The Duchess of Mischief – Extended Epilogue

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The year was 1819, and in many ways the world was a very different place than it had been a decade prior.

And yet, as Iris Dunn breathed in the warm, green air of Hyde Park on this verdant early summer day, it occurred to her just how much the same things felt as well. The blooms on the trees were exactly as radiant as they had been that fateful day all those years ago. Whatever the state of the Empire in the Regent’s palace or abroad, the ladies and gentlemen of London society were just as flashily dressed as they paraded around beneath the blossoms in all the season’s finery.

And as Iris looked to her husband Mark with a rush of affection, she could only think that he too was exactly as handsome as he had been when he first came into her life.

And just like on that day, the business of the day was glow-worms.

“Mother! Over here, I’ve found some!”

“I found them first, Margaret!”

“No, you didn’t, Edward. Margaret found them!”

Iris broke into a smile, and with a warm nod from her husband, she untangled her arm from the crook of his elbow and ran over to the children’s happy cries. Without expending a single care on the state of her dress, Iris knelt in the dirt at the root of the tree around which five children were happily gathered.

“Very well done, Margaret,” Iris said with a warm rush of joy. She put a hand on the back of her daughter affectionately and felt the girl squirm with pride. Looking into the studious faces of each of the children around her, she carefully demonstrated how to scoop each little worm into a jar without harming it, explaining how the sighting of one worm half-exposed from its hole signified a likely colony of dozens of them just beneath the surface.

“How do you know so much about bugs, Lady Langtree?” asked young Edward Waverford as he rubbed away a trail of snot with the back of his sleeve. “You’re a girl!”

“She’s not a girl, Edward, she’s a woman!” exclaimed eight-year-old Frida Solberg.

“No, a lady,” said her twin, Gustaf.

Edward folded his arms in the beginning of a sulk. “Ladies know even less about bugs,” he grumbled.

Mark stepped forward, inspecting the jar rapidly filling with green, glowing bugs. “Appearances can be deceiving, Edward,” he said kindly to the youngest member of the party. “That’s a lesson you would do well to learn quickly from Lady Langtree. She certainly taught me that lesson more than once.” He looked into Iris’ eyes, and they shared a knowing smile at the memories that flooded them both.

“Your mother has quite a lot to teach you, George, Margaret. About glow-worms and much else. It’s a shame I never managed to learn from what she had to teach.”

Iris looked up to see her old friend Johanna Solberg, nee Spencer, standing behind them. She had been keeping up with Iris and Mark on their walk through the park despite her heavily pregnant state and was now keeping herself a healthy distance away from the children’s play in the dust.

“It’s never too late to learn,” Iris said with a smile.

Lady Solberg rolled her eyes. “More wisdom from Lady Langtree. At what point in your grand charade did you learn that little gem?”

Mark reached out a hand and lay it across Iris’ shoulders, sending a ripple of joy through her body. “Every day,” he answered for her.

After a happy half-hour of hunting for more glow-worms, the children were painstakingly wrangled back into the Langtree carriage by the efforts of Iris, Mark, and Johanna Solberg. The first few moments of the ride back to the Langtree townhouse were filled with enthusiastic celebration of their insect hunt by the five children, then cosy silence as they fell back into an easy nap for the rest of the journey.

By the time they arrived back at the townhouse, the children were refreshed and full of energy once again, springing out of the door the moment it was opened and running out into the small garden with a chorus of hurrahs. Having spent the previous minutes resting comfortably as she leaned against Mark’s solid form, Iris could only watch and smile as the children frolicked in the grass, lingering in the dark of the carriage for a moment longer even after Mark disembarked and followed the youngsters.

“Do you remember having that much energy, Johanna?” Iris asked her friend. Lady Solberg’s answer was a wordless laugh and shake of her head. Iris reached out and clutched Johanna’s hand amiably for a moment, then followed Mark out into the bright June sunlight.

