My Kind of Earl Epilogue

 Epilogue for My Kind of Earl

*This content is the copyright property of Vivienne Lorret and should not be copied, posted, or redistributed for any reason. Please enjoy this “read only” exclusive epilogue for My Kind of Earl, book #2 in the Mating Habits of Scoundrels series. 

Epilogue

20 years later

Jane Northcott always loved Christmastide. The air was filled with the piney fragrance of balsam, the sweet char of flaming brandy, and the sounds of the children’s laughter over their game of snapdragon. But this year was even more special.

Raven had given her the one thing she’d wanted most in the world—to have her family and friends gathered beneath the same roof. She still didn’t know how he’d made all the arrangements without revealing the smallest hint. When she asked, he’d merely grinned and said that he still knew a thing or two about surprising her.

Well, little did he know, she had a surprise of her own to give. Which she would do… as soon as she found him.

She searched their sprawling stone manor, high and low, down every corridor of Warrister Hall and through each evergreen-enswathed archway, but to no avail.

Passing by the nursery, she spied Theodore and Graham gazing adoringly at their wives and sleeping children.  It had been a few years since she’d seen these two. They spent most of their time in America now. After university, they’d performed their duties as the heir and spare by cutting a roguish path through society and touring the continent. But they’d grown bored and had decided to take their thirst for adventure to America.

Much to Mother and Father’s mortification, their two eldest sons had gone into business together. Good heaven’s! Laborers in the family! Whatever will become of us? However, they’d been quick to forgive Theo and Graham once they’d made substantial fortunes in real estate and banking. Even so, Lord and Lady Hollybrook had never quite accepted the fact that their sons had married Americans, and not even wealthy ones at that.

Henry, despite his continued attempts to become a disappointment to their parents, had never quite earned their attention. Though that wasn’t the case with a certain wealthy patron who, after following Henry’s career as a struggling composer for years, bequeathed a fortune to him in his will. With the money, Jane’s brother was able to live his dream, creating popular ballads and operas, and finally marrying his muse. Well… one of the many.

Jane could hear his lively music drifting up from the ballroom and along the stone corridors where blue flames danced merrily in the sconces.

Making her way down to the first floor, she peered into the study and saw her brother Charles at the desk, working on a scale model of a steam locomotive that he intended to give his son in the morning. Years ago, Charles had become Lord Manning’s protégé, sharing an affinity for combustion engines.

Even Raven had discovered an unlikely friendship with the viscount. Or, at least, they’d become friends after Manning had taken a wife.

Up ahead in the hall, Jane caught sight of Phillipa dashing after one of her giggling children—twin girls with their mother’s speed and their uncles’ penchant for mischief—while her husband chased after the other.

Like Jane, Phillipa had followed the demands of her heart and paid no heed to their parents’ objections. After running—quite literally—into Dr. Lockwood one day and cracking two of his ribs, she’d become his temporary nursemaid and the permanent keeper of his affection.

Passing by the drawing room, Jane overheard the clink of crystal glasses in a toast. A glimpse inside revealed Sebastian and Tristram plotting to be the first ones on the hill in the morning, both eager to have their pick of the fastest toboggans. She smiled, shaking her head.

They were still bachelors, swaggering proudly through soirees and gaming hells, and causing scandals whenever boredom got the better of them. At the age of seven-and-twenty, they saw no need to settle down into—what they called—the dreary existence of wedlock. But Jane suspected they would change their opinions once they found the ones who turned their worlds upside down in the best possible way.

Theodora and Anne were also unmarried. Unlike Jane, both were celebrated beauties among the ton and sought after by many suitors. But they were restless. Her sisters wanted husbands who were capable of challenging their minds as well as stealing their hearts. And Jane was glad that they refused to settle for anything less.

Hastening her steps, she saw her youngest brother walking into the ballroom.

Peter had recently become the parish vicar on this estate. She’d once teased him by stating that the reason for his choice of profession was likely due to the fact that he could wear a robe with nothing underneath it and no one would be the wiser. In response, he had merely grinned and waggled his eyebrows mysteriously.

Tonight, however, he was dressed in formal attire for the party… and perhaps for a certain young lady in attendance, too.

“Peter, have you seen Raven?” Jane asked over the merriment drifting through the archway.

He shook his head. “Afraid not. I just came in from the stables. Looks like that new filly is going to be another capital racer.”

“Don’t say that too loudly,” she said with a laugh. “Her grandsire was Savage, the stallion that Reed Sterling gave to Raven and I for a wedding present. Mr. Sterling is still somewhat irritated—albeit with brotherly affection—that the horse never obeyed any of his commands, and yet one growl from Raven and he’d pranced like a show pony.”

