Epilogue
Three months later
“Jeffrey?” Phoebe ran into the house in search of her husband. She had written what she hoped was a brilliant piece, and she could hardly wait for him to read it. Unfortunately, she did not immediately find him, though she did happen upon each of Jeffrey’s sisters, as well as his mother, and therefore it was a good hour before she reached the library, where, she knew, she should have begun her quest.
“There you are,” she said, exhausted now from not only her work with The Women’s Weekly, but her quick ride home, her dash through the house, and dutifully listening to and agreeing with the plights of three of Jeffrey’s four sisters.
Maxwell now bounded about her gleefully, and she knelt beside him to acknowledge his affections.
“Thank you, Maxwell,” she said as he left a large, sloppy kiss on her cheek. “You do know how to make a woman feel loved.”
“And I do not?” Jeffrey asked, rising from his desk with a wink.
“You do fairly well,” she said, cocking her head as she looked at him, “though you could learn some enthusiasm from your dog.”
He shook his head as he laughed ruefully, then kissed her cheek and stepped back, holding onto her shoulders.
“You look … excited,” he acknowledged and she nodded, waving him back toward his desk.
“I wrote something,” she said, sitting down across from him, Maxwell laying his giant head in her lap.
“It must be quite something,” he remarked, “for you write every day, and yet I don’t believe you have ever seemed so interested in sharing.”
“Oh, just listen,” she said, and then she began to read the piece that would be featured in next week’s edition.
A woman finds herself in an interesting position. She is expected to marry well, to bear children, and to care for her home. All my life I never understood this. I thought it was not enough, that it did not give a woman true purpose. And so I sought to make a difference. I determined my passion. And with means I was fortunate enough to have been provided, I created an outlet in which I could share my thoughts with the world.
I still believe that woman are capable of more than raising families and looking after one another, more than doing their societal duties at balls and dances, or whatever it may be.
And yet, I have realized, that in some ways, I was wrong. Marriage, when that marriage is to the one you love, is more important than anything else in one’s life. And the privilege to raise children—to form people as they grow and mature to adulthood—is both a great responsibility, as well as the ultimate form of love.
I do not believe that means a woman must forsake all else in order to have love and marriage. For if she finds a man who loves her, who truly loves her, for the woman she is, then he will understand what she needs to thrive.
I am one of the lucky ones—a woman in love with a man who loves her, all of her, in return. Not all are so lucky. Some are lucky enough to have love, or to have purpose, or to have both as one and the same. Whatever you are fortunate enough to achieve in life, enjoy it. Love it. Love with all of your heart, and with all of your soul, and never be afraid.
She finished and looked up at him.
“I have been wrong about many things,” she said. “I used to think that one could not love and be herself in the same breath. But love does not hinder anything. It only enhances it.”
He took her hands and leaned across the desk.
“And I am proud to be the man who will enhance your life for the rest of your days,” he said, a smile on his lips. “Your piece is wonderful. And will be well-read, as The Women’s Weekly is now on the lips of all in London.”
“Hardly,” she said with a laugh.
“It’s true,” he insisted. “In fact, it is all I hear of. I do not know what caused it, but somehow you have gone from being scandalous to sensational.”
“I’ll tell you a secret,” she said, leaning in, her voice low. “It’s the ladies. They can accept it—and in doing so have changed opinions. The gentlemen believe they are in control.”
She winked at him and added, “But of course, they are not.”
“Is that so?”
“It is.”
She squeezed his hands.
“Oh, and one more thing.”
“Yes?”
“With all of this talk of love … there will be more of it soon.”
His eyebrows furrowed. “Whatever do you mean? I know Ambrose is, ever-so-slowly, beginning to come around, particularly as he has fallen head-over-heels with a country miss but—”
“Which is lovely, truly it is,” Phoebe interrupted. “But that is not to what I was referring.”
“No, then what—”
And then she smiled at him, and that smile told him everything he needed to know. It would no longer be just the two of them—not that it ever was, of course, at least not in this house—but the love of which she spoke would grow beyond them as another would soon be joining their family.
And he could hardly wait.
THE END