Falling in Love with English Boys

by Melissa Jensen

  “That’s it?” I demanded, peering through the water rivulets that were cascading down the window, looking for stone walls or anything resembling a castle fort. “There’s nothing there.”

  Will stopped the car and leaned over to look. “You think you’re going to look like much after fifteen hundred years? It’s a pretty spectacular view from the top. Wanna try?”

  I could see small rivers running down the hill. “Umm . . .”

  “How about elevenses, then?”

  We ended up at a half-full half pub, half teashop nearby. (See pix; yes, that is a real, stuffed dormouse in that teapot—very Mad Hatter’s tea party). The woman running the place greeted Will by name, asked after his family, and passed on a message for his grandfather. Apparently bookies are giving 179-1 odds against Portsmouth winning next year, either.

  Will thanked her, greeted the dormouse (“Gordon”) like an old friend, then settled us in a corner with our coffee and cakes. “I thought we’d have a look ’round the house this afternoon, see if there’s anything there about Katherine.”

  He downed half his coffee, then turned the mug back and forth, back and forth between his palms. Truth be told, he was looking a little rough. Gorgeous but rough. Why oh why does my brain not have a torture-prevention switch? All I could think of was him whispering till the wee hours over the phone with Bella. Who, no doubt, was stretched out in La Perla’d splendor in London, longing for him. I felt no pity.

  “So, Catherine.”

  “So, William.”

  “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

  Oh, the possibilities. “Shoot.”

  “Why did you ask me about my favorite poem?”

  Allow me to refresh your memories. #9 on the list of things a girl should get from a guy the first time: Sends a poem after.

  I blew on my coffee, added another sugar, gazed around the room (must’ve missed the stuffed cuckoo coming out of a clock—at least I assume it was a cuckoo—not sure I’ve ever seen a cuckoo, but enjoy using the word). Stalled. Had a stroke. Of genius.

  “Why did you pick ‘No Second Troy’?” Gracefully deflecting the question.

  “That’s dodging the question. But I’ll humor you. First year at Charterhouse, my Housemaster’s wife was a mind-bogglingly gorgeous woman from Galway. She liked Yeats. Every boy in the house learned some Yeats that year. That one made sense to my hormones then. Now”—he shrugged—“I like all of it: the imagery, the symbolism, the idea that love and war are so close.” He did the one-eyebrow thing. “Doesn’t hurt that it reminds me of Mrs. Fahey.”

  Not Bella at all. He hadn’t chosen a poem about the most irresistible woman in the world because of irresistible Bella. He liked it because he’s Will and he’d been awed by the power of the words. He’d chosen it because of an adolescent crush on a hot older woman from Galway. I let my fingers do a quick, cheerful little Irish step dance on the lace tablecloth.

  “Now tell me why you asked,” he commanded.

  “I was drunk,” I said. “It’s a good drunk question.”

  He didn’t look entirely convinced. No dummy, Will Percival. But just as much to his credit, he’s not a pest, either. “Fair enough. Your poem?”

  “I’m still working on that one,” I admitted, “but lately it’s ‘She Walks in Beauty.’ ”

  “Ah. Byron.” Will snagged a piece of my cherry scone. “Good choice, although I’m a ‘So We’ll Go No More A-Roving’ man, myself. No one does breakup songs quite like he does.”

  Twee-ku:

  catTcat: Do I deserve this? Add insult to injury: the boy knows Byron.

  After eating, we decided it was high time to read the end of the diary. I had a few pages to go; Will admitted to having stopped when Baker threw Kitty over for the girl with more money. I had this thought that he would read out loud to me and it would all be very English Country House Party. It was a good thought. But my copy was (somewhere) in London; Will’s copy was (somewhere) in London. Bronwen’s copy, we learned when we found her and the (s)mother having tea in the West Parlor (Will actually called it the West Parlor, suggesting there is an East, North, and/or South), had been eaten by one of the Labradors. Two, actually. “They shared,” Bronwen said proudly, patting the nearest dog on its drooling head. She thought for a sec. “Try the library. There should be an old family Bible there. It might at least tell you who Katherine married.”

