Epilogue #2
“Ye willnae trip. I’ve got ye.” His free arm came around her waist, steady, and he guided her forward with careful, measured steps, turning her once, gently, before he stopped her. “There. Now.”
He took his hands away.
Chloe opened her eyes and found herself standing in the courtyard, facing the sunlit wall near the kitchen garden where only old ivy and the occasional forgotten washing line had hung before.
Now, it displayed a painting, freshly mounted, with a plain dark wood frame and a canvas filled with the sea.
Not any sea she recognized from a book or a tapestry. This one moved.
Wild gray-green water climbed and broke against black rocks in a spray so alive with motion that she found herself, absurdly, listening for the sound of it, the way she’d stood on that same shore two years past and heard the waves before she’d properly seen them.
The sky above it hung vast and unsettled, streaked with the gray-gold light that came just before or just after a storm, and somewhere at the very edge of the canvas, small and easy to miss unless a person knew to look, a single gull hung suspended over the water.
For a long moment, Chloe could not make herself say anything at all.
“I had it commissioned,” Edward said, into the silence, sounding for all the world like a man bracing for a verdict he was not certain would go his way.
“From a painter down the coast. Took him the better part of a year, on and off, workin’ from what I could tell him of it.
I wasnae certain he’d got the water right.
I told him it doesnae sit still the way most painted seas do, it’s always movin’, even when ye’re only lookin’ at it. ”
“He’s got it right.” Chloe’s voice came out thin. “Edward, he’s got it exactly right.”
“Ye’re certain? I can have him back to adjust it, if ye think it needs more.”
“Nay.” She reached out with her free hand and touched the very edge of the frame, not the canvas itself, careful of it. “That’s our cave. There, at the base of the cliff, see the darker line in the rock, where it splits.”
“Aye.” Something in his voice eased, hearing that she’d found it. “I told him about the split rock, in particular. Said if he got naught else right, he’d have to get that.”
“And the gull?”
“That was his idea, nae mine. Said every good sea paintin’ wants a single bird in it, to give the eye somewhere to land amongst all that water.
” Edward came to stand beside her, looking at the painting rather than at her now, which she suspected was easier for him.
“I thought of ye every time I looked at it. Standin’ in the sand with yer skirts soaked through, laughin’ at somethin’, before I’d gone and ruined the whole afternoon by being a fool about it. ”
“Ye didnae ruin it. Ye only delayed the good part by a few days.” She leaned into his side, the baby stirring faintly against her shoulder before settling again. “It’s beautiful, Edward. Truly.”
“I wanted somethin’ in this castle that remembered it properly.
Nae just the two of us rememberin’ it in our own heads, where it can go soft round the edges over time, the way memories do,” he said plainly.
“I wanted it on a wall, where William and the wee one could grow up walkin’ past it every day, and where I could look at it whenever I liked and be reminded that the worst thing I ever said to ye happened in the very same place as the best thing that ever happened to me. ”
"Ye told me everything, eventually. About Rory." Chloe said it quietly. "I still think of it sometimes. The two of ye sent in such different directions by the same cruel man, and neither of ye ever gettin' the chance to find yer way back before it was too late."
"Aye." Something moved through him, old and familiar, though it no longer had the teeth it once did. "I visit the stone we put up for him, when it's quiet enough to think clearly. I tell him about the boy. I think he'd have liked knowin' William turned out loud."
"He'd have liked ye too, I think. Whatever the two of ye might have become, given the years."
"Mayhap." His hand found the small of her back, steady. "I've stopped guessin' at what might have been. I've got enough in front of me now to keep both hands full."
Chloe turned into him properly then, the baby a warm, sleeping weight between them.
He wrapped both arms around her carefully, mindful of the small bundle she carried, and pressed a kiss to the freckles scattered across her nose the way he’d taken to doing so often now that she’d stopped keeping count of it.
Behind them, across the yard, William’s laughter rang out sudden and bright.
Angela had apparently decided that carrying him inside was not nearly as fun as chasing him the rest of the way.
The two of them were tearing loose circles around the well now, William shrieking with so much delight, Angela following him along.
“She’s goin’ to spoil him rotten,” Chloe said into Edward’s chest.
“Aye. Good thing he’s got an uncle sensible enough to balance it out.
” Edward’s chin rested against the top of her head, and together they looked back at the painted sea, the wild water forever caught mid-crash against the dark rocks, the single gull hanging steady over all of it.
“Whatever became of that man, in the end? The one who thought carin’ for anyone was the most dangerous thing he could do. ”
“I ken exactly what became of him.” Chloe tipped her head back to look up at him. “He’s standin’ right here, holdin’ his daughter’s mother in a courtyard, admirin’ a painting of the sea, and lookin’ entirely too pleased with himself about it.”
“Aye.” Edward’s mouth curved, easy, unguarded. “That does sound like him.”
The End?