Page 75 of The Icy Duke Claims a Bride

EPILOGUE

One Month Later

“Good dog!” Jemima clapped her hands.

“Me or the Irish Setter?” Captain Wadsworth laughed, brandishing the ball he had just caught from Hugh while Lucretia gamboled about with the stick thrown by Catherine and caught in an impressive mid-air leap.

The four of them had been playing with the dogs on the front lawn while Lord and Lady Sedgehall chattered together and watched them from comfortable chairs, wrapped in light blankets against the autumn breeze.

“Both of you!” Jemima declared. “And you both deserve a treat when we go inside for tea. It must be almost four o’clock, but I haven’t heard the clock strike yet.”

Catherine spotted her father and Lady Sedgehall holding hands and felt a bittersweet sensation at their contentment in one another’s company. She was sorry that her mother had never known such love, but she also accepted now that this had not been entirely her father’s fault.

Albion Wright was only human, and he had been faithful in his own way—but to his first love, not to Catherine and Jemima’s mother. Catherine could even now appreciate his love for her and Jemima, and see his efforts to marry them off as evidence of his concern for their future security rather than purely financial ambition.

She smiled as Lady Sedgehall stood up and walked over to her, leaving Albion snoozing in his chair.

“I’m glad to see my father so happy, Daisy. Thank you for that.”

“No, thankyou,” Lady Sedgehall said, her eyes crinkling in a smile that retained her beauty despite her age. “Albion is so much easier on himself now that you and Hugh are so well settled together here. He’s a terrible worrier, you know.”

Catherine did not know this, and the idea amused her. She offered her stepmother her arm and they strolled together among the now dormant rose bushes.

“He worried so much when Paul was dying,” Daisy confided. “Paul made him promise to marry me quickly, no matter what anyone thought. Albion would have been too worried about myreputation otherwise, although I told him we’re too old now to bother over such things.”

“Paul sounds like a very unusual man,” Catherine commented, knowing how her father and mother had come to be married against their will but not Lord and Lady Harvey.

“He was my best friend from childhood.” Daisy smiled. “We did everything together—played house, dressed up and put on plays, admired the officers in their uniforms at our first dances…”

“Oh,” Catherine murmured with a flash of understanding. “He was… a man’s man.”

In her seven Seasons, she had sometimes come across such men and wished there were more of them in the world to dance with, so as not to have to worry where a partner’s eyes or hands might stray.

“Yes, he was,” Daisy confirmed. “When your father married your mother, I was heartbroken. I couldn’t get out of bed for a week. It was Paul who pulled me out of that morass and showed me how to have fun again. When my parents began pushing me towards other suitors, he had the bright idea that we should marry, and that way, I would be free.”

“A different kind of arranged marriage,” Catherine commented.

“Yes, and a very happy one in its own way. Without Paul, I might have had a terribly unhappy life, but thanks to my friend, it hasbeen otherwise. Albion and I owed him so much, and we owe him our happiness now.”

“I want you to know that I don’t blame you for what happened between my parents,” Catherine said. “You always found a way to be happy with your life. My mother didn’t. I think now that perhaps she gave up when my uncle died. She wasn’t capable of feeling happiness after that.”

“I didn’t see your father for eight years after he married, other than in passing, at social events. Whatever your mother thought, I was not the cause of their marital disharmony.”

Catherine felt again that bittersweet ache. “I know that.” She sighed. “Come, let’s join the others for tea.”

As they rounded the path back onto the lawn, Castor and Pollux were tussling over the same stick until Hugh broke them up by producing another.

Returning to the chairs, Daisy bent over Albion and kissed his balding grey head affectionately.

When her own husband looked up and his handsome scarred face smiled at her, Catherine felt a strong answering pull deep inside, somewhere close to where their child was growing. She rested her hand on her belly, feeling the faint bump, and returned Hugh’s smile. They planned to tell the rest of the family their news today.

Then, Catherine’s eyes were drawn to two other figures coming around the path from the front of the house, a man and a boy of around seven years, hand in hand. The boy’s eyes were red, as though he had been crying a great deal, and Catherine felt a pang for the child before she realized that it was Edwin and Andrew.

Hugh dropped the stick and walked over to Catherine’s side, putting a protective arm around her. Lucretia, too, lost interest in the ball that Captain Wadsworth had thrown for her and padded over to stand at Catherine’s other side.

“Uncle,” Hugh said curtly. “We weren’t expecting you today.”

“I came from London with the Dowager Duchess. She’s gone inside for tea, but I wanted to talk to you.”

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