It was quick and lusty and wonderfully wicked—for of course someone could have come striding into sight at any moment. There was something strangely erotic, she discovered, about making love while almost fully clothed.
“I am going to pick some daffodils for the house,” she said when they were on their feet again and had adjusted their clothing. “May I?”
“This is your home,” he said. “You are mistress of Finchley Park, Vanessa. You may do whatever you wish.”
Her smile broadened.
“Within reason,” he added hastily.
“Help me,” she said, bending to the daffodils and plucking them by their long stems.
“Is this enough?” he asked after he had picked perhaps a dozen and she had picked more than twice that number.
“Not nearly,” she said. “We will pick until our arms can hold no more. We will fill the dower house to over-flowing with sunshine and spring, Elliott. Gather some greenery too.”
Some time later they staggered back around the lake to the house, their arms laden.
“I hope,” she said as they approached the door, “there are enough pots and vases. There must be at least one bouquet for each room.”
“The servants will see to it,” he said, opening the door with difficulty and standing back for her to precede him inside.
“They will certainly not,” she protested. “Arranging flowers is one of the finest pleasures of life, Elliott. I will show you. Come and help me.”
“I’ll come and watch you,” he said. “You will thank me for not helping, Vanessa. I have no eye for arrangements.”
But he did help nevertheless. He filled the pots with water and divided the flowers and leaves into groups and cut their stems according to her directions. And he helped carry the pots to the appointed rooms and adjusted their positions while she stood back and looked on with a critical eye.
“One half an inch to the right,” she said, gesturing. “Now one quarter of an inch back. There! Perfect!”
He stood back and looked steadily at her.
She laughed. “Perfection ought always to be aimed for,” she said, “even if it is not always possible to achieve. Anything worth doing ought to be done well.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “What happens to the flowers when we return to the main house tomorrow?”
She did not want to return to the house. She wanted to live here just like this forever and ever. But it had never been possible—or ultimately desirable—to hold back time.
“Tomorrow does not exist until it comes,” she said. “We need not think about it today. Today we will enjoy the daffodils.”
“Do you know the poem?” he asked.
“The one by William Wordsworth?” she said. “His ‘host of golden daffodils’? Oh, yes, indeed. And now we know just how he felt when he came upon them.”
“We do have some reading in common after all, then,” he said.
“Yes, so we do.”
Vanessa gazed about happily at the vases full of flowers. And there was one more evening to look forward to and one more night.
But tomorrow had been mentioned.
Tomorrow they would return to the main house and the rest of their lives.
They would be the same people living the same marriage.
But Vanessa tried not to think about it, nevertheless. When she did, it was with a vague, unnameable sense of foreboding.
They walked back up to the main house after breakfast the following morning under gray skies that threatened rain.
The house was deserted except for the servants and Mr. Bowen. All the wedding guests had been due to leave yesterday, and Lady Lyngate and Cecily had set off for London very early this morning. Vanessa and Elliott were to follow them tomorrow.
Vanessa explored her new bedchamber and dressing room while Elliott was in the study, consulting with his secretary and looking through the letters that had accumulated in three days.
But he was not there long. He tapped on Vanessa’s door after less than half an hour and let himself in.
“It is huge,” she said, spreading her arms to the sides. “At least twice the size of my room at the dower house.”
“Of course,” he said, shrugging. “It is the viscountess’s room.”
The fact that she had moved into a totally different world had still not had time to strike her fully, Vanessa realized.
“I am going to ride over to Warren Hall to see how Merton is getting along with his tutors,” he said. “Would you like to come? If so, we will take the carriage. It would probably be wise anyway. It is going to rain.”
“Of course I want to come,” she said.
Time had seemed suspended during their brief honeymoon. She had spared hardly a thought for her sisters and brother—or for anyone else. The dower house and the lake had been her world, and she and Elliott had been the only two people who existed in it.
Like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
Now suddenly she realized that three whole days had passed, and she was eager to see her siblings again.
By the time they arrived at Warren Hall the first few drops of rain were falling, and a gusty wind had cooled the air.
How fortunate they had been to have those three days of glorious spring weather, Vanessa thought. The change now made them seem somehow unreal and far away—as if they had ended weeks ago instead of just this morning.
Margaret was alone in the drawing room. She curtsied to Elliott and hugged Vanessa tightly. Their guests had left yesterday, she told them. Stephen was downstairs in the library with one of his tutors, having returned late from a morning ride with Mr. Grainger and been soundly scolded for it. Katherine had gone out for a walk.
