Victorian Boy || l.s. ✔︎

EPILOGUE

"The babe is at peace within the womb, the corpse is at rest within the tomb. We begin in what we end."

― Percy Bysshe Shelley

❦ FOUR YEARS LATER ❦

The Duke of Somerset sat by the fire waiting for the post to arrive.

He stirred a spoonful of sugar into a blue china teacup and watched as flames licked the blackened wood that lay in the hearth. 

He heard the door open. The Duchess entered the drawing room with six dogs nipping at her heels. 

"Beth, has the post arrived yet?"

The Duchess handed her cloak to Harry's valet. "Charles, can you please explain to my husband that the post arrives at precisely half past nine every morning."

Draping the cloak over his forearm, Charles chuckled, "You know as well as I do that his grace has no concept of time when it comes to sending and receiving correspondence. No sooner does he put ink to paper than he begins awaiting a response!"

Harry hated it when his wife and valet joined forces to tease him. He sank in his leather wingchair and gloomily dipped a biscuit into his tea.

Beth relented and handed him the bundle of letters tied with a string she had hidden in her velvet purse. He sat up in the chair and took them from her, furiously flipping through the stack.

"Heavens above! At least read who they're from!"

He didn't need to. He was only interested in one letter. When it wasn't in the stack he frowned.

She patted his hand. "Perhaps it will arrive tomorrow."

"Yes, perhaps."

Beth rose and left to meet Harry's mother in the parlour room for their afternoon cribbage game.

The Dowager Duchess felt displaced ever since Harry married. She had no friends and without an estate to run, and a son to fret over, no purpose. Beth was determined to forge a bond with the widow. Progress was slow but steady. Before Beth's arrival, the Dowager Duchess would not even pet a dog but now she spent her days surrounded by Beth's corgis, sneaking them tarts beneath the breakfast table.

It was then, over the crackle of the fire, that Harry heard a low growl.

"Winston!"

The aging corgi was gnawing on a red envelope beneath the settee. Harry got down on his hands and knees and rescued the paper from the beast's teeth. It was torn slightly but still intact. He cracked the wax seal and opened the letter. It was an invitation.

Dearest One,

The pleasure of your company is requested at the Bilsdale Fox Hunt on the sixteenth day of September, hosted by me, club president, at Warwick House in Yorkshire.

Join us for a fortnight of dinner, dancing and games, culminating in what is sure to be the liveliest hunt of the season.

Ever your affectionate companion,

Louis

Harry held the invitation against his chest and sighed before rushing upstairs to his bedchamber to add it to his collection alongside dozens of envelopes exactly like it.

♘

The carriage was packed for their journey to Yorkshire.

In an emerald green tailcoat, Harry stood by the chapel on his family's small private plot where his father was buried. There rested a man who did so much good in the world and so much evil. He recited the Prayer For the Dead and clipped a spray of roses that grew by the headstone's weeping angel.