Epilogue

“Not getting cold feet, are you?”

Robert looked up as James entered his study, followed by Nicholas and Simon.

For the past couple of days, guests had been arriving, filling Montvale Hall with more people than had ever been seen.

Robert would have had a small, intimate wedding. Had even tried to insist on it. Old habits did die hard, after all.

But Abigail had insisted on a wedding fit for a duke. And everyone already knew that Robert couldn’t deny his future duchess anything.

“It’s not for me, Robert,” Abby had said, gazing up at him with eyes that should be weaponised. They rendered a man useless. A slave to her. “But your mother would be so happy. It’s the least we can do.”

“I hate the idea of a large wedding,” he’d sulked.

He’d denied sulking, of course. But sulk he had.

“I do, too,” she had grimaced. “But I don’t care how I marry you, as long as I get to be your wife.”

So, here they were, three long months later, on the morning of the wedding of the year.

The banns had been read while they’d been in London.

The dowager had insisted that Robert stay at James’s Grosvenor Square townhouse, a stone’s throw from his own.

And she’d kept Abigail so busy that Robert had hardly gotten to spend any time alone with her.

He’d even had to brave those blasted Society events, just to get the chance to hold her.

It had been worth the sycophantic fawning, the scandalised whispers, even other men’s lascivious stares at his fiancée, just to get to hold her. Just to get to breathe the same air as her.

“It’s no use, James,” Simon’s voice sounded from the drinks table, dripping with disdain. “The man can’t string a coherent sentence together anymore. Not unless it’s about the delectable Abby.”

That got Robert’s attention, and he scowled at Simon, even as the other man handed him a tumbler of brandy.

“Watch your mouth,” he growled, and the other three gentlemen laughed.

“It’s not my fault you’re marrying the most beautiful woman in England, Robbie,” Simon laughed, and Robert gritted his teeth.

He hated that name. And Simon knew it.

“Simon, ease up on him,” Nicholas, ever the peacekeeper, called from the fireplace. “He’s nervous,” he finished with a grin.

“Remind me again why I invited you all.” Robert knocked back the contents of his tumbler, choosing to ignore the raucous laughter of his oldest friends.

“I’m giving Abigail away,” James reminded him. “So, there’s no getting rid of me.”

“And I’m here to try to convince you to come to your senses,” Simon drawled, his looks and countenance a study in opposites to the blonde and jovial James. “Marriage,” he finished with a shudder.

“Don’t knock it,” Nicholas said seriously. “You never know, you might find yourself caught in the parson’s trap one day.”

“Over my dead body,” Simon responded sharply. “I would have put money on you or Golden Boy over there being the only ones to wed.”

James made a crude gesture in response to another of Simon’s despised nicknames.

“But lo, someone has managed to take down the Monster of Montvale Hall.”

Robert raised a brow at his friend.

“All the more reason why the Devil of Dashford should be in trouble,” he mocked, earning another shudder from Simon.

“Bite your tongue,” the other man commanded laughingly. “It will take more than a blonde beauty to tame the Devil,” he finished with a wink.

Robert didn’t bother arguing.

Abby was so much more than a “blonde beauty.”

She had saved him.

And in just a few short hours, he’d have her all to himself.

“Um, Robert, I’m terribly fond of you, but the look on your face right now is making me deuced uncomfortable,” Simon said. “I’m afraid you’re not my type. Far too hairy.”

“Oh, God,” James spoke up. “Don’t look at him. He’s been nauseating for months now. I can always tell when he’s thinking of Abby because he looks like that.” James pointed a finger at Robert. “And since she’s my cousin, and more like a little sister, it doesn’t bare thinking about.”

Robert glanced at Nicholas, usually the voice of reason, and his only hope for sense and sanity amongst their group.

“Care to chime in?” he asked.

“Sorry.” Nicholas grinned. “I am, of course, happy for you, but even I’m finding it hard to stomach the moon eyes.”

“Laugh all you want,” Robert told the others as he stood and began to put his jacket on.

If there was a slight tremble in his fingers, his friends didn’t need to know about it.

“I will remember to mock you all mercilessly when it happens to you.”

James walked over and clapped Robert on the shoulder.

“All joking aside,” he said seriously, “I couldn’t be happier for you, Rob. For you and Abby.”

Simon rolled his eyes.

