Epilogue

The Cove, Present Day

Lissy had waved off her friends, packed up the rest of her belongings and was leaning on the balcony, staring out to sea, enjoying the resulting peace and quiet of her final evening in the Dower House.

‘Elisabetta.’ Stef walked up to her and stood beside her, mirroring her stance and looking across the water. ‘It is a beautiful evening. I shall be sorry to go, but it has been an incredible summer, has it not?’

‘It has, my love.’ Lissy removed her hand from the railing and rested it on Stef’s. He twisted his around, so their fingers were entwined and Lissy determined to remember that feeling of safety and security and rightness forever.

‘Look, bella, look!’ Stef suddenly leaned forward and pointed to something near the beach hut. ‘People. Strangers. In your cove! On your beach!’ He sounded amused, but Lissy didn’t take offence.

‘I see them,’ she said with a smile. ‘And do you know what, I’m feeling magnanimous, so I’m not even going to chase them away. They’re welcome to the place. It’s served us well, hasn’t it?’

‘It has,’ agreed Stef. ‘Yet I wonder who they are? Well – it is not my problem, as they say. My problem is this.’ He turned to face Lissy and lifted her hand to his lips. He brushed her skin with a kiss and Lissy shivered, despite the warmth of the late evening. ‘My problem is how to convince my Elisabetta that bambinos are not too bad after all – having spent a few weeks in the company of Grace, I am wondering whether my Elisabetta would ever be tempted to have a Grace of her own.’

Lissy laughed and shook her head. ‘One day. One day, when we decide we’ve had enough of our campervan and I start to miss the cuddles and the stickiness too much, then we’ll have one. I wouldn’t want to have a bambino with anyone but you, Stefano Ricci. And I never thought I’d hear myself say that.’

‘That is a very good answer,’ replied Stef with a grin. ‘Imagine how beautiful our children would be if they took after you!’

Lissy laughed and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him properly. ‘Very beautiful,’ she agreed. ‘But only if they take after you.’ She took one last look out at the cove and the couple who were, even now, standing hand in hand on the beach, gilded by the silver light of the moon.

A light breeze that Lissy couldn’t feel lifted the woman’s long, dark, wavy hair as she pointed out to sea. The man beside her, his hair equally dark, leaned towards her to speak; then he stood up, let go of her hand and raised something up towards the horizon. A camera, Lissy saw.

She narrowed her eyes and studied them a little more closely – the woman’s pale dress was long, floating around her ankles, a ribbon blowing around in the wind. Her sleeves were trimmed with more fluttering ribbons and her feet were bare on the sand. The man’s feet were bare too – his shirt was white, gleaming against the backdrop of the ocean, and his hair was too long, whipped up gently by the same breeze that lifted the woman’s curls. There were no footprints in the wet sand, where they stood, looking out to the horizon.

Lissy had a good idea who they were, and she felt nothing but peace and joy for them.

‘Goodbye Lorelei and Julian,’ she whispered, ‘and thank you.’

And good luck to them, wherever they chose to go.

It had been a beautiful evening and Lissy didn’t have long left in Staithes. So she was going to enjoy every moment she had there.

‘Isn’t it funny?’ she mused as she turned from the sea and began to lead Stef inside, ‘from here, the horizon doesn’t seem far, does it? Except I know, in reality, that it’s miles away.’

‘But we can still reach it,’ he answered, ‘It’s still ours.’

Lissy smiled. He was right. It had always been theirs; she had only needed to believe that they could reach it together.

And a little distance away, in the window of Sea Scarr Hall, a glint of moonlight caught the corner of the glass and glimmered for a brief second. The gleam was mirrored, just for a moment, in the upstairs window of the Dower House.

* The End *

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