Epilogue
“Walk with me.”
Maribel looked up from the book she’d been reading to Oliver. Her husband stood in the doorway, coat discarded somewhere, shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows—the way he dressed now when working in the garden, despite the utter impropriety of a Duke doing as much. Soil still dusted his hands.
“Now?” She glanced toward the window. The afternoon had stretched into evening whilst they’d been occupied with tales of knights and dragons. “It’s nearly supper.”
“Now.” His grey eyes held hers with an intensity that made her pulse quicken. “Please.”
Oliver twisted round to peer at Thaddeus. “Are you taking Mama to see the roses? The yellow ones bloomed this morning. I counted seventeen.”
“Something like that.” Thaddeus’s mouth curved—not quite a smile, but close. “Can you spare her for a bit?”
“I suppose.” Oliver sighed with theatrical resignation. “But don’t let her get lost. She’s terrible with directions.”
“I am not terrible with directions. I merely took a wrong turn once—”
“Seventeen times,” Thaddeus said.
“That is a gross exaggeration—”
Thaddeus laughed, a twinkle in his eye. “Eighteen, if we count this morning when you wandered into the stables instead of the breakfast room.”
“The corridors all look the same in poor light.” She stood, abandoning the pretence of dignity. “And I found the breakfast room eventually.”
“After asking three footmen and a very confused stable boy.”
Oliver giggled. Maribel aimed a half-hearted glare at her husband, who merely extended his hand.
His palm was warm when she took it. Callused now—months of working alongside Oliver in the garden had left their mark. She rather liked it.
They walked through the house in comfortable silence, through corridors no longer strange, past rooms she’d claimed as her own. Out the terrace doors, down the stone steps, into the garden that had transformed from wilderness into wonder.
The evening light turned everything gold.
Roses climbed the old stone walls—deep crimson, pale pink, that buttery yellow Oliver had so clearly delighted in.
Lavender edged the paths, its scent rising warm on the breeze.
And there, beneath the jasmine arbour where that ancient stone bench sat cleared of ivy—
Maribel stopped walking.
Candles. Dozens of them in glass lanterns, casting soft light across the stone and the flowers and the bench where someone had scattered rose petals.
“Thaddeus.” Her voice came out rougher than intended. “What is this?”
He didn’t answer immediately. His hand tightened around hers as he guided her forward, toward that pool of candlelight, toward something she couldn’t quite name but felt building in her chest.
When they reached the bench, he released her hand. Stepped back. Drew a breath that made his shoulders rise and fall.
Then he dropped to one knee.
“We’re already married.” The words tumbled out before she could stop them. “You realise that, yes? The ceremony, the vows, the guests who did not know me at all and possibly gambled on the likelihood of the marriage ending abruptly…”
“I realise.” His mouth twitched despite the solemnity of his expression. “I was there. It was miserable.”
“It was rather grim.”
“The worst day of my life, if I’m honest.”
“Mine as well.” She swallowed against the sudden tightness in her throat. “Though it’s improved considerably since.”
“Has it?” He reached into his pocket and withdrew something small. A ring—emerald and gold, catching the candlelight. “I wondered.”
“Thaddeus—”
“Let me finish. I’ve practised this.” He cleared his throat.
“Six months ago, I stood in a church and promised to honour you, to cherish you, to remain by your side until death. I meant none of it. Or rather—I meant to fulfil my obligations, to do my duty, to provide you with the protection my name could offer. But I did not mean the words as they should be meant. I did not choose you. Scandal chose you for me. Necessity. Obligation.”
The evening breeze stirred his dark hair. A rose petal drifted past, landing on his shoulder.
“You deserved better,” he continued, his voice dropping lower.
“You deserved someone who looked at you and saw not a solution to a problem, but a woman worth wanting. Worth pursuing. Worth standing before God and witnesses and declaring that you had become essential to his existence.” He held up the ring.
“This was my mother’s. One of the few pieces she treasured above all the grand jewels in her collection.
She told me once that true love required no ostentation—that the simplest things, chosen with care, held more value than anything expensive could buy. ”
Maribel’s vision blurred. She blinked hard.
“I’m not good at this,” Thaddeus said. “At words, at feelings, at any of the things that apparently come naturally to men who weren’t raised by a father who believed affection was weakness. But I’m trying. For you. For Oliver. For the life we’ve built from the wreckage of that grim ceremony.”
He paused. Met her eyes.
“Maribel Eleanor Ashcroft Blackwood. Will you marry me? Not because society demands it. Not because Oliver needs us both. But because I love you. Because I cannot imagine waking to a morning that doesn’t begin with you stealing all the blankets and arguing with me about breakfast. Because you saw past my walls when everyone else simply avoided looking.
Because you taught me that control and connection aren’t enemies—that letting someone close doesn’t destroy you. It saves you.”
The tears spilled over. She let them fall.
“I want to choose you,” he said. “Properly. The way I should have done six months ago. Say yes.”
“Yes.” The word came out choked. “Of course yes. You ridiculous man, did you think I’d say anything else?”
He slipped the ring onto her finger—it settled beside her wedding band like it had always belonged there.
Then he was rising, pulling her close, kissing her in the golden light whilst the candles flickered and the roses swayed and somewhere in the house, Oliver was likely interrogating a footman about where they’d gone.
When they finally broke apart, both laughing and crying, Maribel pressed her forehead to his.
“When?” she asked.
