Protection

Epilogue

This is it, my dears! I have loved this story sooooo much! I remember how I got the idea, how I planned. And now, it's over. I feel like crying, but then again, I am so glad I finished it! <3

New Year’s Eve of 1799

The house was sparklingly decorated, and everyone who was anyone had been invited to the Pembroke household for the New Year’s party.

  When Alayna and Alex had married two years before, everyone had been shocked—for hadn’t she been engaged to marry Sterling Thompson, Alexander’s best friend?

However, Sterling had disappeared, and no one had seen him since.

The celebration of 1800 was in full swing, but the host and hostess had snuck onto the balcony, far away from all the noise and the laughter.

  Alayna was exquisitely clad in a darling little gown of white satin. It was demure but lovely, and Alex thought her quite attractive in it. He was madly, truly, deeply in love with her, as enchanted as she was with him.

   He kissed her and she giggled. “Behave yourself,” she whispered, “everyone is only inside.”

“Bother everyone else,” he growled, and kissed her pretty hand—the hand on which her wedding ring was worn so beautifully.

   “Your sons are bound to be blackguards,” she said quietly.

“And your daughters are bound to be kittens.”

He smiled down at her, fluttering her lashes. Her face bore no signs of the past. Her cheeks were a blooming pink, her hair had grown out long again, and she felt as alive as ever. Their life together had known no boundaries. They had traveled, they had loved, and they had fought, and made up. It was obvious that they were one of the best made love match in all of England.

    “Alex,” Alayna said in a soft, even tone.

“Alayna,” he repeated, in the same tone.

“Its three minutes to midnight.”

“Ah,” he said, and smiled down at her with a charming, glittery grin. “The old century is falling away.”

“1800,” she said, barely above a whisper. She had looked at his cravat, weighing the reality of it. Nostalgia burned in her, aching sweetly, and she wondered how many years yesterday had been gone. “It sounds funny,” she said.

“Think of all the things that have happened, my love. Caroline of Brunswick, Emma Lady Hamilton—” His eyes gleamed. “The Duchess of Devonshire, all of them. Forgotten old biddies now.”

“The Revolution, too. The French and the Americans.”

“What do you think is in store for this century, Alayna?” He ran his thumb over her bottom lip, full and beginning to shake.

    “A hundred more years of madness,” she laughed, and met his eyes. Hers quivered with unshed tears. She loved this man, more than she loved anything. She knew no words.

   Alex wound his strong arm around her waist, and lowered his face to hers. His lips were warm, pressing pleasantly against her mouth, and Alexander Pembroke became the first man of recorded history to kiss his wife between two centuries.

  And They Lived Happily (Though not always perfectly) Ever After.