Until recently, when his familiar guilt became mixed with desire. Hope. Longing for something sweet and true, not merely for the lifting of pain. He’d wanted Rowena, a life with her. Had he acted as if he wanted it? She’d all but said she loved him, then wavered as he tossed her feelings aside.
Howard seemed to take Simon’s silence for doubt. “You need to hear the words, then?” His familiar features, now rugged with the addition of thirteen years, creased with an expression that was not quite a smile. “I forgive you, Thorn.”
He put his hands on Simon’s shoulders—one unmarred, then, deliberately, the twisted and scarred hand—and looked him in the eye. “I forgive you. I forgave you long ago.”
Simon had expected to feel forgiveness in a wash, like a baptism. Or like a weight lifted, like floating with glee. But instead, it was relief. It was the easing of an old knot. It was a slow, bubbling lift in his spirits.
It was remembering who he’d always intended to be. Maybe who he’d already become without even realizing it.
It was gratitude. It was grace.
Howard clapped Simon on both shoulders, then withdrew and looked at him knowingly. “Bodies heal more easily than hearts, don’t they? I expect you’ve suffered more than I since the first months after the accident.”
Simon nodded, the movement halting. He thought he’d fled to freedom, but he had never truly been free. He’d shaped his life around leaving, fleeing, guilt, atonement.
Rowena was the only one who knew the truth about Simon and still thought he was worthy, he thought. But it seemed Howard had extended him the same grace. And those two—both with their challenges, their determination, their unwillingness to give up—gave Simon courage. He wanted to be better for them.
And he wanted to be better for himself. He didn’t want the sort of life where he was always on the run. He wanted to plant roots, to grow the sort of life he’d never dared imagine for himself. One where he belonged in a place.
To a person. In a family. Doing meaningful work.
“Father McCrone mentioned,” Howard drawled out, “you’re a musician.”
“I—yes, sometimes.” Simon blinked at the turn of subject. “I played the horn for a while. I worked in a luthier’s shop, too.”
“I’ve a daughter. Amelia. She’s twelve years old and loves music.” Howard eyed Simon speculatively. “If she stays in this village, she’ll do no more than offer lessons on the pianoforte for a pittance.”
“Would she like doing that?”
“She might.” Howard looked away, across the main street. He squinted into the afternoon sun. “But I don’t know if I like that for her. She should try…more.”
“As you never had the chance to?”
“As I never had the inclination to,” Howard corrected. “If I’d never had the accident, I’d still have finished my apprenticeship and stayed here. I just would have finished it sooner. And you’d have left. You simply would have left later.”
“I wouldn’t—yes, I would have,” Simon agreed. He’d always wanted something different.
Howard smiled. “You were always going to leave and wander, but maybe you’d have felt you could come home when you wanted to.”
“You saw all that?”
Howard waved his hand. “All of it. I’m a homebody. You’re not. At least, not for village life.”
“I just needed to find the right place. And I think…I think I have. I think it could be home.”
“In London?” Howard turned sharp eyes upon Simon. “Then why are you still here?”
“Because I wanted forgiveness.”
“I told you. From me, you have it.” So readily, the words came from the older man. “Now, how about from yourself?”
It had taken this: chastisement, a smile, the tale of a home and wife and daughter. Out of guilt, Simon had paused his own life and set himself to wandering. But Howard had not allowed the accident to do the same to him. He had everything he’d ever wanted.
If anyone’s life had been ruined that day in Lines’s forge, it hadn’t been Howard’s. How selfish Simon had been, to send money and not give anything real. What a coward he’d been—not only to run away, but to cut off all communication from a man he’d once considered a second mentor. A man he’d admired and called friend.
He wouldn’t live that way anymore.
“I’ve all I want,” Howard added, “except your friendship. But I can write perfectly well with my left hand, and I can even muck through a bit with my right. Father McCrone wouldn’t tell me where your letters came from, and you were always moving on. But if you’ll write to me yourself, I’ll write back.”
“I will.”
