Epilogue
There were few places Julia truly believed she did not belong. She had quite happily stepped into the Almonry Den what felt like a lifetime ago. Not once but twice had she stepped into an alleyway when, on the balance of probability, she should not have done.
But nowhere had felt so utterly intimidating as this.
A voice tutted behind her. “Do not tell me you are having second thoughts!”
Julia turned to her mother, who was wearing a resplendent new gown and a bonnet with more feathers in it than one bird surely contained.
She swallowed. “No?”
She was not having second thoughts, not exactly. It was more…well. Once she stepped across that threshold, everything would change. She did not want to go back on her word, but—
“Julia Dryden,” said Mrs. Dryden sternly. “You love him?”
Julia blinked. “Of course, but—”
“You loved him long before you were engaged to him, didn’t you?”
It was such an unusual sort of conversation with her mother, Julia hardly knew where to look. The trouble was, standing as they were right outside St. Swithuns, her in her wedding gown, the two of them receiving quite a significant amount of attention already.
“Yes,” she said quietly, cheeks flushing under the thin lace veil her mother had declared “perfection” in Mr. Rivers’ haberdashery. “Yes, I loved him before he proposed matrimony.”
“Before you knew he was a duke?”
There was an arch look in her mother’s eyes Julia had never seen before. The look one may give an equal, once that person had been found out in a rather clever subterfuge.
And Julia was wrong. Her cheeks could darken even further. “Mama, I—”
“I was always worried about you getting married, you know.”
The words did not make sense. How could they? Julia had known her mother wished her to marry since the moment she had neared her entrance into Society.
“But you always—”
“Oh, I always, I always,” Mrs. Dryden said, fussing with the cuff of her gown. “One day you will learn, my dear, when you have children of your own—” Julia’s stomach jolted “—that there is nothing more wonderful than a daughter who knows her own mind, until she is yours.”
A slow smile crept across Julia’s face. “Truly?”
Her mother lifted her gaze and beamed at her child. “Truly. Now, am I going to be rid of you easily, or will I have to scandalize the whole of the ton and march you down that aisle?”
Though a small part of Julia wished she could see her mother do something so outrageous, she acquiesced to what was proper.
“No, you go inside Mama and take your seat. I shall be in directly.”
Her mother fixed a stern look on her. “I should think so.”
She bustled into the church.
Julia took a deep breath. What was it, holding her back? She loved Lawrence, of that she was sure. She wanted to be his wife. Longed to be his wife.
Wanted to wake up every morning and enjoy the delights they had snatched in dark corners the last few weeks…
So what was so difficult about taking a step forward?
Organ music echoed through the air. The wedding march. It had begun, and all it needed was—
“There you are.”
Julia smiled with relief as Donald appeared, offering his arm.
“May I?”
“I don’t know,” she teased as they crossed the threshold and into the cool of the church porch. “Have you any more objections to me marrying a boxer?”
Her brother winced as they stepped to the end of the nave, his whisper only for her ears. “You know perfectly well I would have never said that if I had known…”
Donald’s words faded into obscurity as she glanced up and saw, waiting for her at the end of the aisle…
A tall man. Handsome. Dark. With hair that never seemed to stay tidy.
The Duke of Penshaw.
Julia took a step forward.
“Hang about, I’m meant to be taking you!”
Whether she took Donald or he took her, it did not really matter. All Julia cared about was the way Lawrence’s gaze, the instant it met hers, quieted all fears and worries. How the frustrations of the past week became inconsequential, mere adventures to get her to here.
They had reached the front of the nave so swiftly, Julia hardly knew what was happening as her hand was removed from Donald’s arm and placed on Lawrence’s.
She looked up at him with wide eyes. “Lawrence—”
“Jules,” he said with a gentle smile. “You look beautiful.”
Heat seared her cheeks. “You have to say that.”
“Probably,” he murmured with a wry smile as the vicar started welcoming the congregation. “But that doesn’t make it any less true.”
“You don’t look too shabby yourself,” Julia whispered, looking him up and down appreciatively.
The fashionable breeches he now wore, in stark contrast to the loose ones he had worn as a boxer, gave a much better sense of the curve of his buttocks.
With horror, Julia tried to remind herself she should not be thinking such things at all, let alone in a church! At her own wedding!
Lawrence’s fingers tightened on hers. “I know what you’re thinking.”
His voice was so low, she almost did not catch it—but her stomach flipped over as she did. “Lawrence!”
“You are thinking,” he whispered quietly, “how much more pleasant it was at the Almonry Den where we could be ourselves, instead of standing here like statues with an audience.”
Julia stifled a giggle. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw the church was indeed packed with those who looked as though rods had been shoved up their—
“—take this woman—”
Turning around hurriedly, Julia repeated the vows in a haze of excitement and affection. After all, had they not made more important vows to each other when wrapped in each other’s arms? Were not the whispered promises made when making love far deeper than these?
“—pronounce you man and wife.”
Julia blinked up at the man who had ceased to be her lover and was now her husband.
“You’re my husband,” she whispered, unable to help herself.
There was a twinkle in Lawrence’s eye. “Whatever you say, Your Grace.”
It was almost laughable. Your Grace! What a thing to—
Julia’s smile faded as she and Lawrence were bid to sit down and hear the sermon. She was a duchess. The Duchess of Penshaw.