  I think Will and I both had a pretty good idea who Katherine married. I didn’t think it would make me feel any better to see Lord Chilham’s name in ink.

  We went down a few corridors and across miles of ocean, road, and tundra to the library. What a place. Shelves floor to ceiling, tall enough that there are actually ladders on runners that go back and forth from wall to wall. Have you ever known me to go all goofy over anything other than a guy or the perfect pair of jeans? Okay, maybe a hamachi roll at Hikaru . . . I felt like Belle in the Disney movie.

  Will took the six thousand books on the left; I took the four thousand on the right. Most are hardbacks. Most have leather binding and gold lettering. The paperbacks are pretty impressive, too. I pulled out a copy of Brideshead Revisited and opened it. The inscription said, To Chaz. Couldn’t buy the hardcover, you old Scrooge? Always, E.W.

  “My great-grandfather Charles,” Will explained, completely unimpressed by the presence of Evelyn Waugh. “The one with the flowerpots. Probably never bought a hardcover book if there was a paperback available.”

  After a while, it was like being in the tenth store on a shopping trip. Everything was starting to look the same. I found myself only noticing the colorful books. “Hey. Waverley. I’ve heard of . . .”

  An old copy of Walter Scott’s Waverley, bound in red leather. I gotta say, my heart started beating a little faster as I reached for the book. It felt smooth and a little cold as I slid it out. And there, there it was: a tartan ribbon tucked through the book. There were other things tucked between the pages, too: several folded papers, a single dried and blackened flower, and a piece of a playbill. From the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden.

  “Uh, Will. I think I might have found one of Katherine’s books.” I carefully opened one of the folded sheets. The lines were written in very bold, very masculine printing.

  A Riddle for Miss Percival, by An Admirer

  My first is in the Lanes but not the Plants.

  My second is in the Song and in the Dance.

  My third you’ll find at Court but not at Home.

  My fourth comes when you Walk but do not Roam.

  My fifth is in the Skies and in the Rain.

  My six begins not Bliss, yet ends the Pain.

  My seventh is in Whole but not in Part.

  My eighth is in your Head but not your Heart.

  When joined together, you shall surely see

  Our lives have always been; So shall we be?

  Will had been reading over my shoulder. “Oh. Right. I remember that. Couldn’t figure it out.”

  Okay, so I gloated just a little. I am very good at puzzles. I’d figured out that one in no time.

  “You find the letter that’s either in one or the other, or in both.” I explained, resisting adding a “duh.” “The first one’s easy. There’s no E in ‘Plants.’ ” (You with me here, ladies?) “Then, only N is in both words . . .”

  Edison would’ve been proud of the lightbulb that went off over Will’s head.

  Figured it out yet?

  E-N-T-W-I-N-E-D.

  “Our lives have always been. So shall we be?”

  It gave me a little tummy tingle the first time I read it. Now, standing next to Will, holding a two-hundred-year-old book and a two-hundred-year-old love letter, I got full-on butterflies. I looked up at him, at that perfect mouth and even more perfect skin and blue blue eyes, and wished like I’d never wished before (pony Prada parents-back-together Adam were nuthin’ compared to this).

  Gentle Readers, he kissed me.

  He tastes like ginger ale,
too.

  He kissed me in the middle of the library and I kissed him against the huge antique desk and, after a few minutes, when my legs were totally weak, we moved the action to the squashy, tufted leather sofa.

  “Wow,” I gasped when we finally came up for air. “Wow.”

  “I agree. Let’s do it again.” We did. After a while, he flopped back against the cushions, grinning. “I have wanted to do that since . . . Well, maybe not the first time I saw you.”

  I remembered the first time. Best not to think too much about that first view he would have had of me coming at him across the BM floor like a human windmill. “You did?”

  “Since you offered me tea in your flat. Especially when you told me you wanted a satellite for your birthday. In the Royal Academy, at Hatchards, standing in front of that bloody Napoleon statue. I wanted to kiss you last night, but you went all spastic on me just at the moment.”

