My Last Duchess (The Wildes of Lindow Castle #0.5) - Eloisa James Page 0,61

children, Hugo.”

“After last night, you may well have at least one,” he said ruefully. “I’ll send my secretary around to Doctors’ Commons for a special license as soon as I get home.” He put a knee on the bed as carefully as he could so that he didn’t wake Viola.

“Will you marry me, Ophelia? I can promise a large amount of the world’s goods, but you have no use for those. I have a title, and you don’t want that either. I have too many children, and by the way, they are planning to give you a pet rat as a wedding present.”

“I don’t know,” Ophelia said teasingly. “The pet rat might sway the balance the other way . . . unless there’s something else you can offer?”

“My love,” he said, meaning it. “I will love you my entire life and to my last breath. I hope I can give you the children you want; certainly, I’d love to share those that I already have. But most of all, I hope that we can have years together. I’d like to grow and change and learn from you. My life next to you will be entirely different from a life without you.” He hesitated. “I don’t mean to sound as if the decision is just mine. I will try to give you everything you want, Ophelia.”

She smiled at him. “That would be you, Hugo.” The words settled into a silence broken only by a child’s peaceful breathing. “If I have you, and the children we already have, I’ll be one of the happiest women on earth. So yes, yes, I will marry you.”

He had to swallow hard and then he opened his hand. “My family has a tradition of giving this ring from one duchess to another,” he said. “In different circumstances, my mother would have given it to you. She would have loved you so much.”

The ring was made of emeralds and pearls; it was exquisite and it fit perfectly on Ophelia’s finger.

“My last duchess,” Hugo said. He leaned over and kissed her.

“My first and last duke,” Ophelia whispered back.

Epilogue

“I don’t care what name you give her as long as it isn’t as awful as mine,” Betsy said. She was lying on her stomach on the huge bed that graced the matrimonial bedchamber at Lindow Castle.

“Your name isn’t awful,” Ophelia said. “Boadicea was an amazing woman, who nearly conquered the Roman legions.”

“Dead men piled up at her feet like logs,” Alexander said in a bloodthirsty tone.

“My name is Betsy,” his sister said, turning another page in her book.

“There aren’t so many warriors’ names left,” Hugo said. He was lying on his back, propped up against the headboard. Leonidas was tucked next to him, looking at a book.

Under Ophelia’s reign, the castle had become an extension of the nursery. Where the older Wildes were, the younger Wildes likely were not far away.

The boys started coming home from Eton even when they hadn’t been sent down; Horatius made trips from Oxford merely to say hello. The five younger children—which now included the inseparable pair of Viola and Joan—divided their time between the stables and their parents, whether that meant sitting under the duke’s desk as he paid the accounts, or trooping after Ophelia as she conferred with the housekeeper.

Horatius looked up from the other side of the room. Although he was far too proper to join the family on the bed, he had consented to join them in the bedchamber; he and Alaric were playing chess at a game table against the wall. “We don’t have an Erik in the family,” he said. “Erik the Red was an excellent pirate.”

“Viking,” Alaric said. “Not the same thing.”

“Pirates! Let’s play pirates again,” Alexander cried.

“Erik for a boy,” Hugo said, meeting his wife’s eyes. “All right with you, darling?”

“Artemisia if she’s a girl,” Ophelia said, patting her very round belly. “She was a very fine warrior, who challenged the Greeks.”

“We’d have to call her Artie,” Betsy declared.

“You can do that,” her father replied reaching down to tickle her.

Then he edged over so he could kiss his wife.

“All right?” he asked.

Ophelia smiled at him with a steady love in her eyes. “More than all right.”

Acknowledgments

My books are like small children; they take a whole village to get them to a literate state. I want to offer my deep gratitude to my village: my editor, Carrie Feron; my agent, Kim Witherspoon; my website designers, Wax Creative; and my personal team: Franzeca Drouin, Leslie Ferdinand, Sharlene Martin Moore,