Epilogue
Six months later…
Whitney twitched in her mourning gown, staring out at the changing colors of the sea one last time from the terrace of her temporary home with a feeling of great trepidation. She was leaving today; beginning the journey to England after the sudden death of a man she’d come to admire so much. She once would have given everything she owned not to have to go back home but accepted she must.
But she couldn’t be selfish. She had achieved her dream, studied and painted every day, learning so much about the life of a painter, too. Enough to know that her art would always be important to her, but it wasn’t enough to satisfy her now.
Whitney was about to set off on a new journey that would consume the rest of her life.
She rested her hand over her churning stomach and sighed. Everything was about to change. Her whole world was about to alter, settle into place—if she were fortunate.
“I think we have everything ready to go,” Everett promised as he strode across her terrace, his strong voice evidence of his good health and vitality. Coming to Florence to mourn his sister had done wonders for his outlook on life. He no longer frowned so much. He even ran about a bit after the local boys when they tried to play tricks on him.
She could have turned to face him, admire his tanned features, yet she knew them by heart. She could never get enough of looking at him, and, if she had her way, she never would have to. “Did you have Roberts check under the bed?”
“At my villa and at yours.”
His hands closed over her shoulders and he drew her against him, pushing her grief aside. She had been mentored by a little-known painter she’d met one night at dinner, who had charmed her and Everett both. Roland had become her staunchest supporter, and the hardest taskmaster she’d ever had. Under his watchful eye, she’d stretched herself as a painter. Under his discerning gaze, she’d come to understand where her greatest strengths were as a person, too. “I saw his wife this afternoon. She wished us a safe journey.”
“I spoke to her, too, just a few minutes ago.” He squeezed her shoulders. “She will be all right without him. She has her children and grandchildren to support her. She is surrounded by family and her friends here.”
“I’m glad she has them.” She fell silent, enjoying Everett holding her. Whitney wasn’t sure what she would have done if she’d lost him, as he’d feared she might. They had lived largely separate lives for the sake of propriety, but she was more in love with him than she’d thought possible.
Whitney had found keeping a proper distance from him, one he’d claimed was required for her health, incredibly frustrating. He merely winked whenever the topic of forbidden pleasures came up and soon changed the subject, most often to her latest work or someone else’s they’d recently seen. They had maintained an independence from each other and slept alone every night too, but, now they were going home to England, Whitney wanted the separation to end. “When are we going to talk about it?”
“Today.” He let her go.
Whitney turned around, aware that the future was something they’d always avoided talking about. He’d only recently put aside his mourning clothes, and was colorfully turned out at last. She wet her lips before she spoke. “You’re not afflicted with consumption.”
“So it seems,” he said, then laughed softly. “No lingering death for me.”
She breathed out, allowing the tension in her to fade to nothing. “I am so glad. The world would be a lonely place without you in it.”
“I hoped you might feel that way.” He lifted his hand to her face and gently moved her red hair back from her cheek. He still wore gloves around her, and if the danger had passed there was no reason now that couldn’t stop. They could touch, kiss and become proper lovers.
She looked him up and down, longing for him. It had been a month since Everett had last posed for her. Nude, of course. “Remove your clothes, my good man.”
He grinned widely and tugged off his gloves. “In a moment.”
He took her hand in his very tenderly. It had been a long time since they’d kissed, or touched skin to skin, and the torture had been acute for Whitney.
He slid his palm over hers and then laced their fingers together tightly. “I want to do this right this time.”
Whitney was returning to a life of dull and proper behavior soon, to balls and dinners and morning calls and everything she’d ever resisted. Conforming to society’s expectations had never appealed before, but it was what Everett would want, and because she loved him, she intended to try to fit in. “We’ve done nothing else right, have we?”
He grinned. “These past months have been the best of my life, and I have only you to thank for that. I have discovered so many things about myself, and about you most of all.”
“Such as?”
“That you only have to look in my direction to make me happy. I never imagined this life, but I am grateful to you for showing me another way to live. I think I would have been very miserable if not for you.”
“I feel the same.” She leaned close. “And I feel I must confess that you only have to walk into a room to excite me unbearably.”
His grin widened. “Imagine making love where we actually touch?”
Her breath quickened. “I always do.”
They pleasured themselves in each other’s company only infrequently, and when they couldn’t, they would whisper about it in the most inappropriate locations. Whitney had never felt so beautiful as when Everett told her his desires.
“Tonight,” he promised. “Tonight, I will be with you.”
Tonight was hours away.
“Now,” she countered. “There is nothing to hold us back anymore. To hell with my reputation. I have waited long enough.”
His grip on her hand tightened. “Whitney, I need you.”
“I need you, too.” She leaned forward to claim a kiss but he drew back.
“Life is very relaxed here, but we cannot continue this way once we are back in England,” he warned her.
“Because people always gossip,” she agreed. Everett particularly did not like when the talk involved him or Whitney. He was rather funny when his feathers were ruffled by rumors and innuendo.
“People always do. I want to be with you so much that when we get home, I think we need to marry immediately.” He drew her hands upward and pressed soft kisses to her knuckles. He met her gaze, and Whitney’s knees almost buckled under the love she glimpsed in his eyes. “I know your dreams are not over, and that you will paint and sometimes scandalize the high sticklers, but I don’t care. I want to be with you, at your side forever. I hope there might be room for me in your dreams, too.”
“You are in them.” She slipped his grip and touched his dear face, sliding her fingers into the lengths of his hair. She adored this man because he had never asked her to change. “My dreams are filled with you and the life we can have together. I would be honored to be your wife.”
His expression changed to delight as he pulled her closer against his chest. He rested his hands on her hips and squeezed. “What do you dream for us?”