“Though I hope she comes home soon,” Margaret said, glancing at the window, which was spotted with rain. “Before she gets a soaking.”
She looked listless and a little pale, Vanessa thought as they both sat down by the fire and Elliott went off to the library.
“Are you well, Meg?” Vanessa asked. “Is something wrong?”
“Absolutely nothing.” Margaret smiled. “And you, Nessie? How are you?”
Vanessa leaned back in her chair.
“Has the weather not been wonderful?” she said. “The dower house at Finchley is such a pretty place, Meg, and the lake is lovely. We went boating and yesterday we picked dozens of daffodils without coming even close to denuding the bank on which they bloomed. We set a bowl of them in each room of the house. They looked quite splendid.”
“We,” Margaret said. “Is all well, then, Nessie? You have no regrets? But you look happy.”
“Well, of course,” Vanessa said, “real life is about to intrude. We will be going to London tomorrow, and I will be presented to the queen next week—a mildly terrifying prospect. And there will be numerous people to meet and places to go and ... Well, and so on. But of course I have no regrets, you goose. This was something I wanted to do. I told you that from the start.”
“Oh, Nessie.” Margaret leaned back in her chair, looking weary again. “If you can only be happy then I will be happy too.”
Vanessa looked closely at her. But before she could ask her again what was the matter—clearly something was—the door opened and Katherine came inside, all bright eyes and rosy cheeks.
“Ho,” she said, pressing one hand to her bosom, “I am breathless. I did not know whether to take shelter in the chapel when it started to rain or make a run for it to the house.”
“I take it you ran,” Vanessa said, getting to her feet.
“And now I am glad of it.” Katherine came hurrying across the room to hug her sister. “I saw Viscount Lyngate’s carriage outside the door and hoped he had brought you with him.”
“He did,” Vanessa said, smiling.
“I cannot tell you how handsome you both looked on your wedding day,” Katherine said as they took a seat. “Did you enjoy the three days by the lake?”
“I did indeed,” Vanessa said, hoping she
was not blushing. “It is an idyllic place. I would have been perfectly happy to remain there forever. Did you enjoy having company for a few days?”
Katherine leaned forward in her chair suddenly, her face lighting up with excitement.
“Oh, Nessie,” she said, “you are not the only one to marry recently. Has Meg told you? A letter for Sir Humphrey and Lady Dew was sent on here from Rundle Park and fortunately arrived just before they left yesterday morning. Did Meg tell you?”
“She did not.”
Vanessa glanced at her elder sister. She was sitting back in her chair, holding the arms, a half-smile on her lips.
“It was from Crispin Dew,” Katherine said.
“Oh, Kate,” Vanessa cried, “he has not been wounded, has he?”
But then she remembered how this conversation had started and darted another look at Margaret.
“No, nothing like that,” Katherine said. “He has just married. She is a Spanish lady. There was a great deal of excitement here before the carriage left for Throckbridge, as you can well imagine. Though Lady Dew was sad that she had been unable to attend the wedding. As were Eva and Henrietta.”
“Oh,” Vanessa said, her eyes locked on Margaret’s. Her sister looked back at her, that ghastly half-smile still on her lips.
“I have been teasing Meg,” Katherine said. “I remember that when I was a girl she and Crispin used to be rather sweet on each other—just as you and Hedley were.”
“I have told Kate,” Margaret said, “that I cannot even remember clearly what he looks like. And that was all years ago. I wish him every happiness with his new bride.”
And then Stephen and Elliott came to join them in the drawing room and they all drank coffee and ate sweet biscuits and talked, among other things, about London, where they would all be settled within the next week.
They would not stay for luncheon, Elliott said when they were invited. He had some business to attend to on his estate during the afternoon.
Margaret, Stephen, and Katherine all came downstairs to see their sister and brother-in-law on their way though they did not step out onto the terrace as the rain had settled into a steady downpour.
There was not one moment in which Vanessa might have had a private word with Margaret. Or if there were—they might have held back on the stairs and let everyone else move out of earshot—then Margaret pointedly avoided it.
One of life’s great ironies, Vanessa thought as she climbed into the carriage and Elliott took his seat beside her. She had married him four days ago in order to leave her sister free to hope.
But now all hope had been shattered forever.
It would have been far better for Meg if Crispin Dew had been killed in battle.
One hated to think such a horrible thing, but even so...
“You are feeling homesick?” Elliott asked as the carriage moved off down the driveway.
