Frances smiled through the tears that had finally gathered. “I love you, though you are difficult, secretive, insufferably commanding, and far too inclined to believe you may manage everyone’s life better than they can manage it themselves.”
His voice was barely above a whisper. “All true.”
“And I love her,” Frances added, looking down at the baby. “Entirely inconveniently.”
Andrew’s face softened into something so tender she could hardly bear it.
“She loves you,” he told her.
Frances looked up. “You cannot possibly know that.”
“I can.”
“You are being sentimental.”
“I am,” he admitted. “I expect it will happen more often now.”
She laughed then, and the sound seemed to release something in the room. Andrew set the notebook down upon the writing table. His hand lifted, slow enough to ask permission without words. Frances answered by leaning toward him.
His palm touched her cheek. This kiss was not like the last. There was passion in it and longing, and the remembered heat of everything unfinished between them. But beneath that was something gentler, steadier, infinitely more dangerous. He kissed her as if there were time now, as if no door was left to be open, no silence had to follow, no life had to be divided into what was necessary and what was desired.
Frances kissed him back with the baby held safely between them and her own heart, at last, no longer pretending it had not already chosen.
When they drew apart, Andrew rested his forehead lightly against hers.
“Does this mean,” he murmured, “that I may read the rest of the novel?”
Frances gave a watery laugh. “Certainly not.”
“No?”
“It is unfinished, untidy, and full of private feeling.”
His thumb brushed her cheek. “Then I am especially interested.”
“You may earn it.”
His eyes warmed. “How?”
She looked down at the baby, then back at him.
“Begin by coming home,” she said.
Andrew’s expression gentled.
“Iamhome,” he replied.
And for the first time, Frances believed him.
Epilogue
THREE MONTHS LATER
“And the name, Your Grace?”
For one moment, Andrew could not answer. The vicar stood before him in his white surplice, with one hand resting near the silver basin and his kind old face lifted in patient expectation. The church was bright with morning sun, though the air still held a faint chill from the stone walls.
In his arms, the baby blinked solemnly at the world, as if she understood that a great question had been put to him and meant to judge his reply. Andrew looked down at her.
