Epilogue
"Emily," Euphemia said, standing in the entrance of the Carrowell ballroom and turning very slowly on the spot. “I truly believe if the heavens were to host a party, they would find it difficult to compete with this. It is the biggest, grandest, most beautiful ball I have ever seen in my life!"
“You exaggerate, Effie.” Emily giggled.
Emily stood beside her and looked at what Julia Birks had done to her ballroom and thought that beautiful was perhaps an insufficient word.
The room had been transformed. Years of disuse had been erased, replaced with something that felt less like a decorated room and more like a world unto itself.
The ceilings were draped in deep blue silk that caught the light from the chandeliers and threw it back in waves.
.. Those chandeliers, all seven of them, had been fitted with candles of a particular white that burned cleaner and brighter than anything Emily had seen outside of a church, and the effect of them against the blue was something between midnight and dawn, that impossible hour when the sky could not decide what it was.
Silver ran through everything. In the ribbons wound around the pillars that lined the room.
In the garlands of white and pale blue flowers that had been threaded with silver wire until they caught and held the light like something alive.
In the tablecloths on the supper tables set along the far wall, deep blue beneath, and silver runners laid across them.
The floor had been polished to a mirror. Emily could see the reflection of the chandeliers in it, wavering slightly, like light on water.
“But I cannot possibly take all the credit,” Emily said. “Julia was a huge help. The decor is all her. She really went out of her way.”
“It shows,” Euphemia said and then turned to Emily. “You look incredibly beautiful.”
Emily was in deep blue silk, the color of the room, a suggestion from Julia that Emily had initially resisted on the grounds that a hostess should not disappear into her own décor.
But she had eventually conceded, when she put the gown on and understood what Julia had meant: not that she would disappear, but that she would belong to the room, that she would look as though Carrowell had been made for her specifically and she for it.
The gown was simple in its cut and extraordinary in its fabric, the silk catching the light the same way the silver in the flowers caught it, differently at every angle.
Peggy had dressed her hair with small white flowers threaded through it and a single strand of pearls that had belonged to Theodore's grandmother and which he had left on her dressing table that morning with a beautiful note.
She touched them now, briefly, at her throat.
"The whole of London is going to talk about this for a year," Euphemia added.
"That..." Emily said, giggling. "...is rather the point."
She patted Euphemia’s hand and began to navigate the edge of the ballroom.
The air was thick with the scent of expensive powder and the hum of a hundred different conversations, and Emily felt she needed a moment to breathe and a glass of cool punch to soothe her parched throat.
She made her way toward the refreshment table, weaving through the crowd, nodding graciously to the guests who parted like the Red Sea at the sight of their hostess.
She had just reached the crystal punch bowl when a familiar voice cut through the music.
"Emily."
She turned.
Her parents were crossing the room toward her. Her mother first, in pale grey silk, her expression doing the particular careful thing it did in public, composed and warm in the same amount. Her father was behind her, taller, slower.
Her mother reached her first and took both her hands. "My darling," she said quietly. "This room."
"Do you like it?" Emily said.
"Like it?" her mother asked, as if it were an entirely insufficient response. She looked around the ballroom, absorbing everything. "Emily, this is extraordinary."
Emily felt warmth move through her chest. “I’m glad.”
"My dear girl," her mother whispered, reaching out to squeeze Emily’s hands. She looked as though she might burst into tears of joy right there next to the lemon tarts. "I knew you were a Duchess now, but seeing you in the middle of all this... It’s like a fairytale.”
"It is a triumph, Emily..." her father, Charles, said.
Emily noted that he looked different. A bit too.
.. relaxed. He surveyed the room, then leaned in, his expression softening as he looked at her.
"What you have accomplished here in a few months is... remarkable. I have seen many a season in my time, but never have I seen a ball with this much... life. His Grace spoke to me earlier about the arrangements for the boy’s grandfather.
You did well with that. I am glad you, too, Frederick.
