Parting the Veil by Paulette Kennedy
EPILOGUE
June 1905
Eliza watched Lucy and Miriam frolicking beneath the branches of the great oak tree in front of Sherbourne House, their dark curls braided into pigtails, both girls dressed in white lawn tied with violet sashes. They were playing hide-and-seek with Lydia’s daughter, Rosaline, and Lucy had cheated. She scrambled over the fence, rowdy as a boy, startling Miriam from her hiding place like a scared rabbit. Rosaline shrieked at her cousins and gave chase, her honey-blond curls streaming behind her.
“Mummy, Daddy!” Miriam called. “Lucy doesn’t play fair! She peeked!”
“Lucy, no cheating!” Gabriel scolded.
Lucy scowled and crossed her arms, stalking off with Rosaline toward the rose garden Eliza had planted in Beatrice’s memory. Miriam flailed on the ground as if the world were ending, tears spilling from her blue eyes. “You’re spoiling Miriam,” Eliza teased. “She’s got to learn to manage Lucy on her own, without your interfering.”
Gabriel pulled Eliza close from behind, nuzzling the curve of her cheek with his nose. “I suppose you’re right. They are a handful, aren’t they?”
“How will I ever manage another?”
“You will, because you’re a wonderful mother, mo chridhe,” Gabriel said, cupping Eliza’s rounded belly.
“Am I, Lord H?”
“The best.”
The soft whickering of a horse came over the moors where Havenwood Manor once stood. Eliza gazed with pride at the white paddocks rimming the hillside. Grazing Thoroughbreds and Friesians dotted the pastures, their flanks gleaming. “Our best mare will be foaling after the new year. And two of our broodmares will be ready to breed soon after. We’ll have to expand the stables to make room.”
“All sorts of babies being born. I couldn’t be happier about it, could you?” Gabriel swung her around for a kiss, his lips igniting the same flare of passion they had on their wedding night. Eliza melted into her husband’s arms, her joy bubbling up like the finest champagne.
It hadn’t always been easy, their love. In the months after the fire, when Gabriel strove to rebuild her trust, she’d flinched away each time he touched her, remembering Malcolm’s madness. He was patient, shouldering the burden of the betrayal he had helped to sow. When Lydia brought their babies into the world—healthy, fat, and warm—the last remnants of Eliza’s fear fell away in her labor bed. Gabriel held her hand through every push and cry, brushed her hair from her fevered brow, and walked the floors with the twins so she might sleep. With every word and action, he told Eliza she was safe. He showed her she was loved.
Her life had certainly taken her through a strange dance. Some of it had been more painful than she thought she might bear. The old sorrows would always remain, but they were tucked well away now and only brought out as memento mori. During those brief storms of grief, when the dead brushed up against the living, a dark veil fell over Eliza’s mood and she wept.
But mostly when Eliza’s tears fell, they fell because she was happy.