Because it reminded them who they were.
And because it was out of reach of even their most enterprising child, because Angelina still wore the key he’d left her around her neck.
They would put the children to sleep, reading them stories and hearing their prayers, and then they would walk down this very same hall the way they always did. Hand in hand. The bloodred ruby on her hand no match for the fire inside him.
The fire he would share with her up there where they had pledged themselves to each other. The fire that only grew over time.
Benedetto was not the villain he’d played. He was not the boogeyman, as so many would no doubt believe until he died no matter what he did.
But any good in him, he knew with every scrap of conviction inside him, came from his angel. His wife and lover, who he had loved since the very first moment he’d laid eyes on her. The mother of his perfect, beautiful, never remotely disappointing children. The woman who had reminded him of the child he’d been—the child who had believed in all the things he’d had to relearn.
And the best piano player he had ever had the privilege of hearing.
He could hear her playing now, the notes soaring down from the tower that was still hers. These days, there was often art taped to the walls, and the children lay on the rug before the grand piano so they could be near her. So they could feel as if they were flying, too, as their mother played and played, songs of hope, songs of love. Songs of loss and recovery.
And always, always, songs of joy.
These were the spells she cast, he thought. These were her enchantments.
The sun began to sink toward the horizon. Pinks and reds took over the sky. And still she played, and he could picture her so perfectly, bent over the keys with her eyes half closed. Her hands like magic, coaxing so much beauty out into the world.
He could hardly wait to have them on him again, where he liked them best.
Benedetto had so many things to tell her, the way he always did after time apart. Whether it was five minutes or five weeks. How much he loved her, for one thing. How humbled he still was, a decade on, that she had seen the good in him when it had been hidden from everyone. Even himself.
Especially himself.
She had a heart as big as the sea, his lovely wife. She maintained a relationship with her family, and he rather thought her quiet example made her sisters strive to be better than they might otherwise have been. Her mother, too, in those few and far between moments Margrete Charteris thawed a little. And if her father could never really be saved, it hardly mattered. Because Anthony Charteris had as a son-in-law a rich and besotted billionaire more than willing to spend his money on his father-in-law if it pleased his wife.
After all, there was always more money.
Benedetto would spend it all if it made her happy.
He heard the music stop and found himself smiling. He decided he would wait until they were alone to tell her that he had decided to share her piano playing with the world. Whether she wanted to perform or not, he could certainly share her music. He thought the world deserved to know that not only had Angelina soothed the savage beast with her playing, she was one of the best in the world. Accordingly, he’d bought her a record company.
But that would come.
First there was tonight.
He heard her feet on the stone and then she was there beside him, her eyes still the bluest he’d ever seen. Particularly when they were sparkling with music and love and light, and all of it for him.
“Happy anniversary, little one,” he murmured, kissing her. He felt that same rush of longing and lust, desire and need, tempered now with these long, sweet years. “I have loved you each and every day. I love you now. And I only plan to love you more.”
“I’m delighted to hear that,” she replied, in that dry way he adored. “I love you too. And it turns out I have a rather bigger gift for you than planned.”
Benedetto turned to look at her in some surprise, and Angelina smiled.
She took his hand in hers—her thumbs moving over the calluses there that it had taken her years to understand he got from performing the acts of physical labor he preferred to a gym membership—and moved it to her belly.
And he had done this so many times before. It was the same surge of love and wonder, sweetness and hope. Disbelief that she could make him this happy. Determination to do it better than his parents had, no matter what it took.
He was already better, he liked to think. If his grandmother could see him now, he was sure he would make her smile. And maybe even his grandfather, too.
“Again?” he asked, grinning wide enough to crack his own jaw.
“We really should do something about it,” she said, her eyes shining. “It’s almost unseemly. But… I just don’t want to.”
He pulled her to him, marveling as ever at how perfectly and easily she fit in his arms. “Angelina, my angel, if you wish to have enough children to fill this entire castle, we will make it so.”
She laughed, her mouth against his. “Let’s not get that carried away.”
And he kissed her, because the future was certain.
That wasn’t to say he knew what would happen, because no man could. Storms came. Sometimes they took more than was bearable. Sometimes they left monsters in their wake.
But he was not alone anymore.
He had Angelina, and together, they made their own light. And Benedetto knew that no matter how
