It took time. Rebuilding anything worthwhile takes time and patience. The loyal friend had all the patience in the world. The long-denied lover was far less tolerant.
Susan Landry gave them all the privacy they needed and even Reynie’s patients seemed to have decided to take the summer off. The days were filled with sunshine and picnics. The normal routine of life finally convinced Caroline that the past could be put to rest and a future considered.
They were standing on the bridge across the Codbeck, having walked from Thirsk to Sowerby village. Both were loath to end a day that had brought such welcome news and they watched as Marguerite tossed pebbles from the bank some distance ahead of them.
“She does not seem upset at all.” Caroline was studying her charge with intensity.
Reynie nodded, pleased to see that she was throwing stones with her once-injured arm, throwing them with considerable force. “Not only is she not upset, she is thrilled. You know that all she ever wanted was to stay with you.”
Caroline drew in a deep breath of relief and sympathy. Reynie patted her arm.
“One bachelor uncle fighting with the Austrians.”
Caroline nodded. “Is it selfish of me to be so pleased that he cannot manage a child and a war at the same time?”
Reynie laughed. “Since it is the answer to all our prayers I can only agree with his wisdom, and the insight he had in having his lawyer draw up the papers needed to put her into your care.”
Marguerite looked up and waved. They both waved back.
“I do believe that she is as happy and healthy as a child can be.” Reynie took Caroline’s arm and tucked it into his. “Once I would have said that it is my greatest pleasure, but now I find that my greatest pleasure is standing beside me.”
Caroline smiled even as she shook her head at the endearment. “You are a wonder. Now that I am recovered from my own selfish misery, I can see that if I am not the same person, you are not either.”
He waited, hoping this was a compliment.
“You are more kind. You were always a thoughtful man, now you are a caring one. You see those you care for as people not as science.”
“As people and science.” A compliment was always welcome, but there was more to it than that. “I am still a man of science, Caroline. I will always see them as worthy of study, but now I see them as worthy of caring as well.”
“But that makes all the difference, does it not?”
Marguerite ran past the bridge, waving a stick as though she were urging a horse on. Caroline let go of Reynie’s arm and turned to watch the child. Satisfied that she was only searching for more stones, she gave Reynie her full attention.
“How did this caring for people happen? Why?”
“When you left me,” He took her arm and they began to walk after Marguerite, who was scampering farther and farther afield. “After all that racing around trying to find you, my trips to Paris, I settled here at home and tried to go on, tried to accept that you did not want me.” He shook his head. It was a time he would rather not relive. “But I saw you everywhere. In every person I was called to help. I saw you.”
“Everywhere? Oh, I do understand, for it was the same with me.”
Reynie looked at her and was comforted by her expression filled with understanding.
“I began to listen to them as I had never truly listened to you. I soon discovered that they needed to talk as much as they needed any physic I could provide. And yes, I did approach it as an experiment, with careful study, and it worked. It proved itself.”
“Did you keep notes?” She asked this with a smile and he was delighted once again to see the joy coming back into her life.
“Yes, I did and only longed for someone to help me keep better order of them. I thought I would write a book and it would be as well regarded as Morgagni’s on the cause of disease. I was going to title it ‘A Study of the Influence of Other Factors on the Cure of Disease.’ I still have those notes somewhere.”
“So your scientific study was blended with this new insight?”
“Yes, and other reading I did confirmed it. I finally grasped that the medical man’s primary obligation is to his patient, that it is not the disease that must be eliminated but the patient that must be cured.”
“It seems like both mean the same thing.”
“It might to you, my dear, to any woman with the wisdom all women call their own, but to this man of science there is a very clear difference between the two.”
He leaned forward and touched his lips to hers. She smiled beneath the kiss and he knew it was balm for her soul as well as his.
“If you had not left, Caroline, I might never have realized that. I would have poured all the caring I was capable of into your heart and into our life together and my science would have been incomplete.”
“It was a blessing?” she asked with a note of incredulity in her voice and he could only nod.
“If it was, my dear, it was a blessing in as complete a disguise as either of us could imagine.”
~ ~ ~
Caroline walked briskly down the street, holding Marguerite’s hand and barely listening to her chatter.
“It will snow, will it not, Miss Morton?”
She was Mrs. Osgood now but did not correct the child. After three weeks of trying, Caroline had decided that Miss Morton was as much an endearment as a name and had given up.
“Yes, it will snow. You can feel it in the air.”
Would Reynie be home for dinner or should she try to put it back? He was called away from home on a constant basis, but long before their wedding she knew this would be a part of their life and a small price to pay for the happiness now theirs.
“Will it snow soon, before dinner?”
Caroline looked up at the sky. “It will snow when it will, chouchou, and no amount of asking will make it snow sooner.”
With some relief Caroline noted that Marguerite accepted that as the final word. But she was only silent for a moment. They had almost reached the front door when she asked, “Do you think Mrs. Osgood will have made some of those cream cakes?”
“We can only hope.” How lucky she was that Reynie’s mother had been so willing to relinquish the management of the household and how lucky for all of them that she still enjoyed baking.
“I have never seen snow, have I?” Marguerite looked anxiously at the sky. “It will not wait until dark will it?”
The child had seen snow. But Caroline would never once remind her of those days. It was enough that the nightmares and complaints had ended. She would do nothing to bring them on again.
“If it begins to snow after you have gone to bed, I promise to wake you up so you can see.”
“And go out?”
“No, not until the morning.”
Caroline was sure the child would have argued, but at the same moment they both noticed Reynie walking toward them. With a whoop Marguerite ran to him. Reynie braced himself and caught the flying bundle and swung her up into his arms.
From where Caroline stood, they made the perfect picture. The two she loved more than any in the world. Safe and part of her life.
She waited for them at the door, smiling a welcome that overflowed with joy. Reynie did not set Marguerite down as he leaned closer for a small kiss. It was the barest meeting of lips, but reminded her of how much closer they could be and would be as the snow fell tonight.
Reynie let his smallest love reach for the knocker and the practiced rap that would announce their presence. With a smile of deepest satisfaction, Marguerite turned to Caroline.
“It is perfect, is it not, Miss Morton? Mr. Osgood? Snow and cream cakes and all of us around the fire.”
She did not wait for an answer but raised her face to the sky to welcome the first of the snowflakes that were drifting earthward. “Indeed, Miss Morton, I do think that we shall all live happily ever after.”
The End
If you enjoyed Child of Her Heart, I would be honored if you would tell others by writing a review on the retailer’s website where you purchased this title.
Thank you!
Mary Blayney
Please read on for a peek at more books in the Braedon Family Series.