ONE YEAR LATER
Jess didn’t care for the massive number of people pressing in on her or the decided lack of exits available from the top floor of the Royal Academy, but she was ecstatic that one of her husband’s paintings was hanging on the wall for all these people to admire.
It was her, though no one would know it. She was painted from behind, her hair flowing down her back, face lifted to the sun. Yellows and golds flooded the canvas. He entitled it Girl in the Light.
It had taken Jess a while to convince Nicolas that she would not be participating in the politics of Verbonne. No matter how he tried to entice her, all she saw was more games to play, more darkness to navigate, and she refused to be that person anymore. She’d lived too many years in the shadows to step into them again, now that she’d learned what it was like to live in the light.
She wasn’t running anymore. She wasn’t hiding.
It felt wonderful.
Jess and Derek did travel a bit, but they’d settled back at Haven Manor. The cottage they were building approximately halfway between Haven Manor and Marlborough was almost finished, and Jess couldn’t wait to move into it. Even though she’d be frequently making the walk to Haven Manor to teach the women how to cook and protect themselves, she would have a space of her own to build a family and a future, to have roots.
She had a closet now, instead of living out of a trunk.
The kitchen still made her sad on occasion, but most of the time she allowed herself to remember Ismelde’s happy smile and the way she sang as she kneaded bread. Derek was painting and doing occasional work at Oxford, though he was going to start teaching at the local school in Marlborough the next year. Maria was still her lady’s maid and enjoyed sewing with the women at Haven Manor. Martha had chosen to live a simple life in order to raise her little boy and now worked for William’s new factory.
So much was going on around them, and instead of just watching, Jess and Derek were right in the middle of it. Their lives had purpose and peace, two things Jess had never realized she needed.
Derek came up to her and stood beside her, looking up at the painting. She lifted her hand to subtly twine their fingers together.
“You did that,” she said, referring to far more than the painting itself.
“No,” he said. “I just helped you see it.”