Ellis opened his eyes and found himself staring at a gauzy canopy of white. The pillow beneath his head was comfortable, the sheets clean and crisp against his bare skin. This couldn’t be hell. Perhaps he’d done enough in the end to earn heaven. It wasn’t all bad.
Except…this couldn’t be heaven. When his foggy brain began to clear a little, he could see it was just a chamber. A nice chamber, yes, but hardly heavenly. There were a shockingly low number of angels and not a harp to be seen.
Which meant…he wasn’t dead. Somehow. Some way.
There was a woman standing at a table across the way, her back to him. “Juliana?” he called out, his voice rough from his dry throat.
She turned and his heart sank. Not Juliana. One of her sisters.
“You’re awake,” the young woman said as she approached the bed with a cold, wet compress. She pressed it to his lips and he exhaled a sigh of pleasure at the relief of water on his tongue. “Easy now.”
“Anne?” he asked, guessing.
“Indeed.” She sat on the edge of the bed, examining his face closely. “I will fetch Rook and Juliana in a moment.”
He would have jerked into a sitting position but found he was too weak. “They’re here?”
“Yes.” She examined his face closely, as if she were truly seeing him for the first time. “You’ve been quite popular in the last ten days. Your brother Gabriel has been here every day, as well as Marcus Rivers. Even my father made a call.” She frowned. “Although that was to demand Juliana back.”
Ellis swallowed. “She refused.”
“Of course. It was something to see. She’s been forced into the position to soothe him so many times, but she made it clear in no uncertain terms that those days are over. The language she used…well, you’ve rubbed off on her. He left and I somehow think he won’t return. My husband and Thomasina’s will assure it.”
“I’m sorry,” Ellis said, carefully because he couldn’t fully believe that Anne was engaging him in such casual conversation about such a personal matter rather than…say…scratching his eyes out. “But it sounds like he wasn’t worth much as a father.”
“He wasn’t. Not worth a farthing. But you…you apparently are.” She shook her head as if it shocked her. “And I know my husband and your brother and my sister will be happy to see you awake.”
“Wait, did you say ten days?” Her earlier words had finally pierced and shocked his system into understanding.
She nodded. “You were in and out. You lost a good deal of blood. Harcourt’s doctor thought you might even lose the leg.”
Ellis moved the leg she referred to and a shot of heated agony moved up his entire body. He couldn’t help but cry out, and she rested a hand on his to steady him.
“Yes, that would hurt. I wouldn’t recommend it. You’ll be down for another good while.” Anne shifted slightly and took her hand away. “Rook called for your underground doctor after the earl’s brought out a saw. He was the hero and somehow brought you through. But between the pain and the laudanum, you were not to be found. No matter how hard Juliana searched for you as she lay in this bed beside you, willing you to live.”
Ellis shut his eyes as the pain faded slightly. “I’m not worth the effort,” he said.
“Stop that.” Anne’s tone was suddenly harsh, and he opened one eye to find her glaring at him. Rather the same way she had when he’d abandoned her with the man she now called husband. A lifetime ago, it seemed. “If my sister believes you are worth something, if my husband says you are, then I will not hear a word against them.”
He pursed his lips. “Even after what I did to you?”
She sighed. “I had my part in what happened. Running away was my lifeline. And you were, though not in the way I originally thought. You brought me to Rook.”
“Does that make me good enough for your sister?”
“No.” She smiled, and it softened the harsher response. “But if you were to make her happy, forgiveness would come easier.”
“And Thomasina feels the same? Harcourt, who blames me rightly for my part in his brother’s death?” he pressed.
“Thomasina is built to find the best in people,” Anne said. “Harcourt can be earned, I think. Eventually. Your attempt at noble sacrifice impressed him.” She pushed to her feet and walked to the door. “I’ll fetch them.”
She left the room and he stared at the ceiling again. He had prepared for the end. He’d known what it would bring. But now…he was here somehow.
