Four years later, Kinross Keep was loud in the happiest possible way. The sounds of servants moving briskly through the corridors, voices rising and falling in cheerful urgency, and the unmistakable clatter of preparations for a birthday that had already become the most important event in Henry’s year, had begun at dawn. By breakfast the house was alive with flower deliveries, ribbon boxes, trays carried to and fro, and the excitement that comes from a child turning ten with a father determined to celebrate it on a heroic scale.

Selina stood at the nursery window with one of her twins on each side of her and watched the morning unfold with a smile she could not suppress.

Elsie had climbed halfway onto the window seat to peer out with solemn interest. “Are the people here for Henry?”

“They are here for his birthday,” Selina said, steadying her with a hand. “And because your father has made certain everyone knows it.”

Mara looked up with deep suspicion. “Father says Henry is very important.”

“He is.”

“More important than us?”

Selina laughed and kissed the top of her head. “At this exact moment, yes.”

“Will we ever be more important, like he is now?”

Selina laughed and nodded.

“You certainly will, on your birthday.”

Mara considered her mother’s words and appeared satisfied enough to accept it.

Jane watched the exchange from the doorway with serene patience. She had been promoted from maid to governess some years before, and Selina still could not think of the change without gratitude. Jane was excellent with the girls, patient with Henry, and entirely unflappable when one or both twins decided that shoes were optional and puddles were endlessly interesting.

“Are we ready?” Jane asked.

“I believe they are already in full revolt.”

“I have noticed.”

A familiar voice came in from the corridor. “I have heard rumors that my daughters are refusing to cooperate.”

Ewan entered with his sleeves rolled back and a grin already in place. Both girls turned around at once.

“Papa!”

He opened his arms, and Elsie launched herself into them immediately. Mara followed a heartbeat later, though only after glancing back at Selina, as though checking that no one would object to her abandoning dignity for her father’s sake.

Ewan scooped them both up. “There are my two rascals.”

“We are not rascals,” Elsie informed him.

“We are ladies,” Mara said firmly.

“Very fierce ladies,” Ewan agreed.

Selina leaned against the doorway, watching with helpless fondness. Ewan looked up at her over the girls’ heads, and his expression softened in the way that still warmed her chest after all these years. Even now, after everything they had built, he looked at her as though she was the answer to some long, impossible question.

“Birthday preparations going well?” he asked.

“Ask me again after the cake survives the kitchen.”

Jane laughed.

Ewan set the girls down. “Where is Henry?”

“Still sleeping.”

He raised a brow. “On his birthday?”

“He is ten.”

“That is no excuse.”

“It was a very long evening of anticipation.”

“You are spoiling him.”

“You spoil him,” Selina returned.

“I am his father. That is my right.”

“That is exactly my point.”

He laughed and crossed the room to kiss her cheek before the twins could object to being kissed second.

A moment later, an excited knock sounded from the corridor, and Henry appeared in a whirl of hair and shirtsleeves, his face already alight.

“I am awake,” he announced.

“So I see.”

He blinked at the sight of everyone gathering and brightened further. “Are we going to the stables now?”

“Breakfast first,” Selina said.

“That is a cruel rule.”

“It is a necessary one.”

“I agree with your mother,” Ewan said.

Henry looked betrayed. “Of course you do.”

“Because I am a wise man.”

“There is no justice in this house,” Henry said, with the gravity of a boy delivering a verdict.

“None whatsoever,” Jane agreed solemnly, which set off a round of laughter from everyone but Henry, who was far too dignified to enjoy being teased on his own birthday.

Selina kissed his forehead. “Come downstairs properly, your father has something for you.”

His expression changed instantly. “A present?”

“Perhaps,” Ewan said.

“That sounds like you are hiding something.”

“I am.”

“Is it large?”

“Very.”

“Larger than the pony?”

Selina glanced at Ewan. “There was a pony?”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Ewan said, entirely unconvincingly.

