The sound of applause startled them apart. Denton, Mrs. Finch, and at least half the household staff had assembled behind them in the hall, clapping and cheering and, in the case of Mrs. Finch, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.
August glared at the assembled crowd. “You are all dismissed,” he said but with no force at all. The servants did not budge, and Mrs. Finch actually blew her nose in open defiance.
Eliza laughed, realizing how much she missed this sense of belonging, and this absurd, unscripted joy.
August pressed his lips to her temple then looked down at her. “Welcome home,” he whispered.
She smiled and pressed the lily to her chest. “I think I shall stay.”
Epilogue
“Are you certain these colors do not make the ballroom look like an especially extravagant dessert?”
“I am entirely certain, Your Grace.” The butler delivered this assurance with the studied patience of a man who had seen several generations of nobility suffer crises of taste. He bowed, executed an efficient turn, and left Eliza standing at the head of the room, surrounded on every side by fluttering bunting, gilded sconces, and so many arrangements of white camellias that the air was more flower than oxygen.
She had survived a siege of roses at Lady Hartwell’s. She would survive this.
Behind her, a swarm of maids worked to remove the last traces of winter from Wildmoore Hall’s ballroom. The floors had been polished to a mirror finish. The musicians had just begun tuning in the gallery. Outside, the drive swarmed with carriages, their occupants already peering out to see who else had arrived. Itwas the social event of the season, and she, the new Duchess of Wildmoore, was expected to conduct it as though she had done so every day of her life.
Eliza suppressed the urge to run. She smoothed the front of her dress—a confection of blue silk chosen by her sisters-in-law, who insisted it brought out her eyes, though she privately suspected it simply matched the family crest—and forced herself to stand still.
A month had passed since that day in the entry hall when August declared himself to the world (and the assembled household staff) with neither shame nor restraint. In that month, the staff had doubled their efforts, Lady Hartwell had tripled her expectations, and society’s curiosity had swelled to a level rivaled only by the flood in the village last spring. Tonight, they would all see for themselves if the hastily married couple could manage to appear in public without igniting another scandal.
April, May, and June arrived first, as they always did, in a flurry of voices and silk. They traveled as a unit, as if each feared the other two might be unable to withstand the perils of an unaccompanied entrance.
April approached and gave Eliza a quick once-over, eyes bright. “You look magnificent. I detest you.”
“Do you?” Eliza said, glancing down at her own reflection in the marble floor.
“Absolutely. It’s unsporting to look so calm.”
May hovered close behind, clutching her reticule and watching the room as though expecting a mob to storm the buffet. “Mama is pacing the west hallway,” she said in a stage whisper. “She’s making a list of every peer who arrives late.”
“She’s also crying,” June observed with the bluntness that was her hallmark. “I heard her instruct the maid to have two handkerchiefs on standby.”
Eliza had barely begun to process this before April seized her arm and pointed with a quick jerk of her chin. “There he is. Our brother. Prepare yourself for excessive compliments and questionable metaphor.”
She turned. August strode across the ballroom with the kind of composure that made everyone else look unfinished by comparison. He was resplendent in black, cravat knotted so precisely it defied understanding, the Vestiere signet ring glinting on his right hand. He looked like a man who could manage the world and still have time left over to flirt with his wife.
He saw her instantly. His smile was not the one he deployed for political advantage or family gatherings but the small, private version she’d come to recognize in the mornings before anyone else was awake. In spite of all the chaos of the ballroom, for the moment it was only the two of them.
“My dearest,” he said, kissing her hand with just enough ceremony to be proper and just enough pressure to be improper.“You have singlehandedly justified the price of every florist in London.”
She tried for stern. “You are supposed to be making your rounds.”
“I am,” August replied. “It merely happens that my preferred round is to orbit my wife.” He inclined his head to the sisters. “Ladies. Are we agreed on the over-under for the first peer to faint at the sight of my duchess?”
June’s smile was slow and sharp. “I say ten minutes. April says seven. May abstains on grounds of not wishing to speculate about her own family.”
August’s lips twitched. “Wise. And Mother?”
“Already in tears,” Eliza reported.
He feigned surprise. “She lasted nearly half an hour longer than I predicted.”
A new wave of guests spilled into the ballroom. Eliza saw more dresses and medals than she’d believed existed outside of museums and at least two gentlemen whose ancestors had not been on speaking terms since the Glorious Revolution. She caught glimpses of Dorothy, who alternated between beaming and sobbing into her handkerchief, and of Lady Hartwell, perched like a judge on her dais with her sharp eyes fixed on every arrival.
“She looks as though she expects a duel to break out,” Eliza murmured.