The door opened again and Rook careened through. He came to a sharp halt and stared at Ellis lying in the bed. Then his cousin bent at the waist, his breath coming in harsh sobs.
“I thought you would die,” he managed between the broken sounds. “Don’t ever do that to me again, you bastard.”
Ellis felt his own tears stinging and patted the bed bedside him. “I’ll try. Though I have to say, I have no idea how I came to survive this trial. Can you help me with that?”
Rook wiped his eyes and took the place near Ellis that his wife had recently abandoned. He smoothed Ellis’s forehead with as much love as a mother. “Jennings,” he explained.
“I assumed so,” Ellis said, “when Anne told me about an underground doctor. And where am I, exactly?”
“The same house where you were shot. It was too dangerous to move you. Harcourt made arrangements with his late brother’s mistress. We’ve all been encamped here for over a week.”
“And when I’m well enough to move, I assume there will be a cell awaiting me,” he said. “Could you not have convinced Juliana to walk away to avoid seeing that second end for us?”
Rook snorted. “As if Juliana can be convinced of anything. Besides, why would you have a cell waiting?”
“Because the third son of a duke is dead,” Ellis growled. “Don’t be a fool.”
“But you didn’t kill him. His sister did. Harcourt and Coningburgh were locked away together for hours in negotiation. In the end, the duke seems just as happy to be rid of the son who threatened and abused everyone around him. The guard is useless. They only care about prosecuting those like us, not those with a shine to them. And Lydia? Well, she has seen fit to take a long holiday to the colonies where her mother’s aunt apparently lives. I don’t think she’ll ever return.”
“There’s still the matter of the gem,” Ellis said.
Rook cocked his head. “When it was brought up to him, Coningburgh didn’t even know about it. His son had stolen it, Harcourt has been trying to work out from whom. But there won’t be any trouble about that, either. Your life, as much as you tried to throw it away, seems to have been protected. Fixed, in part, by Harcourt.”
Ellis broke his confused stare from his cousin and went back to examining the canopy. “Why would he do that?”
“For Thomasina, I think. For Juliana. Perhaps because he has a grudging respect that you tried to save everyone at the cost of yourself.” Rook shrugged. “He isn’t so bad, you know.”
“Then it’s settled,” Ellis breathed.
“Except for one thing,” his cousin corrected.
“Juliana,” Ellis whispered, her name fearful and wonderful all at once. Because the future was suddenly wide open, and he had no idea what to do with that gift. If he should dare to take it at all.
“Juliana,” Rook repeated. “May I offer you some advice, as a man who faced a rather similar choice not so long ago?” Ellis nodded and his cousin smiled. “If you love her, don’t let her go.”
“Even if it hurts her?” he whispered.
Rook’s smile broadened. “I’ve spent a week and a half standing at your bed beside Miss Juliana Shelley. I watched her fight for your leg and your life. I watched her go to war with her father when he wanted to take her from you and ultimately sever a relationship that she has been tethered to her entire life. I will tell you, she is well capable of making decisions for herself. Trust her to do so.” He moved to the door as he said, “The moment we were told you were awake, R
ivers left to fetch your brother. Gabriel had gone home for a change of clothes. He will be gloriously happy to see you alive.”
“Thank you,” Ellis called out.
Rook turned at the door and smiled. “I love you, you great idiot.”
Ellis laughed even though the shaking movement hurt his leg. But the laughter faded as Juliana shoved past Rook and stepped into the room. She stopped at the doorway, entirely oblivious to how Rook shut the door behind her with a smile. She simply stared at Ellis, her green eyes wide.
“I told them I didn’t want to have a bath and change,” she muttered. “I told them I shouldn’t leave your side just in case you woke.”
She crossed the room then and climbed into the bed without preamble. Her arms came around him, gentle so as not to jostle him, and her lips found his as their tears mingled.
