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Chapter Text

HMS Enterprise, Lancaster Sound
2nd September 1849

It began with a tale told over dinner in the wardroom.

James Fitzjames had often, in the past, been the purveyor of such stories. (How he blushed, now, to remember his foolishness, when he had boasted of his exploits in China and playacted at being a man-of-the-world aboard Terror, before the death of Sir John and the past few years of horror that had followed.)

He was quieter, now, aboard Enterprise. On the journey home.

James’s silence could have been easily excused as exhaustion—he was still weak, still on the mend from scurvy, lo these many months since Sir James Clark Ross had come strolling over the barren rock of Somerset Island to save them. It had been just at the moment when James had resigned himself to death, and the arrival of Ross seemed a miracle, a fiction, a mirage. All these months later, a part of James wondered if he was dreaming, and such worries stopped his mouth even from nervous chatter. But no excuse for James’s wordlessness seemed to be needed, for—to James’s surprise—Francis Crozier had opened up with tales aplenty, in such a manner as the younger, sillier James Fitzjames of ill-fated Terror dinners could hardly have imagined.

(In the dark moments of the night, when he lay restless in the small, borrowed cabin that he shared with Francis, listening to Francis breathing soft and low in the hammock beside the bed, James thought of how he’d once hoped for these types of stories—before he’d actually met Francis Crozier, when he’d known the man only as Ross’s Second, a hero of the Antarctic.)

Francis’s audience was a strange assortment, most nights. Ross, of course, and James Fitzjames, and an assortment of other officers, both those rescued from Terror and those who’d done the rescuing: the soft-smiling Ned Little, and the soft-frowning John Irving; and then, intermixed between them, Ross’s three young lieutenants: Robbie McClure, a sharp-tongued Arctic veteran of Back’s unfortunate voyage with Terror back in 1824; Leo McClintock, the keen young Irishman who had accompanied Ross on his sledging mission that had saved them all; and William Browne, a dreamy artist with a keen eye for detail and a sense of the dramatic that James felt all too well. In deference to their decades-long friendship, Ross also insisted that Thomas Blanky join the commissioned officer’s mess, and so he too sat around the crowded wardroom table—ruddy-cheeked and laughing despite the loss of several extra inches from his bad leg—next to Enterprise’s own ice-master, Thomas Abernethy.

On some nights, Captain Edward Bird would join them from HMS Investigator, with his own assortment of old Erebites: James’s Dundy—rendered quiet like James himself—or Harry Goodsir, whom Sir James Ross had coaxed out of his melancholy with leading questions about crustacea and some incomprehensible scientific squabble with a “Doctor Darwin” of Harry’s (and apparently Ross’s) old acquaintance.

Whether speaking only to Ross and James and Blanky, or to a packed wardroom full of curious Enterprises and Investigators, Francis seemed to glow. Indeed, he glowed now, sitting at Ross’s right hand, across from James at Ross’s left.

James was in awe.

That night, Francis was telling a familiar story from the Antarctic, for the sole benefit—it seemed—of Lieutenant Browne, who had the singular luck on not having heard the story from Francis during the long march north from the shores near King William Land, or indeed, witnessed the events in question first hand.

“James and I opened the New Year’s ball with a quadrille, out on the ice,” Francis said, grinning.

It always struck James—James Fitzjames, and oh how ridiculous to be forced to think of himself using his full name!—to hear Francis speak of Sir James so intimately. He’d never done so with Sir John. But this was what Francis was like when he was at home on a ship. When he was loved.

“And James was dressed in an enormous greatcoat—the same he used when he and our good Doctor McCormick were anatomizing, and it had taken Jopson and Boddington—Ross’s steward—days and days to get it clean enough for public wear.”

“—’twas still blood-stained, mind you,” Captain Bird added.

“But it no longer smelled,” Sir James added.

“And then—” Francis paused for dramatic effect, “—just as I was about to lead James into a twirl, he slipped the thing off to show the gown he wore beneath!”

