"I know," she said.
He looked into her eyes. They were full of tears, and as he watched one tear overflowed and trickled down her face. He kissed it away.
"After all these years," he said. "After all these years."
"Make love to me tonight, Hugh," she said.
He nodded. "And every night, from now on."
Then he kissed her again.
EPILOGUE:
1892
FROM The Times:
DEATHS
On the 30th May, at his residence in Antibes, France, after a long illness, the EARL OF WHITEHAVEN, formerly Senior Partner of Pilasters Bank.
"Edward's dead," Hugh said, looking up from the newspaper.
Maisie sat beside him in the railway carriage, wearing a summer dress in deep yellow with red spots and a little hat with yellow taffeta ribbons. They were on their way to Windfield School for Speech Day.
"He was a rotten swine, but his mother will miss him," she said.
Augusta and Edward had been living together in the south of France for the past eighteen months. Despite what they had done, the syndicate paid them the same allowance as all the other Pilasters. They were both invalids: Edward had terminal syphilis and Augusta had suffered a slipped disc and spent most of her time in a wheelchair. Hugh had heard that despite her illness she had become the uncrowned queen of the English community in that part of the world: matchmaker, arbitrator of disputes, organizer of social events and promulgator of social rules.
"He loved his mother," Hugh said.
She looked curiously at him. "Why do you say that?"
"It's the only good thing I can think of to say about him."
She smiled fondly and kissed his nose.
The train chugged into Windfield Station and they got out. It was the end of Toby's first year and Bertie's last year at the school. The day was warm and the sun was bright. Maisie opened her parasol--it was made of the same spotted silk as her dress--and they walked to the school.
It had changed a lot in the twenty-six years since Hugh had left. His old headmaster, Dr. Poleson, was long dead, and there was a statue of him in the quadrangle. The new head wielded the notorious cane they had always called the Striper, but he used it less frequently. The fourth-form dormitory was still in the old dairy by the stone chapel, but there was a new building with a school hall that could seat all the boys. The education was better, too: Toby and Bertie learned mathematics and geography as well as Latin and Greek.
