One book jutted out slightly farther than the others. She tugged it. The shelf creaked… and slid. Behind it was a panel. Old oak. Reinforced.
She knelt. “There’s a seam. Here, beneath the baseboard.”
Elias crouched beside her and pried it open with his knife. A low thump. A rush of cold air. And then… the floor opened. A small, iron-latched door revealed itself beneath the wood. Dust coated its hinges, but the lock was intact.
Elias took out a second key, the one Isobel’s father had once given to his solicitor, and Elias had retrieved after a very pointed conversation. He inserted it. Turned.
The vault opened with a groan that seemed to echo into her bones. Inside were three oilskin-wrapped bundles. She lifted the first with shaking hands, unwrapping it slowly. And gasped.
Her father’s seal. His handwriting. His will. Signed, witnessed, and, incredibly, untouched. The second bundle was the betrothal contract.
Isobel unfolded it carefully, then smiled. “Look. The signature…”
Elias leaned in. “That’s not yours.”
She nodded. “Norton forged it. It’s not even close.”
He sighed. “And now we can prove it.”
The final bundle was a ledger. Her father’s accounting book was written in a tiny, immaculate hand. Every transaction. Every payment—including several suspicious ones to Norton. Elias scanned the pages, his mouth curving in satisfaction.
“This is more than we need.”
Isobel stepped back, heart pounding. All this time, she’d lived in fear of a man who had tried to bury her. Now she held the truth in her hands. The truth everyone would see soon.
*
They burned acopy of the contract in the fireplace of the Hampstead flat that night. The flames consumed it quickly, greedily. The ashes rose and scattered like dust on the air, like a final goodbye.
She stood near the hearth, veil off, hair loose around her shoulders, the scent of smoke curling through the room. Elias handed her a glass of wine, but she barely touched it.
“I don’t feel like celebrating,” she admitted.
“No,” he said. “Not yet.”
She turned to face him. “But I want to live. Elias, I want tolive.Not as the ghost of Isobel Fairfax, not as Highgate Cemetery’s ghostly widow. Just… me.”
He nodded slowly. “And when you’re ready, the world will know your name again.”
She stepped closer to him, wine glass forgotten, fingers curling into his lapel. “And until then?”
He touched her cheek, gently, reverently. “Until then, you’ll have me. For… as long as we both shall live.”
Was he saying what he’d hinted at? Could it be possible?
Happiness burst inside her, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. Their kiss was slower this time. No storm behind it, guiding their actions. No breathless urgency born of fear or fury. Just warmth. Just him.
Isobel felt the world still around her. The fire crackled in the hearth behind them, casting golden light against the walls. The chill of evening wind pressed faintly against the panes. Thesoft brush of his fingertips against her cheek, like he was still learning how to touch her without breaking her.
He kissed her like she was precious. Not lost or broken. Not some tragic echo of a girl buried in a fire. His lips moved against hers with reverence, steady and sure, as if to say:You’re here. You’re real. You’re safe. And you’re mine.And for the first time, she believed it.
The tremble in her hands stilled. Her spine relaxed. Her breath—so often shallow, tight with old panic—came slow and even. She rose onto her toes without thinking, pressing herself closer, sliding one hand down his chest, where his heartbeat thudded warm beneath her palm.
He didn’t pull her tighter like he had before, like he was afraid she’d vanish again. No, this time, he simplyheldher. Let her come to him, return the kiss in her own time, her own way.
She curled her other hand gently behind his neck, threading her fingertips into the soft waves of his hair. He cupped the side of her face, brushing his thumb slowly across her cheekbone in time with the rhythm of their kiss, like punctuation marks to every silent promise passing between them.
She sank into him. Not because she needed him to hold her up, but because shewantedto. The realization unfurled inside her like the petals of something long dormant. This was not survival. This was not longing masked as hunger. This was choosing.Trusting.
