Epilogue

One month later, London

L ondon felt like a trap. The street beyond the window of her grandfather's townhouse hardly seemed a prison, though. She could see the garden at the center of the square and the street was neat and clean. The sun bright. Not a cloud in the sky. Yet she felt the bars gathering about her.

Perhaps it was because Lucy had grown up in the country and preferred open skies and fields to narrow lanes and tall buildings. Perhaps it was because those her grandmother, Viscountess Springwell, introduced her to did not often approve of a young lady with a farmer for a father and a scandal-maker for a mother. Or perhaps it was because of the failure of her plan, and her flight from Hawthorne House. She'd left because she'd needed change, to discover who Lucy was without her cause ruling her waking thoughts and nighttime hours. To try something new.

Like being courted by a marquess.

Ah—there lay another bar in her London cage. Not the courtship itself. That felt like being lifted on a strong breeze up into the clouds on a sunny day. What felt like manacles around her ankles was an increasingly rapacious need she must soon speak of.

"Miss Jones?" Her grandfather's butler, Mr. James, bowed from the doorway. He had a short nose that tipped up at the end, showing more nostril than Lucy ever knew what to do with. "Lord Rainsly is here. Are you at home?"

"Yes. I'm always home for Lord Rainsly."

"I told you she'd say that, James." Keats patted the butler on the shoulder as he strode into the small parlor at the back of the house. He stopped right before Lucy, his hands clasped behind his back, his eyes glittering. "Good afternoon, Miss Jones."

Lucy dismissed the butler, then sat near the window. "This is an unexpected visit. I'm glad of it, though. My grandparents are gone for the morning. You will have no chance to discuss parliamentary matters with my grandpapa." She was glad for that, too. Keats all to herself. A rarity.

"Not here for a chat with Springwell. I'm here for you. Naturally." Keats dragged a matching chair closer and sat, pulling to the edge of the seat so their knees almost touched. When he rested his elbows on his knees and leaned forward, he tapped her thigh three times. "I've heard chatter about Palmerson."

Unexpected, that. And it banished the tingles that had been making a slow path from thigh to parts of her body higher. "I thought we were done with him."

Keats and Palmerson had met once since returning to London. The viscount had wanted Keats's word he would not discuss the duel. He had been awfully contrite, considered the puckered, healing wound in his son's shoulder fitting punishment for taking a lady's innocence before marriage.

Keats flattened his palm on her knee, and the tingles erupted all at once, hotter than before. "Palmerson is hunting for a wife. For his son. And he seems to have found one. Lady Annabelle. Who happens to be in love with a young baron, who happens to be in love with her."

"That is certainly a sticky web."

"Isn't it grand." He squeezed her thigh, and she felt it higher, between her legs, clenching her gut.

"But why does it necessitate a visit?" Not that she wanted him to leave. Or remove his hand. In fact, the words A little higher, please, Keats sat on her tongue. She locked them up.

Ah—there, the prison bars of her own design.

"Because I think we can save her."

Her brain, which had been wholly involved with the growing ache between her legs, shifted. "Pardon? Save Lady Annabelle?"

"Yes. I know you're unwilling to risk the secrets of Hawthorne House anymore, but what if we can prevent Lady Annabelle's marriage to Hutchens without involving Hawthorne at all? Just you and me. We can save her."

"How?"

"The baron I told you about. He's entirely smitten. And a good man. I did a little snooping about him, spied on him at the club. He's a giant, but he's a gentle one. And according to my sources?—"

"You have sources?"

He nodded. "The best gossip comes from credible sources. And according to mine, Lady Annabelle kissed him last week at some ball or other. Then she ran off crying. Star-crossed lovers if I've ever seen them."

"Have you? Ever seen star-crossed lovers?"

"You and I were star-crossed once." He squeezed her thigh, this time higher as he leaned closer, his other hand cupping her cheek, his gaze narrowing on her lips. So close now, almost kissing distance. "I think with a very little nudging, Lady Annabelle and her baron could be happy."

"And you think"—her voice breathless—"we should nudge them?"

"Yes. They need the help, and you are bored. Do not bother denying it. You miss the purpose of Hawthorne House. You miss being useful."

She did rather. She'd not been entirely idle since moving to London. Only making friends and learning how the ton moved was slow, tedious work. Important work, though, if she intended to be Hawthorne's eyes and ears in the city. And she did.

"See," Keats said, "you've stars in your eyes simply contemplating it. We should start planning now. We've much to do."

"Such as?"

"Well, later helping the baron and his lady organize a trip to Gretna Green. And now …" He inched even closer, his lips brushing against her.

She sank into his kiss, so hot, so soft, so very perfect.

And then she broke it with words she should have said weeks ago. "I want more than kisses, Keats. And I want it now."

His eyes flashed. He knew what she wanted, and he would give it to her. But then why was he pushing away? Why did cold air rush between them?

And why was he hitting his knees before her?

"I have promised to be a better man. And a better man would not take a woman who was not his wife."

Oh. Finally .

