Epilogue
After an elegant society wedding in Bath and a blissful wedding night in their new home in the Royal Crescent, the Duke and Duchess of Somerset stood naked together watching the sun rise over the Crescent Fields.
“My darling Charlotte, you are mine and I am yours now as long as we both shall live.”
Charlotte gave a great sigh of happiness, entwined her arms around Edward’s neck, and covered his face with soft, urgent kisses.
Edward returned her passion with great ardor, then gently released her hands and whispered, “I cannot wait ’til we go to Lyme for our honeymoon later today—just think! We can swim naked under the stars together this evening.”
“And love each other as nature intended. Oh, Edward…”
After a while Edward turned round and opened the central drawer of the dressing table behind him. “I have something for you.” He took out a small leather box and presented it to his new wife.
A smile hovered on Charlotte’s lips as she lifted the lid. Inside, a diamond-encrusted gold locket lay on a bed of bright-sapphire velvet. “Oh! How beautiful. Thank you, Edward.”
She lifted up her long red tresses and Edward fastened the gift around her slender neck.
“Open the locket,” urged Edward. “See what is inside.”
Charlotte carefully pulled back the catch. “Merciful heavens! This looks familiar.” She unfolded the scrap of paper and smoothed it out with trembling fingers. “Ah! I did not know you had rescued this.”
Tears of happiness flowed as she read Charlotte Somerset written in her own hand—the words she had penned in her attic room in Bath on the first day she had met her duke and had later discarded on the beach at Lyme Regis; Edward had written underneath in his usual spidery but flamboyant scrawl,
My duchess, I will love you forever.
The End