He would write Eugenia tonight.
Charlotte would be transferred within the week.
Jasper folded the letter and set it aside, then moved toward the window, resting one hand on the sill.
Sunlight spilled across the rear garden, warming the lawn in wide, lazy swaths. Emmeline ran barefoot through the grass, her blonde curls loose and flying, a clutch of daisies in her hand. Abigail sat nearby, her arm still cradled in a sling, her good hand accepting and arranging the stems their daughter brought her on the blanket she sat upon. Her shawl had slipped from one shoulder, and in the bright morning light, her dark blonde hair caught gold at the crown like a halo.
He watched her watching their child—her eyes soft, the corners of her mouth lifted in the smallest smile.
Three days earlier, Mrs. Rigby had asked him to watch Emmeline while she took tea with Grace, Sophia, and Abigail. He hadn't asked what was said—wouldn't have pried—but in the days that followed, he noticed the difference.
Abigail had become more watchful.
Not guarded, exactly. But alert. As though she were waiting—not for him to falter, but to prove that he wouldn't. That theman who had once abandoned her in a crumbling ruin would not return. That he had truly become someone else.
He welcomed her scrutiny.
He wanted her to look closely.
He wanted her to see that he was no longer that man—and never would be again.
And Abigail had been... warmer. Not effusive—she hadn't been that since their wedding day, before he'd made the worst mistake of his life—but there was a gentleness to her now that hadn't been there before. She lingered in conversation, asked after his day, held his gaze a moment longer than she once had. The afternoon after Mrs. Rigby had gathered the ladies for tea and left him to mind Emmeline, Abigail had joined him on a bench in the gardens. Her shoulder brushed his—and, for the first time in so long, she didn't draw away. She let it rest there, leaning ever so slightly, as though being near him no longer hurt quite so much. And just yesterday, as they strolled with Emmeline darting ahead to chase pigeons, she had slipped her hand into his without a word.
Brief. Gentle.
But real.
He had felt her fingers threaded with hislike an echo of who they once were.
They were not healed. Not whole.
But something had shifted.
Out in the garden, Abigail gently tucked a daisy behind Emmeline's ear. The little girl stood still, her head tilted as her mother adjusted the stem so it peeked out just right. Then she gathered the blooms Abigail had settled on the blanket and spun in place, arms flung wide, daisies scattering around her like confetti.
Her laughter rang through the garden—bright, ringing, unburdened.
Abigail looked up.
Their eyes met.
She didn't look away.
Jasper's chest ached—not with pain, but with a slow, measured hope. Abigail patted the empty space beside her on the blanket, her head tilted in a wordless invitation.
He tucked Eugenia's letter into his desk drawer and left his study, emerging into the day's warmth.
Emmeline, upon spotting him, squealed and scrambled to gather the scattered daisies. "Papa! Look!" she called, her small hands full of crushed blooms.
"She's been picking them all morning," Abigail said, smiling up at him. "I was hoping to make our daughter a crown, though I'm afraid I'm not much help just now."
He sat beside Abigail and began sorting the flowers Emmeline had collected, fingers nimble from years of muscle memory.
Abigail murmured to Emmeline while he worked, her voice low and fond. "Your papa used to braid garlands for me when we picnicked in the meadow."
Jasper looked up, catching her eye before glancing down at their daughter. "And I've not forgotten how."
He began weaving the stems together, slow and careful, his hands steady as they always were when it mattered. Emmeline sat in front of him, humming tunelessly as she waited, then giggled as he settled the daisy crown atop her golden head.
