Epilogue

Three Weeks Later

“To Pearce and Amelia.” Marcus Braddock stood at the head of the table in the dining room of Charlton House and lifted his glass. “May your life together be filled with happiness and love.” His eyes shone, while beside him the duchess dabbed at hers with a napkin. “Congratulations on your engagement.”

Around the table, the close friends whom Danielle Braddock had gathered to celebrate with them raised their glasses to join in the toast. Rounds of congratulations followed.

Beaming with more happiness than she’d ever thought possible, Amelia wrapped her arm around Pearce’s as he sat beside her. She briefly rested her head against his hard bicep in a small gesture of affection, one he returned with a tender caress to her knee beneath the table.

Amelia hadn’t wanted this dinner. When the duchess first proposed it, she’d declined. She wasn’t eager to announce her engagement to the world when she wasn’t yet officially free to remarry, when the wedding might still be a year or two away. After all, she’d willingly signed her name to the parish register when she’d married Aaron, and even though she could claim grounds of fraud, legalities had to be met, investigations made, intent publicly declared…scandal to survive. A conversation with Merritt Rivers about what was in store for her legally proved how very long she would have to wait before she could become Pearce’s wife.

But Pearce had persuaded her into accepting the duchess’s invitation.

He wanted this for her, a happy celebration with the people who had become family to them. Marcus and Danielle, the duke’s sister Claudia and her husband, Danielle’s Aunt Harriett, Clayton Elliott…even little Pippa, Marcus’s niece, had joined them earlier before being whisked up to the nursery by her nanny. The only person missing was Merritt, who had suddenly left London two days ago without explanation, except to say that he’d return in time for the party. Unfortunately, he’d missed it.

Amelia hadn’t realized until that evening how much this new family meant to her. Frederick was the only blood family she had, and now he was gone. America or the Continent, India or the moon—she had no idea where, but she knew he would never return. Despite the hell he’d put her through, she’d done him one last favor by convincing Charles Varnham to rescind all of his accusations and saved her brother’s reputation in absentia. Varnham reluctantly agreed, his decision helped along by assurances from Marcus Braddock and Pearce that Frederick Howard would never return.

“Before we allow Miss Howard to be formally engaged,” Clayton Elliott piped up, “I think she needs to know about that time in Spain when Pearce kidnapped General Pemberton’s dog and held it ransom for its weight in whiskey.”

Amelia stifled a laugh at Pearce’s expense. All evening they’d been regaling her with stories of his army days, and she’d joined in with stories of her own from their youth in Birmingham.

“It was top-notch whiskey, I’ll have you know.” Pearce stretched his arm across Amelia’s chair back. “And why does she need to know that about me, exactly?”

“Because it proves you can’t be trusted with small animals,” Clayton answered.

“Or whiskey,” Marcus interjected.

When unchecked laughter bubbled up from her, Clayton arched an exaggerated brow in her direction. “We only want to protect you, to make certain that you know what you’re getting yourself into.”

“I know exactly who I’m marrying.” She dared to touch Pearce’s cheek. “My soul mate.” Her voice softened as she looked deeply into his eyes. “And I love him with all my soul.”

At that, Aunt Harriett let out a sob, and both Danielle and Claudia reached for their husbands’ hands. And their handkerchiefs.

“Well then, on that happy declaration,” Danielle announced as she rose to her feet, bringing everyone in the room to theirs, “shall we venture to the drawing room for coffee?”

“If you don’t mind, Duchess,” Pearce said as he took Amelia’s arm and looped it around his, “I’d like to steal Amelia away for a moment alone.”

“Of course I don’t mind. The library should be lit. Join us when you’re ready.” Danielle’s eyes gleamed knowingly as she added, “Take your time.”

Amelia dug her nails into Pearce’s forearm as he led her down the hall. “You said a moment alone.”

“Yes, I did.”

She glanced over her shoulder at the perceptive smiles the women wore as they left the dining room, the men lingering behind for a glass of port. “They all think you meant…a moment alone.”

“Yes, they do.” He grinned as he led her inside the library and closed the door, then backed her across the room until her bottom hit the back of the settee. He leaned in, his mouth lingering temptingly above hers. “But while I would love nothing more than a moment alone…” He kissed her heatedly and groaned against her lips. “Several moments, in fact…” He broke the kiss and stepped back, sucking in a deep breath of restraint. “What I need is to talk to you privately.”

Dread twisted inside her. “Is something wrong? Is it Scepter?”

The men of the Armory were getting closer in their hunt for the group’s leaders, but progress had been slow. Clayton Elliott and his Home Office agents were going through the list of men Frederick had placed into government positions and those men Pearce had seen at the Hellfire club to track down any with ties to Scepter, but so far little had turned up. Arthur Varnham had covered his tracks well, as had Marigold Humphries, the prostitute who had given him the information with which to blackmail Frederick. She’d completely disappeared, in fact. The men believed that she’d fled to escape Scepter, but Amelia knew better. She’d told Frederick to take anything he wanted with him when he left. Most likely he took her, too.

The men had yet to discover Scepter’s endgame, why they wanted those men in the government, why they were willing to have them placed as low-level trustees. Yet the men had succeeded in drawing attention to government appointments, which would be made more carefully at all levels going forward. In that, at least, they could claim a victory.

Scepter was still alive, but they’d succeeded in cutting off another arm from the monster. Someday, they’d kill it outright.

Pearce grinned. “I want to give you your engagement gift.”

His thoughtfulness warmed her. “But I didn’t get you anything.”

“You’ve given me your heart. I don’t need anything more.” But then he paused. “Except your dowry. That I need from you right now.”

She blinked, caught completely off guard by that. “But we’ve never discussed—”

“Your locket.”

