by Mary Balogh
“Will you?” She looked back at him. “But I removed the pins so that I can lie back on the blanket and look at the sky. Perhaps you will brush it later, before I put it back up.”
The strange thing was that she was not flirting with him. Neither was she using her siren’s voice or eyes. Yet he felt the tension between them like a palpable thing—and doubted she did. She was as he had never seen her before, relaxed and smiling and without artifice.
He was dazzled.
She was far more attractive to him than when she was trying to attract.
She stretched out on the blanket, adjusting her clothes to make sure her dress decently covered her ankles. And she laced her hands behind her head and gazed upward. She sighed with obvious contentment.
“If only we could keep our connection with the earth,” she said, “all would be well with our lives. Do you think?”
“Sometimes,” he said, “we become so intoxicated by the strange notion that we are lords of all we survey that we forget we are creatures of the earth.”
“Just like butterflies,” she said, “and robins and kittens.”
“And lions and ravens,” he said.
“Why is the sky blue?” she asked.
“I have no idea.” He grinned down at her, and her eyes turned toward him. “But I am very glad it is. If the sun merely beamed down its light from a black sky, the world would be a gloomier place.”
“Just like before a thunderstorm,” she said.
“Worse.”
“Or like nighttime with a brighter moon. Come down here and look,” she said.
He deliberately misunderstood her. He lowered his head over hers and slowly searched her face, his eyes coming to rest finally on her green eyes. They were smiling.
“Very nice indeed,” he said. He meant it too.
“Likewise.” Her eyes were roaming over his face as well. “Stephen, you are going to have wrinkles at the outer corners of your eyes when you are older, and they are going to make you impossibly attractive.”
“When the time comes,” he said, “I’ll remember that you warned me.”
“Will you?” She lifted her hands and set two fingertips lightly over the spots where the wrinkles would be. “Will you remember me?”
“Oh, always,” he said.
“And I will remember you,” she said. “I will remember that once in my life I met a man who is perfect in every way.”
“I am not perfect,” he said.
“Allow me to dream,” she said. “To me you are perfect. Today you are perfect. I will not know you long enough or intimately enough to learn of your weaknesses and vices, which are doubtless legion. In memory you will always be my perfect angel. Perhaps I will have a medallion made and wear it about my neck.”
She smiled.
He did not.
“We will not know each other for long?” he asked her.
She shook her head.
“No, of course not,” she said. “But that does not matter, Stephen. There is today, and today is all that matters.”
“Yes,” he said.
As far as he knew, there were no people walking in sight of them. If there were, they must already be scandalized enough. What difference would it make if he—
He kissed her.
And she kissed him back, first cupping his face gently with her palms and then sliding her arms about his neck.
It was a warm, unhurried, quite chaste kiss that did not even involve their tongues. It was the most dangerous kiss Stephen had ever shared. He knew that as soon as it ended and he lifted his head to look down into her face again.
Because it had been a kiss of shared affection bordering on love. Not lust. Love.
“And now,” she said, “will you do as I suggested a few minutes ago and come down here and look? Upward? At the sky?”
She spoke softly, without smiling, despite the teasing nature of her words.
He stretched out beside her and looked upward—and knew what she had meant when she spoke of connection to the earth. He could feel it, firm and eternal beneath him despite the thickness of the blanket. And above him he could see the blue, cloudless sky and—connecting the two—the leafy branches of the oak tree.
And he was a part of that connection, that gloriously spinning place, as was Cassandra.
He reached over and took her hand in his. He laced his fingers with hers.
“If you could just step off into the sky,” she said, “and be a new person, would you?”
He gave the question some consideration.
“And so lose myself as I know me, and everything and everyone that have helped shape me into the person I am?” he said. “No. But temporary escape would be good now and then. I am greedy and want the best of both worlds, you see. Would you?”
“I can lie here,” she said, “and dream of letting go and floating off into blueness and light. But I would have to take myself with me or the whole exercise would be pointless. And so nothing would really be changed, would it? If I had to leave myself behind in order to escape … Well, I might as well be dead. And I think I would hate that. I want to live.”
“I am glad to hear it,” he said, chuckling.
“Oh, but you do not understand,” she said. “It surprises me. For a long time I have thought that if given the choice without actually having to take my own life, I would choose death.”
He felt a sudden chill.
“But you no longer feel that way?” he asked her.
“No,” she said. She laughed softly. “No! I want to live.”
He squeezed her hand more tightly, and they lay together in silence while he pondered what she had just said. What must her life have been like if she would have preferred death to life—and if the preference was so habitual that it actually surprised her now to discover that she preferred life?
Sometimes he forgot—or chose to forget—that her life had been so intolerable that she had killed.
But he would not think of that today.
He turned his head to look at her after a few minutes, and she returned the look. They both smiled.
“Happy?” he asked.
“Mmm.”
