Epilogue
“My dear, you look stunning.” Phineas brought Jane’s hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to her knuckles.
She blushed, poor dear, adding another regret to the mountain the professor had accumulated as his retirement banquet had approached.
Wearing a dress of garnet velvet, by the soft glow of candlelight, Jane was not only pretty, she was dear. Why had it taken Phineas so long to admit that?
“And you look very distinguished,” Jane replied, making no move to retrieve her hand. “Shall we have a glass of wine, Phin? Their lordships aren’t due for another quarter hour.”
Their lordships—three bright scamps all grown up and full of their own consequence—included the Earl of Ramsdale, who would soon become Phineas’s son-in-law. That Philomena had caught the notice of such a formidable man wasn’t surprising, but that she’d leave her father’s household… Phineas was abruptly wishing he’d been a different sort of father. A less scholarly father, of all things.
Perhaps he might make some reparation for being so preoccupied with his studies by spoiling a few grandchildren, for Ramsdale and Philomena appeared to have become madly devoted to one another.
“Wine would be lovely,” Phineas said. “I’ll need the fortification for both the congratulations on my lengthy career, and the condolences on my inability to confirm the Duke’s existence.” Phineas would much rather spend the evening at home with Jane, drafting a treatise on the development of the Friesian language in the high Middle Ages than nodding jovially at inane toasts. The grown men who’d once been his brightest students needed to make a public fuss over their old professor, though, and Phineas was thus doomed to attend tonight’s banquet.
Jane laced her arm through his and strolled with him to the family parlor. “Is it really so awful, not to have found any portion of your precious Duke?”
In the past few days, through an awkward interview with Ramsdale, dinner with Tremayne, and another dinner with Daunt, Phineas had waited for some great weight of emotion to befall him. He’d failed to find evidence that confirmed the existence of the Liber Ducis de Scientia, despite devoting a lifetime to researching that great and mysterious tome. Not for a moment did he believe Angus Carter had ever seen so much as a page of a genuine Duke.
Surely, he was entitled to be bitter? Disappointed? Resigned? Something?
But having given his blessing to Philomena’s marriage, all Phineas felt was a sense of relief. Let another generations of scholars thrill to the pursuit of the Duke, let them track down clues, debate theories, and stay awake at night considering possibilities.
Phineas would soon have grandchildren to regale with mythical tales of titans and goddesses, and—unless he courage failed him entirely—he’d have Jane to spoil too.
“Half a glass for me,” Jane said, as Phineas took the stopper from the decanter of claret. “I expect to drink many toasts tonight to your illustrious career.”
“I would like to offer a toast to you, Jane.” He poured two half-glasses, his hand shaking slightly. Their lordship would soon be strutting about underfoot, and fifteen minutes wasn’t enough to time for Phineas to cover that mattered to him most. He passed Jane a serving of wine, and the speech he’d refined and rehearsed flew right out of his head.
“A toast to me?”
She looked so elegant, the wineglass in her hand, and so… composed.
“To the woman who became a second mother to my daughter,” Phineas said, lifting his glass. “The woman who kept my household running like a top without a word of thanks from me. The woman whose intellectual capability is eclipsed only by her selfless good cheer. I owe you an apology, Jane, for an absent-minded professor might lose his spectacles, but in recent days, I realize I’ve also lost my heart. I hope the misplaced article shows up in your keeping, because I’m much more determined that you should have it than I ever was upon finding some musty old manuscript.”
Jane’s brows knit. “Are you foxed, Phineas?”
“No, madam. If anything, I am finally over an infatuation with academic acclaim or with a certain manuscript that might have earned me the notice of my peers.” He touched his glass to hers. “Philomena has found her match in Ramsdale, and you warned me that if Philomena should leave the household, you’d soon follow her. From that moment on, I’ve been unable to hold a single thought relating to the Liber Ducis. Not even half a thought.”
“Ramsdale is a good match for Philomena,” Jane said. “Rough around the edges, but she will sort him out.”
Ramsdale would either appreciate Philomena’s guidance, or Jane would turn that earl over her figurative knee. Who needed the wisdom of the world’s greatest scientific minds when the likes of Jane and Philomena were on hand to take matters in hand?
Phineas had a similar sense of optimism where Tremayne’s duchess and Daunt’s viscountess were concerned. Their lordships might not have found the Duke, but they’d certainly found treasures of the heart.
