I hope and pray that you have come to terms with the past enough that you can be sincerely happy for us, and I especially hope this will not create any awkwardness or difficulty between us in the future as I become more fully a part of your family. I want you to know that time has healed the wounds in my heart, and while I will always hold a place in my heart especially for you, I must now put all that you and I shared behind me completely and commit my future to your sister.

Again, Amala had to pause, this time to wipe her hands over her cheeks to be rid of the tears that had fallen there. She went on to read details of how it had been his time with her family that had more and more become his strength and his comfort. As Oliver and Viola and Kat—and even the servants of the household—had become more and more a comfortable part of his life and their home had come to be increasingly more home to him than his own had ever been, he had naturally been drawn to Kat’s company, and over time their feelings for each other had evolved. He reassured Amala that he’d carefully examined his motives for marrying Kat, not wanting to be unfair to her, to himself, or to anyone else. He declared that even though Kat was very different from Amala in so many ways, he had sincerely grown to love her and he was fully committed to devoting his life to her and to making her happy. His feelings for Amala had taken their proper place in his past, and he was ready to move forward with Kat in every respect. He declared how happy he felt at the prospect of marriage to her, and his hope that Amala would be happy for them and that with time all would be well for all of them together as a family.

“I don’t know if that’s possible,” Amala said to Paulina, temporarily turning the letter upside down on her lap. “How can I face having him share his life with Kat? How can I make peace with that?”

“These are not the words of the young woman who told me just a few days ago of how far she’d come,” Paulina said. “You will make peace with it, even if it’s not easy. You love them both; you want them to be happy. It will be all right.”