He had no idea how long that lasted. He sank into it, glorying in her love for him and his for her. Glorying in the fact that she was safe now. If nothing else, at least he had managed to protect her from the dangerous situation of his own creation.
But at last he knew he had to pull away. This was not resolved, and they had to do that before he knew the next move of his life.
“Juliana,” he began, tracing her jawline with his fingertips. “Angel.”
She shook her head with fierce determination, and her chin lifted away from his touch in an act of pure defiance. “No,” she said sharply.
“No?” he chuckled. “You don’t even know what I was about to say.”
“Of course I do,” she insisted, and her scowl could have intimidated anyone to her will. “I know you. And I know you’re about to give me a very long explanation about why we can never be together.”
He blinked. She was right, of course. That was what he had to tell her. Those were the words hanging on his tongue. The ones he couldn’t quite say even if that was the right thing to do. For her, at least.
She certainly deserved far more than a former thief and seducer with no future and a leg he had suspicions would never be the same again.
“I can’t—” he made himself begin.
She pushed her fingers against his lips and forced the silence he would not give her. “No. I won’t hear it,” she said. “But you…you will hear me now.”
Juliana had been practicing what she would say to Ellis if he woke up for days. If he woke up, because that had never been a guarantee. Doctors, healers, they had all looked at him with the grave injury and clucked their tongues and made her world implode upon itself.
To combat her terror, she had begun rehearsing what she would say when Ellis proved them wrong with his strength and his will and his glorious ability to fight. Now she was here, looking at him in the bed. He was alive. He would survive, that was evident.
She wasn’t about to miss this chance to keep him with her forever. Even if the prospect of confession and demand was abjectly terrifying.
“For ten days I have fought to keep you alive,” she said. “And I have no more patience for appeasing or being sweet or making it comfortable for anyone else.”
He gave a weak mock salute. “Yes, ma’am.”
She frowned. “Don’t tease me. You were ready to die, Ellis.”
He recoiled slightly, and she saw an echo of the heartbreak he must have felt when he decided to make that sacrifice. How desperate he must have been. “Yes,” he said at last. “I knew as soon as Leonard attacked you all those weeks ago that I had no other choice.”
She rested a palm on his cheek. “But you didn’t tell me.”
“The longer I knew you, the more I knew you’d try to stop me. Everyone would have. As you all did, actually.” He forced a laugh even though she could see how much their rescue had meant to him, this man who’d told himself he had to go it alone.
“It’s a good thing we did,” she whispered, and pushed the blankets up a little to look at the dressing high on his thigh. The swelling had gone down, but the damage was great. It would take a long time for him to heal.
His fingers brushed her chin again and this time he turned her face toward his. “I’m sorry, Juliana,” he whispered. “I am. For causing you pain. For causing you fear.”
“Then stop doing it,” she said, letting her hand cover his. “Stop fighting me. Fighting us.”
He sucked in a ragged breath. “No matter your feelings, angel, no matter my own, you must know in your heart that I’m no good.”
She moved closer, inching her way up the bed as she lowered her hand to cover his bare chest just above his heart. “You’re good for me.”
He squeezed his eyes shut, but she saw him wavering. He’d pushed her away so many times to protect her. But the danger was gone now. What he wanted to protect her from, she didn’t fear. Their future. And she could see he wanted it just as she did. She just had to make him say those words.
“You know my past,” he said, almost a pained moan.
“I do.” She hesitated as his mouth turned down farther. “Please open your eyes. Please look at me.”
It took him a few seconds, but he did as she asked. His blue eyes met hers and she could see he fought to keep them there.
“I do know your past,” she repeated. “I love you for it. And there are parts of it I wish weren’t true. But the future is something neither of us knows. I want to learn it together. I want to stand beside you as you repair the bond with Rook and your brother. I adore Gabriel, by the way. He is wonderful.”
That elicited a small smile. “He is. A brilliant mind. I’m glad you’ve met him properly at last and that you like him. I have no doubt he adores you, as well.”
