Grayson could only stare at her. “But that is not possible. She is a ghost.”
Delyth leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “Ah, but she wasn’t at Camelot, was she? I fancy Mathilde and Olafar will travel back and forth many times in the coming years, visit many places, perhaps even go back to Rome in the time of the great Caesar. Will she have children in another time? Will she grow older? I’ll ask my mother. Perhaps she can see their future.”
She lightly touched her fingers to his arm. “You are a fine man, Mr. Sherbrooke, and very kind. I thank you. My mother also said to tell you Barnaby’s father is George Nathan Cox, eighth Baron Worsley. His main country residence is in Hartlepool, not far south of where you live. Barnaby is not illegitimate. He was stolen by a jealous woman and left on the church steps in your village. Barnaby’s mother died shortly after his disappearance—from grief, my mother said. Baron Worsley searched and searched for his son. You will bring him great joy when you return Barnaby to him, Grayson. Oh yes, there will be no doubts. Barnaby is the picture of Baron Worsley. Both have bright-red hair and eyes as blue as a summer sky.” She paused a moment, leaned forward, and kissed him. She stepped back and pulled the silver reins and bridle from her gown pocket and held them high. In the next instant, Grayson stared at a beautiful palomino mare. She butted her head against his shoulder, then kicked up her hind legs and galloped out of the eastern garden.
EPILOGUE
“Papa?”
Grayson smiled at his son, now looking up from his eggs, a slice of toast in his small hand.
“Yes, Pip?”
“Last night Mathilde came to kiss me goodbye. She told me she and Mr. Ramsey were going to China. I asked her where China was, but she didn’t know. She doesn’t really talk, but you know what she’s saying anyway. I asked her how she could do that, and she laughed. I felt her kiss me, Papa, and I heard her still laughing, and she hummed. Then she was just gone.”
“China,” Grayson repeated, and smiled. The Virgin Bride would remain, yet she wouldn’t, not really, not in her world, but in long-past worlds. “It’s a marvelous place, Pip, very far away and very different from England. She will like it there.”
As Grayson watched his son finish his breakfast, he thought about Olafar. He knew Olafar would speak to Uncle Douglas this morning and tell him a family matter was forcing him to leave his employ. Grayson knew, of course, Olafar had no choice. He had plans, grand plans, and he had to be free to carry them out.
Grayson smiled as he thought of Barnaby. When they returned home, he would ride to Hartlepool to meet Baron Worsley and tell him about his son. When Delyth had said his name, of course Grayson remembered where he’d known the baron. He’d been at Oxford, perhaps five years before Grayson. He’d been plain George Cox then, the bane of the dons, always in trouble, and Grayson had heard some of the fantastic stories of his exploits. What would P.C. have to say about Barnaby’s newfound father—a baron—and his future title? She’d preen, he knew it. And what would Baron Worsley think of P.C.? Grayson had no doubt the baron would be enchanted.
Grayson’s writer’s mind gave him the first sentence to his next book: “The witch saw her small son’s future in her scrying mirror and smiled. It was an incredible future.”