Henry, deciding this required investigation, marched toward the door. He paused to look back at the twins. “Are you coming?”

“No,” Elsie said. “I am too busy.”

“So am I,” Mara said.

“You are both always too busy.”

“Because we are important,” Elsie said.

Henry rolled his eyes with ten-year-old gravity. “Very well. I shall go without you.”

He marched out, and Jane followed with an indulgent smile, leaving Ewan and Selina briefly alone while the twins began competing over a ribbon.

Ewan came to stand beside her. “I still cannot quite believe he is ten.”

“He cannot believe it either.”

He drew her closer by the waist. “There are days I still think of the first morning I met him, and wonder how I came to deserve all this.”

“All this?”

“You. Henry. The girls. This house. This life.”

Selina’s chest tightened in the familiar, pleasant way it still sometimes did. “It is a good life.”

“It is.” He kissed her temple, and then the house below called them down.

Breakfast quickly became less a meal than a gathering point for everyone who had helped turn Kinross Keep into a place full of laughter.

Isobel had arrived the day before with Anthony and their two-year-old son, Thomas, who was a merry, confident boy with a deep fascination for silver spoons. George had come with his new bride, Emily, whose gentle composure seemed to settle the whole room simply by being in it. Cordelia and Lord Dervish had been there since the previous evening, though Cordelia now required a great many cushions in the garden and declared herself perfectly comfortable despite her obvious fatigue. She and Allegra had spent half the morning disputing whether she ought to rest more and whether the old woman ought to interfere less, neither of them making any progress.

Thomas attempted to climb onto George’s lap at the table.

“Why does every child in this family prefer me before breakfast?” George asked.

“Because you look like a man who will allow it,” Anthony said.

“I do not.”

“You do,” Emily agreed.

“I am being undermined in my own marriage.”

“Quite thoroughly,” Emily said.

Selina smiled over her cup and looked around the table. It was noisy, overlapping, and full of people who had stayed, people who had returned, people who had simply chosen one another over and over until the house had grown larger than its own stone and timber could account for.

Cordelia called from the doorway. “Selina, come outside when you can. I am not to be trusted with too much excitement indoors.”

“That sounds like a challenge,” Anthony said.

“You, especially, should not encourage me.”

“I never do anything else,” Anthony said, which drew a laugh from Isobel.

Ewan’s hand brushed the back of Selina’s chair as he passed. “Everything in order?”

“For now.”

“That is the best any birthday can hope for.”

“You are unusually philosophical.”

“I have spent four years learning the value of a good day.”

Breakfast barely finished before Henry was already at the door. “I am ready now.”

“Hat, coat, and at least the appearance of patience,” Selina said.

“Must I?”

“Yes,” she and Ewan said together.

“You are entirely too united.”

“That is the point,” Ewan said.

The stables sat quiet in the soft morning light, and the moment Henry saw the horse waiting inside, he stopped so abruptly Selina thought he might forget to breathe.

It was an Arabian; a slender, dark-eyed creature with a glossy coat and a calm intelligence that seemed to take Henry in entirely.

“Is that for me?” he asked.

“It is,” Ewan said, his pleasure unguarded.

Henry made a sound somewhere between a gasp and a shout and flung himself at Ewan, who had to brace his feet to catch him.

“Papa!”

“Happy birthday.”

“She is mine? Completely?”

“Completely.”

“What is her name?”

“That is for you to decide,” Ewan said. “You are her rider.”

Henry spun back to the horse, quivering with delight, and began circling her at once, peppering Ewan with questions faster than Selina could follow. “Can she jump? Can she run fast? Can I ride her today?”

“You may ride her now,” Ewan said, “if you do not mind staying out of everyone’s way while the party is arranged.”

Henry turned to Selina at once. “May I?”

“If your father says yes.”

“Right now?”

“Right now,” Ewan said.

