Epilogue #2
Arthur, still dangling in the air from Ambrose’s arms, looked down with a suspicious squint. “And what about the other ladies? The ones with the… the pinched faces?” He scrunched his own face up into a sour, tight mask. “The ones who smell like cabbage?”
Ambrose tightened his hold on Arthur and reached down with his free hand to pull Philip into the huddle.
“Listen to me, both of you,” Ambrose said, his voice dropping to a fierce, low rumble. “There will be no more pinched faces at Welton. No more sour words in the schoolroom. If anyone so much as frowns at you, you come to me, and I’ll have them out the front gates before you can say a word.”
“Even if it’s an Aunt?” Arthur asked breathlessly, looking toward Imogen.
“Oh yes, especially if it is an Aunt,” Ambrose promised, catching Imogen’s eye and sharing a conspiratorial grin. “From now on, the only people allowed in this house are people who know how to laugh. It’s just us. A real family.”
“And Uncle Morgan!” Arthur added.
“Of course,” Morgan said as he sidled up next to the small group. “You’ll never be rid of me, boys.”
“A real family,” Philip repeated, finally letting out a long, shuddering breath of relief.
Ambrose stood, pulling the whole group upward with him. He looked at the wreckage of Imogen’s hem and then at her radiant, unbothered face. “Well, Your Grace? I believe there is a cake in the dining room that needs our urgent attention. Shall we?”
Imogen tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear and took his offered arm. “Lead the way, Your Grace. I believe these boys have an appointment with a very large slice of marzipan.”
The moon hung heavily over the rolling hills, a pale, liquid silver that turned the mist-shrouded valley into a ghost of a sea.
Inside the master chambers of the ancient manor, the air was thick with the scent of woodsmoke, rain-dampened earth, and the lingering perfume of crushed lilies from the day’s celebrations.
Imogen stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, wrapped in thick fur. The latch was thrown open to the cold night. She breathed in the wild, sharp air of the countryside, so different from the soot-heavy breath of London.
It had been so long since she had felt so connected to nature, and she reveled in the moment despite the cool December air.
Below, the forest was a jagged black line against the stars, and the distant call of an owl echoed through the stillness.
She was dressed only in a sheer silk peignoir underneath the fur, and that fluttered in the breeze like a dove’s wing.
Her hair, finally freed from its many pins with the help of Mrs. Higgins, fell in a heavy, chestnut weight down the center of her back and to the top of her buttocks.
She didn’t hear him move across the thick Persian rug, but she felt it. The room shifted as he entered, grounding her with his presence. A pair of calloused, powerful arms wrapped around her waist, drawing her back against the solid heat of a man who felt like a mountain.
Ambrose pressed his chest against her spine, his heartbeat a slow, steady thunder.
“The boys are finally still,” he murmured. “Let’s close this cold out and put another log on the fire, Your Grace.”
He pressed his face into the crook of her neck, his evening stubble grazing her skin with a delicious, raw friction.
“They’ve fallen asleep with wide smiles, listening for the hounds. Are you happy, my Duchess?”
Imogen leaned back, surrendering her weight to him, her head resting back onto his shoulder.
“I feel as though I am finally breathing. Truly breathing. In London, it felt like a dream I had to hold my breath to keep. Here, with the damp earth and the trees… I feel so at peace, my love. Can we stay here?”
“Home is where you are. We will spend the holidays here and stay as long as you like. I employ good men to help run my Duchy; we can conduct our lives from here as much as possible.”
“So powerful, my Duke,” she said as he turned her in his arms, his hands sliding up to frame her face.
In the silvered moonlight, his features were carved in sharp, rugged lines only highlighted by his full beard. The Duke of Welton was stripped down to something far more pure, vulnerable. His blue eyes, usually so guarded, were hungry and sparkling.
This is it, she thought to herself as she anticipated what would befall her on her wedding night with bated breath.