He sighed and set his free arm over his eyes. He had not stepped out into space, but he had stepped into something new after all. This was not seduction. This was not even simply friendship. This was … He did not know what it was. But he had the feeling his life would never be the same again.
And he was not sure if the thought alarmed him or exhilarated him.
After a few minutes he drifted off into that pleasant state of being asleep and yet half aware too of everything around him.
14
STEPHEN was asleep. He was not exactly snoring, but he was breathing deeply in such a way that there was no doubt he was sleeping.
Cassandra closed her eyes and smiled—and felt a desperate sort of tenderness for him and for the stolen, carefree pleasure of the afternoon. She had decided to enjoy herself, and that was what she was doing. All her defenses, all her anxieties, all her mistrust of anyone outside her own tiny circle of friends, had been left at home, to be taken up again after the picnic was over.
Perhaps.
Or perhaps not.
She allowed herself the cautious belief that perhaps after all there was one good man in the world, and he was lying beside her, his fingers relaxed about her own. She knew he was not perfect. As he kept reminding her, no one was. But he seemed as close to being perfect as anyone could be.
And if he did have character flaws or even vices, she would never know. For, of course, she would not know him for long. Not beyond the end of the Season, at the latest. And if she was very fortunate, she would never hear any unsavory stories about him in the future.
She was going to live in the country again. She had decided that just now, while lying here. It was as if this little piece of the country, the earth beneath her, the sky above, the tree branches between, had cleared her mind of a dense, dark fog that had bef
uddled it for a long, long time. She was going to find a little cottage in a small village somewhere in England, well off the beaten track, and she was going to live there and grow flowers and embroider bright tablecloths and handkerchiefs and go to church every Sunday and help serve teas at parish functions and dance at local assemblies and …
Well.
She swallowed against a lump in her throat. Perhaps she had stepped off into the sky, after all. But it was not an impractical dream. Or an impossible one.
For something else had just struck her with overwhelming force.
She had been a victim for ten long years. She had not been able to help the vicious beatings. Nigel had been stronger than she, and he had been her husband and had had the legal right to discipline her as he saw fit. But she had developed a victim’s mind, a cowering, abject thing intent more than anything else upon remaining hidden in every conceivable way, upon figuratively holding her breath lest someone notice her and come at her, fists flying. And her victim’s mentality she could help. If her mind was not under her control, then life was really not worth living.
Life had not felt worth living for almost ten years.
Today, suddenly, it did. She turned her head toward Stephen, tears in her eyes, but he was still sleeping. Fortunately, he was still sleeping.
Ah, how terribly beautiful he was. How achingly attractive. How she longed …
But he had no part in her new dream. How could he? She had seduced him and made him feel obligated to her. It was all quite unfair. He should be back firmly in his own world with young ladies like the one who had walked with him this morning.
But this new dream did have something to do with him. She had him to thank for it. By being kind to her when he had absolutely no reason to be, he had reminded her of her own worth. Of her power over her own life.
Could she make such an extravagant claim for him when her acquaintance with him was so slight, when it had begun in such an ugly manner, with seduction and then ensnarement?
Was he really an angel?
She smiled through her tears at the fanciful thought. She would be seeing wings and a halo soon.
She was no longer going to be penniless and dependent and abject and frightened and defensive and all the horrid, cringing things she had been since Bruce had tossed her out of her home and washed his hands of her.
She was going to fight boldly back.
Tomorrow she was going to find a lawyer who would be willing to take on her case despite her near-poverty. With Stephen’s money she was going to pay him a small retainer, with a promise of the rest of his fee when he had got justice for her. According to both her marriage contract and Nigel’s will, she was entitled to have received a lump sum payment from his personal fortune and a monthly pension from the estate. She was also supposed to have retained all the jewelry that had been given her since her marriage. It was her personal property. She was to have had use of the dower house too and the town house here in London for the rest of her natural life, unless she married again. She had no interest in the dower house, but the London house would have been worth having this spring.
Bruce had told her she might have her freedom but nothing else. The implication had been that if she did not accept his ultimatum, everything would be lost to her, even her freedom. Even, perhaps, her life.
And she had believed him.
It was absurd!
If he had believed that her guilt in his father’s death could be proved, he would have had her arrested without further ado. He would not have suggested making any deal with her.
He could prove no such thing because there was no proof.
She had known all this before. Why, then, did it seem like a blazing revelation today?
She was going to go after her money and her jewelry and even the town house. Any decent lawyer would surely be able to get all three for her with very little trouble. Both a marriage contract and a will were legally binding documents. He would not be risking much by taking her small retainer and waiting for the rest of his fee.
She closed her eyes and could feel the world spinning—with her on it. She was alive. And Stephen’s warm, relaxed hand was in her own, their fingers loosely laced.
