She had never dreamed such pleasure existed, had never realised how wonderful it was to literally become a part of another person. To be joined to them, body, soul and heart.
To be joined to Darian, body, soul and heart.
‘I love you, Darian,’ she told him achingly, emotionally. ‘I love you so very much, my darling.’
‘As I love you.’ His arms tightened about her once again. ‘And I will love you for the rest of our lives together.’
‘Promise?’
‘Without a doubt. You?’
‘Oh, yes!’
Mariah had absolutely no doubt it was a promise they would both cherish in their hearts and happily keep.
Epilogue
Two weeks later—Wolfingham House, London
‘Was that a very despondent-looking Anthony I saw leaving just now?’ Mariah prompted as she entered Darian’s study.
‘It was, yes.’ Darian smiled as she walked across the room and straight into his welcoming arms.
She looked up at him quizzically. ‘What on earth did you say to him to make him look so downhearted?’
His smile widened into a grin. ‘As we had already discussed, I told him that my duchess and I had decided to give him permission to pay court to our daughter, Christina.’
After only a week of marriage, Mariah still felt a thrill in her chest at hearing herself referred to as Darian’s duchess. For that was who she was now, Mariah Hunter, the Duchess of Wolfingham. How grand it sounded. And yet she knew she loved Darian so much, wanted to be with him so much, that she would have married him even if he had not been the top-lofty and wealthy Duke of Wolfingham.
Although she did not altogether trust that wicked grin upon her husband’s face right now.
‘If you told him that, why was Anthony looking less than happy?’
That wicked grin widened, green eyes glowing with laughter. ‘Because I told him that not only does he have to win Christina’s heart, but that as her stepfather, I will also expect him to prove himself as being sober and responsible, before we would agree to the match. And that even then we will not countenance there being a wedding until after Christina’s eighteenth birthday.’
‘What a wicked stepfather and brother you are, when you know full well that Christina has already admitted to us that she is smitten.’ Mariah chuckled reprovingly.
‘A little uncertainty will do my little brother good,’ Darian dismissed unrepentantly, his arms now tightening about her waist as a different sort of wickedness now gleamed in his eyes. ‘Have I told you yet this morning how beautiful you look?’
‘About an hour ago, I believe.’ She blushed as she remembered the way in which he had told her.
‘Have I shown you yet this morning how beautiful you are to me?’
‘Also about an hour ago,’ Mariah answered shyly.
‘And would my duchess be interested in my demonstrating the depths of those feelings for her again right this minute?’
Mariah felt the thrill in her chest at just how willing she was to allow Darian to do exactly that. A thrill of excitement that now coursed hotly through the whole of her body. ‘I should like to demonstrate the depth of my feelings for you first,’ she suggested huskily.
Darian chuckled softly. ‘Then shall we retire to the ducal bedchamber?’
The ducal bedchamber that the two of them had shared every night before their wedding and again every night since, the two of them having decided there would be no separate bedchambers for them. Ever. That they would spend all of their nights, as well as all of their days, together.
Mariah had no idea what the future would bring. Another war to quell Napoleon was most certainly imminent. A wedding for her daughter and Anthony next year, she hoped. Perhaps a child or two of their own, for Darian and herself. A handsome boy who looked exactly like his father and a little girl, also with her father’s dark hair and green eyes, so that their parents might spoil and pet them both. Mariah certainly hoped it would be so.
But she had no doubt whatsoever, that whatever the future might hold for the two of them, that they would face it together.
Always, and for ever, together…