Page 108 of A Widow for the Beastly Duke

Yet reality, as it so often did, transcended imagination in both simplicity and power. Because as his words fell between them, Emma felt as though she were floating in the air, as though she’d somehow fallen into a fever dream from which she did not want to wake up.

“And I… I also…” She cleared her throat once, her eyes never wavering from his face. “I love you as well,” she admitted, the words emerging with the inevitability of a tide responding to the moon’s pull. “Despite every rational objection, every hard-won caution, every lesson in distrust that life has taught me. Perhaps even because of them—for you have shown me that strength and gentleness need not be mutually exclusive, that power need not corrupt, that love need not diminish.”

Victor’s arms encircled her at once, drawing her against the solid warmth of his chest with reverent urgency.

For several heartbeats, they remained thus, two souls who had navigated separate paths of loss and resilience, now converging in a moment of perfect understanding.

“Marry me,” Victor said simply, drawing back enough to meet her gaze. “Not out of obligation, or protection, or any consideration save this: I cannot envision a future worth living if it does not include you and Tristan.”

Emma’s heart seemed to suspend its rhythm, the question she had both longed for and feared now hanging between them with all its attendant possibilities.

“Are… are you certain?” she asked, unable to stop herself. “I do not think I can bear a separation in the future when the urge strikes you?—”

“No, Emma,” Victor cut in, his tone earnest. “I will never do something so foolish and torturous again. To you or myself. I swear it. Marry me, Emma, my love, the one who owns my heart.”

Marriage, the institution that had once represented her prison, now offered the gateway to liberation. The irony might have amused her under different circumstances. Now, his words made her heart pound in her chest as all her defenses were stripped away.

“Yes,” she replied, the simplicity of her answer belying the complexity of emotions that accompanied it. “Yes, I will marry you, Victor.”

His kiss, when it came, conveyed both the desperate passion of their earlier encounters and the hesitant restraint of a first exploration. Because it was the beginning of a new promise of a shared future—a future that was going to be full of the love that had blossomed between them despite every obstacle.

In the soft light of Cuthbert Hall’s drawing room, with her son sleeping peacefully above and the man she loved standing steadfast beside her, Emma allowed herself to believe in the possibility of happiness.

Not as a temporary respite from adversity but as a permanent state, hard-won, and therefore all the more precious.

EPILOGUE

ONE MONTH LATER

“Ibelieve, Your Grace, that we have successfully scandalized the entirety of country Society,” Emma murmured, her lips curved in a smile that conveyed both amusement and contentment as she gazed up at her new husband. “A lady looked positively apoplectic when you insisted on kissing me before the bishop had fully concluded the ceremony.”

Victor’s answering smile transformed his usually severe countenance, the scar on his cheek diminishing beneath the radiance of genuine happiness.

“Then my primary objective for the day has been accomplished,” he replied, one hand resting possessively on the small of her back as they surveyed the assembled guests who had gathered at Westmere Hall for their wedding breakfast. “Though I confess I harbor additional ambitions that may further distress some lady’s sensibilities before the day is through.”

The ballroom of Westmere Hall had been transformed for the occasion, its medieval grandeur softened by garlands of summer roses and sprays of delicate wildflowers gathered from the estate grounds.

Sunlight streamed through the ancient stained glass, casting jewel-toned patterns across the assembled guests—a collection that represented the curious intersection of Victor’s reluctant aristocratic connections and Emma’s more eclectic circle of friends and supporters.

At the opposite end of the room, the Athena Society members had claimed territory around a table laden with champagne and delicacies. Their animated conversation was punctuated by occasional bursts of laughter that caused the more ‘decorous’ guests to cast disapproving glances in their direction.

Tristan moved among them with the ease of long familiarity, his formal attire lending him a maturity that tugged at Emma’s heart even as she delighted in his evident happiness.

“Perhaps we might steal a moment of privacy,” Victor suggested, his voice dropping to a timbre that sent a pleasant shiver down her spine. “I find myself unaccountably eager for solitude with my Duchess.”

“Patience, my love,” Emma chided, though her pulse quickened at the heat in his gaze. “We have obligations to our guests for at least another hour.”

“An unbearable amount of time,” Victor grumbled, though his expression held more indulgence than true disgruntlement. “Though I suppose I might endure it, given sufficient incentive.”

Emma arched an eyebrow. “And what incentive would Your Grace require?”

“A moment’s respite from a dowager’s detailed recounting of every ducal wedding since the Restoration,” he replied promptly. “Perhaps a brief tour of the eastern conservatory? I believe the camellias are particularly fine at this time of year.”

The suggestion was delivered with such perfect innocence that Emma could not help but laugh.

“Very well,” she conceded, her tone mock solemn. “In the interest of preserving your sanity, I shall resign myself to this botanical excursion.”

* * *

---