The Slightest Provocation

Epilogue

The dower house at Rowen had several entrances. One, toward the back, seemed to lead to the kitchen, but if you knew how to slide a certain panel, you’d find a hidden staircase.

It really was a clever piece of work, Mr. Greenlee had thought, when he’d climbed the staircase to the marchioness’s bedroom earlier that night. He nodded. Probably my cleverest piece of work.

He wasn’t usually the sort of man to make a fuss about his accomplishments, but tonight he was feeling in rather a celebratory mood. Estate carpenter at Rowen was an excellent position. He’d loved the same woman for, oh, forty years it must be, shared her bed for most of that time, and weathered the difficulties of a long, hidden, sometimes maddeningly complicated liaison. Good times and bad-the worst, perhaps, her episode with the Prince of Wales, just to draw people’s suspicions away from what was really happening. But mostly good.

The best, perhaps, that their son might be finding his way to happiness.

Mr. Greenlee had been thinking these thoughts at about eight at night-before Kit and Mary had interrupted a bad elopement, helped along a more optimistic one on its way, and done what they could do to turn back the tide of an ill-fated revolution. For all Mr. Greenlee had known at eight, their night out in the rain and the wind might have turned out disastrously. But he hadn’t thought it would, and as it happened, he was right.

“Emilia?” Rapping softly on a secret panel that led to the bedchamber.

Still, the marchioness thought some hours later, it was a relief to hear the horse, the creaking of wheels, and the jingling of traces.

She’d hoped they’d be back before dawn. For you never stopped worrying about your children.

She thought she could hear a faint sound of laughter. Yes, she was pretty certain of that. It was laughter.

We had fun, Mary had once confided through her tears. We could always make each other laugh. But I expect that fun and laughter aren’t enough, are they, your ladyship? Poor child, it was when she and Emilia both were waiting to hear the news from Spain.

Fun and laughter make a good beginning, Emilia had answered, thinking of a certain day, many years before, in Martin Greenlee’s workshop. Perhaps the most fun she’d ever had, and the only day they’d dared make love there, and possibly the beginning, amidst shrieks of pleasure and whoops of laughter, of what would turn out to be Kit…

“They look happy.” Martin Greenlee stood by the window in his dressing gown, which hung hidden behind yet another partition during the day. Living in this room, Emilia thought, sometimes felt like living in a conjurer’s box, with its trick panels and false walls.

It wasn’t what she would have chosen, but it was fun in its way.

She plumped up the pillows behind her, wrapping a shawl around her naked shoulders. Her white breasts, grown heavy but still very pretty, shone in the firelight. She felt his eyes on her. The room was a bit chilly, but she let the shawl drop open. He nodded, grinning in a way that most people didn’t see, and folded his arms in front of him, tapering, squared-off fingers resting on upper arms that still had plenty of muscle and sinew in them.

“He’s taking her back to the castle,” he said. “They’re going to wake up together, eat their breakfast together…”

She sighed. “You would have liked that.”

“You know it wasn’t only your secret to keep, Emilia. There was also Martha to consider.”

Since his wife’s death, they’d sometimes wondered if they might be a bit freer about their meetings-being careful, of course, to keep it from Wat and Susanna.

“We could go away together,” he said now. “There’s a small lodge I know about. We could be alone for a few days.”

He’d always enjoyed the sound of her laughter, but just now he didn’t know what he’d said to set her off that way. “Well, why couldn’t we?” he asked. “Why is that so funny?”

“We should starve. I don’t know how to cook.”

“Not even eggs?”

“Eggs? You know, I’ve always wondered what one does to them to get them hard like that. And the shells, however does one…?”

He laughed too. “Perhaps we’d better not. We’re all right as we are.”

“Even if Kit never knows his father?”

“I think perhaps he does.”

“I hope he does,” she said. “I think it might help him be a good man, to know…”

But sentimentality had never been their way, and so she found it a great comfort that even at his age, he could still leer at her, and very convincingly too.

She licked her lips, which weren’t as full as they once had been, but which still had a sinuous curve to them when she smiled. She nestled back among the swans-down pillows and let the shawl fall away from her.

He’d be leaving in an hour, as he always did. While Kit and Mary would be waking tomorrow, smiling into each other’s eyes and still in each other’s arms when the busy sun stole through the windows.

Doesn’t one always wish one’s children to have more than one’s self has had?

And anyway, what she’d had-what she still had-was good enough.

She stared across the room to meet his contained, confident gaze. Same way he’d looked at her from the first, when she’d been told to oversee his work on the old paneling, on her way to learning to be a great lady. But now she knew how to return his look-and to value it and everything good she’d gotten from her life and had still to look forward to.

And no, it wasn’t really very late. The sun’s rays hadn’t stretched over the hills yet.

She laughed again.

“Come back to bed, Martin,” she said. “There’s still time.”