“Lord Trevor! Lady Augusta!” she exclaimed, seeing the couple standing outside the townhouse whom her husband was greeting with a hearty embrace. Iris greeted her brother- and sister-in-law warmly and followed them out onto the garden path, where Trevor and Augusta’s children were already joining the others in their sport.

“We weren’t expecting you from New York for another few days. Don’t misunderstand me, though, we’re happy to be mistaken,” Iris said amid warm laughter. The seven adults were now strolling after the children towards the lawn where they were already setting up a game of skittles. They moved at a slow pace to accommodate Lady Solberg, who seemed relieved at the leisurely walk.

Lady Augusta joined in Iris’ merriment with a sardonic laugh of her own. “Believe me, we would not have survived another few days on that barge with the children. Though you seem to have more than enough here already. Can’t Arthur be bothered to mind his own son?”

“Arthur and his bride are at the theatre today, I’m afraid,” Mark said with a laugh. “An all-day production, it seems, or at least that’s the story they told us.”

Iris added, “We don’t mind having young Edward with us in the meantime. Our children enjoy playing with him whenever we’re in London, even if he is a bit … inquisitive for a boy of his age.”

“Speaking of which, brother, how fare our siblings?” asked Trevor. “Not that Reginald is a child any longer, of course. From his letters, I understand he is thoroughly enjoying his tour of Europe.”

Mark nodded, his arm finding a comfortable place around Iris’ shoulder. “Perhaps a bit too much. I fear we may never get him back, especially now that he is of marrying age. We’ve the same problem with Charles, who is taking well to the officers’ corps, as I understand.”

“And Elizabeth?”

Iris grunted in exaggerated frustration. “I cannot for the life of me understand the girl! When we are staying at Langtree, she only complains of wanting to come to London. And now, when we spend a season in the city, she wishes only to be left alone at the estate.”

“Reminds me of another certain Langtree youth I remember, eh?” Mark elbowed Trevor in the ribs with this jibe. Iris felt a hint of dismay at seeing how tight-lipped his smile was in answer to this jape.

Lady Augusta gave Iris a knowing smile, apparently not having noticed her husband’s dark mood. “More than one Langtree, I’d say. Heaven help you both when your George and Margaret reach their teen-aged years.” 

The party broke out into familiar laughter, happy to be reunited after so long. A handful of members of the townhouse’s staff brought out chairs for the ladies to use as they continued their conversation and watched the children play their game. For a long while they chatted about all the people they were once familiar with and the ones they still knew about London, touching on a thousand topics over the next hour. All the while Iris could not help keeping her eye on Trevor, who seemed to be battling his old temper throughout the afternoon.

“Which reminds me,” said Lady Augusta at one point. She leaned forward eagerly, resting a hand on Iris’ knee. “I read something recently about a certain old friend of ours: the Archduke Leopold.”

Each person sitting around in the Langtree garden presented a different emotional reaction to this shift in topic, from irritation to fear to nostalgic laughter.

“Good Lord,” chuckled Mark, sipping his wine. “Don’t tell me: the man’s finally married?”

“The world is not so cruel as that,” Lady Augusta answered. “Whatever it was he was involved in wasn’t so interesting, come to think of it. It was just strange to see his name in print. But no, he’s still never married, as far as I know.”

Lady Solberg piped up with a joke of her own, laughing, “Still pining for Iris, surely.”

“Poor man,” Mark growled, putting a hand on Iris’ knee in a show of jealousy. “Too bad for him that he can never have her.”

As the sun dipped lower in the sky, the children began to grow tired of their game right at the moment when a pair of young nursemaids emerged from the house to take them inside for their dinner and baths.

“I don’t see Nurse Cotton among your staff,” Trevor said in a strangely quiet voice. “No trouble with her health or anything, I trust?”

Whatever trouble Iris detected in Trevor’s voice was now reflected in Mark. She felt a true pang of worry now and hastened to answer the question. “I’m afraid Nurse Cotton retired from her duties earlier this year.”

“She’s living at Langtree these days. We’ve made sure she is most comfortable, fear not,” Mark added as he looked into his wine glass, something dark hanging over his words.

