After a while, she murmured, “It’s exactly a month since we were married. I’d planned to olé you.”

He moved suggestively against her. “Oh, I feel very oléd.”

She laughed. “They turned out to be rather good wedding vows, don’t you think?”

“I doubt the bishop would agree, but I’m perfectly satisfied. More than satisfied.” He kissed her again. “Olé!”

Epilogue

You are invited to a ball to celebrate the marriage of

the Duke and Duchess of Everingham

at Everingham House

in London.

George was finding it was easier to be a duchess than she’d feared. She had only to express a wish, and it was done. The duke had an army of servants eager to provide their new mistress with whatever she wanted.

The Everingham House ballroom glittered and gleamed. Decorated in green, cream and silver, with ferns, pale orchids and other white flowers from the duke’s own conservatories, and silver-painted branches tied with scarlet ribbons, the air was fragrant with the scent of flowers and the tang of beeswax.

George took one last look at her reflection and nodded. Tonight, at Hart’s request, she was dressed in scarlet again, a new ball dress, and the rubies he’d given her on her wedding day.

Her heart was so full. She was happier than she’d ever dreamed was possible. She had a big sprawling family she loved and who loved her, a smaller instant family of boys, dogs and horses—Sultan had been bred to several of the duke’s mares. And, best of all, she was married to a tall, stern, arrogant, beautiful man who adored her, and demonstrated it daily—and nightly—in so many ways.

And the blessings kept coming.

Earlier in the week, baby Bertie had been christened, with George and Hart as his godparents. And then, immediately afterward, in a move that surprised many, young Danny Glover was also christened—and with the same godparents.

“The lad has never been christened, and it will do him no harm to be known as godson to the Duke and Duchess of Everingham,” Hart had told George when he planned it. She’d hugged him. It was a generous and thoughtful move on his part. The connection would do much to ameliorate the disadvantage of Danny’s birth.

Her coldhearted duke; she’d been so wrong about him.

And now there was to be a grand ball.

“You look stunning,” Hart said from the doorway. “Ready?”

Arm in arm, they walked downstairs, to where their family and closest friends had gathered for dinner before the ball. They were all there, everyone who’d ever mattered to her—even Martha looking proud and stylish in her new bronze silk bombazine dress. Heaven knew how Hart had persuaded her to come to London, but he had.