Epilogue
“Where’s your veil, my darling wife?”
Letitia looked about the bedroom, trying to recall where she’d lost the thing after tripping over it all day as they’d exchanged vows and received well wishes.
“Never mind, come here,” said Anthony, holding out his arms to her as he sat on a leather chair beside the fire.
“Why did you want the veil?” she asked, settling into his lap.
“So I could wear it while consummating this marriage, at long last,” he said, his fine lips twisted in a teasing smile.
“In that case, we should pause our coze and hunt for it,” she returned slyly.
“Perhaps I had a vision of wrapping your nude body in it before taking you on our bed.”
She hummed, wishing she’d kept better track of it.
The logs burned merrily, as if they too knew a miracle had happened: a lord had married a fallen woman before the ton and God, in one of the most fashionable churches in the capital. It simply was not done — until it was. And now they could spend the rest of their days together, and in love.
But this brought forth a point of disquiet.
“I’m afraid I didn’t like some aspects of the marriage vows,” said Anthony, dipping a finger into his wife’s neckline and admiring how her bustle looked on his lap.
“Did you hope to pledge that you will obey me, too?” asked Letitia with a wry smile, referencing the promise she’d made to obey her husband, and the lack of a similar requirement for him.
“Oh, I think you’ll enjoy obeying me, my love,” he said, a wolfish grin on his lips. “And I’ll always obey your orders, vows or not. You are not merely my wife; you are my only love.”
“You have a way of giving a wife ideas…”
“My complaint was of a more existential nature,” he said, sitting up a little straighter.
“Was it now?” she asked, surprised by the serious tone in his voice.
“One bit in particular caused me grave offense.”
Letitia raised her eyebrows. Anthony hadn’t exactly been a theologian at any point in the past, so where this was coming from, she didn’t know.
He ran a hand up her thigh, then back down, considering his words. “The bishop said things like ‘so long as ye both shall live’ and we pledged ‘till death us do part,’ but I don’t like it, not one bit.”
“Is that so?”
“I don’t want to pledge my troth to you for this lifetime only, Letitia. Those vows seem insufficient for the promise I wish to make to you.”
Their hands met atop her lap.
“Then we should make new vows, shouldn’t we?” she asked, glancing towards the bed.
***
Anthony slid into his wife, mindful of her comfort, and slowed before pushing fully inside.
“Doing well?” he asked, peppering Letitia’s face with kisses.
“At last,” she sighed, chasing his lips to return the pecks with something deeper.
“Take more?” he asked.
“Come all the way in,” she said, shifting under him to accept his entire cock.
Anthony took it slow, and watched his wife’s expression continuously.
“I’ll not break,” she said. “You needn’t be so gentle with me.”
“But I do,” he said, regarding the dearest wish of his heart, now spread beneath him. “I’ve something to promise you, and it won’t do for you to be wailing with ecstasy already when I’m trying to be tender and loving with my new bride.”
Letitia laughed and wrapped her arms around his neck so they could be closer. “And what promise is that?”
Anthony stroked in and out, watching how her eyelashes fluttered in a way that betrayed how much pleasure she was receiving. His bride was so restrained these days, but he’d have her screaming his name again in no time.
“The promise to eat your cunny whenever you wish it,” he said simply, picking up his thrusts.
Letitia’s eyes widened and then she burst into peals of laughter. “That’s your vow? To lick me there? And here I thought you meant to say something poetic that would make me cry.”
“Oh, did you wish for that? Some declaration of my heart that would make your eyes overflow with tears?”
“You needn’t, Anthony,” she said, looking at him fondly, “not when you’ve already given me so much.”
“Too bad I feel I must,” he said. “Or else my heart might choke on the unexpressed feelings.”
“What feelings?” she asked, her voice faint and hopeful.
“I think I might die if I don’t tell you this: I give you my soul, for all of time.”
“Oh,” she said, her breaths coming quicker now.
“The bishop talking about death parting us made me feel sick,” he said, “sick on our wedding day!”
“We can’t have that,” she whispered, tears running freely as she regarded the face of the man she loved. The man who planned to love her for all of eternity.
“Then we are agreed,” he said, attempting manfully to contain his emotion but failing. He was really the dearest man, the answer to a thousand tormented prayers.
“If death parts us, our souls will reunite in the afterlife,” she said as she looked at the sparkling diamond. “It seems only fair, seeing as we’ve been denied so many years before now.”
“None of that talk,” said Anthony, stroking her nub in time with licks on her neck. “We’re together forever, you and I, and nothing else matters.”
And as she crested in her lover’s arms, Letitia accepted that from this day forward, they would be bonded for all eternity and could let go of fear and doubt, and simply live happily ever after.
THE END