SWEET AWAKENING
Marjorie Farrell
Prologue
Somerset, 1808
“What do you think she will be like, Giles?”
“Hmmm?”
Lady Sabrina Whitton poked her twin in the ribs. They were both stretched out on the grass on their favorite spot: Camden Hill, where one could see for miles over Somerset. It was a hot day, and Giles, who had dozed off in the sun, was rudely awakened by his sister’s not so gentle nudge.
“Quit that, Sabrina,” he growled.
“But what do you think she’s like?”
“Who?” muttered Giles.
“Who? Who else would I be talking about but Lady Clare Dysart? I wish Mama and Papa had never invited her. This was to be a wonderful summer, and now we will have a baby tagging along after us.”
“Hardly a baby, Brina. She’s only three years younger than we are. And you know why she is spending the summer with us. She has no one her age at home, and her parents are worried about her.”
“She’s had no one for ten years. Why are they all of a sudden worried! Why spoil our summer?”
Giles raised himself on one elbow. “I hardly think one small ten-year-old girl can spoil things, Brina. She’ll tag along, and there is Lucy Kirkman. She’s only eleven, and we can invite her over to keep Lady Clare company.”
Sabrina brightened. Lucy had shown the definite signs of a first attack of calf-love this summer. She would probably jump at the chance to come to Whitton and see Giles. “You are right. I don’t know why I am being so awful about this. It is only that since you started school, we only have summers and holidays together.”
Like most twins, Giles and Sabrina were close. Although they were both physically and temperamentally very different, they had an almost uncanny ability to sense what the other was feeling. And until Giles had left for school two years ago, they had been inseparable.
On the surface, Sabrina appeared the stronger personality. She was the one who rushed headlong into things. Enthusiastic, impatient, impetuous, and very bright, she was the despair and delight of their governess. She loved her studies in mathematics and French and was bored to tears by the classics. Giles, on the other hand, loved literature and history and could read classical Greek as though he had been born to it. His French accent, however, was laughable. His intelligence ran quieter, deeper, and of the two, he was the better scholar.
Sabrina, with her dark brown curls and dark brown, almost black eyes, and sparkling personality, had the air of a gypsy, and in fact, her father would often tease their mother, saying that had she not had twins, he would have wondered what handsome young Romany had stolen her heart.
Giles had straight brown hair, which was always falling over his eyes, which looked brown or green, depending upon his mood. He looked just like his father, his mother would joke back to her husband.
But they were well matched, for all their differences. Sabrina had the tendency to run headlong into mischief, and Giles, with the steadiness that balanced his equally adventurous spirit, would pull them out of various scrapes his sister had involved them in. They shared a sense of the ridiculous. Most important of all, they were devoted to each other.
* * * *
Giles glanced at the sky. “Damn. We are going to be late if we don’t hurry. I’ll race you home, Sabrina.” He jumped up and was mounted before his sister had taken in his words.
“Blast you, little brother.” Sabrina had been born seventeen minutes before Giles and never let him forget it. She mounted quickly and sent her horse after him.
They pulled up, hot and sweaty, just minutes after the Dysart coach. The servants were carrying in Lady Clare’s luggage, and a small figure was being helped down. She stood in the drive, looking lost and bewildered, and Giles’s heart immediately went out to her. She was a sprite-like child, smaller than most ten-year-olds and with a halo of pale gold curls around her face. Giles dismounted first and handed the reins of his horse to Sabrina, who looked at him with annoyance. He wiped his sweaty palms on his buckskins and extending his hand to the child, introduced himself.
“Giles Whitton, Lady Clare. My sister and I were out riding and lost track of the time, so excuse our dirt. But we welcome you to Whitton.”
Clare looked up shyly and whispered her thanks. Her eyes were dark blue, almost purple, and her lashes black, despite her fair complexion.
