She wasn’t asking permission.
He’d never before been in the presence of such radiant, peaceful happiness, such certainty, and the earl was surprised at thereliefhe felt. This was rightness. They were the embodiment of the quiet after a storm. Two more besotted people never lived, he thought. Unless it was, once upon a time, he and his own wife.
He heaved an enormous sigh. “Well,” he said, quietly, somewhat gruffly.
Cassidy remained quiet. No arguing, no attempt at persuasion, no superfluous words, no triumph. He waited, hovering like a sheltering tree. Because he knew how the earl felt, and how Lillias felt. This was their moment.
But there was no mistaking it. Their decision was mutual and unequivocal. Lillias was now his. And Hugh, as he’d said the other night, would protect what was his.
Life sundered. And life joined.
The countess quietly entered the room, and he sensed her there, as he had so many times before, and he slipped his arm around her. Her eyes didn’t even widen when she saw Hugh. She and her husband had talked about this probability the night before.
“Lillias, daughter . . . we know your heart,” her father said. “We may not know all of its intricacies, but we have more of a sense of you than you know. I was waiting for you to know your heart, too. And . . . I . . . we . . . think you have made theright decision. Mr. Cassidy is a fine man. We are very glad indeed for you.”
“Thank you, sir,” Hugh said.
“And...” her mother added, through tears. “We think youshouldgo to America. You’ve our blessing. We will miss you desperately. But we will come to visit.”
Lillias’s smile then would be a gift they would remember for the rest of their lives.
“And of course you’ll have all your settlement money,” the earl said. “Get rich. Change the world. And build her that house, Cassidy.”
Giles had never set out for London at all that day.
He remained in the familiar, soothing surrounds of Heatherfield, nurturing a rather bittersweet heartache and singed pride.
Once Giles had seen the contents of her sketchbook, he had known the conclusion was foregone. He loved Lillias. But he didn’t love her the way Cassidy loved her, and she didn’t love him the way she loved Cassidy. He had sense enough not to want to compete with that for the rest of his life—or to deprive Lillias of her true love for the sake of their mutual sentimental attachment to a past they were both understandably reluctant, maybe even afraid, to release.
But things could never go on being the same, even if he’d married her.Hewas the same as he’d always been; Lillias was not. But Giles found relief in knowing she would now be who she was meant to be.
She was indeed more.
He was not. And this was fine with him. He didn’t want more. He didn’t want challenge. He was uniquely happy in that he wanted exactly what he already had. He would pick up the thread in the family continuum, and be part of the weave of history.
And besides... Harriette might actually turn out to be quite a nice girl.
Epilogue
One year later...
The Mayor of Wolfdale and his bride made love like pagans all over their beautiful property.
On a blanket beneath towering trees on sultry summer nights.
On the shores of the lake after swimming naked, like otters.
In meadows, observed by squirrels and deer.
By the warmth of a leaping fire in winter, after they’d skipped flat stones across an icy pond to make them sing.
And then came the perfect clear night when she’d stretched her nude body out on green grass beneath a black sky full of stars and a fat half-moon, and he’d pretended to be Hades discovering her. The ensuing ravishing left them all but floating up among the heavens.
And as a result of that moonlit midnight magic, the lovemaking today—near a sheltered overlook, beyond them the mountains rippling outward in greens and blues, below them the sapphire wink of a lake, and behind them the pearly glow of thehouse—was slow and tender. They would be parents in seven months.
And their happiness gave everything a radiance.
Lillias had brought with her tiny scraps of silk and wool from clothes once worn by her mother and father and brother and sister.