by Mary Balogh
The carriages and the horses had to be left at the eastern foot of the hill. Christopher, Julian, and Philip carried the picnic baskets and blankets to the top while Rebecca took one of Lord Holmes's arms and Maude the other and led him slowly up the incline.
"Really," he complained when they paused halfway up for breath, "I would have positively forbidden Harriet to bring us here had I known the site to be so primitive. Such exercise is extremely bad for the legs. It causes gout, you know. Mark my word, Maude, I shall be laid up with it all winter."
"There is but a short way to go, my lord," Maude said encouragingly, "and then you will be able to sit and rest. The journey down will not be nearly so strenuous."
The tone of her voice was entirely flat and colorless, Rebecca noticed, glancing across at her uncle's wife. In fact, Maude had been pale and listless for several days- since the Langbourne ball. If Rebecca had not known what had occurred there, she might have worried that Maude was sickening for something, or that she was increasing, perhaps. But she did not think either was the case. Maude was either suffering terrible pangs of guilt for what she had done with Philip, or else she was suffering with the knowledge that her love for him would never be able to find expression. Perhaps both.
By the time the three of them reached the courtyard within the walls, the blankets were spread on the most sheltered and shady part of the lawn and Primrose was impatiently eyeing the food baskets.
"Wine for Papa!" Harriet cried. "Do let us all have a drink before we eat." She was flushed and looking extremely pleased with herself.
"Indeed, I must agree," Mr. Bartlett said, bowing and smiling in Harriet's direction. "We must toast Miss Shaw on her birthday. I am sure everyone will agree with me that one more year to her age has merely added more beauty and more glow. Allow me, ma'am?" He stooped to open the wine basket and proceeded to do the honors of pouring eveTryone a glassful.
Harriet laughed. "I am sure I am no more beautiful than any of the other ladies," she said, smoothing the front of her new sprigged muslin dress and checking the large bow that tied her bonnet beneath her chin. "But I am surely the happiest. Thank you, sir." She took the glass of wine that Mr. Bartlett offered and smiled dazzlingly at him.
When everyone had toasted Harriet and flattered her to her heart's content, they sat down on the blankets, which had been set closely enough together that everyone could sit in a large group.
"I have an announcement of a happy nature to make as well," Philip said.
Everyone's attention turned his way.
"Rebecca and I have set the date of our nuptials," he said. "The Reverend Paul Warner of Wraxby has agreed to perform the marriage ceremony two weeks from next Saturday. We wanted our friends to be the first to know that soon I am to be the happiest of men."
Rebecca kept her eyes on the glass of wine that she held in her hands.
"Oh, a wedding!" Primrose squealed. "How marvelous. And Ellen and I were saying just yesterday that there will be absolutely nothing of any interest to do after the fair."
"Splendid, Reverend," Mrs. Sinclair said. "You could not have chosen a more deserving bride."
"Maude, my love," the baron said, "you must immediately start to organize a wedding breakfast. Let it not be said that I treated my niece with less than her proper due on her wedding day."
"You really need not bother, Maude," Harriet said. "I shall see to everything. I really thought you were never going to marry, Rebecca. You have been betrothed forever."
"I would wager that Miss Shaw will be the most beautiful bride these parts have seen for many a year," Mr. Bartlett said, wasting one of his most charming smiles on Rebecca's bowed head.
"I think the occasion calls for another toast," Christopher said. "Let us drink to a couple whose goodness sets them apart from the general run of mankind, and wish them the happiness they deserve."
Rebecca finally looked up, a smile of embarrassment on her face as everyone took up the toast. She found herself looking at an ashen-faced Maude, whose hand shook so when she raised her glass that she had to put it down again untasted.
Chapter 11
Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair were prevailed upon to play a hand of cards with Lord Holmes and Maude after everyone had eaten his fill from the luncheon baskets. All the others, led by a high-spirited Harriet, made a careful ascent of the worn stone steps to the part of the battlements that still stood. Rebecca would have remained behind on the pretext that someone needed to repack the baskets, but Philip stopped beside her.
"Come, Rebecca," he said, "let us go up with everyone else. I have been told that the view is magnificent from the top."
"Yes, it is," she agreed. "But one must be most awfully careful. The wall is gradually crumbling away. One must not lean too heavily on it."
"Take my arm," he said gravely. "I shall see that you come to no harm."
The others were in high spirits. Harriet, Rebecca noticed, as soon as they finished the ascent, was clinging to Christopher's arm and standing close against him in pretended fright. Julian had an arm around the shoulders of each of his sisters and was pretending to push them over the low parapet. They were both squealing loudly. Mr. Bartlett was offering his assistance to Ellen. Mr. Carver was suggesting to Primrose that perhaps she should detach some of the ribbon from her bonnet so that he might tie his own hat more firmly to his head.
"Might blow away in the wind," he said, "and I might topple over if I lunge to catch it."
Primrose shrieked anew. "Pray do not even talk of such a thing, Mr. Carver," she said. "My legs go weak at the knees at the very thought."