If only the world could be made to slow on its axis. If only this moment could be prolonged. If she wanted, she was well aware—if she chose—she could fall in love with him. Deeply. Head over ears. Irrevocably.
She did not so choose. She was taking joy out of this single afternoon. She was borrowing some of his light. The light that was within herself was so very dim. Just a short while ago, if asked, she would have said that it had been extinguished altogether. But it had not. He had rekindled it in her. He was all light. Or so it seemed.
She had nothing nearly as powerful or precious to offer in return and so she would not cling to him. She would let him go as soon as she was able.
She had spoken the truth a little while ago, though. She would remember him. Always. She would not literally have a medallion made to wear about her neck, of course. But she would not need one. She believed she would always be able to close her eyes and see him—and hear him and feel the warm clasp of his hand. She would remember the subtle musk of his cologne.
As soon as she had her money and jewels, she would return all of his money—with thanks. And all ties between them would be severed, all debts paid, all dependence on one side and obligation on the other at an end.
Their relationship—if that was an appropriate word for what was between them—would be somehow healed. And it would end.
He would remember her—if he remembered—with respect and perhaps a little fond nostalgia.
She lifted her head slightly and looked down the slope to the left. In the far distance she could see two figures, and she was almost sure they were coming this way. She was almost certain too that they were Alice and Mr. Golding. And, goodness, Alice would go for Stephen’s head with her reticule if she saw them stretched out on the blanket like this, hand in hand, her hair all loose about her shoulders.
It would be grossly unfair.
Cassandra chuckled, nevertheless, at the mental image she had conjured, and she turned her head toward Stephen and squeezed his hand.
“I think,” she said, “it is time to sit up and make ourselves respectable again. Not that you are looking disreputable, but I need to put my hair up. Will you give it a quick brush for me?”
He smiled sleepily at her.
“I believe I almost nodded off,” he said.
She laughed. “I believe you almost did.”
She sat up, found the brush in her reticule, handed it to him, and turned half away from him, pulling her hairpins closer as she did so.
He drew the brush with a firm stroke through the full length of her hair on the left side. He moved the brush a little farther to the right and did it again. Within a minute the whole mass of her hair was smooth and crackling, and her scalp was tingling.
“You do that awfully well,” she said, gathering her hair at the neck and twisting it into a knot before stabbing pins into it to stop it from falling down again. She drew on her bonnet.
“Cassandra,” he said, “was your husband Belinda’s father?”
Her hands paused on the ribbons.
“No,” she said.
“The present Paget, then?” he asked. “The son?”
“No,” she said again, tying a bow to one side of her chin.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I have wondered.”
“It was not rape,” she said. “I believe Mary really loved … the father.”
She waited for him to ask more questions, but he did not do so.
She sighed.
“Nigel had three sons,” she said. “Bruce is the eldest, and then there are Oscar and William. Oscar has been in the army for years. I have met him only two or three times, none recently. He did not come home for his father’s funeral. William has always been a wanderer. He was in America for several years. Then, four years ago, he ca
me home for a few months before going to Canada with a fur trader. Belinda was born seven months after he left. Mary claims that he did not know about her when he went away. I like to believe her. I have always been fond of him, though he certainly does have his faults.”
“Paget did not dismiss her?” he asked.
“Nigel?” she said. “No. He left the management of the household to me. I did not tell him that Mary’s child was his granddaughter. Indeed, I believe he was unaware that there was a child in the servants’ quarters.”
Until the end.
“Bruce dismissed her, though, when he came to live at Carmel,” she said. “She had nowhere to go, no family members who were wiling to take her in. She was in a desperate case. It was no particular kindness to bring her and Belinda to town with me, but at least we all had one another. Alice too. And Roger.”
Alice and Mr. Golding were quite distinguishable now. Cassandra raised an arm to wave.
“William Belmont is still in Canada?” Stephen asked.
“I do not know,” she said. “I ought not even to have told you all this. It was not my secret to tell, was it? But I will add that Mary is not loose of morals. I believe she really loved William. No, I am sure she loves him. And waits for him.”
He rested a hand on her shoulder and squeezed.
“I stand in judgment on no one, Cass,” he said. “Me of all people.”
He lowered his hand and turned his head to smile at the approaching couple.
Alice and Mr. Golding strolled all the way to the Pen Ponds and about them before making their way back to the picnic site at the same leisurely pace. They talked for a long time about books, and then they reminisced a bit about shared experiences when they had both taught the Young children, even though that span of time had been all too short. He surprised Alice then by talking of his wife of eight years, who had died three years ago.
It had not occurred to her that perhaps he had been married—that perhaps he still was.
It saddened and then rather amused her to realize that he had not carried a torch for her all these years. For, of course, she had not carried one for him either. She had known him briefly, had fallen violently in love with him because she had been a lonely girl with almost no chance to meet young men, had mourned him for perhaps a year after he left, and had then more or less forgotten him—until she met him again two days ago.