The Duke of Snow and Apples (34 page)
Read The Duke of Snow and Apples Online
Authors: Elizabeth Vail
Epilogue
Silence fell at the sound of a salad fork against a wine glass. Lady Balrumple stood up from the table, resplendent in a gold velvet tunic over a filmy rose underdress.
“I promised my grand-niece that I wouldn’t embarrass her with another florid speech,” she said. Charlotte, the new Duchess of Snowmont, glowed pink, inside
and
out, Frederick noted, as she had over the last three speeches, two toasts, and one sonnet composed for the occasion. He liked his bride pink, especially the way rosy color spread across her cheeks at the touch of his hand, to follow his fingers down her neck until it flooded other parts of her with warmth and ripeness. Pink was fast becoming one of his favorite colors, although he doubted he’d be reupholstering any of his carriages anytime soon.
“But I fear I’ve become horribly forgetful and unreliable in my old age,” Lady Balrumple continued. Good-natured shouts of consternation and disbelief shot out from every table assembled within the great ballroom in Charmant Park.
“I would like to bestow my congratulations upon His Grace, the Duke of Snowmont, for his startling and not-at-all preposterous recovery from his unfortunate bout of amnesia.”
Charlotte smiled as Frederick took his turn flushing red. Somewhere down the table of half-empty plates and smudged silverware, Lady Marchester, one of the previously absent Dowagers, smirked over her sparkling wine. Her consternation at having missed out on the revelation of Frederick’s identity due to her trip to Panneth had been assuaged when the other six Dowagers had tasked her with composing a version of Frederick’s unorthodox past.
The famous author, who wrote under the penname Sir Alistair Marshford, had neatly braided ludicrous fact and realistic fiction. The official story that Frederick reported to the Queen Regent and her councilors at his trial for dodging his Entailment was that he’d fallen into a river on a hunting trip, hurt his head, and lost his memory. The kindly Dowagers had taken him in to serve as a footman until an accidental blow to the head from a warming pan had restored his past.
The Council of Blooded could have pressed further if they’d wished, but the unilateral support of the Dowagers and their friends, the ridiculousness of the idea that any man in his right mind would choose drudgery over aristocratic luxury, coupled with the notion of restoring one of Allmarch’s purest bloodlines to its rightful place, had settled the matter.
The Entailment wasn’t so terrible, Frederick admitted. It some ways, it was mercifully humbling, to feel, at the back of one’s mind, the achingly slow sigh of land shifting and settling, the pulse of every river, brook, and underground spring on his property, the soft buzz of seeds starting to burst beneath the ground. He was bound to his land now, to Snowmont, until the end of his days, but the weight of that responsibility no longer held any terror for him.
Lady Balrumple continued, “Now that our families are one, I, as the current spokeswoman for the Diamonds…”
“Oh, I am
sure
I do not remember when we agreed we were Diamonds!” cried Lady Enshaw.
Lady Balrumple’s face pinched closed. “You’ve had several months to accustom yourself the idea!”
“I’m quite accustomed to being a Dowager,” Lady Alderley remarked. Beside her, Augusta smothered a laugh into her napkin. The Dowager’s granddaughter was barely recognizable in a gorgeously tailored green gown that had been surreptitiously designed for the occasion.
“Fine, then! If I’m to be forced to accept such a thoroughly dry, unromantic…”
“Truthful…”
“
…Unnecessarily
truthful name, then I am quite incapable of delivering a speech of any creativity at all!” She dropped back into her chair with a soft
whumph
of skirts.
Lady Alderley cocked her head and shot Charlotte a clever wink.
Frederick doubted that he would ever be able to accustom himself to the idea of Charlotte, or the outrageous extravagance of the universe that had tumbled such a woman into his life, right when he had been prepared to do away with love and companionship forever. He looked over at her, her fitted scarlet gown a visual shout against the subdued gold-and-white place settings.
Lady Balrumple’s disappointment over Charlotte’s insistence that her stepmother design the wedding decorations had been second only to her decision to wear the same gown she’d worn to Lady Mettle’s ball as her wedding dress, but Charlotte would have her way. Oh, the horrific social connotations! Wearing such an audacious color, and not even a
new
dress—one would think she was a jumped-up lady’s maid.
From the way Charlotte laughed at her papa’s jokes, traded quips with the recently wedded Sylvia and shot Frederick wry, laughing gazes from beneath her eyelashes, Frederick guessed Charlotte no longer held Society’s precepts in such high esteem. To tease her, to test her, he drew her into a kiss, while her mouth was still open, mid answer, to one of Mr. Oswald’s questions.
