Epilogue #2
“You were not. The Royal Horticultural Society has requested a second paper. They wish me to document the results of this year’s grafting experiments.”
“Edmund!” Helena’s face lit up. “That is wonderful news. Why did you not tell me immediately?”
“Because you were busy with your sister, and some news deserves to be delivered in person.” He drew her closer, his arms wrapping around her waist. “Besides, I wanted to see your face when I told you. Your countenance remains my favourite study.”
“After five years of matrimony, you still enjoy that.”
“I have seen four thousand smiles alone. And each one is different.” His voice dropped, intimate and warm. “I intend to spend the rest of my life cataloguing the variations.”
Helena laughed, the full, unguarded laugh that had become so much easier over the years. Edmund smiled at the sound, and she knew he was counting it, adding it to the journal he still kept in his desk at Westmere.
“We should return to the house,” she said. “Will is most probably refusing his nap, and the nursemaids will be at their wit’s end.”
“In a moment.” Edmund held her in place, his gaze moving across her face with the intensity she had learned to recognise. “I want to remember this. You, in this garden, in this light. Happy and treasured and exactly where you belong.”
“You sound as though you are composing a journal entry.”
“Perhaps I am.” He kissed her forehead. “Perhaps every moment with you is worth recording.”
They stood together in the autumn garden, surrounded by the falling leaves and the last roses, and Helena felt the familiar warmth of belonging settle over her.
This was what she had found, in the end, not just affection, but a sense of place.
A knowledge of where she fit in the world, and who she fit with.
***
They returned to Westmere the following week.
The estate welcomed them as it always did, the familiar sweep of the drive, the roses that Edmund had cultivated now established and thriving, the house itself warm with the accumulated memories of five years of family life.
Helena watched through the carriage window as they approached, seeing not just the grand fa?ade but all the moments it represented.
There was the morning room she had claimed and rearranged in her first weeks as duchess.
The library where she and Edmund still spent their evenings, reading and talking and simply being together.
The nursery where Charlotte and Will had taken their first steps, surrounded by the painted roses that Edmund had commissioned before Charlotte’s birth.
And there, on the front steps, stood the Dowager Duchess, waiting to welcome them home with a warmth that would have seemed impossible five years ago.
“Grandmama!” Charlotte scrambled out of the carriage almost before it had stopped, running across the gravel to throw herself into the Dowager’s arms. Will followed more cautiously, boyish dignity requiring a more measured approach, but his face was bright with excitement.
“My darlings.” The Dowager embraced both children with the fierce affection she had rediscovered after years of frozen grief. “I have missed you terribly. Tell me everything. Did you see the new baby?”
“He is very small,” Charlotte reported. “And he cries a lot. But Aunt Rosalind says he will be better when he is bigger.”
“Everything is better when it is bigger,” the Dowager agreed solemnly. “Including little girls who eat all their vegetables.”
“I eat most of my vegetables.”
“Most is not all.”
Helena and Edmund descended from the carriage more slowly, watching the interaction with matching smiles.
The Dowager had become a devoted grandmother over the years, present for every birthday, every illness, and every milestone.
She had emerged completely from the grief that had consumed her, becoming once again the vibrant woman she had been before loss claimed her.
“Helena.” The Dowager released the children and crossed to embrace her daughter-in-law. “How was the journey? How is Rosalind?”
“The journey was long, and Rosalind is well. Tired, but glowing.” Helena returned the embrace. “She sends her regards.”
“And the baby?”
“Perfect. Ten fingers, ten toes, a healthy set of lungs.” Helena smiled. “Thomas William Hartley. They are calling him Thomas.”
“A good name.” The Dowager’s eyes glistened slightly. “William would have been pleased. Both Williams, actually, Rosalind’s father-in-law and your own father. It is a name that carries good associations.”
Helena felt her throat tighten. The Dowager had never met her father, he had been deceased for years before Helena entered the Ridley family, but she had learned about him through Helena’s stories.
