Epilogue
Nic woke to the distant clatter of hooves and carriage wheels on the cobbles outside.
He had gotten used to the noise of London after a lifetime upon the Northumberland moors, but it still had the ability to shake him abruptly out of sleep once morning came.
And it was morning, warm spring sunlight creeping across the floor to the bed, where it reached faint fingers over a sleeping figure.
There on the pillow beside him lay the face of his husband—a sight he would never tire of in all his days.
All beautiful features and dark brows, he was the most perfect thing in Nic’s entire world.
“Are you staring at me again?” Dashiell murmured, eyes still closed.
“How can you tell?”
Dashiell cracked open one eye, a small, sleepy smile turning his lips. “You hold your breath.”
“Well, that’s embarrassing.”
“Says you. I think it’s cute. And besides,” Dashiell added, sliding an arm under Nic’s shoulder to draw him close in the tangle of bedsheets, “I like that I take your breath away.”
Nic groaned. “Oh very funny,” he said as Dashiell planted sleepy kisses along his jaw.
Another arm wrapped around Nic, and a hand slid up into his hair. “I am, aren’t I?” Dashiell said. “I guess that’s why you love me, Nicholas sa Vare.”
Dashiell’s trail of kisses ended on Nic’s lips and Nic pressed against his husband’s naked body in the warm morning light.
What started as playful teasing soon became something deeper, hotter, and more needing.
The memory of days when they had thought this impossible were still too close, able to fan even the lightest of touches to a blaze, and that morning was no different.
Soon they were gasping against one another’s parted lips and making no effort to stifle moans and cries as they shared one another’s existence—the knowledge of just how close they had come to losing each other never far away.
“Perhaps I should send my excuses to Lord Tilburn,” Dashiell murmured when once again they lay side by side, warm and sweaty but very sated. “He can find another vowsmith for this afternoon, as this one needs to spend the day in bed with his husband.”
“And what if I cannot spare you the time?” Nic returned with faux hauteur.
“Oh, is your meeting with the conjuror’s guild today?”
“No, tomorrow, but automata don’t just make themselves, you know.”
Dashiell sighed. “Fine, I can send my excuses and then follow you around the house like a lapdog begging for pats.”
A tentative knock sounded on the door, and Nic couldn’t but wonder how long the servant had been waiting before deeming it safe to interrupt. “Yes?” Dashiell called.
Nic drew the covers up but made no effort to shift from the circle of his husband’s arm. “It’s going to be Lord Elton’s man here again,” he said. “With yet more things that will only take a moment of your time.”
“Things that will only take a moment of my time are the bane of a vowsmith’s life.”
But when their butler poked his head into the room, it was to say, “Miss sa Serral is waiting downstairs for Mr. sa Vare. I… uh… told her you were not yet up and about—”
“Oh, we have absolutely been up and about,” Dashiell murmured against Nic’s shoulder.
“—but she insisted on waiting.”
“Thank you, Fairly,” Nic said. “Tell her I’ll be down soon.”
“As you wish, sir.”
Fairly backed out and closed the door, leaving Nic to pull himself out of bed and head for their dressing room.
“Nic.”
Nic turned, and caught his breath at the beautiful sight of his husband lying propped on an elbow in the mess of their bed. “Yes?” The word came out slightly strangled.
“You don’t have any regrets, do you? About… being just Mr. sa Vare? I can’t help but think that if you hadn’t killed off Nicholas Monterris, you would still have been your own master now. And still an earl. I know there wasn’t much land left, but there was some, and, well…”
I hope you won’t live to regret this night’s work. Lord Francis’s words had often haunted Nic’s thoughts, but he hadn’t until that moment realised they’d been haunting Dashiell’s too.
“No,” Nic said, and though he’d wondered over the same possibilities, he meant it. “My name and my title never gave me anything but pain. I don’t need them. I don’t want them. Besides, it’s better we be equals, so you’ll always know you were a man born with every hope of loving me.”
Dashiell looked away, touching the corner of his eye. “You remember that, huh?”
“I remember everything you said to me that night. My name and my rank are the reasons you left me, and I don’t ever want you to have those reasons again.”
Nic knelt on the edge of the bed and pressed a soft kiss to Dashiell’s lips, breathing deeply of his scent and his very existence, before pulling back to smile fondly upon him. “I love you, Dash. And I promise you I have no regrets. I have everything I need right here.”
The vowsmith reached up, lifting himself off the pillow to take hold of Nic’s face and kiss him in return, lips lingering there as though loath ever to part.
But part they had to, and once he had drunk his fill, Dashiell let himself fall back onto the pillows.
There he lay smiling up at Nic, with the faintly dazed look of a man who still could not believe his good fortune.
It was a feeling Nic shared wholeheartedly, and the urge to jump back into bed all day was very strong indeed.
When he didn’t move, Dashiell lifted an eyebrow at him. “Something amiss, darling?”
“Only that you are still lying there and I could be lying with you instead of standing here.”
Dashiell’s smile took on a wicked glint and he threw the bedcovers back in invitation, bearing the length of his naked body.
