly woman croaked, her hand still on Caroline’s swollen stomach. “Are you prepared to be father, sir?” 

“I am sure that my lord husband is very prepared to become a father, though we still have a few months to go yet,” Caroline announced to the grey-haired woman before she turned to Louis and stated, “Allow me to introduce you to Mrs Baxter, the baker’s wife. Mrs Baxter, this is my husband, Lord Louis Wellington.”

“Ahh, yes, I hear you are to be a duchess, Miss Watford!” the woman exclaimed, clapping her hands, and Louis couldn’t help pursing his lips with laughter at Caroline’s look of dismay because the woman was clearly getting old and senile and couldn’t quite seem to hold much information. 

“Oh, Betsy, come away with you,” an elderly man who Louis could only presume was the baker hurried forward, gripped hold of the woman’s arm, and began to drag her away. “Leave the poor youngsters alone.” He offered Louis and Caroline an apologetic look and a bow of his head as he led his wife away. 

“Do you think that we shall be like that one day?” Caroline asked, as they both watched the elderly couple walk away arm in arm. Though they appeared to be arguing like cat and dog, there was an obvious affection and surety in the way they walked together. 

“I hope so,” Louis replied, and Caroline’s face whipped up to look at him in surprise. 

“You hope to be old and senile?” Caroline gasped. Louis chuckled as he wrapped his arm around his wife’s waist and pulled her closer to him, struggling to avoid the swelling of her belly. 

“If I am old and senile, then I will have lived a long and happy life with you, my love,” he pointed out, nuzzling his nose against hers and ignoring the whispers of the people all around them. 

“My Lord, if I weren’t already pregnant, I might believe that you were after something,” Caroline whispered before pushing herself up onto her tiptoes to press her lips to his cheek. 

“I am merely being affectionate, My Lady,” Louis repeated, feeling once more that he was the luckiest man in the world as he reached down and pressed his hand to her stomach. 

“I did not feel comfortable with Mrs Baxter manhandling me, what makes you believe you can do so, My Lord?” Caroline asked playfully, stepping back with a gleam in her eye.

“Need I remind you that she is half mine,” Louis played back, pointing at the child in his wife’s belly. Caroline wrapped her arms protectively around her swollen stomach and shook her head. 

“Until she is born, she is entirely mine!” 

Louis grabbed his wife playfully and pulled her back into his arms, spinning her so that her back was against his chest and he could clutch her belly with both hands from behind. “There, now you are both mine.” 

 

Two years later …

Caroline was resting in the rocking chair beside her bedroom fireplace, her sleeping daughter resting peacefully against her chest when she heard the sound of gentle knocking and the clicking of the door opening. Even without knocking, she knew who had entered. It had become somewhat of a nightly routine in which she would sit and rock her daughter to sleep before handing her off to the governess to be put to bed. Louis was the alarm that sparked the final part, coming to share a final moment with both his girls after a day’s work either out taking care of business or having spent the day poring over his papers in the library of their London townhouse. 

“Is she asleep?” Louis hissed under his breath as he entered, tiptoeing across the room so not to stand on a squeaky floorboard and wake her. Mrs Stevenson, the governess who had been sitting in a seat across the room jumped up the moment her master entered and curtseyed before awaiting her usual instructions. 

“Yes, she is,” Caroline whispered, unable to stop from smiling when Louis reached the chair and leaned down to press his lips to his daughter’s head. 

“Sleep well, little Anne,” he whispered into the little girl’s ear before kissing Caroline upon the forehead. He gently began to guide Anne from Caroline’s arms. “Come here little one.” 

He held her for a few minutes, bobbing up and down like a dutiful father to ensure she remained asleep, and Caroline watched her little golden head bobbing on his shoulder, unable to stop herself from smiling. She was so happy that tears pricked the corners of her eyes, and she was glad that the room was lit only by the crackling fire, leaving it almost impossible for her husband to see her weakness. 

After a few minutes, Louis turned to Mrs Stevenson and instructed, “Please take her. It is well past bedtime.” 

“Of course, My Lord.” Mrs Stevenson curtseyed once more before taking the child from him. 

“Wait, one moment,” Caroline instructed as she always did, wishing to give her daughter one final kiss on the head and breathe in the floral scent of her hair, knowing that it would not be long before she grew out of these moments as many tried to warn her. 

As soon as the governess and their daughter were gone from the room and the door clicked closed, Caroline felt Louis grip her from behind, lacing his fingers together over her stomach so that she could not break away from him. Nuzzling into her neck, he whispered, “Seeing you with our daughter makes me wish we had more children.” 

