"Oh, Jonathan-"
"So I need to tell you the truth now, my dear. I have a lot more years ahead of me, Pamela, and I'm older and wiser. I'm not saying I didn't love her, but you have no call to be jealous. To worry that you can never replace her. I lost her a long time ago. All I had left was a shell.
"It was agony loving two women, one out of Christian duty and pity, the other as a man longs to love his wife. Yes, wife," he repeated, when he caught her surprised look.
"I know what I feel for you is genuine. One look at you and my heart sings. I don't know how many years I have left, my love, but I've wasted too much time already. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and any children we will be blessed with."
"You don't have to say that..."
"Yes I do. I wanted to say it before, only-"
She squeezed his hand firmly. "I understand. Really. I don't think any less of a man for wanting to keep his word."
"Not even when I loved you so much? Hurt you so badly?"
She gripped his hand hard. "Not even then, darling. You kept your word. Your rejection in Bath wounded me terribly, but neither of us planned to fall in love."
He shook his head. "I did. I mean, I knew how much I loved you. I tried to stay away, told myself it was wrong, selfish. But it was like being drawn against my will to something so beautiful, so tempting. I burned for you, Pamela. I think I always shall. I thought I would lose my mind if I didn't see you. I never imagined you would ever return my feelings. You had every man you met at your feet. I was just a humble country parson."
She smiled up at him in stunned surprise. He had cared for her all that time?
"Even worse, I was made to look like a fortune hunter and degenerate. I knew what the man who called himself Ferncliffe had done, was saying, but thought it didn't matter. I assumed I had lost you anyway, so what difference did his lies make?
"Thomas has told me everything. I had no idea that we were distant relations, and that Ferncliffe was trying to claim Ashton Manor for himself. I had no idea he even knew Jane."
She nodded. "He said he was the baby's father. Jane knew him. She said she would rather die than be touched by him again. Taken by him was what she said." She blushed.
Jonathan shuddered, and squeezed her hand. "We'll probably never know the whole truth now. In a sense it doesn't really matter. Nothing can ever be proven one way or the other. Besides, I doubt it's true. Ferncliffe would say anything to get more money out of Thomas. He was an earl without a penny.
"In fact, I'm sure we'll find that he has quite a few debts run up on the strength of his marriage to you. He was desperate, and came up with any number of plans to get funds, including disinheriting Bertie, blackmailing Thomas, and marrying you for money. All of them came apart thanks to you. You believed in me, when few other people ever would have." His eyes glowed with love and pride, tinged with surprise at the depth of her faith in him.
She put her fingers on his lips to silence him. "I never promised him, you know, not by word or deed, or in my heart. I thought I had lost you, that you didn't love me. I said nothing against him to keep my aunt quiet, but I never would have married anyone but y--"
"You never lost me, darling," he soothed, brushing back the fair hair from her brow tenderly. "I can see I'm going to have to spend a lot more time giving you instruction and correction on the error of your ways."
"Yes, please," she whispered, lifting her lips to his.
He kissed her until she was breathless, his mouth warm and oh so alluring.
When he eventually lifted her head, she asked, "So what shall we do now, do you think?"
"Well, Ferncliffe will be tried for a whole list of charges, and will most likely get a capital sentence for the death of Jane. There are still a lot of unanswered questions about how he inherited, what he was up to, and who was helping him with his plot. He couldn't have done it alone, after all. He was with you on the road to London, for one thing, when I would have been spotted in the little country village moving Jane and Sophie from the place where we had hidden them.
"And he had to have had help to get the family tree researched, and your father's will overturned. We need to find the real Ferncliffe heirs as well. The last I knew of them was during the war, but there were three brothers, one of them a good friend. He's only the youngest, but I can't think all three of them could have perished during the war. Not unless they met with foul play."
"Oh, Jonathan, do you think the man I knew as the Earl was really as bad as that?"