Epilogue
One Month Later
Libba had been looking forward to closing night for the very first time in her entire life. Now that it had passed, complete with an encore run of four additional performances, she wasn’t sure she knew what to expect anymore from her most hated of all nights.
This one had been different, she considered, staring up at the ceiling in her new flat, listening to Jasper breathe next to her, steady and slow.
This one had not felt like finality. It had felt like a slope, a gliding path to the next thing she was looking forward to. It had felt like momentum rather than an abrupt halt.
And she liked that very well.
She eased from the bed to put the kettle on, sliding on her old, pink robe and knotting it about the waist. She passed by the new framed collage in their living room, leaning against the sofa just now, because Jasper wanted to swap out the playbill for one of the ones that had “Encore Performances until October 1st!” inked over the original show’s run.
She agreed. The encore flyers were a better souvenir.
She moved a stack of stage plays from the kitchen table as she arranged the teacups, yawning behind her hand as she fished the milk from the larder and blinked at the hazy morning sky.
Jasper had not enjoyed Za?re or Fidileo. She loved him more for his good taste. He had enjoyed Cinderella very well, though, and thought they could adapt it to something without “all the singing,” come spring.
She chuckled to herself, pouring the hot water over the tea leaves and shaking her head.
Because the mugs were too hot to grip anywhere but the rims, she quickly transferred them onto a tray, dolloped enough cool milk in each to change the color from tar to sandalwood, and dropped a single cube of sugar into each.
By the time she’d returned to the room, Jasper was sitting upright, gazing out the window with his hair sticking up in several copper-red tufts from the embrace of his pillow.
He gave her a sleepy, little smile, his head turning as she arrived, and reached out for his cup with a slow blink of those lovely, golden eyes.
“Thank you, wife,” he said drowsily.
“You’re welcome, husband,” she replied, amused by the affectation as she took her own tea, set the tray aside, and climbed in next to him. “What are you thinking about, gazing out the window so serenely?”
He yawned on a smile. “I was thinking Wherefore art thou, Libba?”
She pursed her lips. “You were wondering why I’m Libba?”
“What?” he said, frowning. “No. I … Is that what that means?”
“It is,” she confirmed, attempting to hide a smile behind her teeth. “Shall I answer, anyhow?”
He sipped the tea, his brows ticking up a notch. “If you like.”
She tilted her head to the side. “Libba because Malcolm chose it. Liberty because I did. Lennox because I was born to it. Townsend because I chose you.”
“Poetry,” he said, his face gone soft and his voice low, like he meant it. “Though Romeo would promise to save you from being a Capulet.”
“I’m not certain watching that play a dozen times in a row was good for your kettle, Townsend,” she said, laughing. “You saved me from being Xandine. Is that enough?”
“I didn’t do that,” he said, giving a mock gasp of shock. “I saved her from becoming a basket of hot air, but she is welcome to visit at any time.”
“Oh?” she laughed. “What about Galatea?”
“Permanently invited,” he answered briskly.
She grinned at him, smelling the steam in her tea. “Bess? Eliza? Liz?”
“All my wife,” he said. “They’re all just Libbas. Parts of the whole.”
She considered him for a moment, her cheeks still dimpled with happiness. “You’re only meant to have one wife, you know.”
“Well,” he said playfully, “perhaps we don’t tell anyone otherwise, and I’ll simply be lucky in silence.”
They giggled together, Libba leaning back on the pillows and throwing the coverlet up over her knees. “One of those women is certain to take issue with sharing.”
He gave a beleaguered, little sigh, his eyes twinkling. “There’s only one who matters. Because there’s only one at all, no matter what she might think to the contrary.”
She narrowed her gaze at him. Then sniffed and shrugged, leaning her head back against the shaft of sunlight on the pillows and closing her eyes for a moment.
“You know, you told a lot of lies that night on the beach when you asked me to be Xandine, but one of the things you said was true. It is quite inarguably true.”
“Is that a fact?” he said, blinking like he couldn’t fathom such a thing. “What was it?”
