Epilogue
Two weeks later
“The most important part of any marriage is listening to your husband,” Louisa said as she fastened the pearl necklace around Emily’s neck.
She had offered diamonds, but Emily had wanted nothing more than her mother’s pearls.
“And then, if his judgement should be faulty, doing as you please anyway.”
Isabella snorted from where she sat on the bed.
Emily touched the pearls, then looked up at her reflection.
Two months ago, her life had been the same as it always had, and she had been the same as she always would be, and she had—well, she had been resigned to the prospect.
Now, she looked as though she were a woman of fashion, in a silvery silken gown that accentuated her slender curves with well-placed ruffles.
Louisa had taken her to buy all her bridal clothes, and Emily was very sure Oliver would be pleased with the result.
They had not, as it transpired, been able to wait the full three weeks. But they had been courting for a month now, and every day that passed convinced her that she had made the right decision.
“Is that what you do with your husband?” Isabella asked from her position in the bed, her head slightly cocked to one side. In the two weeks they had been living in Louisa and Henry’s house, Isabella had slowly been returning to the girl Emily remembered.
Not perfect, and still eager to avoid anything approaching hard work, but at least remorseful.
When Emily had asked if she wanted to be included in her wedding day, she had declared that if Emily had the temerity to fall in love without consulting Isabella, the least she could do was allow her to take part in the wedding.
All Oliver had said to this was, “She’s your sister, darling. Do as you must.”
Louisa propped a hand on her hip as she looked at Emily’s reflection over her shoulder. “I am fortunate in my choice of husband,” she said absently, “and he has been so influenced by me that he is infrequently wrong.”
“But he is wrong,” Isabella persisted.
Emily touched her curls, which Louisa’s maid had painstakingly tamed. “Just because you’re afraid of him, dearest, doesn’t mean you must prove his fallibility.”
“He’s human, and thus is wrong, on occasion,” Louisa said, and passed Emily a silver bangle to wear on her arm. “Here, my dear. It suits you far better than it ever suited me; my complexion calls for gold. There. You look beautiful.”
Emily met Isabella’s gaze in the mirror, and her sister smiled, though it didn’t reach her eyes. “She’s right, Em. Oliver is going to fall even more madly in love with you.”
“He never fell in love with me for my looks,” Emily said, sliding her gloves over her fingers.
Louisa picked up a glass of champagne. “As it should be, but the man is besotted now. You will take his breath away.” She pressed the champagne into Emily’s hands. “For courage and warmth.”
Emily recalled the way Oliver had handed her his drink at the inn the very first time they had met, and she had been so irritated with him for being right. “And celebration,” she said, raising the glass into the air in a toast. “For my wedding day.”
Oliver waited at the head of the church, the pews largely empty. This was a small affair; he was not important enough in the eyes of the ton to warrant any more interest, and he much preferred it that way. This was between Emily and him and the people they cared about—no one else.
His brother-in-law Jacob stood beside him as best man, and his sisters were in the pews. The moment they had heard he was marrying, they had descended en masse, fussing over him, delighted with Emily—how, indeed, could anyone not be—and generally making themselves a nuisance.
Jacob caught Oliver’s gaze and winked. “Nervous?”
“Not in the slightest.” And it was true. There were plenty of things he was nervous about—running the estate was one, and how he would manage children was another—but not marrying Emily. That was the only decision in his life of which he could be wholly certain.
Dr Grant, the vicar, cleared his throat at the head of the church, and seconds later the doors opened.
In stepped his future bride in a gown that made her look like sunset over the sea—red curls above a silvery, glimmering dress.
His breath stopped as Henry, stern and serious as always, especially at such an event, walked her slowly down the aisle.
His mother sobbed openly in the pews, and his sister Annabelle dabbed a handkerchief gently against her eyes. Isabella followed in Emily’s wake, her eyes downcast.
Oliver took all this in at a glance, but his gaze returned to Emily, who met his gaze and smiled.
The rest of the worry fell from his shoulders. No matter what happened in the future, they would have each other, and that was all they needed.
“Hello,” he whispered as she drew closer, taking her hands in his.
“Hello,” she whispered back, her smile stretching even wider behind her veil. “Too late to change your mind now.”
“Never.”
“All rise,” Dr Grant said, and the ceremony began.
After the requisite wedding breakfast, during which everyone crowded around Emily and congratulated her, they took a carriage south to the property Louisa had bestowed on Oliver.
The journey took several hours, and as the sun was setting, they finally arrived at a stone house on undulating land framed by trees.