Lieutenant Browne gasped, which was enough to set the rest of the wardroom into cheery cackles.

James Fitzjames knew the story already, from long nights in the shared command tent as they’d marched north along the coast of Somerset Island. He’d wondered what kind of dress it had been that Ross had worn—full-skirted and fashionable, or the slim Grecian style from Sir James’s youth?

“Was it not freezing?” asked Lieutenant Browne amongst the ongoing laughter.

“Oh it was,” Sir James reassured. “But not nearly so cold as when I acted Corinna in The Citizen with Parry.”

“That frock was no more than a curtain, as I heard it,” Francis added.

“Ah, but it was Parry’s own curtain!” Sir James objected.

This, of course, set off the room once again.

James was trying to temper his own laughter—for he felt he was close to weeping—when he saw Sir James lean towards him out of the corner of his eye.

“Francis tells me that you’ve had your own turn about the stage,” Sir James said, just loudly enough that it couldn’t be mistaken for a private conversation.

James nodded. “In Malta.”

“The greatest theatre in the Navy,” Ned Little added, supportively.

James sketched out the details, confidence growing as he settled into the familiar tale: the satire of Chrononhotonthologos, with its Antipodean army and tremendous tongue-twisters. He held back his own role until the whole play was pictured in outline, and then paused—feeling as though he were stealing a trick from Francis, though it had been his trick first!—and added, “And, of course, it took hours for my costume to be set to rights, so I was obliged to sit through the entire show before ours while already rigged for the Queen—in women’s clothes all bediamonded and bepearled.”

Amongst all the laughter, James found himself glancing down at Sir James. To his surprise, Ross was already smiling at him—those dark eyes twinkling—and to his horror, James felt a blush rise in his cheeks.

How was anyone meant to resist this man?

Chapter Text

HMS Enterprise, Kirkwall, Orkney
31st October 1849

James had hoped to catch Francis alone in the Great Cabin—he hadn’t wanted to bring up sensitive topics amongst others, but he also lacked the courage to ask anything personal when the two of them were alone together in their shared bunk, dark and still and heavy with suspicion as it was. His hesitation, in the end, had been his undoing, for today was their last day in port at Kirkwall before they sailed south toward Woolwich, and thus this was his last chance to send off a letter to make arrangements.

The Postal Ship sailed at noon, so when he walked into the Great Cabin at the tolling of the sixth forenoon bell to find Francis alone but for his ever-present Ross-shaped shadow, James steeled himself.

“Francis?”

“Yes, James?” Francis replied, looking up from his own letters with that gap-toothed smile.

James swallowed heavily. “I was wondering—”

When James’s words failed him, Francis rose and stepped close, a hand on James’s arm. “I had something I wanted to ask, also. Shall I go first?”

The kindness was far too intimate. James shook his head, trying not to blush. “I was wondering if you’d already made arrangements for lodging in London?”

Francis laughed, and James braced himself for the worst. That Francis had just before this been conspiring with Ross, knowing that James Fitzjames would come make a fool of himself in just such a way. And indeed, Francis’s next words nearly confirmed it: “I was wondering the very same thing of you.”

James stiffened. “You needn’t worry, Francis—I’ve a letter ready to send to my brother in Brighton.” He brandished the letter—not yet sealed, for he’d hoped to add a postscript asking if Will and Elizabeth could make space for another guest. How ridiculous he’d been.

“James,” Francis said, his voice soft and his brow furrowed. “You’ll need to stay in London for a time—the Admiralty will want answers, and arrangements will have to be made for the families of those we lost.”

“I know.” James nearly snapped. “I said that you needn’t worry, Francis. I’m sure that Barrow—”

Francis cut him off with a snort, pulling away from James entirely. “And have the Court Martial follow you home in the evenings?”

“We are not all so fortunate in our friends,” James snarled.

Francis frowned, yet said nothing.

