Epilogue Bound
At precisely four of the clock in the afternoon, the front door swung open. Persephone heard it open, heard it close, from her place in the parlor. But she’d known the man who’d done the opening was soon to be home before she’d acquired any audible evidence.
She’d felt it in her ring, felt the excitement, the need, the frustration at every delay.
She’d only been wearing the ring for a few weeks.
Victor had waited months to give her the band with gold and silver threads twisted together.
Said he didn’t have a lifetime to impress himself upon the metal, so he’d take what time he could.
He appeared in the hallway, a tall dark figure, hair glinting, wicked smile at a cocky angle, jacket flapping behind him like some rogue. The dearest rogue.
He swept her into a kiss. No words. No prelude or warning. Just firm lips and eager tongue and his big hands holding her close.
That all it took to light her up, make her just as needy as him.
He pulled away with a gasp, rested his forehead against hers. His hands consumed her lower back, pressing her against him. “What in hell are you doing out of bed?”
She shivered. His voice was so deep and rich. Her favorite sound. “Breeding the guinea pigs.”
“You just gave birth not even seven days ago.” He scooped her up in his arms and made for the stairs. “I’m going to put you back where you belong.”
“I’m perfectly fine, Victor.”
He grunted, carrying her upward.
“The doctor says so.”
He scowled.
“You don’t have to—ah!”
He tossed her onto the bed.
“For a man worried about my health, you’re awfully indelicate in your treatment of me.”
Oh, that wonderfully wicked grin. He crossed his arms over his chest and peered into the empty cradle. “Where’s my baby?”
“She’s my baby, too.”
“You have a tub, Sephy. That baby is mine. Stay there.” He pointed at her, then stomped out of the room.
She heard him before she saw him, felt him before that.
The awe and joy tempered by a bit of fear.
Then his loud bootsteps. Then his prattling as he came closer down the corridor.
“Just as lovely as your mother. You’ll be a spitfire, too.
What have you been doing all day? You must make your mother stay in bed.
She’ll never listen if you’re not firm, do you understand?
I count on you when I’m gone to keep her well-behaved.
You’ll never guess what she was doing when we met. Robbing graves.”
Victor appeared in the doorway, cradling a small bundle against his big chest. He joined Persephone on the bed, and she peered into the bundle at the little wrinkled, red face.
“Good afternoon, Circe. Did your father wake you?”
Circe blinked at her parents with big blue eyes beneath a shockingly thick patch of black hair.
“I did not,” Victor said. “Nurse was changing her clout. I merely swept her away once she was clean.” He gently tapped his daughter’s nose.
“How was your meeting with Peabottom?” she asked.
“Excellent. He’s another device we’re working on. Still in the area of aeronautics. Oh, I ran into Givesly.”
“Who?”
“The Earl whose identity I borrowed when we traveled to Manchester.”
“Ah.”
“Seems he’s been beset by rural folk claiming he owes them money.”
“Has he been? And have you been beset by a conscience guilty enough to explain everything to him?”
“Good God, no. Oh! Also, I met the Royal Alchemist, after that. Quite unexpected. The fellow is still reeling from everything, as you can imagine.”
The Royal Alchemist was a man named Temple Grant, recently married into the transcendent class. But that’s all Persephone could remember. She’d been quite busy during the drama, and still hadn’t the energy to read the papers because—
Circe began to wave her fists and screw up her face. A howl was imminent. There the reason for her flagging energy. Circe demanded it all every other hour or so, round the clock. More exhausting than digging graves.
“Perhaps you should take your baby.” Victor handed over their child.
Persephone took her and pulled down the loose bodice of her gown, her chemise. Circe rooted and found what she wanted, and Persephone leaned against the pillows happily. Victor leaned next to her, wrapping his arm around her, pulling her close, placing a kiss on her hair.
“I thought Circe was your baby, Victor.” He kissed his ring, and she felt the warmth of his lips as if they caressed her very own body.
Then he dragged his ring down her cheek, her neck.
He’d found many interesting ways to use the growing bond between them in the months before Circe’s birth.
She had no doubt he was daily concocting more for later use. “I have the tub, after all.”
“Yes, well, I have you, don’t I. That’s really all I need.
” But the way he looked at Circe, looked at them both, as if he’d stumbled across a gold mine—he didn’t have to say he loved them.
She felt it. In his gaze. In the ring. Even in every sarcastic quip.
“The Royal Alchemist,” he said, settling her deeper into his embrace and closing his eyes.
“His entire situation is… interesting, is it not? His wife’s situation.
It makes me wonder about Circe. Have you ever seen her eyes flash gold? ”
Persephone yawn. “No. Should I have? Is it a transcendent trait?”
Victor ran a hand down their daughter’s downy, dark hair. “Yes. No. I’m just thinking of her future.”
The future for a duke’s daughter would be easier than her own had been. She’d be loved by parents who wouldn’t care who she married as long as she was loved and taken care of. Her heart would be golden, even if her eyes were not.
Circe was sated, and she popped off Persephone’s breast. With the widest, most innocent eyes, she made the loudest sounds with her nether regions.
“Oh God.” Victor held a hand over his nose.
“I think she’s going to need a bath,” Persephone said.
“Let’s find nurse.” Victor took her and headed for nursery. Persephone could hear him down the hall. “I think you did that on purpose, you little troublemaker. You’re like your mother, love a good bath, will do anything to get it.”
Persephone laughed and stripped out of her clothes, and when Victor returned—alone—he found her in the tub.
“Like mother, like daughter,” he grumbled, kneeling beside the tub.
She laughed. “Join me?”
My, he always had been quick getting out of his clothes.
When he slipped in behind her, wrapping her tightly in his arms, she melted against him, felt his already-hard shaft dig into her low back.
The water steamed around them—heated from the pipes and the alchemist lad employed in the kitchen.
The house was coming to life around them, climbing out of dusty decay and into a foggy London morning filled with love.
Through the ring on her finger and through his chest at her back, she felt the steady beat of her heart. She set it beating, as he set hers, and side by side they would always climb into the light together.