Epilogue
Six months later
The frigid winter breeze nipped at Christiana’s cheeks as she stepped out to admire the work around the house. The former moat was filled in, men carrying soil in wheelbarrows, packing the dirt down and adding gravel. A small path led to the formal gardens, which were just beginning to sprout.
Seeds had been planted, and the blooms were beginning. In a week, she and Hugh intended to travel with Amelia for her presentation and London Season. When they returned in the summer, the garden would be in full swing.
Much as she was excited to navigate London as a duchess, her heart would forever be here, in the corner of the world they had carved for themselves.
Warm arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her against a broad chest. She relaxed into the embrace, sinking into his strength. This had become her normal: finding him wherever she went and knowing with every glance, touch, and word that he loved her. This was the life she had chosen for herself.
Hugh still kept the masks for certain social situations, but they were no longer shields. Rather, he had them painted in dashing colors—red, gold, deep blue—and wore them with pride.
In two days, they would host a farewell ball for Amelia. Two of the guests included Amelia’s school friends, all of whom would be debuting with her. The house would be full, the ballroom once again in use.
Christiana slid her hand across Hugh’s, lacing her fingers with his.
Four months ago, she’d lost a baby in a particularly fearsome bleed—and to her relief, Hugh had grieved the loss as much as she had.
For a while, they’d changed the manner of their joining so there was no danger of conceiving.
Not to mention, the necessity of chaperoning Amelia, something she could not do with child.
Once they were back from London, they would try again. Christiana’s heart was ready to expand with a family.
He kissed her cheek. “I should have known I would find you out in the cold.”
“Admiring the lack of moat,” she said. “You must admit it’s an improvement on the original.”
“Indubitably.” He pressed the cold tip of his nose against her cheek, laughing when she shuddered. “Are you satisfied?”
“I think it will be lovely come next summer.”
“I have no doubt.” His hand crept up to her breast, and she stopped him before it traveled too high.
Although they stood with their backs to the house, it was still conceivable that someone could see them.
Amelia, perhaps. As adventurous as Hugh sometimes got, Christiana drew the line at being watched by unsuspecting servants; she would wish that on no one.
“Not here,” she murmured. “Inside. I propose we make use of the billiard table.”
“You intend to distract me again?”
She hummed in amusement, recalling the way she had stood behind him, using her hands on his cock while he’d attempted to play.
They had teased each other as they’d played, until eventually neither of them could bear it any longer, and he’d laid her across the table and taken her there and then.
“This time,” she said, “I could use my mouth.”
He shifted behind her, showing the effect her words were having on him. His teeth grazed her ear. “Tempting. But I have a different proposal.”
“Oh?”
He spun her to face him, taking a strip of material from his pocket. She frowned at it in confusion as he pulled her glasses from her face and wrapped the blindfold in its place. Carefully, his fingers gentle, he tied it behind her head, ensuring he didn’t trap her hair in the knot.
“There,” he said. “Can you see anything?”
She remained entirely still, letting her other senses fill the gap her lack of vision had left. When she’d been a child, before she’d had her spectacles, she had learned to navigate the world largely through her other senses, using hearing and touch to make up for what her sight lacked.
Perhaps that was why she remained so calm now. Or perhaps it was because Hugh had been the one to blindfold her, and she trusted him implicitly.
“I can see nothing,” she said. “What is this for?”
“You’ll see. Come with me.” His hand slid down her arm to her hand, fingers lacing with hers. Obeying the urging of his body, she followed him, his footsteps crunching on gravel.
“How far are we going?” she asked.
“A little farther. We’re approaching steps. Careful now.”
Testing the ground with her toe, she descended the steps, his hands warm and solid on hers.
There were only two sets of steps this close to the house—ones that led into the walled kitchen gardens and others that led down to the duck pond.
The number of stairs here suggested this was the duck pond.
But what did Hugh have for her here? He’d been doing some repairs to the gardeners’ sheds there and had erected a boathouse, but she hadn’t seen it finished.
When he’d announced his plans, she had agreed not to disrupt the workers or take a look before it was done.
“Not far now,” he said, his voice by her ear.
He led her along a path, and a fountain tinkled to her left.
He led her a few more steps, then stopped, putting gentle pressure on her hand so she also stopped.
His fingers grazed her cheeks, and he took hold of her blindfold, pulling it over her head.
The next second, he restored her glasses, perching them on her nose.
Christiana blinked at the sight before her.
At first, she couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing.
The building was small, but it was unlike anything she had ever seen before.
