“Yes,” she said, tears welling in her eyes as he slid the five golden rings onto her finger. “Oh, yes, my true love.”
She leaned up to kiss him, and he caught her to him for a much more thorough kiss, so thorough that it was some time later before they broke apart.
She glanced back at the hall and sighed. “I suppose we should go in and look at the tree we all worked on so laboriously.”
“Or,” he said, “we could take a sleigh ride over to Hawkcrest and see if a couple of blankets on the floor and a fire in the hearth might make it more suitable for that private demonstration you were craving the first time we went there.”
“We don’t have a sleigh,” she reminded him.
“Ah, right. So we’ll simply have to sneak upstairs to your bedchamber. Or mine.”
She began to grin. “And then?”
“We’ll have ourselves a merry little Christmas.”
“Now?” she asked.
“Now.”
Epilogue
March 1809
Their wedding day was exactly six months after Heywood’s father had died. Heywood’s mother had requested the date, since by then she would at least be in half mourning and the rest of the family no longer in mourning. She’d been forced to miss the wedding of Grey and Beatrice because of society’s rules, and she said she didn’t intend to miss Heywood’s.
Now he was here at his wedding breakfast, with his new wife at his side. He smiled down at her. Cass’s lovely face was awash with wonder at the magic his mother and the rest of the family had wrought at Hawkcrest, just for their celebration. The dining room had been repainted and the wood floors repaired. They’d even replaced the chandelier with a much finer one, fitted with costly beeswax candles.
“It’s magnificent, don’t you think?” Cass said.
“Yes.” He gazed at her beautiful features. “Magnificent.”
She caught him staring at her and blushed. “I missed you. I thought you might not make it home.”
After Christmas, he’d returned to his regiment to arrange for someone to take his place so he could retire from the Hussars. Then he’d had a devil of a time trying to get back, with the war raging on the Continent.
“Ah, dearling,” he said, with his heart in his throat, “I would have been here if I’d had torowacross the English Channel.”
Kitty approached, her face wreathed in smiles. “Who’s rowing across the channel?”
“No one, I hope.” Heywood thrust his hand out to the fellow accompanying Kitty. “You must be the lauded Mr. Adams.”
“I don’t know how lauded I am,” the man said as he shook Heywood’s hand, “but yes, I’m that gentleman.”
Kitty tucked her hand in the crook of his elbow. “My husband’s being modest. He’s opening a new concern in London and has already attracted twenty clients.”
“It’s a fine start,” Heywood said. “I’ll introduce you to Grey. He always has need of a good solicitor.”
“I’m more interested in your other talents,” Cass said, her eyes gleaming. “The ones that enabled you to whisk Kitty away to Gretna Green before we even realized you were here. And howdidyou find us, anyway?”
He flushed a bright red. “I confess I had to be duplicitous.”
“That means he had to lie,” Kitty said, clearly delighted that she knew the word. “He had to be duplicitous to see me at the ball,too, on account of Mama telling him all about how she justknewCaptain Malet would offer for me that night.”
“Knowing Aunt Virginia,” Cass said, “that was her way of warning Mr. Adams off.”
“Precisely,” Adams said. “So I slipped into the ball to warn Kitty about Malet since I didn’t trust him, and she told me that as long as I refused to offer for her, she would do as she pleased.”
“Thatwas the friend you’d been talking to who upset you so?” Cass asked.