“Saint James strikes again,” he said as he led the way out of the study and into the carriage waiting to take the men to the estate church.

“Says the Lord of the Sinners,” James bit back.

Robert let their bickering wash over him. In a few short minutes, he’d be with Abby

“The duchess certainly knows how to throw a party,” Abigail whispered some hours later.

“You are the duchess now, sweetheart,” Robert reminded her by whispering in her ear and causing her blood to sing.

The wedding ceremony had been perfect.

When the church doors had opened to admit her and James, Abigail had been a bundle of nerves.

But then her eyes had caught Robert’s, and the look on his face had chased away everything but the thought that she was about to become his wife.

Now they were waltzing and even though the ballroom was full to the brim, Abby felt like they were the only two people in the world.

“Have I told you how beautiful you are?” Robert asked, his eyes molten silver.

Abby shivered in response.

“Hundreds of times,” she croaked. “But I’m not complaining.”

The white lace gown had been commissioned by a mantua maker in London when they’d gone there for the end of the Season. The weeks of fittings, and prodding, and poking had been worth it the second Robert’s eyes had darkened as they’d raked over her.

That look had heated her skin so much, Abigail had been surprised when her bouquet of wildflowers didn’t go up in flames.

“I can’t wait to get you all to myself,” Robert growled, pulling her scandalously close.

“Careful, husband,” she whispered impishly. “Your monster is showing,” she finished with a wink that earned her a bark of laughter and more than one shocked gaze.

Everyone, it seemed, was finding it hard to reconcile this laughing, happy man with the one they’d known before.

“Only for you, sweetheart,” he smiled wickedly.

Abby almost swooned from desire, and she was dangerously close to ruining her reputation by accosting her husband there and then in front of all of their guests.

She was saved from herself, however, by the arrival of James at their sides, his face pale, his blue eyes grave.

“James, what’s wrong?” she cried, alarmed by the seriousness in her cousin’s face.

James was always so jovial. It was a shock to see him looking so bleak.

“Apologies for the interruption,” he said, and something in his voice caused Abigail to grab onto his arm.

“What is it?” she asked.

Robert put an arm around her shoulder, and she was grateful for his strength.

“It’s Thomas,” James bit out tersely.

Thomas was James’s younger brother.

Abigail had never met him, but by all accounts, he was a rouge, flitting from continent to continent without the pressures of the marquessate to worry about.

James sighed and ran a hand down his face.

“He’s dead,” he finally blurted.

“Oh, my goodness, James,” Abby cried, unsure what to say.

Robert silently reached out and grabbed his friend’s shoulder.

“I just received word,” James said quietly, ensuring that nobody around them heard their hurried conversation. “A letter from Vienna.”

“Who wrote you?” Robert asked.

“I don’t know. It wasn’t signed. It said that Thomas had been killed, and I should expect the arrival of an important artefact to Avondale.”

Abigail frowned.

“And it wasn’t signed? None of this makes sense,” she said.

“I know,” James agreed. “But I must return to Avondale immediately. If only to find out what’s going on.”

“Let us help,” Robert said, but James shook his head.

“It’s taken you far too long to get here, my friend,” he said with a genuine smile. “I can handle whatever this is. I’ll send word as soon as I know what the hell is going on.”

Without another word, James turned on his heel and fled the ballroom.

Abigail looked up at her husband.

And even in the seriousness of the situation, she felt a thrill of pleasure at calling him that.

“Do you think he will be all right?” she asked.

Robert smoothed an errant curl from her brow.

“I think he’ll be just fine, love,” he smiled. “He knows I’m here if he needs me. But he also knows I have very important things to deal with here.”

“Indeed?” she asked as Robert began to expertly steer her toward the opened doors of the ballroom. “Such as what?”

“Such as escaping the festivities with my wife,” he answered with a grin that made her toes curl. “Such as stealing a few moments alone so I can kiss you how I want, feel you how I crave, and tell you properly how madly in love with you I am.”

By the time they were in the hallway, Abby was nearly expiring with need.

With a darting look around to ensure they weren’t being watched, she grabbed her husband’s hand and ducked into a small morning room, locking the door behind them with a decisive click.

And then twined her arms around her husband’s neck and proceeded to kiss him how she wanted, feel him how she craved, and show him, without words, how madly in love with him she was.

The End.