In the quiet of the house, with the fire burning low and moonlight touching the floor,
Mrs. Rigby looked out the window, her heart full.
She closed her eyes and made a wish — not aloud, but deep and silent — for Abigail's healing. For Emmeline's happiness.
And yes... even for Jasper's.
For she knew that if Abigail could find it in her heart to forgive, then perhaps — just perhaps — they might all find their way to something like a happy ending after all.
Chapter 40
Abigail sat at the small writing desk in her room, the moonlight casting long shadows across the floor. The house was quiet, save for the soft ticking of the clock on the mantel and the occasional crackle from the dying fire. She had woken not long after falling asleep, the remnants of a nightmare still clinging to her.
It had been a month since their arrival in London.
Earlier that day, a letter had come from Philip. Sophia had been safely delivered of a son—Frederick—born at the beginning of April. A nephew. The news had filled her with joy, warm and bright, and yet now, in the stillness of night, it stirred something else entirely.
She thought of the past winter, when Philip and Sophia had stayed at Bramblewick. Sophia's belly had been round with child then, and Abigail had watched—quietly, mostly detached, but sometimes enviously—as her brother reached out to rest his hand upon that growing curve. She had seen Sophia smile and guide his hand to where the baby moved. And Philip—he had looked at his wife with awe, with wonder, with a tenderness so profound it seemed to soften every sharp line of his face.
It had pierced her.
Because she had missed that. All of it. The wonder. The shared anticipation. The quiet, daily intimacy between husband and wife preparing to welcome their child together.
When she had been expecting Emmeline, there had been no such joy. No husband
resting a reverent hand upon her belly, marveling at the life within. No whispered
hopes exchanged across a shared bed. Jasper had deserted her the morning after their wedding. And though she had later been surrounded by the love of her family, there had always been an ache in knowing she had carried her daughter alone—not merely in body, but in spirit.
She did not resent Sophia. Nor Philip. Their happiness was well-earned. But at times, it cast her own grief into sharper relief, like sunlight thrown against stained glass—beautiful but edged in shadow.
Emmeline's birthday was mere weeks away, and Abigail could not help but reflect on how much had changed in a single year.
Nearly twelve months ago, she had delivered her daughter—exhausted, uncertain, but safe at Bramblewick. Loved. Rebuilding. Still healing from the months before, when she had lived not merely at Greystone Hollow, but in the hollows of herself.
That she and Emmeline had survived at all felt, at times, nothing short of miraculous. Abigail often found herself lost in the what-ifs—what if her parents had not rescued her from the exile Jasper had cruelly left her to endure? What if they had not welcomed her home so warmly, alongside Philip and Sophia? What if dear Mrs. Rigby had not followed her from Greystone Hollow, becoming like family—caring for her and Emmeline as tenderly as a beloved grandmother? Abigail counted herself blessed beyond measure to have them all.
She did not know what she would have done if her family had not come for her.
She closed her eyes and pressed the heels of her hands against them. Some nights, she still woke in a cold sweat, dreaming shewas back in that place. That hollow house. That hollower state of mind. Sometimes, in her dreams, Emmeline was there too—but cared for by someone else, because Abigail could not rise, could not move, could not mother.
She despised those dreams. Despised how they clung to her like ash, even in the daylight.
It angered her—that after all this time, after all her progress, her mind still betrayed her. That her body still remembered the weight of despair so vividly. And in those raw hours before dawn, when she was at her most vulnerable, she found herself resenting Jasper all over again. For the choices he had made. For the cruelty. The abandonment.
She had sworn she would never trust him again. That forgiveness was beyond her. That nothing he could say or write would undo what he had done.
And yet... she kept reading his letters.
Even now, the most recent stirred within her like the aftertaste of a bittersweet draught—lingering, persistent, impossible to ignore.
She had tried not to read it. It had been slipped beneath her door the previous morning, and she had left it there, untouched, for hours. But before dinner, she had returned to her room and picked it up, telling herself it was only curiosity. And then she had read every word. Twice.
Afterwards, she had wandered into the morning room and deliberately left it upon the window bench.
She had never responded to a single one of his letters.
And still, he wrote.
