The Vows of Ashworth
The travel from The King’s Court of Claims (climax arena) to Ashworth Abbey Gardens (vow venue) consumed the next hour. Headlights cut cold through the gathering dusk.
The weight of the King’s words settled over the Great Hall like a benediction and a guillotine blade, both at once. For a moment, the entire world was silent—no rustle of court silks, no murmur of lords, no scrape of a boot on stone. Evangeline felt the pressure of Rowan’s fingers around hers, a grip designed not to comfort but to anchor. To tether her to this moment so she could not float away from it.
She turned her head, just slightly. Rowan Blackwood—no, *Rowan Ashworth*, Duke of Ashworth, her son’s father—stared straight ahead at the throne, his profile carved from the same granite as the castle walls. But his hand was shaking. A fine, almost imperceptible tremor, the kind a man could not command away. She squeezed back.
Max tugged at her skirts. She looked down at her son’s upturned face, his small hand clutching the heavy signet ring that had been placed on his thumb only moments ago. It was far too large for him. It would fall off if he moved too quickly. But he held it up to the light like a prize.
“Mama, is it done?” Max’s whisper was not truly a whisper—it carried in the way that children’s whispers always carry.
“Yes, my love,” Evangeline said. “It’s done.”
Rowan finally turned. The Duke of Ashworth looked at his son, and the granite cracked. A smile broke through—not a court smile, but something private and fierce. He knelt, bringing himself to Max’s eye level, and gently pushed the signet ring back onto the boy’s thumb, where it belonged.
“It’s yours, Max,” Rowan said, his voice low and rough. “Your grandfather wore it. My father wore it. And one day, you will have it sized to your hand, and you will wear it when you sit in my chair.”
Max frowned, deeply serious. “Will I have to make speeches?”
“Yes,” Rowan said. “Many.”
“And wear those scratchy clothes?”
“Every day.”
Max considered this with the gravity of an eight-year-old confronted with the true cost of legacy. “All right,” he said at last. “But I want cake first.”
The laugh that rippled through the Great Hall was startled, then genuine. Even the King’s mouth curved, a rare and dangerous thing. He lifted his sceptre again, and the sound died.
“Rise, Duke of Ashworth,” the King repeated, louder now. “And take your Duchess and your son home.”
—
A month later, the roses of Ashworth Abbey had come into full, scandalous bloom.
Evangeline stood at the window of the east turret, Miriam behind her, lacing the bodice of a gown that had cost more than her entire life in the Harrington cottage. White silk, threaded with silver. The embroidery showed small, hidden vines among the lace—Ashworth’s wild rose, the same pattern that climbed the Abbey’s stone walls.
“You’re not breathing,” Miriam said, tugging at a ribbon.
“I’m trying not to.”
“Why?”
Evangeline turned from the window. The morning sun caught the dust motes in the air, turning them to gold. Miriam was dressed in soft grey, a simple sprig of rosemary pinned to her collar. Her face was the same as it had always been—open, plain, and utterly trustworthy. She had walked through hell beside Evangeline, and she had never once asked for a map.
“Because,” Evangeline said slowly, “I am afraid that if I breathe too deeply, I will wake up in the cottage again, with Max sleeping beside me on a straw pallet, and none of this will be real.”
Miriam finished the lacing and stepped around to face her. She took Evangeline’s hands in hers. “You are not going to wake up. This is not a dream. The Duke of Ashworth is waiting for you in the chapel, and he has been pacing the aisle for the last hour, and if you do not come down soon, Reid is going to have to physically restrain him from coming up to fetch you himself.”
Evangeline laughed, a sound that surprised her. “He wouldn’t.”
“He would,” Miriam said, with the flat certainty of a woman who had observed the Duke of Ashworth for an entire month and had reached her conclusions. “He asked me if I thought you preferred roses or peonies. Then he asked me if you preferred the chapel doors open or closed. Then he asked me whether you would want the ravens to be released after the ceremony or before. I told him to stop asking me questions and start trusting his own judgment, and he said—and I quote—‘I trust my judgment with men and with ledgers. With her, I trust nothing except that I must not fail.’”
Evangeline pressed a hand to her chest, feeling the rapid beat of her heart beneath the silk. “He said that?”
“He did. And then he asked if you liked the sound of bells or if they would startle you, and I told him that was a question for you, and he said—‘That is the problem. I cannot ask her every question. I must simply choose correctly.’” Miriam shook her head. “The man is a wreck. It is honestly the most reassuring thing I have ever seen.”
Evangeline turned back to the window. Below, the gardens of Ashworth Abbey unfurled in disciplined beauty. The chapel sat at the center, its stone walls ancient and warm in the morning light. The path from the abbey to the chapel was lined with guests—the court, the gentry, the servants who had served the Abbey for generations. And at the door of the chapel, a tall figure in black and silver, his hair dark against the bright stone.
Rowan was not pacing. He stood perfectly still, his hands clasped behind his back, his head bowed as if in prayer. But as she watched, he looked up—directly at the turret window. He could not possibly see her through the glass and the distance. And yet his gaze found her, held her, and did not let go.
“I think,” Evangeline said softly, “he knows I’m here.”
“Of course he does,” Miriam said. “He knows exactly where you are. He always has.”
—
The chapel door swung open, and Evangeline stepped into the light.
Sound rushed at her—feet shifting, skirts rustling, a low murmur of admiration that rippled through the crowd like wind across a field. She kept her eyes forward, on the altar, where Rowan stood. He had not moved. His face was pale beneath the sun, and his jaw was tight, but his eyes—his eyes were steady. They did not drop to her gown, nor to the flowers in her hands. They stayed on her face, and they did not blink.
