Chapter 30

30

Spencer,panting heavily, pushed himself off Ashton, his shoulder throbbing with pain. The world around him was a blur of noise and movement, but all he could focus on was the burning sensation in his shoulder and the weight of the fight that had just taken place.

A soft touch on his arm brought him back to reality. Joanna was beside him, her face etched with concern.

“Spencer!” she exclaimed, her fingers gently probing the wound on his shoulder.

Her touch was cool and soothing, a stark contrast to the fiery pain.

She pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and pressed it against the wound. The white fabric quickly turned red, but her hands remained steady.

“Hold this,” she instructed, guiding his hand to the cloth.

Spencer did as he was told, his eyes never leaving hers. There was a mixture of fear and relief in her gaze.

And tenderness that had his heart swelling bigger than his chest.

“Are you all right?” she whispered, her voice filled with concern.

“Yes, are you all right, brother?” asked Preston, who came to stand closer.

Spencer nodded, swallowing hard. “I will be,” he replied, his voice hoarse. “Thanks to you all.”

He rose to his feet, facing Joanna, his heart drumming hard. “Especially thanks to Dorian. She’d be dead if not for you.”

Dorian’s fierce blue eyes softened. “Of course. It was an honor to fight by your side, Spencer.”

He looked over his family and friends, watching him with love and acceptance, and his chest felt about to burst with love and gratitude for them. All the men had scratches and bruises, swollen lips and eyelids.

“Are you all whole?” he asked them.

“Yes,” said Calliope, who was inspecting Nathaniel’s cuts and dabbing a kerchief over them. “For the most part.”

Grandmama walked closer, her cheeks flushed. “I helped, too,” she said with a smile and wriggled her walking cane. “This stick is not just for walking. It’s also excellent for tripping someone.”

As Spencer chuckled, she looked at Joanna with concern.

“Miss Joanna…”

Spencer spun to Joanna and looked her over, in an urgent search for scratches or bruises or anything that might be a more dangerous wound. “Joanna…are you all right?”

He gripped her by her shoulders, taking in every inch of her curvaceous body under her simple dress. Her gray spencer had some small rips, but she bore no sign of wounds. She smelled like road dust and herself. Her green eyes… Good Lord how he’d missed the sight of those plush lips, and the scent of pomegranate he could still smell through the gunpowder.

“I’m fine,” she said, her eyes full of worry for him.

She cupped his face, and he leaned into her touch, allowing himself a moment of bliss, just feeling her skin against his. How much he missed her. The world was not the same without her.

She looked back at the prone form of Ashton. “I suppose it didn’t go like either of us wanted. I didn’t get what I wanted from him… You still might.”

He shook his head, guilt gnawing at his stomach. “I came to Neverton to demand he stop harassing your family, that he leave Charlotte be and return Gideon’s inheritance.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What? But you wanted to confront him, to prosecute him—”

“I did. But I couldn’t go through with it, darling.” He cupped her face in both hands, and nothing had felt so right since the last time he’d touched her. “I knew I’d lose you forever. And no revenge in the world was worth it.”

“Spencer— What do you want, then?”

“The woman I love,” he said. “You.”

She took a slow, shaky breath. “You love me?”

“I love you, Miss Joanna Digby. My Persephone. My queen of darkness who led me back to light. You asked me if I’d ever marry you, and I was too cowardly to tell you that was exactly what I wanted. All this struggle, everything I went through…it all brought me to you. You, Joanna. From the moment I saw you at that ball, it’s always been you. You are at the center, the front, the back, and all sides of my mind.”

Her eyelashes trembled as she grasped his wrists still holding her face. “Spencer, I—I felt so betrayed by you. I gave you everything, and you… I don’t know if I can trust you again.”

That hurt, but she was right. He took his hands away from her and nodded, then went into the inner pocket of his coat and retrieved a leather roll full of letters and documents. “Take this. This is everything we gathered. His deeds in America and your aunt’s written testimony, which I was a scoundrel enough to steal from her before she’d sent them to you. Take them. Use them as you wish. It’s all in your hands now.”

She took the roll and quickly looked inside, then pursed her lips and nodded. “Thank you.”

“You can negotiate with Ashton, and I won’t start a criminal case against him if you don’t want that. But the Crown might be grateful to you for taking down a traitor and allow Gideon to keep the title and the estate. The choice is yours. I will understand if you don’t want to take that chance.”

