by Mary Balogh
There was a joy for life in Stephen.
Charlotte was his favorite. Or he was hers. Although all the guests mingled with all the others, more often than not it was beside Charlotte that Stephen sat or beside her that he walked or rode.
It was easy to feel happy for these two weeks. And if there was some apprehension about what would happen afterward, when all the guests had left and all the excitement was at an end and life settled, as it inevitably must, into a fixed routine, then Katherine firmly set aside her anxiety. That time would come soon enough. She would deal with it when it came.
Meanwhile she dreamed that perhaps Jasper would love her someday-even if he never said so.
Jasper could not remember a time when Cedarhurst had been so filled with guests, though his staff assured him that in his father’s day and his grandfather’s there had always been people coming and going and sometimes there had been great house parties that had brought every guest room into use.
He had been forbidden to mention his father when he was a boy. Strangely, it was one order he had obeyed-perhaps because he had not wanted to know any more about him than he already did. And perhaps because every servant had been forbidden to mention his name too. He was surprised to hear him mentioned now.
It happened one morning more than a week after the house party had begun, when he had wandered down to the kitchen in search of Katherine-she was not there-and had stayed to eat two currant cakes, fresh out of the oven. Someone mentioned the upcoming fete and someone else mentioned his father as the host of the last one.
“Did he even attend it?” Jasper asked. “He was a wastrel, was he not?”
At which Mrs. Oliver lifted the utensil she happened to be holding in her hand at that moment, a rather lethal-looking carving knife, and pointed it directly at his heart from no more than three feet away.
“I heard quite enough of that nonsense when Mr. Wrayburn was alive,” she said, “God rest his soul. But just because Mr. Wrayburn liked his Bible and his sermons and did not like liquor or dancing, that does not mean everyone who enjoyed a bit of fun now and then was the devil incarnate. You were not the devil, my lord, even though you was bad enough to grow gray hairs on the heads of everyone that cared for you. And your papa was not the devil either even though he liked his drink and his wild ways and, yes, even his women before he married your mama. At least there was laughter in this house while he was still alive, which there was precious little of after he died, Lord knows-and no one has ever persuaded me that the good Lord does not enjoy a good belly laugh from time to time. And if her ladyship, God bless her, is aiming to bring the laughter back, and even a bit of the wildness, then good for her, says I.”
Her eyes fell upon the wicked blade of the knife she had been wagging at him, and she had the grace to lower it hastily. She was flushed and out of breath.
“And so says everyone in these parts,” Couch added. “Begging your pardon, my lord, for expressing an opinion in your hearing unasked.”
“That never stopped you when I was a lad,” Jasper said. “I seem to remember growing heartily tired of hearing your opinion, Couch.”
“Well,” the butler said, looking somewhat abashed, “if you would tie the footman’s wig to the back of his chair when he nodded off in the hall, and if you would ride down the waterfall when you were wearing your good clothes and tear holes in your coat and your breeches when they caught on branches and stones on your way down, you had to expect to hear my opinion, my lord.”
“Let me hear it now again, then,” Jasper said, grinning and sitting down on one of the long benches that stretched the length of the kitchen table and helping himself to an apple, into which he bit with a loud crunch. “Tell me about my father.”
They both told him a good deal even though they exchanged a look first, as if even now they were afraid of breaking a rule set by a dead man. His mother’s second husband had cast a long, dark shadow, Jasper reflected.
He could not stay in the kitchen for long. Charlotte had borne off the young people in gigs and on horseback to the village, where they intended to look at the church-probably very briefly if Jasper knew anything about young persons-before taking refreshments in the taproom at the inn. He had promised to show the gallery to Lady Hornsby and Dubois and his wife and give them a bit of a history lesson about his family and Cedarhurst. His uncle was going to join them too.
He had hoped that Katherine would accompany him-that was why he had been looking for her-but she had vanished, probably into the village for one of her committee meetings.
The young people had in no way been tired out by their outing, it appeared later at luncheon. It was decided that they would walk about the lake during the afternoon. They had been down to the water several times, to stroll along the near bank and to picnic there and take out the boats on one occasion, but they had never yet found the time to walk to the far side-or to take the wilderness walk.
“It is really very pretty on the other side,” Charlotte explained. “There are lovely views from every point, and there are several places to sit and rest-including the little cottage, which is really just a folly. We will save the full wilderness walk through the hills for another day.”
“I would think so too,” Miss Fletcher said. “My shoes will be all worn out before I return home, not to mention my feet.”
“You must allow me to escort you, then, Miss Fletcher,” Thane said, his voice half cracking over the words, as the voices of very young gentlemen frequently did, “and you may lean upon my arm.”
“Oh, thank you, Mr. Thane,” she said, blushing while the younger Miss Dubois giggled.
Why did very young ladies giggle so much? And why did they do it almost without ceasing when other young ladies were with them-and even more so when there were young gentlemen within earshot? But Jasper listened to it all with an amused indulgence.
