Epilogue

EPILOGUE

Mercy Keep, one year and one day later.

E than Wormsley tapped his fork on the side of the fluted champagne glass to draw everyone's attention. They had recently come from the formal dining room, where the table had been set with the finest china gleaming under a thousand crystal prisms from the overhead chandeliers. Huge bouquets of flowers had served as centre pieces that had failed to drown out the fragrance of Mrs. Amborski's excellent dinner of lobster and roasted prime rib of beef. After dessert they had retired to the drawing room to bring in the stroke of midnight.

The men were in formal attire… penguin suits, Ben had grumbled at his fitting. The women sparkled and shimmered. Mrs. Winklebottom had protested mightily, claiming it wasn't proper for a housekeeper to dine with the gentry, but Ellen had purchased their gowns and insisted that both she and Miriam, along with the now blue-haired Payton who had flown over for the occasion, all be seated at the table and share the celebration. Ben Chase and the Re verend Mr. Podd were also in attendance, both enjoying enough ‘white tea' to ease the tightness of their collars. Veronica Ogilvy had outdone herself, appearing in a vintage Dior that was cut so low and pushed her bosoms so high, she'd had trouble seeing her plate.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it is with a good deal of pleasure I declare that as we listen to the clock striking out the last chimes of midnight," he tipped his head as the ringing echoed out in the hallway, "our own Enndolynn Eleanor Bowe Ward officially assumes title and ownership of Mercy Keep and all related lands, possessions, sundries and entitlements associated with the late Henry Ward's estate. I undoubtedly left something out, but I have had three glasses of Napoleon Buonaparte's fine wine and am about to enjoy a very fine 1841 Veuve Cliquot , so I do not give a thrupp'nce. A toast to the lovely Lady Ellen of Mercy Keep."

Champagne glasses were raised and Ellen caught Ben's eye briefly and smiled. She sipped the champagne and accepted congratulations while closing a hand around the burnished and repaired gold locket she wore around her neck. There was to be another party tomorrow in the garden. Invitations to an open house had been delivered to all of the surrounding villages and towns and she had no idea how many would descend on the estate, but Mrs. Amborski had assembled an army of caterers and servers. Both kitchens were brimming with goodies and they were as prepared as they could be. There would be tours of the manor house as well as the Keep, and for the latter, Ben had called upon some of his former students and colleagues to help conduct the groups.

Luck of lucks, the English weather was going to cooperate with a full day of sunshine.

"There isn't a thing more you can do," Ben murmured in her ear. "And it's going to be a damned full, hectic day tomorrow. You should bequeath the potential hangovers to the rest of this lot."

She smiled. "You're right. I'm so tired I could sleep right here. The largest house party I ever hosted was maybe fifteen people."

"I suspect there might be a few more than that here tomorrow."

She punched him lightly on the arm and set her barely touched champagne on a side table.

After saying her goodnights and insisting that everyone just carry-on, she gave Ethan a final hug and made it out the door and out of sight before stopping and slipping off her shoes. The marble flooring felt wonderfully cool on her bare feet as she crossed the foyer and went up the stairs.

She paused at the top and turned to look back down at the vaulted entryway. Ben was standing at the bottom of the staircase, smiling up at her; her own Rhett Butler, who mouthed a silent promise of five minutes before heading back into the noise and chatter coming from the drawing room.

The bedroom was blissfully silent and dark. She opened one of the windows and gazed out over the starlit landscape, finding it hard to believe that a year ago she would have been sticking her head out a two-by-two fly-spotted window to catch a breath of exhaust-laden Queens's air.

She unzipped her gown as she walked into the bathroom. Her hair had been dressed into a chignon with a zillion artistically loose tendrils floating around her face and neck. Tugging on two long jeweled hair pins loosened it enough to enable her fingers to rake the lot of it free. She stepped out of the exquisite Ralph Lauren gown and draped it carefully over a chair, then leaned over the sink to scrub her face.

An unexpected movement in the mirror drew her eye and she straightened, feeling a sudden chill ripple down her spine.

The image in the mirror had changed. The glass was shimmering like the surface of a lake and when it cleared, it was her again. The other girl.