Caroline’s insides twisted with delight at the desire in his tone, and she began to swivel in his arms so that she could look up at him. “I am sure you are aware that for that to happen, you must make love to me, My Lord.” 

Louis squeezed her more tightly to him and glared down at her, a spark of amusement in his amber-brown eyes made worse by the flickering firelight. “Are you not pleased with the frequency of our  love making?” he asked. “Do I not satisfy you?” 

Caroline couldn’t stop the purring laughter that erupted from her then, and she quickly began to nod. “Oh, yes. I am most satisfied, but as of yet, we have been unsuccessful in having another child, and so I do believe we must try harder.” 

“Your wish is my command!” Louis exclaimed, and Caroline squealed with excitement as he began to gather up the skirt of her nightgown, searching beneath the material to cup his hand between her thighs. Caroline had long since learned not to be found in her day clothes when her husband came to call upon her in the evening. It took far too long to get undressed, and her husband’s need and her own only seemed to grow worse by the day. Even after two years, they were intoxicated by each other, driven by a constant ache to be close to each other and make love to one another. 

Yet it seemed her husband had not yet learned that lesson and so Caroline was forced to strip him of his clothes, tearing at the buttons of his jacket and waistcoat and the ties of his breeches like a ravenous animal. Louis cupped her cheek in his hand and kissed her, smiling against her lips as though he loved the desire he sensed pulsing from her. 

“Slow down, my love,” he whispered against her lips. “We have all evening.” 

Yet Caroline felt as though she had already been waiting for his arrival all evening, so she made quick work of stripping his clothes from him. Once he was naked before her, Caroline took a moment to admire the sheer beauty of her husband’s body. Though he had aged more than two years since their first encounter in the bedroom, he was still as beautiful as he had ever been, perhaps even more so. Though his priorities in life appeared to have changed somewhat since then, he still maintained his figure, and Caroline was certainly thankful to him for it. 

“You are looking well today, My Lord,” Caroline stated playfully. 

“Let me see if I cannot say the same about you,” Louis insisted, and in a moment he had stripped her of her robe and nightgown, leaving her wearing nothing but her stockings and with her long golden hair plaited over one shoulder. It was cold away from the fire, and she felt her nipples growing hard the moment they touched the air. 

They seemed to draw Louis in, and he lowered himself to cup her breast in one hand while eclipsing the nipple of her other with his mouth. His free hand reached around her to hold the small of her back, pinning her to him so that she could find no escape from his mouth and marauding hands. 

Caroline could do little more than enjoy the pleasure as he dropped further, his mouth travelling south over her ribs and stomach and down further still. When his lips brushed the most sensitive area between her thighs, she instinctively gripped the back of his glossy black head and thrust her hips towards him, angling herself so that he might taste her deeper. 

Her head lolled back, and she felt as though the only thing holding her up were his hands that came to cup her buttocks. Her heart hammered as the familiar sensation of pleasure began to build deep in her stomach, exploding outwards to the rest of her body. 

Just when she began to feel that she was on the very edge of climax, Louis suddenly stopped. Her disappointment was short-lived as he straightened up and picked her up into his arms. At first, she believed he would throw her down onto the bed as he always did before making love to her. Yet this time his need appeared too great. Though they made it to the bed, Caroline found herself still in her husband’s arms with her back pressed against the cool wood of the bedpost. He used it to steady her as he guided his manhood deep inside her. Caroline gasped with the shock of the odd position and the new pleasure it brought and marvelled at her husband’s strength as he cupped her buttocks and began to thrust deep inside her. 

Wrapping her arms around his neck, she dug her fingernails into his shoulders and screamed in pleasure, feeling his entire body tense against her. At first, she was unsure as to whether his panting laboured breath was due to the way he was exhorting himself. Then she heard the tell-tale sound of his sucking in a sharp breath and felt his body beginning to shudder, and she knew he was close to his climax. This knowledge tipped her over the edge, and she felt her insides squeezing around his manhood as her entire body exploded with pleasure. 

As if her own pleasure had brought his on faster, he suddenly thrust hard inside her, stopping with her pinned against the bedpost as he spilled his seed deep inside her. 

The two remained there panting for several moments before Louis finally managed to move. They both collapsed onto the bed, slick with sweat and wrapped in each other’s arms. 

It was some time before either of them broke the silence save for their trying to catch their breaths. “I do hope that this time around we shall have a boy,” Louis announced finally when he seemed to have recovered himself. 