“Miss Huxtable,” young Fletcher said, “may I have the honor of escorting you?”
The poor boy had been suffering from a severe case of infatuation for Margaret all week, even though he must be at least six years her junior and in no way her match in the looks department.
She smiled kindly at him. “It would be my pleasure,” she said.
She was a kind lady.
“Shall we walk to the far side of the lake too, Jasper?” Katherine asked. “It is the one part of the walk we have not yet done.”
All heads, it seemed, turned first her way and then his, as if his answer was of the utmost importance to them all. No one had forgotten the circumstances of their marriage, of course, when so little time had passed since their wedding. Everyone’s eyes had been upon them for more than a week. They had done a great deal of smiling at each other, he and Katherine.
“We certainly shall, my love,” he said. “Especially if I may have you on my arm.”
“Of course,” she said.
21
THE walk took them down the lawn to the jetty, around the grassy bank of the lake to their left, past reeds and a noisy family of ducks, into the trees on the far side, and onto the beginnings of the wilderness walk. Sometimes the trees enclosed them and offered a welcome shade from the sun. At others they opened out and afforded views of the water and the house. At one point it led to the tiny cottage at the top of the steepest part of the bank and the waterfall beside it.
Lady Hornsby and Mrs. Dubois had remained behind to sit in the parterre garden. Mr. Dubois had walked into the village with Mr. Finley to call upon a few former acquaintances of the latter. Everyone else had come on the walk, even Miss Daniels and the Reverend Bellow.
It took close to an hour just getting as far as the waterfall since there was so much to stop for and admire and exclaim over on the way and so many seats on which to sit to rest from their exertions. And at every moment there was a great deal of animated chatter and laughter to delay them even further.
“I am well aware,” Jasper said to Katherine while Miss Fletcher and Miss Hortense Dubois were stretchi
ng their hands gingerly into the waterfall and then shrieking at their own daring and exclaiming loudly at the coldness of the water, “that this house party is for Charlotte’s sake and that both she and the infants are enjoying themselves enormously. But I am an elder and bored almost to tears by it all. Are you?”
“Not at all,” she said. “I like all our guests very much indeed and the surroundings are lovely and the weather is perfect. I daresay a curricle race to Land’s End and back would be more to your taste.”
“If you would come with me,” he said. “Would you?” “I am afraid not,” she said. “I have no desire to break my neck and both my legs.”
“Coward,” he said.
“Besides,” she said, “it would probably rain somewhere along the way and I would ruin a perfectly decent bonnet.”
“No race to Land’s End and back, then,” he said with a sigh. “How about a private walk a little way up into the hills instead? There is somewhere I want to show you.”
“Did I not see it all two weeks ago?” she asked as Charlotte shrieked and Thane bellowed and someone informed him that his sleeve was soaked and everyone shouted with laughter.
“No, you did not.” He offered her his hand. “Come with me. No one will miss us-they are all too busy flirting with one another. And Miss Daniels is here to see that they do not get too enthusiastic about it.”
“It seems very neglectful to abandon all our guests,” she said. But it was a weak protest. She did not resist the pull of his hand, and he walked her briskly away from the waterfall in the direction of the fork in the path, one branch of which led down to the beach while the other climbed up into the hills. He took the latter.
He was feeling too restless for a walk at slower than a snail’s pace. His thoughts had been swirling around in his brain for several hours, and he felt in dire need of peace and quiet.
They walked rather briskly despite the upward slope until they reached the ancient beech tree at one end of the rhododendron stretch of the walk. He stopped there and leaned back against the trunk for a moment, still holding her hand.
“Winded?” he asked.
He could hear that she was. But she turned to look down at the view, which was admittedly rather splendid. It looked down on the paddocks and kitchen gardens behind the house and over the house itself to the parterre gardens, the lawns and driveway, the village in the distance, and a patchwork of fields stretching into the distance in all directions. Just a little higher, he had always thought, and they would be able to see the sea. He had tried climbing the tree once, but he had sprained an ankle and a wrist as a result and, worse, had scuffed a newish pair of boots so badly that even the combined skills of several servants had not been able to cover up his transgression.
They had been putting on a good front for their family and guests, he and Katherine. But there was still a reserve between them in private that had been there since he had made an ass of himself at the lake. She must think him a sorry wager-winner since there were no more than a few days left in their wager and he had made no real attempt recently to win it.
“Come,” he said after they had their breath back, and he took her hand again and turned off the path to strike straight upward through dense trees until they had reached almost to the top of the rise and into the sudden, unexpected clearing that as far as he knew no one else had ever discovered. It was like a miniature meadow or dell, all lush grass and wildflowers, completely enclosed by trees. Coming here had always felt like walking into another world, in which he was entirely alone and in which time and troubles mattered not at all.
“My most secret retreat as a boy,” he said, stopping at the edge of it. “I came here more often than I can remember, summer and winter.”
