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T he morning at Heartsfield Grange was one of those that seemed to apologize for the very notion of melancholy.

It was everything Joy loved about the country.

Skylarks were threading through a canopy of trees and sky, south-westerly breezes floating across the orchard, and the river itself provided a sweet symphony in the distance to accompany the birds.

Joy rose early and found the east windows shining in brightness she could almost catch with both eyes if she did not force the effort.

A week of Kentish air had made all colours bolder, her aches and bruises fade, and though the right eye remained unreliable at best, the left had grown clever at compensating—much as a fond elder sibling might for its impish twin.

The rest of the party were already outside when Joy joined them on the terrace for breakfast. Faith loaded a plate with food for Joy and handed it to her. Freddy announced that today’s principal entertainments included a fishing picnic on the lower meadow near the river.

That set a ripple of amusement round the table—save for Rotham, who, balancing his toddling son on one knee, was too occupied preventing the child’s chubby fist from upsetting the marmalade.

Hope, now several months increased, watched both father and son with indulgent resignation.

“Men are born with an instinct for peril. They merely refine it as they age.”

Joy could not disagree with the proclamation.

Patience, her cheeks aglow, murmured that she had news which might shake even Stuart’s equanimity. Joy, prompted by that conspiratorial glimmer, leaned closer. “Another miniature cavalryman on the way?” she guessed.

“Or equestrienne,” Patience confirmed.

Squeals of excitement greeted this pronouncement, and Joy reflected on what it would be like to be a mother.

She adored Sylvester’s lopsided grin and Benjamin’s earnest toddle, yet she could not deny a flutter of doubt.

What if blindness proved permanent? Would she memorize her children’s faces by touch alone?

Would they resent the mother who bumped into chairs and could not read to them?

Then she recalled how Sylvester had once thrust a half-eaten apple into her hand, absolutely trusting she could mend its worm hole wound with a kiss.

Sight or no sight, love was not measured in flawless vision.

“I shall manage,” she told herself firmly.

And if I falter, Freddy will scold the furniture for tripping me.

” The thought made her smile and steadied her heart.

An hour later the cavalcade set out with Freddy and Joy in the lead, she astride placid Pandora, he on an older cob, Ganymede.

This was her first time on a horse since the accident, and still required restraint—not to mention the fact Dr. Harvey’s cautionary lecture about “jostling her head” still rang in her ear.

Yet, seated on the mare’s broad back, reins steady, she felt the old thrill of movement: the rhythmic sway, the subtle adjustment of weight, the creak of leather.

“For someone who protested at a plodding old horse,” Freddy teased, “you manage Pandora with remarkable dignity.”

“She is not plodding,” Joy protested. “She is a dowager duchess who moves only when duly petitioned.”

“I stand corrected, your Grace.” He made a short bow from his waist to the horse.

Behind them, the rest followed at varied paces.

Some rode and some were to take gigs and carriages.

The orchards unfurled on either side of the path, their limbs not yet burdened with heavy fruit.

Joy caught the smell of blossoms now beginning their slow alchemy into fruit, and marvelled again at how pleasure could still be had despite concession—slower pace, shaded eyes, Freddy’s discreet watchfulness.

And so what did it matter if she could not do everything exactly as before? There was still so much she could do.

At a dip where the path met the river flat, Montford raised a pointing arm. “Salmon leap from the water!” he shouted in uncharacteristic verve. “Perhaps we shall catch our supper!”

“If you cannot catch one whilst they practically leap onto your hook, then you are not the angler you thought you were,” Westwood taunted his old friend.

The picnic unfolded with cheerful chaos.

Rugs spread, baskets unpacked, lemonade poured into thick tumblers that beaded with cold.

Sylvester—Hope’s sturdy two-year-old—escaped immediately, barefooted, to chase butterflies.

Benjamin—Faith’s one-year-old—toddled in wobbly pursuit, intercepted at intervals by Faith’s quick hand.

Freddy assembled three rods with line whilst Joy knelt on a rug, threading bait with fingers nimbler than her impaired vision would have suggested possible.

Westwood had already begun casting with the practised flick of a man who had grown up on angling, and promised a sovereign for the biggest fish.

“And if I bait, hook, and catch with one eye?” Joy asked with a challenge.

