Extended Epilogue
Fitzroy Manor, Hertfordshire
Nine Years Later
The first crack of thunder made Cecilia look up from her correspondence just as Lady Rothbury—Pru, knocked over her teacup.
“Oh, blast,” Pru muttered, dabbing at the spreading stain on her muslin skirts. “I’m still dreadfully clumsy. Thomas swears I’ve broken more china in our first year of marriage than his entire battalion managed in three years of war.”
“At least you are consistent,” Rosie observed dryly from her position by the window, where she’d been watching the storm clouds gather with the detached interest of someone who had no family to fret over in inclement weather. “Remember the Hartfield ball? You dumped an entire punchbowl on—”
“We agreed never to speak of that again,” Pru said firmly.
Cecilia smiled despite the growing unease in her chest. The drawing room of Fitzroy Manor was warm and bright, filled with the people she loved most. Emma sat beside Ben near the hearth, one hand resting on her slightly rounded belly—their third. Marcus, her brother, hovered by the drinks table, attempting to explain something about crop rotation to Thomas Rothbury, who looked politely baffled.
It should have been perfect. It was perfect.
So why did she feel that familiar prickle at the back of her neck?
“Where are the children?” she asked, perhaps too abruptly.
Emma glanced up. “Playing upstairs, I thought? Didn’t Nanny take them after tea?”
“Charlotte wanted to show off her book collection,” Ben added. “You know how she gets about her books.”
Yes, Cecilia knew very well. At just eight years old, Charlotte Fitzroy had already inherited her mother’s love of reading and her father’s stubborn independence. Their younger son, James—just turned three—had inherited his father’s charm and his mother’s tendency to ask deeply uncomfortable questions at precisely the wrong moments.
Another rumble of thunder, closer this time. The windows rattled.
“I should check on them,” Cecilia said, already rising.
“They’re fine, dear,” her mother said from across the room, not looking up from her embroidery. “You hover terribly. I never hovered over you and Marcus.”
“Yes, and look how well we turned out,” Marcus muttered into his whisky.
Margaret’s eyes sharpened, but before she could respond, the door opened, and Cassian strode in. He’d shed his jacket somewhere—probably in his study—and rolled his shirtsleeves to his elbows. Nine years of marriage, and her stomach still did that ridiculous flutter whenever he walked into a room with eyes only for her.
Their gazes met across the drawing room, and something passed between them. Understanding, perhaps. Or recognition.
He felt it too. The storm.
“Forgotten how to dress for company, Tressingham?” Rosie asked, but her tone was fond. Over the years, she’d developed a grudging affection for Cecilia’s husband, though she’d never quite forgiven him for when he had exposed her secret lover’s identity, Lord Theo Notley, who she still maintained to this day was a passing infatuation and not at all evidence that her heart could someday be swayed by a gentleman.
“I find clothes restrictive,” Cassian replied distractedly, moving to Cecilia’s side. His hand found the small of her back, warm through the fabric of her gown. “Don’t you agree, wife?”
“Cassian,” Cecilia said warningly, feeling heat creep up her neck at the rather public gesture.
“What? I was merely making conversation.”
“You were being inappropriate in front of our guests,” she half-whispered with a sidelong glare.
Cassian rolled his eyes before murmuring, “After nine years, I would think you’d be used to it.”
She elbowed him lightly in the ribs, and his grin only widened.
“Ah, yes, the reason I came. I needed to retrieve something from the library,” he said suddenly, voice dropping a touch. “Care to help me look?”
Oh, the scoundrel. She should refuse. They had guests. Her mother was right there, probably already disapproving of the familiar way Cassian’s thumb stroked her spine through her dress with people present. After Henry Hartwick, Cecilia’s father, had passed almost five years ago now, his dying wish was to reunite his broken family, something they all agreed was for the best. That did not really stop Cecilia’s mother from disapproving of her unorthodox lifestyle with Cassian, of course, but she supposed that was part and parcel of what being a family was.
“The library?” Cassian said once more, breaking her from her reveries.
“The library,” she repeated carefully.
“Mmm. I seem to have misplaced a very important book… Could take some time to find it.”
“How… unfortunate.”
“Quite tragic, really.”
Thunder cracked again, and Cecilia made her decision. “I’ll help you look,” she told him, then turned to the room. “Please excuse us for a moment. Cassian has lost something.”
“His dignity?” Ben suggested.
“That was never in question,” Marcus added with a scoff.