“In three days. The same church. Julian’s already agreed to stand as witness, and Lady Eleanor has informed me—at great length—exactly how this ceremony should differ from the first disaster.”
“Oliver?”
“Ring bearer. He’s been practising with Thomas for a week. They’ve developed an entire elaborate processional involving military precision and hand signals.”
“Good heavens!”
“They’re taking it very seriously.”
“We’re going to regret that part of it.”
“Undoubtedly.” He kissed her again. “But we’ll regret it together.”
Three days passed by in no time at all, and it was with her heart beating wildly in her chest that Maribel found herself getting married again. To the same man. Fortunately, this time without the large amount of guests who did not care to know her or Thaddeus.
The chapel looked nothing like it had six months ago.
Flowers covered every surface—roses from the garden, lavender tied with cream ribbon, trailing ivy wound through the pews. Candles burned in neat rows along the windowsills, their light catching in the stained glass and scattering rainbows across the ancient stone floor.
Music played. Real music, not the hurried hymn that had accompanied that first grim march.
Maribel stood in the small antechamber, hands shaking as Eleanor adjusted her gown—the same ivory silk from before, but transformed. Lace at the collar now. Embroidered flowers along the hem. Cream roses woven through her hair.
“You’re fidgeting,” Eleanor murmured.
“I’m nervous.”
“You’re already married to the man. What’s there to be nervous about?”
“What if he changes his mind? Not about being married to me, but… about loving me.”
“Then he’s a fool, and we’ll drown him in the duck pond.” Eleanor stepped back, eyes bright. “But he won’t. I’ve seen the way that man looks at you. Like you hung the moon and stars and possibly invented sunshine.”
“That’s absurd.”
“That’s love, darling.” She squeezed Maribel’s hands. “Your grandmother would burst with pride.”
A knock. Oliver’s voice, high and urgent: “It’s time! Papa says to hurry before the candles burn down!”
Eleanor opened the door. Oliver stood there in his finest suit, the ring cushion clutched so tightly his knuckles had gone white. Thomas hovered behind him, equally formal, equally nervous.
“You look beautiful,” Oliver breathed.
“And you look very handsome.” Maribel knelt, straightening his cravat. “Are you ready?”
“I practised seventy-three times.”
“Then you’ll be perfect.”
She took his free hand. Together they walked toward the chapel doors.
The music swelled. The doors opened.
Thaddeus stood at the altar in dark grey, Julian beside him.
When his eyes found hers, everything else vanished—the flowers, the candles, the gathered witnesses.
Just him. Just that look on his face that said he’d been waiting for this moment, this choice, this beginning that should have been theirs from the start.
Oliver squeezed her hand. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
They walked forward together. And this time, when Maribel reached the altar, when Thaddeus took her hand and the vicar began speaking the familiar words, she meant every syllable.
“I, Maribel, take you, Thaddeus—”
“—to have and to hold—”
“—for better, for worse—”
“—to love and to cherish—”
“—as long as we both shall live.”
His voice when he repeated the vows was steady. The ring he slipped onto her finger—a new band, woven gold that caught the candlelight—settled beside the emerald like they were made for each other.
“I now pronounce you husband and wife.” The vicar smiled. “Again. With considerably more enthusiasm this time. You may kiss your bride, Your Grace.”
Thaddeus cupped her face in his hands, thumbs brushing across her cheekbones. “Hello, wife.”
“Hello, husband.”
He kissed her as though they’d invented the practice themselves. As though nothing else mattered—not propriety, not witnesses, not the small boy making exaggerated gagging noises beside them.
When they finally broke apart, the chapel erupted in applause.
Oliver launched himself at them both, wrapping his arms around their legs. “You did it! You’re married again! Does this mean we get cake?”
“There’s cake,” Julian confirmed, grinning. “An enormous cake. Possibly the largest cake in England.”
“Can I have the first piece?”
“After your mama and papa,” Eleanor said, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief that had seen considerable use. “Honestly. The boy has no concept of proper order.”
“He’s five,” Maribel said, laughing through her tears.
“Nearly five and a half,” Oliver corrected. “I’m very grown-up for my age.”
“Very grown-up indeed,” Thaddeus agreed, reaching down to ruffle his hair. “Especially when you’re demanding cake.”
They walked back down the aisle together—three of them now, instead of two strangers bound by obligation. Music played. Light streamed through the stained glass. Outside, the summer evening waited, warm and full of promise.
Eleanor caught Maribel’s arm as they emerged into the sunshine. “That,” she said, her voice thick with emotion, “was a proper wedding.”
“It was, wasn’t it?”
“Your grandmother would have wept through the entire ceremony.”
“You wept through the entire ceremony.”
“I’m old. I’m allowed.” Eleanor squeezed her hand. “Be happy, darling. You’ve earned it.”
Maribel looked at Thaddeus, who was currently crouched beside Oliver and Thomas, both boys talking at him with wild gestures whilst Julian laughed at something one of them said. Her husband caught her eye and smiled—that rare, unguarded expression that still made her breath catch.
“I think I am,” she said softly. “I think we all are.”
And standing there in the golden evening light, surrounded by the people who had become her family, Maribel believed it.
Love had not been easy. It had not been simple or straightforward or anything like the fairy tales promised. But it had been worth every moment—every argument, every wall that had to come down, every careful step toward trust.
They had chosen each other. Properly this time.
And that, she thought, made all the difference.
The End?