Her happy gaze skimmed the room, alighting on Reed and Ainsley Sterling as they conversed with Prue and her husband in front of the bank of snow-dusted windows along the far wall.

Nearby, Winn and Ellie were cajoling their husbands to join the older children on the dancefloor. The gentlemen put up a pretense of reluctance. But they had devilish smirks on their lips as they pulled their wives into their arms for one of the many waltzes that Henry had written.

“I daresay, there are few who wouldn’t be cowed by your husband’s growls, man or beast,” Peter commented, absently tapping his foot to the music. “It’s been nearly two decades but people still talk about how he’d charged into that foundling home to drag that vile Mr. Mayhew out of the bolt hole he’d been hiding in to avoid arrest. And how he’d turned the whole place on its ear by making it a boarding school for orphaned boys, whose graduates have become captains of industry.”

Overwhelming love and pride filled Jane’s heart. Raven had seen only one true advantage to having a title and wealth, and that was to use it to fight for the downtrodden and disadvantaged. He was a wonderful husband and father, a fierce adversary against corruption of any kind, and an absolutely great man.

His grandfather had been so proud of him, too.

A wistful smile touched her lips as she thought of Ableforth. It was a great blessing that he’d lived long enough to meet every one of his seven great-grandchildren. He loved them all dearly.

One of her fondest memories was how he would hold them on his lap every Christmas Eve, and read the last letter that Edgar had written to him. The older children—Clayton, Arabella, Leo, and Ivy—had penned letters for him to read aloud, as well.

It had become their favorite Christmas Eve tradition, gathering around Great-grandpapa in the library… until the year there was no one to sit in his chair.

Ableforth had passed away peacefully in his sleep on a cold January night.

The first Christmas without him, Raven and Jane discovered letters from the children on his chair. They were filled with wishes for him to read to the angels in heaven, along with the random questions that children of any age often had. But they were sweetly worded with shared secrets as if they fully believed their messages would reach him via some angelic postal system.

The tradition continued to this day. Even their younger children—Max, Jasper, and Patience—took part. Each year, the letters were found on Ableforth’s chair, then tucked away in a special keepsake box on the library mantel beneath the portrait of Edgar and Arabelle. And every page helped Raven heal the empty chasm left behind from the loss of his grandfather.

Jane’s gaze skimmed the gathering inside the ballroom once more, searching for her husband among the smiling faces. It was peculiar that she hadn’t found him yet. After all, he was always one to keep watch over everyone.

Just then, a frisson of enlightenment bolted through her. All at once, she knew precisely where he was.

“Be sure to save a dance for Ellie’s daughter,” she said to her brother and had the delight of seeing his cheeks flush with ruddy color before she slipped away.

Pivoting on her heel, Jane strode toward the main hall and to the base of the wishbone staircase. With her hand on the curved railing, she looked up. And there, within an ellipse of softly gilded light radiating from the gallery archway, she saw a shadow prowl from one side to the next.

Her heart quickened in a familiar arrhythmia and her lips curved in a grin.  Found you, she thought. Then, taking hold of her bell-shaped silver satin skirts, she mounted the stairs.

She found Raven at the railing. Still lean and broad-shouldered, he posed an impressive figure. But also, a formidable one. And there was something a bit lethal about him this evening.

He wore this tailored black suit like a panther wore skin and fur. His hair was slightly mussed as if he’d raked his hand through the inky strands that were threaded with sprays of silver at his temples. Though, tonight, it was his fierce scowl and piercing glacial eyes that would make almost anyone wary to approach.

Sidling up to him, she slipped her arm into his. He issued a gruff grunt of approval and cinched her closer to his side.

“Strange,” she said with a teasing lilt as she followed his gaze down to the glittering splendor of the ballroom below. “If I didn’t know better, I’d believe you suddenly hated our family and friends who’ve traveled all this way to join us for our Christmastide ball.”

“Not all of them. Just the male progeny of your friends, Winn and Asher,” he muttered through clenched teeth. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed how many times the young Lord Holt has danced with Arabella. Aren’t there rules against that?”

Jane bit down on her bottom lip to keep from laughing.

Raven had always treated the children of their friends as if they were his own. Of course, that was before their daughter emerged from her chamber this evening, with her glossy black hair swept up into piles of ringlets. She wore a pink silk gown that accentuated her narrow waist and fine carriage. The lovely garment rested off her shoulders, low enough to reveal that she was, indeed, a budding young woman and no longer a child.

This was likely what bothered Raven the most. To him, Arabella was still the coltish little girl who used to streak naked through the halls, giggling madly like she’d escaped Bedlam instead of her bath.

