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Epilogue

They all met later at Clover House—even Paddy and Charley, who hadn’t been allowed into the House of Lords for the hearing. Everyone figured that they, too, had a right to know what had happened.

“I was so proud of Lady Josephine. She stood up there, brave as can be. She told the truth and she didn’t let them shame her for it,” Ace said.

“Ace really stole the show,” Lady Josephine answered. “It was he who cracked the case wide open.”

Paddy rolled his eyes upward. “This is true love for ye. The pair will be tellin’ each other all night and into tomorrow how wonderful they both are. It’s sick-makin’, I tell ye.”

“And you the most sick-making of all of us, Paddy, bragging about pretty Mary night and day!” Ace retorted, and they all laughed.

“Well, speakin’ of true love, Ace, when’s the weddin’ to be?” Charley asked.

His Grace the Duke coughed and cleared his throat. “What wedding?” he asked coldly. “No one has spoken to me about any wedding.”

They all went very silent.

Ace was caught in a difficult spot; he would have to make the most important plea of his life—beg on his knees if necessary—for permission to marry this nobleman’s daughter. And he would have to do it before a room that suddenly seemed full of people.

Lady Hermione, always sensitive to others’ feelings, must have immediately understood what Ace was going through. “Paddy and Charley, come away with me for a few minutes. There’s something I wish to show you in the library.”

Charley said, “Nah, I’m comfortable here.”

“Charley! Paddy! I saidnow,” Lady Hermione scolded. “Lady Josephine and Mr. Smith need a few minutes in private with His Grace.”

Ace waited till the door had shut on them before he said anything. He stood up and faced the Duke.Best to take this like a man.

“Your Grace—” he began.

The Duke cut him off. “Mr. Smith. I confess this is not what I expected from you. I brought you into my own home. I showed you respect far above your humble station in life. I had you nursed when you were injured; I even took in your little brother and let him join my great-nephew, LordHorace, in his lessons.

“Yet this is how you repay me? By seducing my daughter? By ruining her reputation, and any chance she had of making a good marriage—by taking her to bed and telling the entire world about it?”

Ace answered him with as much humility as he could muster. “Your Grace, it has not been as you describe it. I love Lady Josephine. Above all other women in the world, I honor and respect her. I want to make her my wife, and to devote my life to her happiness.”

The Duke fired back, “And just how do you plan on doing that? By making a home for her in—where again was it you were raised?—in the Rookeries? You have nothing. Youarenothing.”

Now Ace was getting truly angry. Still, he struggled to keep a tight grip on his temper. “Your Grace—respectfully, sir—you are wrong about me. Despite where I started out in life, I have done quite well. And given a chance, I will do even better. I hope someday to make Lady Josephine proud of me.”

“Proud of you for what? Your skill in using your fists?” the Duke said derisively.

“No, Your Grace. My skill in using my brain.” He looked at the Duke, and the Duke looked at him. He would not break eye contact. It was ultimately the Duke who was the first to look away.

The Duke laughed and shook his head. “You have guts, my boy, I’ll give you that. I’m beginning to see why men bet their fortunes on you in the ring.”

“Your Grace, I am nobody’s ‘boy.’ And men who bet their fortunes on me tend to win big. In the ring or out of it.”

“My lord Papa,” Lady Josephine said, coming and putting her arm around her father lovingly, “you are forgetting one thing.”

“And what is that, pray tell?” he said gruffly. One could see that secretly, his heart was moved by his daughter’s goodness to him.

“That I love him, Papa. That Iwantto marry him and to spend my life with him. And if I do that, I’ll be betting a lot more than my fortune on him.”

“Balderdash,” her lord father said. “You’re young, you’re practically still a little girl. What do you know about life, about men?”

“I lived through the Earl’s abuse. That’s what I know about men.”

“Some men are like that. Not all,” Ace interjected.

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