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Oh, heavens! What was she to say to that? “I’m not sure what to think. Everything has happened much quicker than I’d thought.”

Heath sighed. “Then let me reassure you, and in the morning I’ll be happy to tell Isabel and anyone else who doubts my sincerity. I just spent the last little while assuring your father and grandfather of how very much I love you.”

“You did?” Emma blinked up at him.

His features softened a bit and he gently touched her cheek. “I’m a fool, Emma. Danby has told me as much many times today. How lowering to realize he’s right.”

“You’renota fool,” she defended. And he wasn’t. He was the most wonderful man she’d even known.

“I am. I should have told you instead of them.” Heath tipped her chin up, in front of the entire room of onlookers and softly brushed his lips against hers. Then he raised his head and smiled at her. “Emma Whitton, I am desperately in love with you.”

Tears trickled down Emma’s face and she wrapped her arms around his waist, holding him tightly to her. “I love you too, Heath. I always have.”

She only pulled away when the room broke out in applause and she remembered they had an audience.

“All right,” her father’s voice boomed. “You’re not married to her yet, Heathfield. So take a step away from my daughter.”

Heath acknowledged as much with a nod of his head. “Of course, Lord Norland. I got carried away again.”

And so had Emma. But starting tomorrow, she could get carried away the rest of her life with the man she had always loved.

EPILOGUE

December 1813 - Barrett Park, Sussex

Heath,

I do hope you and my sister will make the journey to Yorkshire for Christmas this year. Charlotte and I are anxious to see you both again as well as my little namesake. Danby Castle is sure to be overflowing in a few weeks as Grandfather is vowing, yet again, that he is dying. The old man will outlive each of us; just watch and see if I am wrong.

I do have a bit of news of my own to share with everyone this holiday, but you’ll have to be in attendance at the castle to hear it firsthand. Give Emma a kiss for me. Hope to see you soon.

Your devoted friend and brother,

Hardwick

Heath looked downat Drew’s note in his hand. This letter was most certainly sent from his old friend, but it made him smile at the memory of a very different letter he received the previous year. That fateful letter that had changed Heath’s life in all the best ways.

He strode from his study to Emma’s sitting room and found her exactly as he expected—lounged across a settee, cooing to their son in her arms. Heath stood on the threshold a moment, perfectly content to gaze at his family without alerting them to his presence, marveling at how much his life had changed from the previous Christmas to this one. No longer a man without a family, for better or worse he’d been welcomed into the Whitton bosom as one of their own. Usually it was for the better. Still, he had hoped to spend a quiet holiday with Emma and little Andrew. New family traditions and all that.

He must have made a sound, as his wife’s hazel gaze lifted to meet his. The radiant smile she bestowed upon him made Heath’s heart expand with joy. He waved her brother’s note in the air. “Drew is begging us to travel to Yorkshire. He says Danby claims to be dying once more.”

Emma sighed. “He just wants to bounce little Andrew on his knee, is all.” She patted the space beside her for Heath, and he happily joined her on the settee. “It would be nice to see Izzy again. It’s been forever.”

Forever? Heath kept from snorting. “She was just here last week.”

“Well, that is forever when one has spent most of one’s life with a twin.”

He’d have to take her word for it. Heath chuckled. “It wouldn’t be so bad if she and that infuriating husband of hers waited for an invitation. But no, they bound through the doors as though they own the place.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “Lockwell goes everywhere uninvited. Besides he’syourfriend.”

Heath conceded her point with a nod of his head. “Still, he is infuriating.” And how the reprobate actually managed to get Isabel Whitton to fall for him was a mystery Heath would never understand.

“As is the rest of my family, but we should still go to Danby Castle for the holidays.”

And he knew she was right. Quiet holidays be damned. The three of them would make their way to Yorkshire to spend Christmas with the unpredictable, slightly harried, often outrageous Whittons. And despite Heath’s protestations otherwise, he would love every minute of it.