“Oh, yes, that’s in no doubt.”
Devil take her, why wouldn’t she say it? “And do you think you can bring yourself to call me Vernon?”
She frowned. “That seems very intimate.”
“Damn it, Helena,” he growled.
Her hand rested above his thundering heart. “Will you give me Artemis?”
“She’s been yours from the start.”
She lowered her eyes. “In that case, there’s no hiding the sad truth.”
Tension filled him. “Sad truth?”
Helena shook the mane of hair back from her face and grinned at him with all the mischief of her childhood self. A mischief the years had almost ripped away from her.
“Yes, the sad truth that I’m head over heels.”
That was close, but not close enough. When he covered her hand with his, the contact radiated through him. He was counted a brave man, but it took all his courage to take the next step. “Say it, Helena.”
His ruthlessness sparked a flash of excitement in her eyes. Then her expression turned serious, and at last she opened the gates of her soul to him. He read the answer in her face before she spoke. Although when they came, the words were sweeter than honey.
“I love you, Vernon. I’ll love you forever.”
Epilogue
Grosvenor Square, London, February 1825
In Caroline’s opulent drawing room, Helena sat in her usual place by the hearth and studied her friends. Dashing Widows no more, but vibrant, fulfilled women who had found love and happiness and purpose.
“What is it, Hel?” Fen asked, sensitive as ever. She still took charge of the tea table to save the Meissen china, although these days, various offspring posed a greater threat to the porcelain than Caro’s dramatic gestures.
Helena gave her a smile. “I was thinking that it’s almost five years to the day since we swore to set the ton on its ear.”
“We succeeded,” Fen said, smiling back.
“You certainly did, Lady Kenwick.”
Not long after marrying Fenella, Anthony had received an earldom, and he was now acknowledged as a major power in government. Gentle Fenella had unexpectedly emerged as an influential political hostess. Her ability to bring warring sides together had become legendary.
“We also swore never to marry,” Caro said drily from where she stood near the window. Against the blue and gold brocade curtains, her body was round with pregnancy.
She’d returned from an exciting, sometimes dangerous year in China with the news that she’d conceived. Her daughter Roberta, a rambunctious two-year-old, played upstairs in the nursery with Fenella’s baby son Henry, and Helena’s three-year-old twins, Margaret and Silas.
As her husband had suspected, Helena’s fears of barrenness had proven unfounded. In a secretive gesture, her hand dropped to where another child grew. It was so soon, she hadn’t told Vernon yet, although something in Fenella’s blue eyes hinted that she guessed the secret.
“You can’t say you’re sorry,” Helena said. “We won’t believe you.”
Caro and Silas split their time between Woodley Park and this house, when Silas wasn’t traveling with his family to lecture, or search out new species. His cherry tree, the Caroline Nash, promised to cause a sensation on its commercial release next year.
Since her marriage, Caro’s dreams of seeing the world had become reality. This afternoon tea was a rare reunion. Caro and Silas had recently returned from Madagascar. Anthony was in London for meetings, and he’d brought Fen and the children up to Town with him.
Caro stared out into the street with sudden interest, and she answered Helena without turning around. “I wouldn’t dare. I still run in terror of your sharp tongue.”
Helena made a dismissive noise. “These days, I’m so domesticated, I can barely summon a critical word.” Proving herself wrong, she asked, “What on earth has you grinning like a loon into thin air?”
“Our men are back.”