“Are we not?”

James froze, for he had forgotten that they were not alone in the room. “Sir James, I—”

“Peace,” Ross said with a smile, standing up from his seat at the window and coming to join them. “Why go to battle against each other when we are all on the same side?”

“I am sorry,” James said, wretched.

“I hope you will allow me to count you as a friend too, James,” Ross said, and placed his hand on James’s arm where Francis’s hand had been. “You are more than welcome to stay with us at Blackheath. If you can bear to continue sharing rooms, that is—for we only have a single spare room, I’m afraid.”

James looked to Francis. The smile had returned to his weather-worn face, though it was tentative now, and though Francis feared that James would bite at him again. James felt a strange hollow sensation in his chest, and his wounds ached.

He turned back to Sir James, swallowing down some unnameable emotion.

“It would be a pleasure.”

Chapter Text

No. 2 Eliot Place, Blackheath
8th December 1849

“It’s been thirty years today since Corinna,” Sir James said with an enormous sigh as he fell heavily upon the sofa.

James Fitzjames winced—for the sofa was already occupied—but Francis and Lady Anne seemed unbothered by the sudden weight of Sir James across their laps.

Indeed, Lady Anne smiled and began to play with her husband’s silvering hair. “How very old and distinguished you are.”

Francis, who seemed to have drawn the short end of the straw, took up Sir James’s stocking-clad feet with a sigh. “And to think your lady wife was but two years old at the time,” he added, grinning.

“Why must you murder me,” Sir James complained.

For all of his fears, James Fitzjames found that he and Francis fit comfortably into the space of the Rosses residence at Blackheath—socially, at least. Sir James and Lady Anne were impeccable hosts, and so obviously comfortable with Francis that just watching the three of them put James at ease. The two Ross children were still hardly old enough to be truly underfoot: young James was a dark-eyed, serious child who liked to sit on Francis’s lap and ask him many questions, and baby Annie was just learning her first words: she could say “mama” quite well enough, but “papa” still escaped her, since she’d not yet been you years old when her father had left to rescue them.

James could hardly bear the weight of it—the thought that he’d cost this man his daughter’s first trembling steps, stolen the very word “papa” from her mouth with his foolishness.

But Sir James bore no grudge, it seemed, for he was all smiles and games and treats at home, and a bulwark between the both of them and the Admiralty during the Court Martial. It had been a shock to all of them to return home and find Sir John Barrow—the author of it all—suddenly gone, dead in his sleep the November prior, not long before the grand rescue. Barrow’s successor was not at all sympathetic to their muddled accounts of the death of Sir John Franklin, but Ross smoothed over any inconsistencies and mounted an aggressive defence, explaining how slim the margin between life and death could be in the great white North.

Still, all of the endless meetings had exhausted James through November, and now that the December snows had swept in, he found himself quite content to remain locked up at Blackheath in the warm firelight with the Rosses and Francis.

“Well, I’m for bed,” Sir James announced. The children had already been asleep for some time, and truly James suspected that Lady Anne would have turned in too, had she not wished to wait up for her husband to finish his letter-writing. The two of them were so in love that it hurt to witness, James thought. He’d heard something of their courtship from Francis: Anne’s disapproving father, stolen moments during a survey of terrestrial magnetism, heartsick letters to and from the Antarctic, and then James’s triumphant return and knighthood. It was like a romance out of Austen.

“Come, love,” Lady Anne said, and pulled her husband from where he lay on the sofa. When they stood side-by-side they were of a height—James would never cease to be surprised to find himself the tallest of the four of them.

“Goodnight, all,” Sir James said, though the final word was broken by a yawn. “Don’t stay up too late, Frank.”

“We won’t,” Francis promised, and James warmed at the plural. He caught Lady Anne smiling at him and blushed.

“Goodnight,” he murmured.

Something must be wrong with him, the way the Rosses cut him to his core.