Cassian laughed rather theatrically and steered Cecilia toward the door. She felt her mother’s disapproving gaze follow them out, but it felt like a lifetime ago since she last cared for others’ opinions when it came to her peculiar marriage.
The moment they were in the corridor, Cassian pulled her into an alcove and kissed her soundly.
“We shouldn’t,” she gasped against his mouth. “The children—”
“Are perfectly safe with Nanny.”
“My mother—”
“Can disapprove of us for five minutes.” His lips traced down her neck, finding that spot behind her ear that made her knees weak. “I’ve been watching you all afternoon, sweetheart. Watching you pour tea and make polite conversation and be the perfect hostess after everything we did last night… Devil take it, do you know what it does to me?”
She smiled, only a little—she shouldn’t encourage this behavior, of course!—before saying, “What does it do…”
“It makes me remember that night in Crete,” he chuckled deeply. “When you wore that sheer nightgown our first night alone at the lodging. Remember? When you were too aroused to just sleep, but too nervous to tell me all the things you wanted me to do to you?”
“That’s—you’re being—”
“Honest?” He nipped at her earlobe. “Or perhaps you were thinking of our first time in the outbuilding?”
Heat flooded through her. “You’re incorrigible…”
“And you love it.”
She did. God help her, she did.
They made it to the library in the East Wing—just barely—and the moment the door closed behind them, Cassian had her pressed against it. His kiss was hungrier now, less teasing, and she responded in kind. Nine years hadn’t dimmed this between them. If anything, knowing each other so utterly had only made it more intense.
“I’ve been wanting to do this since breakfast,” he murmured against her throat, the vibrations tickling her into a euphoric frenzy. “When you spilled jam on your fingers and licked them clean…”
“That was—” she gasped as his fingers parted her folds, finding slick heat, “—entirely innocent.”
“Nothing about you is innocent anymore, sweetheart.” He kissed down her throat, down the hollows of her breasts. “I have corrupted you thoroughly.”
“I am a respectable mother of two—” she tried with a chuckle, but her breath hitched as he found that spot that made her knees weak.
“Who is currently letting her husband compromise her in the library while guests wait downstairs.” His thumb pressed against her pearl, circling with deliberate pressure. “Very respectable indeed…”
She wanted to respond with something cutting, something witty, but coherent thought scattered the moment he slid two fingers inside her. Her hips rolled against his hand, chasing the pleasure, and she pulled him into a kiss that was more demand than request, her fingers tangling in his hair and gripping hard.
“Is this all right?” he panted against her mouth. “Tell me if—”
Cecilia stifled a low moan and rasped, “Don’t you dare stop.”
His laugh was low and pleased. His fingers curled inside her, finding that place that made her see stars. Heat coiled tighter in her belly, her inner walls clenching around his fingers as pleasure built and built until—
She shattered, burying her face in his shoulder to muffle the cry that tore from her throat, trying very hard not to make sounds that would carry to the drawing room below. He worked her through it, drawing out every tremor and pulse until she wilted against him, boneless and sated.
When she could breathe again, she found him watching her with that expression that still made her heart stutter. Wonder mixed with possession mixed with something deeper. Love, she supposed. Though that word felt inordinately insufficient for what had grown between them over the last nine years.
“Better?” he asked, teasing her lips with a kiss.
“Much.” She straightened her skirts, trying to look respectable again. “Though we should—”
A door slammed somewhere upstairs.
They both froze.
“That was—” Cecilia started.
Another door. Then a third. Someone was opening and closing doors rapidly.
They looked at each other and moved, Cassian reaching the library door first and yanking it open. The corridor was empty, but they could hear it now—Nanny’s voice, high and worried, calling from the floor above.
“Miss Charlotte? Oh, dear, Miss Charlotte!”
Cecilia’s heart dropped into her stomach.
They took the stairs at a run, propriety forgotten. Nanny appeared at the landing, her round face creased with worry.
“Your Grace, I’m so sorry, I only left them for a moment—Miss Charlotte said she wanted to fetch a book, and when I came back—”
“How long?” Cassian’s voice was sharp.
“Ten minutes, perhaps? I’ve checked all the bedrooms, the nursery, the schoolroom—”
“James?” Cecilia asked. “Where’s James?”
“He is in the nursery, Your Grace. Sleeping. But Miss Charlotte—”
Thunder boomed, close enough to rattle the windows once again. Cecilia watched her husband’s face go white.
