Epilogue

This time, when Julius was summoned to Sommerset House, he did not beat around the bush. As soon as he rode into the office, he dropped the copy of files Henry had given him.

Commandant Harrington's eyes dropped to the pile; his tone still supercilious. "What is that?"

"Your death knoll," Julus replied. "At least you were honest when you said Lieutenant Maxwell Jamieson was man who had a family of four and no will for his wife to abide and that his earldom is in flux but what you conveniently left out was that you were his bastard brother, one who could have inherited the earldom."

"Except you were passed over for another and when the man came back from, not dead form my supposed shot, but infected with easting sickness, you decided to capitalize on it and using my own amnesia against me," Julius said.

To his credit, Holbrook kept his face placid, even though was steadily draining from his face.

"I was right, you do have a vendetta against me but I am not the one who is to blame for your misfortune," Julius said, "What did you hope to get by framing me, Holbrook? Money? Misplaced revenge? God knows I have had enough of that lately."

"How did you find out?" Holbrook asked.

"Private investigators," Julius replied. "For a man of all bark and bluster, I should have expected that your teeth were as dull as chalk. Please note that the overseers have been notified of your actions and they will do with you as they please."

With a strict nod, Julius left the room and headed out into the open, not minding that rain was tricking down. He ached to get as far away from this place and back to the ducal home in time for his commitment ceremony with Lousia.

It was decidedly unheard of in the ton, but Julius found that it would only be right for ceremony to be held. When he had stood before the alter and professed his fealty to Lousia, the words had been words then, and even while he honored them, they had not meant as much to him as they should have been.

They sky was clearing by the time he arrived at the mansion to find it calm and peaceful; it should be for all the preparations had been done the night before.

"Sawyer," he called. "Please prepare a bath. I would like to get the stink of obsequious petty servants off my person."

"Yes, Your Grace," the manservants bowed. "And your suit is prepared for you when you are finished."

"Good," Julius nodded, then did away with jacket and headed to his rooms. "Lets pray today will go well."

With the warm water suffusing though this tightly knit muscle, Julius breathed out and allowed his head to drop back unto the rolled towel.

The past week felt like something out a horror story, or his abject nightmares. Holbrook, Harrington, Rose; the balls he had been juggling were now out to rest and he could finally breathe. At least now he could focus on Louisa.

He had let his past with his mother and wicked father spin that iron curtain around his heart. It had made him afraid to trust what the tender organ was trying to tell him, but he could not, would not, run from love any longer.

Over the last weeks, things had changed in his marriage, but he loved the direction it had taken. Now that he knew the passion that burned inside Louisa, the loyalty, the honesty but most of all the trust she had given him.

It was like handing over a precious gem into the hands of another and praying they would keep it safe.

He now recognized his prior plan of swaddling his marriage in genteel distance, propriety, and restraint was a foolish one, but now he would use their mural desire and the strength of their bond to make the marriage a true one.

She was his wife, and he loved her— he saw that now. Accepted it as one accepts that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. He was heartened by her increasing willingness to speak her mind in front of him, loved her growing confidence and wanted to encourage it, to make her see the beauty in herself as he saw her.

He would not let anything happen to her, would not let the darkness of his old self touch her or harm a single hair on her head. This time, he wouldn't let love end in pain and bitter regret.

"Sir," Sawyer knocked. "It's about time you get dressed. The ceremony is starting soon."

Rousing from the almost-doze, Julius sat up and pressed his hands to his face, "I will out soon."

The back garden had been transformed into an oasis of decadence, the fountain at the crisscross of the paths a newly appointed altar and Lousia lifted her head as she walked down the path, her eyes only seeing Julius.

When he had proposed a recommitment ceremony to her a week ago, just after Holbrook had been sentenced to deportation and life of manual labor in New Holland, she had been stunned.

"Louisa," he'd said, pulling her atop his heaving chest after another scintillating orgasm, "I want to have a re-commitment ceremony for us."

Moving her tangled hair from her eyes, she stared at him, gazing wide in shock. "You do? Why?"

He'd fixed a hand around her nape and forced her eyes to mee his. "Because things are so much different between us now and I cannot see my life as anything else than being with you. You are my wife, Louisa and I will become the true husband you need from me."