“Come,” said Giles, holding out his hand. “Let me bring you in and introduce you to Mama.” He didn’t even throw a glance at Sabrina, who was still mounted, still holding the reins of Giles’s mare. She had never seen Giles respond that way to any female. Certainly not Lucy Kirkman. Somehow she knew that what appeared to be a small thing, Giles’s instant response to their small guest, signaled that everything was about to change.
* * * *
Clare Dysart was the youngest child of the Marquess and Marchioness of Howland. They had had two children, a boy and a girl, almost immediately after their marriage. Fifteen years had passed before Clare’s birth, and her parents always jokingly referred to her as their midlife “surprise,” making it clear that they had thought their child-rearing days were over.
When Clare arrived, her brother was away at school and her sister was almost grown. By the time Clare turned four, her brother had started university and her sister, having had a brilliant first Season, had made a very successful marriage and was living in Kent.
The marquess and marchioness, having settled their elder offspring, were quite taken up with one another, and although they genuinely loved their youngest, were too used to dealing with grown-up children and too dedicated to their own lives to pay her the attention she needed. As a result, Clare came to think of herself as an afterthought.
She was a very loving child and adored her mother and father. She hero-worshiped her older brother, who tousled her hair and brought her little treats on his visits down from Oxford, and she despaired of ever being quite as beautiful as her older sister. All her affection remained unexpressed, however. She kept it hidden, and no one guessed how much she wanted to feel a part of a family whose ways of being together had been set years before she arrived.
Her parents thought of her as quiet and reserved, never guessing at the depth of her need to love and be loved in return. They were not unaware of her isolation, however, for there were no children her age and rank in the neighborhood. And so, when she seemed old enough to travel from home alone, they wrote to their old friends, the Whittons, asking if their daughter could spend the summer in Somerset.
Clare had been terrified at the thought of leaving home. She might feel like an outsider, but it was home and she dreaded meeting the Whitton twins. Up until now her playmates had been her dog and her white mice, upon whom she lavished all her affection. She was also a great reader and moved easily in the realm of fancy. The thought of being forced to talk to and be with a brother and sister who no doubt would regard her as a burden, made the journey to Whitton a misery.
She had stepped down from the carriage, frozen by her fear and shyness and looked up into the friendly, warm eyes of Giles. She immediately recognized that in him she had protector and a champion, and some of her terror disappeared. She had found a Sir Galahad, she thought, as he took her hand and led her to the door.
* * * *
Sabrina, who at first thought she would hate Clare for taking some of Giles’s attention, found this impossible. It was clear that Clare did not have a guileful or mean bone in her body, and that she looked up to both the Whitton twins. Sabrina discovered she liked being admired for her adventurous spirit. Too often she was criticized for being hoydenish, but clearly Clare thought she was wonderful.
When they discovered that Clare was an excellent, albeit
cautious rider, they began to include her on their favorite rides. At first she was quiet, listening to their continuous chatter and giving only one- or two-word answers to their efforts to include her. By the end of the first week, however, she was opening up more, and her innocent, but revealing replies to their questions about her family made both Giles and Sabrina realize how lucky they were to have their parents and each other.
“I feel beastly now, that I didn’t want her here,” said Sabrina one afternoon when she and Giles were waiting for Clare to join them for a ride. “She sounds so alone and ... well, not precisely unloved. But imagine one’s parents referring to one as a ‘surprise’! Of course, Mama and Papa are always joking about how you were unexpected, Giles,” teased his sister. “They were thrilled with their firstborn, and then, just as they were both admiring her, along came the son and heir.”
“Now you know the midwife had told them Mama was big enough for twins. It must have been difficult, those first few months, dealing with such a demanding infant as yourself, especially since Mama declined a wet nurse.”
They both smiled at the thought of their unfashionable mother, who, as she had often told them, couldn’t bear the thought of sending them to someone else or separating them so early on. They had always known they were lucky in their parents, but had rather taken it for granted until Clare came along.
