Two Years Later

Rosalind had always suspected Isabella Hartwell would eventually find a way to scandalize London properly.

She had not expected it to involve a school.

“Too clever,” Isabella declared from the steps overlooking the courtyard, “is a phrase you will hear quite often.”

Several of the younger girls seated before her exchanged uncertain glances. Behind them stood parents, patrons, curious members of society, and at least three gentlemen Rosalind suspected had attended primarily because they wished to discover precisely what sort of dangerous ideas Miss Hartwell intended to place in the minds of young ladies.

Mrs. Frost, Rosalind corrected herself.

She still occasionally forgot.

Isabella did not look particularly married at present. She looked formidable.

“If someone tells you that you are too clever,” Isabella continued, “I suggest you accept it as a compliment. It generally means you have made them uncomfortable, and discomfort is frequently the beginning of thought.”

A laugh moved through the courtyard, followed by a reverent whisper somewhere behind Rosalind.

“Magnificent.”

She glanced over her shoulder to find Gabriel standing beside William near the back of the gathering, gazing at his wife with the expression of a man who had lost a war and remained delighted by the outcome.

William glanced at him. “You look unbearably pleased with yourself.”

“I married her.”

“Yes. We were all there.”

“She still corrects my Latin.”

“Your Latin still requires correcting.”

Gabriel considered that. “Marriage has done absolutely nothing for your loyalty.”

“I am loyal to accuracy.”

“Which is precisely what Isabella says.”

Rosalind turned away before either man caught her laughing when a small fist closed around the ribbon at her bodice.

“No,” she murmured, catching it before her son could pull it loose. “We have discussed this.”

Algernon Sinclair regarded her with enormous brown eyes and immediately attempted to seize it again.

At eleven months old, he had already demonstrated a remarkable talent for ignoring reasonable instruction. Rosalind blamed his father. William blamed her, and they were both probably correct.

She shifted Algernon higher against her hip and looked again toward Isabella.

For years, the school had been an idea discussed in drawing rooms and carriage rides, something Isabella intended to create someday when society, money, and opportunity permitted it.

Isabella had eventually decided she had waited quite long enough for permission.

The City of Ladies had opened that morning.

The name had been Gabriel’s suggestion, though Isabella refused to admit it publicly. The school would teach literature and history, mathematics and philosophy, art, languages, and several subjects Lady Eastmere had described as “rather ambitious.”

Isabella had taken that as encouragement.

“She has done rather well for herself.”

Rosalind turned at the sound of her father’s voice and smiled as he came to stand beside her.

Two years had restored much of what Bryn Hir had taken from him. The hollows beneath his eyes were gone, there was strength in his shoulders again, and his laughter came more easily than it once had. There were still moments when Rosalind caught him lingering before a locked door or growing unexpectedly quiet, but she had learned that healing did not require forgetting.

He was here. He was well.

Rosalind slipped her free arm through his and followed his gaze across the courtyard to the entrance of the library. A small brass plaque above the doors bore Edmund Carlisle’s name, though her father had protested when Isabella insisted upon putting it there.

“You know she would never have managed the library without you,” Rosalind said.

“Nonsense. Isabella would have managed it eventually. I merely saved her the trouble of waiting.”

“And paid for several hundred books.”

“A library without books seemed rather pointless.”

Rosalind smiled. “It was very generous of you, Papa.”

Her father glanced at her. “I spent far too many years believing my principal duty was to secure your future. It seems only fair that I contribute something to the future you and your friends have chosen for yourselves.”

The words caught Rosalind somewhere beneath her ribs.

She rested her head briefly against his shoulder. “I love you too.”

“I said nothing of the sort.”

“You did.”

“I spoke about a library.”

“Very movingly.”

Edmund was saved from answering when Algernon suddenly reached for him, both little arms stretching insistently toward his grandfather.

“There is my boy.”

He took Algernon from Rosalind without hesitation, settling him against his chest.

The name had not been an easy choice.

William had suggested it before their son was born, explaining that he did not want his brother’s name to belong only to the worst things Algernon had done. Before Bryn Hir, before fear and desperation had twisted into cruelty, there had been a little boy who had suffered terribly at the hands of his father and a brother William had loved.

He could not save either of them now.

But he could remember them.

Their son would someday know the truth of the man whose name he carried. Rosalind would make certain of that. He would know what Algernon had suffered and what he had later chosen to inflict upon others, because one truth did not erase the other.

For now, however, little Algernon knew none of it. He merely knew that his grandfather possessed a watch chain he desperately wanted.

Edmund caught his reaching hand. “Absolutely not.”

