He laughed and pulled himself away. Still holding her by the hand, he watched closely as she took a deep breath and forced herself to her feet. Shaky at first, she soon found strength, and he felt comfortable to let her go?—
“No, no,” she said, snatching his hand back. “Where do you think you are going?”
“Nowhere,” he assured her, holding on tight again.
“Good.” She winked. “You better not be.”
With that, they walked from the room together, taking strength in one another’s presence, in the love they both felt, in the happiness it brought them. The road to recovery would be long, Hudson knew, but he also knew that he would be there for all of it, content to never leave her side again.
What was more, while he did not understand it, while he was still struggling to reckon with how it was possible, he knew that his wife not only found strength in the love he had for her, but that which she felt for him. In that way, they were one and the same, two bodies, a single beating heart, a marriage not of convenience, but one of love.
Happiness…it was not an emotion that Hudson was familiar with, but one he was excited to start getting used to. And for that, he had his wife to thank.Oh, how I love her. Today. Tomorrow. For the rest of my life.
EPILOGUE
It had been one month since Florentia had risen from her bed as if coming back from the dead, and in that month, little had changed.
The lack of change is a good thing, however, seeing as all the necessary changes occurred before I fell ill. And besides, where some change is good, too much might cause chaos.
The only real change worth noting was that of Florentia’s recovery. It had been slow going, painful at times, horribly tiring at others, and a headache, to be truthful, because she just wanted it done with. It was the tediousness of the whole thing that frustrated her most.
“The doctors say it could be half a year before you are back to your full strength,” Hudson would remind her as if it might help. “With that in mind, it is astounding how far you have come.”
“Will you stop with that!” she would snap. “I do not wish to be this way for half a year! Your stepmother might as well have just finished the job!”
“Florentia...”
“Joking, Hudson,” she would then assure him. “I thought you were getting better at picking up on those?”
In the end, it had only taken her a month. Four weeks exactly, and Florentia was back to her old self. Walks in the morning. Rides in the evening. Long nights spent in her husband’s arms, speaking about...to be fair, not much, as Hudson wasn’t exactly a wordsmith. But he loved to listen, and often hours might pass in which they simply lay in one another’s arms.
It was so easy for them to fall back into their old pattern, one which was infinitely more agreeable as now they had both admitted how they felt. They would break their fast together, as was tradition. Hudson would then spend the day at work, for she insisted that he not change his routine on her account. Once he was finished, they would often go for a ride, return to eat their supper, and then spend the rest of the evening together before retiring to bed.
It was a simple routine, and it served to remind Florentia of how happy she was and how much she was looking forward to the rest of her life spent with a man she adored.
What she wasn’t looking forward to was where she and Hudson were headed today. Sitting in their carriage, they would bearriving at any moment, and as painful as this little excursion promised to be, it wasn’t helping that her husband was in a strange mood, one she had not seen him in all month.
“Is everything alright?” she asked him for perhaps the third time that day.
He was looking out the window, lost in thought. “Hmm?” He turned back and saw her watching him. “What was that?”
“Is something on your mind?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am.”
She frowned but did not push. Even knowing Hudson as well as she did, there were still times where she found the man hard to read. Having spent his entire life as an emotionless mummy, he struggled at times to be as open with her as she knew he wished to be, and would on occasion revert to his former self, forcing her to coax him from his shell.
But that was something she was used to by now, and she had thought she could tell when and why these moments occurred—often, it was on account of something that she’d said. This was different, however, a sullen cloud hanging over his head for which she could not guess the cause.
“I know I said so already, but as soon as you wish to leave today, you only have to say it,” she offered him.
He looked at her again. “I know it. Truly, I am looking forward to today.”
She snorted. “Liar.”
