Afterwards, tangled together in the sheets, Fiona pressed her ear to Christian’s chest and listened to his heartbeat.
“What shall we do today?” she asked.
“Today?” He stroked her hair, his fingers gentle. “Today, I thought we might stay exactly where we are.”
“All day?”
“All day. All week. Possibly all month.” His voice was drowsy, content. “I have been waiting thirty years for happiness, Fiona. I intend to savour it.”
She laughed and kissed his chest, right over the birthmark.
“That sounds perfect.”
***
They did not, in fact, stay in bed all month.
But they came close.
The first weeks of their marriage passed in a haze of discovery and delight. They explored each other—not just physically, though there was plenty of that—but emotionally, intellectually, learning the small details that only intimacy could reveal.
Fiona discovered that Christian talked in his sleep, muttering fragments of conversations that made no sense but were endlessly entertaining. She discovered that he was ticklish behind his left knee and would squirm like a child if she exploited this weakness. She discovered that he could not carry a tune to save his life but would hum anyway when he was happy, a low rumble in his chest that vibrated against her when she lay in his arms.
Christian, for his part, discovered that Fiona was a restless sleeper who stole blankets with ruthless efficiency. He discovered that she became irritable without her morning tea and transformed into an entirely different person once she’d had it. He discovered that she talked to herself when she was concentrating, muttering observations and arguments under her breath, and that watching her do so was one of his new favourite pastimes.
They learned to navigate the rhythms of shared life: who would rise first—Christian, always, for he could not bear to waste the daylight; who would manage the correspondence—Fiona, whose handwriting was infinitely superior; and who wouldoversee the servants—Mrs Blackley, as she always had, though now with Fiona’s gentle supervision.
It was not always easy. They argued—about trivial things, mostly, but occasionally about matters of substance. Christian’s instinct was still to withdraw when conflict arose, to retreat behind his walls and wait for the storm to pass. Fiona’s instinct was to pursue, to drag him back into the light, whether he wanted to come or not.
They learned to meet in the middle. He learned to stay present, to voice his fears instead of burying them. She learned to give him space when he needed it, trusting that he would return to her when he was ready.
And always, always, they returned to each other.
The ritual of brushing his hair became a constant between them.
Every evening, after dinner, they would retire to their chambers, and Fiona would settle into the armchair by the fire. Christian would kneel before her—still too tall, even on his knees—and she would take up the silver-backed brush and work it through his dark waves.
It had started as a simple act of care, a way to tend to the man who had been so long untended. But it had become something more. Something sacred.
“Tell me about your day,” she would say, and he would talk.
About the estate, the tenants, the endless small decisions that came with managing a property as vast as Thornwick. About the letters he had received and the ones he had written. About his fears, his hopes, the thoughts that circled through his mind in the quiet hours.
He told her things he had never told anyone. About the dreams that still plagued him sometimes—nightmares of his childhood, of his father’s cruel indifference. About the moments when the old shame crept back, when he looked in the mirror and saw the monster instead of the man.
And she listened. She brushed his hair and listened, and when the words ran dry, she would press a kiss to the top of his head and tell him she loved him.
“You make it better,” he said one evening, his voice muffled against her knee. “The darkness. The voices. You don’t make them disappear—I don’t think anything could do that—but you make them quieter. When I am with you, I can almost believe they are wrong.”
“Theyarewrong.” She set down the brush and cupped his face, tilting it up to meet her eyes. “They have always been wrong, Christian. You are not a monster. You are my husband. And I will spend every day of our marriage reminding you of that—for as long as it takes.”
“What if it takes forever?”
“Then I have forever to give.”
***
Spring melted into summer, and with it came changes.
