Page 41 of An Innocent Bride for the Duke

Looking at his wild-haired handsome face, Louisa felt butterflies in her stomach and a strange urge to go to him and smooth down those disordered locks with her hands. Where did such feelings come from?

Running the brush through his hair quickly, the duke restored it to order and returned the implement to the maid.

“Will we do?” he asked Louisa, glancing down at Ezra beside him and then back again.

“You both look very well indeed,” she pronounced sincerely.

Offering his arms to the two ladies, the Duke of Northwick led their party out of the front door to await the coach now fast approaching the house down the main driveway.

“Fanny! Ezra! My little darlings, how well you look!”

Seraphine jumped down from the carriage without waiting for any assistance and crouched down, opening her arms for the two children to throw themselves upon her with great enthusiasm, chattering nine to the dozen and all at once.

“You must see our fort, Mama…”

“Uncle Benedict is a pony…”

“I have new ribbons for all my dolls…”

“I had chocolate and berries and lemonade…”

“We ate at the big table…”

“I rode a big horse…”

Laughing as he jumped out of the coach after his wife, Damien pulled an aggrieved face.

“What about me?” he complained to his family “Am I entirely forgotten?”

Reaching up, Serapahine pulled him down by his lapels, apparently not caring at all for dignity or watching eyes in this reunion. Kissing his wife’s cheek, he then embraced both children, before scooping them both up in his arms and standing up with an exaggerated groan.

“My word, how heavy you have both grown! Your Aunt Beatrice must have been feeding you very well indeed. Do you have nightly nosebags like my best hunters after a long hack?”

“No, we all eat from plates, Papa,” laughed Fanny, throwing her arms about her father’s neck and kissing him. “Even Ezra.”

Standing up again, Seraphine joined the group embrace for a moment, before apparently finally remembering the adults, and smiling at them.

Louisa ached to see the happiness and mutual love on the faces of the little family before her, especially the look of devotion shared between Damien and Seraphine. This was the kind of life that Louisa had wanted for herself, and now could never have.

“I’ve been thinking of you every day, Louisa,” Seraphine said as she hugged her cousin, “and you too, Aunt Beatrice. I hope my little monsters have not been too much of a trial.”

“Not a trial at all, my dear,” Lady Esher assured her, taking her own turn to embrace Seraphine. “They have both been an absolute joy.”

“Is that so, Uncle Benedict?” asked Seraphine mischievously of the Duke of Northwick, her young son’s words not lost on her, even in the excitement of first reunion.

Lady Esher chuckled at this question.

“His Grace has had a most determined little shadow these past weeks,” she observed.

“Ezra is a fine young boy,” returned the duke with a smile. “I have enjoyed his company, although I don’t think I could have deterred him even had I wished it.”

The Duchess of Wexford touched the duke’s arm in grateful acknowledgement, as though none of this surprised her at all.

“You do have quite the talent for inspiring devotion, don’t you, Benedict?” she teased him, with the briefest look of knowing in her eyes. “Now, let’s not stand about out here. I believe there are twelve dolls with twelve new ribbons that I must see…”

Several hours later, after a tour of the library fort, an inspection of dolls, a visit to the ponies and a hearty luncheon, Seraphine laid a hand on Louisa’s arm. Fanny and Ezra had just been taken away back to the nursery to rest, and hopefully allow the adults to do the same, Aunt Beatrice announcing that she certainly intended to lie down for an hour while she could.

“Come and help me tidy myself up, Louisa, while Gertie has charge of the children,” Seraphine whispered. “We have so much to talk about and may not have another such opportunity again soon.”