I inhaled and couldn’t find the scent of my clove cigarettes anymore. This was very good. I was determined to make it off them this time. I hadn’t had a smoke since Switzerland, and no longer craved the scent of the spice. I liked to think my therapy was helping me to disassociate the smokes with being alive. I had real reasons now.

“There it is, little one. Your favourite.” Laurel kicked her legs out and cooed at the portrait of Brynne in my office. “You know that’s Mummy, don’t you?”

She gurgled happily and gummed two of her fingers.

“Did I ever tell you about the first time I saw her at the art gallery?”

Two little kicks hit my abdomen in quick succession.

“She walked into the room and headed straight over to this very portrait hanging on the wall, and stared up at it. Mummy didn’t know it at the time, but I’d already bought the portrait for myself.” I laughed softly. “Crafty Daddy, I know, but I simply couldn’t help it. It was the way she looked at me from across the room that caught my attention. And she was so beautiful. So beautiful…”

3rd May

Somerset

“NOW that it’s my turn behind the camera, I think I can see your attraction to photography, baby,” Ethan told me, as he used my camera to snap multitudes of photographs I couldn’t wait to see. My naked back faced the lens, but Laurel faced Ethan over my shoulder. I didn’t know how much longer I could hold out posing for him, though. There was only so much I could do with a squirming three-month-old in my arms.

Ethan laughed softly through the shutter clicks. “I see you, Princess,” he said to Laurel.

“What is she doing, besides trying to leap out of my arms?” I asked.

“Oh my God, she’s smiling so much. It’s like she’s posing for the camera.”

“Well, I’m sure she knows exactly what you’re doing with that camera. She’s seen it pointed at her constantly since she was born.”

“I know, but she just looks so happy right now,” he said.

He snapped some more pictures of us. The photos were his idea. He asked me if he could do them and I agreed, of course. There weren’t many things I could deny him, and this was something he’d asked for specifically, just for him. He’d asked me shortly after I told him I was finished with modeling. I know my announcement pleased him. Ethan had accepted the nude modeling before, because he’d had no input in my choice for doing it. Now, he’d been given the opportunity to respect my decision to give it up. He was still the same, deliciously possessive, handsome, dominant, and sometimes irrational man I’d met exactly one year ago, and the idea that no more male photographers would see me naked, was a clear-cut positive for him.

Why did I give up my modeling?

Quite simply, I had no need for it anymore. The things that defined me were so much more than physical, and I’d changed and grown throughout the past year while discovering that knowledge about myself. And I’d learned to love.

But most importantly, I’d allowed myself to be loved.

I don’t think any of the good that happened to me in the past year would have occurred if not for Ethan. I believed that with all of my heart. Nobody could have done for me what he did. Only Ethan’s love could have found its way into my desolate heart. Only Ethan’s love gave me the security I needed to trust again, and to love myself again.

Only him.

“Of course she’s happy. She’s looking at her precious Daddy.”

EPILOGUE

28th May, 1838

I have written of the weight of my guilt many times upon these pages. Moments when I was consumed so greatly, I could not see a future of any kind ever becoming a possibility. A heavy burden, carried for years until one person helped me to cast it away. I know there will be times I feel guilt still cloaking me, but for the first time, I have some clarity of forethought to understand how my burdens did nothing to help any of those who have been lost to me.

Darius saved me from myself. Of this, I am very aware. Without his love, I am certain I would not breathe to this day, nor would my heart beat within my breast.

There is great beauty in the simplicity of giving oneself to another in trust, and allowing them to hold you up. My Darius taught me this lesson. From the beginning, he could really see me. I believe he is the only person to ever see inside my soul. A rare gift, which has served to give back to me—my life.

He gave me our precious Jonathan, and also the gift of serenity in letting my J. go. I now know J. is at a peaceful place, where what transpires in this earthly realm, is but a speck floating along in the oceans of time. In the hours of the darkest kind, Darius has ever been my light. My lover who saw inside my battered soul and freed me.

M R

I set down the journal and looked over at the mermaid angel statue facing out to sea. Brynne loved it from the first time she saw it. The unusualness of the design was compelling, but now that we knew the story behind its creation, it was much more than an appealing piece of carved stone decorating the garden wall.

I’d read this particular passage many times. I probably had it close to memorized by now. The private thoughts written by a woman who lived in this house nearly two hundred years ago. Found by Brynne in a secret drawer of an old desk. When she showed me the journals, I read them, of course. They were a novelty, a glimpse back in time of daily life in the same house we now lived. This one particular entry stuck with me though. It was relevant.

I’d figured out from the very first time I read it, the name Darius could be exchanged for Brynne, and it became my truth.

In the hours of the darkest kind, Brynne has ever been my light. My lover who saw inside my battered soul and freed me.

THE END