She leaned her head on his chest, her voice barely a whisper.“I stayed because the man behind the mask was the only one who saw me.”
Crispin wrapped his arms around her as the soft strains of music drifted from the main celebration.The warmth of the afternoon pressed close, laced with rose and jasmine, but all Clara noticed was the steady beat of his heart, strong, unwavering, and impossibly real beneath her cheek.
And when she looked up again, the world no longer blurred—it crystallized around the only truth that mattered: they had chosen each other.
Together, they turned onto the path, steps unhurried, as if daring time itself to pause.The soft music threaded through the hedgerows, its notes rising and falling like a gentle tide, mingling with the distant laughter of guests and the clink of glasses carried on the warm air.Clara let the rhythm wrap around her, the delicate strains brushing against her skin like a whispered promise.The garden, bathed in lantern light and scattered with shadows, pulsed with a quiet intimacy.
Clara’s hand rested lightly in Crispin’s, their fingers brushing with every slow turn.Her breath hitched, a flicker of anticipation tightening in her chest, sharp and sudden, as if her body already knew the shift in the air.His steady palm grounded her, even as her heart fluttered with something unnamed and fragile.
“You surprised me,” she said.
“I am afraid I need you to expound, Lady Oakford?”
Clara grinned.”With the fact that you meant it.Every word.”
He pressed his forehead to hers.“I meant every heartbeat.”
“I used to think I had to pretend to survive this world.But with you… I’ve never felt more like myself.”Her voice trembled, not with fear but with the fragile weight of truth.“Let them call it scandal,” she whispered, echoing the words she’d once buried in silence.“I shall call it freedom.Because with you, I do not have to hide.Not even from myself.”
He kissed her.It was soft and steady, a kiss that lingered like a vow.A promise pressed to her lips, sealing the truth that had lived between them all along.
They parted only when footsteps approached.Edward, arm-in-arm with Lady Juliana, raised a glass from a distance.Close behind, Alice joined Eden and Gabriel, her eyes lingering on a tall, dark-haired gentleman across the garden—Samuel Baldwin, Viscount Crewe, with a wicked gleam in his eyes and a crooked grin.Her gaze held for a beat too long before she leaned toward Eden and whispered, “Remind me never to wager with him.He smiles like he has already won.”Both women laughed, the sound low and conspiratorial.Gabriel arched a brow but said nothing, and Clara could not help but wonder if Alice’s story was just beginning.
Clara looked toward the laughter and light, then back at Crispin.Her voice dropped.“I do not want to go back.Not just yet.”
“Then let’s not.”
Hand in hand, they stepped deeper into the garden.Her fingers curled tighter around Crispin’s, breath catching—not from fear, but from the sweet ache of anticipation, of the life they had yet to claim.
The day was theirs, and the future was unwritten.
Around them, the world hummed with life.
And in each other’s arms, they had found their place.
Epilogue
Autumn, Oakford Park
The morning sun filtered through the gauzy curtains, catching in the dust motes and painting the bedchamber in soft gold.Crispin Hallworth, Lord Oakford, lay on his back, one arm slung over his eyes, the other curled loosely around the warm, sleeping weight beside him.
Clara.
Her breath stirred against his bare shoulder, the steady rhythm a gentle reminder that the world was, for once, in no hurry.
He should rise.There were estate matters to tend to.But this morning, his body resisted the call of duty, lulled by the quiet contentment of being exactly where he wanted to be.
Beside her.
Clara shifted slightly, her leg brushing his.She burrowed closer with a sleepy sound that stirred warmth deep in his chest.A kind of affection he had never known he was capable of.Not lust.Not even desire, though that still hummed under his skin every time she touched him.No, this was something else.Something steadier, and yet wilder, in its own way.
He opened his eyes just as she blinked hers open, the pale gray-blue of them still hazy with sleep.
“You are staring,” she murmured, her voice husky with dreams.
“I am.”He slid his hand up her back, fingers splaying over her spine.“It has become a habit I have no intention of breaking.”
Clara smiled, slow and soft, and pressed a kiss to his collarbone.“You are shameless.”
