His father hesitated before nodding slowly.
“I am interested,” he said, moving toward the table and the place Abby was indicating.
Epilogue
They arrived home in Gloucestershire a little more than a week after regaining custody of Katy, having spent a few days letting her get to know and become comfortable with them.
They had taken her for a boat ride on the river Thames and for ices at Gunter’s. They had taken her to a family tea at Alexander’s, where she had spent a couple of hours playing excitedly with her new cousins in the nursery. They had taken her on a separate visit to her new grandmama and grandpapa, Abigail’s mother and stepfather, and her aunt Estelle and uncle Bertrand, who played a game of spillikin with her and pretended not to notice when she disturbed at least a dozen spills every time she pulled one free, shrieking with laughter as she did so. Harry had not been there. He had returned home to Hinsford two days after the hearing. Gil had taken Katy riding in Richmond Park with her uncle Avery and cousin Josephine, while several other members of the family had followed in a cavalcade ofcarriages for a picnic on the grass, preceded by a noisy game of hide-and-seek among the trees.
General and Lady Pascoe had declined invitations to the visits and the picnic, but they had received the Marquess and Marchioness of Dorchester when they called one afternoon, and the Dowager Countess of Riverdale when she called the day after with Lady Matilda. When they said goodbye to Katy, the general had instructed her to be a good girl and mind her mama and papa, and Lady Pascoe had presented her cheek for Katy’s kiss when Gil lifted her up.
Neither one had shown any strong emotion—which did not mean they felt none, Abigail realized. Katy had not seemed upset to be taken from them, perhaps because she did not understand what leaving meant. Though shehadmade very sure when Gil explained to her that they were going on a long journey to Papa’s house that her nanny was going too.
Mrs. Evans had traveled in a separate carriage they had hired to convey her and all their baggage. For one short stretch of the journey Katy had sat in with her, but most of the time she wanted to be with Mama and Papa and, most of all, the puppy, with whom she cuddled when she was not wedged between Gil and Abigail in their new, very comfortable, though not opulent, carriage. A groom had been hired to bring Gil’s horse by easy stages.
Abigail had promised to write frequently to Lady Pascoe to tell her how Katy did. She had promised also to keep on inviting them to Rose Cottage.
“You must come, please,” she had said when shaking hands upon their departure. “We would not wish Katy to forget you—or her mother.”
Lady Pascoe had merely looked steadily back at her, her face haughty and ever so slightly disdainful. But Abigailwould persist. The woman had lost her only daughter less than two years ago. Now she was in a sense losing her granddaughter too.
Something else Abigail hoped for—though she kept it strictly to herself—was another meeting with Viscount Dirkson. She was not sure where or when, but she would not give up hope.
But now they were home. Or almost. Gil had said that Rose Cottage was on the outskirts of the village through which they were driving—a picturesque place with a village green and a church with a tall spire and an inn and a smithy and a cluster of shops and a few rows of pretty houses, several of them thatched. It looked more like an idealized painting of rural England than reality, but it was, in fact, very real. Katy was just waking up from a nap on Abigail’s lap and was yawning and looking out the window.
“Duckies,” she cried, pointing. “Look, Papa. Look, Mama.”
And indeed there were a few of them bobbing on the surface of the pond at the center of the green.
“We will come back and see them one day,” Gil told her.
“Tomorrow?” she asked.
“Perhaps,” he said. “We will bring Beauty for a walk.”
It seemed for a moment that they were driving right out of the village. But then there was a rustic wooden fence to their left with trees and bushes inside it, and then a wide wooden gate, beyond which was a paved path that wended out of sight behind the trees. Gil leaned forward and knocked on the front panel and the carriage drew to a halt.
“The carriage house and stables are at the back,” he said. “But we will get out here and approach the house from the front.”
He had been quiet for the last little while so as not todisturb Katy while she slept. But it had seemed to Abigail that he was full of suppressed excitement. She had felt it in him throughout the long, sometimes tedious journey from London.
His lifelong dream, he had told his father that morning at the Pulteney Hotel, had come true. But it had not really. Or not fully.Thiswas his dream: Rose Cottage, the home he had purchased when he came home from India—and bringing his wife and child here. And spending the rest of his life here with his family.
It had happened once before, of course. He had brought a pregnant Caroline here in the wintertime, and there had been a brief blossoming of happiness with the birth of his daughter. The dream had turned sour and had threatened to die. But he had not let it go. He had fought to get his daughter back. He had married her, Abigail, to make that more possible. Though that, she knew, had not been his only reason. Or, if it had, it was no longer so. She knew he cared. She knew this homecoming was the more precious, the more perfect for him, because she was here too. They were husband and wife. They were family.
And this time it was summer.
Beauty leapt to the ground with loud huffs and puffs as soon as the coachman opened the door. Gil descended first after the steps had been lowered and swung Katy down before handing Abigail out. There was something different about his face. It was not quite smiling, but the disciplined austerity had somehow gone from it. It was as though he had allowed some of himself to come out from that place deep within where he had hidden most of his life.
He turned to open the gate, and Katy went skipping through it and along the path, Beauty loping along at her side. Gil offered Abigail his arm.
“I have never seen it in the summertime,” he said. “I have not seen the flowers. Or the roses.”
She smiled as she took his arm.
It was not a long garden path. It was not a huge garden. The house was not quite a mansion. But as they turned the bend in the path and it all came into view, they both stopped walking and merely gazed. Freshly scythed grass, almost emerald in color. Flowers in profusion in neat beds everywhere and hanging in baskets from the house eaves. Roses in abundance climbing trellises and spilling over low walls. Their scent filling the air. Curtains fluttering at open windows. And Mrs. Evans, who had come ahead of them from the last stage, standing in the doorway with the woman who must be the housekeeper, and opening her arms to Katy, who went dashing toward her, prattling something that was inaudible from where Abigail and Gil stood, Beauty at her side.
“Home!” Gil said, and he turned his head to look at Abigail, and his eyes filled with tears as they had on the bank of the Serpentine a week ago.
