Epilogue #2
Blayth grinned. “I do not remember that day,” he said, looking at Isabeth when he spoke and gesturing to the big scar on the left side of his head.
“I know that Ronan has explained my injury in Wales and, as you can see, it damaged my skull. The result of the damage is the loss of my memory. I do not remember many things that happened before the injury, including the birth of Ronan, but I do remember small things sometimes. Like a dream, they come to me fleetingly. I remember that snowy day because of the conversation I had with my father, when I told him that he was the man I most wished to emulate. With everything that happened to me, that is one of the few things I do remember.”
“It was a grand day,” Rose said, for Blayth’s benefit as well as Isabeth’s and Ronan’s.
“My father was as I will always remember him – big, strong, and healthy. He had no sickness as he did in his later years. It was a glorious day for all of us, but more glorious because we knew that we were expecting you, Ronan. Blayth does not remember, but he was more than thrilled. He knew you would be a son and he knew you would do great things.”
Isabeth was smiling. “That is a sweet story,” she said. “I do not have a big family, so I can only imagine the happy chaos such a family must create.”
Rose laughed softly. “Chaos, indeed,” she said.
“Like the chaos that is now approaching your door. Do not be afraid of them or think ill of them. They are all simply part of that happiness, of a family who truly loves one another and who celebrates the great moments like this. We are very happy to welcome you into our family and now you, too, are part of the happy chaos.”
Isabeth rather liked the sound of that. She smiled at Ronan, who winked at her, but even as that was going on they could hear the noise from the approaching gang of uncles and cousins.
Laughter and shouts were echoing off the walls.
Someone was calling to Ronan and explaining what he needed to do with his manhood, which was ridiculous considering he had been married before.
But that wasn’t something anyone spoke of, ever.
Marian was a thing of the past.
Edmund never did question what had happened when Blayth brought her body home to Lancaster.
He was crushed, of course, and he wept appropriately, but he never questioned Blayth.
He never even questioned the alliance except to insist it remained intact.
It had been a strange reaction from a man who had been so eager to for a marital alliance that he had forced it on Ronan but, in the end, he let that marital link go rather easily even if the alliance remained in force.
Blayth wasn’t quite sure why except to think that perhaps guilt motivated Edmund’s reaction.
Guilt in the daughter he had raised.
In any case, Ronan had married the woman he loved six months after she gave birth to Dyce de Brito’s son and, truly, a child had never looked so much like his father.
Ronan was enamored with the lad, who was big and healthy, and he knew that Dyce would have been thrilled.
In fact, everyone was thrilled, for so many reasons.
Finally, Ronan was to know a little happiness.
It was something not lost on Rose. She’d never agreed with Blayth and the de Grey marriage, so it was a relief to see her son finally happy. The best part of it was that she liked Isabeth, a lovely and gentle creature who treated Ronan with the greatest of respect. That did her mother’s heart good.
And that’s what brought her to this moment.
“I want to give you something and then Blayth and I will leave, but we both wanted you to have this,” she said, pulling forth a small gold ring.
Holding it up to the light, she showed them the simple band with two distinct stones – one was blue and the other was brown.
“Blayth gave this to me after we married. Ronan, I had always wanted to give you this for your wife but I am sorry to say that I did not want Marian to have it, so I saved it for your eldest child. But now… now, I would like to give it to Isabeth. The blue stone represents your father, because his eyes are blue, and the brown stone represents my brown eyes. The inscription on the inside reads avec tout mon coeur.”
“With all my heart,” Isabeth murmured in translation. “What a beautiful sentiment.”
Rose took Isabeth’s hand and put the ring in her palm. “I give it to you,” she said. “Blayth and I were very much in love when we married. This ring was a symbol of that love and I pray it brings you good fortune.”
Ronan went to his mother, kissing her on the cheek. “It already has,” he said softly. “Thank you, Mama. We shall cherish it always.”
He’d already purchased a plain gold ring for Isabeth, but his mother’s ring went against it. As Ronan and Isabeth were admiring the rings, someone pounded loudly on the door and demanded entry. Isabeth jumped, startled, while Ronan chuckled and shook his head.
“I will admit that I have been part of those groups from time to time,” he said. “They only do this if they love you. As I recall, they did not do it when I married Marian.”
Blayth put his hand on Ronan’s shoulder. “Then this is already a good omen,” he said, looking between the pair. “We will mind the baby tonight. You two enjoy your evening.”
With that, he dropped his hand and looked at Rose, who moved towards the door. “Ready?” she asked him.
Blayth nodded. “Ready.”
What the men outside the door forgot was the fact that Rose was Jemma Scott Hage’s daughter.
A more fearsome, loud, and courageous woman had never lived, so Rose threw open the door and began bellowing at them to clear the corridor in a manner that would have made her mother very proud.
Rose had that aura of intimidation about her, so as she cleared out a gang of drunk and happy men twice her size, Blayth fell in behind her, laughing all the way.
That was the Rosie he, in fact, remembered.
Ronan shut the door when they were gone, laughing at his mother’s antics. He could still hear her shouting, chuckling when he threw the bolt and turned to his wife.
“What did you call my family?” he said. “Happy chaos? Sometimes it is simply chaos. But it is a good deal of fun.”
Isabeth went to him, falling into his embrace as the setting sun cast golden rays through the lancet windows. She kissed him sweetly, her hands in his blond hair, savoring the moment.
A moment she thought would never come.
“Tell me it will be like this forever,” she murmured. “You and I, happy and content, forever.”
Ronan was quickly losing himself in her sweetness. “It will be like this forever,” he whispered. “What does the necklace say that I gave you those months ago?”
“The one I never take off?”
“That is because I told you never to take it off.”
Isabeth chuckled as she wrapped her arms around his neck and he lifted her up easily, carrying her towards the bed.
“It says ’Tis thee, my dear, that I adore, and will, my darling, forever more,” she said, fingering the pendant that had been front and center on her wedding dress. “I’ve memorized those words.”
Ronan glanced down at the beautiful pearl and gold necklace in her hand. “As have I,” he said. “My parents had a great love, once. Now, it is time for ours. You are my forever, my darling.”
Isabeth smiled. “And you are mine.”
In the light of the setting sun, Ronan and Isabeth found something they had both been looking for – that measure of peace that comes only with loving someone and being loved in return.
A sense of bliss that comes full circle only once in a lifetime.
A sense of peace that is only known by the few who have loved too deeply for words.
’Tis thee, my dear, that I adore, and will, my darling, forever more.
For the first time in her life, Isabeth knew what those words meant.
And so did Ronan.
* THE END *