  I remembered and winced at the memory. “Not my finest moment. I was thinking of . . . Hey!” Bad thought. Bad. And then, what’s a worse thought?—that there is a girlfriend, or that there might not be a girlfriend but I might totally ruin the Moment by asking?

  Like there’s any contest. I asked. “What about your girlfriend? The very bella Bella.”

  Well, ladies, as it happens, the very bella Bella has had very dubious girlfriend status since India. They fought endlessly through Italy, almost split up three times between Venice and Jaipur, and called it quits at the Delhi train station. He was relieved (“It had been pretty awful for a few months”); she apparently had second thoughts during her time in Greece (“She started calling all the time when she got back, wanting to talk”), and even I understand how hard it can be to completely, totally close the door on something that had been going on for so long and was, at least for part of it, good (“So much history . . .”).

  “You asked me,” he said. “You asked me how long we’d been together and I wanted to say we weren’t together, but she was back and calling and you were so bloody cool, Cat. Like a cat. I couldn’t read you . . .”

  Cool like a cat. Oh, stop laughing, Jen.

  Turns out I was right: he didn’t have a clue that I liked him. Gotta remember to tell Consuelo. Crap. Totally forgot to tell Consuelo about the fight she and Bayard never had.

  Forgot everything for the next hour or so.

  “Come on,” Will said eventually. “There’s something I meant to show you before.” He held my hand all the way upstairs.

  Boys’ rooms are always kinda strange, no matter who lives in them. Either they’re filled with dusty sports trophies, or the walls are covered with posters of scowling, diamond-grilled rappers or swimsuit models (I hate to admit Adam had one of each), or the technology cords cover everything like colorful snakes. They all smell like socks, the level of stinkiness determined, I think, by the resilience of whoever does the cleaning.

  Will’s room does have a very faint sock thang going, but otherwise it’s good. No posters, no trophies, no cables. The only definitive boy-was-here display is a group of tin soldiers on top of a glossy old table. There are a lot of books, a few framed maps and paintings on the walls, a very slick laptop, and even slicker plasma-screen TV. A big, tiled fireplace takes up the middle of one wall; a big, modern-looking bed takes up the one opposite. I didn’t want to spend too much time looking at the bed.

  So, I’m thinking, What if he wants to . . . I mean here, now . . . There’s a real bed but no flowers or “I love you” or . . . Right place, wrong time? Right time, wrong place? How about anyplace. Another time.

  He did that mind-reading thing. “As much as I have thought about it, Cat, about you—as much as I intend to keep thinking about it and you, this isn’t the time. Or place. So relax.” And he sez he can’t read me. I must have looked and sounded like a deflating balloon. “A little less visible relief would be nice for my fragile ego.”

  So I kissed him, to show him his ego had nothing to fear, and he was the one who had to (gently) disentangle us after a few more minutes.

  “I thought you’d like to see that.” He pointed to the painting on the wall above the desk.

  I took a closer look. “It’s Katherine!”

  I’d seen the b&w photocopy, with the diary, but that was like seeing a kid’s clay model of the Golden Gate Bridge. The portrait isn’t all that big, but it’s amazing. I gotta go look at more of Turner’s stuff. She was really beautiful: rose-and-ivory skin and incredible topaz-colored eyes. I could even see a little of the modern-day Percivals there in the masses of dark hair and determined chin.

  “I don’t know if it’s incredibly sweet or kinda creepy that you have this on your wall.”

  Will shrugged. “She came with the room. In fact, she was right there when my great-grandfather lived here. He wrote about it in a letter to my great-grandmother before they got married. Says that’s why he first fell in love with her: she reminded him of the girl he’d grown up looking at. I think maybe this was Katherine’s room when she lived here.”

  Ever get that dizzy feeling when something weird-but-good happens? Between all the smooching and the letter in the Waverley and the picture, I thought maybe I would sit down for a sec. I opted for one of the two armchairs near the fireplace. It creaked so loudly that I spent a tense moment waiting for it to collapse under me.