Howard nodded, then extended a boot toward Simon’s satchel. “Is that a copy of How to Ruin a Duke?”
Surprised, Simon looked down at his stashed belongings. Indeed, the book was poking from beneath the leather flap of the traveling bag. “It is. I read it along the way. I know a lady with a fondness for it.”
“Do you, now?” Howard’s eyes crinkled, knowing.
“I do. She’s the luthier I mentioned.”
“She’s a lot more to you than that, judging by the look on your face. Well, if you’ve already read your book, you can leave it with me. Everyone’s been talking about it, and I haven’t got a copy. I want to know how it ends.”
Simon handed over the volume. “It ends in seduction and scandal, of course. But the amusing part is the journey, not the destination.”
“I’ve always thought so.” Howard smiled, the old familiar smile that made his eyes into crescent moons. “Keep Amelia in mind if that lady of yours wants an apprentice. Not as a favor you’d do out of guilt, but as a favor you’d do a friend. I’ve been setting aside the guilt money you sent. It could serve as an apprenticeship fee.”
There was little more to say then except good-bye, a series of good-byes that felt like farewells. Or au revoirs, as the French said. Until we see each other again. This wasn’t the end, wasn’t a door closed on the past. It was the continuation of a path Simon had once lacked the courage to walk. Now he strode it with gratitude.
And he took his place on a coach returning to London.
The four days seemed just as long as they had on his journey northwest, but this time he felt much lighter. So light he could have run alongside the carriage. So light he could have played a tune to the sky. Lavender’s blue, diddle diddle…
When he arrived in London, tired and travel-worn, he didn’t return to his lodgings. He made his way at once to the familiar corner of Bond Street, thronged as ever with London’s wealthy and influential. There was no place he wanted to be but Fairweather’s. No face he wanted to see but Rowena’s.
But Fairweather’s was gone. Closed. Abandoned. The painted sign had been scraped and covered over with flat white. The shop window was empty.
With the curtain gone, Simon could see the bare workroom. No tools, no wood, no hedgehog. No Rowena.
She had given up, after all.
Chapter Nine
“There is nothing so difficult to describe as happiness… It is easier to enjoy it than to define it.”
From Glenarvon by Lady Caroline Lamb
“The business name is Fairweather’s,” Rowena instructed the sign painter with a touch of exasperation. “It’s spelled like the word ‘fair’ and the word ‘weather.’”
The painter, a well-meaning but careless man, had already jumbled the spelling once. Fortunately Rowena had caught him after he painted Ferrywheater’s, a name surely pulled from his imagination, and made him begin again.
“The spelling is f-a-i-r,” she added. “As in, ‘It’s fair for you to repaint the sign at no cost.’ And w-e-a-t-h-e-r. The kind of weather that comes from the sky.”
“Not the sort of whether that implies doubt,” a voice behind her chimed in.
She went stiff, startled like a doe. She knew that voice. She hadn’t expected to hear it again so soon, maybe not ever.
But here it was. Here he was.<
br />
A smile spread over her face, seeping through her whole self. “Simon Thorn.” She turned to face him, tempted to throw herself into his arms—but stopped. “You look worn to a thread! Are you quite well?”
He was hollow-eyed and stubbled, his clothing rumpled and in need of freshening. “I’m well, all right. I’ve just been traveling for eight of the last nine days.”
Had she been smiling? Now she was beaming. “You went home!”
“No, this is home. London is home. But I did go back to Market Thistleton.”
“And how was your journey?”
His expression was more pensive than happy. It was peaceful, even through weariness. “I’m forgiven. I wish I’d been ready to be forgiven a long time ago, but I wasn’t done blaming myself. I’ll never be done wishing I hadn’t hurt my friend, but that’s not the same thing as shame or guilt.”
“I’m glad you’ve found peace.” She hesitated, then admitted, “I thought you might stay there if you did.”
“I went where I needed to go. I came back to where I want to be.” His eyes creased with humor. “Though it took me longer than expected. I had to track you through a violinist at the Mallery Lane Theater. Thank the Lord you’d given the musicians your new address.”