“If Gideon gets the duchy, the deed to his estate will be his anyway.”

“Yes.”

She cupped his face. “And Ashton won’t have any power anymore over my family. So Charlotte will be free.”

“Yes. If you wish to proceed with a criminal case, he will likely be punished but perhaps avoid hanging. That way you may still get what you want.”

“But you won’t?” she asked.

“I will…” he said, taking her face in his hands, too. “If I get you.”

She bit her lip, her cheeks reddening.

“There’s nothing in my life that shines brighter than you,” he said and dropped to one knee. He heard gasps erupting from his family.

He had no ring yet; he’d make it right if she ever accepted him.

“Nothing is more powerful than my love for you. I love you. I will always love you. Please, marry me, Joanna.”

She let out a shaky breath. “My entire life I thought I didn’t deserve the best. That my place was in the background. That I’d never be at the center of anyone’s attention. You showed me that I was wrong. Thanks to you, I learned that I do deserve everything I want… And that my place is in the foreground…or anywhere I want it to be.”

His heart drummed fast. His world was either going to be split in half, never to be mended…or burst in bright, joyful colors.

“You most certainly do, my darling,” he said.

“And I want that place to be next to you,” she said. “Because I love you, too, Lord Spencer Seaton. And I will marry you.”

Happy exclamations and cheers erupted, and Spencer and Joanna looked around them as his family clapped with happy grins on their faces. His family came near, making a circle, with the three canine beasts.

Dorian stood awkwardly at the side, but Grandmama took his hand and tugged him into the circle.

Spencer grinned and shook his head. He’d cleared the air with the love of his life. It was time to clear it with his family.

“Thank you all for your help,” he said. “I couldn’t have done it without you. I can’t believe I lost Joanna and you all because of my drive for revenge.”

“You didn’t lose us, brother,” said Richard with a grin. “Not when we’re all fighting together…for each other, not against each other.”

His throat clenched with acute emotion. Here they all were, standing by his side. He had spent the past weeks fighting against them because he was terrified to let them in, to let them see the shell of a man he had become during the war. And yet, this entire time, they’d been fighting for him, whether he wanted them or not… They’d been fighting for him, even though he didn’t know it, didn’t appreciate it, and didn’t want to accept them. How wrong he was.

So wrong about so many things.

“We each have to take our own journey,” said Penelope with a soft smile, “and yours led you to Miss Digby, a lady who clearly loves you just as you love her.”

“It did,” he said, wrapping his arm around Joanna.

She stood with a smile on her face, not shying away. “And mine led me to you,” she added.

“When I came back,” he said, his voice hoarse, “I thought that I was a man who had lost everything. But I was so wrong. Joanna showed me that even if life has changed, as long as I have those I love, I can be happy again.” He looked into Preston’s eyes, Calliope’s and Richard’s and Grandmama’s, his loving family who had given so much of themselves to find him. And then his gaze turned to Penelope, Jane, and Nathaniel, his incredible new sisters and brother, and to Dorian, who had shown his friendship in the most powerful ways these past few weeks. Then he turned back to his bride, her gorgeous, sparkling eyes like spring leaves. And he let the most genuine words come from his heart…through the ache, through the sadness, through the tightness in his chest. “As long as I have all of you.”

“I think it’s safe to say,” said Jane, “we all can share this sentiment. We all found the loves of our lives thanks to your wild adventure. In a strange and wicked way, thanks to Ashton.”

They all looked at the treacherous duke. He was still sprawled on the ground, eyes closed but breathing.

“You will not push us away anymore?” Calliope asked Spencer. “Because I missed you so much.”

He shook his head and opened his arms to her. “Never, sister.”

She came to him, hugging him together with Joanna. But instead of just these two women, many more arms wrapped around him, and in a mere moment, he was tightly wrapped in a ball, safe and warm and secure. His eyes prickled with tears of love and gratitude. His entire body expanded, big and light and wonderfully full.

There were no more broken parts of him left, even though he wasn’t the man he had been one year ago. And he would never be.

He was someone else now.

But that was all right. He liked this new version of himself.

And not just that.

He had finally returned to his family. He had found the love of his life.

He was home.