Augusta laughed. The sound surprised her.
“I love you,” she said. The words emerged quietly, pitched low for his ears only, with the full weight of everything she had carried since the roadside in Scotland and quite possibly longer. “In case that wasn’t abundantly clear from the fact that I agreed to marry you while standing in a ditch with my hair coming undone and a carriage driver watching.”
Hudson’s hand found hers where it rested against his shoulder, his fingers threading through hers. “I love you,” he rasped. “In case that wasn’t abundantly clear from the fact that I rode a horse halfway to Scotland, threatened a newspaper, and nearly provoked my housekeeper to resign on principle.”
They completed the circuit of the floor.
The waltz continued around them, other couples moving in their own orbits, the ballroom a wheel of light and music and the reconstructed architecture of a society that had, against considerable odds, decided that Augusta Booth belonged exactly where she was.
After her father’s arrest, she had felt that she’d never belong anywhere again. But standing in Hudson’s arms, with his hand warm on her waist and his eyes holding hers, Augusta discovered that belonging was not something one was granted by birth or circumstance. It was something one built. Brick by stubborn brick. Choice by inconvenient choice.
The music swelled toward its conclusion. Hudson drew her closer, his mouth brushing her ear in a gesture that belonged ina far less public setting and which neither of them could bring themselves to regret in that particular moment.
“Welcome home, Augusta,” he murmured.
For the first time in longer than she could remember, the word carried no qualifications, no caveats, no silent asterisk directing her attention to the provisional nature of the arrangement.
Just home.
Simple. Certain.
Hers.
Epilogue
ONE MONTH LATER
“No, no, no,” Olivia said, her fingers deftly working through Augusta’s hair as though they were conducting a very serious experiment in beauty. “The curls must fall thus, or the entire effect collapses. It’s all balance, Cassie. Balance, and a touch of theatrical flair.”
Augusta stood before the mirror in her dressing gown, attempting somewhat vainly to reconcile the woman staring back at her with the one she had become since arriving at Oakhart House.
The morning light spilled across the dressing table in long, generous stripes, catching on the silver brush set Hudson had gifted her the previous week.
A bride should have her own things, he had said.
“I’m not being whimsical,” Cassie protested, bouncing on her toes so hard the pearl hairpins trembled in their porcelain dish.“I’m being visionary. Augusta is not a statue, Livvy. She’s a bride.”
“Oh, I do love statues,” Olivia said dreamily, stepping back to examine her work as though Augusta were a painting that might yet blink if persuaded correctly. “They are so wonderfully committed to never changing their minds. Very restful company.”
Cassie frowned. “That still doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if you admire art,” Olivia replied lightly. “Augusta is not simply a bride; she is a composition. And compositions require drama in the right places.”
Augusta let out a small, helpless laugh despite herself. “I feel like I should be worried about being composed.”
“Nonsense,” Olivia said, swooping in again to adjust a curl with exquisite seriousness. “You are being improved. There is a difference, and I assure you it is entirely flattering.”
Cassie crossed her arms. “I think she should look like herself.”
Olivia gasped, delighted. “Cassie, darling, ‘herself’ is far too modest a brief for a wedding day. Today, she must look like herself… only as if she has just survived a very romantic poem.”
Cassie brightened immediately. “Oh, I can work with that.”
Olivia smiled, entirely pleased. “Of course you can. You’re practically dangerous with inspiration.”
Pippin, who had been orbiting the dressing table in happy, counterclockwise circles for the better part of an hour, chose this moment to insert himself between Augusta’s ankles.
The collision sent a hairpin skittering across the floorboards, which he immediately interpreted as an invitation to chase, his big body transforming into a blur of determined enthusiasm that terminated, predictably, beneath the escritoire.
