Epilogue
“Another cup of tea?”
Winifred proffered the steaming kettle. Frederic winced.
“Thank you, ma’am. I’ve had enough tea for the present.”
Possibly enough tea for the foreseeable future, he added privately. Little had he imagined how much influence an herb could have over his life and over Caroline’s.
The blankets made a world of difference. After a few minutes of shivering, he could already breathe with much less labor and restraint. Caroline, too, had ceased her shivering, her little wet head peeking out of the top of a mound of blankets.
Frederic had carried Caroline indoors to the sitting room before collapsing, gratefully, onto a couch. Philip and Winifred hovered over them like twin turtle doves.
“Another coverlet, Your Grace, for your feet? Or perhaps some slippers?”
“Perhaps you’d care for some music? Or would it be better to be silent? I should have taken Carlyle up on his offer and learned to sing.”
Under the blankets, Caroline slipped her hand into his. The color snuck back into her cheeks a little bit at a time, gentle as a midsummer sunrise. Her dark, wet hair framed her face like a Madonna.
Frederic’s head drooped blearily. The ride to the estate had been more taxing than he cared to show, but wrapped in the warmth of heaven with Caroline’s hand in his, he could not admit any regret at his rash course of action.
“If only your aunt had been here,” Winifred fretted. “She would have had that lady by the hair in an instant. I had half a mind to do so myself.”
She scrubbed a side table with vigor that threatened to remove the varnish.
“And to think I let you leave with her! A real murderess!”
“She hardly looked the part of a poisoner on the exterior, Winifred.”
Caroline shuddered in spite of herself and grasped Frederic’s hand a little more tightly. He scooted her a little closer to him, impeded slightly by the mountain of warm bed clothing Winifred and Philip had heaped upon them.
“Well, at least the constables have her in hand now, the hard thing!” She turned to Philip. “Would you verify, Sir, that they have what they require for the investigation? I confess that I cannot but look at their clubs without feeling a little faint.”
Philip squared his shoulders and headed toward the front. No doubt the constabulary were in proper order, but the determination in Philip’s stride ensured that whatever the state of law they kept, they would at least have appropriate supervision. Frederic smiled. Philip was becoming quite a man.
Winifred bustled around the couch like a bee minding a hive.
“All I know is, it’s a mercy that providence was watching over you today, dear.”
She put a handkerchief to her nose and blew loudly. Caroline winced. Perhaps Winifred could, since he anticipated they would not soon run out of blankets, appreciate a diversion of her attention. Frederic cleared his throat.
“I have not yet eaten today,” he said, “and if it would not too greatly inconvenience the household—”
But Winifred was already in motion. Her eyebrows spoke of every necessary precaution and several hours of baking, if baking was to be done at all. She settled another blanket around them and headed toward the door, bustling with the importance of his request.
“Tarts, of course, and maybe a few hand pies. They’re humble, to be sure, but very nourishing. And if Cook feels a crock of good chicken stock would be in order as well, I shall not be the one to discourage her.”
Caroline leaned her head against the back of the couch and closed her eyes. Her dark black hair spread out like a fan.
“What a morning it has been,” she murmured. “It feels very much like a lifetime.”
It did indeed. How strange to think that this morning he had awoken, bleary-eyed and poisoned, in his own four-poster bed! It would take some time to sort out the niceties of the experience—time he looked forward to sharing with Caroline. By no means would he be drawn away from her side.
Winifred paused at the door, checking to make sure everything was in order, and that no additional Felicitys were hiding themselves behind the jamb.
“We really ought to get you to bed, dear,” Winifred burbled as she left. “After all that excitement, you will need some good rest.”
The gentle happiness faded from Caroline’s face.
Her eyes opened slowly and rested on his face.
Wan sorrow crept into them. Frederic was reminded of a waif he had seen once, staring with hollow eyes from the stoop of a corner shop.
He had the distinct impression that she was taking a last glance—a last fill of him before—before what?
Surely, she didn’t mean to stay here, alone in the home of her aunt? It could not be born.
“Caroline,” he said, as tenderly as he could. “Come home with me. Please.”