He had been somehow afraid that it would be gone. It was years since he had been here last.
“It is always carpeted with snowdrops in the early spring,” he said, “as if it had suffered its own private little snowfall. And with bluebells later on as if a patch of sky had taken refuge in the forest. I wish you could have seen it in the spring.”
“I will,” she said softly. “Next year and the year after. I live here, Jasper.”
He knew somehow from the tone of her voice that she understood, and he felt foolish and grateful.
One thrush, perhaps disturbed by the sound of their voices, flew out of a high branch with a flutter of wings, and she tipped back her head to watch it soar into the sky.
“I have always had places like this of my own,” she said, “though never anywhere quite so remote or more splendid.”
He looked over to the far corner of the clearing and was surprised and relieved to discover that it was, of course, still there-a great flat slab of rock jutting out of the hillside, level with his knees when he was a boy.
“Ah,” he said, “the stone is still there. My drea-”
He stopped abruptly.
“Your drea-?” she said.
“Nothing.” He shrugged.
“Your dreaming stone?” she said.
Good Lord, she had got it exactly right. His dreaming stone.
“A foolish boyhood fancy,” he said, striding away from her to take a closer look at it. It was covered with moss and twigs and other debris, and he leaned over to brush it off. “I was captain of my own ship here and lord of my own castle and navigator of my own flying carpet. I slew dragons and enemy knights and black-hearted villains of all descriptions here. I was my own favorite, invincible hero.”
“As we all are in our childhood fantasies,” she said. “As we need to be. Our games give us the courage to grow up and live the best adult lives of which we are capable.”
Had the vicar taught her that?
He set one booted foot on the stone.
“And sometimes,” he said, “I would just lie here watching the sky.”
“Flying on the coattails of the clouds,” she said. “And yet you scorned me when I told you that I dreamed of flying close to the sun.”
“I was a child at the time,” he said, lowering his foot back to the ground, “and knew nothing. It is here we have to do our living, Katherine. And not even here in this clearing or places like it, but down there in the world, where dreams signify nothing.”
“Our lives ought to be lived in both places,” she said. “We need both our retreats, our private places and our dreams, and our lives out there, where we make a difference to one another, for good or ill.”
He must think quickly of something about which to tease her. He was not accustomed to serious conversation. And he felt too raw for one now. Why, then, had he brought her here? He might easily have got away on his own.
He had never brought anyone else here-until now.
She stepped up onto the stone, looked around the clearing from that higher vantage point, and sat down. She took off her bonnet and set it beside her, and then hugged her knees and lifted her face to the sky.
A few weeks ago she had worn lemon and blue for the lake and the sunshine. Now she wore her pale green cotton for the woods, as if she had known they would come here. A sun goddess there, a wood nymph here.
And then she looked suddenly dismayed.
“I am sorry,” she said. “Am I encroaching upon what is yours?”
“You are what is mine, are you not?” he said, grinning at her. And he stepped up there too and sat with his wrists resting on his crossed legs for a few minutes before removing his hat and coat, spreading the latter behind him, and lying back on it, leaving enough room for her if she chose to lie beside him.
It was no good. She had not responded to that provocative claim of ownership, and he could think of nothing else with which to tease or mock her.
She glanced down at him, looked into his eyes, and then came down to join him, her head beside his on the coat. He felt himself relax. It was safe here. There had always been that illusion. It was an illusion, of course. He had always had to go back to the house eventually, where he had been required to explain where he had
been, why he had chosen to worry his mother so much with his long absence, why his lessons were not done or his Bible verses learned, why his clothes were dirty, why…
Well.
His body was relaxed, but his thoughts had a busy agenda of their own. He could not still them. He could not think of a single thing to say that would make her laugh or that would draw a spirited retort.
He was not himself at all. He ought to have come alone.
“He loved Rachel, you know,” he said abruptly at last and felt like an idiot when he heard the words. He had spoken aloud.
“Mr. Gooding?” she asked after a pause. “Ought that not to be present tense? It seemed to me at our wedding breakfast that-”
“My father,” he said, interrupting her. “She was more than a year old when he died, and he loved her. He adored her, in fact. He used to carry her all over the house, to the frequent consternation of her nurse.”
She did not say anything.
“And he was excited about me,” he said. “He had been out shooting with some other fellows on the day he died and was carousing with them afterward, after the rain started, when word reached him that my mother was having pains. He was riding hell bent for leather back home when he jumped that hedge instead of taking ten seconds longer to go through the gate. Perhaps he did not even notice that it was open. And so he died-and the pains were false ones. I did not put in an appearance until a month later.”
Her hand was in his. Had he taken it? Or had she taken his? Either way, he was clasping it rather tightly.
He felt like a prize idiot. He turned his head and smiled mockingly at her, loosening his grip as he did so.
“It was just as well he popped off when he did,” he said. “His second child would have been a colossal disappointment to him. You must agree with that, Katherine.”