“I love you, too.” And he would say those words every damn day for the rest of his life.
Epilogue
3 years later
Tessa found her husband at his desk after the last show of the evening. He was bent over a ledger but looked up and fell into the back of his chair when she slipped through the door. When she sat on the edge of his desk, he pushed his accounting books aside and grasped her ankle, removed her slipper.
She let her head fall back with a sigh as he stroked up her leg.
“Is there a reason for this visit, wife?”
“I’ve quite forgotten. Keep going.”
He stood and stepped between her legs, lifting her skirts so they puddled around her thighs, silk falling across forgotten lines of numbers. “Gladly.” He stooped for a kiss.
No matter how many times he kissed her (countless times now), her stomach dropped, and her heart swooped, and she clung to him like he was life itself. When he pulled away, she was breathless but managed to say, “Oh yes, I remember now.”
“Remember what? That you want to go home?”
“Yes,” she moaned against his lips. “No.” She frowned, shook her head. Peg and Meg said they saw someone lurking backstage.”
Remmy frowned, too. “I’ll bet it’s Islington. Or his secretary. He can’t stand that my sets are better than his.”
She puffed up with pride. The backdrops she painted had become a major source of the Folly’s success in the last three years. She’d hand-painted every one, and while the scandal of their marriage might have brought visitors to the theatre, her paintings kept them coming back.
He pulled her off the desk and out of his office. The corridor was dimly lit, and backstage somehow even darker, but the slender woman standing tall and peering at one of Tessa’s backdrops was illuminated by an aura of candlelight behind her. Her red hair glowed.
Tessa pushed past Remmy with a gasp. “Verity?”
The young woman turned her head, her face breaking into a grin. “Tessa!”
The sisters ran into one another’s arms.
Tessa hugged Verity tightly then held her out at arm’s length. “What are you doing here?” It had not been three years since they’d last seen one another. During Remmy and Tessa’s first visit to Crossvale after their wedding, Verity had marched right into the house and demanded to see Tessa. And before their visit was done, her mother had invited Tessa for tea. An awkward affair, but the silent hug on departing, her mother’s arms tight around Tessa’s shoulders, had been worth it. “Does Mother know?”
“I didn’t tell her I was leaving, but I did leave a note, and surely by now she’s found it. She told me this morning I was acting like a heathen and if I did not rethink my actions, she would wash her hands of me.”
“Oh, Verity.” Tessa hugged her again, poured all her love into it. “How did you get here?”
“And what heathenish sort of thing did you do?” Remmy drawled. He was leaning against a wall, arms crossed, ankles crossed, not sounding cross at all.
Verity’s face flamed. “I kissed someone.”
“Who?” Tessa demanded.
“Thomas.”
It couldn’t be. She had to check. “ThomasIves?”
Verity nodded, biting her bottom lip, and Remmy doubled over in laughter, slapping his knee.
“Of course,” he said through great guffaws. “It’s only right a King girl and an Ives boy create a swath of chaos across the county.”
“It’s notthatfunny,” Verity grumbled. “I was hoping I could stay with you. I know it’s been years since we’ve talked, but?—”
“Of course you can.” Tessa hugged her sister again then guided her toward Remmy’s office. He followed behind them, still chuckling. “Why didn’t you ask Remmy’s mother for help?”
“To keep the peace as much as possible, I suppose.”