Algernon disagreed and reached again.

“He gets that from William,” Rosalind said.

“I would say from you.”

Before Rosalind could object, her mother joined them and immediately held out her arms for the baby.

“Give him to me.”

Edmund turned slightly away. “I have only just got him.”

“You have had him for at least five minutes.”

“An outrageously short period.”

“Mama,” Rosalind said, laughing, “you do realize there is an entire school opening around us?”

“Yes, and I have already admired it. Now I should like my grandson.”

Algernon settled the matter by reaching eagerly for her.

“Traitor,” Edmund muttered as her mother took him.

“He has excellent judgment,” her mother said, settling Algernon against her with a triumphant smile.

“Unlike his mother, apparently.”

Rosalind narrowed her eyes. “I beg your pardon?”

Her mother adopted an expression of innocence that fooled no one. “I merely mean there was a time when you seemed determined to find fault with William.”

“There was also a time when you believed he had used me.”

“I never believed any such thing.”

Rosalind looked at her father.

Edmund looked back at her.

Her mother sighed. “Very well. Perhaps briefly.”

“Briefly?”

“It was a confusing time.”

“Of course.”

“I approved of him eventually.”

Rosalind laughed, but before she could remind her mother precisely how long eventually had taken, Algernon began to fuss in her arms. Mama bounced him gently, which only transformed the fussing into a complaint and then into a howl impressive enough to interrupt Isabella halfway through her speech.

The entire courtyard turned toward them.

Rosalind closed her eyes. “Oh, dear.”

“Give him here.”

Nelly appeared beside them.

She no longer wore the uniform of Rosalind’s maid. Instead, she had acquired an air of authority Rosalind suspected came from spending her days preparing to lead the youngest pupils at the City of Ladies.

Nelly held out her arms, and Algernon went to her immediately.

“Traitor,” her mother said, while Edmund looked far too delighted by this second betrayal.

“I’ll take him inside until he settles,” Nelly said, adjusting Algernon comfortably against her shoulder.

“Thank you.”

“Come along, young man. You have caused quite enough disruption for one morning.”

Algernon appeared entirely unrepentant as Nelly carried him toward the school, and Rosalind suspected the youngest pupils would soon learn that particular tone meant argument was useless.

At the front of the courtyard, Isabella waited for the commotion to subside before remarking, “I see my youngest pupil has already formed an opinion of my speech.”

“My godson is a discerning critic,” Gabriel called from the back.

“He is not yet a year old.”

“All the more impressive.”

Isabella gave her husband a look that suggested she had several responses to that and was choosing the one least likely to alarm the parents gathered before her. “Thank you for your contribution, Mr. Frost.”

Gabriel bowed, earning another ripple of laughter from the crowd before Isabella resumed her address.

A moment later, William came to stand beside Rosalind and slipped his hand into hers. His fingers threaded easily through her own, the gesture so familiar now that she leaned against him without thinking.

“Your friend is terrifying,” he murmured.

“Your friend married her.”

“Yes. Gabriel has always been reckless.”

For a while they listened together as Isabella spoke of women whose work had been dismissed, hidden, or forgotten, of curiosity as something no girl should ever be taught to apologize for, and of knowledge as something that belonged to anyone willing to pursue it.

By the time she finished, the applause seemed to fill the entire courtyard.

Gabriel was on his feet almost before the final words had left his wife’s mouth, applauding with such enthusiasm that Isabella’s composure finally cracked. She smiled at him across the crowd, and the pride on his face made Rosalind squeeze William’s hand.

“She did it.”

“She did.”

There was something quieter than celebration in William’s voice, and when Rosalind looked up at him, she recognized the distant expression that had become familiar over the past two years. Happiness had not erased the things they carried with them, but she had learned that it did not need to.

She tightened her fingers around his. “You went to see him last week.”

William nodded, and there was no need for Rosalind to ask whom he meant.

“How was he?”

“Calm, mostly. He asked about the garden.”

That was something. There had been months when calm had been rare, when William returned from his visits looking so exhausted that Rosalind knew better than to ask questions until he was ready to answer them.

“Did he know you?”

“For a little while.” William looked beyond the school walls toward the gardens. “Long enough to ask whether I thought Aldermere would have roses this summer.”

Rosalind squeezed his hand.

William still visited whenever he could. Some days Algernon knew him, while on others he mistook William for their father or wandered so deeply into the past that nothing William said could reach him. Once, he had asked whether Edmund was coming to play cards, and William had carried the question home with him for days.

