Epilogue

October 1st, 1832

I t was well into the evening by the time they returned from the assizes in Ashford. Just over a month since the constables had taken both Terrence and Fanny into custody. The servants were abuzz with the gossip. They had both been found guilty of their respective crimes. Terrence was to face transportation, and Fanny was sentenced to a seven-year term in prison for her role as a conspirator.

Mary felt vindicated, per her own report, stating that she had always thought poor Caroline's demise had resulted from something far more nefarious than a mere riding accident. And, of course, her cards had told her that it would happen just so. Or so she informed them dramatically as she sailed from the room with a swish of her heavily flounced skirts.

"Why did the magistrate and the judge keep talking about all the tragedy wrought by this wretched place?" Louisa asked as soon as the door closed.

Douglas's glance at her revealed far more than he had intended. She knew instantly that he didn't want to tell her. It was evident in his expression, in his posture, in the very air around him.

"You can tell me," she urged. "After everything I shared with you, knowing how positively hysterical it sounded, you have to know that you can trust me as I trusted you."

"It's not the same thing at all, Louisa," he said softly. "You were worried about me thinking you mad. I'm worried about you thinking me a murderer. That's what everyone believes all Blackwell men to be—past, present, and future."

She said nothing, just waited patiently for him to continue. After a long sigh, he did.

"My father murdered my mother. Much like Caroline's death, it was made to look like an accident. A fall down the stairs. But I saw it all. I know what he did. He pushed her in the middle of an argument, and she fell to her death. It was never proven, never taken to trial. But everyone knows. Then there is my grandfather who buried three wives, all of them under mysterious circumstances. That is how he amassed the Blackwell fortune. There's blood on every groat."

"They are not you," Louisa said simply.

"How can you be sure that I will not turn just as they did?"

"Because you have integrity, Douglas. You are not capable of such wickedness. If you were, you'd have continued to let the world think Caroline's death was an accident just to spare the family more scandal. Truth and justice mean more to you than personal gain."

"I want her to be at peace," he said softly. "I cared for her very deeply. But I wasn't in love with her... not as she loved me. I've felt guilty about that for years."

Louisa looked down at her clasped hands. "Perhaps you would have grown to love her as she loved you."

"I don't think so. Certainly there was affection and a kind of love. But loving someone and being in love with them—that is something entirely different." He paused then, looking away thoughtfully. "No, I was meant for something else."

"For the army? The life of a soldier?" Louisa asked. Though she smiled, it felt as if her heart was breaking. She'd made the terrible mistake of falling in love with him. It had been a valiant fight to keep her feelings contained, but she had failed pitifully. And in eleven months, he would send her away.

"No. The army wasn't my purpose. Just a distraction. It allowed me to escape the gossip and conjecture of this place. To go where no one knew my family history and expected me to turn into a monster."

She looked up then, meeting his gaze steadily. "Was I destined to become a fallen woman just because my mother had?"

His eyes widened with shock. "Of course, not. And women do not fall alone. There is always a dishonorable man somewhere within their stories. Someone who made promises they had no intention of keeping."

"I know something about that," she said. "I made promises to myself that I have not kept." And all of them had involved shielding her heart from him, of keeping some kind of distance between them.

"What does that mean?"

"I promised that I would guard my feelings, that I would not form any sort of attachment to you. Because we will part at some point, and I have no wish to have my heart broken. That is why I think we should go back to our separate chambers. I can return to the room I stayed in when I first arrived."

He shook his head. "No. I don't want that. I want you with me, Louisa,"

"I can't. I am not Caroline. I cannot love you and have only a pale glimmer of affection in return," she admitted.

*

He hadn't dared hope. Not really. Even without her confession, he'd known that when their year was through, he would not give her up. Louisa had invaded his thoughts. His heart. She had burrowed into his very soul, it seemed.

"And why would you think that you do not have my love? I think perhaps you've had it from the moment I first saw you. Hatton had his way after all. He'd had it in mind all along that I should have a love match," he confessed. "So he found the one woman in all of England, perhaps in all the world, that I would never be able to resist."

Douglas watched her, analyzing every flicker of emotion on her face. There were many. Despair, hope, longing, tenderness—and perhaps that was what love truly was. It wasn't a single emotion but the presence of every emotion, swirling in a storm created by one person. Louisa could make him feel everything, and he had hope that perhaps he was that to her, as well.

"I thought I could resist you, too. That I could guard my heart well enough to keep you from stealing it." His mouth twisted in a rueful grin on that admission.

"I didn't steal it," she protested. "It was an even exchange. I took yours, but I gave you my own in return."

"Stay with me, Louisa."

"For the next eleven months?"

"Yes... and then for every month after. I never want to part from you. And I say to you something that I have never said to another woman. I do not just love you. I am in love with you. Hopelessly and permanently."

She smiled despite the tears glistening in her eyes. "How convenient it is that I feel exactly the same, and that I have no intention of going anywhere."

With a flick of his fingers, he locked the door behind him, and then Douglas held out his hand to her. And when she came to him, he showed her in every way that he could just how deeply he loved her and how much he wanted her.

The End