The Earl’s Masked Cinderella – Extended Epilogue

Three Years Later

“Minerva, mind the ribbon. You will have it in the mud again.”

Kitty called the warning from the terrace. The child did not so much as glance back. She was already sprinting across the lawn with all the single-minded conviction of a three-year-old who believed the world existed chiefly to be conquered at speed.

Kitty smiled despite herself.

From that distance, the spring sun made a bright coin of Minerva’s hair. The curls were not Kitty’s, nor Russel’s darker shades, but something in between, that striking auburn the family still pretended not to remark upon too often.

Kitty watched her daughter shriek with laughter and felt the answer settle, quiet and certain, in her chest.

Her hand slid to her belly without conscious thought. The swell was unmistakable now, her gowns altered to accommodate it, her stays looser, her movements slower. Beneath her palm, a faint flutter answered her touch, like a small fish turning in a pond. It stole her breath every time.

“You are smiling again,” Russel said behind her.

Kitty turned her head just enough to catch him in her periphery. He stood with one shoulder against the open French doors, coat abandoned somewhere indoors. 

“I cannot help it,” she said. “She makes it difficult to be stern.”

“She makes it difficult to do anything except adore her,” he replied, as if stating a fact.

Kitty’s cheeks warmed, and she glanced back toward the lawn. The girls were shrieking and circling each other now, hands outstretched like little dancers.

“It still amazes me,” Kitty murmured.

Russel stepped out onto the terrace, the boards giving the faintest groan under his weight. “What does?”

“How free they are,” Kitty said, dreamily.

“That is because they are sensible,” he said. “Unlike the rest of us.”

Kitty huffed a laugh. “If the ton heard you speak like that, we would be outcast.”

“Do you think so?” Russel said mildly. “Do not tempt me, my love.”

Kitty’s eyes narrowed in mock warning, but her smile betrayed her. A breeze lifted the edge of her shawl and toyed with the curls near her temples. She watched Minerva stumble and right herself, unbothered, before darting off again with Eileen’s little girl at her heels.

Across the lawn, Eileen caught sight of Kitty and waved, a quick, cheerful motion. Theodore hovered nearby, and waved back as well. Kitty smiled and lifted her hand in answer.

“Is it all proceeding as she wishes?” Russel asked, his voice pitched low as if they were discussing Parliament rather than a fête.

“Oh yes,” Kitty said. “Which means there will be no disaster. Eileen has bullied every servant within a mile into competence.”

Russel’s mouth twitched. “Efficient.”

“Indeed,” Kitty corrected.

He glanced toward Eileen’s father, who sat beneath an oak with a blanket over his knees, watching the bustle with contented fatigue. Eileen had insisted he come to live with her and Theodore on the estate, and Kitty had agreed. 

“You are thinking too hard, wife,” Russel said, as if he could read the shift in her posture.

Kitty blinked. “Am I?”

“You always do when you are happy,” he replied.

She turned her face toward him fully now, searching his expression, and lifted up to plant a kiss on his cheek. 

Below them, Minerva shrieked again, this time with triumph. She had caught Eileen’s daughter at last and had wrapped both arms around her in a fierce, sticky embrace.

The other girl squealed and wriggled and laughed, unoffended by the tackle. They toppled to the grass together.

Kitty’s laughter came out on a breath.

“Rus!” a voice called from the lawn, bright with amusement. “If your daughter learns her embraces from you, you ought to brace yourself for the consequences.”

Kitty looked down to see Nicholas approaching from the side path, one hand lifted in greeting, his expression open and easy. Mary looked happy as she walked beside him, her arm tucked through his. 

“Do not encourage her,” Russel called back, his voice dry. “She will begin hugging the tenants and they will think she intends to recruit them to her cause.”

Nicholas laughed. “Too late. I am already on her side.”

Mary lifted her gaze to Kitty and smiled, and Kitty felt the answering warmth spread through her, gentle and certain.

The fête was not yet begun. The tables were not yet full. The sunlight had not shifted from gold to amber. But already, the estate felt alive.

All of the tenants were invited. There would be beef and bread and pies. There would be cider and ale. There would be games for the children and musicians. It would be honest, unguarded, belonging to the land and the people who worked it.

I love this life, Kitty thought, with her hand still resting over the fluttering life within her.

Below, in the grass, Minerva rose to her feet, hair wild, cheeks flushed, and ran toward the terrace as if she might fly.

“Mama!” she called. “Mama, look!”

Kitty leaned forward, bracing her hand on the rail, her smile widening even as her heart tightened with love so sharp it almost hurt.

“Yes, darling,” Kitty murmured. “I am looking.”

Mary did not wait for a formal greeting.

The moment she reached the terrace steps, she climbed them with purpose, skirts lifted in one hand, and when she arrived she caught Kitty’s fingers between both of hers as if she had something too urgent to hold alone.

“I have news,” Mary said.

Kitty’s brows rose. “News that requires ambush?”

“News that requires privacy,” Mary corrected, though her eyes flicked toward Russel and Nicholas with a faint, conspiratorial apology.

Nicholas pretended not to notice. He turned at once to the lawn, waving at Minerva as if he had been called there by duty. Russel, after a brief pause, followed his lead.

Mary waited until the men were out of immediate earshot. Then she leaned closer.

“A letter came,” she said, lowering her voice. “From my mother.”

Kitty nodded. “They are in France.”

Mary nodded once, her expression complicated. “Just outside Paris. And Anne is with her.”

Kitty exhaled slowly. “I had wondered.”

“You are kind,” Mary said, and there was no softness in her tone now, only a steady truth. “I had not wondered. I had tried not to think of them at all.”