* * * *
That first summer was almost perfect. Almost, because of Lucy Kirkman.
Lucy, who was the daughter of the local squire, rode over on Clare’s third day. Miss Kirkman was a rather precocious eleven and a half, physically as well as temperamentally, and as Sabrina had guessed, had developed a tendre for Giles. Giles was oblivious to Lucy’s condition and treated her as he treated all their neighborhood companions.
He had certainly never treated her as solicitously as he did the Lady Clare Dysart, and Lucy resented it immediately. She was introduced to a shy, elfin creature, who seemed to be attached to Giles’s coat sleeve. It was obvious that Giles assumed that Lucy would be pleased to have an additional playmate, and so she acted delighted. But underneath the mask of friendliness was an angry jealousy. She had hoped to capture Giles’s attention with her new riding habit, which attractively outlined her developing figure, and he hardly gave her a second glance.
If there was anything that brought out the worst in Lucy, it was vulnerability. She got along well with Sabrina because she knew Sabrina wouldn’t let her get away with any bullying. But Clare’s shy passivity made her want to torment her, and so she did.
Not openly at first. Lucy could be very subtly mean, and so on various occasions that they all were together, she would make comments about how kind Giles was, how self-sacrificing, all in a way that made Clare feel that she was only a sort of charity case. She began to worry that Giles was spending time being nice to her when he would rather be off exploring with his sister and Lucy.
Lucy had uncannily gone right to her greatest weakness: the feeling that she was someone who had come along at the wrong time, who needed more attention than people had the desire to give.
Gradually, as Clare became more at home with the twins, Lucy’s attacks began to be less subtle. She would invite the twins over in front of Clare and make halfhearted apologies to her for leaving her out, always putting it down to Clare’s age.
Sabrina saw what was going on almost immediately and would turn Lucy’s comments off with a smile, managing to get Clare included after all. Giles didn’t notice a thing. Since Lucy Kirkman didn’t interest him in the least, the thought never crossed his mind that she might be seeing him as anything more than an old playmate.
In fact, he had never yet felt anything more than a friendly interest in a female. His feelings for Clare were uncomplicated: she called forth all his chivalrous impulses. He had felt sorry for her at first. Lucy had been right about that. But he also genuinely came to like her as he got to know her better. She was younger, smaller, and far more fragile than his sister, and she gave him the opportunity to feel protective for the first time. It made him feel strong and manly, and he enjoyed the feeling, as well as the flatteringly grateful glances Clare gave him with those purple-blue eyes.
* * * *
Along the course of the summer, Lucy progressed to outright teasing, which she made seem good-natured. When they all went fishing one afternoon, Clare disgraced herself by crying over the task of baiting her own hook. After Giles patted her shoulder and did the distasteful job for her, Lucy lost control and spilled the small basket of wriggling worms into Clare’s lap.
No one had seen her do it, and when Clare jumped up with a horrified shriek, Lucy laughed and immediately apologized sweetly for the “accident.” She had tripped over a tree root and would not have upset little Clare for anything. As Giles rushed over to comfort his small guest, Lucy dared Clare with her eyes to tell the truth.
Clare could only look back at her, wide-eyed with hurt and utterly incapable of defending herself. It wasn’t that she hadn’t sensed Lucy’s hostility, but at first, she thought it justified. After all, she was a nuisance, a tagalong, an afterthought, even here. At the same time, she couldn’t understand it at all, for she had nothing in her own range of emotion with which to compare it. She had never had any desire to tease or hurt anyone, and so she was paralyzed by Lucy’s attacks.
She would never have wanted to hurt Lucy. Why would Lucy want to hurt her? Why would anyone want to torment anyone, for that matter? And so she stood mute and passive as Giles brushed the mud off her dress. And it was that very muteness and lack of reaction that made Lucy want to dump another basket of worms on her. How could she just stand there and not fight back? Not say something? Not reveal what a witch, she, Lucy, had been these past weeks? Clare stood there, with that pathetic wounded look in her eyes, as Giles comforted her. Why, it was just as though she were asking for it!
