Saying goodbye had been something akin to carving out his own heart with a spoon. He didn’t need to tell her why overseeing the exhumation and travel of the zinc-lined coffin was necessary. He didn’t even need to tell her that delivering on this promiseto Thea was more urgent than ever as his feelings for Amy demonstrably grew.
She’d simply slid into his lap one day in his study, when he’d received yet another alarming cable from his contact in Vienna, said that dinner would be waiting when he could return, and promised to write to him in her increasingly confident hand.
He’d been a fool. He’d laughed and told her he’d be back so quickly letters would miss him. Somehow she knew, and her letters had proved a great comfort in those unsettling days of trying to track down officials for the exhumation permit and the bill of lading for the railways.
A great comfort and a significant cause of discomfort. Erasmus tapped the folded missives in his breast pocket again, reassuring himself that they were still there. He needed to speak to his wife about some things she’d written. He needed answers desperately, and he couldn’t have requested them via post.
Erasmus entered the Abbey through the servant’s entrance, nodding to Mrs. Laidlaw, already at the hob and making his way to the bedroom after filling a pitcher with water. He removed his boots outside the door so the noise wouldn’t wake Amy and then went behind the screen to wash up.
When he emerged in his fresh shirt and dressing gown, he finally let himself see what he’d been dreaming about since departing two months earlier. There she was, her hair spread on a pillow becomingly, her pretty lips the barest bit parted as she dreamed.
And beside her, one on either side, were the children. Phin slept in his crib, making little burbles as he kicked his feet while chewing on a wooden sailboat. Thea slept on Amy’s other side, tucked into her belly.
Erasmus suddenly sensed that this might be the best year of his life. He brushed a tear aside as he surveyed his little family after so long away, then carefully lifted the heavier Phin from his cradle and gave the boy a grateful kiss on his hair.
Finding an open spot on that large bed didn’t prove difficult, and Erasmus held the baby to his chest and then pulled the bedclothes over them, settling in for just a moment of rest.
***
He dreamed he rode on a small ship, tossed about by waves, chased by Austro-Hungarian officials who demanded to see the papers for the casket in the hold. The wind and spray from the water lashed against his face, and he turned away to spare his eyes the stinging seawater.
“Careful with your papa,” he heard a warm voice say, from somewhere nearby. “He’s traveled ever so far to return to us on Christmas.”
Amy, his wife, was so close after so much longing.
“But his eyelashes are long,” Thea said before she brushed through them.
The movements tickled, and Erasmus opened his eyes to find his daughter leaning over him, her finger poised just above his eye.
“If that’s not a sight for sore eyes,” he said, holding out his arms to his Thea, who flopped onto him without reserve.
Truth be told, he was shocked. Thea had always been a little withdrawn. But something had changed this year.
Erasmus cast his eyes to the other side of the bed, where he saw the thing that had changed everything.
Amy was looking down at Phineas, drowsily nursing at her breast, as though she couldn’t bring herself to look at her husband.
And then she cast him a brief glance and broke into a grin upon seeing that he was awake.
“Hello, wife,” he said, returning her smile. “How long have I been asleep?”
“Only 1,000 years,” she said, adjusting Phin. “But then you’ve crossed much of Europe to return to us. And on Christmas Day! I didn’t think we’d be so lucky.”
He knew the feeling. To have loved once and grieved most terribly, he’d not have expected to open his heart again. But hearing those kitten cries and realizing how desperately Amyand Phin needed him set aside all the doubts and wavering that might have doomed a more conventional courtship and union.
It was not so much a marriage of convenience as a marriage of necessity, and he found the term failed to sum up the depth of affection that he had for his new family. For his beautiful wife.
“You’re radiant, Amy,” he said, brushing a bit of hair back from her face so he could see just how pretty his stray bride looked when loved and looked after. He’d handle all of that personally from now on. No more long adventures keeping him away; his wife and children would have him at the Abbey from now on.
“I’ve been engaged in a most interesting correspondence, Mr. Mangevileyn,” she said pertly.
She was strutting, the little hen, bringing up those letters with so many hours to go until the evening, when they might discuss them privately.
“I’ve noticed that our bed is rather fuller these days,” he said, nodding to the children.
“Oh, hush,” she said mildly. “It’s Christmas, and their papa wasn’t home.”
“I’m home now, Amy,” he said. His glance must have been more heated than he intended because her cheeks flushed a lovely pink and she dropped her gaze to the counterpane.