“You would never believe the friendship that she and the dowager countess have forged!” Iris laughed a bit louder than she truly felt, hoping to dispel whatever was brewing between the brothers. “The two are practically inseparable these days.”

Iris did not know if they too sensed whatever storm clouds seemed to be forming among them, but she noted that Lady Solberg and Lady Augusta began to speak most animatedly about some recent gossip or other. As they did, Trevor and Mark exchanged an intense look that worried her still more.

“Fancy a game?” Trevor asked abruptly, interrupting his wife as he rose to his feet. He jerked his head towards the skittles field, and Mark wordlessly rose to join his brother.

Iris reached out a hand and took her husband’s, squeezing it fearfully. Mark looked back and gave her a reassuring smile, then kissed her hand and nodded to the two other ladies before removing his coat and dashing across the lawn towards the playing field.

I would hope that he knows what he is doing, Iris thought, then made herself push aside her worries. But I know that he does. I only hope Trevor does not worry him overmuch.

* * *

Mark was no longer the young man he had once been. Not that he would let his brother know as much; indeed, if he had half the strength he had possessed a decade before, he now gave twice as much effort in throwing the loaf accurately at the pins, hitting his target more often than he missed.

“That’s another one for me,” Mark said, shrugging to show how little this victory mattered to him.

“Yet another one for you,” Trevor grumbled, looking away from his brother. “How surprising.”

“Well …” Mark said hesitantly, “perhaps it’s time for us to go in for a meal, anyway? It will be dark soon, after all.”

Trevor did not even speak a word in response to this, but Mark could feel the anger pour from his brother as he wordlessly set up the pins for another round. Whatever could be the matter with the man? he asked himself, fighting a pang of guilt. Something serious is troubling him, that much is for sure.

Mark looked back at the ladies, who were still pretending not to watch the game despite its growing intensity. “Trevor, I—”

“It’s my throw,” Trevor interrupted, muscling past Mark as he readied himself for his turn.

If Mark had hoped another game might dispel his brother’s foul mood, he was sorely mistaken. After only one more throw of his own, Trevor began shouting at Mark about some imagined breach of the rules. Thoroughly fed up with guessing at whatever was ailing Trevor, Mark found himself matching his brother’s tone, and in an instant the two were standing mere inches from one another’s faces, their muscles clenched with anger.

Mark glanced at Iris, who was now looking at him with an expression of horror in her eyes.

“Perhaps we should go for a walk,” Mark muttered.

“First sensible thing you’ve said in a long time.”

“What the devil has come over you, Trevor?” Mark asked as soon as they had retreated around the corner from the ladies, in a narrow part of the garden between wall and townhouse. “You are behaving like a spoiled child again!”

Trevor gave a derisive laugh. “Yes, of course, I have always been so very spoiled, haven’t I? Having everything given to me, from the title to the family estate to—” He paused as if thinking, then continued with a sarcastic sneer, “Oh, so sorry, I must have been thinking of you again, brother. No surprise there, as that’s all anyone seems to think of around here.”

“If you’re not content to stay here, Trevor, no one is keeping you against your will.”

“I’m sure that’s all you’d like, eh? Having all this to yourself once more, all your brothers and sisters kept far away from your fun? No one you have to pretend to share with, just as you like it.”

Mark shook his head, trying to calm himself. “If I didn’t know better, Trevor, I’d say that you’re jealous.”

“Of course, I’m jealous!” Trevor shouted. His words rang from the eaves of the house, startling away a flight of pigeons from the roof and plunging Mark into stunned silence for a long moment.

Trevor took a shaky breath, then continued in a quiet voice, “You have not only inherited every bloody thing Mother and Father ever had, taken every scrap of love they had in them, but you always had to seem so damnably dour about it. How do you think it made me feel to get the heel of the loaf and continually be told I should be grateful with our parents’ scraps and your hatred?”