“Because you see me as a far better version of myself than I do. And that’s how it’s supposed to be. I see the best in you, and hopefully I help you act in that. You do the same for me. There is so much to be done. I want to help you show my sisters and Harcourt the man you really are.”
A shadow flickered over his face. More regret. “If I can.”
“I have faith even if you don’t,” she reassured him. “I want to be yours, Ellis. I want to give my whole self to you and make you feel safe enough to give me the same gift. I want to laugh with you. I want to see the world with you. I want to have children with you.”
“Juliana,” he gasped, and in that moment she saw him picture the same. And he smiled. And she knew she would win.
“Do you love me?” she whispered. “Or are you going to lie out of some desperate fear and tell me I was just a game you played?”
He shook his head. “It was never a game,” he said softly.
“Then do you love me?” she repeated.
His breath exited his lips in a long, unsteady sigh. “Yes,” he admitted. “I love you. I love you with my whole heart. I love you in all your forms and expressions. I love you with all that I am. All that I wish to be. I love you for now and forever.”
She couldn’t help the wide smile that broke across her face, the first time she’d truly felt happy since the moment Ellis had slipped from Harcourt’s window all those days ago. She also couldn’t help the tears that fell down her cheeks. Because this man she adored was hers.
“Then you can’t say no to me,” she declared. “I won’t allow it.”
“Perish the thought that anyone could say no to you,” he said with a laugh. “Marry me…even though I cannot promise to be perfect.”
“You only have to promise you’ll be mine,” she said, and leaned in to claim his lips and the future they would share from this day until the end of their days.
Epilogue
Five years later
The children squealed as the cold seawater rolled up on the sand. They scattered up the beach toward their fathers, who were gathered together no more than an arm’s length away from their beloved charges.
Juliana sat on the blanket farther down the shore, her sisters on either side of her, and she smiled at the picture the three men, three best friends, created. It had taken a long time to get there, but they were close
now.
Rook stood on the far left, balancing Thomasina’s youngest on his shoulder while her father, Harcourt, herded the other children nearer: his and Thomasina’s oldest, a boy named Solomon, and their middle child, a little girl named Angelica. They were joined by Juliana’s daughter, Violet, who rushed to her father at full speed.
Ellis was slow to kneel and leaned heavily on his cane as he did so. He had never fully recovered from the bullet that had nearly destroyed their lives, but he was whole and here and hers.
That was all that had ever mattered.
So much had changed since the events of the summer that had changed all their lives. Harcourt had carefully invested Thomasina’s dowry, building their fortune back through hard work and careful consideration. Their father, of course, had refused to pay additional dowries for Anne and Juliana. Their confrontation at Ellis’s bedside all those years ago had been the last time they’d seen him.
But it didn’t matter. That gem, the one that had nearly torn them all apart, had never been tracked back to a rightful owner. They’d sold it off, taking some of the money to support themselves and using the rest, the bulk, to start a school for foundling children. Supported by their family, as well as Marcus’s in-laws, the Flynns and their friends and in-laws, the Woodleys, they took in children like Rook, Marcus and Ellis had all been. Offering them the chance those three had once been compelled to take by force. It gave Juliana such pleasure to see how much it moved them all to be a part of it.
Rook had turned his creative talent for woodcarving into a business. He and Anne split their time between their island and London, where he sold his wares.
For Ellis, it had been more complicated. Juliana had watched him struggle with his injury. Watched him struggle with losing the mantel of Handsome Ellis Maitland and his place in the underworld. But he had found his way, at last, thanks to Marcus Rivers. After Rivers himself had married, he’d asked Ellis to help him run the club. He had taken to it instantly and he, Paul Abbot and Rivers were a strong team. Juliana loved to watch him blossom. And loved the benefit that they could slip away to the Donville Masquerade any time they wanted and play a few love games with each other.
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