Chapter 29 #2
“How’s Isaac treating you?” she asked, naming the old man that Wilona had sent Peter to work for. To her further surprise, the expression on Peter’s face lifted, a smile showing through.
“Great,” he said. “I mean, it was rough at first. I don’t like early mornings. I don’t think I ever will. But he’s a good man and I’m learning a lot.”
Hallie couldn’t help but smile back, even as shock rang through her. She would never have imagined she’d see a day when her spoiled brat of a brother would be talking so happily about work - actual work.
“You don’t need to pay back the rest,” she told him.
“I want to,” he insisted, jaw set with that stubborn streak they had both inherited from Wilona.
“No. This is enough. If you want to do something, why don’t you donate the balance to the hospital?” she suggested. The single hospital in low city was always chronically short of funds.
“That’s a good idea. I’ll do that,” he said, expression brightening again. “Well, I won’t take up any more of your time. You look good, sister.”
“Take care of yourself,” Hallie said, and watched as he turned and began walking away.
As he left, Hallie felt a knot in her chest begin to unfurl.
She hadn’t wanted or expected anything approaching an apology or redress from him, and she’d more or less got both.
She wondered what further changes she might see in him over the years.
With the bag of money in her arms, Hallie went into the house and was immediately surrounded by the tantalising scents of Rosalia’s cooking, the bubble of conversation and laughter and warmth.
“There you are,” Rosalia said. She was standing in the kitchen, her dark brown hair glossy and loose around her shoulders, holding what looked like a wine glass that Hallie was quite sure hadn’t come from her kitchen.
Or, at least, not in the kitchen she’d had before Rosalia. “Go wash up. Food’s ready.”
“Alright,” Hallie said, but didn’t move as she realised who else was in the room.
Not just Girard, who’d shed his coat to reveal a deep blue wool jumper, but two familiar figures and a stranger.
Her half-sister and cousin, Morgana, and the man who connected them both.
“Father,” she said. She put the bag of money down next to the coats and boots and headed across the room to give him a warm hug.
Kaherdin returned the hug with one of his warm, kind smiles, and put a hand on her cheek. “It’s so good to see you again, daughter.” He drew back, and exchanged a brief glance with Rosalia. “Rosalia asked me for some advice on the garden she’s planning at your new home.”
“Of course she did,” Hallie said, laughing. “That was a good move on her part.” Her father had an almost magical touch when it came to plants and growing things. And she’d known, before she’d left for Paradise, that Rosalia was making plans for the new house.
“I hope you don’t mind,” Morgana said. Her half-sister, who Hallie still thought of as her older cousin, looked surprisingly awkward despite her worn jeans and sky-blue jumper.
“Rosalia invited me and our father over.” It was beyond strange hearing Morgana reference their mutual father.
Hallie hadn’t been part of whatever meeting or reconciliation had taken place between Morgana and Kaherdin, but found herself pleased that they had found each other.
“I’m pleased to see you both,” Hallie said with perfect truth.
She hadn’t seen her cousin since Morgana had come to personally deliver the papers that severed her from the Talbot family vine.
She’d missed Morgana. She tilted her head to the final person in the room.
A man who she thought was a few years’ Morgana’s senior with thick, curling chestnut hair and piercing grey-blue eyes in pale, freckled skin.
“Friend of yours?” Hallie asked her cousin, biting her lip to hide a smile.
From the way the two were standing together it was clear they were a couple.
On that last meeting, Morgana had mentioned a man she wanted to marry, but who was deemed unsuitable by Wilona as he had a hochlen ancestor.
Hallie assumed this was the same man and looked at him with open curiosity.
“This is Magnus,” Morgana said, and gave the man a fond smile. “I wanted him to meet our father as well as you.”
“Pleased to meet you, Miss Talbot,” the man said, offering a hand.
“Call me Hallie,” she said, and returned the firm handshake. She decided her cousin had good taste. She glanced at Girard. “Have you been introduced?”
“I have, yes,” he said.
“If you want to wash up and change, you’d best do it right now,” Rosalia warned, approaching the table with an enormous platter of food that was sending trails of steam into the air.
Some kind of roasted meat, Hallie thought.
Her stomach growled. She picked up the bag of money and headed into her room, changing in record speed into old jeans and a sweatshirt.
She came back out to the main space to find everyone else settled around the table, glasses filled with water or wine scattered between plates and serving dishes, and a space left for her between Rosalia and Girard.
Taking her place, Hallie looked around at her friends and family and had a moment of amazement and wonder at just how much her life and her world had expanded in a few short months.
Not that long ago there had been no one to share a meal with in her home, and now the people she cared about, the people who warmed her heart to be with, were not even all here.
There would be more difficulties ahead. There always were.
She was still trying to work out what it meant to be Cotovatre’s heir and hochlen having grown up in low city.
But for right now, she was safe and warm and loved and everything felt right.
A bubble of joy grew in her chest. She slipped her hand under the table and linked her fingers with Girard’s, her heart full.