want him to ever let go. He was here. He’d found me. “You saved me,” I murmured against his shoulder.
“Sweetheart, you saved yourself.” Slowly, he rubbed my back, up and down. “But I am here for you. And I will never, ever give up on you. I would walk to the ends of the earth, searching.”
And I knew he was telling me the truth.
And I knew I would do the same for him, because I loved him, and I was desperate for him to know. “When I was in that cellar, alone, with him, I knew I had to live. Live for Izzy, for you. I have everything I could ever want, and I wasn’t about to let him take that from me. Not again.”
He pressed his lips to mine in a gentle, sweet kiss.
I wasn’t sure how long we sat there in the snow while James searched the river bank for Ervin. As Gabe’s heat and strength seeped into me, I realized I wanted to do nothing more than leave. I wanted to go home.
“It’s over,” Gabe whispered. “I promise, it’s over.”
I didn’t miss the pistol in the snow next to him. Gabe had shot Ervin. I hoped he’d killed him.
“Ginny, I’m not the heir, I never was. I’m just a damn Baron.”
Ervin had been speaking the truth. I pulled back, meeting his gaze. “I know.”
“I lied to you, I lied to everyone. I am no better than my parents.”
“Your parents would have killed that poor boy. You kept him safe all this time. You’re here, now, telling me the truth. You are not your parents, and neither of us are our pasts.”
“I turned in the papers months ago to have Tommy recognized as the true heir. Can you ever forgive me?”
“I think deep down you were always going to have him recognized.” I cupped the sides of his face and stared deeply into his green eyes. “You forgive the people you love.”
He stiffened. “You love me?”
“Did you doubt it?”
A smiled tipped his lips. “No. However, it’s still nice to hear.”
“It is.”
He gripped my hands and pressed them to his lips. “All this time I’d been searching for something, someone. I didn’t realize until now that someone was you. Ginny, I missed you before I even knew you. I wanted you before you existed. Over these years, I knew that something was wrong. Something was missing. A piece of me. I could never be whole until I found that piece. It was you. Always you.”
My heart slammed wildly in my chest. He was far from perfect. He’d driven me mad on more than one occasion. But the sun was rising; a brilliant red ball on the horizon, that sent colorful rays across the snow. It was a new day.
“It’s Christmas morning, Gabe.”
“It is,” he murmured.
“Take me home, please. I want to spend Christmas morning with you, with Izzy, my family, forever and always.”
Epilogue
One Year Later
Ginny
“Oh, my lady, it looks lovely!”
I glanced over my shoulder to see Franny standing there, hands clasped together in delight. She’d grown into a beautiful young woman, who was as sweet as she was pretty. “You think so?”
She nodded as she entered the sitting room. “The children who have to stay behind, will adore it!”
And I knew Franny and her sister would as well. They’d never had much of a Christmas in the slums. When I’d opened the school for girls, I’d made sure to go back to London and find Franny. She didn’t exactly love to learn, but she was a great help with the children. She’d been flirting with a young farmer down the lane, and I had a feeling he would offer for her soon. I would lose her as an assistant, but she would, at least, still be a neighbor.
Her little sister, on the other hand, was a prime student who loved math and science. We had thirty students in all, although I hoped to expand each year until we could support two hundred. Half the girls were from the slums, and other places where they weren’t given much a chance at life. The other half were from respectable families who paid well to get their children out of the house. Girls who were a little too different, a little too difficult, a little too misunderstood. Girls who loved to learn, who had no interest in sitting quietly by and sewing, or gossiping.
We were creating a hive of bluestockings that we’d unleash out into the world, Rafe had said one day.