and they walked on, more than ready to embrace their new life, more than content to embrace the love they’d found and, together, hearts, minds, and souls as one, set out on life’s greatest adventure.
She looked about—saw her family, friends, neighbors, saw her newly acquired family and all their connections. She swept her gaze around, taking in the ballroom, so festive and bright after being shut up for decades. She noted the staff, all bright-eyed and brimming with enthusiasm and an underlying hope.
The hope for a future they felt confident would come.
She glanced at Godfrey, let her gaze linger briefly—lovingly—on his chiseled profile.
This man.
He’d saved her family and her home, had given both a sound and stable future filled with possibilities. He’d opened doors for her siblings and opened their eyes to wider horizons as well.
He was selfless in giving to her and to them.
Yet she didn’t feel indebted to him. Throughout the past weeks, through talking with her new sisters-in-law and his brothers, she’d come to understand that she and her family and even Hinckley Hall itself had given him something he’d truly craved. The basis for a real family. His own family. Not just those already here but all who might yet come.
Between them, the scales were balanced.
As, with a smile on her lips, she moved with him into the crowd of guests still wishing to fête them and their union, she couldn’t find better words than those he’d used months earlier to sum up the entirety of what they both, in their hearts, believed.
Family is what life is truly about.
That sentiment said it all, and she was as eager as he to see where it led them.
Dear Reader,
As the youngest of the Cavanaugh siblings, Godfrey’s tale was always going to be a bit different. With his half brother, two older two brothers, and his sister now all wed and happily engaged with their own growing families, it seemed clear that Godfrey would approach the issue of marriage for himself in a rather more relaxed way. I couldn’t see him being all that concerned with marriage one way or the other. In contrast, he would, I felt sure, feel a certain pressure to make his own mark in the world, to carve out his own niche. I had a lovely time researching the National Gallery and its interests in those times, and also delving into the world of the High Renaissance painters and their artworks – until I could understand Godfrey’s obsession with the field!
Devising the reason behind Godfrey’s visit to Hinckley Hall in deepest Yorkshire, and all that came next, Godfrey falling into Ellie Hinckley’s life and finding his connection to a family of his own, and the rising of his protective instincts in defending the Hinckleys against an unknown villain and the consequences, skullduggery and all, was great fun.
I hope you enjoyed reading of Godfrey and Ellie’s journey into love, marriage, and happiness—if you feel inclined to leave a review here (link to retailer’s bookpage), I would greatly appreciate it.
And so, we’ve reached the final chapter in The Cavanaughs. From the time Ryder Cavanaugh walked onto my page in the opening scene of The Taming of Ryder Cavanaugh, and brought his siblings in his wake, I knew I would have to write about them, too. The chance to craft the stories of a group of siblings holding together to survive a dreadful family situation and coming about to each find love and happiness and a real purpose in life was simply too compelling to resist.
To round out my releases for this year, the fourth volume of Lady Osbaldestone’s Christmas Chronicles, Lady Osbaldestone’s Christmas Intrigue, will be released on October 15, 2020 for you to enjoy in the lead-up to Christmas.
As ever, I wish you continued happy reading!
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Stephanie.
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COMING NEXT:
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The fourth instalment in