Epilogue #2
Eliza Hartley had paused, holding a stack of neatly folded aprons. She looked Thelma up and down, taking in the fine silk of her day dress, and then looked at Liliana, who was happily chewing on a wooden block on the rug.
"Miss Preston, Your Grace," Miss Hartley had said, her voice dry and completely devoid of offense, "I have worked for three different Earls and a Baronet who regularly drank himself into the rosebushes.
I have been placed in far worse situations by people who actually used their own names.
You kept the baby alive, you secured the position of duchess, and His Grace paid me triple the intercepted travel fare as an apology. "
Miss Hartley offered a pragmatic shrug. "As far as I am concerned, this particular disaster came with a remarkably good ending."
The real Miss Hartley had proven to be a fiercely capable nursemaid. Mrs. Ames, despite her initial shock at the scandal, had chosen to stay on as housekeeper. Patricia had been formally offered the promotion to the head of the household staff.
Patricia flatly refused the title, claiming she belonged in the kitchen, though she immediately began issuing aggressive, terrifying orders to the footmen and maids with the absolute authority of a general.
She was the housekeeper in all but name, and Roman suspected she might never officially accept the title.
The evening of the wedding brought a deep, settling quiet to Langley Hall.
Roman stood in the eastern study. The single oil lamp on the desk cast a warm, flickering light across the leather blotter. He had come down to retrieve a specific ledger, but as he pulled the bottom drawer open, his fingers brushed against a piece of heavy, folded parchment.
He pulled it out. It was his father’s letter. The confession the late duke had never possessed the courage to mail.
Roman unfolded the paper, his eyes scanning the shaky, bleeding ink. I was weak. I chose my wife's sanity over my daughter's life.
Roman read the words again. He stood in the silent study, feeling the heavy, complicated weight of his family’s legacy. He was closer to understanding his father’s terrifying, paralyzing fear of society than he had ever been. He understood how the ton could crush a person’s spirit.
Yet, looking at the confession of a man who abandoned an innocent infant, Roman was further from forgiving him than he would like to be. Both of those conflicting realities existed in his chest at the exact same time.
He folded the letter and placed it back in the drawer. He closed the heavy wood with a solid click. He had finally stopped expecting the dichotomy to resolve. It simply was.
Roman turned down the lamp and walked out of the study. He climbed the grand staircase, his boots making no sound on the thick, patterned runners. He bypassed the master bedchambers and walked down the long corridor toward the nursery.
The heavy oak door was partially open.
Roman stepped silently into the room. The fire in the hearth had burned down to glowing red embers.
Thelma was standing by the tall, arched window. She had changed out of her heavy ivory wedding gown, wearing a soft, loose wrapper of pale blue silk. Liliana was completely fast asleep, her small head resting heavily against Thelma’s shoulder, her dark curls stark against the blue silk.
Thelma was gently swaying back and forth, staring out at the dark, moonlit expanse of the southern gardens.
Roman walked quietly across the rug. He came up directly behind her. He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her back against his chest, entirely encompassing both Thelma and the sleeping baby in his embrace.
Thelma let out a soft, contented sigh. She leaned her full weight back into him, resting her head against his shoulder.
"She fought sleep for an hour," Thelma whispered, her voice a low, musical vibration in the quiet room. "Too much cake, courtesy of Patricia."
"Patricia answers to no earthly authority," Roman murmured, pressing his lips against the soft, warm skin just beneath Thelma’s ear.
He held his family in the dark, his chin resting near the top of Thelma’s head. His mind drifted back through the impossible, chaotic timeline of the past few months.
The grand, cavernous house was perfectly quiet. The sprawling gardens outside were dark and still. His entire world was secured safely within the circle of his arms.
Roman gently turned Thelma around to face him. He kept one arm securely wrapped around her lower back, his other hand coming up to cup her jaw.
He leaned down and kissed her. It was a slow, incredibly sweet kiss, carrying none of the frantic desperation of their previous weeks.
It was a promise. Thelma’s hand slid up to rest flat against his chest, her thumb brushing over the steady beat of his heart.
She kissed him back, melting entirely into his touch, with Liliana sleeping peacefully between them.
The ancient stones of Langley Hall seemed to sigh around them, settling deep into the Yorkshire earth.
The oppressive, manufactured silence that had haunted the corridors for thirty years was completely gone.
The house settled warmly around them, feeling exactly the way houses do when the people inside them have finally, permanently, stopped leaving.
THE END