“Oh.” She turned her head and smiled brightly at him. “No, of course not. Finchley Park is my home now.”
She held out her hand and he took it and held it on his thigh while they proceeded homeward in silence.
Would she be married to him now, she wondered, if Crispin’s letter had arrived five or six weeks ago instead of just yesterday?
Or would it have been Meg sitting where she was now?
She could feel the warmth of his thigh through his pantaloons and her glove, and she was secretly glad that the letter had not come sooner.
How could he? How could Crispin Dew have treated Meg so shabbily?
She leaned slightly sideways and took comfort from the solidity of Elliott’s shoulder. She swallowed hastily when she heard a gurgle in her throat.
15
VANESSA was still feeling depressed. It was not something she allowed herself to feel very often. There was almost always something to do, someone with whom to talk, something to think about, something to read that would elevate her mood. And there was almost always something to wonder at, something to smile over, something to laugh about.
Laughter was so much better for the soul than glumness.
But just occasionally depression hit like a stone wall. Usually it was because there was more than one cause and it was virtually impossible to avoid.
Her honeymoon had come to an end. And though the unexpected happiness that had filled her days and nights at the dower house and the lake might surely be brought back to the main house with her and taken to London tomorrow, she could not rid herself of the notion that now all would change, that she and Elliott would never again be as close as they had been there.
If that had been all, of course, she would have firmly shaken off any low spirits that threatened. It was up to her to see to it that her marriage worked. If she expected things to change for the worse, then almost certainly they would.
But Elliott had gone off for the afternoon to take care of some estate business. It was perfectly understandable. She did not expect him to go walking and boating and picking daffodils with her every afternoon of the rest of their lives. But it was a bad time just now today for her to be left alone.
Crispin Dew had married a Spanish lady in Spain.
Meg must be desperately, devastatingly unhappy, but there was absolutely nothing Vanessa could do to help her. The suffering of a loved one was in many ways worse than one’s own suffering because it left one feeling so very helpless. She knew that from bitter experience.
And of course that thought, the thought of Hedley, sent her running up to her bedchamber and rummaging through her large trunk, which had been brought over from Warren Hall but not yet unpacked because it was to go to London tomorrow. Just where she had placed it with her own hands after carefully wrapping it, she found the object she had almost decided to leave behind. It was only at the last moment that she had slid it down the left front corner.
She sat down on a love seat and opened back the velvet cloth that kept the treasure safe from damage. And she gazed down at the framed miniature of Hedley that Lady Dew had given her after his death.
It had been painted when he was twenty, two years before Vanessa married him, and just before it became obvious that he was really very ill indeed.
Though the signs were apparent even then.
She ran one finger about the oval frame.
His eyes were large, his face thin. It would have been pale too if the painter had not added color to his cheeks.
But even then he had been beautiful, as he had to the end. His had been a delicate beauty. He had never been robust. He had never been able to participate in the more boisterous games of the other children in the neighborhood. Though strangely he had never been teased or victimized by them. He had been widely loved.
She had loved him.
She would have died in his place if it could have been done.
Those large, luminous eyes gazed back at her now from the portrait. So full of intelligence and hope.
Hope. He had not given it up until close to the end, and when he had finally let it go, it had been with grace and dignity.
“Hedley,” she whispered.
She touched a fingertip to his lips.
And she realized something. Apart from one fleeting memory on her wedding night, she had not thought of him at all during the three days at the lake.
Of course she had not. It would have been dreadful if she had. She had been there with her new husband, to whom she owed her undivided loyalty.
But even so...
Until very recently it had seemed inconceivable that a single day could ever go by without her thinking of him at least a hundred times.
Now three days had slipped by.
Three days in which she had been blissfully happy with a man who did not even love her. Whom she did not even love.
Not as she had loved Hedley anyway. It was impossible to love any other man as she had loved her first husband.
But she had never been able to know with Hedley the sort of sensual happiness she had just experienced with Elliott. B
y the time of their marriage his illness had rendered him all but impotent. It had been a terrible frustration for him, though she had learned ways to soothe and satisfy him.
And now she had found sexual satisfaction with another man.
She had not thought of Hedley for three whole days—no, four by now.
Would she eventually forget him altogether?
Would it be to her as if he had never existed?
She felt a deep welling of grief and a sharp pang of guilt, which was all the worse for the fact that it was quite unreasonable. Why should she feel guilty about putting behind her memories of her first husband when she was married to a second? Why should she feel as if she were cheating on a dead man? Why should she feel as if she were hurting him?
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