She knew that look. Had seen it only once before, years ago, when Charlotte had been an infant, and had doddled away to doze off during a visit at their London townhouse. Cassian had found her within minutes—asleep in a laundry basket—but for those brief moments, Cecilia had watched him come apart. Though the incident of the outbuilding was now three decades in the past, that fear of abandonment still plagued Cassian fresh when it came to their children.
He was doing it again now. She could see it in the rigid set of his broad shoulders, the way his large hands had clenched into fists.
“Cassian,” she said quietly, moving to his side and taking one of those fists in both her hands. “Look at me.”
His eyes snapped to hers, wild and dark.
“She is not you,” Cecilia said, the same words she’d spoken years ago. “She is ours. And she will always be safe.”
“You don’t know that—”
“I do.” She squeezed his hand. “Because you’ve made this house safe. Because she’s clever and careful and loved. Because she is probably just reading somewhere and lost track of time.”
“The storm—”
“Is just a summer storm.” She cupped his face, making him focus on her. “We’ll find her. But I need you here with me, not lost in your head. Can you do that?”
She watched him fight for control, watched him pull himself back from the edge. Finally, he nodded.
“Good.” She released him, already planning. “You check downstairs—the study, the drawing room again, anywhere she might have gone for a book. I’ll check the rest of the upstairs.”
“Cecilia—”
“We’ll find her,” she repeated firmly. Then, softer: “I promise.”
“I love you, my sweetheart.” He kissed her forehead and left, taking the stairs two at a time.
Cecilia turned to Nanny. “Show me exactly where you last saw her.”
Twenty minutes later, Cecilia had checked every room on the upper floors twice. She’d looked under beds, behind curtains, in wardrobes. Nothing. Charlotte had simply vanished.
The panic she’d been holding at bay crept closer. Where would an eight -year-old go during a thunderstorm? Charlotte was a curious soul, not at all frightened of storms—often pressing her nose to windows during lightning strikes to get a better look.
A book.
Charlotte had told Nanny she wanted a book.
Cecilia stopped in the middle of the corridor, thinking. Charlotte had her own collection in the nursery; mostly fairy tales and simple primers. But the little girl was reading far above her age, devouring anything she could get her tiny little hands on. Last week, Cecilia had found her trying and failing to puzzle through a volume of Greek myths.
Where would Charlotte go for books?
The library. But Cecilia and Cassian had just come from there.
Unless…
The lending library.
The outbuilding!
Cecilia’s breath caught. She turned and ran back to the nursery, where James had startled awake in his small bed after the latest bouts of thunder, thumb in his mouth and crying. She scooped him up and hurried downstairs.
By the time she returned, she found Cassian in the entrance hall, looking devastated.
“Nothing,” he said hoarsely. “I’ve checked everywhere, I’ve asked the guests—”
“The outbuilding,” Cecilia said.
He went very still. “She wouldn’t—”
“Oh, she most certainly would.” Cecilia shifted James to her other hip. “James? Sweetheart, can you wake up for Mama?”
Their son’s eyes fluttered open after he’d fallen asleep again just moments ago. “Mama?”
“Where’s Charlotte, darling? Did she tell you where she was going?”
“Lottie said…” He yawned hugely. “Said she was going to the library. The good one. With all the books.”
Cecilia’s eyes met Cassian’s.
“Stay here,” he said immediately, already moving toward the door.
“Absolutely not!” She followed, James now fully awake and clinging to her like a newborn kitten. “We go together.”
The cold rain lashed them the moment they stepped outside. Cecilia held James close as Cassian umbrellaed a coat over the pair of them, trying to shield them from the worst of it as they ran across the lawn. The grass was slick beneath her feet, her slippers offering no purchase. She almost slipped, but Cassian caught her elbow and steadied her with ease.
The outbuilding loomed ahead now with its warm light spilling from its cottage panes.
Cassian reached the door first. His hand hesitated on the handle for just a moment—she saw it, that flash of ancient fear—then he heaved it open.
Inside, curled in one of the large reading chairs they had newly installed, wrapped in a blanket and reading by candlelight, was little Charlotte.
She looked up as they entered, her face—so like Cassian’s, all angles and storm-grey eyes—creased in confusion. “Mama? Papa? Why are you all looking like that?”
For a moment, neither of them could speak.
Then Cassian crossed the room in three strides and pulled Charlotte into his arms, chair and blanket and all. He buried his face in her dark hair, and Cecilia saw a huge sigh of relief escape his frame.