It could not have turned out any better given the situation. "
He paused, a rare glint of emotion in his eyes. "I know what you think of me. What you think of your mother. We might have mourned the loss of your sister in a... cruel way, but...”
“We shouldn’t have let you carry the responsibility of Frederick alone,” her mother added. “It took us too long to realize.”
“You make a good Duchess,” Charles added. “I couldn't be prouder to see how you have mastered this world."
Emily felt a swell of pride so fierce it brought a sting to her eyes. She looked across the room, catching Theodore’s gaze from where he stood speaking with a government minister. Even from a distance, the look he gave her was one of absolute, unwavering comfort.
She watched him say something to the minister. She watched the minister nod, and Theodore turn and cross the room toward her. It was as if a tether existed between them, pulling him across the marble floor with an urgency that made Emily’s pulse quicken.
"If you will excuse me, Mama, Papa," Emily said, offering a graceful but hasty curtsy. "I must speak with Theodore, but we shall continue this later. I am so glad you are here."
She turned, intending to meet him halfway, but he had already crossed the distance. Before she had taken more than a few steps, he was there, his large frame shielding her from the prying eyes of the Ton. He reached out, his hand settling firmly at the small of her back.
"Is everything all right?" he asked. His brow was slightly furrowed, his eyes searching hers for any sign of distress or fatigue. "You looked overwhelmed for a moment."
"I am fine, Theo," Emily replied, leaning into his touch and relishing the feeling of his palm through her gown.
She glanced back toward her parents, who were still watching her.
"Genuinely fine. It was just... that was the first time I had ever heard my father praise me for anything.
In my entire life, I do not think I have ever felt his approval quite like that. "
Theodore’s expression softened, a shadow of a look playing in his eyes. "It is long overdue, Emily. You deserve every word of it."
"The strange thing is," she whispered, looking up at him as the scent of his cologne wrapped around her.
"I realized as he was speaking that I did not care as much as I thought I would.
His praise used to be the only thing I sought, but now.
.. it is your opinion that matters to me.
That is...astounding. I care more about what my husband thinks than anyone else in this room. "
Theodore went very still. His gaze deepened, the blue of his eyes darkening with a raw, intense emotion. He looked at her as if she had just handed him a kingdom, his hand tightening slightly against her waist.
"Is that so?" he murmured, his thumb tracing a slow circle against the fabric of her dress. "That is a dangerous thing to tell a man as possessive as I am, Emily. It makes me want to whisk you away from your own ball just so I can have you all to myself."
Emily let out a soft laugh, a sound that felt entirely foreign to the girl she had been before the marriage. "You would not dare. Julia would have your head if you ruined her masterpiece."
"A fair point," he conceded, his grin widening as he pulled her a fraction closer. "But do not think I will not hold you to that sentiment once the last candle is snuffed out."
The air between them suddenly thickened, charged with a magnetic pull that made the surrounding music and the chatter of the Ton fade instantly.
Emily’s hands moved instinctively, her fingers traveling up the lapels of his evening coat until they rested against his chest, feeling the heavy, thudding beat of his heart beneath the silk.
Theodore’s touch turned possessive, his hand at her waist surged forward, his fingers splaying wide to draw her flush against him.
The friction of their bodies, even through layers of formal wear, sent a jolt of heat through her that made her knees feel weak.
She looked up at him, her breath hitching.
She wondered if it would be a scandal to disappear now, just for a moment, to find a dark corner where they could breathe each other in and settle the restless, aching need that had begun to simmer.
They needed to be alone if they were to have any hope of functioning as host and hostess for the rest of the night.
Before the suggestion could leave her lips, Theodore leaned down, his forehead resting against hers for a fleeting, intense second.
"On second thought," he rasped, his voice a vibration that she felt more than heard. "Maybe we can just stay five minutes alone in the hallway. Just give me five minutes, Emily. I want to hold you in my arms without a hundred pairs of eyes watching us. Please."
"I would like that very much," she whispered, her voice barely a breath.