Page 51 of A Virgin for the Cruel Duke

“I’m here,” he rasped back in her ear, his muscles tight under her hand, their tension a testament to how he was keeping himself in reign to ensure that he was careful with her. “I have you my darling. Let yourself go.”

She tipped her head back as he angled his thrusts more insistently, his fingers circling the place where all the pleasure of her body seemed to center, keeping pace with his movement. She was surging towards that place of complete oblivion. A cry, wordless, desperate tore from her lips and he clutched her to himself and thrust, once - twice - again before he finished as well, the two of them tumbling over into ecstasy together.

He pressed a kiss, beautiful and sweet against her lips. “I am yours,” he murmured. “As you are mine.” His chest was heaving and his voice was still hoarse with exertion but there was a new warmth, a love in his voice that made her dizzy with joy.

“I am yours,” she echoed, her whole being flush with joy. “I am. I truly am.”

No matter what happened next, they had found each other at last.

She had longed for so long to have someone who would love her, who would care about her and he had wanted so long for peace and for justice. Neither of them would ever want for someone at their side, someone to support them into the future and to hold their hand. They would be each other’s, always.

EPILOGUE

“Oh my lady!” Daisy shrieked, rushing into the room. “My lady they are here, they are here!”

Elizabeth got up from her seat and grabbed her old friend by the hand, squeezing tightly. It had been a few weeks since the events of the hunting party and so much had happened since that she sometimes wondered if she had dreamed it all. “Come then, we must meet them at the door! Your mother will be so overwhelmed otherwise she will not know what to do with herself.”

They hurried, arm in arm, down the hall, laughing together. It was so strange to think that only a little while ago she had worried that her new family would look down on her for being friends with her maid or consider her an embarrassment. Now -

They ran to the front door just as it opened to show Mrs. Adams, flushed from the journey with little Annie pressed so hard against her side that Elizabeth thought they might never stop holding on to each other. Their bags were being unloadedbehind them and her beloved husband was stood there just behind them, smiling at her over their heads.

She had told him all about how dear the family had always been to her, how Mrs. Adams was as close as she had ever had to a mother and Daisy and Annie were just like her sisters but she had never expected him to do this.

“My lady,” Mrs. Adams said in a soft breath, holding open her arms. “Oh my lady, look at you.”

Elizabeth felt the tears spring to her eyes and flung herself forwards to rest against her. “It is so good to see you again,” she said, sobbing a little. “I have missed you so much!”

“And I have missed you too,” Mrs. Adams said quietly, stroking her hair. “It has been too quiet to be living without my girls, too quiet indeed. I cannot thank His Grace enough for offering me a position here so I can be closer to you both.”

“And me,” Annie said in a little voice. “I’m here too.”

“Yes and my little Annie,” Mrs. Adams turned to look at her daughter, an expression on her face that Elizabeth understood in a sharp, cold moment and ached for. “Both of us here and far away from the Rosenburg Estate at last.”

“Come in,” Elizabeth said gently. “We have much to talk about.”

She let Daisy take her mother’s arm, chatting away already about everything she would grow to love at the Westall Estate, the cunning gardens and the ducklings and the peacocks and the kind staff and the family so nice and easy to deal with as she rested her own gaze on her own little sister and saw the guilt that was eating at her heart.

“You too, Annie,” she said, offering her hand.

Annie looked at her with naked hope in her eyes. “Me too?”

“Yes, I think we have some things we need to talk about, don’t you?”

Annie paled then and glanced back at Stephen, reproach in her face.

“No, he did not tell me,” Elizabeth said firmly. “I knew in my heart what the truth was, and I think it is time we cleared the air.”

She led Annie through to where Mrs. Adams and Daisy were waiting and then ushered them onwards to her own office, something Stephen had arranged for her as they had started to expand her education in being a good Duchess. Stephen walked behind, content to let her handle the matter but there should she need him.

It was so sweet to have someone there in that way, someone who would support her and hold her and be there to help her no matter what.

“My lady,” Mrs. Adams said as the door closed. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am over what happened with my Annie. I thought I had raised her better and it was you and your husband who suffered.”

“Mum!” Annie said, face bright red.

“No, Annie, it needs saying. You know what you did was wrong. You know you don’t have no right to be here now with these kind people instead of in some cell somewhere - oh my heart,” she pressed a hand to her breast and her face twisted in grief. Elizabeth darted to her and took her free hand in both of her own.

“Mrs. Adams no,” she said softly. “Annie made a mistake. She should have come to speak to Stephen and myself. But what she did was not so bad as what you think. Yes, she came here to poison me,” she heard Daisy’s sharp intake of breath and Annie’s small moan of sorrow but she pressed on. “However the reason she did it was because my devil of a brother pressed her so hard. She is just a child and he told her that if she didn’t do his bidding he would kill you in your bed. He also told her that all the elixir would do was make me ill for a little while. She never thought she would truly harm me. I think I can confidently say that she would have never done so.”

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