“Papa?” Charlotte’s voice was small now, uncertain. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No—” Cassian managed. “—No, darling, you didn’t. I just—we couldn’t find you.”
“But I’m right here.” She pulled back to look at him, puzzled. “I told Nanny I was getting a book. This is where the books are.”
“She quite believed you meant upstairs,” Cecilia explained gently, setting James down. He immediately toddled to his sister, trying to climb into the chair with her. “Your books in the nursery.”
“Those are baby books,” Charlotte groused with all the disdain an eight-year-old could muster. “I wanted a real book. Like the ones you read, Mama.”
Cecilia looked at the volume in her daughter’s lap. Homer’s Odyssey. One of her own annotated copies, complete with sardonic commentary in the margins.
“You came out here,” Cassian said slowly, “in the rain. By yourself?”
“It wasn’t raining when I started.” Charlotte shrugged her tiny shoulders. “Then it was, but I was already reading, and Papa always says this is the best place to read when it rains. Because you can hear it patter on the roof but you’re still warm and dry.”
Cecilia watched her husband’s face transform. The fear drained away, replaced by something far more beautiful. Closure.
“Papa?” Charlotte touched his cheek. “Why are you crying?”
“I’m not—” He cleared his throat. “I’m not crying, sweetheart. I’m just… I’m happy you’re safe.”
“Why wouldn’t I be safe? You built this place for us. You made it perfect.”
And there it was. The moment Cecilia had known would come eventually, though she hadn’t known it would be tonight, in the rain, with their daughter speaking simple truths.
Cassian had transformed his prison into his daughter’s sanctuary.
“Can we stay?” James asked, already burrowing into the blanket. “Storytime?”
Cecilia thought of the house party still in progress, the guests who would notice their absence, her mother who would certainly have something to say about the Duke and Duchess of Tressingham abandoning their own soirée to huddle in an outbuilding with their children.
“Yes,” she smiled despite it all. “We can stay for a little longer.”
She settled into the reading chair, which was thankfully large enough for all of them if they squeezed. James curled into her lap while Charlotte leaned against Cassian, the Odyssey open between them. The rain drummed comfortingly overhead, just as Charlotte had claimed, and the candlelight cast everything in warm gold.
“Where were you?” Cassian asked quietly, his chin resting on Charlotte’s head.
“Hmm?”
“In the story. Where had you gotten to?”
“Odysseus is trapped on Calypso’s island,” Charlotte explained. “He wants to go home but he can’t. It’s sad.”
“It is,” Cassian agreed. “But he makes it eventually. It takes him a long time—and he makes many mistakes—but he gets home in the end.”
“That’s the important part,” Cecilia added softly, meeting her husband’s eyes over their children’s heads. “That he keeps trying. That he never stops wanting to come home.”
Cassian held her gaze, and she saw everything they’d built together reflected there. The life neither of them had thought possible. The home he’d run from and found his way back to. The family he’d been terrified to want and now couldn’t imagine living without.
“Read it, Papa,” James demanded, stealing the book and shoving it into Cassian’s side.
He chuckled awkwardly, then said, “I’m not sure I remember enough Greek—”
“Mama wrote notes,” Charlotte supplied helpfully, pointing to Cecilia’s annotations. “In English. They’re funny. That’s how I read.”
Cassian laughed—that real laugh Cecilia had fallen in love with—and began to read. Not Homer’s words, but Cecilia’s commentary on them, written years ago when she had been young and cynical and certain she understood how the world worked.
“If Odysseus truly wished to return home, perhaps he should have tried a more direct route instead of gallivanting across the Mediterranean having adventures. Some of us have responsibilities.”
“You were very stern, sweetheart,” Cassian observed with a teasing smirk.
Cecilia blushed considerably red and murmured, “I was nineteen and thought I knew everything.”
“And now?”
“Now I know I don’t know anything.” She smiled and leaned her head against her husband’s considerable, cushioning shoulder. “But I’m learning.”
Thunder rolled overhead, but inside the outbuilding—the lending library, the place that had once been Cassian’s nightmare, then refuge, and was now his children’s favorite retreat—they were warm and safe and together. Here, wrapped in blankets and each other, with an annotated Odyssey and two of the sweetest children between them, they were home.
And home, Cecilia had learned one fateful morning when everything had once felt so lonely, wasn’t a place at all.
It was this. Always this.