Closing her eyes, she snuggled against his strong chest, then drifted off to sleep, with images of the beautiful family they’d create dancing in her head.
Epilogue
October 1907
We regret to inform you that your brother, Mortimer Blackstone, the Marquess of Stonebridge, has succumbed to his madness. He passed away on October 2, of acute pneumonia. Please make arrangements to take possession of his body...
Drake let the letter he’d just received from Broadmoor Hospital fall from his fingers and sat back heavily in his chair. He’d only seen his brother once after he’d been committed five years ago. He’d gone there in ’03 to tell him of their father’s death.
When they’d brought Mortimer up to see him, his eyes had been completely vacant. Drake had known his brother had been subjected to all sorts of terrible “therapies,” but whatever Mortimer had once been had been stripped away, leaving only a shell behind.
He’d thought about that a lot over the years, wondering if perhaps it wouldn’t have been better for all concerned if Constable Pond’s bullet had hit the mark, but then he’d remember Evelyn Lindsay and the others, the horrific things they’d endured before they’d died. Mortimer had deserved all that had happened to him and more. No punishment would have ever suited his crimes.
“What’s wrong?” Heather asked, seeming to sense his disquiet. She’d been seated on the loveseat in front of the fire, watching their children, four-year-old Ian and two-year-old Lenore, tumble about upon the carpet, but now she stood and came toward him, leaning down to pick up the letter. She scanned it quickly, then carefully placed it on his desk.
“Oh, Drake,” she murmured, wrapping her arms around him and hugging him tightly. “It’s all right to feel sad. Despite everything he did, he was still your brother.”
“I don’t know if I’m sad,” he said tightly, so many emotions whirling around inside him that he couldn’t begin to make sense of them. “I’m relieved, perhaps? Relieved that he can never escape or hurt someone in the asylum?”
She hugged him even tighter, then climbed on his lap, resting her head against his shoulder. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Later,” he said, knowing that eventually, he would need to work it all out, that she’d be the wonderful listener and confidant that she’d always been, and that their life would go on, perhaps even better than ever.
And it was already pretty damn good.
He took a deep breath and gazed at his beautiful children, both dark-haired and blue-eyed like his lovely wife. They’d been married for five years now, and being part of a family, having someone to love and hold and take care of, had been everything he’d always thought it could be.
There had been a little bit of scandal in the beginning, but they’d weathered it well, with the love and support of their friends the O’Briens, the Nesses, and all of the Strathmores. They’d created a little society of their own, and he and Heather both now felt like they belonged.
A thought suddenly occurred to him, and despite the news he’d just had, he couldn’t help but smile. “You’re a marchioness now, my darling. How does it make you feel to know that you outrank all of your friends?”
He’d taken on his father’s duties after Stonebridge’s death, and there’d been so much to do that he’d had to resign from his job as assistant police commissioner. There was a time when he’d seen himself as the top man, perhaps even had higher aspirations than that, but he’d been surprisingly glad to walk away from it all. He’d seen enough ugliness. All he wanted to do now was watch his children, crops, and animals grow.
A small smile curved Heather’s lips as well. “A marchioness?” A bubble of laughter escaped her. “I think I like that rather well.”
THE END