Four weeks had passed since Rockwell’s arrest. He’d since been found guilty on two counts of murder, stripped of his title, and sentenced to death by hanging. From what Jane had heard, a silk rope had been commissioned in deference to his rank though she and James did not yet know when the execution was scheduled to take place.

Trying not to think of it since she did not want her mood to be dimmed on this particular day, Jane smoothed her hands over her skirts and regarded herself in the mirror. A smile touched her lips in response to the vision that greeted her. Expensive baby-blue silk fell in soft folds around her, trimmed with the finest white lace. Beneath her breasts was a wide satin sash, tied neatly in a voluminous bow at her back.

It was quite a departure from the grey servant attire she’d worn for the first week she’d been here. But all of that had changed the moment James announced their engagement. Which he’d done the morning after she’d told him she loved him. The happy news had seemed to brighten the atmosphere a little, even if James’s mother had looked as though she’d just been informed of her son’s death as well.

Jane sighed. Hopefully the dowager countess would come to accept her eventually. Until then, Jane chose to smile and focus on the happiness flowing through her. This was her wedding day after all, the most unexpectedly wonderful experience of her life.

“Are you ready?”

Jane turned toward Elise who stood in the doorway.

“She will be in a second,” Margaret said as she picked up a diamond necklace and hung it around Jane’s neck. “There. As pretty as a princess.”

“Camden won’t know what hit him,” Elise said, her eyes twinkling as Jane came toward her.

She grinned. “Thank you for coming.”

“Thank you for inviting me.” Elise met Jane’s gaze with a frankness Jane wouldn’t have expected from someone so young. “Most of our friends have cut us off. The stigma is one we will never escape and our lack of title and the land that went with it has significantly diminished our status, which means Mama is now quite determined to see me marry above my rank.”

Jane sympathized. “Perhaps you’ll meet someone here during the wedding.”

Elise managed a smile. “You forget that only the most desperate of peers would think to consider me now.”

“Then forget what your mother wants and make your own choice the way James and I did. Marry for love, Elise, and I have no doubt you’ll be happy.”

“I’ll certainly consider it,” Elise said as she took Jane’s arm and guided her out into the hallway. They proceeded to the stairs and descended toward the foyer where the servants awaited.

Jane looked at them all in turn, at Mrs. Fontaine and at Cook, at Tilly who stood beside Mr. Goodard, and Hendricks whose serious expression slipped a notch the moment their eyes met. Mr. Snypes, of course, had been fired on account of inappropriate behavior and disloyalty, his position now filled by a Mr. Finch.

Passing them all, Jane swept out of the house and into the awaiting carriage with Elise climbing in behind her.

“When I see you again, you’ll be the Countess of Camden,” Margaret said as she helped arrange Jane’s skirts around her feet. She glanced up and smiled. “Good luck.” The door closed and the conveyance rolled into motion, scattering Jane’s nerves like a swarm of butterflies taking to the sky.

Excitement and trepidation whirled inside her, twisting her stomach until she felt slightly ill. This was it, the biggest decision she’d ever made, and as right as it felt and as much as she wanted to go through with it, she couldn’t quite shake her concerns. After all, she wasn’t the only one giving up everything for this marriage. James was too, his decision to marry his maid sending shockwaves through every level of society.

When the invitations had gone out, many had sent their regrets, and although he’d shrugged off the blatant disapproval of his peers, Jane couldn’t help but wonder if it didn’t bother him just a little, knowing he’d been shunned.

But when she stepped inside the church and saw him waiting by the altar with Harrington by his side and her eyes met his across the distance, she knew they had no choice but to wed. Because this was what love felt like, that invisible bond linking them together and easing her troubles with nothing but assurance. His smile said it all, conveying without the need for words how much she meant to him and how happy he was to have her in his life.

She felt the same, and as she walked toward him, the butterflies disappeared somewhere over the horizon, leaving nothing but calm and the strongest sense of rightness she’d ever felt in her life. This was what mattered. Them, together, forever, as one. He was her best friend, her confidant and her lover, and as he slipped the ring on her finger a short while later and bent his head to kiss her, she silently thanked the universe for its interference. As impossible as it seemed, she’d found the man she was destined to be with and nothing in the world felt better than that.

* * *

“Have I told you how stunning you look?” James asked as he came to stand beside her.

Needing a bit of fresh air, Jane had stepped out onto the terrace. Her hand rested on the balustrade as she gazed out over the sun-kissed garden before her. The weather was fine, perfect for a wedding, with birds chirping in the nearby foliage and heat warming her skin.

“About ten times or so,” she said with a smile while accepting the glass of champagne he handed to her. “Have I told you how dashing you look?”

His lips hitched into something she easily recognized as the beginnings of a mischievous grin. “I believe so, but I will happily hear it again.”

She laughed and playfully slapped his arm. “You are incorrigible.”

“Incorrigibly in love with you,” he murmured in that seductive tone that weakened her knees. His arm wound around her shoulder, pulling her closer to his side. “What prompted you to stay?”

They’d never really discussed it; there had been so much else to deal with in the wake of Rockwell’s arrest and their ensuing wedding preparations. “I couldn’t leave you.” Her heart ached at the very thought of her choosing a different path – a path without him by her side. “Not just because Rockwell threatened your life and saving you mattered more to me in that moment than anything else, but because I need you, James. It wasn’t really a choice in the end. It was the only way forward for me.”

His lips brushed her forehead with slow and whisper-soft tenderness. “It would have destroyed me, I think, if you’d gone. I cannot even begin to imagine how—”

“Then don’t.” She turned in his arms, her eyes burning with pent-up emotion. “I am here, James, and I have no intention of going anywhere. This is where I will build my life. Here, with you.”

As she said it, she reflected on how she’d changed the course of history. When she’d first arrived at Summervale as a tourist, records had shown that Tatiana’s murder had remained unsolved and that James had never married. All of that would be different now and Jane could only hope that the universe’s plan for her to meet James had not offset its balance.

Affection warmed James’s gaze as he drew her more firmly against him. And then his lips found hers, desperate for assurance and eager for their celebration to be over, so they could retreat upstairs and enjoy the rest of their day alone. “You mean the world to me, Jane,” he said between kisses. “You are my compass, my certainty, my heart.”

“As you are mine,” she promised, meaning it with every fiber of her being. “You are my destiny, my future, my love.”