Epilogue #2
"We shall see." He pulled her closer, his breath warm against her ear.
"I cherish you, Vanessa. I have since you were seventeen and wore flowers in your hair.
I have adored you through six years of silence and longing…
and when I read your letters and discovered that, impossibly, miraculously, you felt the same way too.
I shall cherish you for the rest of my life, through every argument and every joy and every ordinary moment in between. "
Her eyes burned. “Upon my word…you spoke with such passion.”
"I have been practicing."
"In the mirror?"
"In the carriage on the way to the church, actually. Edward threatened to have me committed."
She laughed, blinking back tears.
“You have my devotion and my heart is yours.”
Around them, the wedding breakfast continued the guests were laughing, champagne was flowing, Aunt Bertha regaling yet another audience with the tale of her matchmaking genius. But for this moment, in this dance, there was only the two of them.
Vanessa rested her head against Martin's shoulder and let out a breath she felt she had been holding for six years.
"Happy?" he murmured.
"Deliriously," she said. "Impossibly. Terrifyingly."
"Excellent." He pressed a kiss to her hair. "So am I."
The waltz carried them on, spinning them through the golden afternoon light. Six years of waiting. Six years of silence and longing and letters never meant to be sent.
And now, finally, forever.
***
Much later, when the guests had departed and the candles had burned low, Vanessa found herself alone with her husband in the library of Montehood House.
Their library now. Their home. Their life.
Martin stood by the fireplace, coat discarded, cravat loosened, looking more relaxed than she had ever seen him. In his hands, he held a familiar bundle of papers, her letters, tied with the same faded ribbon.
"I thought we might read them together," he said. "Now that we are husband and wife you cannot run away in mortification."
"I could still run away in mortification. I would simply have to take you with me."
"A fate I would gladly accept." He settled onto the settee and patted the space beside him. "Come. I want to show you my favorites."
She sat beside him, tucking her legs beneath her, and watched as he untied the ribbon with careful fingers. The papers were worn at the edges, soft from handling. He had read them many times, she realised. Not just once, but over and over.
"This one," he said, pulling a letter from the stack. "This is the one that broke me."
She took it, recognising her own handwriting from years ago. The ink was faded, the paper creased from folding.
I wonder sometimes if you see me at all, she had written.
I wonder if, when you look at me, you see only Edward's sister, a child to be tolerated, a nuisance to be endured.
But I am more than that. I am a person with thoughts and feelings and dreams, and the most impossible of those dreams is that someday, somehow, you might look at me and see everything I am.
Everything I could be. Everything I want to be, for you.
"You were eighteen when you wrote this," Martin said quietly. “I had tried to suppress my emotions for you
"If I had known…if I had any idea that you felt even a fraction of what I felt…"
"You would have done exactly what you did," Vanessa said gently. "You would have kept your distance, because that is who you are. Honorable to a fault."
"Foolish, you mean."
"That too." She leaned against his shoulder. "But we are here now. That is what matters."
He set the letters aside and pulled her into his arms. She went willingly, curling against him, her head finding its place in the hollow of his shoulder.
"No more letters," he said. "From now on, you tell me everything directly. Every thought, every feeling, every complaint about my insufferable personality."
"That could take considerable time. Your insufferable personality has many facets."
"Then we had better get started." He tilted her chin up, his eyes soft in the firelight. "Tell me something. Something true. Something you would have written in a letter but never said aloud."
She considered. There were so many things, years of unspoken words, unsent confessions, feelings too overwhelming to articulate.
"I used to imagine this," she said finally. "Being your wife. Living in your house. Falling asleep beside you and waking up to your face." She traced the line of his jaw. "I imagined it so often and so vividly that I was afraid the reality could never match the dream."
"And? Does it?"
She smiled. "It is better. The dream did not include your terrible jokes or your habit of reading at breakfast or the way you argue with Edward about cricket. The dream was perfect and distant and untouchable. This is..."
"Messy? Complicated? Full of minor irritations?"
"Real," she said. "This is real. And real is better than any dream."
He kissed her then, soft and slow and thorough, a kiss that spoke of time and patience and the long, unhurried future stretching before them.
"I cherish you," he murmured against her lips. "Have I mentioned that recently?"
"Not in the last five minutes."
"An oversight I shall correct immediately. You are the very reason I draw breath.” Each declaration was punctuated by a kiss
He pulled back, studying her face with an expression of pure contentment. "Are you tired? It has been a very long day."
It had been. The ceremony, the breakfast, the endless receiving line, the farewells, she should be exhausted. And yet...
"Not particularly," she said. "Are you?"
"Not in the slightest." His smile turned wicked. "I believe there was something in your letters about a particular evening you had imagined. After a ball, if I recall correctly. Something involving considerably fewer clothes and considerably more…"
"If you quote that letter, I will smother you with a pillow."
"You would never. You like my face too much. You wrote three paragraphs about my cheekbones alone."
"I was young and foolish and had clearly lost all sense of proportion."
"You were honest." He stood and offered her his hand. "Come, wife. I believe we have a wedding night to attend to. And I have six years of letters to live up to."
She took his hand. "You are going to be insufferable about those letters forever, aren't you?"
"Absolutely." He pulled her to her feet and into his arms. "It is quite literally the only leverage I have in this marriage. You cannot expect me to surrender it."
"I expect nothing of the sort." She rose on her toes to kiss him. "I only expect you to cherish me."
"That," he said, sweeping her toward the door, "I can promise without reservation. For the rest of our lives. Through every argument and every joy and every mention of your terrifyingly detailed letters."
"You are the worst."
"I am. But I am your worst, now and forever."
The End
Thank You for Reading “The Silent Duke’s Heart”, I hope you loved it!I’m so grateful for your support.