There were two flat wooden strips standing directly upright on the roof, connected to a contraction that looked rather like a rope and pulley system.
The whitewashed building otherwise looked perfectly ordinary, with a single door standing in the center before her.
Hugh smiled at the look of confusion on her face. “I consulted with an architect and had this designed for you.”
“What is it?” she asked, wondering if she were going mad. Surely, she must be going mad—surely, this could not be what her senses told her it was.
“You once told me you wished to be a patron of the arts. Every opportunity you get, you read books about astronomy and our understanding of the night sky. You have dreamed about the heavens since you were a girl, and of owning a telescope and making your own discoveries. So I wanted to grant that dream.” He handed her a key and motioned to the door. “Open it, Chris. It’s yours.”
Like she were standing outside her body rather than within it, she inserted the key into the lock and turned. Tumblers clicked. She twisted the handle; the door opened.
She stepped inside.
Above, there was a square hole in the roof, open to the sky. The floor was tile, black and white, the walls neatly whitewashed. This was an empty canvas, hers to do with as she wished.
And in the middle of the roof stood a large telescope. The cylindrical tube of the telescope itself rested against a large frame, the enormous lens pointing at the hole.
“It’s a Herschel,” he said. “From what I understand, his telescopes are the best. And you have an interest in that gentleman’s work.”
Christiana turned to face him, her hands clapped over her mouth, her eyes wide.
For the longest time, she had made do with books, purchasing more and devouring them.
Drawings and prints of the planets as seen through others’ telescopes.
After her marriage, she had given up on her dream of becoming someone who saw celestial bodies in her own right—but she ought to have known better.
They shared their dreams, just as they shared everything else.
Hugh’s face split into his lopsided grin. “You like it then?”
“You commissioned this from Mr. Herschel?”
“Was I mistaken to do so? I understand the king himself has a telescope. Rather larger than this one, I’m afraid, but if you have a fancy for a larger one, we can arrange for one to be made in time.”
“This must have cost—”
“Cost is no object,” he told her sternly. “You ought to know that by now.”
She did. And she was so desperately grateful.
With a wordless squeal, she threw herself into his arms. He caught her, spinning her around so her feet left the ground.
When she came back into herself, she stared up into his imperfectly perfect face, feeling as though she were glowing from the inside out.
“I expect I could also arrange you entry into the Royal Society,” he said. “All you need to do is say the word.”
Her Hugh, who had reentered Society with a vengeance, in part to satisfy her need to see him reinstated and in part because he was a duke.
He considered there to be little point in having such power if he did not use it for good.
London was adjusting itself to his reemergence, and he was discovering how it felt to throw his weight around as a peer of the realm.
Christiana suspected he enjoyed it no little amount.
“The Royal Society,” she said, tasting the words to see how they fit. “As an honorary member, I presume.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Then no, my darling. This is enough. Thank you.” She reached up to kiss him, and he returned the kiss with enthusiasm, his hands sliding down her backside to cup her thighs. Already, he was hard and wanting.
“I love seeing you light up,” he said against her mouth. “Have I ever told you how much I adore your passion?”
She laughed. “For you or for learning?”
“I’m delighted to be a member of that list.”
“Oh, Hugh.” She tightened her arms around his neck, letting him carry her to the wall and fumble with her skirts. She had once assumed this hunger for each other would fade, but now she knew better, and she delighted in every second he craved her body.
After a childhood of being considered ugly, she would now have a lifetime of being desired.
“Can we stay here tonight?” she asked as his fingers parted her thighs and plunged straight inside her. She gasped.
“I’ll arrange to have a bed made up here,” he said. “But I’m afraid you will have to spend the night of the ball at the house.”
“Acceptable.” She arched her back, and he pinched her nipples. “Have I ever mentioned I love you?”
“You can always stand to do so again.” Deeming her ready for him—she always was now—he freed himself from his fall front and slid inside. Finally. Every time felt like the first time.
“I love you,” she whispered as he ravished her in her very own observatory.
Her father had perished shortly after Hugh had purchased his estate.
She had visited once after his death, making plans to restore what was now hers—but this was now where she belonged.
With Hugh, in his arms, with him inside her, living the life that they’d made together.
She cupped his scarred, ruined face in her hands. “I see you,” she told him—urgently, desperately, so in love with him, it hurt.
He held her tight to him as he thrust inside again and again, each time a reckoning. “I see you,” he panted into her ear. “And you are everything.”
She was everything; she had everything.
Sometimes love took—but other times, it gave, and when it did, it never stopped.
So she held on to her husband, letting him break her apart and put her together again a little more whole than before.