And they both knew that if either of them should ever wake up in the middle of the night, crying out in terror or anger, fighting off the grip of a memory, they would not be alone. They would always be loved. They would always be heard. Forever.
Then came the business of gathering up and inviting into their circle of happiness the mingled family and friends who would be a part of their shared lives from now on. The people at The Grand Palace on the Thames, naturally, were now among them. And they wrote letters: to her guardian, Jacques Le Clerc, to tell him, succinctly, that Brundage had been arrested and she was now married to a viscount; to her brother Edouard in Boston, who was surely confused and worried by this time; and Hawkes to his sister, Diana, to tell her he’d been married, where he was currently, and that he would love to see her soon, when he was well.
Jacques Le Clerc, returned from his wedding trip and in London on business, called upon them at The Grand Palace on the Thames.
“Aurelie . . . I’m grievously troubled by all that has transpired.” They sat across from each other in the reception room, Aurelie and Hawkes on the pink settee, Uncle Jacques opposite them, tea in the middle. “I am so terribly sorry to hear that Brundage is not who I believed him to be, and to know what a near thing it was . . .” He closed his eyes and exhaled. “How close you came to wedding him . . . If I’d known . . . perhapsI ought to have known. Ineverwould have allowed a match. I am grateful to you, Mr. Hawkes, for your persistence in pursuing justice.”
Hawkes and Le Clerc were already acquainted. They had respected each other’s work for years. Hawkes nodded, once, graciously.
“I don’t suppose any of us could have known what the earl was truly like, Uncle Jacques,” Aurelie said carefully. “I have learned that we often become so attached to our assumptions about people that we cannot fully see them clearly.”
Uncle Jacques nodded, eyebrows up. “Now that I am contemplating becoming a parent, I feel acutely the ways in which I have failed you. I was not equipped, you see, to be a father, nor did I manage well my own grief over the death of your parents. I hope one day you can forgive me for my absences. I should like it if we can be... better friends... and I should like to learn better how to be... how to be a part of a family.”
“It is kind of you to say, Uncle Jacques,” Aurelie said carefully, gently, “but there is nothing to forgive.” She meant it. Life was short and capricious, and resentment could find no foothold in her current contentment. “I am forever truly grateful for all that you did for me and my brothers, and for my mother and father. You are the reason I am able to have everything that I want and need now.”
She turned her face up to all she needed and wanted: the man sitting next to her on the settee.
“Thank you, Monsieur Le Clerc, for caring for her, and for taking on three orphan children,” Hawkes said. “I shall be forever grateful that she learned to embroider and play pianoforte.”
Aurelie pressed her lips together against a temptation to laugh.
“And we are grateful that you are a part of our family,” Aurelie added, for the delicious pleasure of using the word “our.” For she was an “our” now, and so was Hawkes.
She sensed Uncle Jacques was going to struggle to forgive himself, and to second-guess himself, because he was fundamentally a decent man. With luck, the family he raised with his new wife—they would be her cousins—would benefit from his new sensitivity.
They all sat in a slightly awkward, congenial sort of silence, and then Uncle Jacques gave himself a little shake and reached into his coat and came out with what appeared to be a small bundle of letters.
“These are from relatives in Paris whom you have not yet met,” he said. “And they would like to one day meet you and your husband, if you are amenable.”
Aurelie stared at the letters.
She glanced shyly sideways, at Hawkes.
And then she reached out and accepted the stack with a thrill of pleasure mingled with wariness. As though they might be a cache of stolen pound notes.
She drew in a long breath.
And suddenly it was almost too much.
“Aurelie and I shall read them together, thank you Monsieur Le Clerc,” Hawkes said politely. He sensed she was a little overwhelmed with happiness, and speculation, and trepidation, and newness. Wondering how or if all of these people would fit into their lives. “And we will respond soon. Thank you, Monsieur Le Clerc.”
“You are welcome, Lord Redvers. Do call me Jacques.”
There was a pause as both Aurelie and Hawkes remembered thathewas Lord Redvers.
“Hawkes will do among family.” And Hawkes smiled at him.
Through diplomatic channels, Hawkes was able to contact the rightful owners of the emerald and diamond necklace, who then traveled to London to discreetly retrieve it from him. Its newly acquired, somewhat dark, glamor—it now was associated with an English traitor and an English hero, after all, as well as French aristocrats who had managed to keep their heads—ensured it promptly fetched a higher price than it would have if Brundage had ever actually purchased it.
“I’ve learned that one must often take a circuitous route to happy endings,” Hawkes told them dryly. “And serendipity lurks in the damnedest places.”
One chilly evening after a satisfying meal at The Grand Palace on the Thames, nearly two months after they’d been wed, Hawkes and Aurelie were telling everyone in the crowded, cozy sitting room about the house on Wimpole Street that they were contemplating purchasing, and the big party they planned to have if they did buy it, when there was a rap at the door.
Dot sprang up to see to it.
Through the peep hatch, Dot held a conversation. A bass voice rumbled faintly in response.
Outside, the wind was brisk enough to rattle window frames and rain was slanting down. Everyone in the sitting room waited with sympathy and speculation and a certain trepidation, wondering what circumstance would bring someone out to them, after dinner, and in such weather.