“A mere cottage,” Oliver said as the horse drew up outside the front door.
In Emily’s opinion, this was more than a cottage—it was a modest house, to be sure, and nothing approaching the enormous mansion that Henry and Louisa lived in.
“It’s perfect,” she said, and meant it. While she would have done her best with a large property, this felt far more manageable, and better suited to what would be a relatively modest lifestyle.
Yet there was quite a bit of land attached to the house, and it was that which Henry would be teaching Oliver to run.
Their lessons had begun, and Emily had made notes as Henry spoke, referencing books and demonstrating his meaning through samples of his own accounts.
After their brief sojourn, they would be back to London to continue this education, but Oliver had been keen to show her the land—their land—and in truth she was just as keen.
When they lived there properly, there would be servants—at least a butler, a valet, a lady’s maid, a housemaid, a cook and a kitchen maid, as well as a groom and stable boy, but for now they had come alone, just a coachman to care for the horses and the stables, and a local woman who would come in to help with the cooking.
Emily had insisted. A last tribute to the life she had lived, and a chance for the kind of privacy they would never have again.
She wanted to explore the land with him, hand in hand, windswept and quite possibly rained upon.
She wanted to make love in every room of the house without fear of being walked in on.
They entered the small hallway. From it, there was a living room, a parlour, a dining room, and a room she thought could be a music room.
Isabella had always been the more musically inclined—when she came to live there, she could have some say as to how the rooms were decorated and laid out.
But the space was well laid out, and when she looked around, Emily felt at home.
The way she had when she’d been a child.
“There’s space for a vegetable patch in the garden,” Oliver said, leading her to the fireplace in the drawing room. There were logs to one side, and he knelt, placing them into the fireplace. As she watched, he added kindling with the confidence of a man who had done this before.
“Did you . . . practise lighting fires?” she asked in disbelief.
He grinned at her. “I asked a kitchen maid to show me. That way, this isn’t your responsibility all the time. And, what’s more, I even asked her how to boil a kettle, so I can be at least some help with breakfast.”
“Oliver.” Her throat felt full; her eyes certainly were. She felt the hot tears streak down her face. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“No,” he said, blowing on the sparks to ease them into flame.
“You didn’t. But you see, darling, I wanted to.
” He glanced up, and when he saw her tears, he clicked his tongue.
“All this because I wanted you to be happy? For shame.” With some difficulty, he levered himself to his feet and wrapped his slightly sooty good hand around her waist, drawing her against him.
“I love you,” he murmured against her hair. “Dance with me?”
There was no music, but that didn’t matter. This was a scene from her childhood, replaying in her head as she swayed a waltz with Oliver across their drawing room, the curtains pulled tight to fend off the night.
For years, she had viewed these memories as tainted—it was hard to view them as romantic when she had seen how utterly such a love had destroyed them. But now she understood, at least a little.
Love had not destroyed her father; his own weakness had. He had not had the will to keep going, and thus he had allowed himself to fade away, choosing oblivion over his family. That was not the fault of his love but of his poor character.
“If I die,” she began, and Oliver sighed gustily.
“On the day we married, Em? Really?”
“If I die, Oliver,” she repeated, leaning back so she could see his eyes. Behind them, the fire popped as it grew in strength. “I want you to promise you will keep on living.”
“All right.” He said the words easily, and she scowled.
“You are allowed to grieve me, though.”
“Darling, if you die I will be inconsolable, for a while.” He nuzzled the underside of her nose, then bit her lobe lightly.
Heat flooded her. “I shall miss you every day of my life. And some part of me will always love you. But,” he added before she could protest, “I will not fade away into obscurity. I have a purpose now, you know. Aside from making you happy. That will sustain me, I’m sure. ”
“Is this the life you wanted?”
“With you?” He smiled down at her. “Always.”
“Even quiet and in the country?”
“You have quite reconciled me to the country, so long as there is an absence of pigs. Made even better by a certain someone in my arms.”
“Arm,” she said, and smiled. “Oliver?”
“If you are about to talk about your imminent demise one more time—”
“I love you.”
“Oh.” He spun her slowly, that one hand making its way to the very lowest dip of her spine. Positively scandalous in public, and positively teasing in private. There was a wicked light in his eyes. “I love you, too. Now what say you to defiling this rug right here?”
“I think,” she said, biting his lip with enough fervour that he moaned, “that is an excellent start to the rest of our life.”
He drew her down to the ground, raising her skirts to her hips. “I could not agree more.”
THE END