Then she giggled as Mr. Carver shook with silent laughter, holding on to the brim of his hat the whole while.
"Perhaps we should go down again," Philip suggested. "It does not seem to be windy at ground level, but it is quite gusty up here."
"I find it most invigorating," Harriet announced, turning to face the wind and allowing it to blow against the flimsy muslin of her dress. She showed to great advantage with the fabric thus molded to her figure. She still clung to Christopher.
Rebecca looked down to the river and one corner of the grassy bank that was enclosed by a horseshoe of trees. It would be peaceful down there, quiet, sheltered. If she walked there, circling the wall of the castle until she came to the narrow, overgrown path that led down, she would be able to sit and think for a while, the only sounds the rushing of the water and the singing of birds.
"We really could not come all this way without going down there," Harriet was saying.
"Oh, no," Ellen said. "Not me. You would not be able to drag me down to the dungeons. Please let us forget about it, Harriet."
"No one is compelled to come, of course," Harriet said, smiling gaily around at the group. "But I shall certainly have a poor opinion of anyone who fails to do so."
"Those steps were dangerous when I was a boy," Christopher said. "They can only have got worse since then. I think we had better find some other diversion, Miss Shaw. A walk around the base of the hill, perhaps?"
"I could have stayed at home to walk," Harriet said rather petulantly. "What a poor-spirited lot you all are. Will no one dare go to the dungeons with me?"
"I would, Harriet," Julian said, rather shame-faced, "but Papa would have my head if I took the girls into danger like that. I am for the walk."
Harriet released Christopher's arm and swept across to the steps leading down to the grassy courtyard. "I thought people's wishes were catered to on their birthdays," she said. "I see I was mistaken." She began to descend the stairs without assistance.
Mr. Bartlett leapt to her aid and the others, more subdued than they had been a few minutes before, followed. Philip laid a hand on Rebecca's arm as she turned toward the steps.
"Let them go," he said. "I see no need for us to become involved in that argument. I shall be so glad, Rebecca, to take you away from that little hussy. It may be her birthday, but she behaves like a perfectly odious child."
Rebecca wa
ited for the blame to be laid at Maude's door, but Philip said no more. He turned and placed his arms along a fairly solid part of the parapet.
"Would you be very upset if we were to move away from here?" he asked.
"You mean permanently?" Rebecca asked.
"Yes," he said, "I think it might be good for you, Rebecca, to be taken away from your family's shadow. And I think I might like to start again, perhaps in a somewhat larger place, though size does not really matter."
Rebecca was stunned. Somehow she had never thought of moving away. She belonged here. Her roots and her memories were here. If she moved away, she would be cut off forever from Christopher. She would never see him again, never hear of him again. It was when she caught herself in these dioughts that she looked at Philip and answered.
"I am going to be your wife, Philip," she said steadily. "I shall go with you wherever you wish to go."
He flashed her a look of gratitude and held out an arm to her. When she came closer, he put the arm around her shoulders and drew her close to his side. "You are a good woman, Rebecca," he said. "I shall try to be worthy of you. I shall try to make you happy."
She laid her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. They burned behind her eyelids.
When they came down to the courtyard several minutes later, all was deserted except for the four card players, who were still engrossed in their game. Rebecca could tell by the condescension in her uncle's manner that he was winning. Mr. Sinclair looked weary.
"Ah, Reverend," he called in obvious relief, "how would you like to take my hand? I am so accustomed to taking a rest after luncheon that I am finding it deuced hard to keep awake. If I were more alert, his lordship here would have to work harder for his points."
"Hmm!" was the baron's opinion.
Philip obligingly crossed to the group, though he looked like a man going to his own execution, Rebecca noticed in a quick glance. Maude's head was bent over her cards, which she was inspecting with minute care.
"Where did the others go?" Rebecca asked.
"Oh, walking somewhere," Mr. Sinclair replied, finding himself a place in the sun to recline and close his eyes. "Can't think how the young find so much energy all the time."
Poor Harriet, Rebecca thought. So she had lost on this occasion. She would not like that. It was likely to make her cross for the rest of the day. It looked as if she would have her own wish, though. The walkers had gone off in some unknown direction, though she supposed it would not be at all difficult to find them if she wished to do so. The card players needed to concentrate on their game. Mr. Sinclair certainly did not need any company. She would slip down to the river, see if it was the way she remembered it.
She should not, of course. Some parts of the past were best not relived, and she had trained herself years ago not to relive that particular episode. She was to marry Philip very soon and it seemed likely that he would take her away to an entirely new place. She would be able to begin life anew, the slate of the past wiped completely clean. She should practice for that future now. She had to let go of the past. Yet even as she told herself this, she walked out through the archway and around the base of the castle until she was at the top of the steep path that led downward.
The pathway was almost totally obliterated now. It was seven years since she had walked it, and obviously not many people had used it since. Of course then it had been late autumn; the grass had not been as thick as it was now in August. She stood looking down to the cluster of trees below and eventually sighed and began to descend. She knew she had to go. Why delay the inevitable? She could not stay long, anyway. The others would worry about her if they returned and she was missing.