Now, she approached him, not truly seeing her parents to the side, Prudence and her husband to other and few mutual friends surrounding them, she gently lifted the skirts of her pale blue silk gown and took his outstretched hand.

He was so dapper in his dark suit, the blue of his waistcoat matching her dress. The priest opened his book, and greeted the guests. "Kneel please."

After the prayer, the priest said, "This is a recommitment ceremony and as such, both parties are beholden to the vows spoken a year ago, however I will have them repeat them now."

Julius took her hand. "In the Name of God, I,Julius Compton, the duke of Blackwell, take you,Lousia Compton née Payne to be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse,

for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow.

Clasping his hands, she repeated her vows. "In the Name of God, I,Lousia Compton née take you,Julius Compton to be my husband,

to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for

worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love

and to cherish, until we are parted by death. This is my

solemn vow."

Peeling his hands from hers, Julius gently lifted the gauzy veil from her face and held her face in both hands. "When I promised to be your husband a years ago, I vowed to stand beside you for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish you every day, until death do us part.

"It is my greatest privilege to stand here now and promise I will truly hold to those words and cherish them as I do you. Today I vow to renew my commitment to stand beside you, grow with you in the marriage, learning how to love each other. You've taught me how to be a better man and there is no doubt that you are my wife, equal to me in all things. I love you so much, and I always will."

Tears slipped from her eyes, words from her lips. "On our wedding day, I promised to be the best wife that I could be to you. I did not know the burdens you were carrying with you then but now I vow to be your strength when you are weak, your light when you face the darkness.

"I hope we will write an epic love story together and I pray I will be the best wife I can be for you, because you've certainly been the best husband for me. I love you so much."

"My sweet Lousia." His eyes burned with the fierceness of a dark star. "I don't know what I did to deserve you. But from the moment I awakened to the truth of our marriage, I started falling in love with you."

"As did I," she replied.

His kiss was soft and sweet, and she felt the truth of his renewed vows in his lips. He pulled away and smiled. "Should I carry you over the threshold, dear wife?"

"Please, my dearest husband— oh!" He had swept her into his arms and was marching to the door without a care to the guest behind them and headed to their newly appointed bedchamber.

When her silk slipped met the floor, Julius's kiss was not as tender as it was before. Then he was kissing her with a hungry passion that made her heart sing. She kissed him back just as eagerly, losing herself in the spell of their love.

With prickling excitement, she pressed herself into him, feeling the tight sinew of his thighs, the ridge of his growing arousal. Holding her tight, Julius kissed her softly, and she sighed, drinking in the taste of him, tongues lapping and twining, a kiss of tender lust.

"May I disrobe you, sweetheart?"

"Yes," she said, turning her back to him and shifting her hair away for him to get access to the line of pearl buttons on the back.

Deftly, Julius did away with them, then gently butterflied the lapels away from her back. Tugging them down her front, she knew he had to be surprised to see her only undergarments were short stays that ended beneath her bust, a chemise, and stockings.

Not only did that mean fewer impediments on the path to pleasure, it also meant that her glorious shape owed little to padding or lacing. Methodically, he stripped her of everything save her white silk stockings, then snaked his hand around her and cupped her breasts under the thin, silk chemise.

Fixing his hands son her person, he took in her surging breasts, ripe and full, the palest flush of her nipples coming through the think cloth, smoothed his hands over the sensual dip of her waist, then down to the flare of her hips.

"Christ, you're perfection," he said thickly. "What is going to happen between us tonight should have taken place on our wedding night, not after I'd spent the night," he said.

Dropping her head back to his chest, she gripped his trousers with a trembling grasp as his fingers began to work one her breast, spurring her arousal alive.

Even while clothed, Julius lifted her to the bed, spread her legs wide and gave the wickedest of kisses. Gasping, she grabbed at his hair and the sheets while he plundered her sweetness, his needy groan burning through her like a fever.

He licked into her silky cavern, courting her bud with his tongue. She moaned as he licked into her clenching passage, stabbing into her with heated strokes as he manipulated her pearl. His mouth withdrew, and she was about to protest when she felt him spreading her, his fingers replaced by his tongue.

"Don't—don't make me come without you being in the bed with me." She groaned. "Shed your clothes, Julius, let me feel your skin on mine."

With a growl of frustration, he stepped away and began to shed his clothes in careless yanks and pulls. His jacket went one way, his shoes another; his vest landed over a chair and as he worked on his cufflinks and cravat, her eyes raked over him.