She understood what he had meant, what his loss had cost, how his memory still shaped the woman Helena had become.
“He would have treasured this,” Helena said quietly. “All of it. The children, the family, and the life we have built. He would have treasured seeing Rosalind so happy.”
“He is seeing it.” The Dowager touched Helena’s cheek. “I believe that, truly. The people we cherish do not leave us entirely. They remain in our hearts, watching over us, sharing in our joys even when they cannot be present for them.”
Helena nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
“Now.” The Dowager’s voice became brisk, the practical tone she had adopted to manage her emotions. “Let us get inside before these children explode with impatience. Mrs Prescott has prepared a welcome dinner, and I believe there may be cake involved.”
“Cake!” Will’s voice carried clearly across the drive. “Mama, Grandmama said cake!”
“I heard.” Helena wiped her eyes and smiled. “Let us go see this cake, then.”
They entered the house together, three generations of a family that had been broken and healed, scattered and gathered, lost and found.
The children raced ahead, their laughter echoing through the corridors.
The Dowager followed more slowly, her hand tucked into Helena’s arm.
And Edmund brought up the rear, watching his family with an expression of quiet wonder that had not dimmed in five years of matrimony.
This was his life now. These people, this house, this affection that had grown from an arrangement of convenience into something he could not have imagined when he first proposed to a sharp-tongued vicar’s daughter in a Somerset sitting room.
He would not trade it for anything in the world.
***
That evening, after the children were in bed and the Dowager had retired to her chambers, Helena found Edmund in the library.
He was sitting in his usual chair, a book open on his lap that he was clearly not reading.
The fire crackled in the grate, casting warm shadows across the room that had become their sanctuary.
Helena crossed to him without speaking and settled into her own chair, the one that had been hers since her first weeks at Westmere, positioned close enough to his that they could reach out and touch if they wished.
“I have been thinking,” she said.
“A dangerous pastime.” It was an old jest between them, worn comfortable with repetition.
“I have been thinking about the assembly.”
Edmund looked up, his attention sharpening. “Which assembly?”
“The one in Somerset. Where we met.” Helena stared into the fire, letting the memories surface.
“I was so desperate that night. So afraid. I had spent weeks watching our situation deteriorate, writing letters that went unanswered, facing the certainty that I could not save my family no matter how hard I tried.”
“I remember.” Edmund’s voice was quiet. “You were magnificent.”
“I was terrified.” Helena turned to look at him. “I hid it well, I had years of practice hiding fear, but inside, I was falling apart. And then you laughed.”
“At your response to Mrs Dawkins.”
“Yes.” Helena smiled at the memory. “You laughed, and for just a moment, I forgot to be afraid. I thought: there is someone in this room who sees me, who notices, and is not misled by the performance I am giving.”
“I was not misled.” Edmund set aside his book and leaned forward. “I saw through the performance immediately. I saw a woman who was carrying an impossible burden with grace and determination, who refused to surrender even when surrender would have been easier. I saw someone remarkable.”
“That word again.”
“It has always been the truth.” He reached out, taking her hand. “Helena, do you know what I thought, that night? After I returned to my lodgings, after I had spent hours replaying our encounter in my mind?”
“What did you think?”
“I thought: there is a woman worth risking everything for.” His grip on her hand tightened. “I thought: if I could spend my life with someone like that, I might actually learn how to be happy.”
Helena’s eyes filled. She had cried more in the past five years than in all the years before, the tears coming easier now that she had stopped fighting them.
“And were you right?” she asked. “Have you learned?”
“I have learned more than happiness.” Edmund rose from his chair and knelt beside hers, still holding her hand.
“I have learned what it means to cherish someone more than I cherish myself. I have learned that strength does not require solitude, and that asking for help is not weakness, that being seen is not the same as being vulnerable.”
“I taught you that?”
“You taught me everything that matters.” He brought her hand to his lips. “You taught me how to laugh again. How to hope again. How to believe that I deserved good things, even when I had spent years convinced otherwise.”
“Edmund.”