Epilogue
The dark clouds on the horizon did not bode well for a ship’s launch, but Dorian could not bring himself to care. His decision was made. It was today. And he was leaving one way or another.
The time was ticking down, and the launch was soon.
In his weakest moments, his heart ached despairingly knowing that he might have lost the best thing that had ever come into his life.
Yes, he so desperately wanted Evelina to join him, but he purposefully made sure that fate was no longer in his hands.
“I know that look,” a man chuckled lowly from behind him. The voice, gravelly, grated on Dorian’s ears, and he was of half a mind to plant the man a facer for laughing at his expense. “T’is the look of a man who had made the worst mistake of his life.”
When the man came forward, Dorian saw that he was older, probably in his late seventies, his hair grey under his cap. “Tell me, son, what did you do to the young woman you love?”
Ordinarily, Dorian would have scoffed, then told the man he was wide off the mark. But at that moment, he did not even have the strength to contest him. If he looked as heartbroken as he felt, the man would not be so foolish as to believe those empty words.
“Are you sure it is not loved?” Dorian said instead, distractedly.
“Pah! God no, that look on your face tells me the emotion is still fresh,” his chuckling fell sour before eventually fading. “Alas, boy, if you don’t want to tell me, allow this old man to regale you with a tale of his own.
“It was… ah, forty-seven years ago, when a young man fell in love with a woman far above his station. To the lad, it felt as if the heavens had opened up and the sun shone upon him and upon him alone every time the young woman smiled at him.
“She was gentry, you see, daughter of a baronet, while he was nothing but the middle child of a penurious farmer,” he rambled on.
“They snuck away at any moment they could, and eventually, the girl’s father got a hold of the dalliance.
He threatened the young lad with gaol if he did not take the bribe of five hundred pounds to leave his daughter’s life forever. ”
Five hundred pounds—a pittance.
“Let me guess,” Dorian put in. “He took it.”
“He took it all right. And with that five-hundred, he set sail on a ship for the Americas, hoping to forget her and start a new life on his own,” the old man said. “But, alas, forget her he never did.
“The five-hundred burgeoned to a generous sum of sixty thousand. It took decades to accrue it did, and he was finally ready to return home, to grand ole’ fair Albion.
And so he set sail back. Forty odd years later from whence he had departed.
He found the young woman again, only she was not so young anymore, you see.
She was married, with children aplenty. She told the boy she would have stayed with him if he had asked for her hand, but that was back then.
Now, she could not desert her role as beloved wife and mother. ”
“He lost his love,” Dorian finished slowly.
“Forever,” the man added with a wistful sigh.
Craning his head, Dorian noticed the old man’s eyes had grown misty. “Why are you telling me this?” he asked.
The man’s face went solemn. “Because you have the same expression I had when I first boarded this exact ship forty-seven years ago. I took the money and forfeited my only chance of having the love of my life.
Dorian furrowed his brows. “When was the last time you saw her?”
“Just now, in fact,” the man chuckled again, though there was no humor in his tone this time. “It was the first time in decades. She has adorable little grandchildren now.”
Dorian swallowed bile; children that could have been the man’s, no doubt. It was a sickening realization—and a clear as day warning.
“I’ve been a coward,” Dorian finally admitted.
“All this time, I thought I was doing my best to protect her by hiding the truth, when all I did was push her away. Now, she has learned the truth, but not from me. It has wounded her as I knew it would, but I can no longer be there for her to shelter her through it. If I could go back in time and do otherwise, if I could have simply told her the truth of everything, I wouldn’t be here now. I’d be home with her.”
“You can still be,” the old man grunted. “There’s still time to get off the ship, boy.”
“It is where we were supposed to start our honeymoon,” Dorian tilted his head to the sky and peered under the brim of his hat. “It is in her hands now. Only if she comes to me can we start afresh…”
The ship began pulling away from the dock when a sound reached his ear. It was faint; “Dorian!”
His head snapped to the side. Where was it coming from? Turning, he dashed to the other side of the bow, and amid the sliver of light shining down through a hefty spacing of clouds, he saw a faint silhouette on the pier.
Evelina.
Her sky-blue dress fluttered in the wind, but there was nothing beside her; no case, no trunk.
She had come to say goodbye…
But then, she looked back sharply, and a footman hobbled onto the scene with two trunks in hand. Panic seized Dorian. He had to stop the ship. Frantic, he tried to remember where the captain’s cabin was but faltered. Of all the times when the clock was against him, this had to be the worst time.
He saw a shipman, “Where is the captain’s cabin?” he demanded, “I need to tell him to stop the ship. If only for a little while—”
“No need, son,” the older man trudged up to him from the deck. “The ship belongs to me, and the captain is at my beck and call. We were just in a docking maneuver—I must confess, I had informed him to wait well before you got the courage.”
Dorian blew a sigh of relief, embracing the elderly man in seconds. “Thank you!”