Caroline nuzzled deeper into his chest and reminded him, “We both know we do not get to choose.” 

“I am well aware,” Louis responded, beginning to stroke her hair, “I merely wish to say that I would like it.” 

“If we do not have a boy this time around, we shall merely have to try again,” Caroline told him, and when she felt him juddering beneath her as though he was laughing, Caroline pushed herself up onto her elbow and looked down at him. 

“What is funny?” she asked, raising one golden eyebrow. Even in the half-light of the room cast by the flickering fireplace, she could see the amusement on her handsome husband’s face. 

“I was just thinking of how I will happily give you as many children as you desire,” Louis chuckled, looking devilishly handsome as he did so. 

Playfully, Caroline dug her elbow into her husband’s ribs and demanded, “Oh, shall you now?” 

The two began to laugh and squeal as they rolled about on the bed, tickling and jabbing each other as though they were children once more and Caroline wished for the moment never to end. 

 

Three years later …

Spending the off season, as Louis liked to call, in Cornwall was one of Caroline’s favourite times of the year. Not only because it meant she could bring her entire family back together, including her father who resided for most of his time in his small Cornwall house that he claimed was much larger now that Caroline had moved out. The days were long and warm, and they spent most of their time out in the garden or walking down to the beach to enjoy the sea and the sand. 

It was on one such day that they received a welcome visit from officer Connel and his wife who had moved into a residence only a short distance away so that Elizabeth would not be alone and close to her own parents whenever Samuel was away at sea. 

The couple found the Wellingtons with the help of Daisy, the maid, in the garden at the back of the house where Caroline was reclining in a garden chair, her stomach swollen once more. She had been watching her husband play with Anne and their two-year-old son, Louis Junior, when the sound of squealing alerted her to the presence of more children.

Turning her head and lifting the brim of her overlarge summer hat, she was just in time to watch Samuel Junior and his young brother Edward hurrying around the side of the house, followed by Daisy, who appeared to be trying to calm the brothers. 

Caroline chuckled to herself knowing that Daisy would never succeed. The poor maid was not as young and subtle as she had once been, having devoted her life to her mistress instead of going off to raise her own family. “I would much prefer to remain here with you, My Lady. I have no need of a husband and children. You are my family,” Daisy had announced more than once whenever Caroline had broached the subject. And Caroline was more pleased than she could ever admit to have her oldest and dearest friend remain at her side through the learning curve she’d had to make in becoming the next Duchess of Trenton. Though it had yet to happen, Louis’ father had prepared them both well, or at least he insisted he had, for when the time came. 

“Elizabeth, Samuel!” Caroline greeted them as the two appeared around the side of the house, struggling past the wildflowers that were lush and overgrowing their beds beside the path. The gardener had yet to reach them and besides, Caroline liked them as they were, wild and beautiful. 

“Don’t get up!” Samuel insisted to Caroline as she made a move to stand. He could obviously tell just how uncomfortable she was. He gestured her back down into her seat with one hand as he used the other to pull forward the pram of their youngest child, which Elizabeth was struggling to push down the shingle path. 

Caroline felt a thrill, knowing that soon she would have a pram of her own to push once more. The thought caused her to instinctively place a hand upon her stomach. 

“Let me help you,” Louis insisted, running from the lawn where the three young boys had begun to tumble about while Anne screamed at the two older ones not to hurt the youngest, Edward. Caroline was well aware that her daughter was kind and gentle and absolutely nothing like she had been at that age, and she remembered once more how she had been only twice her daughter’s age when she had broken her now husband’s nose. 

She was just reminiscing about that time when Louis and Samuel finally managed to get the pram down the path and onto the patio. 

“Louis, you must come and help me up so that I can see the little one,” Caroline insisted, holding out her hand as her husband began to move towards her. The look on his face suggested he had known what she would want from the moment they arrived. 

“Be careful, Elizabeth, or she shall steal that baby from you,” Louis warned playfully, and they all chuckled with laughter, though it was almost drowned out by the squealing and yelling of the other children. 

“I will happily do you a swap if your next one is to be a girl,” Elizabeth joked playfully, but Caroline’s heart clenched for her cousin, all the same. Though she heard had been blessed so far with a child of each sex, Elizabeth appeared cursed to produce only boys. Caroline was sorry for her because she couldn’t imagine life without her little Anne. 

“I think perhaps we shall have a girl soon,” Samuel insisted as the two took to seats offered by Daisy. As Caroline sat on the edge of her seat and allowed Louis to place baby Mathew in her hands, she gaped in astonishment at her cousin, seeing the way Samuel had placed a hand upon her stomach.

