Epilogue
Tessa found her husband at his desk after the last show of the evening.
He was bent over a ledger but looked up and fell into the back of his chair when she slipped through the door.
When she sat on the edge of his desk, he pushed his accounting books aside and grasped her ankle, removed her slipper.
She let her head fall back with a sigh as he stroked up her leg.
“Is there a reason for this visit, wife?”
“I’ve quite forgotten. Keep going.”
He stood and stepped between her legs, lifting her skirts so they puddled around her thighs, silk falling across forgotten lines of numbers. “Gladly.” He stooped for a kiss.
No matter how many times he kissed her (countless times now), her stomach dropped, and her heart swooped, and she clung to him like he was life itself. When he pulled away, she was breathless but managed to say, “Oh yes, I remember now.”
“Remember what? That you want to go home?”
“Yes,” she moaned against his lips. “No.” She frowned, shook her head. Peg and Meg said they saw someone lurking backstage.”
Remmy frowned, too. “I’ll bet it’s Islington. Or his secretary. He can’t stand that my sets are better than his.”
She puffed up with pride. The backdrops she painted had become a major source of the Folly’s success in the last three years. She’d hand-painted every one, and while the scandal of their marriage might have brought visitors to the theatre, her paintings kept them coming back.
He pulled her off the desk and out of his office. The corridor was dimly lit, and backstage somehow even darker, but the slender woman standing tall and peering at one of Tessa’s backdrops was illuminated by an aura of candlelight behind her. Her red hair glowed.
Tessa pushed past Remmy with a gasp. “Verity?”
The young woman turned her head, her face breaking into a grin. “Tessa!”
The sisters ran into one another’s arms.
Tessa hugged Verity tightly then held her out at arm’s length.
“What are you doing here?” It had not been three years since they’d last seen one another.
During Remmy and Tessa’s first visit to Crossvale after their wedding, Verity had marched right into the house and demanded to see Tessa.
And before their visit was done, her mother had invited Tessa for tea.
An awkward affair, but the silent hug on departing, her mother’s arms tight around Tessa’s shoulders, had been worth it. “Does Mother know?”
“I didn’t tell her I was leaving, but I did leave a note, and surely by now she’s found it. She told me this morning I was acting like a heathen and if I did not rethink my actions, she would wash her hands of me.”
“Oh, Verity.” Tessa hugged her again, poured all her love into it. “How did you get here?”
“And what heathenish sort of thing did you do?” Remmy drawled. He was leaning against a wall, arms crossed, ankles crossed, not sounding cross at all.
Verity’s face flamed. “I kissed someone.”
“Who?” Tessa demanded.
“Thomas.”
It couldn’t be. She had to check. “Thomas Ives?”
Verity nodded, biting her bottom lip, and Remmy doubled over in laughter, slapping his knee.
“Of course,” he said through great guffaws. “It’s only right a King girl and an Ives boy create a swath of chaos across the county.”
“It’s not that funny,” Verity grumbled. “I was hoping I could stay with you. I know it’s been years since we’ve talked, but—”
“Of course you can.” Tessa hugged her sister again then guided her toward Remmy’s office. He followed behind them, still chuckling. “Why didn’t you ask Remmy’s mother for help?”
“To keep the peace as much as possible, I suppose.”
She was so much taller than she’d been the last time Tessa had seen her, but just as confident, just as bright. Three years had not crushed her, and a weight of heavy doubt Tessa had worn and only shared with Remmy in her darkest hours, lifted.
He strode ahead of them and opened the door to his office.
As Verity passed through, she shot her brother-in-law an arch look. “I’ve a play for you to produce.”
“I’m sure you do,” he said.
“It’s my own.” She waltzed in and sat in the chair behind his desk, spine straight, smile wide.
“I’m not surprised.” Remmy stood, legs apart in the center of his office, and Tessa slipped against his side. He wrapped an arm around her and said, “How did you get here?”
“Oh, you know…” She stood and wandered round the office, touching this, peering at that. “Various means of locomotion.”
“Verity,” Remmy said.
Tessa poked him in the ribs. “She’s had a trying time of it. We can discover details later.”
“Verity,” Remmy said again with the sort of voice only someone well acquainted with making trouble but no longer did so could produce.
Verity hunched her shoulders and winced.
Well, now Tessa was curious, too. “How did you get here?”
Verity lifted her chin and a brow, too. “Thomas.”
Remmy dropped his head back with a groan. “She’s only sixteen.”
“You’re going to have to have a talk with your brother.”
Verity stamped a foot. “You’re both going to leave him alone!”
Remmy strode to the back door of his office and flung it open. “Both of you out. We’re going home.”
Verity stomped all the way into the mews then onto the coach, then into their townhouse. She didn’t stop stomping until she’d been fed and bathed and given a room of her own. A room that had been waiting for her. She’d fallen to sleep with a smile on her face.
When Tessa was finally alone with her husband, curled together in the middle of their bed, her head resting on his chest, her hair tangled round his fingers, she said, “Is this fine? Are you sure?”
He kissed the top of her head. “Absolutely. We always knew this day would come. But Thomas! I’ll have to go round the London residence tomorrow. That’s likely where he is. What the hell can he be thinking?”
“You should know, being his brother. And a rake.”
“I’m your husband. And not a rake.”
She kissed his chest and lifted her leg higher on his body. “You are. But only for me.”
“Forever for you.” He kissed her.
And kissing turned to touching and touching became a symphony of heated breaths and eager tongues, suppressed laughter and swallowed screams. And passion turned to sleep, peaceful and deep, because friendship had, in its own time, turned to love.