Epilogue
Sarah shivered. Autumn had started to threaten quickly, the leaves in Oxford falling in sheets around them when they had left a few days ago.
And now…now they were here.
“Don’t cry, Mama,” Sarah said.
Her mother did not attend. She was too busy sniffing into a lace handkerchief as she helped adjust Sarah’s veil—a veil adjusted at least a thousand times, at her last count.
“I’m not crying,” Mrs. Lockwood said sternly, in direct contradiction to all evidence. “I’m weeping.”
Sarah stifled a laugh as she saw her Great-Uncle Rupert roll his eyes.
“Dear God, Matilda, pull y’self together!” barked the colonel. “And get inside now; this is no place for you!”
Mrs. Lockwood sniffed, nodded, shoved her visibly damp handkerchief into her reticule, and had almost stepped onto the church porch before Sarah reached for her.
Her fingers tangled with her mother’s. Her mother.
It was all going to change in the next few minutes, Sarah knew with a sudden certainty. She would never be Miss Sarah Lockwood again. Her mother and she would have different names.
Her mother squeezed her hand as her eyes filled with tears again.
“Don’t cry, Mama,” Sarah whispered.
This time, she found to her horror that her own eyes were starting to prickle.
Mrs. Lockwood drew her into a last embrace as an unmarried woman. “I’ll see you in the church, my dear.”
And then she was gone.
Sarah blinked. It was all so quick—yet had she not been longing for this day for weeks? Had not Montague been chomping at the bit to be married? Had they not struggled to keep their hands each other, more to the point?
A clearing of a man’s throat behind her made Sarah turn around.
Great-Uncle Rupert was dabbing his eyes.
“Not you as well!” Sarah said, crestfallen.
The usually stiff colonel shrugged as he placed his handkerchief into a pocket. “Not every day a woman of this family walks up the aisle!”
His red eyes made Sarah’s heart melt. She had never known her father, and in a way, she would always feel that absent ache within her.
But she had family who loved her, and a husband, very soon, who adored her. She could not ask for more than that.
“Well, shall we?”
Sarah started and found to her astonishment there was an arm proffered before her.
She looked into her great-uncle’s eyes. “Now?”
His smile was genial. “The organ has started.”
How was it possible that a day should be so far away, then rattle toward one like a…a violent battle? Sarah wondered. Or an albatross, soaring through the sky then suddenly diving to catch a fish. Or perhaps the better metaphor would be—
“We should probably get a move on,” barked her Great-Uncle Rupert, all tears forgotten. “Don’t want the man to think you’ve left him at the altar, what!”
Sarah hastily took his arm. That would be shocking…
The aisle was not particularly long. Montague had absolutely declined the very polite invitation from the Prince Regent to marry in Westminster Abbey—“I wouldn’t owe Prinny a favor for the world”—so it was in the church closest to Wessex College that they’d had their banns read, and would become husband and wife.
Sarah was unable to take in the myriad of faces that watched her walk up the nave. Her heart was pattering now, all her old nerves about standing before a great deal of people returning.
“And do we have to invite them all?” she had asked Montague over a few weeks ago, as she had looked out in wonder at the reams of invitations which had lined his desk.
And he had chortled. “Part and parcel of becoming a duchess, my dear.”
Sarah’s stomach churned horribly. A duchess! Her! It was a terrible mistake; she should never have lifted her eyes to a gentleman who would—she should leave, she could not—
And they reached the altar.
There was Montague. Leaning on his cane—he’d fought against the suggestion most heartily until Sarah had pointed out he still struggled to stand for more than two hours together, and the wedding would require far more than that.
He had accepted with bad grace and a scowl. He looked nothing like that now.
Sarah’s voice caught in her throat as she looked at the picture of masculine perfection before her. In his regimental coat, something her mother had insisted on. With the coronet, as his rank as a duke required.
But most of all, with a smile. A smile just for her that melted away all fear, all nerves, and instead reminded her of their perfect happiness.
Montague spoke quietly as her Great-Uncle Rupert moved her hand to the duke’s palm. “You are not nervous, are you?”
His whisper was for her ears only, and Sarah shivered at the reminder of her poetry recital.
“Come on, Sarah.”
“Not in the slightest,” she murmured back, finding to her delight it was entirely true.
She was afraid no longer. She may be a poet, shy and nervous before a crowd, and she may be doing something that she could never have considered even six months ago…
But she was marrying a duke. And she would be beside him.
