played upon the lawns with their St. John cousins. There were five great-grandchildren so far, and Aurora was shortly to deliver a sixth. Isabelle St. John with her four would deliver a fifth in July. The old lady smiled contentedly, thinking that while she might not be as agile as she once was, this was possibly the best time of her life.
Her eye went to her grandson. Valerian was slightly heavier than he had been several years earlier, but he was thirty-seven now. They had celebrated his birthday just two days before. He was a happy man, and she thanked God for it. He stood now, speaking with his eldest son and heir, seven-and-a-half- year-old George. George's twin sister, Charlotte, was vying for her father's attention. The birth of the twins had been a great surprise, for never before had twins been born into the family. Then had come Robert, James, and little Calandra. Aurora was certainly keeping up with the queen, or at least trying to keep up with her. Queen Charlotte had delivered her seventh child, a third daughter, to be named Elizabeth, just the previous month.
'How are you feeling, Grandmama?' Aurora inquired solicitously. She settled herself in the chair next to the dowager.
'Quite well, considering my years,' the dowager said wryly. 'And how are you feeling with your great belly, my dear. Is it a son or a daughter you carry this time? What think you, Aurora?'
'Oh, I hope it is a daughter, Grandmama' was the reply. 'We already have an heir, a son for the navy, and one for the church. What would we do with another boy? I suppose we could buy him a commission in the army.' She sighed. 'Daughters are easier. All you have to do is find them suitable husbands, and a duke's daughter with a generous dowry will have no trouble making a good match.'
'Unless, of course, she favors her mama in her temperament, and then even a duke will not be good enough,' the dowager teased her granddaughter-in-law, a smile upon her lips.
Aurora laughed. 'I was really quite the fool, wasn't I?' she said. 'I still feel guilt over Cally's untimely death even if it did bring me all this happiness. I am only grateful that my stepmother finally found it in her heart to forgive me. It pained me to hurt Oralia, for she was always so good to me, and really the only mother I ever knew. I'm sorry she will not come to England, but her fear of the sea is far greater than her desire to see my children.'
'She has Betsy and George's children,' the dowager comforted Aurora. 'I imagine those three little boys keep her quite busy.'
'Perhaps we shall go to St. Timothy next winter,' Aurora said thoughtfully. 'I would like to see the islands again.'
'St. Timothy. The island snatched from me by my greedy cousin, the duke,' St. John said teasingly, coming up to where the women sat. He kissed his wife, who was seated on the other side of the dowager, upon her cheek.
Isabelle smacked his hand lightly. 'Behave yourself, St. John! You are worse than the children, I vow. Have you spoken to Frederick about teasing his sister, Caroline? It really must stop! When Augustus and Edward see him begin, they join in, and poor Caroline is quite overcome by them. Well, have you taken Freddie to task yet, St. John?'
Aurora arose quietly and walked across the lawns toward her husband. St. John had really, as the dowager remarked more than once, bitten off more than he could chew when he married Isabelle Bowen. He had indeed gotten his just deserts in a loving martinet of a wife, as Isabelle had turned out to be. She utterly adored him, and to his amazement St. John felt the same way about her. She ran his house with an iron hand, and bore him beautiful children; but she expected total obedience from her husband, her children, and her servants. She had totally engineered her courtship and elopement, the dowager said. Poor St. John had never realized he was being taken in hand until the ring had been placed upon Isabelle's dainty finger-and in St. John's aristocratic nose.
Coming up to her husband, Aurora slipped her hand through his arm. 'What a perfect day,' she said. 'Could it be any better?'
He smiled down at her. 'No,' he agreed. 'It could not.'
'Mama!' Her eldest son tugged at her skirts. 'Mama! There are new puppies in the stables! May I have a puppy?
'How many puppies are there, Georgie?' she asked him.
'Five, Mama! They are liver and white, and Franklin says they'll be ready to leave their mother in eight or nine weeks. Their eyes aren't opened yet. They are so tiny, Mama. I may have one, mayn't I?'
Aurora looked up at her husband. 'If Georgie gets a puppy, the others will want one too,' she warned him, and then she laughed at the look on his face. 'Oh, very well,' she said, and she looked down at her son. 'Yes, Georgie, you may have a puppy. And so may your brothers and sisters too.'
'But I get to pick first because I am the eldest,' the boy said. 'I am the eldest, and I am the heir.'
'I was born five minutes before you were,' his twin sister, Charlotte, said. 'I don't want a puppy, Mama. I want one of Pusskin's new kittens, and so does Cally. If he gets a puppy, I get a kitten.'
'Cally isn't old enough for a kitten,' Georgie said. 'Or a puppy either,' he concluded. 'You just want two kittens, Lotte.'
'You're just jealous because I was born before you were,' his sister replied. 'Cally will want a kitten if I get one, Mama.'
'You may be older,' the boy replied, 'but I am the heir. I will be Duke of Farminster one day, and I shall banish you to a nunnery, Lotte.'
'You can't do that!' she cried. 'What's a nunnery, Mama? He can't do that, can he?'
'A nunnery is where ladies who have decided to devote their lives to God live, Lotte,' her mother said, 'and no, Georgie cannot banish you to a nunnery. One day you shall fall in love, and marry.'
'And I shall marry a duke who is even richer than you will be,' Charlotte Hawkesworth told her brother smugly.
'Will not!' he cried.
'Will too!' she replied.
'Sheep face!' he insulted her.
'Frog's head!' she taunted him, and giving him a quick smack she ran off, her twin in hot pursuit to gain his revenge.
The duke looked into his wife's face. His deep blue eyes were dancing wickedly. Tenderly he patted her belly. 'Nonetheless,' he said, 'I do love children, my darling, and I love you even more than the day I married you. I think our life together a fairy tale.'
Georgie Hawkesworth had caught up with his sister. He grabbed at her curls, and catching one, yanked hard upon it. Lotte shrieked so loudly that the sheep in the nearby field scattered madly.
The duke began to chuckle.
'And they lived happily ever after,' Aurora replied, and then joined her husband in merry laughter.
Bertrice Small
