Epilogue

“Alone at last,” Arthur said quietly.

It was evening, and Felicity had gone to bed early, exhausted from all the excitement of the day. She would dream pleasant things, Arthur was sure, and in the days to come, all her dreams would become reality. It had been wonderful to hear Taylor say how much he cared for her, how much he wanted her to be his. Arthur was thrilled that it was all working out so neatly.

Now, he sat in the library across from Isabella. The lights were low, and they each had a drink, but neither one of them had bothered to pick their glasses up. Every time Arthur thought of reaching for his, something stopped him. He wanted to be clear-headed tonight, he supposed.

Isabella seemed to have the same impulse. She sat back in her chair, looking as relaxed as Arthur had ever seen her—but not looking as though she was in any rush to pick up that drink.

He took a deep breath. “There’s been quite a lot going on lately,” he said.

“There has,” she agreed. “Between the arrest of Lady Reeves, dealing with my father, and now, Isabella’s impending engagement, it’s felt as if there hasn’t been any time to simply stop and think.”

“Well, there is now,” Arthur said. “And I think you and I owe one another a conversation.”

“I agree,” Isabella said.

Her eyes didn’t leave his face. As usual, he found her beyond impressive. What courage she had to look him in the eyes and never turn away. He found it challenging to return her gaze though she was so important to him—and this moment was so pivotal—that he knew he must.

“We need to talk about what I said to you back when you first came to live here,” he said. “When I told you that I didn’t want an heir or a romantic connection with my wife.”

“I think we’re beyond that,” she replied quietly.

“But it ought to be explicit. You need to know that I don’t feel that way now,” he said. “You need to know that I never truly felt that way. I thought those were things I couldn’t have. I was afraid. I thought that if I allowed myself to depend on anyone again, the way I did with my parents, I would risk losing them. That I would get hurt.”

“And you don’t feel that way now?”

“If I don’t let myself get close to you, I lose you anyway,” he said softly. “And it’s too late to guard my heart, Isabella. I’ve fallen hard for you. I never meant it to happen, but I couldn’t resist the way you make me feel.”

“Well, I’m glad you couldn’t,” Isabella replied. “I fell for you a long time ago, you know. Almost as soon as I came to live here in the first place. It amazed me how quickly I shifted from thinking it was a terrible idea to knowing that I couldn’t fully be happy without you. I had resigned myself to the knowledge that my life would never feel full because you would always pull away from me.”

“I’m sorry I ever did,” he said earnestly. “I’m sorry I made you worry about that.”

“You’re sorry because now Lady Reeves has been accounted for, and you wish we hadn’t suffered the way we did?”

“I’m sorry because even if she was still at large, I would want you,” he explained. “Even if there was no hope of her arrest. I would have been better served by spending my time building a fortress around you to protect you—to protect us—because at least we could have been together. I’m so sorry that I made such wrong choices.”

She shook her head. “You didn’t,” she said quietly. “I understand the way you felt, Arthur. Truly, I do. I’ve spent my life worrying about protecting my sister from our father. Not a murderer, of course, but I knew he never cared about giving her the best life she could have. It’s nearly impossible to even realize what you want for yourself under conditions like that. I don’t need you to apologize to me for not knowing. Until I was married to you, I believed the best course of action for my life was to remain on my own, to never fall in love or marry. How could I possibly fault you for thinking the same thing?”

Arthur supposed there was truth in her words. “We have lived rather parallel lives, haven’t we? Losing our parents, feeling as though we had responsibilities that kept us from living the lives we might otherwise have chosen.”

“And yet, we both ended up here,” Isabella said with a smile. “In spite of the obstacles, we found our way to one another. It’s rather miraculous when you think about it that way, isn’t it?”

“It’s miraculous no matter how I think about it,” he told her. “That I get to be here with you. That I get to call you my wife. That I can see you every day, kiss you every day, hold you in my arms every day…”

“So now, you do want those things?”

She was smiling, so he knew she wasn’t really in doubt. He laughed. “I don’t believe I’ve been unclear in any way,” he said. “Yes, I want those things. I want everything you might have imagined when we married.”

“Does that include a family?” For the first time, she looked nervous.

Arthur took her hand. “Do you want that?”

