“Brother, how I have missed you,” she said.
He did not pause before bending carefully to kiss her cheek, his free arm encircling her in a gentle embrace, cautious not to disturb the child between them.
“You are blooming,” he said with a smile. “I daresay Penwood air has proven restorative.”
Catherine nodded, smiling.
“Scholarly debates in Latin have their charms, but the fresh air certainly contributes,” she said. “And you have brought Margaret.”
“Priscilla would sooner go somewhere without me than without the child,” he said, grinning over his shoulder at his wife, who entered a moment later—regal in her travelling attire, though visibly winded by the stairs.
Priscilla inclined her head in greeting, then fixed her gaze upon the infant in Thomas’s arms.
“She slept most of the way, thank goodness,” she said. “If she learns to endure carriage travel, I may yet attempt a visit to Bath without six valets and a nursemaid’s tribunal.”
Catherine peeked carefully at the sleeping child.
“She is beautiful,” she murmured, peering at the child’s face. “I believe she has your cheeks, Thomas.”
Her brother rolled his eyes, though pride lingered in his smile.
“Poor girl,” he said with mock solemnity. “Perhaps she may at least inherit her mother’s temperament instead.”
Priscilla sniffed.
“Let us hope she inherits no Beaumont stubbornness at all,” she retorted.
There was a pause, then Thomas chuckled.
“We are agreed at last, my dear,” he said.
Catherine laughed, and Marcus came to her side, his hand resting lightly at the small of her back as he inclined his head toward their guests.
“Welcome to you both,” he said. “It is a pleasure to see you again. I trust your journey was uneventful.”
Thomas nodded eagerly.
“Remarkably so,” he said. “Though Margaret may tell another story once she learns to speak of it.”
“Give her ten months, and she will be composing scathing letters to the coach-maker,” Priscilla said dryly.
Catherine laughed aloud.
“I shall look forward to reading them,” she said.
The library, once filled only with the rustle of parchment and the murmur of scholarly debate, now warmed with the gentle noise of family. And when Marcus returned to her side, his hand finding hers with instinctive care, Catherine gave it a soft squeeze. It was a life she had scarcely dared to hope for, and yet now she could not imagine any other.
***
The late spring air drifted in through the drawing room windows, carrying the scent of lilac and the distant bleating of lambs along the hills beyond the orchard. Penwood Manor stooddressed in the colours of May. Sunlight warmed the stones, ivy climbed new inches up the southern chimney, and bees swept lazily over the herb garden.
Within, laughter and conversation rose from the parlour, where Catherine sat surrounded by faces grown dear to her through shared trials, scholarship, and a kinship forged by time and choice.
Rosalind sat nearest the open window, her ankles tucked neatly beside a tasselled cushion, one hand resting lightly against the curve of her abdomen. The child was due in August, if Eleanor’s predictions proved correct, and though Rosalind claimed she felt nothing but clumsy these days, she moved with the same unstudied grace Catherine had always admired.
Alexander lingered behind her chair, one hand resting protectively at her shoulder while the other cradled a cup of tea he seemed in no hurry to finish. His presence in the room added a quiet gravity, but his smile softened every glance he offered his wife.
“We have settled on a name,” Rosalind said, with the practised air of someone braced for opinions. “If it is a girl, she will be Susan. If a boy, he will be Julian.”