“My point,” Phineas said, taking Jane’s drink from her and setting it aside, “is that if I have to choose between losing you, or finding the Duke, I want you, Jane. The Duke can remain hidden wherever he’s lurking, and I wish him the joy of his obscurity. Perhaps Philomena can find him, or Daunt, or Tremayne. Tremayne in particular has no notion of how to give up on a cause. I honestly don’t care who finds the Duke. I care that I don’t lose you.”
Jane studied him for a quiet, fraught moment. “What are you saying, Phineas? I have plenty put by. I will not become an object of your charity.”
“By Jupiter’s chariot! I am making a complete hash of this. Jane, I am asking you to marry me. For years, I’ve been the object of your charity, your patience, your loyalty. My affection for you…” Latin quotes came to mind, lofty, inanities borrowed from long-dead statesmen.
Jane was looking inscrutable, and Phineas considered going down on one knee. The getting up might be undignified, but then, he was asking Jane to be his wife. Some courage was wanted, and down on one knee he did go.
“I love you,” Phineas said, taking her hand. “I’ve searched high and low for literary treasure and the esteem of my colleagues, while all along, the best gift of all was offered to me one quiet evening, one lovely smile at a time. Say you will share more smiles with me, Jane, more quiet evenings, more puzzling translations.”
Carriage wheels sounded on the cobbles. Phineas waited, knowing Jane would be entirely justified in flinging his proposal back in his face. She was kind and gracious, but unfailingly honest too.
“If I say no, you’ll try again, won’t you?”
Phineas sprang to his feet, for Jane was smiling. “If you say no, all the determination I previously wasted on that dratted Duke will be focused on you, my dear. I will be relentlessly devoted, faultlessly attentive, recklessly effusive, tirelessly—”
“Spare me your adverbs, Phineas. Once their lordships have tended to their nuptials, you and I can have a quiet ceremony, provided you promise me that once we’re wed, we can search for the Duke ourselves.”
Phineas bussed her cheek. “You may search for the Duke. I’ll be too busy doting on my new wife. Perhaps Ramsdale, Tremayne, and Daunt—and their ladies—will take up the pursuit of the Liber Ducis. I will wish them every success, provided they limit themselves to one toast apiece this evening.”
Ramsdale, accompanied by Tremayne and Daunt, strode into the parlor.
“Why limit ourselves to one toast apiece?” the earl asked. “I have a few toasts in mind for my new countess, and I’m sure Daunt and Tremayne, being incapable of moderation in any form, will keep us raising our glasses until midnight.”
Their lordships, as Jane referred to them, were no longer three, hungry, tired boys, missing their ponies while succumbing to a reluctant fascination with ancient languages. They were resplendent in their evening attire, with Daunt cutting an especially fine dash, right down to the sapphire pin winking from among the folds of his lacy cravat.
His Grace of Tremayne bowed over Jane’s hand and came up not exactly smiling, but with a gleam in his eye that suggested the duke had solved a particularly vexing riddle of translation.
“We come bearing gifts,” Tremayne said, holding up a velvet sack. “Or Ramsdale and I do.”
Daunt elbowed the duke in the ribs, which amounted to a display of affection between those two.
“We don’t come bearing gifts,” Ramsdale said. “We come with our assignments completed, like the good little scholars we are. Tremayne, order of precedence means you go first.”
“Order of insufferability, you mean,” Daunt said, though the viscount was smiling. This was not his Handsome Harry smile—another one of Jane’s terms—but rather, an expression of fond amusement.
Tremayne set the sack on the sideboard. “We’ve come across a few items that the professor might find of interest. Perhaps Miss Jane would do the honors.”
Of the three, Tremayne was the least inclined to flirt or flatter, and yet, he made a courtly bow in the direction of the velvet sack.
He was every inch the duke, as always, but his broad shoulders looked lighter, his expression less solemn, his fists unclenched. Phineas wondered if the change had something to do with the woman who’d stolen the duke’s heart. It was about time. Tremayne spent all of his hours trying to fill the empty well of his heart with things—rare books, valuable art, antique vases—but what he really needed was the love of another person.
Hadn’t Phineas been engaged in a similarly fruitless pursuit, writing one treatise after another, lecturing to any obscure society, taking on any debate?
“Before Jane unveils your latest acquisition,” Phineas said, “I want you three to know something: I’ve relinquished my interest in the Duke’s Book of Knowledge to pursue a worthier objective.”