"Will you marry me?" Keats wrapped his large hands around hers, holding them safe and steady.

"Yes." Her laugh was bounced about by tears—both came freely. "What other man would offer a woman radical machinations instead of flowers as an engagement gift?"

"I do know what you desire, Lucy Jones."

"So do I. Keats… I love you. I have been more than a little terrified to say it, but I cannot keep the words locked up any longer. You are my passion and my comfort, my joy and my love, and I… and I am more myself with you than with anyone else." The words he'd given her. Finally, she could give them back to him.

For a moment shock rippled through his face, but then he clutched her to him and hid his face in her neck, his body shaking. When she nudged his head upward, his eyes swam, and his wide mouth grinned, and she kissed him soft and slow but only for a moment. Then she pulled him to his feet, pulled him up the stairs, shut him in her bedchamber.

And he was rogue enough to let her.

He was also rogue enough to untie her tapes when she turned her back to him, and rogue enough to strip her bare, his fingertips making hot trails across her skin just before he set his lips there to set her aflame.

Lucy bold enough, too, to unwrap his cravat and unbutton his waistcoat, to strip him as he had her until every hard inch of him, bullet wound and all, was open to her hungry gaze.

Once unclothed of everything that hid who they truly were, they moved at the same time, surging together in a hot kiss. Slow, too. Because they had time. Time to love and time to learn and time to help others find the love between them that leapt higher with each meeting of their lips, each stroke of palm over belly, each tangle of fingers in hair. Each offering that showed they were more than their names, their pasts, and that better than anyone else, they understood each other.

Each grasp and caress proved it. He knew how to touch to make her purr, and she knew how to squeeze to make him moan. And when he picked her up and laid her gently on the bed, it was only seconds after she'd thought, I cannot stand a moment longer .

He climbed onto the mattress, and she grasped his hips and tugged him tight against her, rolling her own hips against his thick shaft. He kissed her earlobe, her chin, the peaked point of her nipple. "Glorious," he moaned. "You're bloody glorious."

He was glorious, too. She wrapped her hand around his thick length—she'd done this to him. Fair enough. He'd done so very much to her—burned away lies and masks, revealed truth. She wanted to belong somewhere, to someone, and she wanted to help others find where they belonged. All clear in an instant. And in that clarity—Keats. With his crooked smile and sweet, grinning mouth, with his wicked tongue and steel desire to protect.

She loved him.

He slipped a hand between her legs, inside her. "You're ready."

"For weeks now, Keats." She moaned into his neck as his thumb began the lazy circling around her most sensitive spot. One hand on his chest, resting just above his heart—its beat the rhythm she rolled her hips to—she grasped his shaft with the other, squeezed, and explored its length. Satin, warm, hard. The world reduced to sensation, his name a breath between her lips, lingering in the air around them.

He entered her—tight, hot, sweet. Not even the ghost of the pain she'd felt before. Nothing but pleasure as he stroked in and out of her, his mouth at her breasts, his hands exploring every curve of her body, including that hot space where their bodies rolled together. Fingers searching, finding, circling, pressing.

"I'm yours, angel," he moaned. "I love you." A kiss to her neck. "I love you." A kiss to her shoulder. "I love you." A kiss settling on her lips as he pulled her bottom lip between his teeth.

And she fell off the cliff of pleasure into the warm sea of his arms. She drifted, able still to move enough to clutch at the muscles of his shoulders and the silk of his hair as he rocked harder against her then shuttered with the power of his own climax.

As he always did when she asked for what she wanted, he gave her everything he could.

He rolled to the mattress and gathered her limp body in his arms. He petted and stroked her everywhere, and these touches vibrated not urgent need but lazy pleasure throughout her.

"I could hold you all day long," he said. "I will one day."

"Mm. Hold me all day now. That is what I want."

"I would." He kissed her neck beneath her ear, and she shivered, snuggled deeper into his embrace. "But I do believe I hear your grandfather's voice downstairs."

She froze; she listened. She leapt from the bed, dragging Keats along with her. They dressed more quickly than they'd undressed, and she shoved him toward the door.

"Not there, countess." He ducked toward the window. "Take it from a former rogue, windows are best for escapes of this kind."

She kissed him as he slung a leg over the ledge. "As long as mine is the only window you make use of."

"Darling"—he fisted a hand in the hair at her nape and rested their foreheads together—"yours is the only window in existence." He grinned, the flippant, careless little one she loved so well, and disappeared down a narrow, bending tree and across the street. Whistling all the while.

Her heart whistled, too, as she pulled a deep navy greatcoat from her wardrobe and ran her fingers down the row of opal buttons at its front, down the soft delphinium blue of its silk lining. The perfect wedding gift for the man she loved.

Author's Note

Thank you so much for reading Lucy and Keats's story! If you want to explore more of the Hawthorne Hellions world, you can read Lucy's brother's story in The Fake February Rake .

If you'd like another amazing curvy heroine, make sure to check out the next novella in the Curves and Cravats series, Jemma Frost's Devils Covet Curves .