He chuckled, the sound low and genuine. “You were furious. You stomped off and wouldn’t speak to me for a week.”
“I made a vow never to forgive you.”
“And yet here we are.”
She tilted her head. “I suppose even sixteen-year-old girls are allowed to change their minds.”
He looked over at her then, not teasing, not amused. Just… seeing her. Not the widow, not the legend she’d become in town, not the woman who’d outwitted the Order. Just Georgina, with her shawl slipping from one shoulder and her fingers curled softly in her lap.
“You’ve changed,” he said quietly.
“And so have you.”
His gaze dropped to her hands. She turned one palm upward between them.
An invitation.
She turned her palm a fraction more, a yes without a sound.
His hand moved slowly, not tentative, not unsure, but as if the gesture mattered. As if it had meaning.
When his fingers slid into hers, the breath left her chest in a quiet sigh.
No urgency, only warmth, just the kind that settles rather than sparks. And the sense of something true.
They sat like that as the garden brightened around them, the morning unfolding not with fanfare, but with the grace of something longed for and finally found.
The morning passed the way honey slips from a spoon, slow and golden and without need of rush.
After breakfast, Georgina found herself in the library with the tall windows flung open to the sea breeze and the scent of rosemary rising from the pots below. She was curled into the corner of the settee, a book in her lap, but her eyes kept drifting to the empty armchair across from her.
Not empty for long.
Alex appeared in the doorway, his sleeves rolled again, and a half-smile was already forming. He carried two cups of tea, one slightly fuller than the other.
“I took a gamble,” he said, setting the cup on the table beside her. “Mrs. Hemsley said you usually take it with lemon. I added honey.”
“You remember that?”
“I’ve made worse guesses.”
She lifted the cup, sipped, and nodded once. “It’s perfect.”
He took the chair opposite her, one leg stretched lazily before him, cup in hand, the picture of contentment. The silence between them now was lived-in, a comfort rather than a space to fill.
“What are you reading?” he asked.
She turned the book so he could see the spine. “A treatise on garden design in Florence.”
He narrowed his eyes in mock suspicion. “Is that the one that recommends marble fountains in every corner?”
“Every second corner, if you please,” she said, grinning. “And fig trees shaped into heraldic beasts.”
“I look forward to seeing the griffin topiary you’ll demand in the west field.”
“You joke, but I think you’d secretly enjoy having a few statues bow to you on your morning walk.”
He took a sip of tea and didn’t deny it.