“Another? Already?” she gasped, glancing at the brown-haired bouncing baby boy in her arms who was no more than six months old. 

“Perhaps,” Elizabeth replied, placing her hand on top of her husband’s, “though it is too soon to tell for certain.” 

Their conversation was interrupted then by the bellowing voice of a man coming around the side of the house. “Who is making that awful racket? Won’t somebody shut those children up?” 

The clicking of a walking stick was all they need hear to know who had arrived, and Anne and Louis began to scream, “Grandpa Wellington!” 

The Duke of Trenton had not aged well over the last few years, but he was well enough to take the weight of his two grandchildren as they rushed at his legs and hugged him. Caroline smiled, remembering that once he might have been too sour-faced and grumpy to allow them even to touch him. Old age and the love of his grandchildren seemed to have mellowed him. 

“Come along, Watford!” The duke called over his shoulder, and Caroline was not surprised to see her own father following the duke. He looked the same as he always had if not a little greyer, with his spectacles slipping down the bridge of his nose and dark circles beneath his eyes, though he now claimed to be far healthier than the duke, and Caroline feared he might be right. 

“It appears the whole family has arrived!” Louis exclaimed as the children began to hustle their grandfathers down onto the lawn to show them the new pigskin ball their father had had made for them. “Daisy, please ask Mrs Stevenson to help you fetch some refreshments.” 

“Of course, My Lord.” 

The maid smiled at Caroline as she turned to head inside, obviously joyous to share in her mistress’ own happiness. 

There Caroline sat surrounded by her family, listening to the gleeful cries of the children, and she couldn’t help wondering how she had ever come to be so lucky. Baby Mathew gurgled and tugged on a stray strand of her hair and although it smarted, she couldn’t help smiling down at him.

“Don’t you worry, young man, your time for running and playing with the others will come,” she told him, and not for the first time, she found herself wondering whether the child she carried would be another boy.

“What are you thinking about, my love?” Louis asked, coming down behind her to kiss her cheek and then gaze down at the babe in her arms. 

“I was just thinking how I would like to have another boy,” she admitted, offering Elizabeth a playful glance and seeing that her cousin gave an exaggerated eye roll and a huff as though she was exhausted from being surrounded by boys. Caroline chuckled at her cousin’s reaction and turned her face up to look at her husband as she asked, “What do you think?” 

“I think that if this one is a boy, then I shall have great fun trying for another girl.” Louis chuckled, and he shot a wink at Samuel, who received a tap to the ribs for his look of amusement. 

“What am I, Lord Louis, your brood mare?” Caroline asked harshly, though she could not keep the affection from her voice. 

“If that is what you wish to be,” Louis responded wickedly and crouched behind her to wrap his arms around her shoulders and kiss the side of her head. “As I have said many times before, I have no problem with giving you as many children as you desire.”

Caroline scoffed at her husband’s charm and arrogance and leaned back to give him a kiss. He pressed his lips to hers before asking, “We do make terribly beautiful children, do we not?” 

Turning her attention back to the children on the lawn, Caroline had to admit that her husband was right. Where Elizabeth and Samuel’s children were of brown hair and pale skin, their children were quite the opposite. Anne had her mother’s long golden locks and her father’s amber eyes, making her striking to say the least, while Louis Junior shared in his father’s glossy black hair and sunkissed skin, his eyes an emerald green, a shade darker than Caroline’s own. 

“You are right,” Caroline admitted with a nod, “we do most definitely make terribly beautiful children.” 

At that moment, Caroline realised that in the time since she had first met her husband, her life could not have changed more. She had spent years now living in preparation of becoming a duchess, and yet for the first time, she realised how far she had truly come. From the common daughter of a wealthy wine merchant, her only passions in life her reading and business learning, to the wife of the next Duke of Trenton with two children and another on the way. 

“How far we have come,” she whispered to herself, though her husband seemed to hear her, and he nuzzled his nose into her ear. 

“Indeed, how far we have,” he responded, and Caroline wondered whether he ever missed his old bachelor’s life, his freedom, and his drinking and gambling and whatever else he had got up to back then. As though he sensed her wondering, he announced, “And I have never been happier in my life.” 

When his lips pressed firmly against her cheek, he seemed to pour all his love and affection right into her, and Caroline knew without a doubt that he spoke the truth. 

“I could never be happier either, my love,” she announced, holding baby Mathew in one arm so that she could reach to take hold of her husband’s hand, “And it is all because of you.” 

THE END

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