The trees opened out quite suddenly to reveal a grassy bank beside the fast-flowing waters of the river. It was an enchanted place, enclosed on three sides by the trees and on the fourth by the wide expanse of water. Sounds seemed to be cut off; the world receded. One could imagine oneself totally alone, completely private.
Rebecca stood with her back against a tree, staring at the carpet of grass and wild flowers at her feet. She put her head back against the tree trunk. Almost seven years! Time had seemed to pass quickly, yet it was like a scene from another lifetime, the one she was seeing in her mind. She was seeing herself and Christopher here, both wrapped warmly against the crisp chill of a glorious autumn afternoon, both flushed and happy at a stolen day together.
They should not have been there, of course. Her father had always been very careless about chaperoning her. He had loved her, trusted her utterly, treated her always as if she were fully adult. She had had a great deal of freedom in which to see Christopher. And she had not abused that freedom, beyond the few hours when they deliberately wandered off by themselves so that they could talk, dream, and kiss. But this had been a particularly glorious day, two days before his intended visit to London. Neither of them had any obligations for the day. They had decided on the spur of the moment, and quite recklessly, to go to Cenross Castle. Christopher drove them there in his curricle.
And they had found their way to this very spot. They had been enchanted. And they had sat on the grass, their arms around each other, and talked for a long while. Rebecca had felt so cozy, huddled inside her warm cloak and drawn against the warmth of his greatcoat, that she had fallen asleep. She did not think she had slept long, but he had laughed and teased her when she woke up. And she had lifted a warm and sleepy face to his, her whole body relaxed against him.
He had kissed her, and it had taken far less time than usual for them both to become enflamed with passion. His hands beneath her cloak had pushed urgently at her dress until her shoulders and breasts were bare to the touch of his hands and mouth. Somehow she had unbuttoned his greatcoat and all the layers that were between her and his warm chest.
And then he had been on top of her, his weight creating unbearably erotic sensations in her womb, his mouth ravaging hers with an urgency that they had not approached before.
"Becky," he had said into her opened mouth. "Becky, my love, my life."
And then his face had been above hers and they had stared into each other's eyes for timeless moments. She could remember now with what heightened senses she had looked up at him. She had been very aware of the grass beneath her head, of the crispness of the air, the sound of flowing water, the song of a lone bird.
"Yes," she had said, her palms moving over his bare shoulders. "Yes, Christopher."
He had continued to look into her eyes as her breathing quickened, her surrender made. And then he had buried his face against her neck for a few moments and rolled away from her.
When she had turned onto her side to look at him, bewildered and hurt, he reached out and took her hand in his. He smiled shakily.
"No, Becky," he had said. "I love you too much. Not like this. When I first enter your body, my love, I want to do so with all the rights of a husband. I don't want you to have to feel shame afterward."
She had shaken her head slowly, tears in her eyes. "I could never feel shame at loving you, Christopher," she said.
And he had hugged her to him again, the passion gone, only a deep and warm affection holding them together for many minutes.
"When we are married," he had said against her hair, "I shall bring you back here, Becky, and make long and slow love to you." He had drawn his head back and she saw that he was grinning.
She had smiled back, brushing away her tears with the back of her hand.
"Promise?" she had asked.
"The very next time," he had said before placing a smacking kiss on her lips and hauling them both to their feet…
Rebecca stared at the grass before her, her face expressionless. Strange to imagine that that had happened here. Almost seven years ago. She should not have come down here. The pain was becoming unbearable. She was going to have to go back within the next few minutes and be sociable again, cheerful.
"It is even lovelier in the summertime, is it not?" Christopher said quietly.
"How long have you been there?" she asked.
"A little longer than you," he said. "If I could have moved away without disturbing you, I would have gone. But it was not possible."
Rebecca turned her head away and stared out over the water. He pushed away from the tree and walked over to stand in front of her. He put one hand on the trunk beside her head and leaned his head to one side so that he was looking directly into her eyes.
"Becky," he said, "there is one thing I want you to know. Perhaps it is unnecessary, but it has haunted me for years. I have always feared, you see, that in addition to hurting you I might have given the impression that you were somehow at fault, that perhaps you were in some way unlovable. I want you to know-and I swear by all that I once held honorable that I tell the truth-that I loved you when we came here together." He indicated the grassy area behind him with his free hand. "I loved you, Becky, with the whole of my being."
Her head was pressed against the tree, her palms flat against the bark on either side of her. She looked back into his eyes. "Did you, Christopher?" she said. "Did you? I loved you too, you know. I understood that a pledge had been made here. I thought we were committed to each other for a lifetime. I did not know that one could love one day and marry someone else almost the next. I think we have different definitions of the word love."
She continued to look into his eyes. She would not flinch. Let him be the first to move.
"My life came to an end the day I left you," he whispered fiercely. "I have lived in hell since then. I do not need to die, Becky. Nothing could be worse than what I have lived. If you wished to see me punished, know that your wish has been granted a thousandfold."