Jane opened the sack’s drawstrings and withdrew what looked to be a manuscript. Phineas had seen hundreds, and this one was nondescript: Leather binding, aged pages, Latin title marching across the front.
“You’ve given up on the Duke?” Daunt asked. “You’ve given up on the Duke now, after decades of devoting yourself to finding him?” He gave a brilliant grin. “That’s… lovely, that’s what that is. You’re spoiling Tremayne’s grand gesture, and I do so love it when that happens.”
Jane took out a second manuscript in the same condition. Old leather and Latin, Latin and old leather. Two more volumes joined the two on the sideboard, the though the fourth parcel wasn’t even bound. Phineas wished he was wearing his glasses, because whatever little treasures their lordships had found, Jane was apparently fascinated with them.
“I’m not giving up on the Duke,” Phineas said. “I’m simply allowing others to follow in my footsteps. I’ve found the companion my heart has called to for years, gentlemen, and she will come before any other interest or distraction. Jane has consented to be my wife, and of all men, I know well what an honor and a—”
“Phineas,” Jane said softly, “cease your prattling. They did it. Oh, they did it. They found your Duke.”
The words made no sense at first. Phineas hadn’t lost a duke.
Then Jane brushed at her cheek with her wrist and aimed a dazzling smile at Phineas. “Phineas, their lordships have found the Duke. This is the Liber Ducis de Scientia, all four volumes. You gave them an assignment, and they have turned in their work on time, as always.”
Phineas’s heartbeat became a palpable thump against his ribs. Their lordships watched him with obvious anticipation, and Jane stepped back, leaving four documents on the sideboard.
“I need my… Jane, would you be so good as to…” The lettering was faded on one of the volumes, but large enough on all four to be read easily even without spectacles. One of the volumes looked to be in its original state. Phineas reached out to lift the cover of the first document, then drew his hand back.
“By the Benevolent Deity.” A chill washed over him, followed immediately by emotion too vast to admit of mere words. “By the Heavenly Artificer, you did it.”
“On time,” Tremayne said, “though some of us contributed a bit more to the effort than others.”
“Now, Tremayne,” Daunt chided. “You’re the duke. Of course your contribution would be the largest and earn the highest marks. Ramsdale’s volume lacks binding, after all.”
They bickered back and forth while Phineas wallowed in a joy so profound, it nearly matched the day he’d first held his daughter in his arms. Based on Ramsdale’s smug expression, Philomena already knew the Duke had been found—had probably done her part to track the book down—but the ancient manuscript wasn’t inspiring the lion’s share of Phineas’s exultation.
“I am so proud of you three,” he said. “I am so damned proud of you. I take it all back. We will be up until dawn, for I will still be toasting your persistence and ingenuity when the new day breaks, and for all eternity thereafter. I have always hoped that as a teacher, I’ve imparted some subject matter expertise to my pupils, but more significantly, I’ve tried to impart passion for intellectual pursuits, wherever they might lead. You have found the Duke, and you have learned well the only important lesson I had to impart. Truly, I retire the happiest of men.”
Tremayne cleared his throat, Ramsdale elbowed Daunt in the ribs, and Daunt passed Jane his handkerchief.
“Ten days ago,” Jane said, dabbing at her eyes, “I was certain nobody would ever find the Duke. I thought the book was lost forever, and with it, some of my fondest dreams and hopes. Now, those hopes are coming true, the Duke is found, and I suspect all three of you have a tale to tell as a result. The Bibliomania Club will celebrate this feat for decades to come, and be forever in your debt, but I do have one question before we leave for the banquet.”
“Must we go?” Phineas asked, brushing his fingers over the first volume.
Jane looked momentarily horrified, then smacked him on the arm. “Stop teasing, Phineas. Of course we’ll go, and we’ll celebrate your illustrious career, and your illustrious scholars, and even the dusty old Duke. My question is this: If these three gentlemen could find the Duke in ten days, what do you suppose they might unearth if we gave them a month?”
Daunt started chuckling, Ramsdale guffawed, and even Tremayne looked to be on the verge of smiling, but Phineas knew better. Jane was in complete earnest, and any number of manuscripts remained hidden in obscure locations.
Perhaps Phineas might even search for some of them, but for now, he’d rejoice in the knowledge that he had a wonderful lady to love and share his life with. Even the greatest scholars of all time would agree, no greater treasure was to be found anywhere on earth.