The sitting room was much quieter once the Rosses had departed: just the quiet crackle of the dying fire in the grate, and the soft sound of a carriage passing through the snow outside.

James looked over to Francis, who seemed already sleep-rumbled, in his unbuttoned waistcoat. “Well,” he swallowed. “Shall we?”

They walked down the back hallway to the ground-floor chamber that had been theirs since their return. It wasn’t a large room, but the double bed was certainly large enough for the both of them, especially when James found himself so easily exhausted most nights that he fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

But today he hadn’t left the house—hadn’t, in fact, done anything more strenuous than helping Lady Anne decide on colors for a new embroidered shawl. So once he’d slipped out of his trousers and slid under the covers, James found himself horribly and certainly awake.

He lay, stiff and awkward, as the sounds of carriages passing by outside became less and less frequent and the angle of moonlight on the far wall shifted more than a few inches.

Truly, he should be grateful that the insomnia hadn’t caught up with him earlier, James thought. Often, late at night, he was plagued with racing thoughts. It was partly why he was so eager to walk, to run, to leap forward, to tire himself beyond endurance, so that he could sleep.

By all rights, he ought to be haunted by what they had awoken out in the polar night. But to his shame, James found that the only thoughts in his head were of Francis: Francis, smiling at him out on the shale, Francis, feeding him slices of preserved lemon so sharp and sour they stung his cracked lips, Francis, standing tall before the Admiralty, Francis, rubbing Sir James Clark Ross’s well-turned ankle—Francis, Francis, Francis.

Surely, Francis was already asleep? Perhaps he could slip away, unnoticed, and weary himself somehow.

But the moment James began to pull back the covers, Francis made a sleepy noise and shifted wakefully. James froze, but it was too late.

“James?”

“Go back to sleep,” James pleaded, his voice a whisper.

“No, no, I’m up,” Francis insisted, his voice growing more intent. “James, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” James murmured. “You needn’t worry.”

“I always worry.”

James inhaled sharply. “Please—don’t, it’s nothing.”

“Tell me what it is,” Francis countered, reaching out to clasp James’s arm. “I’ll decide if it’s nothing.”

“Please, Francis,” James said, feeling suddenly very raw and fragile.

Francis pulled himself up until they were both sitting on the bed, faces not so very far apart. The neck of Francis’s shift gaped open without his stock and collar, baring a small patch of pale skin. James felt entranced by it, caught out by the slight shine of moonlight over the hill of Francis’s sternum. “James, it’s alright,” Francis said. “Whatever it is, it’s alright.”

James closed his eyes. “Is it, Francis?”

Then—he shuddered, for a warm hand had come to clasp his jaw. James opened his eyes to see Francis looking at him, so soft and so dear. “It is, James,” Francis insisted. “We survived. We’re here. There’s nothing now that we can’t mend.”

“I don’t wish—” James stumbled. “I don’t wish to interfere.”

“Interfere?”

“To come between you and the Rosses, that is.”

Francis scoffed. “You couldn’t possibly, James.”

James felt struck, and surely it showed in his face, for Francis stroked his cheek with his thumb and continued.

“James and Anne know how I feel about you. Christ, there’s nothing about me they don’t know—I rather assume that’s obvious. But they’ve always wanted me to be happy. I’ve felt a burden to them, but I assure you: you lighten that burden, James, you have in no way added to it.”

“How you feel—” James wondered if he was having a heart attack.

“I—” For the first time, Francis seemed unsure. “I had thought—”

“Yes,” James interrupted. “Yes, that’s—you’ve got the right of it—”

“Yes?” Francis said, eyes so full of hope.

“Yes,” James insisted, leaning in as if magnetized. And found Francis’s lips so warm and welcoming that he could hardly stop at a single kiss.

Chapter Text

No. 26 Sussex Square, Brighton
24th December 1849

James had collapsed into his brother’s arms the moment Will had opened the door of his and Elizabeth’s new home in Brighton.

