“Felix sent them. After we discovered who was behind Holt’s convenient appearance.” His gaze flicked to where the solicitor was being led away in restraints. “Jasper confessed everything. The forged documents, the threats, Nicholas’s murder—all of it.”
Nicholas’s murder.
The confirmed suspicions she’d barely dared to voice. “He killed his own brother?”
“For the title, for family pride, for a dozen selfish reasons that meant more to him than human life.” Owen’s voice carried a rage so cold that it made her shiver. “But he’s finished now. He’ll never threaten our family again.”
Our family.
The show of possession made something tight in her chest ease slightly. Whatever had driven Owen to such desperate measures, whatever had changed his mind about their situation, he was here now. Fighting for them.
“Your Grace?” The lead constable interrupted their reunion. “We’ll need statements from both of you, but that can wait until tomorrow.”
After the constables departed, the house settled into an almost oppressive quiet. Peters efficiently restored order to the entrance hall while Iris remained frozen on the stairs, afraid to believe that the crisis had truly passed.
“It’s over,” Owen said quietly, moving to stand below her. “They can’t take her. No one can take her.”
“How can you be certain?”
“Because I won’t let them. Because I’ll fight anyone who tries, with everything I have.” His voice grew rough with emotion. “Because I was a fool to ever consider letting her go.”
Iris studied his face, noting the exhaustion and guilt written in every line. This was the man who’d offered to give her replacement children just yesterday and had spoken of faking Evie’s death to avoid complications. What had changed?
“Come upstairs,” she said finally. “We need to talk.”
She led him to the nursery, the room that had become the heart of their unlikely family. Evie had fallen asleep during the chaos below. Her small face was peaceful despite the upheaval surrounding her.
Iris settled into the rocking chair with the baby still in her arms. She was unwilling to let go, even though the immediate danger had passed.
Owen remained standing with his hands clenched at his sides as if he didn’t know what to do with them.
“I owe you an apology,” he began.
“You owe me an explanation.”
“That too.” He moved to kneel beside her chair, bringing himself to her eye level. “When I spoke of giving her up, of returning to what we were, I was terrified.”
“Of what?”
“Of us becoming my parents.” The admission came out raw, painful. “They started with love, you know. Passionate, desperate love that consumed everything in its path. But over time, it rotted. Turned into resentment and cruelty and the kind of poison that destroys everyone it touches.”
Iris watched his face, seeing the boy who’d grown up surrounded by that toxicity. “We’re not your parents.”
“I know that now. The Dowager Duchess helped me see it, along with a few other uncomfortable truths about the man I was becoming.” He reached out tentatively. His fingers brushed Evie’s tiny hand. “I was so afraid of hurting you that I hurt you anyway. So determined to avoid my father’s mistakes that I made them anyway.”
“You called caring for her temporary. Said she meant nothing.”
“I lied. To you, to myself, to anyone who would listen.” His voice cracked slightly. “Because admitting how much she means to me, how much you both mean to me, felt like signing up for inevitable heartbreak.”
“And now?”
“Now I understand that heartbreak is guaranteed if I keep pushing away the people I love.” He looked up at her, his gray eyes bright with unshed tears. “You’re not a convenience, Iris. Not an obligation or a duty or anything else I tried telling myself. You’re everything. Both of you. Everything I never knew I wanted. Everything I was too afraid to ask for.”
The words she’d longed to hear for so many months were finally spoken aloud. But they came wrapped in the memory of yesterday’s cruelty, the casual way he’d dismissed everything they’d built together.
“You hurt me,” she whispered. “When you spoke of faking her death, of giving me other children as if they could replace her… it felt like you were erasing everything we’d become.”
“I know. God, I know.” He moved closer, close enough that she could see the anguish in his expression. “I’ve been hurting you since our wedding day. Leaving you alone, keeping secrets, treating you like a stranger when you deserved so much better.”
