by Anne Gracie
“No, of course not,” Grace reassured her. “I don’t know what it is, but I promise you no one on the estate will be evicted.”
Mrs. Finn looked at it anxiously. “Nothin’ good ever come in a letter that looks like that. Is it a lawyer’s letter?”
Billy took it from her hand. “Let me see it, Mam.” He opened it, frowned over the heavy paper with a government seal on it, then unfolded a much smaller, more ordinary piece of paper. He read a few lines, then looked straight at Dominic and asked with a mixture of hope and truculence, “This be a joke or not?”
“It’s real, Billy,” Dominic said quietly.
Billy swallowed and said to his mother, “It’s from the governor of New South Wales, Mam. And a letter from Da.” When the exclamations had died down, he read:
“My darlin Annie, I hope this finds you and the nippers well. I’m writin’ to tell you I’m a free man. I been pardoned. Lord D’Acre writ a leter to the governor and told him I were wrongly convicted. He told him I never did nothing wrong at all.”
Mrs. Finn gave a great sob and hugged the nearest child. Billy continued, his voice a little husky:
“I can’t go back to England, but New South Wales ain’t what we feared. They be short o’ farmers here and they need food, so I been granted land. I’m a farmer, Annie, on my own land.”
“His own land!” The murmur ran through the crowd.
“Life here be clean and good, so I am saving money to bring you and the children . . .”
Annie started sobbing and clutching the children. “All that way! It’ll cost him a fortune.”
“Look in your box, Annie,” said Dominic quietly.
A hush fell as Annie slowly opened her Christmas box. In it was a purse of money. When she opened it and saw how much it was, she nearly fainted.
“It will buy you and the children a passage to New South Wales. Or you can use it to support your children here, if you don’t want to go.”
She raised a glowing, tear-streaked face to him. “Not want to go? Not want to go and be with my darlin’ Will again? Oh, we’ll go all right, m’lord, as soon as we can.” She grabbed his hand and tried to kiss it, but Dominic would have none of it. “Thank you, thank you, m’lord.”
“Nonsense,” he said gruffly. “I’m only putting right the wrong done to you through my father’s lack of care.”
Billy folded the letter and turned to face the marveling crowd. “See—I told you he was a good ’un!” he yelled jubilantly.
THAT EVENING DOMINIC AND GRACE, ARMS AROUND EACH other, walked slowly up to bed, stepping in the hollows his ancestors’ feet had made. Dominic looked down at her. His heart was almost too full to speak.
“Look up there,” Grace told him.
He looked up and there above them was the Wolfestone gargoyle, his wise old face wreathed with mistletoe.
“I think he wants us to kiss, don’t you?”
And so they kissed. And it was a perfect kiss.
