Windham laughed as Rose jumped up on him, her tongue lolling out the side of her mouth. He scratched her cheeks for a moment before his attention was back on Isabelle.
She took a wavering breath and stepped closer to him, raising one hand to cup his cheek. “The boat is leaving the dock. You’re going to be stuck here if you don’t get off now.”
“There is nowhere else I would rather be,” he saif, his voice husky as he leaned into her touch.
“But the boat is leaving!” Isabelle looked between him and the dock which was now little more than a dot on the horizon. “Windham?—”
“Felix.”
“Fine,” she said, rolling her eyes though her heart felt like it was exploding. “Felix, you can’t run a duchy from a ship headed for America. You have matters at home to settle and there are things I must speak with my father about.”
“And?”
“And the boat is leaving!” She threw her hands up in the air, her frustration starting to bubble over.
“Yes, it is.”
“And you are on it when you should be at home.” Isabelle pulled her wrist from his grasp and stared at Felix with alarm.
“I should not be.” Felix took her by her hands and pulled her closer. “I am never allowing you to leave me again. If that means that I follow you to America whenever you wish to go home, then that is what I will do each and every time.”
Isabelle’s cheeks turned a dark red. “Oh.”
He stepped forward and took her face in his hands. “I told you, I love you. I have loved you since the moment you stepped off the boat and insulted my duchy. I have loved you more with every single challenge that you have put before me, and I know that I will love you until my dying breath and I will follow you to the ends of the earth, wherever those may be.”
Her eyes glistened with tears as she looked up at him. “I love you too. And I do want you here with me.”
“Good. It would be strange to meet my new in-laws if you did not love me. I would think that it would make things rather awkward.”
Isabelle looked up at Felix and smiled. “You have met my father.”
“Not as your husband.” He leaned forward and brushed his lips against hers in a slow, gentle kiss that deepened as the sun set around them and the ship headed out to sea.
When Isabelle pulled away, she blinked back tears. “Does that mean you wish to marry me despite your contract with my father?”
“I was a selfish man who could not admit that all of the riches in my life would begin and end with you in it, not in some soulless agreement with your father. I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”
She threw her arms around him, holding him close. “Then I suppose it is a good thing that you no longer need a reason.”
Epilogue
Isabelle took a deep breath and pinned back another strand of her hair, lurching to the side as the ship took a particularly violent dip to the right. She would be grateful to be on dry land in a matter of days.
Then she would introduce the love of her life to her parents and hope that her marriage to Felix would be enough for her father toawareawardhim all the money and benefits he owed to him.
Felix appeared in the doorway to the chaplain's room. "It's nearly time."
"And here I thought that you were going to throw yourself overboard to avoid marrying me."
"How could I do that when I sprinted down a dock and was prepared to swim through the harbor to get to the boat, just so I could tell you that I couldn't imagine spending the rest of my life without you?"
Isabelle melted a little inside, their gazes connecting in the mirror before she looked away. "Can you swim?"
"Not well, but if someone on the boat saw me drowning, I'm sure that they would turn back for me."
She burst out laughing, shaking her head and taking out one of the pins she just put in, letting another tendril fall loose. Though she wasn't sure that sherliked the look of it better this way, Felix stood taller, a warm look in his gaze.
She reached for a different strand, slipping that into place. "Are you so certain that they would rescue you?"
