“I need to forgive myself. Believe me, I do. Now, let me be wifely and arrange for a bath for you and dinner for both of us.”
“What will we do after that?”
“Shall we play chess? Finish our game on a real chessboard?”
“No.” He gathered his wife into his arms. “I just want to hold you and look at you and whisper all my secrets to you.”
“You have secrets?”
“I don’t want them to be secrets anymore. I love you. I’ve always loved you. You’re the one who taught me love. You’re everything good in the world. You’re everything to me. You.”
She tipped her face up to him, her eyes shining, her hair a golden corona in the lamplight, and he kissed her.
She was his light, and his whole business on this earth was to nurture that flame and keep it burning.
She had taught him that.
First Epilogue
Achessboard appeared in the morning room, the pieces lined up in their starting places, not how George usually left a chessboard. Phoebe noticed it for the first time at the end of September and thought it peculiar and remarked on it that night when she shed her nightdress and slipped into George’s bed.
“I don’t remember a chessboard being there before.”
“Before?” George stroked her stomach gently.
“Before I married you. Last year, for example.”
“You had occasion to be in the morning room last year?”
“Yes, when I paid calls on Alice.”
“Well, it’s there now.” His hand slid up to a breast and cupped it.
“Alice has written back to me.”
“She has? What does she say?”
“She forgives me for taking so long to forgive her and says Italian men are divine and I should divorce you immediately and come and live in Venice with her and take an Italian lover.”
George growled and rolled over on top of Phoebe, pinning her arms to her side.
“You can’t go to Venice. You’ve been captured by a pirate king.” He bit her shoulder.
She giggled. George had become so playful with her in the last week or two. It was like he had some boyish part of him he had never used and he was finally letting that boy out to romp. He would always be seen by others as a very serious man, but it was her privilege to see this silly side in their bed. And to encourage it. She hoped he would also be silly for the baby, not just a teacher and a rule-maker. She would have to encourage that, too.
“I’ve been captured?”
“Yes, you have.” More growling and nipping at her shoulders and neck as she giggled and squirmed. “And the pirate king has imprisoned you in his cabin on his ship and intends to ravish you three times a day.”
“When will he release me?”
“Never. When he retires, he plans to lock you up you in a quaint seaside cottage where he will ravish you five times a day.”
“More times a day on land than on sea?”
“He’ll have more time once he retires from being king.”
“Will I be let out to get fresh air?”
