Twenty-two Years Later
“Quickly, Quickly,” Emma said, hands pressed against her daughter’s back, urging her to take her place in the foyer. “This is the first ball of the season. It’s going to be perfect.”
“Emma, dear, you sound like your mother,” Colin called from across the foyer.
“I am not that nervous.”
Colin huffed a breathy laugh. “Yes, well, now you at the very least understand why she was.”
“Mother,” August called. Emma turned to look at her son. He approached her, holding a pearled comb. “Is this…” He looked at it dubiously, obviously not fully understanding what it was. “This is what you wanted?” he asked.
“Yes!” Emma snatched it from him, but when she turned back, her daughter had disappeared. “Lot—Lottie?”
She looked back at August. “Where has your sister gone?”
August crossed his arms. He was twenty-one years old, the same age she was when she became the Duchess. August still had much to learn before he took over the dukedom, but the time he spent with Colin was time he enjoyed. Colin had vowed to make the heir’s training different from his.
From the moment August was born, his ambitions were undeniable. Even as a toddler, he had set his goals on things that most toddlers wouldn’t. Ambitions of reaching for a toy in a high place or opening a locked cupboard morphed into childhood goals of succeeding at studying or reading more books than Colin could in a month. Now, at twenty-one, August had taken part in Colin’s business, providing insight that often had Colin lying awake in bed, explaining how proud he was of his son until Emma could no longer keep her eyes open.
“I think she snuck over to the gallery,” he said, pointing down the hallway. Emma sighed. She hiked up her skirts slightly and hurried down the hall. Guests were arriving any moment now, and the debutante, Lady Lottie Weston, was nowhere to be seen.
When Emma reached the gallery, she stopped in her tracks. On a bench in the middle of the room, Lottie sat, elbows on her knees, staring up at a portrait of Lemon Drop on the wall. Emma walked, slippered feet tapping against the floor. She sighed, sitting down next to her daughter and kissing her on the cheek.
“Ugh, stop!” Lottie scrunched her face up. Her eyes were red, and her hand shook, despite how hard she pressed it against her leg.
“Are you…frightened?” Emma asked.
After a quiet moment, Lottie nodded. She was eighteen years old. Her hair was a medium brown like her mother’s, and her eyes were hazel like Colin’s. Whenever Emma looked at her, she felt a rush of love. Lottie and August were some of the most important people in her life. They looked so much like her and Colin. They were a very real reminder of how hard she fell for Colin so many years earlier.
Emma scrunched her daughter’s shoulder, feeling the satiny dress brush against her fingers. “Why is that?”
“Weren’t you nervous?”
Emma shook her head. “Not at my first ball,” she said. “It felt so mundane, and I never could explain why. Aunt Harriet had expressed her frustrations at me because she wished she were in my place.”
“Did you not believe in love?”
“No, I…” she trailed off, collecting her thoughts. “I did, but I remember thinking I would never be lucky enough to find that for myself. I had a lot of things on my mind.”
Lottie sighed. “I thought you would understand.”
Emma chuckled. “So I wasn’t terribly nervous at my first ball. However, when I met your father…I think I knew somewhere deep within.” She put an arm around Lottie. “And that made me nervous. It made me terrified!”
“How? What did it feel like?” Lottie settled against her mother. “To know, I mean?”
“Do you remember when you were…” she sighed. “Oh my goodness, you must have been seven or eight, and you touched the hearth even though I warned you not to?”
“Yes…”
“Like that. It was intense. It scared you a little, and still today, you have that little mark on your hand.” Emma turned her daughter’s palm over and glanced at the small red patch of skin.
“I wish I didn’t,” Lottie sighed.
“It’s not a perfect metaphor,” Emma replied. “Maybe tonight you will meet your person. Maybe not. Maybe you’ll find him when you least expect it. I could not tell you the answer.”
Lottie sniffled, wiping at her eye.
“But what I can tell you, unequivocally, is that he is going to love you madly because that is precisely what you deserve.”
“You think so?”
“Do I think you…” Emma huffed an amused laugh. “Do I think you deserve it?”
“Do not make fun of me,” Lottie frowned.
Emma laughed and kissed her cheek again. “How could you not? Everything I love about your father and everything he loves about me—you are all those things and more. You are passionate, talented, hard-working, ambitious, genor—”
“Mama,” Lottie interrupted her. “Enough.”
Emma tilted her head and smiled gently, leaning in and slipping the pearled comb into her hair. She hushed her voice. “I wore this one evening when your father stayed at my family home before our wedding. Aunt Harriet and I had laughed about how he would never notice such a little ornament, yet he did. Someone who notices everything about you, even the little things that don’t matter all that much…” She leaned in close to her daughter’s ear. “That is the sort of gentleman you should dance with tonight.”
