“Impossible,” he said, his face stunned. “It can’t be. I gave myself…I called him back to me. He raised his hand to touch me—” Then he halted. “She stopped him.” He was looking into the distance, his eyes focused on something Maia couldn’t see. His breathing changed, roughened and hurried. “She wasn’t too late,” he whispered. “She stopped him.”
And then, for the first time Maia could ever remember, the Earl of Corvindalesmiled.
EPILOGUE
LENNING’S TANNERY EXPANDS
Nearly a month later…
“Isimply don’t understand how you can be so calm about it all,” Maia said, planting her hands on her hips. She was looking up at Corvindale, who’d become Gavril to her in both mind and heart. “They’re cutting holes in your house.Bigholes.”
“Yes, indeed, they are, Miss Woodmore,” he replied. But now, when he called her by her formal name, there was a layer of intimacy, of verbal caressing over the syllables. “Blackmont Hall is so dark and dim, most particularly my study, that I want more windows. Larger ones.”
“But there is dust everywhere. And flies are coming in. And the noise!”
“I suppose we could have waited to have it done while we were on our honeymoon,” said the Earl of Corvindale, looking down at the future Lady Corvindale, “but I have lived in darkness for so long, I didn’t want to wait any longer. And Godknows when your brother will return from Scotland to attend the festivities.”
Maia’s heart shifted, as it always did when she realized just what he’d been through, and what he’d given for her. “Of course,” she said, blinking sharply at a sudden sting of tears. “How foolish of me to complain.” What man could give more for the woman he loved?
She smiled and returned to the stack of books he’d been sifting through in hopes of organizing his bookshelves now that the room was being renovated. Perhaps her propensity for easy tears and sensitivity to dust and noise had to do with the fact that she’d just missed her monthly flux. And like everything else in her life, it was normally ordered and regular.
“Wait a moment,” Gavril said, curving his strong fingers around her arm and turning her back to face him. “Is there something wrong, Miss Woodmore?”
She looked back at him in surprise. “No, indeed. I couldn’t be happier. Truly.”
A little quirk touched the corners of his beautiful lips. “But you aren’t arguing with me. You’ve agreed with me. Are you quite certain nothing is wrong?”
Maia laughed. She pulled her arm away and patted him on the cheek. “I’m certain nothing is wrong.” She wasn’t going to tell him until she was certain. “But if you prefer I argue with you, perhaps I ought to take you to task on this disaster.” She gestured to the pile of books that reached from her hip to her shoulder. “Did you realize you have five copies of the same volume of Shakespeare’s tragedies, but not one of his comedies?”
He frowned and ran his elegant fingers over one of the spines. “But that was purposeful, my dear. I wasin no mood to read the likes ofTwo Gentlemen from VeronaorAs You Like Itfor the last century.”
“So instead you buried yourself withHamletandMacbeth?”She gave a little sniff, but a smile lingered around her mouth. Then, suddenly, she found her eyes getting a bit damp again. “It’s fortunate you weren’t following in the footsteps of poor, tragicRomeo and Juliet,”she said, looking at the dog-eared pages of that play.
“There never were two more foolish lovers,” he said arrogantly. “If they’d merely used a bit of sense, both of them would have been alive.”
“You weren’t so different, you know,” she said. “Selling your soul back again to the devil. Then where would we have been? You shackled to him after trying to rid yourself for over a century.”
He shrugged, his face settling into that flat, stubborn expression. “I did what I had to do to save you, Maia. I’d do it again, even if it hadn’t worked out as well as it has. And it has all worked out quite well, has it not?”
“I’m not quite clear on how it did, precisely, work out,” she said, the dratted tears hovering in the corners of her eyes again. He really was the most amazing, loving man.
But how had it happened? Was it because he’d known the hell and torture he was taking on again when he made the sacrifice for her, calling Lucifer back to him? Because he knew precisely what he was giving up this time? That had made the sacrifice all the more meaningful…giving up what he’d wanted more than anything in the world to take the burden back again. For love of another.
That must have been how Wayren had been able to stop him from making the covenant a second time.
She couldn’t know for certain, but it made sense in its own strange way.
And Lerina was dead, thanks to Lord Eddersley, who’d taken it upon himself to skewer the horrible woman when he arrivedon the scene. Alexander Bradington had scuttled off into the night like the snake he was—although Maia hadn’t said that aloud, for surely Gavril would remind her that snakes didn’t scuttle. They slithered.
Nevertheless, he’d assured her Alexander was long gone to the Continent, and probably beyond, where he was safe from Chas’s vengeful stake (at least for the time being) and Gavril’s own fury.
“Are you truly free of Lucifer, even though youcalled him to you and offered yourself?” she asked, blinking hard.
Gavril nodded and took the book from her hand. “I am. I’m free and mortal and my soul is my own again. Thanks to you, my dear Miss Woodmore. For nagging me into loving you.”
She looked at him archly, heaving up the heavy sack of books. “I didn’t nag you into loving me. You already did. I merely nagged you into admitting it.”
He chuckled, a low, deep sound that sent a delicious little tingle deep in her belly. “That might be the case. But,” he continued, taking the books firmly from her hands, “I think it’s your turn for an admission. That you shouldn’t be carrying such a heavy burden.” He gestured with the stack of books.