Max stood beside him, dressed in a miniature version of his father’s coat. The signet ring had been tied onto a leather cord and hung around his neck, beneath his shirt. He was trying very hard to stand still and look solemn, and failing, because his small face was split in a grin that looked like it might burst out of him entirely.
Miriam walked a step behind Evangeline, and Evangeline felt her friend’s presence like a warm hand at her back. She reached the altar and turned. Reid was there, standing at the chapel door, his eyes moving in a slow, methodical sweep across the crowd, then the windows, then the roof. He wore no ceremonial armor, but his stance was the same as it had been every day for a month—a quiet, unobtrusive wall between the world and the people he protected.
The bishop began the words, ancient and familiar. Evangeline took a breath, and then another, and then she stopped counting them, because Rowan took her hand. His fingers were cold. She squeezed them, and he returned the pressure, and the trembling stopped.
“I, Rowan Alexander Blackwood,” he said, his voice clear and steady, “take you, Evangeline Marie Harrington, to be my wedded wife. To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part. And thereto I plight thee my troth.”
His eyes did not leave hers. He did not glance at the ceiling, or the congregation, or the bishop. He said the words as if he had been waiting his entire life to say them.
When her turn came, Evangeline heard her own voice as if from a great distance. She spoke the words, and they felt true, and she felt something in her chest loosen—a knot that had been tied so long ago she had forgotten it was there.
“The ring,” the bishop said.
Rowan produced it from his coat. A simple band of gold, inscribed on the inside with a single word: *Always.*
He slid it onto her finger. It fit perfectly.
And then, before the bishop could bless them, before the congregation could rise, Rowan leaned forward and kissed her.
It was not a chaste kiss. It was not the kiss of a duke and a duchess performing a ceremonial duty. It was the kiss of a man who had crossed a country, fought a legal war, dismantled an enemy, and found his son again—and was now claiming the thing he had been denied for eight years.
The whispers rose. The bishop cleared his throat. Rowan broke the kiss, his forehead resting against hers, and whispered, “I have been waiting to do that since I walked into a cottage in Septford and saw you holding a ledger that did not belong to you.”
Evangeline laughed, and the sound rang through the chapel, clear and bright. “And I have been waiting for you to stop talking about ledgers.”
Behind them, the congregation rose. The bishop pronounced them wed. And Max, unable to contain himself any longer, grabbed his father’s hand and shouted, “Did it work? Are you married?”
“Yes, Max,” Rowan said, lifting the boy easily onto his hip. “We are married.”
Max put his arms around his father’s neck and then leaned out, reaching for Evangeline. She stepped forward, and suddenly they were three—Rowan with Max on his hip, his other arm around Evangeline, the three of them forming a triangle that no one could break.
“Is it over now?” Max asked, his voice muffled against Rowan’s shoulder. “Are the bad men gone?”
Rowan’s smile faded, but the light in his eyes did not. He set Max down, crouching so they were face to face. “The Langleys were taken from London this morning. Owen and Silas Langley, and every man who helped them.” He spoke the words without heat, without anger—just the flat truth of a thing that had been done. “They are on a ship to the northern prison. They will not come back, Max. They will never come near you again.”
Max looked at his father, his small face searching. “Can they ever come back? Bad men always come back.”
Rowan’s hand settled on Max’s shoulder. “Not while I breathe,” he said. “Do you understand me? Not while I breathe.”
Max stared at him for a long moment. Then he nodded, and his body uncoiled, the tension leaving him all at once. “Good,” he said, with the finality of an eight-year-old who had received the answer he needed. “I’m hungry.”
Evangeline laughed again, and Rowan rose, offering her his arm. The congregation lined the aisle, their faces beaming, their hands raised in applause. Miriam fell into step beside her, and Reid moved from the door to walk ahead of them, scanning the path, the windows, the sky.
They stepped out of the chapel into the sun.
The gardens exploded with colour. The guests had strewn rose petals along the path, but the hedges themselves were alive with bloom, red and white and gold, the wild roses of Ashworth climbing the walls of the abbey itself. And the ravens—the ravens were perched on the chapel roof, a dozen of them, their black feathers gleaming in the light as if polished. They watched the procession with their heads tilted, and as the wedding party emerged, they lifted into the sky in a single, synchronized rush of wings.
A cheer went up from the crowd.
Rowan walked with Evangeline down the path, Max between them, one hand in each of theirs. The boy swung their arms, his grin wide and unguarded. At the gate, a feast awaited in the long tent, and servants were already pouring wine, and the bells in the chapel tower began to ring.
But before they reached the tent, Rowan stopped. He turned to Evangeline, and for a moment, all the noise and celebration vanished. It was just the two of them, standing among the roses, the peal of bells like a heartbeat in the air.
“I have spent eight years looking for you,” he said. “I did not know I was looking. I thought I was searching for a son, a bloodline, an heir. But I was searching for you.” He lifted her hand, the ring glinting between them. “When I left London to find Max, I did not expect to find a woman who would look at me as if I were not a duke, but a man. A man who could fail. A man who could bleed. And you looked at me, and you did not look away.”
“I will never look away,” Evangeline said. “I have spent eight years being afraid to look at anything for too long. But you—you I will look at for the rest of my life.”
Max tugged at their hands. “Are you going to kiss again? There are cakes in the tent.”
Rowan and Evangeline looked at each other, and they laughed. Max sighed the deep, put-upon sigh of a boy surrounded by hopeless romantics, and led them toward the tent at a brisk pace.
The bells of Ashworth rang over the valley at last, and above them the ravens of Blackwood rose into a sky that held no shadow of the grave.