Epilogue
TWO WEEKS LATER
With the madness dying down, Ariadne finally had a moment to sit with the ladies of her family in her old drawing room. Mama shared the settee next to Ariadne while her sisters sat on a mismatch of armchairs and curricle chairs.
“I cannot believe such an enemy was so close to you,” Ophelia tutted while adding more milk to her tea. “I shudder to think of what he could have done if he had acted earlier.”
“I think…” Ariadne considered her words, “I think he was happy to see Cedric alone for so long, knowing that neither of them was with someone they loved. ‘Tis the misery loves company, and all that.”
“Either way, it's such a relief for this ugly business to be over,” Ophelia tutted. “Thank heavens he is safe behind bars at Newgate and will never be let out again.”
Canting her head, Marigold asked, “How do you feel about it, Ariadne?”
“It's….” She paused. “It’s scary how efficient the two of them were at their affair. I must give it to Lord Stromwell; he does know how to move in the shadows. He confessed to having paid a woman to write all those nasty notes to me.
“Plus, the investigators found that he was the one funding the smear campaign against me in the papers. He paid the editor five hundred pounds per issue.”
“Now that that knowledge is public, the ton has written it all off as lies from a jealous bounder, and they have moved on,” she sighed. “If only they knew how close they had come to the truth.”
“Speaking of the truth,” Ophelia said. “Are you still angry at me about this whole thing?”
“No,” Ariadne said honestly while shifting her cup to the side. “I did feel… blindsided, but knowing how it ended with Uncle Thaddeus and that we finally solved the mystery of Cedric’s past, I think—I think we ended in a better place than when we started.”
Relief washed over her mother’s face, and for a moment, Ariadne wondered if her mother would start crying. Over the past few months, she had tried to put herself in her mother’s shoes, frantic and worried about her life and her children’s lives and how to protect them all.
She was not sure if she would have taken the same route her mother had, but at the end of this road, she was not too unhappy about it.
“How is Emily?” Isolde asked. “I hope she was not too hurt?”
“No, thank goodness,” Ariadne breathed. “Silas had only given her a sleeping draught, but he’d used ether on the nursemaids. She slept through the night and only came around quickly after we got her to the doctor. She is fine now.”
“That’s a relief,” Marigold sighed while fixing her spectacles. “I’d hate it if she had witnessed the entire ordeal. Such a thing can be very harrowing to the psyche.”
“Me too,” Ariadne added. “It took Cedric and me a while to fully explain what had happened, but she doesn’t seem all that perturbed by it.”
Celestine shuddered. “Enough about all this maudlin business. Shall we talk about this upcoming masquerade ball in fifteen days?”
Ariadne opened her mouth to ask Celestine how she felt about Silas as a villain instead of the handsome knight she may had once thought of him as, but clamped her lips shut. Her sister was right; it was past time to skip over the distressing events of two weeks ago.
“I am told it is going to a crush of the season,” Ariadne said. “And your costumes are almost ready from the modiste.”
“Lovely,” Celestine bounced on her chair and clapped. “I am going to be such a brilliant goldfish.”
Marigold wrinkled her nose. “I don’t think anyone will get my costume.”
“That’s because you dressed yourself as a rat.” Celestine rolled her eyes.
Puffing out a breath, Marigold said, “It’s a ferret, Celestine. It's far removed from a rat.”
As her sister started to bicker, Ariadne wondered about the best time to tell them she had missed her courses for two months in a row and that soon…. her sisters would all be aunts of a different kind, because they had already enfolded Emily into their lives.
As a matter of fact, the girl was staying with Mother and sisters for the next few days.
For now, though, she just wanted to enjoy the moment. It had been hard to come by. Her mother was free of her uncles’ clutches and her sister now had her social caché to propel them to find good matches for life.
Cedric truly loved her, and she loved Emily as if she had birthed her. His false friend was now in prison, and while she knew it scarred him deeply, at least he now had some closure about his wife.
“What’s that smile for?” Celestine elbowed Ariadne.
“Just being generally happy,” she said while thinking of Cedric. “After all this, I am simply happy.”
Stepping into his home, Cedric peeled his jacket away to hand it to his footman and headed up to his rooms. Every time he sat in the House of Lords, he was tempted to scream, but every time he stepped out, he was glad he did not.
Now, he simply wanted a night with his wife, and with Emily gone, he was looking for a long, intimate night with Ariadne. She’s been gone since yesterday and should be back tonight.
He stepped into the bedchamber, and his mind, and spotted Ariadne on a nest on the floor, her nightgown nothing more than a slip of moonbeam spun into a cloth.
She looked up while swirling a glass of wine. “You’re back earlier than I expected.”
Her creamy curves played peek-a-boo along the edges of the gossamer cloth; her nipples were dull and pink behind the slip, the slit up her thighs showcased her rounded hips and shapely legs.
In his entire life, he’d never seen anything more erotic.
Tugging at his cravat, he dropped on a chair and plucked his waistcoat away while his eyes landed on the basket of food near her. Picnics were getting to be a normal staple in their relationship when either of them wanted to distance themselves from the crushing strains of proper etiquette.
Shucking his shirt and boots, he sat across from her and near the flickering fire.
“I hope you’re hungry,” she said as she pulled the basket closer to her. “I have your favorites here, roasted pheasant, chicken, fruit—”
“You?” He asked.
She smiled innocently. “For dessert.”
“Damn the food.” He tugged the basket aside, “Right now I’ve got a strong appetite for something else.”
She straddled his lap but then plucked a strawberry from the basket and teased it at his lips, “Eat.”
“I want something else,” he said.
“Chicken?” she asked innocently while pulling a chicken leg out of the basket and plucking a morsel off. She licked her fingers and made an obscenely seductive groan. “It de-lici-ous.”
His eyes darkened, “You have five minutes to stop that.”
“How about a fig?” She blinked.
He growled, “Ariadne.”
She smiled, “Fine, fine, before you take me to bed and make love to me all the way to dawn, I should let you know that we will have a visitor coming soon.”
Hs frowned, “You just saw your mother.”
“It's not her.”
“Clara?”
She shook her head.
“I give up, sweetheart,” he said. “When are they coming? I’ll have the visitors' rooms be cleaned.”
“I can’t be sure when he or she will be arriving,” she said. “Mayhap in seven or six months, give or take?”
It took Cedric a hair longer than he would have normally to catch on but when he did, his heart shifted. “You mean … you and I … we’re going to be parents?”
She bit her lips and nodded a moment before he got to his feet and swept her into his arms, and carried her to the bed. Gently letting her down onto the soft covers, he dropped to his knees and pressed his face into her upper belly.
“You’ve already brought me more happiness than I ever expected to have. You are everything to me,” he said.
“I love you too,” Ariadne said warmly, “You’re the real hero I’ve waited for all my life. And since you didn’t want the chicken—”
He chuckled and pressed one soft kiss to the curve of her neck, savoring her shiver of excitement. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’m starved.”
The End?