Her hand shot up to her neck to clasp it. “I don’t—I don’t understand…”

“I want it back.”

She didn’t stop him when he reached behind her neck to unfasten the ribbon. But she didn’t like this. Not at all. When he slipped it away, she felt utterly naked and exposed.

Unease twisted her belly. “Pearce, what are you playing at?”

“Nothing. I’m perfectly serious. I’m giving you your engagement gift.”

He reached into his inside breast pocket and slowly withdrew a long blue ribbon. From the end dangled a new gold locket.

Her eyes blurred with tears, and she trembled as he fastened it around her neck. To do something this thoughtful, this poignant… At that moment, she couldn’t find her voice to tell him how much she loved him.

“But it’s also our marriage settlement.”

“Pardon?” She wasn’t expecting that. They hadn’t negotiated anything.

“I put it inside the locket.” When she hesitated, he insisted gently, “Go on. Open it.”

With trembling fingers, she opened the tiny clasp and revealed the slip of paper tucked within. She unfolded it to read—

She couldn’t believe her eyes. Her tearful gaze darted up to his, and he smiled lovingly at her shocked reaction.

“This…can’t be right,” she whispered hoarsely, overcome with emotion. His masculine handwriting declared that she would keep all of her current fortune, including Bradenhill. To do with however she’d like.

“I assure you it is. Merritt told me that it can stand as a legal contract in court once you agree to it.” He took the slip from her trembling fingers, refolded it, and closed it inside the locket with a soft snap. “But I warn you that none of the terms I’ve proposed are negotiable. Especially my pledge never to put a turnpike through your property.”

“I love you.” She flung her arms around him and pressed him close, as tightly as all her strength would allow. “I love you so much!”

When he kissed her, she tasted his love for her in return.

She leaned into the embrace, and desire sparked instantly between them. He kissed her possessively and hungrily, and a soft whimper of need rose from her throat. One he answered with a growl and a caress of his hand along the side of her body.

She shivered and reluctantly reminded him, “We can’t…let this…get out of control.”

“Oh yes, we can.” He tilted her head to the side and nipped his teeth at her exposed neck.

Somehow finding enough resolve through the fog engulfing her, she slipped from his arms. “We cannot.” But dear heavens, how much she wanted to! Panting to catch back the breath he’d stolen, she reminded him, “We don’t know how long it will take for the annulment to be formalized. No matter much I want you—and believe me, my love, I dearly want you”—she punctuated that with a caress of her hand down his waistcoat—“we can’t risk that I might become enceinte. We’ve already taken too much risk already.”

“It will be a long time, then,” he agreed, raking a gaze of such heated longing over her that she ached from it. “A very, very long time.”

Her lips parted, about to murmur terms of surrender—

“Perhaps not as long as you think,” a deep voice called out from the shadows near the open terrace door.

Startled, she wheeled around with a gasp.

Merritt Rivers stepped inside the house. Dressed all in black from head to boots, he blended eerily into the night and came fresh from horseback, right down to the scent of the stable that wafted around him and the half-dried mud on his boots.

“How long were you standing there?” Pearce demanded irritably.

“Long enough.” Merritt grinned at their expense and flamed the blush heating Amelia’s cheeks. “Sorry to interrupt, but I stumbled across something you might like to have.”

He reached up his sleeve and withdrew a rolled sheet of paper torn from a book, then held it out to her.

Frowning, she unrolled it and scanned over the page. Columns of signatures, dates, occasions, witnesses…her own signature next to Aaron’s a third of the way from the bottom of the page.

Her breath rushed from her lungs. She couldn’t believe… “The parish register?”

“My wedding gift,” Merritt corrected with a smile. “Your name is no longer in the church records.”

She didn’t know what to say. Except… “And now neither is anyone else’s on this page.” Shaking her head against the temptation of keeping it, she handed it back. “You have to return it.” She blinked rapidly to fight back the tears. To come so close to erasing everything—but she simply couldn’t. “Those other couples might need proof that they were legally wed. I could never destroy that for them.”

“I thought you’d say that.” Merritt’s eyes twinkled mischievously. “So I replaced that page with a copy that faithfully renders all the other signatures and conveniently skips over yours.”

“Faithfully rendered,” Pearce repeated. “Forged, you mean.”

Merritt fixed a meaningful look on Pearce. “Do you really care about the difference?”

“No,” Amelia replied, answering for both of them. She pressed the page against her bosom, unwilling to relinquish it. “Not at all.”

With a knowing grin, Merritt nodded at Amelia and slapped Pearce on the back as he turned to leave, heading back into the night. “Congratulations.”

Amelia stared down at the page. Could it be real? She could barely believe it. Now, after so many years, the thing that had cast such dread and agony over her life…the thing that was keeping her from the man she loved—the scrawl of her signature on a thin, weightless piece of paper.

“What are you going to do with it?” Pearce asked quietly.

The only official record of her marriage, the only proof that existed in the world that she’d stood in that church and pledged her life to a lie… She shook her head. “All those years,” she whispered, “I thought I was married…”

She raised her gaze to his. For the first time, there was no longer any shame, no humiliation, no secrets. Now, there was only Pearce.

“But there was never a marriage. Only vows that were lies, a love that was never shared…no honoring or obeying. Only years of punishment.” She stepped slowly over to the fireplace. “No one can argue that what I had was a true marriage, in the eyes of God or the Church. So no one can argue with this. This marriage gets no more of me.”

She cast the page into the flames. The sheet burned, and with every black curl of the paper, a spark of freedom lit in her heart.

Pearce came up behind her and slipped his arms around her, pulling her against him.

“It’s all over now,” he assured her, nuzzling her hair.

“No.” Her hand rose to her neck, to the little gold locket that hung there. And always would. “Our life together is just beginning.”