This thought crowded her mind so utterly, she was barely able to think of anything else until she was standing arm in arm with the man she loved in the impressive hallway where he had first revealed his true identity.
“Such a glorious wedding, I thought,” boomed Lady Romeril, who had refused to take the delicate hint of a cough from a Penshaw footman and was entirely monopolizing them. “But then of course, the Duke of Penshaw was never going to stint on the details, was he?”
“I suppose not,” Julia said weakly.
The Duke of Penshaw. She was married to the Duke of Penshaw.
Fingers tightened around her hand. She looked up into a handsome and smiling face.
Lawrence. That was who she had married. Lawrence, the boxer. Lawrence, the man who saved her. Lawrence, the man who loved her even though she was so far outside his social circles.
The painful pattering of fear faded away.
“—I said, do you not agree, Your Grace?”
Julia blinked. Lady Romeril was looking at her most sternly, though it appeared that was the only way she could look. “I beg your pardon?”
Lady Romeril sniffed. “You have much to learn about being a lady, if you ask me.”
With a sweep of her skirts, she strode away.
Lawrence chuckled, immediately putting Julia’s mind at rest. “Old baggage.”
“Lawrence!”
“Well, she is,” he said quietly, pulling her into the drawing room, which was quieter. “Goodness, I don’t know what I was thinking permitting my sister to invite so many people.”
Julia smiled weakly. Lawrence’s sister was not someone she knew well, though she had seemed perfectly pleasant the handful of times they had met. “Well, you are a duke.”
“Only on paper.”
“The ducal deeds, yes,” Julia teased as they stood beside a table covered in wedding presents.
Lawrence made a face that made her stomach twist with desire. Oh, if only everyone could just leave…
But then something strange caught her eye. “What is that?”
Lying there on the table, unwrapped and seemingly poorly made, was…
“Is that a horseshoe?” Julia asked curiously, leaning forward to pick it up.
It was indeed. Badly constructed, she could see that better now she was holding it. No horse would wear a shoe like this unless it was very unwell.
But for some reason, it caused a great smile on Lawrence’s face. “Oh, how fantastic! It’s from Dulverton!”
“Where?” Julia asked curiously, turning it over in her hands.
“Dulverton. The Duke of Dulverton. He’s a…friend.”
She raised an eyebrow as she handed the rather odd wedding gift to him. “Friend of the duke or friend of Lawrence?”
Her husband winked. “The duke, I’m afraid, but don’t worry, he is…as accustomed to danger as I am.”
Curiosity piqued, Julia leaned forward discreetly. “Really?”
Lawrence laughed. “Last I heard, he was on the hunt for someone rather particular.”
“A blacksmith?”
“Sort of,” he said evasively. “Now, don’t ask me anymore, you know I cannot speak openly about these things.”
It was most provoking, Julia thought as she took back the horseshoe, but then, that was what came of marrying a duke in danger. Lawrence was brave, braver than most. He had put his own safety on the line in the hope of finding a dangerous man—finding and capturing, which he had done.
She supposed she could let him have a few secrets. After all, she had one of her own…
“I promise I will tell you all about it, one day,” Lawrence said, lifting a hand to cup her cheek. “I would never willingly keep anything from you, Jules, you know that.”
Julia’s heart sang. Well, it had been a few months…there was surely no harm in telling him now…
“Lawrence,” she said quietly.
“Hmm?”
“I need to tell you something.”
Lawrence’s eyes sparkled. “Don’t tell me that you’re secretly a countess. Isn’t it a little late for that?”
Julia smiled, excitement fizzing in her bones. “No, I am not a countess, I am a duchess. And he—or she—will be born with a title, unlike myself. I hope they are like you,” she said wistfully, Lawrence’s eyes widened in shock. “With my hair though, no offense.”
Lawrence’s jaw dropped. “No, you’re not—you can’t be—”
“At least two months gone,” Julia confirmed sleepily, a smile dazzling across her face. “Though do not tell my mother, I will never hear the end of—”
Her husband crushed her into his arms none too gently, Julia thought with a laugh, considering her condition. “Oh, Julia!”
“Now, don’t you get all excited,” she said, throat choking with emotion. “I am more than enough excited for the both of us!”
Lawrence thrust her back, his hands on her shoulders, as his eyes searched hers. “But—oh, Jules, a baby!”
“A baby!”
They turned hurriedly as Mrs. Dryden screeched the words, dropping her glass of wine on the floor.
Julia groaned as the glass shattered and murmurs started up all around them. “That’s done it. Anyone who can do the math—”
“I don’t care,” said Lawrence sharply, kissing her full on the mouth before pulling back and beaming. “And she can be anything she wants—”
“Or he,” Julia reminded him as her mother starting sobbing hysterically on the other side of the room. “It could be a boy.”
“Whatever they are,” Lawrence said, eyes bright. “They will have the freedom to be anything!”
Julia’s arm crept around her husband. “Anything? Even a boxer?”
He chuckled as he pressed his lips to her forehead. “Even that. As long as she takes lessons from me first. No daughter of mine is going into the ring without knowing everything I know.”
Julia snorted, happiness pouring through her veins. “And then I’ll take it from there.”