Lottie laughed and rested her head on Emma’s shoulder. They sat there for a few minutes in silence. Emma wanted to capture that moment and hold it in her hand forever. Things like that never last forever. One day soon, Lottie would fall in love and move away, just as Emma had. It was a cause for celebration, but it didn’t make Emma feel better. Maybe, if Lottie had enough adorable children to spoil, then Emma could forgive her. Maybe.
As they sat together, their eyes traveled up to the painting of Lemon Drop. Colin had proudly displayed it front and center in the gallery. “Does he sort of just…” Lottie paused, tilting her head sharply. “Sort of look right through you?”
“Always did,” Emma nodded. “Always.”
“Mother.” Emma turned around. August stood at the threshold. His hair was darker than his sister’s, and his eyes were green. He always looked so concentrated and severe, just like his father. “The guests have begun to arrive. We should go take our places and greet them.”
Emma looked at her daughter and winked. “Come now,” she said. “And don’t forget what I told you!”
“I will not, Mama.”
***
Colin twirled Emma around. He hadn’t gotten any better at dancing, but Emma was secretly happy about that. His lack of coordination on the dancefloor still happened to be one of the cutest things about him. He looked over her shoulder.
“Lottie is dancing with someone,” he said.
“Oh! Turn, turn,” she said, turning their position so that she was facing their daughter instead. She was across the room, dancing with a blonde-haired fellow.
“Oh, my,” Emma said. “Very handsome.”
“Calm down now,” Colin said. “The kid is no older than twenty-five.”
“He is still quite handsome,” she said. “Although you rank top in your age bracket.”
“Hm,” he nodded. “Insulting yet flattering all in one fell swoop.” He turned them around so that he was now the one looking.
“What is he saying?”
“I’m nearly fifty years old. How, pray tell, do you think I could hear a word they are saying? Not even they can hear us.”
She rolled her eyes. “What does it look like they are saying?”
“Well,” he exhaled. “He seems to be complimenting her. He seems…oh, she is smiling!”
“A genuine smile?”
“Yes,” he said. They knew all about those. They had mastered the fake ones, although this many years into their marriage, they had indeed fallen out of practice. They hadn’t pretended for anyone since their wedding day.
“Has he noticed the comb?”
“The—” The Duke sighed. “Look at me.” Emma looked up. He smiled at her. “Perhaps we should stop spying on our children and enjoy the dancefloor before our hips give out.”
Emma sighed. “I am nervous.”
He nodded, touching the corner of her jaw. “Remember how happy we were on our…erm…after our wedding day?”
She snorted a laugh.
“She’s going to be that happy on her wedding day,” Colin said.
“Oh.” Emma raised a brow. “She’ll outdo us, then?”
“Emma,” he sighed. “Let us hope that her road to love is just a little less bumpy. We want the best for our children even if they do hurt our pride.”
Emma smiled lightly. “Fair enough,” he said. “Although August is going to be a headache for some girl. I just know it.” They had long discussed how August seemed to take after Colin quite a bit. He was careful and guarded, but despite his best efforts, he still found himself drawn to a beautiful girl from time to time. With that said, he enjoyed his solitude. Maybe one day Emma could convince him to settle down.
Colin could not argue. He peered across the ballroom, eyes squinting without his glasses. “Looks as if he has already found one.”
They both laughed, stepping to the music. Thankfully Colin had remembered how to count his steps properly. They danced, spinning and chuckling at the occasional joke. That joke often happened to be Adam, who, even in his mid-forties, was likely damaging the floor with how intensely he enjoyed the music. Colin never had gotten rid of him, but August and he had mutually enjoyed finding creative insults to throw at Adam. True to fashion, he enjoyed it just as much.
***
“So?” Emma asked, grinning at her daughter on the other side of the table. “How was your evening?”
Lottie yawned, spreading a pat of butter onto her bread. “Eventful.”
“Was that The Duke of Frampton that I saw you dancing with?”
“Oh.” August looked up from the newspaper. “The Duke? I would approve of that match.”
Lottie blushed. “I don’t…we’re not a match. We danced once.”
“Mhm.” August nodded, eyes glued on the paper. “Your cheeks give you away, Lottie, you know that?
She sneered, taking a bite of her bread. “Once. One time. I hardly made an impression on myself. How could I have made an impression on anyone else?”
“I don’t know, but you’re making an impression on me now,” he said, sipping his tea. “A negative one, but an impression nonetheless.”
“Would it kill you to be a little nicer?” she asked.
“Possibly,” he said. “I haven’t tried.”
“August.” Emma took an apple slice from her place and bit into it. “Who was that young lady you danced with twice?”
August looked up at her and flicked his wrists, straightening the paper out. He brought it over his face in one taciturn motion. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“I’m not worried about it,” Emma corrected him. “I just think we deserve to know.”
Lottie huffed. “That was Isabella.”
