Epilogue

It had been a frantic, hard-working, supremely happy three months. Now Christmas would soon be on them.

'Good time for making an announcement,' said Marc. 'Shall we go and look at rings again?'

They had spent two or three very enjoyable mornings wandering through jewellers' shops. They'd compared the relative merits of antique rings, modern rings, gold, platinum, solitaire, cluster—and so far had come to no decision.

'Well, it always makes me feel pleased with life. But are we in a hurry?' she said.

'Your mother is. She keeps on telling me that if anyone should want to hire a big hall for any reason— not that she can think of any reason—they ought to remember it gets booked up quite quickly.'

'My mother is always the diplomat. She likes to put things nicely but get her meaning across. She'd like an engagement party.'

'So would I,' he said. 'And my mother feels the same. She thinks a lot of you. She wants to see you again, soon. And she wants an heir for the estate.'

'Making your mother a grandmother is not the most pressing of arguments,' Lucy said, 'but I suspect she'd be good as one.'

There was not much chance of either of them having much time off over Christmas. It was generally accepted that staff with children should be given priority, especially on Christmas Day. But they were both invited to the big Christmas supper at Lucy's parents'.

'We can take some time off in January if you like,' she said. 'You can take me to visit your mother. Get her used to the idea of us as a couple.'

'She likes the idea. She's been planning, working out our future.'

Lucy blinked. 'She has?'

'We're a five-hundred-year-old family. She likes you a lot. But more than that, she thinks you'll be a fine mother, producing fine heirs for the Montreval dynasty. She thinks you have the qualities we need.'

'Makes me feel like a brood mare,' said Lucy. But she was secretly pleased.

They had talked for hours about his feeling that he ought to go back to Montreval. Lucy had said that she was willing to go; they should share everything, the bad things as much as the good. He said he only wanted her to be happy and he didn't think that she'd be happy in a French village with hardly any young people. And so far they had come to no conclusion.

'We will cope,' she said gently. 'Just remember, all that really matters is that we have each other.'

He kissed her. 'That is all that matters.'

That conversation had been on a Monday night. On Wednesday she was working lates. Marc said he'd pick her up at the end of the shift. Perhaps for a while they could go to one of the many pre-Christmas parties at the Red Lion.

But when he arrived she could tell that he was excited about something. He kissed her, not caring who saw them. He wrapped his arms around her, hugged her and said, 'Never mind the Red Lion. Tonight is just for us. I've got something exciting to show you.'

'A ring?' she asked, half-hopefully. But she had wanted to help choose it herself.

'Not a ring. Something better than a ring. We're going back to my flat.'

He wouldn't tell her more. He drove them back to his flat where there was a bottle of very good champagne waiting in a bucket of ice. He popped the cork and filled two glasses.

'Here's to us and our happy future. A future that is now a lot more certain.'

'Marc, you're doing this on purpose! I want to know what's happened! I can see that you're happy—make me happy too. Why is our future now a lot more certain?'

He fetched a large envelope, took a map from it and spread it on the table.

'Look, here's the map showing Montreval. A dead end. A tiny village, cut off for much of the winter, little work, little amusement. No one much goes there.'

He took a red pen, scored a line along the valley bottom to Montreval and then inked in a series of red dots after that.

'I've just heard from my uncle, Jules Romilly—you know, the lawyer, Simone's father. The one who keeps an eye on our affairs. He says that the government has given money to build a spur off the motorway, take it along the valley and through Montreval, dig a tunnel at the far end and connect us to the main skiing area. Work will start in spring. Montreval will be the centre of operations. There'll be many people flooding in, lots of work. Prosperity for everyone.'

 'Are you pleased? Won't this mean that the Comte de Montreval will no longer be needed?'

'I'm delighted. My mother can retire, take an interest but no longer run the place. My uncle has approached her, they're thinking of turning the castle into a hotel. And I...'

'You're not needed,' she said.

'I can choose! If I practise medicine there, I can build and open the clinic I've always wanted. Or I can have a career in obs and gynae. I love it! Or even both! Now, how can we celebrate?'

'Let's choose a ring,' she said.