That giggle, though older now, lifted like a Montgolfier balloon up to the gallery. Jane looked down at her daughter’s laughing violet eyes as Marcus Holt led her into another waltz across the floor, breezing by a glowering Arthur Sterling who’d been a friend to her all her life.

“This is our daughter’s first foray into society,” she said. “She is only seventeen. Let her have her fun and be admired instead of spending all her time climbing trees and studying her owls. As I recall, someone taught me a valuable lesson years ago—that there is more to life than research alone.”

“I’m perfectly content with the idea of Arabella enjoying her life, just as long as there aren’t any scoundrels in it. But, if you ask me,” he growled, “Shettlemane needs to put that boy of his on a leash.”

“Are those the words of one untamed scoundrel sizing up another?”

He straightened his shoulders. “I happen to be a respectable gentleman now.”

“One who regularly hunts down his wife in her conservatory to engage in all manner of wicked and ungentlemanly acts.”

The corner of his mouth curled ruefully.

“It is your own fault.” His gaze smoldered with filaments of silver inside smokey gray as he turned and reached up to tuck a loose tendril behind her ear. “You know what it does to me to see you wearing those new spectacles you perch on the tip of that pert nose when you’re reading, and the way your lips move in a silent murmur. Besides,” he added, leaning in to whisper, “of all the sounds I heard you make this morning, not a single one was a complaint.”

She staggered in a breath, her nostrils flaring on his alluring scent. Even after all these years, he still made her head giddy and her stomach flutter.

“Hush, or I won’t give you my present,” she scolded, but without an ounce of genuine reproach. Taking him by the hand, she tugged him from the gallery.

He grinned roguishly as he curled her arm around his. “You know very well that you’re the only present I ever want. By the by, have I told you how fetching you look in all this silver wrapping? And how delicious you’d be out of it?”

At her age, Jane didn’t think she could blush any longer. But Raven always proved her wrong.

“You have, but that still won’t distract me from my purpose. This is our twentieth Christmas together and such a momentous occasion deserves a gift equally as thoughtful as the one you have given to me.” Rounding the corner, she soon led him across the threshold to the map room. Then she stopped and said, “Now, close your eyes and no peeking.”

He slid her a speculative glance but obeyed without question, and she slipped away to retrieve the present from the hiding place, tucked beneath the mahogany table. This was actually the very same table that had once been in the library at Holly House. Her parents had never noticed that it was gone.

Of course, it was Mr. Miggins who had helped her smuggle it out. He retired from service a few years ago, but had taken Jane and Raven’s invitation to live on this estate, surrounded by the family who had adopted him as their own.

Returning to her husband, she presented the book that had her heart and soul inside it. “You may open your eyes now.”

He smiled broadly and took hold of the thick, leather-bound tome. Then he bent his head to press his lips to hers. “Thank you, professor. You always know what I like.”

“I hope this will become one of your favorites.”

“From you, it’s guaranteed,” he said and opened the cover to examine the contents.

In the next instant, she heard his breath halt as he mutely read the title, A Chronological Account of Our First Twenty Years by Jane Northcott.

“It is a day-by-day narrative of every moment that I found myself more in love with you,” she clarified, her voice cracking.

She sensed an escalation in the temperature of her epidermis and didn’t quite understand why she felt shy all of a sudden. He was her husband, after all.

But perhaps it was because he went quiet as he turned each page, his intense gaze roaming over the words, missing nothing as the pad of his index finger gently brushed the lettering.

Even so, she wished he’d say something.

To fill the bashful silence, she felt the need to explain further. “As you know, I spent the first part of my life with an understanding that I was plain, utterly invisible and unimportant. But from the moment we met, you made me feel seen and sure of myself, and even… beautiful. So, I had to find some way to give you proof of these findings.” She swallowed, watching as he closed the cover and placed the book on the table. “You’ve filled my heart with so much love, every single day, that it spilled out onto these pages. In fact, on many dates you’ll find multiple entries and—”

He silenced her with a fervent kiss. Gathering her in his arms, his mouth captured hers. Though he said nothing aloud, he fed every unspoken syllable to her in the earnest articulation of his lips, teeth and tongue. And Jane understood every word. They’d become part of her own lexicon.

After a few passion-drugged moments, he straightened and clutched her to him, breathing hard against the top of her head. “I don’t have your knack for words. But if I did, I’d tell you that the wild clamoring of my heart beats to the rhythm of your name. It’s saying, Jane Northcott. Jane Northcott. I love you. For always. Forever.”

Tears slipped from the corners of her smiling eyes as she listened to his heart say precisely that. And her own answered, Forever.