“I spent a decade in this house acting as a ghost,” he said, his voice dropping to a jagged whisper.
“I walked these halls and saw only a line of succession, a duty to a brother who was gone, and a name that was an albatross around my neck. I thought being a guardian was enough. I thought holding my heart in a fist was the only way to survive the cold.”
He paused, his thumb tracing the swollen curve of her lower lip.
“But watching you today, standing in that chapel with the sun hitting the lace of your throat… I realized I don’t want to just be a protector of the past. I want a future that bleeds.
I want a house that rings with the cries of our own children.
I want a daughter who has your defiance, and a son who looks at me with your kindness.
I want to build something that isn’t made of cold marble, Imogen. I want life. Full and messy and fun.”
The air between them snapped. It felt like the kind of electricity that precedes a summer storm over the moors. Imogen’s breath hitched, her fingers digging into the hard muscles of his forearms.
“Then let us build it,” she whispered. “Let the Welton line start tonight, with us.”
Ambrose groaned, a low, animal sound of release, and swept her into his arms effortlessly. He didn’t carry her with the polite grace of a nobleman. He was a caveman who carried her with the hungry urgency of a man who had been starving.
He laid her back against the vast expanse of the golden, four-poster bed, the silk sheets cool against her heated skin as he took off her fur and set it on a nearby chair. He looked down at her and growled, his eyes roving up and down her body as she sprawled out against the bed.
The white, sheer peignoir was gone in a frantic blur of movement as he slid it expertly down her body and set it on the chair.
Ambrose stripped away his shirt, his broad shoulders and the powerful, corded muscles of his back silhouetted against the moonlight.
He may as well have been a Greek god, carved in marble to Imogen’s every fantasy.
He was strong and tall, all man and raw energy.
When he joined her in bed, lying down next to her as he traced a finger up and down her silky white skin, the contact was a shock to the senses. The cool silk beneath her, the heavy, searing weight of him next to her as he leaned in, and the scent of him, all pine and peat and storm-air.
“You are a dream, my love,” Imogen said as she curled into him and kissed his forehead. “Etched from my very mind, made for me. I never thought I could be so happy.”
He moved closer to her and put his weight onto her with a desperate but reverent hunger. He put his mouth on hers, kissing her as he claimed her, trailing fire from the sensitive hollow of her throat to the arch of her ribs.
Imogen’s hands tangled in his golden hair, her back arching into him as his tongue left her mouth and inched lower.
His mouth traced the curve of her breast, her senses narrowing down to the friction of his skin against hers and the rhythmic, heavy pull of her own pulse as he settled on the soft bud and began to suckle.
“Duchess,” he rasped against her skin, his voice thick with a possessive heat he no longer tried to hide as he gave a small bite. “My wife. My life. My home. You are everything and you are mine.”
“Always,” she gasped, her legs winding around his waist, pulling him into her as she kissed his neck, moving her lips up to his soft earlobe and nibbling.
“You undo me, wife,” he rasped as he trailed his fingers to the center of her wanting, bringing his fingers in and out in a teasing pace that had her bucking her hips to meet him. “You are so ready for me. I am unsure I can wait much longer… but I know we need to savor this.”
“It’s like you know everything I need, Ambrose,” she cried out as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, grinding her body against his perfect touch.
“Touch me, Imogen,” he said, his voice low. “See what you do to me,” he growled as he took his other hand and placed it on hers, moving her hand down until it reached his hardness.
“Oh my god,” she cried out. “I need you. I need to feel you, to be one being, one entity.”
“Your wish is my command. We have the rest of our lives to do this. Every. Single. Night,” he said as he traced her body with his fingertips, like one would caress a gentle stream.
He entered her with a slow, powerful thrust that felt like the world finally clicking into place.
She had thought it would hurt, but all she felt was full, and ready and right.
It was a union of grit and grace, of blood and bone.
