“Keep goats,” she smiled.
“I am allergic.”
“Then cows.”
He laughed. “You hate cows.”
“I detest cows,” she said, grinning. “But for you, I would suffer.”
They paused near a stone wall overlooking the hills beyond. The wind tousled her hair, and Johnathan reached to tuck a strand behind her ear.
“I could give it all up,” he said. “The estate. The title. I would walk away from it, Frances. Let a land steward manage it all.”
She turned to him, stunned by the conviction in his voice.
“I have already found everything I need.”
She cupped his cheek, the pads of her fingers brushing the faintest stubble. “You do not need to give up who you are for me.”
“I think,” he said softly, “you have made me want to become someone better.”
They kissed then—slow and sweet, with no fire behind it, just warmth. Familiarity. Belonging.
And when they finally returned to the inn that evening, hand in hand, the stars already beginning to blink into view overhead, Frances looked up at the sky and thought:
This is what home feels like.
They spent their last night in Scotland wrapped around one another like a vow.
Not rushed. Not desperate. Just steady and slow, the rhythm of bodies that no longer feared the dark because they had already survived it.
In the morning, the light came earlier than she wanted.
Frances lay still for a long time, her head on Johnathan’s chest, listening to the even rise and fall of his breath. Outside, a cart rattled past. A rooster crowed. The world had moved on.
She smiled faintly. She had not.
Not quite.
When she rose, she did so quietly, padding to the window with the blanket wrapped around her. The sky was pale with dawn. The hills of Scotland stretched outward, mist rising like breath across their slopes.
A gentle ache bloomed in her chest, as if her ribs strained to contain the quiet enormity of what she felt—not sorrow, but reverence that shimmered like sunlight behind her eyes.
She had never thought she would find herself in a place like this: not the country, but the moment. The aftermath of everything she had fought for. No father barking orders. No viscount lurking with cold threats behind polished smiles. Just her, and the choices she had made.
It was a kind of freedom that did not feel like rebellion anymore.
It felt like truth.
She turned as Johnathan stirred.
He looked up at her with sleep-heavy eyes and a soft smile. “Are you watching for invaders?”
“Just time,” she said. “It always seems to catch us, eventually.”
He sat up, wincing slightly at the stretch of his shoulder. “Then let us not allow it to catch us standing still.”
They packed together—comfortable now, familiar. She folded his shirts with far more precision than her own. He laced her bodice while pressing a kiss to her neck. They moved like people who had learned how to be together as one.