“You’re—” Mark stopped, feeling himself choke up with emotion. “You’re wrong, Trevor. Mother and Father … they both loved you as much or more than they ever loved me. And all you had to do was be your intelligent, capable self for it. To see you with all the freedom in the world to discover what you cared about while I was expected to carry the whole damn family …”

“Oh, and you would give up everything if you had the chance?” Trevor asked snidely.

“Yes, damn you!” Mark snapped. “There were days I would have given anything in the world to trade places with you. Can’t you see, you idiot? I didn’t hate you, I envied you!”

Again, a pregnant silence stretched out over the garden. The two brothers stood there in the quiet, the sun dipping behind the outer wall of the townhouse property

“I never knew you envied me,” Trevor said quietly. 

Mark snorted. “This argument aside, I’m glad to know that. I never wanted you to have to bear the burden of my resentment as well as the unfairness of the order of our birth.”

He looked up, and though Mark could see tears in Trevor’s eyes, the younger man was smiling as well. “You’re no liar, brother, nor any kind of actor. You must have worked very hard to make sure I would never know.”

“And that’s the first sensible thing I’ve heard from you since I can remember. As well as the kindest.”

Trevor laughed at this and gamely accepted the arm that Mark reached across his shoulder, steering them towards the side entrance to the townhouse. “Just don’t let news of that get around. Think of what it might do to my reputation.”

“I’ll do my best,” said Mark with a laugh, clapping Trevor roughly on the shoulder. But then, I’m no liar nor any kind of actor, I’m told.”

* * *

The remainder of the evening in the Langtree townhouse was as tranquil as it was happy. Iris could not be sure whether she was more ecstatic at the fun her family was having under her roof or surprised at how routine such joy had become in her life.

After a simple if delicious dinner in the townhouse’s modest dining room, Mark and Trevor rolled back the carpets in the salon and held an impromptu dance. Lord Solberg, who had returned from the business that had kept him away from the festivities all day long, proved to be a surprisingly capable violinist, and the Waverfords were only too happy to join the miniature ball. The four couples exchanged partners from one song to the next, eventually winding up with their own spouses. 

For her part, Iris was only too happy to find herself in Mark’s arms once again. Though he had been in her presence nearly all day long, having decided to take as much of a break as he could from the demands of the earldom, still she felt herself grow eager and flushed at the touch of his hand on the small of her back during their final dance. She thrilled at the sensation of his hand clutching hers, a familiar fire burning in his eyes.

Ten years of marriage, she marvelled, yet our flame has not dimmed in the least.

Before long, the evening had grown late. One by one the couples bid the others good night and retired to their bedchambers, until at last Iris and Mark were alone in the salon. With neither music nor friends, they remained there in the middle of the floor awhile longer, Mark’s hands holding Iris as they slowly took a turn around the room.

“I still cannot believe how fortune I am,” Mark said, swaying Iris sensuously from side to side.

“I was just thinking the same thing.” Iris’ eyes fluttered closed as Mark pulled her in close for a long, slow kiss on the mouth. 

Retiring to their own bedchamber, Iris felt her heart flutter expectantly, hardly able to keep herself quiet as Mark’s hand reached out to caress her every step of the way. Collapsing into the bed, he tore off her clothes with youthful eagerness, and Iris struggled to keep herself from crying out with joy as his hands sought familiar sites of pleasure along her neck, her breasts, her thigh. Their bodies were as familiar to one another as their own selves, yet still both were utterly consumed with rediscovering each ecstatic curve and angle of their lover. 

Iris looked up at Mark with a hungry smile, laughing as she felt his fingers creep lower down her belly, and further down still, down to the heat of the fire that burned from her womanly centre. He moved slowly, languorously, until she could stand the teasing no longer and pulled his head close to hers, kissing him with a passionate ferocity.

The two were made one again that night, with every scintilla of love that had guided them through the difficulties that once seemed they would never end. Just as they fell asleep in one another’s arms, fingers interlaced and pledges of love on their smiling lips, a plump grey tabby cat leapt onto the bed and curled up at their feet, where she promptly joined them in contented slumber.

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