This man who loved her…
He was complex.
Over this last week, she’d come to see that his nickname—Lord Devil—wasn’t entirely unearned.
He was ruthless in matters that affected him—in perfecting and refining his mechanical creations…in his business dealings…in his bed dealings…
He was deliciously ruthless there, too.
Here it was again—the compulsion to pinch herself.
Dev was her husband, and she was his wife. She hadn’t the faintest idea what it meant to be a wife—but neither did he have experience with being a husband. Yet what she and he didn’tknow didn’t matter. They would spend a lifetime together as friends…as lovers…as partners discovering what lay around the next bend in their joined path.
They wouldn’t be tarrying long in France, for they had business to attend to in London. First, she needed to sort out Cumberbatch. She could use his assistance and opinions on the purchase of a townhouse in Mayfair. He would grouse and grumble, but he wouldn’t have it any other way, for she now understood something about him that she’d been too blind to see.
He’d been protecting her for years.
Further, as it happened, Dev was in need of a valet. And since Cumberbatch wouldn’t be retiring until he was six feet beneath the ground, well, the solution to both problems worked itself out from there. Though she’d informed neither man of this plan as yet, in the end they would see its neat reasonability.
The other reason for their imminent return was the Race of the Century. It was fast approaching. Next month, in fact. Dev said it no longer held any interest for him, but it did for her. In a way, horse racing had brought them together. If he hadn’t won Little Wicked in a card game, their lives at this very moment would’ve been completely different.
Besides, the love of a good, competitive horse race yet ran hot in her blood, and the Race of the Century promised to be the best she would witness in her lifetime.
Dev had agreed, but with a single condition—that she assent to sail across the Atlantic to visit the Territory of Orleans with him. He’d heard tell of the innovations being made to the steamboats that cruised the Mississippi River and wanted to see them for himself. He very much wanted to meet the inventor Henry Miller Shreve, who he called a “visionary.”
Across the distance, Dev shook the client’s hand, signaling the conclusion of their business. Then as she’d known it would, her husband’s gaze cut to the side and met hers.
Her breath caught in her chest, as ever.
These last couple of months—this last week, in particular—she’d learned something important about life.
Life was a mundane affair.
The daily mechanics of it, at least—wake in the morning, eat, get on with the business of the day, eat, sleep, then do it all again the next day…and the next. When done with stability and resources, that was a good, solid life.
Which was why one needed magic.
It was the magic that gave it meaning and joy.
A smile tipped at the side of Dev’s mouth, and he began moving toward her.
Her heart picked up its pace—as ever, too.
This new life of hers… She could have never imagined it. It was good and solid and wild and adventurous. Itcontained the mundanities—and the magic.
He extended his hand and she took it, their fingers twining together as he pulled her to her feet, his warmth and strength making its way through her. Words from not so long ago came to her as she reached up and caressed his cheek, his beautiful mouth angling toward hers.
Would you like to be my something more?
She was his something more.
And he was her forever.
The End
