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“Yes,” Bridget admitted. “Knowing the truth set her free.” She paused before looking up at Graham. “There is one thing I have not told you.”
Graham frowned slightly. “Oh?”
“It is nothing terrible. But this morning, I had a dream after you left. Of Mary. A dream so real, it felt as though she was truly with me.”
Graham smiled once more. “And what did my lovely sister have to say?”
Bridget smiled. “She was happy. For us. She said… she said she will always be with us—our guardian angel.”
“A guardian angel,” Graham said and looked at the perfect blue sky, only occurring to her then that the weather had cleared. The drab gray sky had given way to a bright, lovely day. “I quite like that. I believe it too. She is here indeed,” he said, closing his eyes for a moment.
He wrapped his arm around Bridget. “I wonder if she helped out union from the great beyond.”
At the thought, she beamed.
“Perhaps she did. She always had a way of getting everything she wanted,” she smiled.
Graham chuckled. “She did, indeed. However, I am more than delighted that this time, I have all I wanted. All my heart desires. All my dreams, and hopes, and most intimate wants. I have you.”
“Oh, Graham,” she sighed a happy sigh. “You shall always have me.”
Graham turned and lifted her chin a little. “Let us hope that, from now on, the most horrifying thing we shall ever face together is attending balls.”
Bridget giggled, but as Graham locked his gaze on her, she tilted her head back and rose to her tiptoes. “Let those sorrows and horrors come; our love is mightier than all,” she paused, “I love you,” she whispered. Graham leaned forward, and when his lips found hers, she closed her eyes and let the intoxicating feeling of unity, of togetherness wash over her. Happiness, she knew, had at last found them both—and they would never let it go again.
EPILOGUE
Six months later . . .
“I am ever so nervous,” Bridget declared. She ran her hand along the light-blue taffeta gown she had selected for this—the first ball of the Season. The material crinkled under her touch, and the dancing slippers she had chosen pressed against the top of her foot in a way that indicated how uncomfortable it will be dancing in them.
She blamed herself for not trying them out before, but it was too late.
She glanced outside, watching the typical townhouses of London pass by as the carriage made its way toward Fairfield House, the London home of Jack Fairfield, Graham’s dear friend. She’d met the young man when he came on a visit to Foxglove Hall a couple of months prior for a weekend of hunting. He was amiable but appeared to take great pleasure in teasing Graham over his impending change of status from a confirmed bachelor to a married man.
His mother was hosting the first ball of the year, and Bridget had received one of the coveted invitations, as had Graham and his mother, of course. The dowager duchess sat across from her, clad in a deep-purple gown. Mary had been dead for almost eight months now but her mother had elected to wear the traditional half-mourning colors of purple, navy, and gray as she was not ready to let go just yet.
Bridget wondered if any of them would ever truly stop grieving Mary. To be sure, the intensity of Bridget’s pain had changed. Where once any thought of her had brought on an all-consuming sense of loss, a pain that made her think that she too was not long for this world, it was now a dull ache. In a way, it was as though the first days and weeks after losing Mary had been an open wound. Whereas now, that wound had closed, a scab had appeared, and as long as one did not pick at it, the pain would be bearable.
“Bridget,” Fanny’s warm voice drew her back to the present. The older woman’s gloved hand appeared on her, and she looked up. “Are you ready?”
Bridget took a deep breath as she realized the carriage had come to a halt outside the home of the Fairfields’. Graham had already exited and stood outside the carriage, his hand extended. She nodded and forced a smile, though her heart pounded so heavily she was uncertain if she could even get up.
It had been months since she’d last been in London, and at that time, she’d been with Mary as a single girl looking to make a match.
Now, she was there again to announce that she had, indeed, found her match.
She was quite worried of it all yet there was no room for further delay. They had spent months in their own sphere of contentment, which they had only occasionally exited to spend time with their mothers.
The thought of her mother brought back her melancholy, wishing shehad come with them to London. However, Lady Sedgwick refused to leave Hertfordshire, too ashamed of the actions of her husband and herself.
Bridget shook her head, pushing the thoughts away, instead focusing on what mattered. The future. Her future with Graham. She raised her hand and allowed it to slip into his. Instantly, his fingers tightened around hers, and she climbed down the few steps.
“One night in London, and we shall be on our way back home should you wish it,” Graham murmured into her ear. Heat filled her stomach as his warm breath, sweetened by a peppermint comfit, wafted against her cool skin. The hairs on her arms stood up as they often did when he was near her.
“I am looking forward to it,” she replied, her statement loaded with meaning.
Graham winked and leaned closer yet. “One sleepless night, if I have my way.”