“You said you would be beyond uxorious,” Libba remembered with a little sigh. “A sentiment I thought delusional at the time. But you are.”
“Delusional?” he guessed, and she could hear the smile in his voice, even with her eyes shut.
“Uxorious,” she told him. “Beyond uxorious.”
“Ah,” he replied. “That, I am.”
For a few ticks of the clock, she simply felt the warmth and the tea on her chest, and the man at her side, and let the things he’d said sink deeper into her skin. She played the conversation thrice more in her mind, until her spine eased, like it had stowed the thing forever.
She turned her head to watch him, sipping at his own tea and looking back out the window again.
“Jasper,” she said, giggling. “Really! What’s on your mind?
” He turned back to her with a startle, like he hadn’t realized he’d drifted away again.
He gave a sheepish little half-smile and reached out to toy with the sash on her robe, twisting it between his freckled fingers.
“It’s nothing. I was just pondering some ideas,” he said, peeking up at her through his lashes. “Concepts.”
“Schemes?” she corrected firmly. “I thought we were past that.”
“We’re past the bad ones,” he assured her with a chuckle. “I was thinking about that little, empty parcel that Templeton-Rath was using while the Reaper was under repair. It’s empty now.”
“Is it?” she asked, pinky out, sipping loudly.
“It is,” he confirmed. “And I did inquire about the rent. It’s not terrible.”
“Hm,” she said. “I suppose you do need somewhere to keep your growing list of commissions and a place to meet them that isn’t a pub.”
“Or your theater,” he added, chuckling. “That has caused a bit of confusion already.”
“Well, you can’t rightly bring outside clients to the EIC office,” she said, tapping her nail against the cup. “Though Mal did offer you some room at Stockton, Holloway, and Lennox.”
“That’s just the same thing in another color,” he said flatly, making her laugh. “Will you come look at the place with me? Perhaps frighten the landlord a little while we negotiate?”
“Of course,” she said. “Happily.”
“‘Happily,’” he repeated. “Good. Maybe not today, though. Today we should avoid doing much at all.”
“I’d like that,” she answered, pressing the warm rim of the teacup to her bottom lip.
“I’m going to wait a week or so before I tell the troupe about our next production, but I’ve decided you were right about A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
And besides, as it gets colder, people will clamor for a taste of summer, even up on a stage. ”
He nodded. “Rhys as Puck?”
“Rhys as Puck,” she agreed, nodding. “I won’t take no for an answer.”
“Well, obviously not,” he teased. “When have you ever?”
She gave a little smirk and a shrug. “We’ll have auditions this time, since I’m likely to be losing some of the troupe after Christmas. Maybe uncover some local talent, eh?”
“I think there’s plenty of talent to be had in Brighton,” he said, leaning forward to flick her knee. “You know, there was once a baroness who believed much the same.”
“There was, wasn’t there?” Libba replied with a smile. “I never did tell the others about the card. Maybe I will, someday.”
“Then they will hear it,” he noted. “Someday. For now, it is yours. It was for you.”
“For us, I think,” she said. “For you and me.”
“For the wedding, you mean?” he answered, giving a skeptical little frown. “No, certainly not. She sent it to the theater, not the church.”
“I believe what I believe,” Libba told him. “And will continue to do so until such a time as I can seek clarification. You will have to simply default to my judgment.”
“Will I?” He chuckled, capturing a tea-tinged kiss from her lips. “All right. I suppose I can live with that.”
“Good,” she said. “Because you haven’t a choice anymore.”
“And isn’t that lovely, in its own way?” he replied, lacing his fingers through hers. “One less thing to have to decide on. Something sorted, from now till the end.”
She laughed and leaned back against the headboard, gazing out that same window, so full of opportunities and concepts and schemes. “Everyone misunderstands Shakespeare from time to time,” she commented. “‘Wherefore art thou’ isn’t as embarrassing as the one I’ve only just realized the meaning of.”
“Oh?” he said, grinning. “Which line was that?”
She grinned back, giving his hand a squeeze. “‘To thine own self be true.’”