The Taming of Victoria Colton

Epilogue

Epilogue

From where she stood under the striped pavilion erected at the top of a slope, Victoria studied her son as he ran riotously through a bevy of girls before grinding to a halt in the soft earth and promptly pulling down his trousers.

She sighed miserably.

From beside her and amid girlish screams of horror, Gabriel chuckled. “That’s my boy.”

Vicky gave him a peeved look. “Are you going to sort this one out?” she demanded, ignoring the fact that five-year-old William Sinclair was now stripping himself of all his attire and gleefully chasing after the hysterical girls who had all been invited to celebrate his birthday. Their governesses looked on in a state of shocked mortification, unsure whether it was in their place to set order among their wards by dressing the exhibitionist young Sinclair.

“Mama!” Elizabeth Sinclair wailed, tugging Victoria’s skirts. “William is doing it again, mama!”

“He must be,” Gabriel intoned, humour lacing the timbre of his voice, “his mother’s child.” Swiftly, he hoisted the little girl into his arms and she wrapped her slender limbs about his neck, hugging him adoringly. “Have I told you about what your mother did in Paris?” he asked Lizzie, a crooked grin playing on his handsome face.

“You devil,” Victoria grumbled. “Don’t you dare. I swear I will not speak to you ever again if you bring this up… again.”

Casting him an aggravated look over her shoulder, Victoria trotted down the slope towards William. The boy sprinted out of his mother’s reach, giggling hysterically despite Vicky’s dire threats of punishment if he didn’t rectify his state of undress immediately.

“What happened in Paris, papa?” Lizzie asked, her wide blue eyes curiously gouging into his. She was an identical replica of Victoria, with a shock of dark sable hair and a pair of eyes that could put sapphires to shame. Just like her mother, she was also demanding, headstrong and unrelentingly stubborn. She was also but a year younger than William and her twin, Caroline, had gaily joined the chase to catch William by the edge of the lake.

“Your mother,” Gabriel grinned, “made me the happiest man in the world.”

Her pert little nose wrinkled. “That’s not very funny at all,” she reprimanded him. “I thought you were going to tell me something funny!”

He turned his head to where his wife was now pulling William by the ear to his pile of clothes scattered about on the grass and forcefully shoving his shirt over his dark head, much to his fervent protestations and wails. “This is quite funny,” he told his daughter thoughtfully.

“Yes,” she agreed sagely, “but this happens all the time.”

“You’re right, of course.”

“I always am.”

Belligerent little worm. Laughing, he set Lizzie aside and ambled over to where Victoria was struggling with William. The boy was writhing furiously in her arms, screaming as if somebody was beating him, while she tried to tug his trousers over his kicking legs. “Need a hand?” Gabriel teased.

Vicky glared at him. “This is your son,” she rasped haggardly and deposited William in Gabriel’s arms before expelling a weary breath and planting her hands on her back. “God help you if we have another boy.”

He chuckled at that. The evidence of her pregnancy was eloquent against the fabric of her gown, her abdomen softly swelling as their fourth child grew steadily within. She made a lovely, albeit temperamental, woman when she was carrying and unfortunately her patience was worn thin from having to control one disastrously naughty little boy and two mischievous little girls. After a stern reprimand, William quickly acquiesced to his father’s wishes and begrudgingly donned his trousers again, which only made Vicky give Gabriel an irate look. Uncaring of their onlookers and their guests, he pulled her into his arms and planted a kiss on the tip of her nose. “Thank you,” he murmured with a devilish smile of promise.

She gazed up at him quizzically. “Whatever for?” she asked.

“For giving me your love, for filling my life with laughter, and for giving me a brood of recalcitrant brats that nobody wants to invite to their homes for fear of the scandal they may cause.”

She laughed softly at that. “They take after us, don’t they?”

“Of course. I would definitely not tolerate obedient, scandal-free children.”