Epilogue
Where a countess makes her husband extremely happy.
Langley Park, Two Years Later
The late-afternoon sun spilled molten gold across the Derbyshire hills, setting stone walls and hedgerows ablaze in copper. From the nursery window, Isabella watched the last light catch along the ridge beyond Langley Park, the sky thinning toward rose and smoke-blue as autumn settled in.
Behind her, her son lay tucked beneath a soft woolen blanket, one small hand fisted near his cheek, lashes dark against the plump curve.
Four months old, and Anthony was already stubborn, which meant she didn’t dare waste the rare, blessed stillness.
She pressed a lingering kiss to his temple, nodded to the nurse, and slipped from the room as quietly as her skirts would allow.
The air outside held the clean bite of early fall.
Woodsmoke drifted up from the village below, mingling with the scent of damp earth and turned fields.
Isabella crossed the sweep of grass beyond the drive, her boots brushing through clover as twilight thinned toward evening.
Near the far boundary, at the edge of a stand of ash trees, the gamekeeper’s new cabin stood square and clean-lined—roof true, door newly hung.
She found Ever there, testing a hinge with deliberate care, as if no detail were too small to earn his attention.
She stopped a few paces away, love catching low in her chest. His dark hair had grown a shade too long, brushing his collar and curling at the nape.
The sun bronzed his skin to a deep, burnished gold, his rolled sleeves revealing forearms corded and strong.
Buckskin trousers molded to his thighs as he shifted his weight, the fabric fitted to muscle earned by work, not vanity.
London, and the profession that had once claimed him with its risks and isolation, had long since fallen away.
Ever had taken to managing the estate with steady determination, roofs patched, accounts straightened, fields put back into sense, then went hunting for smarter ways forward.
Langley Park, the tenants, and the village weren’t trappings of rank.
They were the work, and the people, and he meant to do right by them.
She loved him most in these quiet moments, unconcerned with how an earl ought to appear.
He listened and remembered names. He noticed when a roof leaked or a child went without boots.
He cared for everyone his estate sheltered, though his heart was fiercest for his family.
She and Anthony had flourished under that protective devotion.
As for her, there’d been curiosity at first about the new countess.
A few polite hesitations, nothing that endured.
It was remarkable how swiftly wariness softened when met with sincerity—and opportunity.
Twice weekly, the blue parlor at Langley filled with village women bent over linen and silk as Isabella taught them to stitch, to cut, to embroider with steady hands, the soft snip of shears and pull of thread rising with their laughter.
They were selling their items at the local mercantile and even in a few shops in London.
She hadn’t known, before this, how much she needed something that was hers.
Isabella and Ever were building a life here. For their children. Their grandchildren.
Her sigh broke the silence, and Ever glanced over his shoulder, his face highlighted in steely shadow. As it always did when she was close to him, her belly quivered, her chest lifting on a tight breath. The change in him was immediate as well, his concentration dissolving into patent tenderness.
Without comment, his arms opened, and she raced into them. Rising to her toes, she caught his mouth in a hungry kiss. Ever went still for the briefest instant before he answered her, his hands tightening at her waist as he drew her hard against him.
They hadn’t made love since before Anthony’s birth. She’d wanted to, but her husband had been decidedly anxious about her health.
Isabella broke first, though only to reach behind him and shove the door wide. “Inside,” she murmured, backing him over the threshold.
“Isa,” he warned softly, laughter and want roughening his voice as she guided him through the entrance. “Don’t toy with me. I’ve missed you too much.”
Her hand slid down his chest, over his lean belly, until her palm found him hard beneath the buckskin. “Then stop talking.”
“Anthony?” His voice dropped, threaded with caution and hope.
“Asleep,” she said, her thumb dragging once along his length and drawing a ragged moan from him. “We’ll be quick. There’s nothing beneath this gown to slow us down.”
The restraint she’d known so well these past months flickered in his eyes, then vanished. He caught her against him again, hunger no longer tempered, his mouth finding hers as though he meant to make up for every careful, patient second he’d denied them.
She gasped as her back met the door, his hands firm at her hips as he lifted her without effort.
The world narrowed to the press of him, the solid strength of his body bracing hers.
Her skirts tangled between them; she gathered them impatiently as his mouth left hers only long enough to trail along her throat.
His teeth nipped her skin, not gentle anymore.
“Isa,” he said hoarsely. “I’ve counted the nights.”
“Show me.” She wrapped her legs around him, and something in him unraveled.
There was heat. Passion. And laughter, as always with them, breathless and bright.
His trouser button skittered across the floor; her bodice ties strained as his fingers tugged them loose.
She lifted her chin, pulse jolting as he aligned himself, the dare still trembling on her lips when he slid inside her.
The first shock of joining stole the merriment from them both, months of self-control giving way in a single, reckless thrust. He moved without gentleness, urgency matching her own, the door quaking faintly behind her.
Her fingers dug into his shoulders, nails biting as she met him just as fiercely, her hunger freed.
It ended not tenderly but in a rush of gasping, consuming need. Isabella buried her face against his neck as the tremors took her, his answering shudder following, the small cabin holding the echo long after their bodies went still.
Brow pressed to hers, Ever closed his eyes. “I’d nearly forgotten what it was to have you like this. I don’t know how it can be better, each time, than the last. But it is.”
“I’m yours,” Isabella said softly. “All of me.”
He smiled, dusting his thumb along her lower lip. “My perfect countess,” he murmured. “And still my unruly little sprite. This is what I dreamed of, Isa. A family. Love. You and Anthony are everything.”
She held his gaze, the green of his eyes as fascinating as the first moment she’d seen them. “Then I suppose you’ll have to keep me.”
Ever didn’t hesitate. “Always.”
And he did.
Thank you for reading Ever and Isa’s sizzling love story!