“Jamie,” Will had said, and it was all James had been able to do not to burst into tears.

Will had offered to come to London to meet him, but James had reassured him in letter after letter that the Rosses were keeping him well-cared-for and comfortable. Of course, Will being Will, this correspondence had spiraled into a grand conspiracy whereby not only James but also Francis and both Rosses—along with both babes in arms—would come down to Brighton for Christmas with the Coningham family.

They’d all piled into the elegant white townhouse, and Will and Elizabeth had settled the four of them into two adjoining bedrooms on the second floor. When James stumbled slightly on the stairs, Francis’s hands steadied him immediately and Lady Anne offered an arm, and Will laughed and laughed.

James finally felt that perhaps he was home, at last.

They’d been in Brighton a week, now, and the two families had knit together with ease. Will’s young ones were a bit older than the Ross children, but Betsy at ten was well able to answer young James’s many questions about Bristol, and Billy was quickly awestruck by Sir James Clark Ross, the hero of some of his many picture-books.

But the Christmas season with four children under ten could hardly be anything other than exhausting, so by Christmas Eve, James found himself enormously grateful when Will and Elizabeth offered to take the children to see the Royal Pavilion bedecked with holly and ivy and candles for the holiday.

And thus James found himself alone in the company of Francis and the Rosses—an occasion, he realized with alarm, that had last happened on that fateful night a few weeks prior when he and Francis had—well.

It had been—all told—a glorious few weeks of stolen kisses and nights full of hushed pleasure. Francis was everything that James had ever dreamed, first in his narrow bunk on Erebus as the sun had returned and his wounds had opened, and then in their succession of shared tents and shared rooms: Francis was warm and affectionate and so painfully tender. James had long known that Francis was built somewhat differently from other men—for he could hardly hide it in their shared quarters—and James had rushed to reassure Francis that it changed nothing, for him. Indeed he loved, now, that this allowed Francis so many opportunities to teach James how to give him pleasure.

(A part of James wondered at the strange kinship he felt with Francis, for he was born and built exactly as expected, yet he somehow still felt wrong in his own skin. He wondered if this was how all those who loved their own kind felt. He wondered if Sir James Clark Ross felt the same as he when donning diamonds and pearls and skirts and lace.)

He assumed that the Rosses knew about the two of them. But that assumption was a different beast entirely from the prospect of a quiet house for a whole afternoon, and all the space in the world for questions to be asked.

James’s peace lasted for all of an hour before Lady Anne found him reading—hiding—in William’s library.

“James! There you are,” Lady Anne said with a rather menacing grin.

“Here I am,” James said, heart beating fast.

“Come down to the parlor,” Lady Anne insisted, and held out her hand. When she had James’s hand twined in hers, she led him downstairs to where Francis and Sir James waited, looking entirely too at ease together on the settee.

Hesitantly, James settled in one of the armchairs opposite.

“Why do I feel as though I am being ambushed?”

“James, there’s nothing to fear,” Francis said, steady and confident in a way that still seemed a marvel to James. It was almost enough to halt his worries.

Almost.

After all, Francis had been the Rosses’ longer than he had been James’s.

“As Francis said,” Sir James began. “There’s nothing wrong at all.”

“Truly,” chimed in Lady Anne.

“Now, nothing need change—” Francis said, clearly aiming at reassuring.

Sir James jumped in. “And of course we don’t wish to pressure you, Jamie—may I call you Jamie?”

James felt a bit faint, but nodded.

“But we’re so very pleased that Francis has found you.”

That brought flames to James’s cheeks so fast he worried he might combust.

“And surely you know how dearly we love Frank,” Lady Anne added. “So—if you wish—we would like to consider you a part of the family as we do Francis.”

“I—” James nearly coughed at the swell of emotion. “I don’t know how to—”

“However you like,” Sir James said, and clasped Francis’s knee. “We’re used to sharing, mind, but we will follow your lead as long as you continue to love Francis well.”

