Tommie was riding atop the box with John Coachman, and Copenhagen lay forgotten on the opposite bench.
“Our son is growing up,” Tremont said, and even those simple words filled him with a quiet wonder. “Poor Cope can’t hold a candle to the prospect of taking the actual ribbons.”
“Tommie won’t last two miles out in the elements,” Matilda said. “The cold will drive him to rejoin us, despite the lack of excitement to be had in our company.”
“I like that,” Tremont said, wrapping an arm around his wife. “I like the lack of excitement. The placid joy of seeing you and Tommie at breakfast, the pleasure of hearing you at the pianoforte, the way Tommie squirms sitting between us in church, as small children have squirmed at divine services from time immemorial. I love all the mundane sweetness and even the tedium of travel.”
“Going to bed with you is anything but mundane, Marcus.”
He liked even more when his countess, wife, lover, and best friend addressed him by name in that particular tone.
“But that’s the thing,” he said, taking her hand. “The mundane is marvelous with you. We’ve been married less than a month, and our first Christmas was special. Our first Boxing Day. Our first New Year.”
Matilda nudged the curtain aside. “Our first journey to Shropshire. I hope your mother approves of me.”
“She will adore you, and she will be smitten with Tommie, and the staff will spoil him rotten, and we will have our hands full.”
“I adore you,” Matilda said, letting the curtain drop and snuggling closer. “I’ve missed the countryside, the fresh air, the trees, and cows and sheep. I’d lost sight of how busy and noisy London is, and I’m glad to be away from it.”
“We’ll go back in the spring to see how the men are faring at Elysium House. MacKay will keep them in line until then. I do believe we’re slowing down.”
“Either Tommie has tired of having his nose frozen, or you have highwaymen in Shropshire.”
Tommie rejoined them, his teeth chattering as he regaled them with the unparalleled thrill of taking the ribbons all by himself. Tremont listened, though he also spared a thought for his late father, who’d missed so much of his son’s upbringing.
Papa, I’m happy. I’m bringing my bride and our son home with me, and I am so happy. This is what you had with Mama, and now I have it too. I wish I could tell you how happy I am.
When Tommie had gushed at length about his career as an under-coachman and done justice for the third time to the comestibles in the hamper, he raised the same curtain Matilda had.
“You have good clouds here in Shropshire, my lord. Better than the clouds in London. We have smoke in London, but these are truly white clouds.”
“They are your clouds now too, young man.”
“That one looks like a longship,” Tommie said, squinting at the sky. “Look, Mama. It’s a longship cloud.”
Matilda dutifully looked, and Tremont did as well, the sight making him even happier than usual, and also—comforted?
“By Jove, boy, that is a longship to the life, complete with square sail and dragon prow. By night, it sails the stars, and by day…”
“The longship is sailing home with us,” Matilda said, smiling at her husband as if she could divine his wistful thoughts and slipping her hand back into his.
They had removed their gloves to aid Tommie’s plundering of the hamper, and Tremont was glad to have the contact. The longship was still sailing off the coach’s starboard prow when Tommie again took to pointing and waving.
“That is a castle! Look, Mama! A real, true castle! They have a castle in Shropshire and Viking clouds and sheep and everything!”
Tremont shared some of Tommie’s excitement and all of his joy. He’d come back to Shropshire from time to time in recent years, but this trip was different.
This was a homecoming, not a flying pass to keep an eye on rural duties.
“That is a castle,” Tremont said, “and also a family seat, and a stately manor, and a historical building, but mostly, Tommie, that is our home. My mama is there on the steps, you see? She can’t wait to meet you, and you must point out the Viking cloud to her too. My sister, Lydia, and her husband, Sir Dylan, are coming for a visit next week, and they are looking forward to meeting you too.”
Tommie sent Matilda a questioning look. “You didn’t say we would live in a castle, Mama.”
“We shall live in our castle,” Matilda said, handing Tommie his stuffed horse, “happily ever after. Now put on your gloves and prepare to make a proper bow to her ladyship. You can tell her all about driving the coach and introduce her to Cope and ask her impertinent questions about when Tremont was a boy.”
Tommie bounded out of the coach the instant the steps were let down and pelted up the staircase to the front terrace, waving his horse and yelling about longships in the sky.
Tremont handed Matilda down with slightly more decorum. “We will, you know,” he said, offering his arm.
“We will what?”
“Dwell in our castle, happily ever after.”
“We shall,” Matilda said, kissing his cheek. “With you, I’m sure of it.”
Tremont handled the introductions, and the hugs, and the kisses, and Tommie trying to slide down the terrace’s stone banister, and more hugs and kisses.
Before he escorted his wife and mama into the castle, he spared a smile and a wave for the longship soaring peacefully aloft in the beautiful Shropshire sky.