Epilogue
Christmas Eve, 1819
The main salon at the ducal town house was filled with Christmas.
There were stars cut in gold paper and silk fabric scattered across the trestle tables which were heavy with the fare of the season. Rosemary, bay, holly and laurel had been brought inside this morning as it was unlucky to have it displayed until Christmas Eve. A roaring fire in the hearth warmed the room, the crackle of the Yule log competing with the excited chatter of Lucy, who was using this evening to give out her own special gift with all the aplomb that a six-year-old was able to manage.
‘This is for you, Papa,’ she said and sidled up on to Nicholas’s knee. The present he opened was embellished with the sparkly red ribbon that Eleanor had given her the year before.
The year before.
So much had happened in a year, she thought, looking around the room at her brother and Rose, who was four months pregnant, and then at Oliver and Cecilia sitting together on the sofa by the fire. In Cecilia’s arms was a baby who was the spitting image of his father right down to his light green eyes and coffee-coloured skin.
Frederick and Georgiana sat in the two leather arm chairs, a sleeping child in the bassinet at their feet. At six months old Harriet looked to be finally settled and her parents were enjoying a moment’s respite, though Grandmama was watching closely for any sign of wakefulness in order that she might have a hold.
Nicholas’s present was now revealed and Eleanor had to smile. Lucy had made him a painting for his library which she had framed in rainbows and kisses. The image showed the three of them at Bromworth Manor with their arms around each other. Victor was seated next to them, almost as large as they were, his pink tongue lolling.
‘I shall hang this family portrait above my desk,’ Nicholas was saying. ‘Right where I can see it when I sit down to work.’
‘You really like it, Papa?’ There was a shy hopefulness in Lucy’s voice. She always addressed him as Papa whenever she was able to. A vestige of five years without him, perhaps, that now translated into a need of constant ownership?
‘I love it,’ Nick was saying, her arms coming tightly around his neck in reply as he kissed her on the forehead.
‘I want one for my library, Lucy,’ Jacob said. ‘Can I commission you?’
‘Comm...ishin? What does that mean, Uncle Jacob?’
‘It means he will pay you money for a portrait of him and Rose and the new baby when it comes. Make sure it’s a goodly sum for he can certainly afford it.’ Nick was smiling as he explained this and Lucy nodded.
‘I think we should all have one, Lucy, of each family.’ Oliver’s voice was serious. ‘It can become a new tradition.’
‘Because the old ones are seeming more and more irrelevant?’ Frederick laughed and his hand slid into Cecilia’s. ‘I don’t think that Christian and his friends know quite what they are inheriting with their acquisition of Vitium et Virtus.’
‘A monster?’ Oliver smiled.
‘A way of life that is fleeting,’ Jacob amended, ‘and yet...look what it had brought us. I wouldn’t have met Rose had I not found her at the club late one night trying on one of the performer’s dresses.’
Rose shook her head. ‘The fabric was so beautiful I couldn’t resist pretending for a moment that instead of being the maid I was a high-born lady dancing with a handsome gentleman.’
Lucy clapped her hands at the story and Rose blew her a kiss. ‘Dream big, Lucy,’ she said, ‘just like I did.’
‘Here’s to Vitium et Virtus,’ Oliver spoke next. ‘And to the beautiful Madame Coquette who came my way because of it.’ He lifted his glass to Cecilia, who smiled back at him, her brown eyes alight with tenderness.
‘If you had not come to Paris on business for the club...’ Her voice tailed off in worry.
‘I would have met you somewhere, my love. Trust me on that.’
Frederick stood now with a toast. ‘To Georgiana with her perfect but foolish plan at avoiding an arranged marriage. Vitium et Virtus was the venue for her fall into notoriety and that in turn brought her straight to me.’
‘There is a silver lining, Frederick, in every cloud of hopelessness.’ Georgiana raised her own glass and drank.
That left only Nicholas to give the others his memory of meeting her at the club. Only they hadn’t met there in any shape or form, his pool of blood discovered in the alley behind the day after he had disappeared.
‘For me Vitium et Virtus was always about a family I never had. It was about friendship and freedom and if the place encouraged excess and recklessness then it also helped me to understand what I truly wanted my life to be like. Here’s to you, Eleanor and Lucy. My jewels. My home. My family. The virtue to my vice.’
Frederick lifted his glass. ‘To family then and to friendship. Christian told me as I left tonight that he hoped we enjoyed our one last party at the club. He has opened the cellar and given the entertainers the evening off. He said tomorrow they shall all be back and heaven help anyone who thought Vitium et Virtus had become proper.’
‘He sounds like us, back then when we were young.’ Nick laughed as he stated this.
‘Well, it’s in safe hands at least.’ Oliver’s voice held a good deal of the same humour. ‘He has not paid us for all the bottles of liquor stored in the cellar after all, so we need to be sure to drink up deeply.’
‘Can I come with you, Papa? Can I go to the club, too?’
‘No, you may not, Lucy, until you are at least twenty years older and hopefully not even then.’ Nicholas sounded like a protective father, his tone all that of a man who had never had a wild and reckless youth. ‘It’s bed for you in order to be up early for all the celebrations. But your mama, on the other hand, is most welcome to dance just with me until the morning.’
His eyes were bright with love, the wary distance gone now to be replaced by joy. A family man, a man of the land, a man who had discovered his place in life and in her heart.
Eleanor raised her own glass.
‘Here’s to the Christmases past and all those to come, for blessed is the season that makes the whole world love.’
And under her breath she thanked God for the best Christmas present she had ever received, the first fluttering of a new life quiet in her womb.
Tonight she would tell Nicholas when they were alone, tucked in their bed under the patched quilt on the second floor of the Bromley town house, a waxing Yuletide moon outside.
Breathing in, she looked over at her husband and when his glance caught hers she tipped her head and he tipped his back, a secret smile across his face.
Perhaps he already knew?
Her world was so full of promise and hope that she felt her own mother and father close.
You would have loved Nicholas, she thought, just as the Yuletide log suddenly flared.
They were watching with Ralph, she knew they were, from up above. Tonight of all nights she understood the eternity of family as she had not before as somewhere close the strains of a Christmas song could be heard on the wind.
Hark! the herald angels sing
Glory to the newborn king!
Peace on earth, and mercy mild
God and sinners reconciled
* * * * *
If you missed the first,
second and third stories in
THE SOCIETY OF WICKED GENTLEMEN
quartet, check out
by Christine Merrill
by Ann Lethbridge
by Diane Gaston
Keep reading for an excerpt from A GOVERNESS FOR CHRISTMAS by Marguerite Kaye, a story from .
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