Ellen stood perfectly still, her breath becoming shallow, her heart starting to pound in her chest. Since reading the final pages of the rose folio, she had not seen the other girl in any mirrors or windows or standing at the edge of the forest. There had been no visions of knights on a training field, no odd sensations of having been there, seen something there before. She had gone up to the Keep a dozen times or more with Ben, but other than acquiring an acute dread of meeting plate-sized spiders, nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.

But there she was. Staring out at Ellen with a similar expression, startled to see an almost naked woman staring back at her.

The woman in the mirror was not naked; she wore some sheer, gauzy thing, like a nightdress, that was so loose-fitting it had slipped off one shoulder, revealing a scar that ran from the top of her arm to just above her breast. It was a ragged, puckered scar no self-respecting modern surgeon would have left.

She seemed different in other ways. Older. There were fine lines at the corners of her eyes and creases at the sides of her mouth. Ellen had let her hair grow over the past year, so they both had dishevelled, silver-blonde curls tumbling around their shoulders .

Ellen moistened her lips, afraid to make any sudden moves that might make the image vanish, but she had to know.

"Are you Enndolynn Ware?"

She whispered the question without much hope of a reaction, but to her surprise, the woman in the mirror tilted her head a little. She stared at Ellen's lips until the question was asked again, louder, and this time the woman seemed to understand what she was being asked.

She looked back up into Ellen's eyes and gave the smallest of nods.

The mirror started to shimmer, just a tiny ripple but it steadied again and as Ellen watched, Enndolynn Ware placed her right hand over her heart then raised it haltingly and pressed it flat against the glass.

Ellen stared at the hand. The fingers looked strong and yellowed with callouses… fingers that might belong to a lady archer.

She raised her own hand and stretched it slowly out toward the mirror, hesitating an inch from the glass as another chill swept through her body. The woman smiled with gentle encouragement as a mother might to a child, and Ellen felt a rush of tears gather behind eyes. She touched her hand to the surface of the mirror, expecting the glass to be cold, but… it was warm. As warm as if the contact was with a real human hand and there was no glass between them.

The woman's lips moved. Her pale blue eyes were bright with excitement as the shadows shifted behind her and a moment later another image appeared over her shoulder. It was a man. A tall man, bare-chested, with jet black hair and deep green eyes, his shoulders armored with the muscles of a knight .

He seemed stunned at first and Ellen thought if he'd had a sword in his hand he might have bashed the mirror to bits. But the woman's lips moved again and his expression changed. His hand slid protectively around the woman's waist, and in doing so, drew Ellen's attention to the bulge pushing against the sheer nightdress.

She was pregnant! Enndolynn Ware was with Rennwick de Beauvoir and she was happily pregnant.

Ellen slid her free hand down to her own rounded belly. Enndolynn's eyes followed the movement, catching the glint of the gold wedding band on Ellen's finger.

The image shimmered again and they both gasped a soft "No!" but they had seen what fate had meant them to see.

Ellen kept her hand pressed to the glass until the surface had gone cold and hard, and the couple had faded away, leaving her staring into her own pale blue eyes.

She heard the door to the bedroom open and close, and she lowered her hand from the mirror to dash away the wetness on her cheeks. Ben appeared in the doorway, his bowtie hanging loose around an unbuttoned collar.

"I would not be surprised if they were still there in the morning. When I left, Ethan was planning an assault on the wine cellar to fetch up some of Henr… er… your fine reserves. Veronica's hair finally toppled over, and when she lifted a hand to straighten it, her breast popped out, which caused the Reverend Podd to topple over."

"I'm sorry I missed it."

"No. You're not, believe me. I much prefer to ogle your breasts any day of the week. Especially now when they're all plump and pink."

She smiled and he smiled back. His dark eyes drank in her nakedness then glimmered faintly with speculation as she walked slowly toward him .

"Are you having a second wind, Mrs. Chase?" he murmured.

Ellen slid her arms around his neck and, standing nearly on tiptoe, pressed her lush, bare breasts against him. "I plan to have a third and a fourth as well, Mr. Chase," she said against his lips. "Unless you would rather sleep."

"Not one chance in hell," he said and flicked off the light.