WILLIAM CRADLED JULIA AGAINST HIM. Long after the bath had been cleared away, and the house had gone quiet with sleep, they had lain awake together. Sometimes touching, sometimes talking, learning one another in every wonderful way imaginable.

“Country estate, or London?” he asked in her ear.

“Wherever I’m with you.” Her voice was slurred with the need to sleep.

“I like that answer.” And he did. She had faced her own fear and pushed through it to trust him. It was a tender, fragile thing he held in the cradle of his heart. One he would never break.

Her cheek moved against his and he knew she was smiling.

He pressed a kiss to the shallow dip just below her ear. “Thank you.”

“Hmmm?” she hummed in a lazy tone, clearly somewhere between sleep and wakefulness.

“For giving me your trust.”

She rolled over and lazily regarded him with tender affection. “And thank you.”

He lifted his brow for her to go on.

She chuckled. “For teaching me to love so beautifully.” Her wink was coquettish. “For saving me. Twice.” She stroked a hand over his jaw. “For letting me discover you.”

“My love.” He pulled her into his arms and lay her head on his chest. “It has been my pleasure.”




EPILOGUE




May 1816

London

JULIA OPENED the small card with anticipation. Lady Bursbury’s notes always included welcome news and invitations. This one was no exception.

“We’ve been invited to attend a musical featuring Lady Penelope,” Julia said to William as she scanned the neat script. “I cannot believe she’s come out already. It makes me feel positively ancient.”

William peered at her from the edge of his paper. “You’re far from ancient, darling.”

She smiled at him. He was always ready to compliment her, even when two years had passed without her producing any children. “And Lady Jane is getting married.”

William scoffed. “Poor Hesterton.”

“No, to Lord Mortry,” Julia corrected.

“Then poor Lady Jane.”

“Hesterton hasn’t been excluded, it appears.” Julia read on. “Nancy is attempting to set up a match between Noah and the Craig heiress.” She set the invitation on the table with a flick of delight.

This time the paper did not move a single crinkle. “It would take an extraordinary woman to edge her way into Hesterton’s heart. If he has one.”

“Oh, come now. Everyone has a heart, and there’s one perfect person for the edging.”

William turned the page.

The invitation was not the only thing that made Julia’s stomach flutter with excitement. She bit back a grin. “Kittens or puppies?”

“Puppies.” Another page turn.

“Kittens have their own qualities: slender little tails that jut out like shaky sticks, squeaking mewls, tiny paws. Are you certain?”

“Puppies. Always.”

Her heart tripped over itself. “Boys or girls?”

“For puppies or kittens?”

“Neither.” A smile curled at her lips as she spoke. “Children.”

Whump! Hands and paper dropped at once to the table. William regarded her with tentative excitement, his brows poised halfway up his forehead. “Dare I ask what could inspire such a question?”

She rose from her seat and let her fingers tenderly stroke her lower midsection. “I’m sure you can guess.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

“Our family will be growing by one more in the next few months.” The emotion bubbled up from Julia, and she laughed at the sheer joy of sharing such news. “We’re going to be parents, William.”

“Are you certain?”

“I waited two months after I missed my courses to be certain.” She stopped beside him.

His gaze fell to her stomach. “The physician never came.”

“He did.” She moved her hand, took his, and placed it over the very small bump. “I waited until you would be out. I didn’t wish to worry you, and I didn’t want to tell you until I knew for certain.”

“You clever minx.” He cupped his large hand over her stomach. His brow furrowed, and he was silent for an extraordinarily long moment.

A trickle of fear nipped at her enjoyment. “Happy? Or displeased?”

“Happy.” He looked up at her with a glossy gaze. “Immeasurably happy.”

This small baby within her womb had moved her brave and powerful husband to tears. She felt her own eyes prickle with heat.

“I love you, Julia.” He got to his feet and pulled her into his arms. Immediately he snapped back and regarded her stomach.

She laughed through her tears. “You won’t hurt him.”

He drew Julia against him once more, this time tender and tentative. “Or her.”

“Oh? Is it a girl you want, then?” Julia snuggled into her husband’s strong arms.

He held her to him and cupped the slight swell of her stomach once more, cradling his entire family in one embrace. “That depends.”

“On?”

“On what this baby is.”

“I think that’s the perfect answer.”

And it was. The perfect answer, for the perfect life and the perfectly wonderful husband she was grateful to have taken the time to discover.




FROM MADELINE MARTIN


Thank you so much for reading Discovering the Duke. I hope you’ve enjoyed it! This was such a fun project to take part in and I am honored to have been included. To find out more about me and my books, you can go to my website: http://www.madelinemartin.com

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I love hearing from my readers, so please feel free to reach out to me.


If your curiosity is piqued about Noah, you can read his story in Mesmerizing the Marquis:

A reclusive marquis.

An heiress determined to save him.

A passion neither can deny.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Madeline Martin is a USA TODAY Bestselling author of historical romance novels filled with twists and turns, adventure, steamy romance, empowered heroines and the men who are strong enough to love them. She lives in sunny Florida in her own happily ever after with her two daughters and a man so wonderful, he’s been dubbed Mr. Awesome.




THE DUKE AND THE APRIL FLOWERS



APRIL


GRACE BURROWES






PREFACE


The Duke of Clonmere must marry one of the Earl of Falmouth’s three giggling younger daughters, but Lady Iris—Falmouth’s oldest, who is not at all inclined to giggling—catches Clonmere’s eye, and his heart!




CHAPTER 1




“YOUR SAINTED papa promised you’d choose your duchess from among my daughters, Your Grace. They are the loveliest trio of young ladies to waltz through Mayfair’s ballrooms in ages, so you needn’t bother fuming about your fate. Polite society will feel not even a scintilla of pity for you.”

The Earl of Falmouth, father to that trio of young ladies, bent to sniff a pot of daffodils. Henning, Duke of Clonmere, barely restrained himself from shoving his lordship’s face into the flowers.

“The pity,” His Grace said, “should be reserved for a woman yoked to a partner who comes to the union unwillingly.”

Falmouth was a lean, white-haired fellow with an easy smile and shrewd blue eyes. Clonmere’s father had claimed that as a boy at public school, the earl had befriended every ducal heir he’d ever met, and let not a one of them forget it.

Amid a back garden coming into its full spring glory, Falmouth looked benign, just as his daughters probably looked demure and biddable.

Clonmere had sisters and a mother. He knew better.

“You are young,” Falmouth said. “You might come to the altar unwillingly, but you’ll come to the marriage bed readily enough. If you’re anything like your father—”

Clonmere rose from the bench rather than let that reminiscence blunder into the light of day. “I am nothing like the last duke.” For one moment, he loomed over the older man, which was not well done of him. Six feet and three inches of duke should be too well mannered to loom over even a schemer like Falmouth.

The earl had turned one old letter into a binding promise of a proposal. Papa had probably sent half a dozen such letters, drunken, sentimental maunderings that posited a desire to see “my dear boy with one of your sweet, lovely girls at his side…”

Fortunately for Clonmere, English law considered bigamy a felony.