“I think it’s only fitting.” I lifted my head from Edward’s shoulder to look up at him, only to find that he was already looking down at me, his eyes warm and smiling. It felt absolutely and perfectly natural to lean up and kiss him. And then do it again. And again.
I was starting to think I could kiss Edward for days.
When we finally pulled apart I realised that we were no longer alone.
“If you two have quite finished,” Ellie said with a smile. “We’re having a midnight feast on the South Lawn.”
“We just had dinner!” Edward protested.
“Cheese and biscuits,” Ellie explained. “And wine, apparently.”
“For some of us, anyway,” I said, meaningfully, and Ellie laughed as she walked away – a sound I’d started to fear I’d never hear again. That secret would be out in a few months, but for now it was nice to keep it with Ellie.
“I suppose we’d better go see what’s happening,” Edward murmured, his voice low and warm and full of promises I really wanted to make him live up to right now. “Before Isabelle sends Caro after us next.”
I nodded, and let him pull me to my feet. My baby sister finding me making out in the Rose Garden was not in my plan for starting my new life right.
All of a sudden, I was hit with the strangest sense of déjà vu, as if it were the day of Nathaniel’s funeral again, and Edward was comforting me. The day I saw the ghost, I realised suddenly.
Blinking, I stared over Edward’s shoulder. “Do you see that?” I asked softly, guiding Edward to turn around, very slowly. Clutching hold of my hand, he gave a very slight nod.
Together, we stared out across the Rose Garden, where Caroline’s ghost was picking bright yellow roses from the previously flowerless bushes.
Then the ghost looked up at us, cocked her transparent head to one side, and smiled, a slow, sweet smile. A benediction, perhaps.
Edward squeezed my hand, and I smiled. Apparently even truth has its mysteries.
On the South Lawn, looking out towards the woods, Mum and Therese had laid out the picnic blankets from the summer house, a patchwork of different tartans and textures. Dad placed trays of cheese, biscuits, grapes and chocolate truffles in the centre, while Isabelle carried a wobbly tray of champagne flutes out onto the grass, Greg following with two more bottles.
Edward settled onto the blanket and pulled me down in front of him, wrapping his arms around my waist as I leant back against his chest. The night had turned cooler, but there, in Edward’s arms, I felt warmer than I had all summer.
More than that, I realised, looking around me at my family. I felt home at last.
I smiled up at him, turning slightly in his arms as the honey-bricked exterior of Rosewood caught my eye. From where we were sitting, I could only see the back and east side of the house: the terrace where I’d drunk gin and tonics with Nathaniel, the Orangery, the kitchen windows… Every light in the house seemed to have been left on, and the yellow glow blazed out into the night from every window.
Every window except one.
Nathaniel’s study window remained dark, a reminder of his light, gone from the world, and for a moment the grief welled up in me again, too deep to bear.
“Kia? For you.” Isabelle handed me a glass of champagne, and I turned back to take it with surprise.
“Do you realise, that’s the first time she’s done that all summer?” Edward whispered in my ear, as Isabelle moved on to serving the others. “Given you a drink, I mean.”
“I know,” I murmured back. “I guess I did something right, at last.”
“I guess you did.” Edward kissed behind my ear. “Several things, that I can think of.”
But it wasn’t just me, I thought, glancing back up at the one dark window. Nathaniel had given me this. From his first phone call, through all his stories, the Golden Wedding, the memoirs… He’d given me my family back.
He’d helped me find my way home. To Rosewood. To Edward.
And I knew, in that heartbeat, that I would never need to run away again.
I was home for good.
Epilogue
I find, when making new acquaintances, that everyone believes they know the story of how I met my wife, having read, at some point in their life and for pleasure or under instruction, my debut novel, Biding Time.
What I have to remind them, again and again, is that the novel is fiction.
Yes, I acknowledge that the book itself is loosely based on real events. However, I would caution any reader against assuming that they can guess which parts really happened, and which did not.
It is all, I assure you, a fiction.
The scene by the fountain in the town square never happened. Neither did the episode in the Winter Garden – you know the one I’m talking about.
The truth, as it so often is, was much more prosaic, but also far more powerful for me.
And that’s the core of my reason for writing these memoirs – not so that people in the street stop assuming that the lies they have read about me are true, but to show the importance of truth in fiction. If the real events had not happened, there may never have been a novel. But, conversely, if I hadn’t written the novel, the real events may not have happened, either.
So, pay attention to the truth, and listen to what is hidden in the fiction. For one is useless without the other.