“Yes, the move came as a surprise.” She explained about the abrupt hike in the weekly lease rate. “I’d learned about that shortly before your letter came from Howard.”
“And you never said a thing? You are a goddess of stoicism.”
“Hardly.” She laughed, then caught sight of the sign painter, just beginning to brush the second half of her name above the door. “W-e-a-t-h-e-r-apostrophe-s, remember?” she called to him, relieved when he nodded.
“As you can tell, we’re still getting settled into the new space,” she told Simon. “I must have spent every second of our grace period in the Bond Street house looking for this one. It’s smaller than the old building, but I quite like it. And the rent is a dream.”
Simon grinned, nudging her with an elbow. “Well done you. Moving the shop when you thought you couldn’t or shouldn’t. What changed?”
“Circumstance, for one.” She considered. “And I was inspired by my father, in a way. And also by How to Ruin a Duke.”
“By that book?” His elfin brows lifted. “How did that delightful drivel inspire you?”
“Alliteration! That’s well done you.”
Simon bowed. “We’ll take turns accomplishing mighty deeds. Though I admit, yours are far mightier.”
Laughing, Rowena explained, “Through that book, someone has earned a fortune by the work of their own hands. It reminded me that there are many ways to do that, not only my father’s. Once the possibility of the Bond Street lease was gone, I felt…unburdened. Because the Bond Street address was a burden. It kept me from living or doing the work I want to do.”
“Too many pianofortes,” Simon said wisely.
“And not enough of everything else. Violins and repairs and…”
“Moonlight kisses?” he suggested.
“Must they happen only in moonlight?” Rowena asked innocently. When Simon’s jaw dropped a little, she laughed. “I know I’ll lose some business, not having a tonnish address anymore. Not being where customers have found Fairweather’s for a century. But I’ll tune all the pianofortes I must to communicate the new address, and that’s really all I can do for now. The workshop’s not settled for repairing or building yet.”
“But it will be?”
“As soon as my hands can make it so.” She held a picture in her mind of how she wanted it to be: compartments for the wood currently stacked in random rooms, racks for the tools she’d neatly oiled and wrapped in heavy cloth. And a cushion, of course, for Cotton. It would be nearly like the workroom she remembered, but not quite. Everything would be arranged for her, within reach the way she wanted it.
She added, “If the Fairweather name is the draw, and not the address, then the name will be a draw elsewhere, don’t you think?”
“I absolutely think so. The name, and the fine work you do.”
“Then that’s my family’s true legacy. Not a building.”
Save the shop, her father had told her. Run it as I’ve taught you, and all will be well.
“I thought,” she told Simon after sharing her father’s final words with him, “that he meant I had to run it just as he had. But what he taught me was to use my skills and my judgment. And so I have.”
Simon looked interested. “Is that what he meant?”
“I think it is not what he meant,” Rowena said dryly. “I think he wanted things to continue as they always had. But it’s up to me to decide now, isn’t it?”
“It is, and look what you’ve done. It’s wonderful.”
“Well.” At the warmth of his words, she suddenly felt shy. “I hope it will be.”
Was Simon blushing too? Was he scuffing his boot against the pavement? The moment had shifted, tipped. It wasn’t all business. With the word wonderful, it had become something more.
“If you’re amenable…” Simon coughed. “I know you don’t want an assistant. But if you’d like a carpenter, I’m a fair one.”
“One of the million jobs you’ve had in the past?”
“Exactly. I’m not saying I can build a house for you, but I can miter and nail and plane. If it would help you set up your workshop sooner, I could stay.”
“I don’t need a house,” Rowena said. “And I’d love for you to stay. As long as you’re willing.” There. She’d extended a hand. Would he reach out? Would he take it?
He cleared his throat. “About that. Staying. Right. It depends on you. I wondered if you might have me.”
His bashfulness was adorable. She had to prolong it, even as delight bubbled within her. “For what?” she teased. “For dinner? For a fortnight? For a sales campaign?”