“Lady Isabella Morris?” Emma’s eyes lit up. She had only seen the girl a few times in passing, but she was a new friend Lottie had made when visiting the milliner a few weeks prior.”
“I do not want August courting my friend,” Lottie said.
“How about we leave my business to me?” August muttered. “She’s handsome, and I danced with her. Why is that a problem?”
Colin held up his watch. “Looks like we could be receiving callers soon,” he said, looking at Emma. “It might be time to go to the parlor. As for you, August, you might have to make a call yourself today.”
Emma nodded, standing up from the table. She pressed a kiss to her husband’s forehead. He smiled up at her. With Lottie in the lead, the two walked to the drawing room and took a seat. For half an hour, the pair discussed the ball, and all the young men Lottie met. She claimed not to be impressed by any of them.
“Have you spoken to Lord Dunnington? Properly?”
Emma grimaced. “I have not.”
“Well, believe me, Mama, the man is a toad.”
At a quarter till, a footman announced the arrival of a suitor, The Duke of Frampton. He was young, only twenty-four, but had taken over the dukedom now that his father had passed. He took a seat in the parlor across from Lottie after presenting her with a bouquet of camellias and waxflowers. Emma smiled, wishing Harriet was around to explain what that meant.
“A pleasure to see you again,” he smiled.
Lottie glanced at Emma and then back to the Duke. He was even more handsome up close. His eyes were soft and understanding. “I had a lovely time at the ball.” He regarded Emma. “Thank you for hosting, Your Grace.”
“My pleasure.” She smiled, placing her hands on her lap.
He turned back to Lottie. “I was hoping to hear more about your um, artistic inclinations. You paint?”
“I do,” she said. “I mean, I am not very talented.”
He laughed gently. “I think we are too hard on ourselves to be talented at everything that we do, but there is a lot of beauty in doing something simply because you enjoy it.”
“So what do you do for enjoyment without boasting any prowess?”
He cleared his throat. “Archery.”
“Oh!” She smiled, sitting forward in her chair. “Then maybe I will have to give you some pointers.”
He looked taken aback, huffing an excited laugh. “You enjoy archery too? You must be fooling with me!”
She shook her head. “My brother had attempted it, but I ended up being better at it. August quit with indignance, but I continue to practice my arm.”
“Indeed,” he said, leaning forward in his chair as well. “So when you aim, do you look at…”
The conversation faded out in Emma’s ears. Instead, she focused on two people making an instant connection right before her eyes. She worked hard to keep herself from getting misty-eyed. It wasn’t becoming for a young woman’s mother to become an emotional mess during calling hours. The Duke of Frampton was a good young man, and despite Lottie’s insistence that she hadn’t made an impression, it was apparent that she had.
For some time, Lottie played them a piano piece while August hovered in the doorway, examining the Duke as he listened intently. When it came to Lottie, August was protective enough to potentially scare away a suitor. Despite this, The Duke of Frampton stayed unshaken. He regarded August with such genuine warmth and propriety that August had no other choice but to back down.
The Duke clapped as Lottie finished her performance. “I meant to say yesterday evening,” he began. “You wore a small, pearled comb in your hair. It looked rather becoming on you.”
At that, Lottie’s mouth nearly hit the floor.
Emma couldn’t help the high-pitched noise that rolled up in the back of her throat. They both turned to look at her. She placed a hand at the base of her neck and cleared her throat. “Pa—pardon me.”
Colin’s wish had come true. It seemed Lottie’s love match had come to her much easier. Emma could not be any more thrilled.
***
“He said the same thing, Colin, the same exact thing!”
Colin laughed. “You remember exactly what I said? Emma, I hate to break your heart, but I do not even remember this comb.”
Emma rolled over, leaning on Colin’s chest as they lay there, candles snuffed, ready to fall asleep. He looked up at her. “You said that it looked very becoming.”
“And I am sure it did.”
“I am serious!” She tapped his chest playfully. “This might be it. Her first ball, her first season. This might be it already!”
Colin sighed. “Oh my God, where did the years go?”
She kissed him softly on the lips, lingering for a moment longer. “We gave them to August and Lottie, and I wouldn’t change a thing.”
“We had one good one to ourselves,” he pointed out. “And soon, we will have some more!” He grabbed Emma and rolled her over so that he was on top of her. He kissed her, and she responded to him with just as much passion and hunger as she had twenty-two years prior.
He pulled away, kissing the tip of her nose. “If you really think that Lottie may have already found the man she will spend the rest of her life with, then I believe you.” He kissed her once more. “You haven’t led me wrong yet.”
Emma fell asleep on his chest, his arm wrapped around her, sheltering her. His chest rose and fell with each breath, and his heart beat steadily. She smiled and sunk into him. She fell asleep feeling light in her heart and ready for whatever tomorrow would bring, knowing that she had him by her side.
The End