“Dearly beloved,” said the vicar warmly. “We are gathered here today…”
The man had actually put pomade in his hair, his words fading as she noticed. He had not worn pomade when they had met with the vicar to discuss the banns.
Sarah’s gaze moved briefly to the packed church, the tiaras from some of the ladies, the very fine gowns and cravats, which could be discerned with even a cursory glance.
She stifled a smile. She supposed even vicars could be proud sometimes.
“—do you Sarah Maria Lockwood take His Grace, Montague Charles Edward Westerfield Jonathan—”
“It’s a miracle we can get married,” Sarah muttered under her breath, “with a name this long!”
Montague stifled a snort.
And just like that, they were married. Sarah looked in amazement at the gold band on her finger. It felt…right. She had thought it would be odd, irritating her maybe, making her hand feel heavier than the other.
But there it sat, as though it had been made for her. Which, of course, it had.
“Sarah?”
Sarah blinked. “I beg your—what?”
Montague was holding out his arm, and there was such affection on his face that Sarah’s heart leapt for joy.
“The service is over,” he murmured, taking her hand and placing it in his arm. “It’s time to step into the rest of our lives as husband and wife.”
Warmth spread through Sarah’s body as she leaned into him. “I’m ready if you are.”
As it turned out, she was not ready.
“One of the best weddings I have ever attended, to be sure!” boomed Lady Romeril as she approached them in the receiving line. “I truly thought the vicar was something to be admired too, such an interesting coiffure!”
Sarah stifled a laugh. Lady Romeril had been an obvious invitee to their wedding, and she was well worth it.
Her mother had immediately repaired to her bedchamber upstairs to review herself in a looking glass when Lady Romeril’s name had been called.
“Though I was surprised to see a poem as a reading, as well as a passage from the Scriptures,” Lady Romeril said, a frown creasing her brow. “A fascinating choice.”
It had been a bold choice, she supposed—but at the same time, her mother had insisted. And it was nice, for a change, for her mother to insist on more of Sarah’s poetry in their lives rather than less.
“And did you like the poem, Lady Romeril?” Montague asked smoothly.
Sarah would have stepped on his foot if she had been able, but the question had been asked and there was no going back on it.
Even if she would melt into the very ground if Lady Romeril had not liked—
“Absolutely capital,” the doyenne of the ton announced in a loud ringing voice. “I hear it is one of your own, Your Grace?”
“Oh, no,” said Sarah, glancing at Montague and feeling his discomfort in the awkward assumption. “It is not Montague’s work.”
For some strange reason, there was a smile dancing about his lips. “She means you.”
Sarah stared. Her? No, because Lady Romeril had said “Your Grace,” so she must have meant…
“Oh,” she said weakly.
Of course. She was a duchess; the Duchess of Caelfall. That made her “Your Grace.”
It meant, now that she came to think about it, she outranked Lady Romeril. It was a frightening thought.
“Oh dear,” Sarah said.
“Thank you for your kind congratulations, and please do ensure a footman helps you to a glass of wine, Lady Romeril,” said Montague smoothly, expertly moving the older woman on and bowing to the next guest in the receiving line. “Axwick, how pleasant to see you…”
“I am a Your Grace!” Sarah hissed about ten minutes later when they were finally alone in the hall, waiting for any stragglers from the church. “I hadn’t thought of that!”
Montague snorted. “You know, if anyone dares criticize me for marrying a lady beneath my station—not that I would ever permit such a thing, but if—I will use this as an example.”
Sarah frowned. “Why?”
“Because you so evidently did not marry me for my wealth, or my title,” Montague teased. “You only married me because my mouth can make you—”
“A letter for you, Your Grace,” said a furiously blushing footman.
Dropping her gaze to her hands, Sarah did not dare look up until the servant had handed over the paper and scuttled away.
Then she hit her husband firmly in the chest. “Montague!”
“Oh, you are going to have to become accustomed to servants knowing that sort of thing,” said Montague lazily as he opened the letter.
Sarah’s eyes widened in horror. Surely he did not mean—“You cannot possibly think…what is it?”
All thoughts of her embarrassment were forgotten. The letter was short, whoever it was from, but it had not brought any joy to her husband’s face. To the contrary, Montague’s expression had fallen.
“Bad news?” she hazarded.
Montague sighed, folded it, and placed it in his pocket. “Just Sedley. His apologies for being unable to attend the wedding.”
He did not have to explain how disappointed he was; Sarah could see it in his face.
“That is a shame,” she said softly.
She had met Sedley…what was it, twice? Thrice? He had seemed a pleasant enough gentleman—a duke, so there was an element of stiffness, but he and Montague had seemed close. It was odd indeed that a man of such rank, with such notice of their wedding, had been unable to attend.
