Epilogue
Three years later
The night sky was clear and crisp through the parlor window.
Minerva played the Schubert she had played the day Dashiell first heard her.
She played it differently now. Not better or worse.
Differently. Influenced by three years of afternoons on the cliff path and evenings in the parlor, of visits from Kitty who now lived in her own cottage with Thom at the edge of Dashiell’s estate.
Three years of Dashiell’s lovemaking and looking at the stars through his telescope and learning from his extraordinary knowledge.
Three years of building a life that was uniquely their own.
From the chair by the window came the occasional sound of a page turning. Dashiell had a letter from the RAS on his knee and a star chart open on the table beside him.
She let the melody go and sat for a moment with her hands in her lap, her gaze on the ring she wore on her right hand. She had been turning something over in her thoughts for weeks. She turned on the bench to find Dashiell watching her with no pretense of his attention being anywhere else.
He watched her as she crossed the room.
“What is it, my love?” he asked as she settled on the arm of his chair as she did sometimes in the evening when the fire was low and the cottage was quiet.
She did not answer right away. She only looked at him, at the straight line of his nose and the hard angle of his jaw, the mouth that rarely smiled, the scar at his temple. Oh, how she loved him.
“I have been thinking,” she said.
“I know,” he said.
She laughed. “You cannot possibly know what I have been thinking.”
“No,” he agreed. “But I do know you have been pondering something for these past weeks.”
She toyed with the ring, twisting it on her finger.
“I would like to move it to my left hand,” she said.
He blinked.
“I have had Granger prepare documents. I have read every word. Three times. He was most thorough.”
Dashiell’s brows rose. “I am certain he was.”
“I have come to understand that marriage is about trust. And I trust you, Dashiell.”
He took her right hand between both of his and looked at the ring for a long moment. Then he slid it from her right hand and placed it on her left.
It fit. It had always fit.
He smiled, the real smile, the one that reached his eyes and made him look young and free and happy.
She looked at the ring on her left hand, then at him.
“I promise you the moon and stars,” he said and rose, offering his hand. “Come. It is a clear night.”
She took his hand and he led her outside and showed her the Pleiades.
“How many do you see?” he asked.
“Seven,” she said, pointing to each one. “Exactly as it should be.”
END