Page 96 of An Unforgettable Ball at Bromenville Hall
Eugenia gazed up at him through her tears. “They were so good to me. Always.”
“Oh, that was obvious,” he said. “They loved you like their own.”
Eugenia gasped, and pulled away, glancing between her mother and father. “Lady Helena – I do not have to call her ‘My Lady’ anymore. That is going to be too strange.”
Her mother laughed. “She is now your social inferior.”
“But I can never think of her like that,” Eugenia protested, wiping her face. “She is like my sister.”
Eugenia found Maximilian had stood up and walked toward them. “I suppose that now might be a good time to ask you something, Duke, a question that has preyed upon my mind.”
Eugenia eyed him curiously as she held her parents’ hands. He had a strange smile on his face as he looked at her, then he eyed her father. “I would ask, Duke, for your permission to marry your daughter.”
Eugenia thought she was going to faint. Her head spun as the implications of everything that had happened struck her afresh.
I can stand beside him as his equal! I can marry him without shame!
Turning, she gazed up at her father, pleading silently.Please say yes, please say yes, Father.
The Duke, her father, glanced between the two of them, his face neutral. Eugenia’s heart sank. Until he grinned. “I do not see how I could tear you two apart. Of course, you have my blessing, Duke. I cannot imagine a better husband for my long-lost daughter than you.”
Eugenia slammed into him, wrapping her arms around her father’s waist again. She smiled through her tears at her mother, then reached out to take her hand. “I am so happy,” she said, crying again. “I still cannot believe it is happening.”
“I can,” Maximilian said. “I wondered why the Duchess reminded me of someone when I first met her. She reminded me of you. And now that you are of my social status, Eugenia, perhaps you can cease running away from me.”
Her mother eyed Eugenia. “Running away?”
Eugenia flushed. “I thought that me, being low born, would destroy his social status. I tried to make him not – love me.”
“It did not work,” Maximilian said. He dropped to one knee, and took Eugenia’s hand, gazing up at her. “If there are no more mysteries to solve, will you marry me, Eugenia?”
She was so overfilled with joy, she thought her heart would burst. She stopped the people who were trying to kill him, then she found her long lost parents, and now Maximilian proposed marriage. She absently wondered if a person could die from too much happiness. “Yes, Max. Yes, I will marry you.”
Just as she hoped he would, Maximilian stood up and took her in his strong arms, then kissed her. “Good,” he said, smiling down into her eyes and rubbed his nose against hers. “I need not now ask Mr. Oldman to prepare another cell in the dungeon.”
Epilogue
One Year Later
It was the wedding event of the Season.
Eugenia walked down the aisle beside her father, the Duke of Dentonshire, in the grand hall of the Bromenville castle. Guests from all over the realm attended the wedding of the most eligible bachelor in the kingdom, including the Prince Regent himself. Despite the exhaustive rehearsals, Eugenia trembled inside, fearing she would make a dreadful mistake and shame both herself and Maximilian.
Maximilian waited for her at the altar, his friend the Viscount of Mallen at his side. The Bishop of Canterbury failed to smile as she arrived at Maximilian’s side, making her think she had done something wrong. Yet, he intoned the prayers and conducted the ceremony without ever smiling, and Maximilian offered her that special wink that reassured her tremendously.
After, Eugenia thought she would faint when the Prince Regent approached her as she stood with Maximilian in the receiving line. Even as she curtseyed to the most prominent peer in the realm, His Royal Highness lifted her hand to his lips to kiss, smiling. “Congratulations, my dear,” he said. “You are the loveliest bride I believe I have ever seen.”
“Thank you, Your Highness,” she whispered, feeling her cheeks heat and her head spin.
After he passed on, she glanced at Maximilian and mouthed, “Oh, really?”
Maximilian grinned. “He spoke the truth.”
All year since her engagement, Eugenia practiced her dancing and danced with almost every male in the grand ballroom from Maximilian to her father to the Earl of Whitington and down to the barons and knights. She drank champagne, giggled with Lady Helena, ate her fill of roast swan, succulent duckling, smoked salmon, and, of course, her wedding cake made and designed by her old friend Mr. Simmons.
“At times I think we should have eloped,” Maximilian murmured in her ear as they sat at the head of the high table. “So much fuss over a wedding ceremony”
Eugenia feigned shock. “And deprive me of all the pomp on my wedding day?” She then grinned. “Had you even mentioned such an idea to my mother, she would have found no fewverycreative ways to carve you up.”
Maximilian rolled his eyes. “Parents. Where would we be without them?”
Giggling, Eugenia leaned close and fed him a piece of her cake. “I love you, Max,” she murmured.
“Why, is that not a coincidence,” he said, around the mouthful of sweetness, his dark blue eyes wide. “I happen to love you, too.”
The End?