And so, when Giles led Clare over to the stream to clean off her hands, Lucy couldn’t help herself. She pushed Clare in, saying: “There, you great baby, that will clean you off!”
The stream was shallow, and there was no real danger, as both Giles and Lucy knew. In fact, Clare was already scrambling to her feet by the time Giles recovered from his surprise and waded in to “save” her. But the look of distaste on his face when he turned back to Lucy overwhelmed her, and she choked back a sob of anger and grief, grabbed her pole and basket, and walked off without a backward glance.
Sabrina watched her go, glad that Giles had at last seen the real Lucy. She liked their old playmate but had been rather worried that once she set her heart on Giles, she would somehow finally get him. After all, many a match was made in the country before a girl even got to London for a Season. She turned back to her brother, who had stripped off his shirt and was wrapping it around a bedraggled and dripping Clare. Sabrina wondered as she walked over to comfort their new friend, if perhaps Lucy had a reason to be jealous after all.
* * * *
That first summer set the pattern for the next four. Clare would arrive at the beginning of July and stay for six weeks. Clare became more sure of herself after the obvious warmth of her welcome back the second year. She became more of an equal as the years went by and the difference in their ages meant less, but she never lost her admiration for Sabrina’s spirit or her affection for Giles as her “Galahad.”
Giles was her hero, ever since that first summer when he had finally seen Lucy Kirkman for what she was. He had saved Clare from her tormentor, threatening Lucy with immersion in the manure pile if she ever hurt Clare again, leaving Lucy cowed and distantly friendly to Clare, ever since.
* * * *
Giles was also her friend. He and she could talk about books for hours. And, she eventually realized, Giles was becoming something more.
It happened the last summer they were all together, the summer before Giles was to go up to university. It was the end of August, and the three of them had planned to go berrying on Clare’s next to last day. But that morning Sa
brina sent word through her abigail that the summer cold she had been fighting had finally won, and she was going to spend the day in bed. So Giles and Clare went alone, after an early breakfast.
It was a glorious day. The heat of the past week had been broken by an evening thunderstorm, and everything was made fresh and green and sparkling again, as though it were June, not August. As they walked to the raspberry thicket, Clare and Giles chatted easily, and perhaps nothing would have changed, were it not for the fox.
Giles saw her first, a quivering flame weaving herself in and out of the raspberry brambles. He stopped and put his hand on Clare’s arm. “Look, Clare,” he whispered.
Giles had touched her before, she was sure. He must have over the years. Then why did it feel as though this was the first time? They stood very still, and Giles kept his hand on her arm the whole time they watched the vixen make her way so close to them. Then, at the same moment it seemed, Giles became aware of where his hand was, and the fox became aware of them and was gone in a moment, leaving them each flustered by the physical intimacy.
“Well, that is something that Sabrina will be sorry she missed,” said Giles nervously, bringing his sister into the conversation as though that would make her physically present.
“It was wonderful, Giles,” said Clare, and she was not sure whether she meant the sight of the fox or the sensation of his touch.
It was a black raspberry bramble, and the fruit sparkled garnet and onyx. Every leaf, every tiny hair on every berry leaped out at Clare in detail, so awake and aware was she. As she picked, she put a few ripe berries in her mouth and tasted rain and sun and sweetness.
“Now, Clare, save some for Mrs. Pleck, or we will have no raspberry crumble for tea,” teased Giles as he popped a berry into his own mouth.
Clare watched his arm reach out. She had never noticed before how brown his arms were in the summer and how the hair on them was bleached gold by the sun. He was wearing a light cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and as he reached again, she could see his arm muscles ripple. She was so flustered by the languorous feeling that was stealing over her that she thrust her arm in to reach for a cluster of ripe berries and jerked it back with a low cry.
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