Epilogue

Lucy Wallace was sent to the country, to a farm run by a placid, sturdy widow. There Lucy sketched occasionally, but mainly cared for animals. These included Brinley, who loved no one so much as Lucy—with the possible exception of Callum’s old boots, which he got to have as toys in his new home.

The farm was in Kent, on land owned by Isabel’s father. Martin knew that Lucy had been abused and was to be treated with care—and not approached. He saw to her security. If Lucy was not threatened, she would be a threat to no one.

For saving the life of Lord Wexley, Callum Jenks became a hero. It was the most natural thing in the world that he should become fashionable. It was not even a surprise, not really, when Lady Isabel Morrow wed him.

For Lady Isabel had become a bit of an eccentric. She’d always seemed so proper! But how roguish she was now. And yet it suited her.

She and her new husband lived on the edges of society, not quite of it, not shunned by it. Just separate, in a category of their own. Like those dresses Lady Isabel wore. No one knew quite what to compare them to except themselves.

The Jenkses lived in a house bought by the lady, but they set up a consulting practice in a set of rooms fitted out by the husband. And by the following year, life had taken on an intriguing new pattern.

Despite running a busy investigative consulting practice, Isabel and Callum still occasionally had leisure enough to slip away during the day. The Summer Exhibition, set up for all London to admire in the great rooms of Somerset House, featured a number of paintings they were eager to see.

More than one of them was by a talented artist named Ignatius Butler, who was making a name for himself in portraiture. As he stood proudly beside his work, dressed in his Sunday finest, he was applauded by a beautiful dark-skinned woman in blue, and by two rangy girls he was proud to introduce as his daughters Elizabeth and Margaret.

Judging by the interest of the crowds, and the plum spot the pastel portrait of Angelica Butler received by being hung at eye level, Isabel suspected Butler would finish the exhibition with as many commissions as he could handle.

“I’m glad we hired him before he became tonnish,” she told Callum as they joined the applause. The last bit of the money Butler needed to bring over his family had come from a portrait Isabel had ordered from him: the newly wed Mr. and Lady Isabel Jenks. It hung now in their consulting rooms.

The butler, Selby, shuttled between the Bedford Square house and the consulting rooms. He was constantly offended by Callum’s informality—but unable to deny how happy her ladyship was in her second marriage.

There was room enough to spare in the Bedford Square house, now that Lucy was no longer living with Isabel. Isabel had also opened up the previously locked bedchamber in which all of the paintings from the hidden room were stored. She had found a ready taker in a certain Mr. Gabriel, who accepted them all.

“I should be glad to get rid of them,” said Isabel. “But you could never display them. Not without causing a scandal among society’s elite. Those who did business with Andrew Morrow think they own the original and only versions of their precious artwork.”

Gabriel-Angelus laughed. “If any of society’s elite find their way into my private quarters, they will have more to worry about than what I have hanging on the walls.”

So it was over at last, the whole affair that had drawn Callum and Isabel together. But they were knit tightly now by law and love, not by circumstance.

Upon returning from Somerset House, Isabel asked, “Do you think your friend Cass would like to come work for us?”

Callum sifted through correspondence atop their desk. “We’ve got business enough. Do you want the help?”

“I just wondered. We might need it if our family begins to grow.”

His head snapped up. “Why, Lady Isabel Jenks, are you trying to give me some news?”

“It’s too early to be sure yet. I’m merely preparing you for the possibility.”

He strode around the desk and caught her up in his arms. “Preparing me?” he teased. “To what end?”

“Why, to happily ever after, my love,” she said, and pulled his face down for a kiss.