  “That chair,” Will said, “once supported Lord Byron’s arse. Of course, it might have been the other one—” He laughed as I very carefully and gingerly levered myself out. “Oh, for God’s sake, Cat, it’s just a chair. Far more interesting things have probably happened on pieces of our furniture than on that one. Sit.”

  Instead, I wandered over to look at the soldiers. They were old and well loved; some were missing their weapons, some bits of their paint. Will leaned past me and picked up a particularly battered one. “The Duke of Wellington. Probably made a few years after Waterloo.” He chose another. This one was smaller, rounder, and was wearing a sillier hat. “Napoleon.”

  He handed them to me. They were cold and heavier than you’d think, and I had this image of generations of little Percivals banging them against each other in endless battle. “Did these come with the room, too?”

  “Nope, but they’ve been handed down from Percival son to Percival son for at least a hundred years. There’s this cool but weird thing in my family: for the last hundred and fifty years, every male Percival has had one son and one daughter. No more, no less.”

  Okay, smack me, but of course I thought it: I could live with that—one boy, one girl.

  I dunno if Will was thinking the same thing. Probably not. They never do. He was probably thinking about whether we could both fit in one of the Byron chairs.

  We could. At least until his phone went and we both nearly jumped out of our skins. It’s just too easy to forget there are other people in the world when you’re with a guy who kisses like he does.

  “My dad,” he said, looking at the screen. “Dinner’s ready. He made ham and farm greens.”

  Dinner was fine. The rest of the evening was mahvelous. Will has asked me to pass on a message to you:

  • Will here. Just a few things I feel I ought to set straight: since Catherine won’t let me read her blog, I have decided it’s only fair that she refer to me in all future posts as Prince William, His Studliness, or 007.

  • She has promised to keep certain details out of print.

  • I think she’s f—well, pretty bloody amazing.

  • I will be very, very good to her for as long as she’ll let me.

  • I promise.

  24 June

  I do not know what I would do in these terrible days without Nicholas. He has come to us each morning after he has been to Whitehall, with whatever information he has been able to gather. There is little.

  We know the battle began near midday on Sunday last, began, I imagine, just as we were returning home from services at St. James’s. It ended near midnight, near the time that I set aside Waverley and extinguis
hed my candle. We know the fighting was fierce, and both sides felt certain of both victory and defeat over the many hours. We know that thousands of men fell, and that our forces were victorious.

  I feel disloyal to my country, but what is victory when I do not know if my brother is among the men who fell?

  We received a letter this morning, and our hearts leapt. Upon opening it, we saw that it was not news we wished to hear. Charles had posted it two days before the battle.

  Brussels, June 14

  My Dearest Family,

  I have too little time to write, and too much to say.

  It has been confirmed that the enemy has moved, and is within twelve miles of where I sit. Hence, we, too, shall move. After all the waiting and the anticipation that slid into complacence and ennui, the time for battle has surely come. I am not frightened. I have done this before; I know what to expect. And in knowing, I also know how important it is for me to send this letter. I can think of little worse than to meet any sort of misfortune and not have taken even these mere minutes to send you my boundless and grateful love.

  Also, I must beg an indulgence of you, Kitty, and ask you to deliver a message for me. I have not time to write another letter, yet things must be said. Try not to be angry at either me or the party to whom I will ask you to speak. Our attachment developed quickly and simply. We had not been in each other’s company more than a half-dozen times before we realised how nearly incomprehensible it was that we had ever not known each other, or loved. She is my second half, and I hers. We agreed to keep our attachment silent until my return, so that we might have the joy of telling each of our families when gathered. I am such a blithe fellow; when not actually facing battle, I conveniently forget what battles truly are. Now, with only the certainty of violence ahead, and no certainty of ever seeing England or those people I love again, I regret that. So, Kitty Kit, say aloud, “Yes, Charles, I promise not to be angry and to deliver your message.” Go on. Say it.