“Still a sovereign.”

Freddy handed Joy the second rod and adjusted her grip. “Do not do anything foolish.”

She blew him a mock-solemn kiss and turned her attention to the water.

Sun spangles danced across the surface, willow leaves drifted like small ships.

Once or twice she strained to see a shape flash beneath—a salmon testing the shallows.

When the bite came, it yanked her arm nearly to the socket.

She set her heels, angled the rod, and let the fish run.

Freddy hovered, ready, but she needed only for the fish to tire a little to bring it to a glittering arc above the water.

“Do not dare try to assist,” she snapped.

Minutes later the fish lay in wet grass, still flexing powerful tails, and Westwood pressed a sovereign into Joy’s palm as she gloated.

Westwood then landed the next—nothing to boast of but large enough to eat as well as make Sylvester cheer.

Montford lost two flies to overzealous flicks and finally captured a salmon so small even Vivienne refused to praise his catch.

Rotham hooked a submerged tree branch and spent ten minutes extracting his line with muttered curses.

Stuart, leaning against a willow and observing Patience’s glowing face, never noticed the gentle tug on his rod until the salmon shook free, leapt once in triumph, and vanished.

Joy’s catch therefore remained the victor, and she brandished her sovereign like a medal pinned to a general. Westwood bowed, conceding defeat with good grace. “Joy, I should never have doubted you.”

Lunch tasted better for the victory. The cook had packed cold roast fowl, pickled quails’ eggs, fresh bread, and strawberries so sweet they needed no sugar. Conversation rippled like the river itself as they sipped on sweet elderflower wine.

The afternoon drifted towards lazy perfection: salmon safely packed for supper, children dozing in the shade, adults scattered in agreeable fellowship. Freddy guided Joy a little upstream where they walked hand in hand.

Here the current slowed, permitting reflections almost mirror clear. Joy sat upon a fallen tree, removed her spectacles to polish the lenses and studied him through the softened haze of near-sight.

“You look thoughtful, Mr. Cunningham,” she said, as he guided Lord Orville away from the bank.

“I was just thinking…hoping that we will be friends as good as this when we are eighty.”

“It seems a strange concern. Why would we not be? We were friends from the very first.”

“I suppose so. It will take some getting used to, this notion of you as a wife.”

“I think we are very lucky to have each other forever. That is what concerned me the most about having a Season. It meant I would lose you forever.”

“Now you will have me forever.”

She polished the spectacles, slid them on and blinked until the world steadied. “I have a worry, too.”

“And what is that?”

“That I will trip when walking down the aisle at my own wedding. Would it not be appalling if you were forced to carry me?”

He laughed. “If necessary, I shall do so. We shall set our own style.”

“No, no. I shall practise so I will not make a fool of myself,” she promised, then added softly, “Freddy, are you absolutely content? You do not regret choosing convenience?”

He sat beside her on the trunk, their shoulders brushing. “Convenience?” He considered the word. “There is nothing resembling that word in what is between us. I belong to you, heart and soul.”

“Oh, Freddy.” She snuggled next to him and leaned her head on his shoulder. “Why did it take us so long to open our eyes to each other? I mean, I always thought that any lady would be lucky to have you, and then I wanted to claw Letty Partridge’s eyes out when she would fawn all over you.”

He chuckled. “I wanted to pop St. John’s cork more than once just for making you laugh,” he admitted.

“Was that love? I suppose it was,” she said thoughtfully. “Thankfully, we are not now married to the wrong people.”

“I shudder to think what almost was not. I will tell you one thing: I will never take for granted the gift you are to me. I love you, Joy Whitford.”

She felt colour warm her cheeks. She turned slightly so that his face blurred into gentle shapes of light and shadow. “Then you ought to know,” she murmured, “that I love you, too, Freddy.”

His arm slid round her waist, her head nestled against his shoulder. “I do know. I think I have always known.”

Freddy had often heard curates declare that nothing on earth could fluster an English bridegroom once the banns were called, the licence signed, and the bride safely at hand.

He now discovered that curates, like poets and prospective connexions, trafficked in half-truths.

For although Joy was indeed ‘safely at hand’—somewhere in the east wing with four sisters, two maids, and several felines—everything else about the blessed morning contrived to rattle his composure.