He didn’t rush. She knew that he wanted to feel every shuddering breath she drew, every involuntary cry that escaped her lips as he moved within her.
That drove her over the top even more than the feeling itself, knowing how badly he wanted her.
He pinned her hands to the pillows as he lay on top of her, his fingers interlaced with hers.
“Look in my eyes,” he cried out as he increased his pace. “Look at what you do to me, my beautiful wife.”
The friction and the sheer, overwhelming intimacy built like a tide hitting the cliffs, rising higher and higher until Imogen felt herself shattering.
Her world narrowed to the silver light, the scent of woodsmoke, and the man who was claiming her with every rhythmic stroke.
He removed himself then, and she let out a sigh, until he flipped her over onto her stomach.
“I’ve wanted to take you this way since the first moment I saw you, your perfect, round backside,” he cried as he slowly put himself inside of her, his hands wrapped tenderly around her stomach.
“You. Are. Mine.” He growled as he punctuated each thrust, hitting the deepest parts of her body, so hard she felt it in her belly.
“I feel like I am falling apart,” she cried.
“Are you all right, love?”
“I am more than all right, I am in the clouds. Just a little harder, Ambrose. Please. I need to feel all of you, fill me.”
Ambrose followed her command, his body tensing like a bowstring as he poured himself into her, his name a broken prayer on her lips.
“Ambrose,” she sighed, as she felt herself brought over the edge with him, her body tingling as if a million butterflies hummed inside of her.
As their breathing slowed and the mist began to crawl up toward the windows, Ambrose pulled the heavy duvet over them, cocooning them in the dark. He tucked her head under his chin, his hand stroking the long, smooth line of her hip.
The rhythmic percussion of the cool rain against the windowpane seemed to sync with the thunder of their hearts.
Ambrose didn’t just hold her as they came down, in their wedding bed.
He anchored her as the world settled back into its axis.
He had flipped onto his back, and Imogen lay draped across his chest, her skin flushed and hot.
“I did not know,” she whispered into the hollow of his throat, her voice a soft, velvet rasp. “I didn’t know a person could feel… unmade like that. As a girl, I read romance novels, heard people talking, but I did not know… I did not understand… Was I all right?” She asked nervously.
“You are everything, and you are more than perfect.”
“As are you, my love.”
Ambrose let out a long, shuddering breath, his fingers tracing the delicate curve of her spine with a reverence that bordered on the sacred.
“I spent years convincing myself that my blood was made of ice, Imogen. That I was a creature of stone and statute. But with you… I am just a man. I like who I am in your arms, in your gaze.”
He shifted slightly, pulling the heavy velvet duvet higher to shield them from the midnight chill of the Shropshire hills.
“I still cannot believe that I am so lucky,” he murmured, his lips pressing a firm, lingering kiss to her temple. “After the docks, after the near scandal, after the way I almost let you walk away… you still chose this. I am the luckiest man in the world.”
Imogen pulled back just enough to look at him. She reached up, her thumb brushing the stubble along his jawline.
“My mother spent her short life waiting for a man who would never truly claim her. I spent my life waiting for a moment when I wouldn’t have to hide who I was.
We aren’t just a marriage of convenience or a scandal for the ton to chew on.
We are the first real thing this house has seen in a century. They will write books about our love.”
Ambrose gripped her hand, his signet ring cold against her skin, but his palm was searingly hot.
“I will spend every day of the rest of my life ensuring you never regret that choice. There will be no more ghosts in these halls. No more silence. Just us, and the family we are building,” he said as he placed a hand on her belly.
“Go to sleep, my love,” he whispered, his voice a low, comforting sound in the dark.
“Your wish is my command, husband,” she said with a peaceful sigh, followed by a small yawn.
“The sun will rise on a world where you are cherished. And I will be right here, leading the charge.”
In the quiet of the Shropshire night, the Duke and his Duchess drifted into a deep, dreamy peace, finally whole in the heart of the wild English hills.
The End?