Passion’s Pact with the Viscount – Extended Epilogue

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One year later…

“You know, I was thinking that I too should make a list for my requirements of a husband. It seems a very sensible thing to do,” Marianne told Elizabeth one afternoon.

They had just returned from the orphanage, and they were sitting in the sitting room of her and Jonathan’s home. Marianne had come for tea, as she was so often wont.

“Is that so?” Elizabeth asked, turning to Katherine who had met them there. “What do you think, Katherine, do you think a list wise?”

Katherine herself had recently become engaged to a man she loved very dearly. “I think it can be helpful when organizing things,” Katherine said in a teasing tone. “But I do not think it wise to always depend on it in terms of people. People are so very different from lists, you know.”

Marianne pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket, and then she looked at it. “Come now, listen to this.” She read off a few of the qualities from her list. “Are they not good ones? Very sensible.”

Elizabeth chuckled. She had once thought being sensible the highest of virtues. But now after being inthat she had found love with someone so completely, she knew that good sense did not always help to guide the right decisions.

“It is sensible, true. But I think you should also follow your heart. A good balance is wise, I should say.”

“Well -said,” Katherine said to her.

“And I think that one should understand that no one is perfect, but there will be someone who is perfect for you.”

When a clap sounded at the doorway, all the ladies looked up to see Jonathan standing there smiling at herhis wife.

“What beautiful words, my dear wife. It is good to hear you say them.”

His eyes flashed at her, and she chuckled. “You should not eavesdrop on people’s conversations, my love. For you may hear a compliment about yourself, and then your pride would get far too large to fit in the room.”

At Jonathan’s fake, shocked gasp, Marianne giggled. Even if he was teasing, his eyes were serious, heated. Katherine must have seen, for she got to her feet and reached for Marianne.

“Come, dear girl, you must tell me all about the orphanage and show me the garden.”

Marianne eagerly acquiesced, and then soon it was just the two of them in the sitting room. Jonathan leaned back and locked the door. She rose as he walked toward her, his eyes intent, her heart beating wildly. Even after a year of marriage, being near him excited her, and his touch was even worse.

“I am desperate for you, my love,” he told her. “Been working all morning.”

“How studious of you,” she told him giving him a teasing smile before he scooped her up and placed her on the edge of the writing desk.

She laughed, her hands pressing against his face as she stared at him. He leaned over her, his hands placed on either side of her hips. If it was possible, her husband had gotten even more handsome as time went on. He had grown his hair out a little, so it was even more rakish than usual, and his smile never failed to set her stomach to fluttering.

“You are looking very fine today,” he told her, chancing a look down her bodice.

“Jonathan, you do realize we are in the sitting room. “It is not proper for a man to bed his wife in the sitting room.”

“Is it not?” he breathed against her mouth, his hands moving to lift up her skirts.

She sighed when she felt his fingers against her entrance, where. sShe was already wet, and Jonathan chuckled.

“My wanton wife. What a blessing I have been given.”

She rolled her eyes at his teasing but then gasped when his fingers entered her, and she kissed him, spreading her legs wide for him. With a few deft strokes, she came apart, wondering how he had done it so quickly. But she barely had time to recover before he was unbuttoning his breeches and sliding into her. His hands were on her hips, angling them upward slightly, and she wrapped her legs around him and leaned back on her hands.

“I will forever be grateful that I can bed you in reality and not only in my dreams,” he said, nuzzling her neck as he thrust inside her slowly.

She tried to push toward him for more. He was teasing her, and she wanted all of him. He noticed, and he chuckled.

“My greedy, wanton, wife,” he whispered, but then he kissed her and gave her what she wanted, thrusting harder until the desk began to rattle.

But any embarrassment she might have felt disappeared, and soon she was crying out his name, trying to hold him for steadiness as her pleasure broke over her. He held her tight as he thrust twice more, and then groaned, spilling inside of her before he leaned his head on her shoulder, breathless.

“We should be preparing ourselves for tonight’s dinner,” she told him as she stroked his hair,ard, loving him even more than she ever thought possible.

“Hmm…” he replied only, making her laugh.

Her heart now fluttered for a new reason. They were to have friends and family over for dinner that night, but she had wanted time alone with him to tell him the good news, news she knew would be a surprise, but a welcome one, she hoped.

“Jonathan,” she said calmly, causing him to lift up his head and look down at her.

Her legs were still bare, and her legs spread wide, but she needed him to hear this. She placed both hands on his face, and she took a breath.

“I wanted to tell you before everyone came that I am…expecting.”

A thousand emotions crossed his face before he broke into a wide smile, placing a large, warm hand on her belly.

“Are you in earnest?” he asked, his eyes looking down at his hand.

“Yes, the doctor says so.” She swallowed, tears in her eyes, watching as her husband’s face showed such joy.

“I cannot believe it.” She could see a flicker of fear in his face. “Dear Eliza, how will I be a good father? My father was a good man, but my mother left us, and then I became a degenerate after a rejection. How will I show them our child the right ways?”

She soothed him, smiling up at his face and pressing a finger against the crinkle between his brows. “You will be perfect; I swear it. We will both have to learn, and we will take it one day at a time.”

She kissed him, and he relaxed. Then, he kissed her again, this time longer and deeper, and, forgetting about dinner plans, she wrapped her arms about his neck and gave into it.

Hours later, she was sitting next to Jonathan at the table and looking around at her friends and family, smiling widely. Everyone’s wine had just been poured, and so she knew this was the chance. Her eyes flitted over to Jonathan who was speaking to Katherine’s betrothed. There was Marianne too,was in bright conversation with Lord Harrington’s widowed lady friend, Lady Chaucery. The bright and lovely womanShe who had been spending more and more time with him. of late, and both Jonathan and Elizabeth were happy and hopeful for his father. And there was Lord Harrington speaking to her parents. She sighed. They would all be so happy. It was just that she needed to gain the courage to speak. But pressing a hand to her belly, she got to her feet and took her glass in hand.

The room went silent, and she smiled. “It is a good thing to be with family and friends,” she said. “For we wish to tell you something.” She glanced at Jonathan who was beaming. “We wish to tell you that we are expecting.”

A cheer rose up from the crowd so loud that she jumped, but then she burst into laughter.

“Congratulations!” Marianne jumped out of her seat and rushed to her side, hugging her.

She spied Lord Harrington with tears in his eyes, and her mother was clapping with delight. It was all going to be a new, wild adventure, but she had her dearest friend at her side., aA man who had shown her that a person was not a sum of characteristics. They wereHe was so much more, and love was about showing a person how one cared each and every day. She turned to Jonathan, Marianne still clinging to her, and she reached for his hand. He rose and kissed the back of it, his eyes on her.

“I love you,” he mouthed.

“I love you, too,” she replied softly.

Elizabeth had everything she could have possibly ever wanted.

THE END