Donal stirred and yawned, rubbing at his eyes. “Da? Are we home?”
Hartley kissed Donal’s cheek. “Yes.”
“We aren’t going to live in that other place?”
“No.”
Donal grinned. A whole chorus of birds erupted into song all at once, filling the wood with triumphant music. Eden stirred, flinging one hand across her tearstained face.
“Can I wake Mother?” Donal asked.
“Let us wake her together.”
Donal crept on hands and knees to Eden’s side. Hartley bent over her, bursting with love, and kissed her.
She opened her eyes. A shaft of new sunlight broke through the trees to illuminate her face. Her beloved, astonished, exultant face.
“My love,” Hartley whispered. “We are home.”
“Home!” A voice Hartley had never expected to hear again sounded next to his left ear. Tod buzzed between him and Eden, landing with a thump on Donal’s head.
Donal gave a whoop of joy and bounded upright. “I’m going to find Mrs. Byrne and tell her what I saw!” He paused with a guilty glance at Eden. “May I, Mother?”
“Claudia will not hurt him now,” Hartley said. “Let him go. You will never lose him, dearest one.”
“I know.” She nodded to Donal. “Tell Mrs. Byrne that we will be coming soon.” She smiled at Hartley, while Donal set off at a run toward Hartsmere, Tod clinging to his hair like a tiny jockey.
“Our son,” Hartley said tenderly, stroking her cheek. “He’ll learn to live in this world without fear. We’ll see to that, you and I.”
She rested her forehead in the hollow of his shoulder. “Why do we lose the resilience and faith of children? Where does the magic go, Hartley?”
He enfolded her hand and guided it to her breast. “It is still here, Eden. It never goes away.”
She gazed into his eyes. “You have come back? To stay?”
“Forever. With you.” Hartley kissed her again. “Will you marry me, Eden?”
“Who asks?” she inquired with a sly smile. “Cornelius Fleming, Hartley Shaw, or the Forest Lord?”
“I will be whatever you desire, love of my life. Whom do you choose?”
“You,” she said. “Only you, my dearest husband.”
They kissed, and a thousand flowers bloomed in the snow.
Epilogue
Mrs. Byrne packed the last apron into her portmanteau and closed the lid with a sigh. The first of the new year must seem a strange time to leave Hartsmere, and perhaps she would have delayed had she not found so suitable a replacement housekeeper in Mrs. Singleton.
But it was time for her to go. The need that had summoned her here had been fulfilled. She sniffed a little, knowing she would miss these folk more than most.
Best to move on while happiness reigns. And she knew it would reign at Hartsmere for many a year to come.
First there had been the December wedding… that of Lady Eden Winstowe and her recently returned cousin, Mr. Cornelius Fleming. Hartley Shaw had mysteriously vanished, and the servants and tenants of Hartsmere insisted that they had no idea where he had gone. Mr. Fleming, they said among themselves, had done the proper thing in marrying the woman he had once abandoned. The dalesmen had never been as ignorant as they at first appeared.
In attendance at the nuptials was their son, Master Donal Fleming. The bride and her husband had decided that they would begin their life together without the pall of any deception. And so it would become known that Donal was what was crudely named a bastard—possibly the most cherished child ever to be born on the wrong side of the blanket. His sixth birthday celebration had followed hard on the heels of the wedding.
A fine solstice child, Mrs. Byrne thought with satisfaction. He is blessed indeed.
Donal had gained not only loving parents but a new grandfather in Lord Michael Raines. After Raines’s recovery from his transformation, he had spent several weeks in seclusion, cared for by his deeply repentant wife.
Lady Claudia had been quite unable to look Eden, her brother, or Hartley in the eye. She had taken a cottage in another dale and devoted herself exclusively to her husband. But Mrs. Byrne knew she was a changed woman; love had the power to redeem even such as she. And Claudia Raines knew the time was coming when she would have much atoning to do.