He poked her in the ribs. “Minx. For a husband, I mean. For life. My home is in London, Rowena, and more specifically, it’s with you. You helped me sort out my poor muddled heart, and as it turns out…it’s yours.”
She had to press a bit more, had to know. “How can I be sure? More important, how can you be sure?”
He waved a hand, as if this were the simplest question imaginable. “Because the only things I tired of were, well, things. The man to whom I was apprenticed helped me realize that I’m not one who attaches to things. I attach to people. I’ve never wavered in my sense of loyalty to my old friend Howard, and that was out of guilt. Motivated instead by love, imagine how tightly I feel tied to you. How tightly I want to be tied to you. If you’ll allow it.” He took a deep breath. “If you’ll marry me.”
“Oh,” she said faintly. She looked up at the painter, frankly eavesdropping from his perch on a ladder.
“Your evergreen line.” When she didn’t say more, Simon pressed her for an answer. “Is that all you have to say? ‘Oh’?”
She bit her lip. “I was thinking…we shall have to repaint the sign. Or can I call the shop Fairweather’s anymore if my last name is Thorn?”
He whooped, taking her in his arms and swinging her in a circle. When he set her back down again, she still didn’t feel the pavement beneath her feet. She couldn’t feel her hands, her face. All she could feel was a swooping joy that, at last, at last, they’d found their way to each other, and there they’d stay.
“Now, why should your name change?” Simon answered, still holding her in an embrace. “My last name isn’t serving me any particular purpose, and yours is. If you’ll have my hand, I’ll have your name. We’ll both be Fairweathers. How about that?”
She’d heard of the elite adopting new names for the sake of an inheritance, but never of a husband taking his wife’s name for a shop. But…why not?
“I’ll have it,” she decided. “And all of you. Simon, I’m so glad you came back. I love you dearly.”
“As I love you.” He pulled back, smiling at her gently. “Were you ever going to tell me?”
&n
bsp; “Why, I just did. But I wasn’t going to chase you. I didn’t want to force you to my side.”
“Wise, independent, wily woman. I don’t deserve you. Will you tell me all the time that you love me?”
She grinned at him. “I can do that.” And rising to her toes, she caught his lips with a kiss.
* * *
One Year Later
“Prinny—no, I ought to call him George IV now—entertains far more than the former king.” Rowena shuffled through invoices, noting the stamps. Paid. Paid. Thank the Lord, Paid. “And he’s paying his royal luthier a bit. Isn’t that lovely?”
Yes, she was carrying on a conversation by herself again, but now she had two good listeners. Cuddled on a cushion beside Rowena’s desk, Cotton dozed, sated after gorging on crawling insects for several hours. At Rowena’s other side, in a rocking cradle, month-old baby Howard blinked up at her blearily. His eyes, as light as Rowena’s when he was born, were now turning the lovely rosewood color of his father’s.
“You’re fighting sleep again, little fellow,” she chided her son. “I suppose I can’t blame you. The world is a fascinating place.”
The dear baby. She hadn’t ever thought of herself as particularly maternal, but when she’s realized she was with child, both she and Simon had fallen in love with the little one they nicknamed Sprout. Howard was born with a wild fuzz of black hair, a curious gaze, and ten perfect fingers. Not that it signified what his hands looked like, really. He could become a luthier no matter what. Or, if he chose, he could become something entirely different.
“Maybe you’d like to tune pianofortes like your father,” she suggested, winning herself a worried furrow of baby brows. “No, I’m serious. He loves it. He’ll be back any moment and can tell us all about how it went.” She regarded the clock on the study mantelpiece with some doubt. “Well, maybe he won’t be back at any moment. I’d have been done two hours ago, but he’s not as quick.”
“Kkhhhhgg,” contributed Howard.
“Not as quick yet, that’s true. He’ll soon catch on. Ah! There’s the door now.” Through the open study door, Rowena heard their manservant, Jafferty, greeting Simon downstairs.
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