The noise at Dorning Hall as the whole family descended was a cheerful echo of the mayhem Ash had grown up with—banging doors, barking dogs, children shrieking with glee as they slid down banisters. Though the family hadn’t been all together for years, Ash had the sense this gathering was more than just a celebration of his recent nuptials.
He was being welcomed home as a prodigal was welcomed home, after a long, exhausting sojourn in a bleak foreign land. Willow gave him a dog and called it a wedding hound, a half-grown mastiff blessed with a quiet disposition and excellent manners.
Oak did a Michaelmas summer portrait of Ash and Della sitting on the porch swing where Ash had had his best talks with his father.
Hawthorne promised a pony to their firstborn child. Valerian dedicated a children’s book on manners to Ash and Della, and Worth Kettering started an argument with Casriel at supper over whose turn it was to be godfather. Sycamore announced that it was his turn, and his elders were welcome to take their ill-mannered bickering someplace where they would not set a bad example for the children.
This provoked a silence, followed by toasts, followed by more bickering.
“Tresham sounds bored with the club,” Ash said, passing Della her brother’s latest letter. The brief Michaelmas summer had ended, and the days had grown short. Della had fit right in with the noisy, rambunctious Dorning horde, but she’d also managed to let Ash know that she was keeping an eye on him. He could slip away when he needed to, or—a new tactic—he could sit quietly with her while the family argued, sang, laughed, or played cards after dinner each night.
If anybody thought it odd that he was content to observe from a slight distance, they did not remark it. Ash could not say his mood was exactly ebullient, but neither was he sunk in despair.
Yet.
“The club sounds as if it’s going into winter hibernation,” Della said. “For Jonathan to have a chance to take up the reins, however briefly, has been beneficial. He can put to rest the idea that giving up the club was a great sacrifice. He has moved on to challenges better suited to his gifts.”
Across the family parlor, Oak, Hawthorne, and Valerian each had one of Daisy’s offspring on their laps, and a cutthroat game of Patience was occasioning much merriment.
“I thought we might take on the challenge of a trip to Lisbon,” Ash said. “Winters there are sunny and mild, and we are entitled to a proper wedding journey.”
Della set aside Tresham’s letter. “Winters there are like spring and fall here. Is that what you’re thinking?”
Ash had been thinking a lot, about imagination, melancholia, and the sheer glory of having so much loving family and a wife perfectly suited to him. “I would not want to go for long, a few weeks, if you’re willing?”
“I will probably have the vapors the instant the ship leaves the sight of land.”
“Very well. No Lisbon.”
Della smacked him as Uncle Oak promised to send Uncle Valerian to the brig for peeking at a card on the edge of the table.
Della had, in fact, suffered the vapors just that morning, the incident occasioned by nothing more than Hawthorne and Margaret’s children instigating a game of hide-and-seek with Daisy’s brood and Casriel’s eldest. Ash had taken Della up to their rooms and cuddled with her for a pleasant hour, and she’d come right.
“Does this mean we must bide here in dreary Dorsetshire for the whole winter?” Ash asked.
“I don’t want to take you away from your family,” Della said as Uncle Hawthorne told Uncle Oak to walk the plank.
“You are my family, and besides, this lot will be returning to their various abodes in another few days. I would like to have you to myself for a while, no pirate uncles, no nosy Haddonfields dropping around, just the two of us.”
“I would like to have you to myself too, and Lisbon sounds delightful.”
Lisbon was worth a try, and to Ash’s great relief, his blue devils weren’t as bad when he broke up the winter with some sunshine and sea air. Della did get the vapors on board ship—both directions—also mal de mer, or something like it, that persisted for a few weeks even on dry land.
In addition to periodic bouts of worry, Della in subsequent years endured four bouts of childbirth, Ash at her side through every hour of every travail. The prescription of wife and children did alleviate the worst of his melancholia, though some years were harder than others.
Della was his partner in exploration as they assessed the benefits and burdens of walks in nature (beneficial), gardening (some benefit), dancing (quite beneficial), improving tomes (useful as a soporific), and chocolate (much discussion), among other experiments. What worked one year was sometimes less useful the next, but then Della or Ash would have a new idea to try. Season by season, they weathered the passing showers, the storms, and even the occasional gale.
What did not change was their determination to share life hand in hand, through both the mess and the glory, in sickness and in health, in joy and in woe (and in that peculiar combination of joy and woe known as parenting), until both Ash and Della knew their love was equal to any and all challenges, and they lived lovingly—and mostly happily—ever after.
To My Dear Readers
Ash and Della led me such a dance, but I hope you agree with me that their story was the right one for them, and worth the wait. No pressure, Sycamore… (He blows us a kiss.)
To my surprise, Sycamore’s story is not the next in the True Gentlemen line-up. Daisy Dorning Fromm decided that she needed a real romance too (things with the squire haven’t been a bed of roses). Truly Beloved (except below) comes out in January 2021, and Sycamore’s tale will follow shortly after that—I hope.
But you don’t have to wait until January for our next happily ever after. The Truth About Dukes, book five in the Rogues to Riches series, will hit the shelves Nov. 10, and has already earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly. This is the story of Constance Wentworth and Robert, Duke of Rothhaven. They each have difficult pasts which they must overcome together if they are to have the luscious future they deserve. Excerpt below.
And yes, Stephen Wentworth’s book, How to Catch a Duke (April 2021), is already up for pre-order because Stephen is precocious like that. (Stephen nods regally, the wretch.)
I am also getting together my thoughts on a new series, tentatively titled Mayfair Knights, which you should start seeing links for by the end of the year, and yes, I’m still working on my Lady Violet Mysteries, though I have no idea where that project will end up. Do I have the best job ever, or what?
Happy reading!
Grace Burowes
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Truly Beloved—Excerpt
Fabianus, Viscount Penweather, has not journeyed to Dorsetshire in the dead of winter to engage in yet another dalliance with yet another lonely widow. Being a trifle lonely himself—only a trifle—he’s looking for a fresh start in fresh surrounds…
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The lady stalking across the frozen garden had apparently passed from the brave phase of widowhood into the indomitable phase. Her unrelievedly black attire showed in stark contrast to the winter-white landscape, and her brisk movements contrasted to deep stillness surrounding her.