“I—” His eyes held her more securely than could any earthly restraint. “It wasn’t the curse this time that nearly killed you. Or nearly killed us both, I should say. But—” She rubbed his fingers with hers, a lifeline and a reminder of his commitment to her. “If you were ever in danger again—”
Frederic smiled wryly.
“No trips by horse then? Or stepping down steep stairs?”
“Do not pretend to misunderstand my intent.” She pulled a blanket up over her shoulder from whence it had slipped. “Some natural danger is necessary, of course, but—”
Frederic took her other hand in his.
“If I must, for the rest of my life, remain in danger— If I must, for the duration of my days, risk the sum of my mortality on your behalf—I would still choose to stay by your side as your husband.”
After so many years of practice, it seemed odd that her body would forget in that moment how to breathe.
“There is no danger so great that I would not wish you with me—a part of everything I do. I cannot abide the thought of your loneliness, your emptiness, here or anywhere else.”
Her heart sighed gratefully. The voices inside her memory for a moment fell silent. So many of the torn and broken pieces within her healed as his words washed over her, knitted together like the strands of a tapestry.
“Besides,” he continued, with a smirk, “even if you are cursed, wasn’t it that very thing that brought us together in the first place? I should be remiss if I didn’t offer appropriate gratitude for something that has brought me so much joy and contentment. I am nothing but grateful for that.”
Caroline laughed. It quickly turned into a spirited cough. Frederic took advantage of her temporary indisposition to draw her close to him, close enough that she could see the flecks of gold in his eyes.
“Give no more thought to it,” he coaxed. “Let the memory of that afternoon fade away, replaced by the promise of a thousand better.”
“And hopefully without poison,” she added.
Now, Frederic laughed—a quick, booming frolic that rolled quickly into dry hack. She winced at the hollowness of his cough and at how deeply it shook his frame. He sat back on the sofa and leaned his head on the pillow Winifred had thoughtfully placed for him, trying to catch his breath.
Caroline blessed the lines of his face, even the harrowed, grief-ridden ones.
At least they were his. At least he had yet strength to animate them, to speak, to move, and to love as he was meant to do.
But even anguish, regret, and misery—as potent as the spells their coven cast—withered in the gentle understanding that filled him now.
Caroline traced the line of his eyebrow with one finger.
“I was so afraid, Frederic. When the poison took you— When you collapsed—” She shuddered, pushing the memory back to the safety of the past. Her heart beat as if in anticipation of a race. “My sentiments—to see you suffering and feel so unutterably unable to reach or assist. I couldn’t—”
Frederic took her hand.
“Think no more of it. What a fright you must have had! Philip heard from Carlyle what a harrowing experience it was.” He passed a hand over his face. “All I remember is the sight of your face and then darkness.”
Caroline covered her face with her hands.
How close he had come to utter oblivion!
How near had her hand carried him to the brink of total destruction!
If only she had known, she would have burned that package and buried the ashes in a broken corner of an abandoned garden where not even the seeds would blight the ground.
“It was horrible. If you had—” She swallowed. “If you had died, I cannot but imagine that I also would have perished from grief.”
He kissed her brow the way a pilgrim might adore a relic.
“Both of us have walked near death. Both of us have returned. How odd—and how fortuitous—that we have made those journeys together.”
Caroline blinked. It was odd. How strangely the hands of providence wove together the threads of grief to create a tapestry of joy! And yet—she could not utter a better description of her feelings—of the paths she had trod—than that. Her eyes, full of wonder and gratitude, turned to Frederic.
“I love you,” she said, “dearly, completely, and utterly.”
He leaned forward until their lips were inches apart. She smiled, a little to herself, and pressed her lips to his. This must be, if she was to speculate at all, what eternity felt like—the easy, floating dream of being in love, of making room for love, and being loved in return.
When eternity made a graceful and temporary exit as their lips ceased to touch, Caroline opened her eyes. Frederic was smiling at her with the warmth of a thousand Elysian suns. The last dark shadows fled from her heart, bearing with them the doubts about her past and the insecurity of her present.
The front door slammed with a boom that made the pile of blankets shiver. Caroline and Frederic jumped.
“What in the deuce is going on?” Aunt Olivia’s voice rang around the rotunda. “Why are there constables at the front door? Did that blasted monkey escape again?”
The End?