Montague rolled his eyes. “He said something has come up that is urgent—something about the Glasshand Gang.”
Intrigue flickered in Sarah’s heart. “My word! Will he catch them? Now there’s an interesting idea for a poem! A highwayman, a desperate chase, a fight—I’ve got to use all that fencing knowledge, after all.”
Amusement danced in her husband’s expression. “Where on earth do you get your imagination from?”
“No idea at all,” Sarah said briskly with a grin.
The noise of their wedding reception party was growing. Caelfall Place had been rid of its tenants a week ago, she knew, and they would spend some time there before their journey to France.
“I wish he had come,” said Montague, biting his lip.
Sarah splayed her hand against his chest and reveled in his warmth, the sense of his heart beating. “Perhaps it was not a gang at all. Perhaps—perhaps he has fallen in love.”
Montague snorted. “Sedley, fall in love? I doubt it.”
Something was dropped—a glass, likely as not—in the drawing room. The celebration was continuing without them, Sarah could not help but think, and well, by the sound of it.
“We should go in,” said her husband quietly. “We promised your mother we would not leave her alone in there with Lady Romeril too long.”
“She asked us to give her twenty minutes to see if she could make any headway,” corrected Sarah with a snort. “And how am I supposed to mark twenty minutes? It’s impossible to—oh.”
Her voice faltered. Montague had pulled out of his pocket a small wooden box, lovingly crafted. It looked most elegant.
Her questing fingers took the box and opened it.
“Oh, Montague,” Sarah breathed.
It was a pocket watch. Slightly smaller than that of a gentleman’s, with pleasingly crafted ornaments, and a thin delicate chain that was most artfully made.
“So you never have an excuse to be late again,” Montague said softly. “I thought it would fit in your reticule well. You would not always have to have it with you if you do not wish; I just thought—”
Sarah stopped his mouth with a kiss and tried to pour into it all the joy, the happiness, the safety and certainty she had found by becoming his wife.
When she broke the kiss, Montague’s cheeks were red. “It’s only a watch.”
“It’s a beautiful gift,” Sarah said with sternness. “I love it. Thank you.”
“I…I had it inscribed.”
Her fingers turned over the delicate watch and Sarah’s breath caught as she read.
And thus ends the tale.
“You…you had it inscribed with my own poetry,” she said in wonder.
Montague’s arms came around her and he kissed her neck most delicately. “I want your words to be inscribed on my heart, Sarah. I never want to forget the moment you vowed to be my wife. We have our whole lives ahead of us, just the two of us. We can ignore the rest of the world and—”
“Erm,” said Sarah weakly. “No, we can’t.”
This was not the moment she had planned for, but there could be no other, could there?
Montague released his grip. “What do you mean, no? Sarah, I have the greatest of respect for your mother, but even if we were not going to France, I cannot live with—”
“No—no, nothing like that,” Sarah laughed. The thought of living with both husband and mother! No, that would never do. “I simply meant…well. It will not be the two of us. It will be the three of us.”
Montague’s dark eyes narrowed. “I don’t know what you—”
“Because in about…oh, in several months,” Sarah said quietly, her gaze never leaving his, “we will be joined by another little fencer. Or a poet. I like to think they could be both.”
For a moment, it was evident he did not understand what she was saying.
Then Montague staggered, his leg giving way.
“Montague!”
Sarah guided him to a chair as Montague’s chest heaved. Dear lord, what had she done? Given her new husband an apoplectic fit, merely an hour after wedding him!
“A—a child?” he spluttered, eyes wide. “A baby?”
All she could do was nod.
And then Montague had swept her off her feet, pulled her onto his lap, and kissed her fiercely. Heat sparked between them as their tongues warred for dominance, and Sarah gave it over to him willingly as she melted in his arms.
“Well,” said Montague with a heavy sigh as Sarah nestled into his neck, delighting in his embrace. “I suppose we will have to talk to your Great-Uncle Rupert again.”
Sarah blinked. “Whyever for?”
“Because if you think I am taking my wife, pregnant, to France,” Montague growled, “you are much mistaken. I’ll serve some other way—there’ll still be danger, but in England.”
Sarah kissed his brow and sighed happily as his hands curled around her buttocks. “A duke in danger is all very well, but I would much rather you wielded a pen than a sword.”
And her husband, the one person in the world she craved beyond all others, chuckled and said before he kissed her passionately, “I’ll fight you on that.”