Responsibilities and wealth and status were all well and good, but the best thing to come of all this was the power to kiss Charlotte whenever he pleased, wherever he pleased, whether people watched or not.
“More sparkling wine, Your Grace?”
The couple jerked apart, flushed, as the butler produced a fresh bottle.
“Why not?” Frederick said. The bubbling cheerfulness of his former superior continued to baffle him. “Actually, I have a question.”
“Yes?” Mr. Gelvers’s eyebrows shot up in askance.
During the return to Charmant Park after Sir Bertram’s demise, Tall John and Frederick had forged an awkward sort of reconciliation. Things could never go back to being the same between them, but the hostility was gone.
But this new, cheerful Mr. Gelvers, an entire species removed from the previous, sour Mr. Gelvers, had sprung up the moment his identity had been revealed.
“You were the only one of the staff who remained friendly to me after I revealed I was a duke,” Frederick said. “In fact, you didn’t
remain
friendly, you
became
friendly. Disconcertingly so. Why?”
Gelvers tipped the bottle, and a precise jet of golden liquid fizzed into Frederick’s flute. “I have been in service for most of my life, Your Grace. We have our place, and the Pure Blooded have theirs. It is all I have ever known. Ragged clothes and botched accents do not an underfolk make, Your Grace.”
Charlotte gasped. “You
knew
he was Pure Blooded? Even when he first came to Charmant Park?”
Mr. Gelvers sniffed. “Since the moment I laid eyes on him. Determining class, status, and precedence is my life’s work. He never belonged belowstairs. It was a farce.”
A surprised guffaw erupted, one Frederick didn’t bother to restrain. “And once I returned to being a duke, all became right with the world?”
“Since that evening on the eastern servants’ stairwell, I knew you and Charlotte were so obviously in love, I thought I would render the world right in more ways than one. It wasn’t difficult. I only had to unlock the parlor door after the play.” Gelvers arched an eyebrow at the dumbfounded couple, an economical expression of wry amusement. “Would you
want
to go back to your life as a footman, Your Grace?”
“Don’t answer that question,” Charlotte warned, wagging a finger at Frederick as Mr. Gelvers moved away to serve another table.
“Are you so frightened of the answer?”
“No.” She smiled, a sweet lingering curve of lip that sent lust shooting down Frederick’s spine. She gleamed gold and copper, burgundy and rose, all for him. “I don’t want you to do anything that doesn’t involve giving my great-aunt an excuse for us leave our wedding breakfast scandalously early, and retiring—perhaps with a mutual headache?—to someplace private.”
“Of course.” Frederick grabbed her hand and kissed it, feeling the gallop of her pulse in her wrist, as his own raced to match it. His smile was anything but proper. “I am nothing if not your faithful and ever-obedient servant.”
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Acknowledgments
Writing the acknowledgments for one’s first novel can be a perilous thing. There are so many people to thank—too many. I crowd surfed my way to publication, thanks to the hands of countless teachers, authors, reviewers, publishing professionals, family members and friends who inspired and supported my writing up to this point. Although I cannot point you all out by name, I am immeasurably grateful to all of you for helping me bring this novel to fruition.
First, I’d like to acknowledge my parents, for bringing me to fruition and seeing me through several drafts without editing me too drastically.
As well, I would like to thank my two Entangled editors—Terese Ramin, first of all, for falling in love with my book and seeing it through to the end; and my mentor Stephen Morgan for teaching me to how do the same with other people’s manuscripts.
I am eternally grateful to Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan, whose blog Smart Bitches, Trashy Books introduced me to the romance genre in the first place.
A warm thank you to Jane Litte and Dear Author for their insightful reviews, as well as for posting one of my early drafts of Duke for their First Page series.
And I have to thank Wendy Crutcher, Kristie Jenner, and Magdalen Braden, for their awesome reviews, thoughtful advice, and companionship during RWA National. And for the celebratory waffles!
Last but not least, to the wonderful members of the Fantasy, Futuristic, and Paranormal chapter of RWA for their critiques of the early drafts.
About the Author
Elizabeth Vail
obtained a Bachelor of Arts in English with a minor in Comparative Literature because she loved reading and hated the idea of successful employment. Whenever she’s not being administratively supportive for money, she writes freelance, reviews movies, sings, argues over the internet, and maintains her long-running book blog
Gossamer Obsessions
. She currently lives in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
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