Epilogue
Linthorpe Study, Acklan Castle
North Riding, Yorkshire
Acklan in January was cold, magnificent and entirely uncompromising.
Now in the middle of her third winter in Yorkshire, Cori still loved it absolutely.
She loved the way the frost settled into the stone overnight and the way the moors looked in the pale morning light with the heather gone grey and the sky pressing down, low, and white.
She understood it now, the land and most importantly, the people.
She was, she’d decided in her first year of marriage, a woman who could winter at Acklan.
Her father would’ve understood that.
"Papa," Hannah said, from her spot on the hearthrug, and chancing a glance in her father’s direction. "If you told me what it was today, I’d still be surprised tomorrow."
"That’s not how surprises work," James said from his desk, without looking up from the letter he was reading.
"It could be," Hannah pressed. "There are different kinds of surprises, you know?"
Cori pressed her lips together very hard, determined not to encourage her stepdaughter.
"The answer is no, Hannah," James said, still not looking up.
Hannah turned her attention to Cori, in a comfortable chair by the window, as though she was seeking a second opinion from a more reasonable parent.
"Don’t look at me," Cori told her. "This is your father’s surprise, not mine. "
Hannah absorbed this without visible disappointment.
She’d be seven tomorrow, and she’d been conducting negotiations since she awoke that morning, trying to learn the details of her birthday gift.
The child had the focused persistence of a general who’d identified an objective and intended to reach it by whatever route proved most viable.
So far, however, no route had been viable for Hannah.
That didn’t keep her from searching for any crack that might prove useful in her quest.
James was, when he chose to be, entirely immovable, a trait Hannah had most definitely inherited from him. It was a trait Cori hoped might be slightly less evident in the child who’d arrive in the spring. She touched a hand to her belly, comforted by the movement she found beneath her palm.
Marmalade rested in the chair closest to the fire, which he had claimed before anyone else had entered the study and from which he’d declined to give up.
He was asleep, or at least laid very still with his eyes closed.
Snowdrop had arranged himself in front of the hearth in a way that suggested he’d draped himself there artistically rather than because of the warmth.
Biscuit was engaged in a private investigation of something behind the curtains that she appeared to consider urgent.
Minuet sat in the middle of the room in the tiniest patch of sunlight, washing her face with a rather focused attention.
Hannah, having exhausted the direct approach with her father, turned to her most trusted advisor, Marmalade. "You could tell me," she said. "You always know things."
The orange cat did not stir.
"He’s asleep," James said from behind his letter.
"He’s thinking," Hannah returned.
Cori glanced out the window at the grey January day and noticed a coach approaching in the distance. Cait and Daniel, she would wager. She smiled in earnest at the thought of seeing her sister very soon.
Inside the study, the fire was high and the room smelled of woodsmoke and pine boughs, and the whole castle felt like a fortress against the cold and found it perfectly agreeable.
James glanced up from his letter and noticed her hand on her belly. He set down his letter and his direct grey gaze had the same effect on her now as it had the first time he’d turned it on her across a dinner table in London so very long ago.
"Are you feeling all right?" he asked, quietly enough that Hannah, who had resumed her negotiations with Marmalade, did not notice.
"Perfectly well," Cori assured him.
He held her gaze for a moment longer, a look she had come to know well.
"Papa," Hannah said, breaking the moment without meaning to.
"No," James said, turning his focus on his daughter.
"I haven’t even asked anything yet," the child complained.
"You were about to." He picked the letter up once more.
Hannah heaved a beleaguered sigh. Then she turned her attention back to her favorite pet. "He does that," she told Marmalade as though she was reporting a well-established fact. "He always knows somehow."
Marmalade opened one amber eye. Then he closed it again.
The fire settled. Minuet finished washing her face and tucked her paws underneath her. Snowdrop did not stir. From behind the curtains came a small sound, suggesting that Biscuit had found whatever she was looking for.
The sound of carriage wheels on the drive caught everyone’s notice.
Hannah’s head came up, her whole attention sharpening in an instant.
"Uncle Daniel!" she announced, and was on her feet before the words had finished leaving her mouth.
Marmalade yawned with dignified displeasure. Biscuit shot out from behind the curtain. Snowdrop lifted his head at the commotion and then lowered it again, apparently deciding Uncle Daniel’s arrival didn’t warrant further investigation. Minuet sneezed.
Hannah was already at the door. She paused at the threshold and looked back at her father. "He knows about my gift, doesn't he?" she asked.
"I would never trust him with information of such import," James said.
But Hannah didn’t appear to believe him. She left quickly, hurrying down the corridor because her uncle had arrived, and he was always a much easier mark than her father.
The study settled into quiet.
Cori listened to the sounds of the house waking up around them. Familiar voices in the entrance hall. The unmistakable noise that always followed Daniel Westham wherever he went, warm and irrepressible, already filling Acklan’s corridors.
James hadn’t moved. His gaze was steady on Cori and warmed her better than the fire could ever do.
"Your brother,” she said. “It’s about to get considerably louder at Acklan.”
"It is," he agreed and looked rather happy about the whole thing. “You’re truly up to this, hosting them in your condition?” He pushed back from his desk and started toward her. “If you’re not, I’ll throw them out. Just say the word.”
Cori laughed at the ridiculousness of such a statement as he pulled her to her feet and slid his arms around her waist. “I am fine, truly,” she told him. “And Hannah is thrilled they’re here. Besides, my sister would never forgive me if you tossed them out.”
“Ah, she is the Beckett sister I’m most afraid of,” he said wryly.
“Me too,” she said.
“She’s managed to keep Daniel in line. She’s either a miracle worker or the strictest of taskmasters.”
“Oh, the latter, most definitely,” Cori told him.
“Then we shall enjoy the last few minutes of peace we have left.” James pressed his lips to the top of her head and Cori closed her eyes, breathing in the sandalwood scent of her husband, steady and warm.
She thought about the very serious man she had first spotted across a crowded London ballroom and she thought about all the small moments between then and now over the last two and a half years that had made up their lives ever since.
“I love you, James Westham,” she said against his chest. “Wholly and completely.”
“And I will love you, my darling wife, with my very last breath.”