“Many things.” The feel of him against her at long last made her pulse speed up. She toyed with his cravat, trying to put into words the future they could share. “We’re going home to be married, to meet our mutual friends together as man and wife, and we are going to start the family you have always wanted. I have always known I would have children. I want yours soon.”
“What else will we do?”
“We will most likely spend part of the season in London, but most of the time we will be home at Warstone, moving your cattle from field to field, keeping your horses long after they are fit to ride. Making love under the stars or in the woods. Calling on your friends in the village and making sure they are well and happy, especially the Blakes.”
He grinned widely and spun them both in a tight circle. “I have loved you since the night we met.”
Whitney laughed. “Are you attempting to rewrite our history, my love?”
“Of course not.” He laughed with her, something she’d not thought him capable of the second time they’d met. “But upon reflection, I cannot believe I didn’t understand why seeing you always angered me. Why you laughing with other men annoyed me so much. I think I was plagued with the most horrid jealousy when you smiled at other men I unconsciously deemed unworthy and my rival for your regard.”
“You wanted to be the one I flirted with instead?”
“Of course,” he promised. “Not that I ever understood my feelings for you until it was almost too late.”
“Will you feel any better should I tell you that I fell for you the night we first met, and it was only out of friendship and loyalty that I had no choice but to detest you?”
He looked surprised at that. “You detested me?”
Whitney nodded. “I hated that you didn’t try to win me, because you know I do possess a fortune, so you could have married me instead of proposing to Miss Quartermane.”
“I know that now,” he agreed with another laugh. “Fortunately for you, I’ve never been interested in marrying for monetary gain. You have won my regard by your own merits.”
“So why the rush to marry at all?” She grinned, knowing her question was foolish. They were in love, and love was the most troublesome of all emotions to contain.
“Because I cannot get you out of my mind and heart…and I don’t want to. I demand the right to tell everyone that you hold my heart.”
Everett lowered himself to one knee and produced a shiny bauble from his pocket. It was not an overly large ring, but Whitney loved it on sight. Rubies and diamond were her favorite stones. “I collected this last month from a silversmith. I had it made especially for you. I wanted you to finally have a ring of your own to pass down to our children, along with those of your aunts and uncles. No one else has ever worn this before.”
Whitney felt her eyes prickle with the warning of tears as he slipped it onto her finger and stood again. “Oh, Everett, that is so sweet of you to have this made, but I already have your ring.”
She fisted her fingers and waved his signet ring under his nose.
“One to claim you, one to keep you,” he whispered. “I made such a mistake trying to do everything that society expected of me, and I even asked the wrong woman to marry me, thinking I could learn to love her,” he confessed quietly. “I’m so sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” she promised.
“But I need to explain. I grew up with the right example right before my eyes, and lost sight of that somehow.” He met her gaze. “My parents’ marriage was arranged, but they were a love match from the very start. My mother and father were never very obvious about it, but it was in everything they did and said, and sometimes what they didn’t say. They lived for each other, in later years they finished each other’s sentences too. They were never apart for longer than two days at a time. Wherever Father went, Mother was at his side, and vice versa. I want that for us.”
“So do I,” she whispered, cupping his cheek. “I need you in my life so very much.”
A smile lingered on his lips. “Mother believed in waiting for the right moment, and this is it. She told me the love of my life would light a bright flame inside me and when I found her, that yearning would never go out. That flame is the love I feel for you.”
Whitney stared at her hand a moment, at his rings surrounded by those of her long-dead family, and her eyes filled with tears. “Oh Everett. That is just the most beautiful thing you’ve ever said to me. I’d love nothing more than to spend the rest of my life having you at my side, having you finishing my sentences. That could be very interesting…and wicked too.”
She threw her arms about him and clung to the love she’d been waiting for all her life.
Everett nuzzled her neck. “Are you ready for me, Whitney?”
“Indeed. Ready, waiting, quite impatiently.”
Everett swept her into his arms, carried her inside, and upstairs to her bedchamber.
He deposited her beside her bed and cupped her face. Slowly, painstakingly it seemed, his lips met hers. Their second kiss excited her more than she thought possible, and when his tongue swept past her lips and tangled with hers, she swooned against him.
Everett’s arms tightened around her as he plundered her mouth. She clung to him, kissed him back for all she was worth and more. She felt the tugs at the buttons on her gown and then the sweep of his hands across her bare upper back.
His touch was firm, possessive, and she could not get close enough. She began to undress him, removing his cravat and unbuttoning his waistcoat before sliding her arms about his narrow waist.
She relaxed her grip as he struggled out of his coat, let his waistcoat fall to the ground, and then he yanked his shirt over his head.
Whitney moaned as she laid her cheek against his bare chest. “I’ve missed touching you.”
“I’ve missed it more,” he told her with a laugh as he removed her gown and stays. Her chemise disappeared quickly, and then they were kissing and naked together, nearly fused from hips to lips.
They broke apart to remove his trousers.
Whitney fell backward onto the bed and lifted her legs high. Everett grasped her ankles briefly, then divested her of her shoes, garters and stockings. He crawled on top of her and pressed his whole body against hers. “I can’t believe I’m finally in bed with you.”
“Believe it, lover,” she whispered, winding her arms about his neck and pulling him down for a long, steamy kiss. Whitney widened her legs, her body already humming with lust. “You’ll stay until dawn,” she told him.
Everett cantered her hips and positioned himself where she needed him most. “Will that be long enough to sate us?”
Whitney squirmed, attempting to bring him into her. She admired his restraint, even if she didn’t need it. “I don’t think so. Come into me.”
“We have more nights ahead than this one, darling,” Everett whispered softly against her ear. “We have the rest of our lives. My God, I love you, Trouble.”
Whitney set her hands to the smooth curve of his bottom and tugged. “Start now,” she demanded, as she pulled him all the way into her and made them both moan.