by Jane Anstey
Suddenly, he laughed out loud. Even to his own ears, it sounded rather wild laughter, closer to madness than to amusement. How like Rose to carry out such a wild plan because her son had suggested she did. What a child she was sometimes!
“And what about you?” he asked. “What do you want? You’ve never really worked that one out, have you?” Without his intending it, the words were full of challenge. But he realised this was the question that really mattered, the one he wanted answered.
There was a pause, as though she hadn’t thought it through before, or could not put the answer into words. Then she said slowly, “I love you, Simon.”
He met her eyes then, his senses awakening, the blood coursing violently through his veins.
“Please, Simon,” he heard her beg, through the pounding in his ears. “Don’t let it be over.”
“I never said it was!” he retorted, as he moved swiftly across the room towards her. “It’s never been over for me.”
He peeled off her wet coat and threw it over the nearest chair. The music was reaching its climax, building, yearning.
“Come here,” he said, his voice husky. He wrapped her tightly in his arms, breathing in the scent of her hungrily. Her hair brushed against his face, leaving water droplets like tears on his cheeks. “You’ll catch your death,” he scolded gently. “There’s no fire or food or anything here.”
She laid her head against his shoulder. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not cold. And there’s food in my house, if we want it.”
“Where’s Robert?”
“At the rectory, having a sleepover with the twins.”
Simon gave a deep sigh and kissed the nape of her neck. “So you want to finish what we started,” he said. “At last.”
“Yes, please.” She turned her face up to him and there were tears as well as raindrops on her face.
“And you want me to take on Robert, too.” He was teasing now, light-headed with relief and happiness.
“And Dolly. I can’t leave either of them behind.”
He gave a shout of laughter, joy shooting sky high. “All or none, huh?”
She nodded. The fear had gone from her eyes and she was smiling.
“Well, we began with John Donne,” he said. “But I guess we had better finish with Will Shakespeare.”
She looked up at him enquiringly. Her tears were dry now, and her eyes were clear.
“Love’s Labour’s Lost,” he hinted, one eyebrow lifted.
She shook her head, bemused.
He drew her closer, his hand caressing her hair. She would not understand the context of the play, nor all that it meant to him. But one day, they would go to see it together, and she would find some new slant on it to delight and refresh him.
And he would never stop loving her.
Tchaikovsky’s finale was drawing to a close, and the quiet serenity of harp arpeggios had given way to vibrant orchestral chords.
“‘And when love speaks’,” he murmured softly, his mouth close to her ear as the music rang triumphantly around them, “‘the voice of all the gods makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.’”
Meet Jane Anstey
Jane Anstey began writing before she left junior school, and had her first story published in the school magazine when she was eleven. She took a degree in Modern History from Oxford University then taught in high school for four years before her first child was born in 1982. After that she took up copy-editing, indexing and educational writing. She now lives in Cornwall, UK, overlooking the moors, with her husband and younger daughter, aged 17, along with a dog and four guinea pigs.
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Works From The Pen Of Jane Anstey
Beauty for Ashes - When Hollywood actor Luke Carson falls for English college student Samantha, he finds himself on an emotional roller-coaster ride to disaster.
St Martin’s Summer - An unpopular farmer is found dead in a Hampshire village. Reverend Jeremy Swanson investigates its connection with an abortive love affair and the disappearance of a small boy.
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