"That was one week ago, and we were married today. I love him more than life itself, and I know we will be happy. We will have children together and raise them in a happy home, and I will forever be thankful for the day we met.
"So my lesson, Diary, is this: One must always believe in what the heart knows, and never give up on it. Jess is the world to me, as I am the world to him. We are everything to each other. This is bliss."
Rebecca closed the diary and placed it on the bedside table, then faced Devon without a word.
For a long time he looked at her, then he inched closer and wrapped his arms around her waist. "I am glad they found their bliss," he said. "I have found mine, too."
"Oh, Devon." She took his face in her hands and kissed him.
"I would not have understood those words a month ago," he told her, "for I did not know what bliss was until you entered my life. But now everything is perfect."
"But what about the pain you once knew, Devon? You had not forgiven yourself for what happened between you and Vincent four years ago, and you used your guilt to put distance between us. Are you able to truly let go of that now?"
He touched her soft face and ran a finger over her hair. "I will always regret what happened, and I will always feel pain when I think of it, but I will not continue to feel dead inside, as I have for the past three years. I have come home and my heart has come back to life. I have found happiness again, thanks to you. And perhaps someday, I will earn Vincent's forgiveness, though it will not be easy with Letitia as his wife. The woman despises me for choosing you. She will encourage his bitterness."
She kissed him in the lamplight, and he rolled her over onto her back, using his lips and mouth to express his love for her with tireless devotion to both her emotional and erotic pleasures. For an hour he delighted her senses, sent passionate jolts of excitement to her core, and filled her with a yearning he had every intention of fulfilling.
When he finally entered her in the darkness, she cried out and pulled him close, and he made love to her gently and tenderly, looking into her eyes the entire time, moving with great care and attention to detail. He used every skill he possessed as a man to work her up to a powerful climax, and the instant he felt her body tremble and shudder beneath his own, he, too, surrendered to his own orgasmic pleasures, feeling the shimmering heat of absolute love fill his whole being.
They fell asleep for a short time with his body still inside hers, then they woke to make love again, when he grew hard within her.
It was almost dawn when they finally surrendered to sleep, their bodies drained and sated, and if not for the knocking at their door at daybreak, Devon would have slept until noon.
But it was not to be that morning. He was forced to rise and pull on his trousers. He left Rebecca sleeping and crossed the room to answer the persistent caller. When he opened the door, there stood his mother with a sleeping infant in her arms.
"What is this?" he whispered, not sure if he might in fact be dreaming.
"We have a problem," she said flatly, in a quiet voice so as not to wake Rebecca. "A woman just left this child on the doorstep. A few of the footmen are out searching the grounds at this very moment, hoping to catch her."
"There is no indication who the woman was?"
"We have this." She handed him a note, and he blinked sleepily, willing his eyes to focus on the elegant penmanship. It was too dark to read any of it in the corridor, so he carried the note to the bed and lit the lamp, then read what it said.
He turned to face his mother, who was still standing in the doorway.
Rebecca sat up, clutching the covers to her neck. "What is going on?"
"We don't quite know," the duchess said. "This baby was just left here, and I do not think Lady Letitia is going to be happy about it when she arrives to have her engagement announced later today."
Rebecca squinted drowsily at the baby. "It's Vincent's?"
"So the letter writer claims," Adelaide said.
Devon sank down into a chair. "If that is true, this is his bed. He made it. He will have to lie in it."
At that moment, the baby began to babble in the sweetest, most adorable manner, and Rebecca leaped out of bed with the sheet wrapped around her, and joined the duchess in the doorway to indulge in a very maternal round of doting, coddling, and cooing.