Kitty did not blame her. “What did she say?”

Mary’s mouth tightened. “That everyone there knows. That no one will receive them. That they have very little money. No prospects.” She shook her head once, as if she could not quite believe the audacity of it. “She wrote as if she expected sympathy.”

Kitty’s hand moved again to her belly, a reflex. “And do you feel it?”

Mary’s eyes flicked down and back up. “I feel anger. And relief. And…”

“Guilt,” Kitty supplied gently.

Mary’s jaw clenched. “Perhaps.”

A pause.

Then Mary said, quieter, “She mentioned what happened before. She spoke of it as though it were a misunderstanding that went too far.”

Mary’s voice hardened. “She said the law did not… pursue it as it ought.”

Kitty’s gaze steadied. “She is not wrong. For women of their station, society often does the punishing, not the courts.”

Mary’s eyes met hers. “I know.” Her fingers tightened around Kitty’s. “It does not make it right.”

“No,” Kitty agreed.

Behind them, Russel’s voice drifted from the lawn, calm but edged with warning. “Minerva, do not climb that table.”

Minerva giggled. A servant hurried forward with a gentle, bribing pastry.

Mary’s lips twitched despite herself at the sound. Then her expression tightened again. “Nicholas read the letter as well. He said we owe them nothing.”

Kitty glanced toward Russel, who stood with his shoulders squared as if he could shield the whole estate by sheer force of presence. “I will share this with Rus, and see how he reacts.”

Mary’s mouth curved. “Russel will dismiss it with a wave of his hand.”

Kitty could hear his exact tone in her mind. Cool. Final. Unmoved. And yet, for all his bluntness, there was justice in it. Not cruelty, but boundaries. The sort that Kitty had once lacked.

“Sometimes,” Mary said quietly, “I envy how easily he cuts through nonsense.”

Kitty smiled. “You and me both.”

Then Mary’s hand slid, gentle, to Kitty’s belly.

“You are growing, sister,” she said, her voice warming.

Kitty laughed softly. “As is the child.”

Mary’s eyes softened. “You look… well.”

She had once believed “well” was reserved for other women, the fortunate ones. Not her. “I feel well, Mary,” Kitty admitted. Then, because she had learned to speak truths aloud, she added, “Most days.”

Mary squeezed her hand. “Good. You deserve it.”

A sound of wheels on gravel reached them then, and Kitty turned her head toward the drive. Nicholas straightened, shading his eyes. Russel’s posture shifted, alert but not tense.

Kitty’s heart lifted before she fully recognized why.

“Cornelius,” she breathed.

Rus smiled outright and relaxed his shoulders. “At last.”

The carriage door opened.

Cornelius descended with care, moving slower now than he had in years past, though his spine remained proud. On his arm was a woman Kitty did not know, veiled lightly in a spring bonnet. She stepped down with quiet grace, her hand steady on his sleeve.

Cornelius glanced up, saw Kitty, and his face softened into something almost boyish.

He climbed the steps with surprising speed for his age. When he reached Kitty, he did not offer a bow. He did not offer a formal address. He opened his arms.

Kitty stepped into them at once, careful of her belly but unafraid of closeness.

“My dear girl,” Cornelius murmured into her hair. “Look at you.”

Kitty laughed, blinking hard. “Look at you, uncle.”

He pulled back to study her face, then glanced down at her belly and lifted his brows. “Another?”

Kitty’s cheeks warmed. “Yes.”

He nodded, pleased, then turned as Minerva came racing toward them, shrieking, “Uncle Corny!”

Cornelius bent with a grunt of effort and caught her neatly. “There she is,” he said, as if she were the sun itself. “There is my great-niece.”

Minerva wrapped her arms around his neck and planted a sloppy kiss on his cheek.

Cornelius did not flinch. He beamed.

“I have something for you,” he said, as if sharing a secret.

Minerva’s eyes widened, instantly solemn. “A secret?”

“A gift,” he corrected, reaching back for a wrapped box one of his footmen had brought forward.

Minerva accepted it with both hands, as though it might explode. Her tongue poked out in concentration as she tore at the paper. It took her three attempts to open the lid.

Then, with a sudden tumble and a squeak, a puppy rolled out into the sunlight.

All paws and softness and wagging tail.

Minerva let out a delighted shriek that could have shattered glass, and collapsed to her knees at once. “Mine!”

Cornelius laughed, the sound rich, as though it had been waiting years to be used. “Yours,” he confirmed.

From the side of the lawn, their old poodle approached with slow dignity, ears lifted, gaze assessing. The dog sniffed the newcomer as if conducting an inspection for entry into polite society.

The puppy licked its nose and tried to bite its ear. Beau looked faintly offended.

Minerva threw her arms around both dogs, nearly toppling them.

Kitty laughed, pressing her hand to her mouth.

Beside her, Russel’s hand slid into hers, fingers warm and sure. When she looked up, she found him watching Minerva with an expression that still surprised her sometimes.

Soft and unmasked. And she knew it was not because the world had become kinder, but because he had.

Kitty leaned slightly into his side, her heart full to the point of ache. She felt the flutter within her belly again, stronger this time, and she rested her hand there, smiling through the sudden sting behind her eyes.

A home filled with love rather than cruelty, she thought. She had not known, once, that such a thing could be built. And now she stood in the middle of it, surrounded by family and friends, watching her daughter laugh without fear.

Russel’s thumb brushed over her knuckles. “You are thinking too hard, Countess. You must be very happy today,” he murmured.

Kitty smiled without looking away from Minerva. “I am so incredibly happy, husband. So happy.”

He squeezed her hand. “Good, my love. So am I.”

THE END