Page 115 of The Duke's Rules Of Engagement
One Year Later
Matthew kissed his three-month-old daughter on her tiny, silky-soft cheek. She seemed to smile in her sleep, cuddling deeper into her swaddle. Matthew tilted his head at Mrs. Ferguson, who nodded from her position knitting in a nearby rocking chair. She would watch Evie this afternoon.
Matthew was taking his wife out.
He was thrilled they’d had a healthy girl, though Jo at first had been worried he’d be disappointed she hadn’t given him a son. In fact, he was besotted with his daughter. He only wished that the laws of primogeniture would allow little Evie—named after his mother, Evaline—to be his heir, for he often thought that women might make more thoughtful and fair peers of the realm than men.
But she couldn’t be his heir, which meant that he and Jo would have more children. Well, they’d have more children regardless of whether their first had been a son. Matthew used to be terrified of the idea of a brood of children, but he’d happily have a dozen with Jo. Nothing gave him greater pleasure than feeling the completeness of having a real family. He loved watching his tiny little girl grow every day. Evie was beautiful like her mother, with gray eyes and a dusting of blond hair, and she was precious—a symbol of the love shared between her parents.
Leaving the nursery, he descended the stairs to the ground floor, where Jo’s new office stood tucked between a confectionery and a milliner’s shop. He’d bought this building for her over the winter—for not only was it perfectly situated in Mayfair, but it was near their townhouse, and it had a large upstairs room that they’d remodeled into a nursery for Evie. He opened the door. “Ready, love?”
“Almost.” Jo was writing a letter to a new client. Her business had flourished here. She’d had an easier time fitting into London society than either of them would have guessed, thanks mainly to an ancestral connection to the Earls of Winchelsea and Nottingham—of which she’d informed him onlyaftertheir wedding—and thebeau mondehad bestowed upon her a new moniker: “The Mayfair Matchmaker.”
Matthew thought that was excellent, especially since it negated all that “Mrs./Miss” nonsense he’d had to contend with when he’d first met her.
He wandered inside, hesitating beside that old green armchair that she’d insisted upon bringing from her old office.
“Have a seat,” she murmured, not looking up at him. “Just another minute.”
“In this?” he asked drily. “Surely, you jest.”
She looked up, her eyes sparkling. “I still contend that something is quite the matter with you. That isthe mostcomfortable chair in London.”
“You meant to saythe least, I am sure.”
“Honestly.” She rolled her eyes. “Very well. Stand, then.”
“I will. I promise you, I shall feel far more comfortable standing.”
She huffed out a breath, wrote a few more words, then capped her quill, waving her hand over the paper in a rather insubstantial attempt to dry the ink. “There. I am finished. Is the carriage ready?”
“It is.”
She tied on her bonnet, and he helped her into the carriage. As Ted drove them toward the Thames, they passed the time talking about Evie’s latest accomplishments, how she could hold her head up now and how she was starting to press her body upward while lying on her stomach. The conversation moved to Charles and Lilly’s announcement that they were expecting a baby of their own and how Lilly’s ambitious architectural design was coming to fruition—ground had been broken and the reconstruction of the Royal Pavilion at Brighton had begun.
“And I received a letter from Mama today,” Jo said. Jo’s mother was living full-time at Hanford Castle, close to all her old friends in Nottinghamshire.
Matthew had worried that Jo’s family would find Hanford Castle drafty, musty, and miserable, and although he missed the old pile, he had no desire to leave his wife alone—ever—so he had offered to remain with them at the manor until it was time to return to London. But they’d insisted on accompanying him to Nottinghamshire.
It wasn’t too much of a surprise that Jo had absolutely adored everything about the castle, drafts and all. Sweeping her fingers reverently over the stone walls, she had gushed about the turrets and towers, the long-since filled-in moat, the dungeon that had been repurposed to be a pantry, the Tudor portraits, and the antique bed where King Richard I and a half dozen other kings had once slept.
What had surprised him, though, was how much his mother-in-law and Bess had loved the place. And when he and Jo had been ready to return to London this past January, the two of them had asked to stay.
Jo and Matthew then chatted about Jo’s new client, the forthcoming parliamentary election, and Jo gave an update on the Cherrington sisters.
Three of the five sisters had married this year. Mary and Reverend Robinson had wedded in January, and they had dived into their calling of providing care and education to the orphans of London. Martha had married Mr. de Havilland, the antiquarian, who was twice her age but nobody cared because they were so devoted to each other, and they were planning an excavation in Egypt next year. Of course, Harriet was happily married to Mr. Gifford. Frances was in her third Season and had just received her first marriage proposal. And the youngest, Esther, was enjoying her first Season and the handful of proposals she’d received and subsequently rejected.
In the end, despite all that had happened last year, the Cherringtons were thriving.
As Matthew and Jo pulled up to the boathouse, the conversation had turned, as it inevitably always did, to the weather. Matthew and his wife—whose fascination with meteorology now matched his—were so deep in discussion about how the temperatures promised to be moderate for the next week, with only a slight chance of showers on Wednesday, that they failed for a moment to realize the carriage had stopped.
Finally, they looked up with a laugh, and Matthew went around to help Jo out of the carriage. She’d been to the boathouse before, of course, and had watched various regattas as well as several races between him and his friends in both the single and double boats. Matthew no longer always came in last place. He actually won sometimes, especially when Jo was watching.
The fastest boat, though, as Matthew had predicted, was the fours boat he and Jameson had built last year:Matchmaker. When Matthew, Jameson, Cole, and Winthrop were together in that boat, it was a magnificent, exhilarating thing. They felt like they were sliding above the water. Like they were flying.
Jo hadn’t ever gone out on one of the boats, however. Matthew had felt intensely protective of her when she was with child. He’d worried about everything, even as she brushed it off, saying she was fine and ordering him not to hover like an anxious mama.
Needless to say, though, rowing had been out of the question.
