Epilogue
I’M SITTING IN FRONT of an ornate mirror while a stylist weaves tiny white flowers through my hair, and I still can’t quite believe this is happening.
Two months have passed since that night. Two months since Veil rode a horse through the dark to find me. Two months since he proposed under Wyoming stars and I said yes.
Two months of getting to know each other without the pressure of immediate deadlines.
Of video calls when he had to return to England for business.
Of planning a wedding that felt right instead of rushed.
Of letting my heart heal from Joseph while simultaneously falling deeper in love with the man who sees me.
Two months of Lady Hampton becoming not just my employer but my friend.
Of therapy sessions with a counselor in Foxtown who helped me process the invisibility complex I’d carried for so long.
Of my mother flying in from Johannesburg last week, meeting Veil, giving her blessing with tears in her eyes.
Two months of growing certain.
And now I’m getting married.
In two hours.
To a duke.
The stylist steps back, admiring her work, and I stare at my reflection.
The flowers are delicate, romantic, woven through an elegant updo that makes me look like someone from a fairytale. The dress is one of Lady Hampton’s from her own wedding, altered to fit me. Simple but stunning. Ivory silk, fitted bodice, flowing skirt.
“You look beautiful,” the stylist says warmly. “The Duke won’t be able to take his eyes off you.”
I smile, and my mind drifts through everything that’s happened since that night Veil proposed.
Joseph’s comeuppance, for one.
It’s not something I asked for or even prayed for, but vengeance is the Lord’s, and well...
A few days after the proposal, Joseph had tried to come back. Tried to manipulate, to make me feel guilty, to convince me I was making a mistake. And Veil, calm and controlled and absolutely lethal, had security escort him off the property.
Joseph tried to threaten legal action. Said he’d go to the media about “the Duke stealing his fiancée.”
Damian Fox, Foxtown’s owner, had smiled. The kind of smile that made Joseph go pale.
“Please do,” Damian had said. “I’m sure the media would love to hear about your employment termination and why.”
Joseph left after that, and I haven’t heard from either him or Glenda since.
I’ve forgiven them, of course, but I don’t know if I can ever trust them so easily again, with anything.
Right now, I just don’t want to think about them.
There are so much lovelier things to focus on, like the letter that I wrote to the duke as my wedding gift.
The day before the wedding, I’d surprised Veil with something I’d been working on for weeks.
A love letter, published in the Tatler of all places, addressed to the Duke of Veilcourt.
An apology, really. For running away from him on the balcony that night.
For letting my fear of being hurt again override everything my heart was telling me.
I’d written it with one of his father’s pens, on Hampton stationery, and when the editor called to say it was their most-read piece in years, I’d wanted to crawl under a rock and never come out.
Because I may have been a little too honest.
Veil, naturally, has memorized the most embarrassing parts.
“But you’ll forgive me anyway, won’t you?” he’d said just this morning, catching me in the hallway with that devastating smirk. “After all, I’m the man who made your heart race like it’s never raced before.”
My own words. In print. In a nationally circulated magazine. Forever.
I’d turned so red I could feel the heat in my ears, and I’d covered my face with both hands because I could not look at him while he quoted my own published love letter back at me, I could not—
He’d pulled my hands down gently, still smirking, and kissed me so deeply I forgot why I was embarrassed in the first place.
He does that a lot now. Quotes the letter at the worst possible moments. During breakfast. In front of his mother. Once in front of Damian Fox, who had choked on his coffee.
I regret nothing.
Well. Maybe the heart-racing line.
But then earlier, while getting coffee in Foxtown’s main house, I’d overheard some guests talking. About a different article. A slyly written piece in some gossip column about how Foxtown’s “consecutive A-list weddings of late all involved brides who’d recently broken up with their exes.”
The implication was clear: Foxtown was where women came to rebound. To make rash decisions. To marry wealthy men on impulse.
I’d felt sick.
What if that’s what people think about me and Veil? What if they think I’m using him? What if the article damages Foxtown’s reputation and it’s my fault because I couldn’t handle Joseph showing up without causing a scene—
“Stop spiraling.”
I look up to find Sarah Fox in the doorway, Damian’s wife. She’s younger than I expected, mid-twenties at most, with a dimpled smile and an energy that fills the room the moment she walks in.