Selina watched from the stable door as Ewan helped Henry mount, adjusted the saddle once more, and swung up onto his own horse beside him. The two of them set off across the estate, father and son nearly indistinguishable in posture, and she stood watching until the figures had become little more than movement against the light.

My two favorite boys.

She turned back toward the house.

It was nearly impossible to describe how full and alive the keep felt, and completely impossible to explain how full and alive she felt every single day. Isobel was already in the hall with Anthony and Thomas, who sat cross-legged on the floor trying to feed a biscuit to a dog clearly too sensible to accept it. Cordelia was outside in the garden, visibly pregnant and already somewhat tired, installed by Allegra and Elspeth among cushions and tea with strict instructions to sit and be admired in turns. Mrs. Burnett directed the staff with the sort of authority that made even the footmen straighten their posture. Angus moved through it all with his usual brisk competence, keeping the whole celebration from collapsing under its own enthusiasm.

Selina found Jane in the nursery, surrounded by ribbons, toys, and two very determined three-year-old girls who had inherited nearly all of Henry’s curiosity and none of his patience.

“Your Grace,” Jane said, rising as one twin attempted to climb into her lap. “They have decided the dolls require a parade.”

“That sounds right.”

“One of them has also declared herself queen.”

Elsie lifted her chin. “I am queen.”

“No, I am queen,” Mara said.

Jane gave Selina a helpless look.

“Divide the kingdom,” Selina suggested.

Both girls looked equally affronted by this.

“That is not fair,” Elsie said.

“It is very fair.”

“I do not want a divided kingdom,” Mara said.

“Then you must learn to share.”

Neither girl appeared to care for that idea at all, and Selina found herself smiling the whole way out of the room.

***

By the time Henry and Ewan returned, flushed and full of stories about the horse’s magnificence, the house had grown louder still. Jane took one look at Henry and declared he needed to wash before the nursery began to smell like the stables, an accusation he denied with great indignation and no success whatsoever.

The party began in earnest by afternoon. There were children everywhere, flowers everywhere, and cake enough to feed a small battalion. George had also arranged for a musician in the corner of the drawing room, on the grounds that no birthday should proceed without an extra layer of festivity, and the result was a delightful chaos of laughter, music, and the occasional collision between excited children and adults trying to preserve their dignity.

Selina had just finished reattaching a ribbon to one twin’s hair when Ewan touched her elbow.

“Will you come with me?”

“Should I be alarmed?”

“No.”

“That sounds suspicious.”

“It is not. Perhaps I have planned something.”

He drew her toward a quieter corner near the window overlooking the garden, where the party remained visible and audible but blessedly distant. From there they could see Henry being chased in delighted circles by Emily while Thomas attempted to eat the decorations off a passing tray, and Allegra in the garden with Cordelia, who had just taken one look at Thomas’s enthusiasm for the whole affair and laughed until she had to sit back down.

“Look,” Ewan said softly.

She did. Their entire family was there, moving and laughing in front of them, each member bringing so much love and joy to their home it seemed impossible that the estate’s borders could contain it all. Four years prior, Ewan would have called anyone foolish, or simply cruel, if someone had told him that he would find such happiness. He spent so long believing that he did not deserve happiness. But right then, he was grateful that he had been mistaken.

“I still sometimes cannot believe this is real,” Ewan said.

“It is real.”

He turned her fully toward him, looked at her for a long moment, and then smiled with the kind of contentment he had once believed he might never have again.

“Marrying you was the luckiest thing that ever happened to me,” he said. “It brought me back from a dark place I do not think I could have found my way out of alone.”

Her throat tightened at once. She reached up and touched his face.

“I feel exactly the same,” she said. “You brought me home.”

He kissed her then, losing himself in her embrace, the taste of her lips, and the loving warmth that seemed to radiate from her soul and envelop him as tightly as her arms did.

When he drew back, she leaned her forehead against his chest and listened to the party carry on below them. Life now was happiness, fully lived in. The reward, simply, for having survived.

She could imagine no better place in the world to be.