“I love you too.”
She was so lovely, so beautiful, covered in dirt and telling him she loved him that he had to kiss her properly, curving his hands around her face and bringing his lips to hers. She opened her mouth marginally and he kissed her deeply, knowing there would be many more kisses like this in his life now but savoring it nonetheless.
When he eased back, Edward took her hand again. Mindful of her ankle, they walked slowly together toward the cemetery entrance. They remained in silence but unlike the silences of the past, it felt companionable. Edward mostly just couldn’t believe his luck.
His wife actually loved him.
At the cemetery gates, Beatrice paused, glancing back once down the path “It’s strange,” she murmured. “I used to come here for answers. To feel safe, somehow. But now it feels…different.”
“Then come home,” he said quietly. “Let me be where you feel safe next.”
Before they headed out of the gate, the caretaker appeared, as if conjured by the sound of their steps. He regarded their dishevelment with a nod that was almost approving.
“Bit of a tumble, was it?” he asked.
Beatrice straightened her spine. “I misjudged the ground by the mausoleum. It gave way under me.”
The old man scratched his chin, eyeing Edward. “You’re lucky, miss. That tomb’s got a reputation, it does.”
“Reputation?”
The caretaker nodded, glancing back up the hill. “A couple buried there—husband and wife, died within days of each other. Couldn’t bear to be apart. They say the crack started the day she was buried next to him. Like the stone itself couldn’t hold them.” He shrugged. “Their love was a great one apparently.”
“That tomb is dangerous,” Edward couldn’t help but say, recalling Beatrice vanishing into the dirt.
The caretaker grinned, revealing his gap-toothed grin. “All I know is, that tomb’s never collapsed before. Maybe you two gave it a reason.”
Edward and Bea shared a small smile, then Edward turned to the caretaker. “We’ll see about repairs. To the mausoleum, I mean.”
The old man’s eyes glinted. “Wouldn’t want it swallowing anyone else.”
Edward hunted down a hack, grateful to be able to find one at this late hour, and as it rolled away from the cemetery, he pulled Beatrice close. She rested her head on his shoulder, letting her eyes close. Edward glanced down at her, her lashes fluttering against her cheek, her breathing soft and even.
He pressed a kiss to her hair, a quiet promise without words. For the first time in their marriage, he felt something settle deep in his chest—not longing, not ache, but peace.
She was his. And he was hers.
Not because of duty. Not because of arrangement. But because they had fought their way toward each other—through fear, through silence, through earth and shadow.
As the carriage rolled on, he allowed himself to imagine the future—one far removed from the present they had created. Mornings tangled together, laughter over tea, hands brushing as they read side by side. Perhaps children one day.
He looked out toward the trees as the cemetery faded behind them. The cracked grave still lingered in his thoughts but it was no longer about loss. It was about holding on.
Beatrice shifted, her fingers curling lightly over his knee, even in sleep.
Edward closed his eyes and smiled.
The End