“It’s only what he deserves,” James said, still shaken.

This seemed, however, the right thing to say, for Lady Anne settled upon the arm of his chair, and touched his arm, all comfort. “It is,” she said. “And it’s what you deserve also, James.”

“Jamie,” James blurted out, as though his mouth had betrayed him. 

“Jamie?” Anne asked with a smile.

“With you,” James said, quiet and shocked at himself. “With you, I—” He glanced at Sir James, who was smiling encouragingly at the two of them.

“With you, I’d like to be Jamie,” James said. It was a name he’d left behind when he’d gone to sea, age twelve, and it meant family, but in the quiet winter afternoon, between the four of them, it seemed to mean something more.

Anne nodded, then reached up to tuck a lock of James’s hair—slowly turning the same silver as Sir James’s curls—behind James’s ear. “Jamie,” she said. “You need only shake your head no if you wish, but I wonder—would you like me to have you as a girl?”

And Jamie nodded, fervent, falling into the softness of Anne’s kiss, feeling gloriously seen by the appreciative eyes from the settee.

The four of them progressed slowly up the stairs, halted by the urgent need for kisses and caresses. Only Francis’s careful attention stopped them from leaving a trail of clothes, for he picked up Sir James’s stock and Lady Anne’s shawl from where they fell and ushered them all, laughing, into the Ross’s room.

There, Jamie realized that she had yet to kiss Sir James. The very act of thinking it felt absurd—to kiss Sir James Clark Ross, the handsomest man in the navy, who apparently cared for James Fitzjames alongside his glorious lady wife, with her cutting wit and bright smile, and Francis Crozier, his dearest friend of nearly thirty years. What was James Fitzjames to all that?

But as ever, Sir James seemed impervious to doubt, for he rested his hands comfortably on Jamie’s hips and when they kissed it was warm and sure. Jamie gasped into James’s mouth and he swallowed up the moan that ensued.

When, finally, Jamie broke away gasping, Francis was down to his shirtsleeves, and Anne to her chemise. They smiled at Jamie and helped her out of her waistcoat and trousers—her heart raced out of control when Francis kissed her calf as he freed her from her stockings.

“How do you want us?” Anne asked, and Jamie shivered.

“Kiss me again?” She begged, and Anne stroked her long fingers through Jamie’s hair as she bore Jamie down onto the bed.

“We’ll take such good care of you,” Anne promised, kissing down Jamie’s neck and then freeing her from her shirt.

“We will,” Francis promised, and Jamie twined their hands, tugging him down for a kiss.

Eventually, Francis pulled away, and Jamie missed him immediately, but he pressed her down into James’s arms, that she might sit back against him as Frank and Anne joyfully tortured her—kissing her shoulders, her chest, each other.

And then, when Jamie felt near to tears at all the need, Anne sank down on her and gentled her to her end.

Chapter Text

No. 1 Seymour Street, Bath
15th April 1850

After a long winter holiday with the Coninghams, the extended Ross household had settled quite happily into the spring season at Bath, attending occasional concerts and lectures as James—Jamie—grew used to her new life. Some days she took in the sights arm-in-arm with Lady Anne, dressed in a series of gowns that the Rosses gifted her. At other times, she found herself comfortable enough in her skin to don her old frock coats and attend a lecture or two on magnetism and hydrography, that she might ask questions and be known for—if not the scientist that Francis was—then at least the Captain she’d become after four years on the ice. Then, one day, Sir James had spotted an advertisement in the paper for “Photographic Portraits,” and had insisted on placing an appointment for them on the photographist’s calendar.

“A birthday present, for me,” Sir James had quipped when protest was voiced—for though Jamie was keen on the idea, Francis was less so.

“Why on earth should I want my image taken?”

“It isn’t for you,” Jamie pouted at Francis, as they sat thigh-to-thigh on a chaise in the waiting chamber of the portrait studio.

