Silence fell, thick and absolute. Even the muffled sounds from the hall seemed to recede.
Jillian watched her sister with something close to awe. She had always known Helena was formidable; she had simply never seen that power turned outward with such ruthless precision.
Arabella went pale. Her mother swallowed hard, then tugged her daughter back a step.
“We have overstayed,” Mrs. Hartington said tightly. “We shall gather our things.”
“Yes,” Helena said, her smile sweet and terrible. “You should.”
The Hartingtons swept from the room with what dignity they could salvage. The instant the door shut behind them, it opened again to admit Beatrice, who all but vibrated with excitement. It was perfectly obvious she had been listening at the keyhole.
“The spirits,” she cried, clasping her hands. “The spirits arranged everything. I knew they would interfere at the crucial moment?—”
“Beatrice,” Henry groaned.
“—and now look!” she went on, sweeping an arm toward Jillian and Miles as if unveiling a masterpiece. “A triumph. A love match. Fairhaven has done itself proud.”
Miles pinched the bridge of his nose. Jillian sighed. Beatrice beamed.
Helena, still crackling with protective energy, slipped an arm around Jillian’s shoulders and pulled her close. “I am furious with you,” she muttered into Jillian’s ear. “And I am hugging you. And I shall go on being furious while hugging you until I decide which feeling wins.”
Jillian leaned into her, emotion tightening her throat. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“Always,” Helena returned.
Miles moved to Jillian’s other side, his hand brushing hers, then taking it fully. The small, steady pressure of his fingers around hers settled something inside her that had been in chaos since they left York.
“If I may,” he said, looking from Helena to Beatrice then to Henry—the people whose opinions mattered most in that moment—“I should like to make one thing plain. Our marriage may be viewed as hasty. It was nonetheless a choice made freely. There was no coercion. No dishonor. And I, for one, have no regret.”
His words were simple, but Jillian felt them all the way through her.
No regret.
She squeezed his hand, a silent echo of the sentiment.
Helena sniffed and swallowed back tears that threatened to fall for reasons that had nothing to do with outrage now. Henry muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a prayer of thanks. Beatrice clapped once in delighted approval, as if the spirits themselves had been vindicated.
Miles turned his head, his gaze finding Jillian’s. The softness there would have astonished her a month ago. Now it simply made her chest ache in a way that felt curiously like happiness.
“Shall we go and face the rest of them?” he asked quietly.
“Yes,” Jillian said, her mouth curving into an irrepressible smile. “We shall have to endure a great deal of uproar.”
“Fortunately,” he replied, his thumb brushing her knuckles, “we are no longer required to endure it alone.”
Together they left the little parlor to rejoin the household, hand in hand. The gossip would rage, the speculation would spread, the story of York would be told and retold until it acquired embellishments neither of them would recognize.
But Fairhaven, with all its ghosts and meddling and chaos, had not written this ending.
They had.
And whatever beginning followed, it would belong to them.
Chapter
Seventeen
The return to London after Christmas ought to have felt familiar, for Jillian had made the journey countless times—often with a novel balanced on her knee and a tidy mental list of tasks awaiting her in the city. Yet nothing aboutthisreturn resembled any she had ever taken. She sat across from her husband—her husband, a word that still startled her whenever it crossed her thoughts—and could not help noticing how everything seemed subtly and irrevocably altered. The winter light filtering through the carriage windows felt different. The breath of cold air that slipped through the seams felt different. Even the iron rattle of the wheels on the road sounded different.