“You… are excessively cruel,” Nic said with a groan. “But I fear if I do not go now, Leaf will soon be up here just letting herself in, demanding to know what’s keeping me.”
Dashiell grinned. “And no doubt she would find the sight that met her eyes very instructive.”
“Never suggest such a thing, because you are absolutely right,” Nic said, turning hastily away toward their dressing room. “Argh, what a hideous thought. Ambrose? Ambrose! Quick, my clothes, before Leaf does something indecorous.”
Twenty minutes later, Nic, fully attired in the latest town fashions, made his way downstairs.
Their London house was nothing to the enormity of Monterris Court, but it still had an abundance of rooms over three floors—rooms they didn’t put to the same uses as most members of the ton.
Master and Mr. sa Vare had no need of a ballroom or numerous saloons, but in addition to Dashiell’s study, they did need a library, a workshop for Nic’s creations, and a space for Nic’s echoes.
“Where is Miss sa Serral, Fairly?” Nic said, reaching the bottom of the stairs.
“She’s in the parlour, sir.”
Leaf had visited often enough since they’d moved in that Fairly had given up his disapproval of unmarried ladies paying social calls on gentlemen, though as Nic entered the parlour he found a second reason why the old butler had saved even his frown—Leaf wasn’t unaccompanied.
“Mama.” Nic’s heart leapt at the sight of his mother sitting at Leaf’s side, the pair of them neatly attired in grey half-mourning dresses. “Fairly did not say you were here as well.”
“Oh, is that why you took so long,” Leaf said, rising to take his hands. “How monstrous you are, Nic.”
Lady Georgiana smiled up at him. “Good morning, my love,” she said softly. “You look very well.”
“I am very well, Mama. You look well too.”
“I am, dear one. I am.” She squeezed his hand, but there was a wry, fragile edge to her smile, and Nic nodded to Silla sitting in the corner of the room. The loyal maid nodded back.
No longer being a duchess seemed to suit Lady Georgiana very well, but the transition back into the real world hadn’t been easy.
With Nic unable to risk people realising who he was, it had been impossible for her to live with them—fortunate, then, that Leaf had needed a companion to set up her own establishment.
The two got along well, but while Leaf was charging ahead into her new life, Nic’s mother took tiny steps like the floor was strewn with glass.
“So what brings you here before breakfast?” Nic said, striding over to the gilded cage in the corner.
“Before breakfast?” Leaf cried. “It is well past ten. Just because you have a beautiful husband to lie abed with, the rest of the world doesn’t cease turning.”
Nic’s cheeks reddened, but he smiled. “He is beautiful. Good morning, Avery.”
In her grand cage, Avery flapped her wings and preened. “Love Nicholas. Love Nicholas,” she sang, and the two hatchlings tucked into the breeding box cheeped and chirruped and fluffed about, seeking attention.
“Love you too, Avery. Yes, and you, Nalendes. Agata. You aren’t forgotten, you fluffy little fluffets.”
He turned back to find both women watching him, sharing an amused smile. “Yes?” he said. “I have to tend to my children, you know. Are you just paying a social call?”
“Yes, dear one,” the duchess said. “You need not fear that something is always amiss. Sit down. Tell us how you are.”
Letting go a tense breath, Nic sank onto one of the chairs and told them about his meeting the following day with the conjuror’s guild and how his work on the new automata was going, carefully avoiding all mention of what had brought them to this moment.
While they talked, Fairly brought in tea, and with cup in hand Nic settled into the blissful mundanity of life.
Lady Georgiana spoke of the book Silla had been reading to her, Leaf was full of excitement over having at last found the right location for her school, which she hoped to open in the autumn, and Nic told them of their plans to travel to the Continent come summer.
“And how is Master sa Vare?” Leaf asked. “I hope he has not been called away to any more lock-ins recently.”
“Oh no, most of his work keeps him in town during the season,” Nic said. “No one wants a lock-in when they could be at a ball. Although I’m amazed how many people think they need a vowsmith at all hours of the day and night, and guild messengers are never far away.”
As he finished, he found both Leaf and his mother smiling at him fondly. “What? What did I say?”
“Nothing,” Leaf said. “You just make a very good husband. Only thankfully not mine.”
As though summoned, Dashiell walked in. Neatly attired in his vowsmith coat, its buttons polished to a golden shine, he smiled his beautiful smile upon their guests before making his way to Nic’s side.
“I’m heading out, love,” he said, bending to kiss Nic’s cheek.
“But I’ll be back this afternoon. You know, if you can spare me any time.
” An amused smile at a shared joke. “I thought we might go riding. Or take a drive out to Richmond. Think about it. I intend to be entirely at your disposal no matter how many people might need merely a moment of my time.”
“That sounds wonderful. I’ll see what I can do to clear my schedule for you.”
They shared a warm smile before Dashiell stepped back. “Until later then. And many apologies that I must run,” he added to Leaf and Lady Georgiana. “I am due at Lord Tilburn’s.”
Having wished their guests farewell, Dashiell headed for the door. And though the urge to call him back might always be present, Nic just watched him go. Because now he knew the man he loved would always return, and that there would always be a later, a tomorrow, a future.