“Lady Hampton texted me,” Sarah explains, plopping down next to me with zero ceremony. “She said you were having a quiet breakdown over coffee and could I please come fix it before your makeup appointment.” She grins. “Her words, not mine.”
I can’t help it. I almost laugh.
“I saw the article,” Sarah says, and her voice gentles. “The gossip piece about Foxtown brides and rebounding and all that garbage.”
“What if people think—”
“Oh, people will think whatever they want. Trust me, I know.” She takes my hand, and her expression shifts into something quieter, more serious, though the warmth never leaves her eyes.
“The point is, I almost let that stuff get to me once. Almost let other people’s opinions drown out the voice that actually matters. ”
My throat is so tight I can barely swallow.
“What God builds doesn’t break because some columnist needs clickbait,” Sarah says firmly.
Then her dimpled grin returns. “Besides, have you seen the way that duke looks at you? Damian says he’s never seen anyone that far gone, and Damian would know, because he was that far gone over me for years and wouldn’t admit it. ”
I can only laugh. I always love how Sarah talks about her own fairytale romance, which also took the world by storm when it happened.
Sarah stands, smoothing her dress. “So. Are we done spiraling? Because your makeup artist is hovering in the hallway and she looks terrified.”
“We’re done,” I promise.
“Good.” She beams. “Oh, and Evianne? Welcome to the club. Foxtown brides stick together.”
She’s right.
Veil and I had stayed up late before talking about everything, our fears, our pasts, our faith. He’d told me about how his father had believed, how his mother still does, how he’d drifted away from it after his father died but never quite let go.
“I think,” he’d said, holding my hand in the dark, “God put you in my life to bring me back. To remind me what real love looks like.”
And I’d cried. Again.
Because I’d been thinking the same thing about him.
A knock on the door.
“Come in,” I call, expecting Lady Hampton.
But instead, it’s—
“Mom?”
I’m on my feet before I can think, before I can breathe, before I can process how she’s here, why she’s here—
“Oh, Mom, I can’t believe you’re really here!”
She’s crying. Smiling and crying at the same time, and her hands are already moving before she’s even fully through the door.
‘Surprise,’ she signs, and then I’m in her arms, hugging her so tight I can barely breathe.
“How—when—”
‘The Duke called me,’ Mom signs when I pull back, her hands framing my face between signs. ‘We both wanted to surprise you.’
Fresh tears stream down my face at her words, and Mom wipes my tears away gently. ‘Look at you,’ she signs. ‘You’re so beautiful.’
“I’m getting married,” I whisper. “In two hours. Is this crazy? Am I crazy?”
Mom pulls back slightly, studying my face. Really studying it. And then she smiles.
That knowing, mother’s smile that says she sees everything I’m not saying.
‘I just have to look at you,’ she signs softly, ‘and I know. God chose him for you.’
My throat is so tight I can barely speak. All I can do is I hug her again, and she hugs me back. No words are needed with women like my mom and Veil’s.
A soft knock has us pulling away, and this time it’s my future mother-in-law who appears by the doorway. The two older women greet each other like long-lost sisters who have finally found their way back to each other.
After, Lady Hampton turns to me with a teary smile. ‘I know I made it seem that it was because of work and business that made me insist of moving the spring launch to Foxtown, but that’s not completely true.’
I’m all ears, having only heard this for the first time. And honestly, I can’t think of what other reason—
“When Joy told me her eldest son found the woman God chose for him at Foxtown—”
I nearly gasp, not expecting for Lady Hampton to actually use her own voice when speaking.
“I realized it was the same for me. The moment I saw your photo with your application, I knew right away when I saw you that you were also the one my son has been waiting for.” Her expression then turns rueful, and she squeezes my hand as she says, “I’m just sorry that a breakup was required for your heart to have space for my son. ”
The words have the three of us laughing and crying just a little at the same time, and honestly? It’s just like what both my mom and his said. Veil is the man God chose for me, and being with him is worth having to go through a thousand breakups.
****
VEIL STOOD IN HIS BEDROOM, their bedroom now, and tried not to pace. The ceremony had been perfect, small and intimate, and with just family and a handful of close friends in Foxtown’s chapel.
His mother had cried through the entire thing, and so did her mother.
And when Evianne had walked down the aisle on her mother’s arm, wearing his mother’s dress with flowers in her hair—