Sophia looked at her, her smile softening. "We've both found that, I think."
Abigail blinked quickly, trying to keep the tears at bay and looked down at the baby again, at the fragile curl of his fingers, the slow rise and fall of his chest. Emmeline, beside her, had grown quieter, inching closer to the cushion with exaggerated care. She leaned over, pointed at Frederick's nose, and declared with great solemnity:
"Baby." Then she gave his nose a gentle poke.
Abigail chided softly, "Gentle, sweetheart."
But Frederick didn't stir. He only stretched one small arm above his head and settled again with a tiny grunt.
"He's a good sleeper," Abigail murmured, brushing her fingers through Emmeline's curls. "Or perhaps simply exhausted from all the excitement of London."
Sophia chuckled. "He's certainly exhausted now. But after nightfall? He changes his mind entirely."
They sat for a while in companionable silence. Abigail couldn't take her eyes off him—the baby's little rosebud mouth, his soft lashes resting against pale cheeks, the way his fists curled like petals around nothing at all.
Her thoughts wandered, unbidden, to another time—before everything fell apart. Back when she and Jasper would walk beneath the trees at Lyndhurst Manor, speaking in low, hopeful tones about the family they would one day build. A nursery full of sunlight and laughter. Children with his eyes and her smile. A life shaped slowly, with intention and love.
She had buried those dreams beneath the weight of his betrayal.
And yet... they stirred now. Not with urgency. Not with certainty. But with the tentative breath of something not yet dead.
She looked down at Emmeline, at the daughter Jasper hadn't known and now cherished. At Frederick, so small and new, the embodiment of hope in a world that had been so dark. At Sophia, who met her gaze with quiet understanding, her friendship a comfort through every uncertain step.
It wasn't a new thought, wondering what it might be like... Jasper beside her through another pregnancy. If he spoke to their unborn child each night with the same reverence he now used when saying Emmeline's name. If he held her hand as she labored, weeping not from regret—but from joy.
It was a fragile dream. One easily broken.
But this time, she didn't flinch away from it."
Her thoughts drifted, briefly, to another child. One who had never existed. One Charlotte had invented.
The ache surfaced—sharp, but distant. It no longer hollowed her out.
There had been a time when the very thought of Charlotte turned her stomach. When every memory of their girlhood—braiding hair, whispering secrets, exchanging impossible promises—felt poisoned.
Now there was only sorrow. A deep, dull sadness for what had been, and what had been twisted beyond recognition.
She could not forgive Charlotte. Not now. Perhaps not ever.
But she could grieve the girl she once loved like a sister.
And she could let her go.
Abigail looked at Sophia. At Frederick. At Emmeline, who had now scooted even closer and placed a careful kiss on her cousin's forehead.
This—this small, stolen moment—felt like a balm. Like grace.
"I never thought I'd have this again," Abigail said softly, almost to herself. "To feel... at peace."
Sophia didn't answer right away. She simply reached across the cushion, found Abigail's good hand, and gave it a gentle squeeze.
And for the first time in a long while, Abigail let herself believe that not everything broken stayed that way forever.
Because maybe—not today, not tomorrow, but someday—the future they once planned might still be waiting.
Jasper had told her she didn't need to forget. That he didn't expect her to. He only hoped his love and care might soften the sharpest edges of her pain—until what remained no longer cut so deep.
And every day since he had found her and Emmeline at Bramblewick, he had tried to do just that. Quietly. Steadily. With devotion and remorse in equal measure.
