Page 75 of The Viscount's Code
“Now,” Lady Covington said, clearly interested in changing the subject, “whose turn is it next?”
EPILOGUE
Hope looked across the room at Anthony, seated so comfortably in the chair next to the fire. It was still hard to believe that she was Lady Whitehall.
He must have felt her stare upon him, for he looked up and met her eye.
“Is something wrong?” he asked with immediate concern.
“Not a thing,” she said with a smile. “In fact, everything is very right.”
Keeping the paper he had been reading in his hand, he walked across the room with a predatory look in his eyes. He stopped in front of her chair, crouching below it.
“I have something to show you.”
“Do you now?” she said with a smirk, and he laughed.
“That too – but later. First,” he held up the paper, “they have printed the story regarding Johnson’s traitorous actions. And my father’s own innocence.”
“Oh, Anthony,” she said, picking it up in her hands. “That is wonderful.”
“It is,” he said with a sigh. “It is all over.”
“You will have to write to Reeves, in case he hasn’t seen it.”
“I will. He will be pleased. Although I’m not sure anyone will be as happy as my mother was to hear of it. I knew it had weighed on her but hadn’t realized quite how much.”
“In other news, I’ve heard from Percy,” she said. “She is to meet Mr. Rowley this week and they are going to call upon Cassandra’s Aunt Eve.”
“Oh, good,” Anthony said absently. “Rowley’s a good man. A smart one, too. He’ll know what to do.”
“Do you think he can keep Percy safe?”
“That, I’m not sure,” he admitted. “But he would most certainly try. He is quite chivalrous.”
“He is.”
“Percy is inquisitive, if nothing else,” Hope said. “But enough of that.”
She stood, placing her hands on Anthony’s arms and sitting him down in the chair, then sat in his lap and looped her arms around his neck.
“Are you happy?” he asked her, and she smiled wide.
“Do I look happy?”
“Yes. But you always do.”
“There is so much good to life,” she said. “Especially when I have you.”
“If there is one thing I am glad of,” he said, “it is that I broke the code of how to have you.”
“That is where you are wrong,” she said, tapping him on the nose. “For I believeyouwere the code most difficult to break.”
“You might be right about that,” he said sheepishly. “It took me far too long to discover the cipher I needed to solve what was missing in my life was you.”
“But you did,” she said, leaning in and placing her lips against his. “That’s what matters most.”
“I love you, Hope.”