“Only if you do,” she said. “I wouldn’t want to have a child with someone who didn’t really want one. But if you do, then yes, I would be happy about the possibility. I’d like to be a mother.”

“Well, I feel the same way,” he agreed with a smile. “I want that life, but only if you want it as well. There isn’t much I wouldn’t like to do with you, truth be told. Now that we’ve found our way to one another, I want us to do everything together. Everything that life has to offer.”

Tears came to Isabella’s eyes.

Arthur felt a lurch of unease. “Did I say something wrong?” he asked. “Something to upset you?”

“No, no,” she assured him. “It’s just the opposite. I never thought that you would feel this way. I had resigned myself to thinking I would never know love like this, and now…now, here it is, right in front of me. I don’t know how I could have gotten so lucky.”

“Luck had nothing to do with it,” Arthur told her. “It wasn’t luck that made me fall in love with you, Isabella. It was everything about you. Your beauty, your strength, your wit…it would take a much stronger man than myself to resist all of that.”

He couldn’t quite believe that he was saying these things—that he was being so vulnerable with her. It had been a very long time since he had allowed himself to do something like this. The last person he had spoken so openly to, he thought, had probably been his mother.

And now, he had Isabella, and it was difficult to believe that things were so good. She was right. It did seem as if they had been touched by unfathomable luck.

He thought of what the future might hold. Infinite possibilities seemed to have opened up before the two of them now, and Arthur couldn’t wait to see which ones would come true. Would they have a son, he wondered, or perhaps a daughter? Or both? What would their lives look like twenty years from now? Sitting here with her tonight, knowing that they were right at the very beginning of what would be the story of their shared lifetime, made his heart beat faster. He had always had an appetite for adventure. But every adventure he had experienced so far, up to and including the confrontation with Lady Reeves, paled in comparison to the one he was embarking upon now.

Life was changing forever, and he would walk through it with Isabella at his side.

He gestured to her drink. “You’re not going to have any of that, are you?”

She smiled sheepishly. “I suppose I don’t feel much like it tonight,” she admitted. “I’m sorry to let it go to waste.”

“No, you don’t need to apologize,” he assured her. “I’m not in the mood myself. Suppose we retire to the bedroom?”

He had said it so casually that he wasn’t sure she would notice what he had said. In fact, for a moment, it almost seemed that she hadn’t.

But then she looked at him. “Do you want me to come to your bedroom?” she asked.

“If you’d like to,” he said. “I would like that very much. But of course, if you don’t feel ready, or if you simply don’t wish to join me, you will always have your own room available to you. You’re more than welcome to go there.”

But his stomach was in knots, hoping that she wouldn’t choose that. He would deserve nothing less for making her wait so long, but if she didn’t want him now, he thought it might break his heart.

“Of course, I’d like to join you,” she agreed softly.

There was nothing easy or casual in it—none of her usual boldness. She was nervous to say yes to him, he could tell, and that made it so much sweeter.

He went to her and put his arms around her, pulling her to him so that her forehead rested against his shoulder. “I just want to hold you,” he whispered in her ear. “I just want to be with you.”

She nodded, and when she looked up at him, a bit of the old confidence had come back into her eyes. “That’s what I want too,” she assured him.

He wanted to kiss her, but he didn’t want to push her too hard, so he was very pleased when she kissed him first. She stood on her toes and pressed her lips to his, moving slowly, her hand wrapping around the back of his neck. Her thumb caressed the skin there tenderly, and Arthur wrapped his arms around her and deepened the kiss.

It seemed the most miraculous thing in the world that they would be able to do this whenever they liked now. At last, they truly belonged to one another, and Arthur knew that nothing would ever tear them apart now.

He took Isabella by the hand and led her from the library toward his bedroom—no, he would have to stop thinking of that room as his. He wanted it to belong to both of them now. He wanted her to feel at home there as well.

And though he knew they had the rest of their lives, and there was no rush to do anything, he felt an eagerness for every passing moment that he had never experienced before in his life. He had never been so excited about the immediate future. Even the little things, like putting a hand on her shoulder as they reached the room, like the way she looked into his eyes, felt monumental.

Life would never be the same again. Today was just the beginning.

The End?