Epilogue

EPILOGUE

One Year Later

“Violet! The carriage is here!” John called up the stairs of the small, colourful rooms he and Violet were renting at Place du Tertre, right back in the heart of Montmartre. It was only their second visit to the city after John had proposed. The first visit had been brief, to allow Violet to collect what remained of her belongings after Archie’s destruction of her flat, and to bid farewell to her friends and fellow artists. A year had passed since then, spent in tireless hours to establish Edward Brill’s new foundation, dedicated to reform and the eradication of poverty in the slums of London, with John acting as the chairperson. Violet’s paintings of the people and places of the East End had stirred much controversy for their grim reality, but they had shone a necessary light and were becoming much sought-after. Finally, after putting off the wedding to dedicate themselves to their new charitable endeavours, Edward had approached Della and they had set about planning the nuptials themselves.

John and Violet had married on a sunny September morning, almost a year to the day after she had found him in a cellar in Seven Dials, and then were forced, with many smiles and well-wishes, upon a train to take a much-deserved honeymoon. Thus, they found themselves back in Paris, and Violet was finally able to give John the grand tour they had discussed so long ago; one that had seemed impossible at the time.

Violet didn’t answer John right away, finding that her heart was drumming too loudly, and her throat was too tight. Her fingers shook as she smoothed down the front of her bodice, but she was grinning like a fool as his footsteps sounded on the stairs, and he opened the door to their room, one filled with sun, made warmer by the soft peach plaster walls. She was still in the water closet, with the door closed over, and his soft knock sounded a moment later.

“Violet?” he ventured. “Della’s train arrives in an hour… we must leave now if we are to be there on time.”

She let out a shaking breath and managed to compose herself before opening the door to find her husband dressed and ready to leave to fetch Della and Clara from the train station for their first grand tour.

“Do you know that she’s expectin’ again?” Violet said suddenly, and John shook his head.

“I wasn’t aware. We shall have to take her to dinner to celebrate.”

Violet stepped past him into the bedchamber to gather up the dolman she had draped over the back of a chair and check her reflection one last time in the mirror hanging above the small vanity, tucking in a stray curl as she did so. She caught his gaze in the reflection but did not turn to speak.

“She was always a little sad that since she never had any family to speak of, her children would have no cousins or aunts or uncles to grow up with.”

John nodded vaguely as he straightened his cufflink. “Lord Bradford has brothers and a sister… they have plenty of family to make up for that.”

Violet gave a solemn shrug of her shoulders, still watching him from the mirror.

“But they all live so far… Adelaide’s all the way in New York. She’s got nobody in London, except for me. We’re sisters, though… or as close as to sisters as you can get. So, I told her… don’t be sad, Della. Our baby will be as much a cousin to your children as any of Cole’s family.”

John was nodding absently as he withdrew his watch to check the time before he paused, and her heart skipped a beat. His gaze met hers.

“Our baby?”

She nodded, barely able to suppress her smile. He gaped as she slowly turned around, expectant, then let out a sharp breath as he took three quick steps to reach her before tugging her into his arms and squeezing her so hard she thought she might burst. When she gasped his name, her tone tinged with laughter, he pulled back, reaching up to brush his thumbs over her cheeks, now wet with tears, and pressing kisses to her face.

“Our baby, Violet… how long have you known?”

She was laughing and crying and kissing him, having held in the secret for weeks now until she could be sure.

“I’ve already missed my second course… I wanted to be sure. John, I never thought I could have this, I never thought…” She trailed off, overwhelmed now as she considered when she had first come to Paris, when her art and her friends had sustained her, when she had happily forged her own path, free of the constraints of her past. And she still had her friends, and her art, and she had never dreamed that her work would be so impactful, that her name would be spoken with respect, that people would fight to own her paintings. But now… she had so much more. More than she had ever thought she could have, on those dark, lonely nights in the orphanage. John grinned and kissed her again as he wiped away the tears.

“And I surely never thought that I could be so lucky as to have someone like you… I love you so very much, Violet.” He kissed her again, a fierce, breathless kiss before finally releasing her and smiling. “We’d best go deliver our good news, then.”

He took her hand to guide her down the narrow stairs to the carriage waiting outside. The tables in the square were full of Parisians taking advantage of the sunny day as the romantic strains of a busker playing his accordion on the far side of the busy space filled the air. There were already several artists at work behind their easels capturing the scene, and Violet nodded towards one of them as John handed her into the carriage.

“I’m comin’ out here tomorrow to paint the square. I want to remember this place when we go back to London.”

John grinned as he stepped in beside her. “I can think of a few things I’d like to remember,” he said with a wicked glint in his eyes as the door closed behind them and he took her into his arms. And Violet needed no painting to remember what came after.

*

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