her brow, her cheeks, her jawline, her neck, like a blind man reading a face, and then he drew her close, wrapped his arms around her, and bent his head until his lips met hers.
Fireworks exploded, the earth quaked, and fluttering rose petals filled the air. Crowds cheered, peasants danced, and cannons roared in the distance. Church bells rang, angels sang, and a heartshaped flock of snow-white doves soared above a glimmering rainbow and into the clear blue sky. And he was still kissing her.
I knew I was the only one who could see, hear, and feel the world rejoicing, but I didn’t mind. Sometimes it’s a good thing to have a vivid imagination.
Epilogue
T he wedding took place two weeks before Christmas.
St. George’s Church was decked out in poinsettias, white roses, and evergreen boughs and lit romantically with
beeswax candles. Although many of the pews were unoccupied, those of us who were there made up for the sparse attendance by beaming at the happy couple with extra warmth. It may have taken them thirty-seven years to walk down the aisle, but they got there in the end, and the long journey made the arrival all the sweeter.
Charlotte and Leo were the most radiant bride and groom I’d ever seen.
At the reception Leo used every ounce of Aussie charm he’d acquired during his long exile Down Under to persuade me to try a jammy biscuit. It turned out to be so scrumptious that I rewarded him with a sticky smooch on his weathered cheek, then ran down to the kitchen to get the recipe from Henrietta.
It took Leo less than six months to restore Aldercot Hall to its former glory, and though Charlotte wouldn’t allow him to waste money on the many outlandish luxuries he wished to heap upon her, she did allow him to refurbish the gardens, reopen the stables, and re-lay the bridle paths connecting Aldercot land to the Anscombe estate. Will and Rob ride there, under Kit’s supervision, every chance they get. They haven’t spotted any vampires lately, but they’re defi nitely on the lookout for a herd of elephants.
The house and grounds are still tended to by professional cleaning and landscaping crews, but Leo and Charlotte now use companies based in Upper Deeping instead of London, and they patronize local shops as well. Finch’s residents stopped thinking of Aldercot as the dark side of the moon when the Sutherlands extended the hand of
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friendship—as well as their considerable purchasing power—from one valley to the other.
Leo hired three live-in maids in order to make his most ingenious scheme work. Aldercot’s corridors have become a lot noisier since students started attending Henrietta’s cooking classes, Mr. Bellamy’s buttling courses, and Jacqueline’s seminars on nature photography. Charlotte jokingly refers to her once-silent home as Aldercot College, but the music she plays is as lively as the young people who dash up and down the hall’s well-lit and well-heated marble staircase.
Rory Tanner passed away in February, surrounded by his beloved birds and beasts, but he lived long enough to give Leo a few querulous tips on forest management. His cottage serves as the headquarters for a local conservation group, and Henrietta makes sure they keep the bowls, baths, and feeders properly fi lled.
Kit has done a lot of quiet thinking since Charlotte told him the truth about both of his fathers—the one who gave him life and the one who raised him—and he’s slowly adjusting to his new reality.
He speaks of Sir Miles more freely now, without a trace of bitterness, but with sincere and heartfelt pity for a man driven by mental illness to abuse his own wife.
It’s helped Kit to have his newly discovered aunt and uncle living just over the hill. He’s learned a great deal about Christopher DuCaral from Charlotte and Leo, and so have I. I’ll leave it to the experts to decide if insanity can be passed down from father to son, but there’s no denying that Kit takes after the good, greathearted man Amy Sutherland loved.
When Kit becomes too introspective, Nell’s there to rescue him.
Their understanding is so flawless that they seldom need to speak. A look, a touch is all she needs to bring him out of the shadows. I have no doubt that her love will heal every wound he’s ever suffered, but I wish she’d hurry up. My heart’s set on a June wedding, and I can hardly wait to see what their children will look like.
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Nell was beautiful before Kit kissed her, but she’s gone so far beyond beautiful since then that I don’t know how to describe her.
To compare her to Botticelli’s Venus now would be like comparing the Grand Canyon to a crack in the sidewalk. Her love for Kit surrounds her like a nimbus, and the coolness that once protected her has been replaced by a warmth that springs straight from her heart.