Chapter 32
I walked the wide street beneath the chestnut trees, sunlight filtering through the golden leaves.
As I entered the cemetery gates, the scent of damp decay mingled with woodsmoke.
Under my arm, I carried a bouquet of yellow roses and a small pouch.
When I reached his resting place, I crouched over his headstone and brushed away the crumpled leaves that covered his name.
Removing my glove, I traced the grooves of the lettering.
The granite was cold beneath my fingertips.
Julien Beaumont,
beloved son and brother,
our diamond in the rough.
June 7, 1890–November 23, 1918
I told him about Father and the shop, about confronting Carrie and making peace with her on my own, and also about the museum job. It had been a year to the day since he’d gone, and though I still couldn’t believe it at times, I’d come to accept it.
“I miss you,” I whispered at last, and as I said it, an image of him from our childhood filled my mind, of the sunlight glowing behind him, his bright smile, the warm look in his clear blue eyes as he threw his arm across my shoulders, and I knew in that instant he would never leave me.
That he would be as proud of me as I was, as Father was, too.
He wouldn’t want me to stay frozen, without hope or direction, unable to follow the path that called to me. He’d want me to thrive.
I laid the roses on the slab of stone and removed the drawstring pouch from my handbag. After I opened it, I shook it slowly over the headstone. Diamond dust glittered as it fell. I kissed my fingertips and touched his name again, brushed an errant leaf from my skirt, and stood.
I wound through the cemetery, my heart a bit lighter. I would never stop missing my brother, never stop wondering what our lives could have been like together, the four of us, never stop lamenting what might have been. But I knew as long as I carried his memories inside me, I’d never be alone.
I took the tram to my neighborhood, my heart bursting with hope.
As I walked the short block to the Coopers’ home, I thought of Evalyn’s face that night as I had left.
Her crazed eyes, her grief, her hair standing on end as she chased me from the house, and I felt a deep current of empathy.
To lose someone you loved more than yourself, in her case a child, could cripple you forever.
I hoped it didn’t. I hoped she would see her way through the grief one day and go back to throwing her magnificent parties.
I couldn’t imagine an Evalyn without fountains of champagne and outrageous games and extravagances no ordinary person would believe real.
I never returned to Friendship, never collected the last of the money owed to me, never again laid eyes on the Hope Diamond.
Not only was I ashamed of what had transpired between Ned and me—something I’d never wanted—and the way it had destroyed the last shreds of the short-lived friendship with Evalyn, but I’d betrayed myself.
Betrayed my heart. I didn’t know what I was thinking those frenetic, absorbing, destructive three months, but I knew now, and that was all that mattered.
When I arrived at the Coopers’ doorstep, I paused a moment to stare at the brass knocker in the center of the bright blue door.
Would he be happy to see me? Would he see me at all?
I’d avoided him for so long… Perhaps he had moved on, wanted nothing to do with the Beaumonts since I had abandoned him in addition to everything else.
I only hoped Henry could once again see me—the girl and now the woman he had once loved and not the shell of a person I had been the last year—and forgive me.
His mother answered the door. She wore a housecoat, and her cheeks were flushed.
“Elisabeth, dear, are you all right? I’m afraid Mr. Cooper is ill, or I would have answered the door sooner.”
“I’m sorry to hear Mr. Cooper is ill.”
“It’s nothing serious,” she said dismissively. “You know how men are when they have a little sniffle. You’d think they’ve gone and contracted the plague.” She chuckled at her own joke.
“Is Henry at home?” I asked, emotion welling in me like a swollen tide after a storm. I needed to see him, needed to explain.
“I’m afraid not, but I’ll tell him you stopped by.”
I felt my face drop, my shoulders sag. “Tell him I really need to speak with him, please?”
“Would you like to wait for him? He should be home within the hour.”
I pictured myself in their comfortable living room on the flowered sofa, waiting, watching the grandfather clock tick, making small talk with Mrs. Cooper, and I shook my head. “It’s fine. If he could telephone me or stop by the house when he arrives? That would be great.”
“Of course, dear. I’d kiss you on the cheek, but better not so I don’t pass off the cold.”
“I hope Mr. Cooper recovers quickly. Goodbye, Mrs. Cooper.”
She closed the door and, dejected, I turned toward home.
But I’d only passed three houses when a familiar lanky form came into view, a familiar head of auburn hair, a familiar stride that I had memorized.
Henry.
I strode toward him, picking up speed with each step. He picked up his pace in turn until we raced at each other and then stopped abruptly, only inches apart.
“What’s happened?” he demanded, breathless.
“I’m through with it. I’m never going back there.”
Confusion filled his eyes. “Where? Home? The workshop?”
I shook my head. “To the McLeans’ or the others, for that matter. It’s over. I’ve told my father I don’t want to want to be a jeweler or a salesman anymore. I’ve applied for a job at the museum.”
A cautious smile crossed his face. “That’s wonderful. Congratulations.”
“I’ve been a fool, Henry.” I looked at him hopelessly, longing nearly choking me. I had to say it, to tell him how I felt. “I wish… I didn’t know how to…”
But he knew already. He’d always known.
“Shh,” he said, gently pressing a finger to my lips. “You haven’t been a fool. You’ve been heartbroken, my love. We both have been. But you’re here now.”
My love.
He cupped my cheek a moment, gazing intently at me, and let his hand slide down my neck to my shoulder.
I scarcely moved, unsure of how to respond.
This beautiful man, whom I’d known nearly as long as I’d had a conscious thought in my head, loved me, wanted me at his side.
I imagined what that meant, where we’d go from here.
I imagined his lips on mine, the way they had been that one terrible, fateful night.
Now the accident and what had happened between us that night was a thing of the past, my indecision and guilt a specter I had snuffed out at last, and suddenly I felt as if I were soaring above us, over the city, into the clouds looking down at a world of possibility.
I launched into his arms and buried my face in his neck, inhaling his scent. When I looked up at him, searching his dear face, joy brimmed in his gray eyes. He leaned over me, and his lips brushed mine. We stayed locked together until a motor car honked raucously as it drove by.
We drew apart, laughing. It felt good to laugh—I’d nearly forgotten how.
As he took my hand in his, I said, “Will you have lunch with me?”
“My love, I thought you’d never ask.”
I smiled and we walked toward our favorite café, watching the sun pour over the rooftops, the pedestrians strolling by, and cars streaming around the bustle of Logan Circle before continuing on their way, as we continued on ours, together.