Immediately after, he rushed to the ramp as Ellie boarded, but the moment she was near enough, Dorian could not wait for her to get to him. He met her halfway and wrapped her into his arms fiercely, relief washing through him much as the growing storm would soak him.
“You came,” he breathed into her hair. “You came.”
“I did,” Evelina mumbled into his coat. “I knew I couldn’t live with so many unanswered questions, and some half-answered. I thought it was only fitting for you to tell your truth.”
“Ask me anything. Anything! I would lay my soul bare ten times over before I risk losing you again.”
She notched her head up. “The day I left for Eastbrook Manor, I spoke to an old lady on Somerton lands, and-and she said she knew you when you were a child, and so I asked about your hair because I had a niggling feeling, and-and… for heaven’s sake! Are you Ash?”
In response, he tugged his hat off and shook his hair free.
“Your hair…” she murmured in awe.
He knew what she was seeing, the pale bleached wheat his hair naturally was.
“I took out the dye,” he finally spoke. “I didn’t lie to you, Evelina.
The boy you knew as Ash did die a long time ago.
He died when I had to become hardened, when I had to learn to survive on the streets, when I became something I knew you would not like or understand. But I’d never forgotten you.
“I never forgot your wild tales and rambles, I never forgot the baskets of food you’d carry to me to make sure I’d eaten, and I never forgot these—”
Inside his coat, he drew out a soft suede bag, and inside were the grass rings she had fashioned that evening so many years ago, right before her uncle had caught the pair of them. They were dried and brown with age, but were still intact.
Her eyes beaded with tears. “You… you kept them?”
“I had to,” he said. “They were the connection I had to you in those dark years, and they kept me going when I had all the reasons to give up. I had to take you away from your relatives and return what was rightfully yours.
“…Even though I now realize I went about it in the worst possible way. I am sorry, Evelina. I never meant to hurt you. All I wanted to do was protect you from those who wished to harm and use you, and return to you what was rightfully yours.”
Her eyes were brimming with tears at his confession. “Oh, Dorian, I love you. I never stopped loving you—” she swallowed. “And I couldn’t allow myself to let you go without letting you tell me why you did what you did.”
“Is our love conditioned on what I tell you?” he asked slowly.
She stared at him. “You love me?”
“When it comes to feelings, I am a plumbed fool,” Dorian said as the rumbling got louder.
“I shove them inside and bury them as they give me more trouble than they are worth, but know this: I love you, Evelina. I loved you then, and I love you now,” he declared.
“You’ve captivated me, and I can never let you go.
Please give me the chance to make it right. ”
“You promise?”
“You have my word.”
A slow smile crossed her face, “Then you’ll have all the chances you can get.” Her eyes shot up. “And we need to get to our cabin first before we’re drenched.”
The rocking motion of the ship both lulled Ellie to sleep and rocked her awake. This time, it rocked her awake, and she shifted her head to slide her ear down Dorian’s chest to rest atop his heart.
She purred softly as a possessive arm curled around her bare shoulders, pressing her into his chest while he buried his nose into her hair.
The weak light of dawn streamed through the porthole as she shifted and arched her body into him. Last night, they had made love for hours on end, but Dorian was firm on using the French Letters until Ellie was ready to start a family.
“Good morning,” she whispered now, as the trickles of waning rain continued to patter against the walls of the wooden cabin.
Dorian shifted to place them on their side while he tugged her leg over his thigh. Holding her firm, he murmured, “Was I too rough last night?”
“Not at all,” she whispered back. “You were perfect.”
Last night was not only brim-filled with their lovemaking. In between, Dorian had sent for a meal, a bottle of wine, and over the small feast, he’d regaled her with many stories from his life as Ash to his life as Dorian—how he had grown in the streets but matured in the ton.
He told her about finally getting the upper hand on Sterling, finding his uncle, and reversing all the illegal doings he had done in those years.
They had gone to bed fatigued but woke up in the middle hours of the night to finish indulging in their passion. Ellie blushed at the memory of when Dorian had flipped her on her hands and knees and taken her that way. One of the many ways of lovemaking he was introducing her to.
“I do not want to leave,” she sighed. “Not even for breakfast.”
“We’ll have it delivered to us again,” Dorian assured. “I am a Duke after all.”
She laughed, “Of course you are. We’re all here to serve you.”
He hauled her into his side, “And I am here to serve you.”
She leveled up and raked her fingers through his hair and smiled, “I always remembered your hair. It was the first thing I saw of you when you caught me as I tumbled from that tree.”
“Who was to know my love would have fallen right into my arms,” Dorian teased.
“And that years later we would find each other again,” she smiled faintly. “In the strangest of ways.”
Dorian hummed. “Just like the sun breaking through the darkness. You were always the light at the end of my tunnel.”
Indeed, the light of dawn was gaining strength, piercing through the darkness of the night sky. Where she had once felt fear and loneliness, now she felt only peace. “And you are mine.”
The End?