When her gaze drifted downward, her breath caught at the jutting bulge of his manhood, a thick bar pressing against the fine linen.

Julius yanked the neckcloth away and the cufflinks landed on the carpet with muffled thuds. When he finally rid himself of the buff trousers, he took his small clothes with them—and Lousia got her wish.

He pulled her right unto his person, and the abrasion of his virile scruff made her skin tingle. While his head dipped to drop kisses on her skin, she feathered a fingertip over the strong corrugated lines of his belly,

With her index finger, she traced the flat disk of his nipple until it pebbled while hers were taught and throbbing under his touch. She grew bolder, sliding her hand down his hard and warm chest, his vitality thrumming beneath her palm, before gasping his manhood.

His length was hugely erect, the head weeping seed as she gripped the fleshy shaft. Julius's eyes held nothing but scorching fire as lust sharpened his features, his nostrils flaring as she pumped him with her fist.

"Enough," he said roughly. "If you continue, we shall end sooner than we began."

Rough hungry noises escaped his throat as he took her mouth the way he did her quim…and she loved it. His hard, hairy chest teasing her nipples, making her squirm with anticipation. With a savage groan, he pulled her legs apart and settled in the square of them.

She met his eyes ."I want to be inside you with nothing between us, love."

"Please," she replied, arched her hip. "I have been waiting on this for a long time."

With his pupils as dark as a dungeon, he bent down to kiss her. At the same time, he notched himself to her slick opening and pushed in. She gripped his shoulders, eyes clenched tight in anticipation of pain, when Julius stopped.

"Open your eyes, sweet," he said softly but she heard the command in his tone. "I want to see you when we join and I want you to see me."

After her lashed swept up, he smiled, "That's better."

Inch by torturous inch, he slipped inside her, stretched her, filled her, taking away the empty ache, until he stopped, kissed her—then snapped his hips hard.

Her breath became a moan, one that his length pulled out of her. There was no dramatic tearing like she had feared, only a tight pinch of discomfort, her muscles were softening and stretched, accommodating his slow, inexorable incursion.

The sensation of having a man inside her, of being joined in this most elemental of ways made her heart pound. He seated himself so fully that she felt his stones pressed up against her.

He nuzzled her ear. "Good, love?"

"So very good," she sighed, gripping his arms. "Don't stop."

He began to move, taking her in deep, soulful plunges that made her gasp with delight, and she ran her needy palms down the undulating musculature of his back to the taut, flexing hills of his buttocks. She dug her fingers into his hard arse, and he growled.

His kiss as no gentle, but a mirroring version of how was taking her body; gently, firmly, a possession of thoroughness rather than force.

"Please," she breathed against his lips. "I want…I want…"

"Me?" He bucked his hips, jolting her with bliss. "Harder like this, angel?"

"Yes, deeper," she pleaded. "Harder."

His grunt was guttural as he levered back, and pushed her knees back to her chest and drove inside her at an angle that made her the birth of the cosmos. The noised that left her mouth egged him on to take her deeper, harder, to a place beyond her wildest imaginings. The erotic slaps of their mating flesh filled the room.

With one hand between them, he massaged her pearl, and her body began to tighten around him.

"I can feel you coming," he said, the ends of his hair wet with sweat.

His blazing eyes seared into her. "Come for me, sweet girl."

The waves surged higher and higher, a clamor of emotions build under her skin and in next instant, the storm shattered within her. She flew apart, torn in two by blissful pleasure, by relief too potent to bear.

Julius pounded into her a final time, his muscles bunching, his guttural shout of climax filled her with pleasure. He surged into her once, twice, burying his face in her neck. His harsh groans heated her ear as his big body shuddered over hers.

Holding him there, against her skin, right over her heart felt right and true. It felt like the beginning of a new life, of perfection right around the corner.

When he regained her breath, he gently withdrew from and settled her atop him. Overwhelmed, she snuggled against him. "That was glorious…"

He quirked a brow, "Why do I sense a but coming?"

"But I think I preferred it when you had me in restraints." She smiled up to him. "Can we do that next time?"

Throwing his head back, his laugh was light and warm, "I'll see what I can do, my love."

"Good," she yawned. "Please decide by this afternoon as my calendar is open."