“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?