Epilogue

December 23, 1828 Holbrook Court

The Christmas pantomime was running late again. The entire village and a good sprinkle of Londoners were lined up in the red velvet chairs of the theater. Of course, every one of the four Essex sisters was there; Christmas at Holbrook Court had become a tradition. But most of them weren't in the audience. One of the thoroughly original aspects of the Holbrook pantomime (one of the most coveted invitations in all England) was that the four Essex sisters took roles, even though most pantomimes were performed by men. And some years, the youngest had even played the prince.

This year, the prince was being played with undoubted gravity by Mr. Lucius Felton; his wife Tess would play Cinderella herself.

"Aunt Annabel plays the best wicked stepsister," Tess's sturdy son Phin told his cousin.

"I like watching Aunt Josie," the future Earl of Ard-more said disloyally, discounting his mother's performance. "Aunt Josie is always so mean to poor Cinderella."

"My mother says they're mean to her because she's the eldest," Phin said. "It's hard to be the eldest. My sisters are just as mean to me." He said it with feeling.

Everyone was in the theater waiting, from Lady Griselda to Lady Blechschmidt, and yet the Spensers hadn't even made their way from their house—the house that used to be called Maitland House—to Holbrook Court.

Finally, Imogen walked into the audience to tell everyone the performance was running a trifle late. "What a pleasure to see you, Your Grace!" Lady Blechschmidt crowed. "I was just telling dear Lady Griselda that I shall never forget the first play I saw in this delightful little theater. Did you see the Midsummer Night's Dream playing at Drury Lane? She was wonderful, wonderful as always!"

There was no need to clarify who was wonderful; the fact that Loretta Hawes began her triumphant career as an actress at Holbrook Court was known to every member of the theatergoing public from London to Paris.

"Rafe and I are particularly fond of that play," Imogen said, smiling at Griselda's handsome husband as she spoke. "We were there on opening night."

"Loretta," Griselda said with the delight of someone who enjoyed dropping the famous actress's first name, "will always shine in a tragic role. But she—"

Imogen was interrupted by a pull on her gown.

"Mama!" She turned around. Her firstborn child, Genevieve, was standing there, looking uncannily like her papa, barring her deep lower lip, inherited from Imogen. Genevieve lowered her voice in the important way of a seven-year-old who understands proprieties. "Miss Metta has had palpitations from excitement, and now Luke is running about with his pants below his knees!"

Imogen curtsied to Griselda and Lady Blechschmidt. "If you'll forgive me, ladies, I'm afraid there's a domestic crisis behind stage."

Two minutes later the pandemonium in the green room was doubled as the Spenser family burst into the room. One family member was laughing (Mary was one of the merriest girls for leagues, or so her papa said), one was crying (Mary's brother Richard was at an age where he felt terrible rage if he didn't achieve his own way,) and yet another was crowing (alas, Richard's twin brother Charles was devoting his third year of life to ensuring that Richard did not achieve his own way).

But in a half hour or so, the pies were in position, the actors were costumed, and the audience was applauding madly.

On the stage strolled Widow Trankey, her wild blond curls concealing a duchess's glowing hair. She had a hand on her hip and an insouciant smile for Professor Cheatley. He was played not by the duke's brother, as would have made sense, but by the duke himself. There hadn't been a year in which the entire audience hadn't screamed with delight every time Professor Cheatley opened his mouth and drawled a few slow, pedantic phrases in his brother's voice. Professor Cheatley spent most of the pantomime trying to pull Widow Trankey under the mistletoe, although she was most adroit at avoiding it, and him, and seemed to particularly delight in flinging pies in his direction.

But the star of the show, as it had been for the past three years, was the Principal Boy, played by Miss Mary Spenser in a pair of breeches that (her mother had made certain) were neither revealing nor indiscreet. In fact, she looked rather like a Dutch trader in great billowing breeches. But none of that mattered, for it was her face that made everyone break into gales of laughter: the way she darted under Widow Trankey's arm, avoiding a pie, the way her eyebrows shot up as she listened to the pedantic statements of Professor Cheatley, alias the Duke of Holbrook. It was the way she tore across the stage and hid behind her mother's skirts (playing the role of evil stepmother, naturally), and then danced silently behind her father (playing the king) to drop a pie on his head at just the right moment.

All in all, this Christmas pantomime was just as exuberant, delightful, and beloved as it had been the last six years.

The curtain fell, as it had for the last six years, when Professor Cheatley finally managed to grab the Widow Trankey and pull her under the sprig of mistletoe hanging from the center of stage front. The curtain fell on their kiss, and there wasn't a member of the audience who didn't sigh.

Well, perhaps Lady Blechschmidt wasn't quite as delighted. She felt that the duke and duchess's embrace was a trifle too passionate for her taste… the way the duke bent the duchess back over his arm… really!

They seemed to have quite forgotten their rank, not to mention the presence of their children.

In truth, the Duke of Holbrook often forgot his rank. Particularly when he was kissing his wife.

"Rafe, you must stop!" Imogen whispered, trying to push him away.

"That's not what you said yesterday afternoon in the Priest's Hole," he said in her ear.

"Oh you—" Imogen said, but he was grinning down at her, and he was so dear, so perfect, and so much her own Rafe that her eyes filled with tears.

He knew… he always knew what she was thinking. He said it so quietly that she almost didn't hear him. "I'm not planning on dying, Imogen, but I'm yours past that moment."

The curtain rose for bows, only to discover that the duke was still kissing his wife and Miss Mary Spenser was tiptoeing across the stage elaborately, her finger to her lips hushing the audience and her face alight with laughter.

A moment later a cream pie landed on top of the kissing couple, and the curtain fell again.