Augusta’s letters came less frequently now, though the distance between England and New South Wales made every one of them feel like something that had traveled out of another life. Rosalind had begun writing to her as well, despite not entirely understanding her own reasons at first.

Perhaps there were simply truths Augusta deserved to hear, even after everything she had done. Punishment did not require cruelty, and Rosalind saw little purpose in withholding the few pieces of Algernon that remained simply because she could.

So she wrote about his better days and his worse ones. She told Augusta when he recognized William and when he did not. She even told her about the little boy who now carried his name.

Augusta had answered only twice. Her most recent letter had been brief, admitting that she was alone and learning how to live with that. She no longer expected Algernon to recognize her, even if she were ever to stand before him again. She was simply grateful that someone still sat beside him when he was frightened.

Rosalind had cried after reading it.

She had not forgiven Augusta, and perhaps she never would. Forgiveness was not required for compassion. She had written back anyway.

Some sorrows could not be repaired. They could only be carried.

A burst of laughter drew her attention across the courtyard, where Nelly had returned with Algernon. The baby had discovered one of the ribbons decorating the school entrance and was reaching determinedly for it while Nelly kept shifting him just beyond its reach. Each failure delighted him more than the last, until his laughter carried across the courtyard.

William smiled beside her, the lingering sadness in his expression giving way to something warmer.

Rosalind rested her head against his shoulder. “Do you remember our first courtship?”

William looked down at her. “Our first?”

“The false one. Although I suppose calling it a courtship is generous.”

“Ah. That disaster.” His mouth curved. “You did end it rather spectacularly.”

“You deserved it.”

“I did,” he admitted, surprising her enough that she lifted her head to look at him.

“That was remarkably easy.”

“Marriage has taught me wisdom.”

Rosalind laughed. “Marriage has taught you when surrender is expedient.”

“An equally valuable skill.”

He lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles, his smile lingering against her skin.

Once, Rosalind had believed that finding the truth about her father would somehow put everything back where it belonged. She knew better now. The truth had not restored the world they knew before Edmund disappeared. It had changed all of them.

Her father carried memories he rarely spoke of. William loved a brother who had done unforgivable things. Augusta lived half a world away with the consequences of the choices she had made. Isabella had taken the restrictions society placed before her and built a school in defiance of them.

And Rosalind had married the man she once accused of helping conceal her father’s disappearance.

Life was ridiculous.

She was beginning to think that might be one of its better qualities.

By the time the speeches and supper were finished, Mama had reluctantly surrendered her grandson, Gabriel had attempted to persuade Isabella that the headmistress of the City of Ladies ought to dance at her own celebration, and Rosalind was more than ready to return home with William and their exhausted son.

Algernon was asleep before she had finished settling him for the night. William disappeared briefly to his study to answer a letter, leaving Rosalind alone in their bedchamber with the little book she had somehow kept through everything.

The courtship manual.

She smiled as she opened it.

Its pages had accumulated a collection of increasingly absurd rules over the past two years, many of them contributed by William.

Never accuse your intended of criminal conspiracy before breakfast.

Battledore should not be used to resolve jealousy.

If forced to pursue a missing earl into Wales, bring adequate provisions.

Rosalind still disputed the necessity of the last one.

She turned to the final blank page and sat for a moment listening to the familiar sounds of the house around her. Somewhere down the corridor, her son slept. William would come looking for her soon. Tomorrow Isabella would open the school doors again, and dozens of girls would begin learning things the world had decided they did not need to know.

Rosalind dipped her pen into the ink and wrote one final rule.

The truest courtship begins when the pretending ends.

She studied the words for a moment before crossing out courtship and replacing it with another word.

The truest love begins when the pretending ends.

“That sounds suspiciously sentimental.”

Rosalind turned to find William standing behind her chair, reading over her shoulder.

“I did not give you permission to read that.”

“I am your husband. Surely I am permitted the occasional indiscretion.”

“Reading over my shoulder is not among your marital privileges.” She closed the book. “Besides, that was the last rule.”

William smiled and offered his hand. Rosalind took it without hesitation, letting him draw her to her feet.

There had been a time when she might have wondered what taking his hand required her to surrender.

She knew better now.

He kissed her, but before she had properly settled against him, their son began to cry somewhere down the corridor.

Rosalind sighed against his mouth. “Your son.”

“Our son.”

“He sounds remarkably like you.”

William drew back just enough to look offended. “I have never sounded anything like that.”

Another indignant wail made them both laugh.

“Come along,” William said, taking her hand. “We appear to be required.”

Together, they went to find their son.

Behind them, the courtship manual remained closed upon its final page.

They no longer needed it.

THE END