“Can’t we just elope?” I groan. “I can’t imagine doing all of this again next month.”
Emmett reaches across the gap between us and places a reassuring hand on my knee. “You can convince me to do anything.But you’d break poor Rhion’s heart. He’s assigned himself as my best man.”
“Seems prudent for diplomatic purposes.”
Emmett pulls a face. “I don’t think it’s that. He read about human wedding ceremonies in a book and desperately wants to take me on a stag night and give a speech.”
One of the things I love most about Emmett is that he always makes me laugh, even at the tensest of moments.
The carriage slows as we reach Westminster and the doors swing open, revealing a plush, crimson carpet leading into the abbey.
“Brace yourself,” Emmett says, and leans forward to give me a quick kiss the moment before the doors swing open.
He hops out first and extends a hand to help me down.
“We met in a carriage,” he says under his breath. “You looked just as beautiful then.”
My feet hit the ground and I gaze up at him, amazed that I ever got this lucky. There is so much work left to do, but I take comfort in knowing he will be by my side through all of it.
The orchestra swells. Hand in hand, we step through the door.
I have his heart and he has mine. There has never been a fairer bargain.
Epilogue
London, 1868
The oil in the lantern is burning dangerously low, and I pray it will last the length of this letter. It’s the final correspondence I need to complete before retiring to bed, but if the prime minister doesn’t have it by morning, it’ll be my staff that has to deal with his ire, and I’d really rather avoid a confrontation.
“You’re making the rest of us look bad.” I look up to find Emmett leaning against the doorjamb, wearing a loose white shirt, his formal coat discarded hours ago.
The lantern burns out with a snick, leaving the fireplace on the far side of my study the only source of light. Emmett laughs gently and pulls an extra well of oil from the cabinet by the door, crossing the room to my desk.
“One of us has to work around here.” I nudge his elbow as he pours in the fresh oil and reignites the lantern.
He leans down and places an affectionate kiss on my head. “I’ll have you know I spent all morning in the mews examining the new carriages for Lydia’s first trooping of the guard.”
“Youlovethe horses—and then you spent the rest of the day chasing the children around the garden. I could see you from here!”I bite back the smile pulling at my lips. After nearly twenty years of marriage, Emmett still manages to surprise me every day, but I was never surprised at the doting father he became. Each and every one of our children has him completely wrapped around their fingers.
“Not true,” he retorts. “Lydia’s much too tall for me to chase now.”
“That trait came from your side of the family.”
Lydia, our oldest, turns eighteen next week, and will begin her official duties as a working royal. She won’t come out in society as a debutante like I did. I ended that practice the first year of my reign.
Like every girl her age, she has the opportunity to determine her own future. We gave her the choice to become a dancer or a poet or a banker, or even to permanently join her aunt and namesake at court in the Otherworld, where she has enjoyed many happy holidays, but she insisted she wanted to go into the family business. It didn’t particularly surprise me or Emmett, as Lydia has always been the most responsible of our children. Her sixteen-year-old sister, Elizabeth, is her opposite. She told us last week she intended on becoming a pirate or a dressmaker, or a dressmaker with her own ship, like some kind of floating modiste. She spends much too much time with her aunties Marion and Faith, who encourage her, but Emmett’s no better. He’s already enrolled her in sailing lessons.
I finish the last sentence of my letter and sign it with a flourish while Emmett perches on the edge of my desk, watching patiently.
When I am finished, he arches a brow, and after all these years, it still gives me butterflies. He looks just the same as the day we met, with the addition of a few smile lines around his hazel eyes and a dusting of gray at his temples.
“I never get sick of looking at you,” he says.
“You’re a shameless old flirt, Emmett De Vere.”
He bends down and kisses me, too long and too passionately for a room with an open door where any one of our multitude of children could walk in.
He pulls back, his eyes shining. “Just one of the many things you love about me, Ivy De Vere.”
