Summer flooded the garden of the Harenwood estate, and the gathering of families was already in swing, as it had been for the last five years. Every year, on the Summer Solstice, Anne and Alistair visited the Hartfields, along with her family, Alistair’s friends, and their gathering had only grown in size.

“James, do not break the telescope, or I fear your sister will break something of yours,” Alistair called out, laughing as he gently took the telescope from their son’s hands. At only two years old, James was curious and their eldest, Catherine, at four years old, was as dark-haired and green-eyed as her father. Anne watched them all from the terrace for a moment, waiting until everybody else arrived.

Alistair crouched next to their children, a doting father, and even though he and Cedric had long patched their relationship up, he could not always forget the coldness he had received growing up, and had used that to make sure he was the warm, loving father his children needed.

James watched curiously as Alistair demonstrated how the portable telescope folded in on itself, and he offered it back to Catherine who took it and raised it to her eye the wrong way around.

Anne smiled, retreating back inside to emerge onto the grass with her family. Alistair’s arm immediately went around her waist, a kiss pressed to her temple. Life had been so beautiful and kind to them.

“I still remember your mother gifting you your first map of the stars,” Cedric commented, approaching with another grandchild in his arms, the first of Marcus and Isabella’s undoubtedly long line of children to come. “You would not let Marcus anywhere near it, claiming he tore up everything you loved.”

“That is because he did,” Alistair laughed, looking over where his brother and sister-in-law watched them with polite smiles. Nothing would ever be truly fixed with the brothers, for Alistair still harbored anger, and Marcus did not feel remorse, but they were on tentative footing. “And you never berated him for it.”

“You were both children.” Cedric shrugged before smiling. “However, if he tears anything of yours now, do be sure to tell me.”

Alistair let out another laugh but any retort was cut off by the call of more arrivals. Michael and Louisa entered, their three children rushing alongside them like ducklings following their mother. Their eldest son wore a naval cap, and smiled brightly to show it off. Behind them, Anne’s sisters and their families arrived. Celeste’s son followed, his blonde curls like his father, an angelic face that Anne’s mother had already claimed would be the heartbreaker of the ton when he grew up. Emily’s two girls skipped along her and her husband, entering the garden and making a beeline for Anne’s parents.

Anne’s father held out his arms, and, at Emily’s daughter’s approach, it was as if all of their grandchildren moved in tandem. At once, Anne’s father was overrun with five children springing at him, laughing bubbling in their air as they all gathered.

“I do love this day,” Alistair said to Anne, laughing as his father waited for the same reception after Catherine and James stood back from Anne’s father. “I never knew how good my father could be with children. I always assumed he had been distant when Marcus and I were younger.”

“It is a relief that he is not,” Anne jested, bringing him closer to the picnic blanket they had set up, where everybody was sitting around, arranging themselves in their clusters. And as she looked around, she knew that no amount of ton’s pressure into being a lady that was accepted could have ever compared to the life and freedom she had found with Alistair.

Now, word traveled through London that Lord Marston remained unmarried and fallen from social grace since their broken betrothal. Not even time could mend the damage he had wrought, especially when his scheming had affected many politicians who used their influence to sway favor from him. Lady Marston resigned herself to managing the country household and had never dared to show her face again.

But Anne had not thought of the two for a very long time, not when Alistair had sat with her for many nights after her fall five years ago, and held her when she cried or raged in anger over what had happened—the disaster she had narrowly missed.

And every night, he took her beneath the stars, on their terrace, and they danced. Uninterrupted, close together, and in love, as they had been since the first moment.

“One day,” Alistair had murmured one summer night after Catherine was born, “our love story shall go into the sky and we will be the new Perseus and Andromeda.”

Anne had giggled, kissing him breathlessly, and over time, Alistair had helped her realize: being a Polaris did not always mean she had to shine as bright as she could for every second of every day; sometimes it meant staying true to herself and apart from the cluster in order to shine simply as she did.

She was a Polaris whether she shined bright or not—but Anne’s sparkle had not once dimmed since her new life with Alistair.