“Yes, Mama, I missed you so much.” She laid her head on her mother’s shoulder as she’d done so many times as a young girl.
“As I missed you.”
Mr. Monroe looked over at Mama. “My dear, why don’t you tell them about tomorrow evening?”
Mama clapped her hands like a young girl and Lottie sat up. “Oh, yes. Lord and Lady Huntingdon have invited the four of us to dinner tomorrow night as a celebration of your wedding and our engagement.”
Lottie didn’t think she could take any more surprises. Her mother-in-law was breaking every rule of the ton by accepting a courtesan into her home. To sit at her dining room table.
“Your mother is a remarkable woman,” Mama said to Carter.
“As are you, as well,” Carter replied.
The two couples chatted for hours, catching up on what Lottie had been doing in Bath. Lottie still had a few more questions for her mother, but once the evening grew to an end, she felt as though she knew everything she needed to know.
Most of which was how much her mother loved her and all the decisions she’d made had been to provide a better life for Lottie.
Lottie and Carter left for their house in London after a lovely dinner with Mama and Mr. Monroe, who Lottie found to be a wonderful gentleman. A shipping line owner, Mr. Monroe was charming, humorous, and very much in love with her mother.
He told them at dinner that he was selling his business so he and Mama could travel. Then they would buy a house and enjoy the rest of their lives. Lottie immediately mentioned all the wonderful houses in Bath. They all laughed.
As they were undressing for bed, Carter suddenly burst out laughing.
“What?”
“It just occurred to me. You’ve been thinking you’re not good enough for me because of your background.”
“Yes?”
He sat alongside her on the bed while she untied the ribbons holding up her stockings. “Legally, I am not a bastard, but in reality, I am because my parents were not married to each other. You, on the other hand, are perfectly legitimate.”
Lottie turned and stared at him, her mouth agape. “You are correct. How odd.”
“Odd, but funny.” He pulled her down onto the bed where he kissed her, and she kissed him back with all the love in her heart.
Epilogue
Four months later
“Mama, I’m fine. I still have another few months before the babe arrives. You and Carter are driving me crazy.” Lottie shifted on the sofa and attempted to rise but fell back.
Her mother fluttered around her like a bird. “See. You should be resting more.”
“Resting from what? All I do is eat and rest.” The child she was carrying would be huge when it finally arrived. He would probably come out walking and demanding meat pies.
“Is she giving you problems again, Alice?” Mr. Monroe, who had been asking Lottie to call him Papa since the day he and her mother married, entered the drawing room with Carter right behind him. He leaned over and kissed her mother on the cheek.
Lottie had grown to love her stepfather over the past few months but still wasn’t quite ready to call him Papa. Since she’d never had a father, the word just stuck on her tongue. So, she did what anyone else would be in that situation. She waited until he looked at her before she asked him anything.
Her mother and her new husband had moved to a lovely house only a few blocks from them in Bath once they had returned from their wedding trip. The new Mrs. Monroe joined Lottie and Carter’s church, and no one seemed to know—or care—who she had been in London. She had a feeling that Carter and his persuasive abilities had something to do with that.
“Yes, she won’t sit still,” Mama said as Mr. Monroe joined her on the sofa.
Carter sat on the arm of the chair and took Lottie’s hand. “Feeling a bit restless, are you?”
To her horror she burst into tears. “I feel so fat, so unwieldly.” She took the handkerchief that Carter placed into her hand. He always seemed to have more than one on his person all the time.
“Why don’t we send for tea?” Her stepfather said.