“And I love you,” she whispered back.
His kiss was gentle at first, almost reverent, then deepened with the unmistakable warmth of a man finally, finally home.
Lily launched herself into their arms, squealing, and they broke apart just in time to catch her between them, her excited giggles breaking through Violet’s tears.
A moment later, Emily and Mary tugged Lily toward a game with Alice and Gregory, and the children tore off across the lawn, their laughter spilling through the meadow.
William reached for her hand, threading his fingers through hers as he leaned close enough for his breath to warm her ear. “Come,” he murmured. “I have something to show you.”
Still holding her hand, he guided her around the oak’s wide trunk.
She gasped softly, her hand rising instinctively to her lips as she saw what waited there.
On the trunk, just below where her old gouges still scarred the bark, a new carving had been etched with careful, patient strokes—
W + V
1853
Her initials.
His.
The year that made them whole.
Carved not in youthful impulse, but by a man determined to begin again, and for a woman who had chosen to believe him.
She touched the marks with trembling fingers.
“It’s beautiful.”
“It’s a beginning,” William said softly. “Our beginning.”
He let go of her hand only long enough to slip his fingers into his waistcoat pocket.
Then he took her palm again, closing her fingers around something warm and metallic.
Her locket.
A small sob broke from her throat.
It looked exactly as it had the last time she held it, before she had dropped it in heartbreak beneath this very tree.
The engraved violets gleamed faintly in her palm, as bright and perfect as the day he first gave it to her.
When she eased it open, her breath caught.
Inside, on one side, lay a freshly pressed violet, vibrant and delicate, pressed with careful hands.
And opposite it, just as carefully preserved, a small lily-of-the-valley, pale and perfect, its bell-shaped blooms still holding the faintest hint of their original curve.
One flower for the girl she had been.
One for the daughter they had made.
Both new. Both whole. Both chosen for her, by him.
Violet closed her fingers around it, tears rising thick and grateful.
