“I am not leaving,” he murmured again, only for her.
She heard the laughter around her. Aaron’s bright voice. Juliet’s trembling happiness. Frederick’s teasing warmth. Rowan’s mouth against her temple, his hand over hers, his love no longer hidden behind silence or fear.
For so long, she had thought happiness was something one surrendered for duty, a girlhood dream folded away and left in another life. But it was here now. Imperfect. Hard-won. Stronger for all it had survived.
Her family. Her husband. Their child.
And all around her, the house that had once felt too cold to hold love, filled with it at last.
Epilogue
ONE YEAR LATER
“One more step, darling. No, not that way, or the kite shall end in the oak tree.”
Aaron stopped at once, his dark hair blown across his brow by the summer breeze, the kite string clutched between both hands. “This way?”
Emmeline shifted her daughter higher against her shoulder and smiled at him from the lawn. “Yes. Perfectly. Now wait for the wind.”
“I am waiting,” Aaron said, with great seriousness.
“You are glaring at the sky.”
“I am encouraging it.”
Margaret laughed beside her, the sound bright and warm beneath the shade of the great elm. “I daresay the sky looks terrified.”
“It ought to be,” Juliet said, seated on the blanket near Emmeline’s feet, her hand resting lightly over her middle in a gesture that had become more telling by the hour. “Aaron has the expression of a general.”
Aaron glanced back, indignant and pleased at once. “I am not a general. I am a captain.”
“Forgive me,” Juliet said gravely. “Captain.”
The kite gave a sudden tug.
Aaron gasped. “Mama!”
The word still struck Emmeline as if the world paused for it.
A year ago, she had entered Ironford House as a wife arranged by accident and duty. Now Aaron called for her without hesitation, as though she had always belonged to him.
“I see it,” she called. “Let it go a little. Not too much.”
Aaron obeyed, his faint stammer nearly lost to excitement. “It is f-flying!”
The kite rose above the lawn in a burst of blue and white, wobbling at first, then catching the wind properly. Aaron laughed, the sound open and unguarded, and somewhere near the gravel path, Biscuit barked as if the kite were a personal insult.
Biscuit was no longer a puppy, though no one had succeeded in convincing him of it. He thundered across the lawn with a stick in his mouth, all paws and delighted disorder, while Frederick gave chase in shirtsleeves and a tragic expression.
“Calham,” Rowan called from near the fountain, “if you cannot best the dog, say so.”
Frederick stopped, one hand braced against his side. “I am allowing him the illusion of victory. It is a kindness.”
Rowan looked at him with cool amusement. “You look winded.”
“I look noble.”
“You look winded,” Juliet called, though her smile was so tender that the insult lost most of its force.