But Sir James came swiftly to her rescue. “That is exactly what I keep telling Anne,” he complained. “She has all the portraits she might wish of me, and yet I am supposed to endure without her likeness.”

“What need have you of a likeness when you have me?” Lady Anne objected.

“I shall need one if I am called back to search for fools again in the far North!”

Jamie smirked. “Lady Anne could simply stow away on your ship, next time.”

“She needn’t even stow away,” Francis added. “Mr. Goodsir told me in his last letter that Captain Penny intends to bring his wife with him on his next whaling journey.”

“Then that is exactly what I shall do,” Lady Anne said, her voice slipping low to mimic her husband’s imperious tone.

Sir James shivered. “And what a terror you would be belowdecks.”

“Then you’d better have your likeness taken for her now,” Francis said. “You remember what a disaster Lady Franklin’s daguerreotype day became.”

“Ross?” a voice called.

Sir James pulled away to answer. “Yes?”

The curtain at the back of the gallery was pulled aside, and an elderly gentleman stepped out, smiling, before his eyes rounded. “Sir James Ross?”

“At your service,” Sir James replied with a smile, and began to make introductions. “This is my dearest wife, and my dear friend Captain Crozier, and his betrothed.”

Jamie thrilled at the new title as the photographist—a Mr. Whaite—ushered them past the curtain to a small set-stage framed with plaster columns.

“But how shall we pose, darling?” Francis asked. “To fit all four of us in the frame.”

Jamie shivered at the endearment. “What of a quadrille?” she suggested.

“An excellent idea!” Sir James said, clasping Jamie’s free hand.

With this gesture, they formed a small circle, all close and grinning, and Jamie felt immediately overwhelmed by the sense of belonging.

“If we’re at this step in the dance, the daguerreotype will miss one of our faces,” Anne objected.

“That’s easy enough to solve,” Sir James said. “Come, dearest, I’ll stretch out this way and we’ll form the line.”

With regret, Jamie released James’s hand, and allowed Francis to lead her away. She took up the hem of her skirt so as not to step on it, and glanced back over her shoulder at the photographist. “Would this do?”

Mr. Whaite nodded. “I’ll just move the apparatus back, and you’ll have to stay very still, but it should do very well indeed.”

Jamie readied herself so that she needn’t move her feet for the length of the exposure—still a bit of a challenge, two long years after their rescue. Francis’s left hand was warm in hers, and—once satisfied with the drape of her skirt—she looked up to smile at him.

“Ready?” She asked.

“Almost,” Francis replied, and she could see the beloved gap between his teeth as he smiled softly.

Then, to her shock, he lifted her right hand to his mouth to kiss her fingers.

And paused there.

And waited.

Jamie held her breath as her heart pounded. The seconds stretched out, and she could do nothing but return Francis’s heated gaze.

“Done!” Mr. Whaite cried out, and Jamie fell back on her heels clumsily. She might indeed have stumbled, but Francis caught her with a steady hand to her arm.

“May we see?” Sir James asked.

“Yes, but be careful not to touch the plate,” Mr. Whaite warned, and they all crowded around him.

Jamie peered over Sir James’s shoulder to watch the silvery plate darken as the image began to clear. When the picture had taken form, Jamie stared in awe—a tall figure, barely recognizable as herself, stood on the far right, gracefully offering her hand to Francis’s kiss. Francis’s right hand was lifted in an elegant gesture, and his fingers twined with Lady Anne’s as she smiled at the two of them. On the far left, Sir James rested tall on his toes, looking proudly down over his nose at the scene.

All of them—almost in motion—all connected as though by a single strand of ship’s line. The shadowed dark coats that Sir James and Francis wore—and Lady Anne’s deep blue gown, rendered here in charcoal—seemed a ground against which Jamie’s silvery dress made her shine like a star, and the pearls in her dark hair twinkled.

Jamie grinned.