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She hurried to explain. "I accused you of knowing only that..."
"It hurt me to the quick when you spoke of it," he admitted, still unsure.
"I confess, I sought to hurt you. I loved you, but you claimed our marriage was a duty to your child," she continued.
"I was a fool. I couldn't understand the feelings brewing in me. I must confess now that it was my pleasure," he returned softly.
"’Twas my pleasure too,” she answered. Her hand flexed against his own.
"Our pleasure, beloved, our pleasure.” He squeezed it.
As the two continued to hash out their feelings the horse was allowed to pick its own way it plodded along the road. The horse promptly lost a sense of direction so that when the two of them came to a realisation of their surrounding they felt completely lost. The horse stood in front of a chapel. The cross in front sparked a memory in her.
"’Tis the chapel in our lands," she offered.
"Thank God. I thought us lost." He didn’t sound too worried.
Robert looked from her to the chapel and dismounted from the horse. He helped her alight and, when she was steady, he captured her hands.
"Marry me, Amelia."
"But I have, Your Grace.” Her smile was mischievous.
"No, marry me now in this chapel. Be my wife in every sense of the word." He was serious.
“Now?" She felt shock.
"You said you wanted only me. And you have me," he reminded her softly.
"Truly?" She was surprised.
"For all of eternity," he affirmed.
She nodded and answered with little cries of, "Yes, yes."
“It is settled then." Then he pulled her into a kiss.
Epilogue
Amelia flourished in the familiar surroundings and under the devotion of her husband who was even more enamored of his bride than he was when he had courted her.
She often wondered if his love was as large as hers. Often times the emotions in her breast would choke her and leave her languid under the realization she had indeed found heaven. She blushed at her thought. It was most unkind of her to think him incapable of such depths of emotion because Society had deemed men incapable. They shamed society in their obvious love, devotion and physical longing for each other. Theirs would always be a meeting of like minds with the heart in close pursuit.
However, the household was scandalised that the Duke and his bride would not keep separate rooms, even when she was expecting. They were already most unconventional in that they showed their love even in company of others and were clearly besotted with each other. The households got used to their lady and lord’s impromptu rash couplings and when they spied their Graces looking particularly dishevelled and ravished they regarded them with rueful, doting smiles.
When the Duchess was put to bed, the household looked on as their Lord traipsed in front of the door of her chambers like a man insane. He begged for news of her and was haunted by the torturous shouts that sailed through the closed door. He had waited on her hand and foot as she increased, insisting on taking care of her. He had been shoed away by the midwife and the servants that attended her when the labor pains had started
Gossip held it that, when the door was at last opened, he rushed to his wife inquiring about her health and completely doting of her care that his wife had at last asked him if was not inclined to meet their children.
Lord Windon had remarked that she mattered more, driving one and all present to teary eyes until apparently the words sunk in and he grimaced.
"Children? More than one, then? Woman, you will be the death of me," he joked. To which the Duchess huffed and presented the two babes swaddled in clean linen and mewling softly.
He had greeted them, with a face lit with such naked emotion that the bystanders had to look away from that private moment. He had cradled them both, one male, the other female.
The lady laid her children to her breast and wept with exhaustion and apparent love. And wouldn't you know it? She insisted she would nurse her own young. She tarried in the nursery with the devoted Duke by her side. Her sister-in-law visited with her brood and the walls of Windon Keep came alive with the sound of children.
Her father lived long enough to see his grandchildren be christened and passed away quietly in his sleep only a few weeks later, sated with life and fulfilled.
