‘It’s so beautiful. I can imagine an orchestra over there and people dancing with great bunches of flowers from the Elmsworth gardens in vases around the room. If it was summer all the windows could be open and people could spill out into the gardens through those doors. I would have loved to see that.’
‘You still could.’
‘I am an outcast, remember. No one would come.’
‘Dance with me, then. Just us.’
He offered her his hand and when she took it he began to count. On three he guided her across the floor towards the windows and then stopped.
She was glad that he did because even such a small movement had left her breathless, but she had managed it and just that thought gave her hope.
‘This room makes you a better dancer, my lord.’
He laughed at that. ‘We should practise more, then, but not today. Today there is tea and cake on the small porch off the library waiting to be eaten.’
‘You have thought of everything.’
‘I am trying, Wilhelmina.’
The blood came to her face because in truth the delight they had shared was still within her and close.
‘Thank you for showing me this. I will never forget it.’
‘Good.’
He tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and led her out into the sunshine.
She dreamt of him that night, of them in bed, without clothes and with hours before them. It was the first time in weeks that she had felt true interest in anything sensual.
Tomorrow he had promised her a trip in the carriage to see a local waterfall. Closing her eyes, she made herself stay very still and then she slept.
Chapter Sixteen
They sat on small folding stools Phillip had set up on flat ground opposite the waterfall. Water cascaded down stepped brown rocks to a river at the bottom. Green branches from trees marched up the hillock, mist from the water dampening their leaves.
Willa felt the mist on her face when the breeze came their way; a refreshing wetness that took away fatigue.
‘It is very beautiful. Do you come here often?’
‘I did when I was younger. It was a retreat.’
‘From home?’
‘From life, I think. From decisions and anxiety.’ He hesitated before adding, ‘From my mother. She was a difficult woman. A woman who had long periods of anger and melancholy.’
She saw him take in a breath and hold it, as if to calm himself before he went on.
‘She tried to kill me and Oliver twice. The second time was on the lake one late afternoon when she deliberately tipped us out of the boat in the deepest part. She had a knife and she used it when we tried to get back on the upturned hull.’
‘The scars on your arm and back?’
He nodded. ‘At other times she could be kind and almost gentle, though when she did hug us it always hurt, because she squeezed too hard.’
‘Perhaps she was trying, through her sickness, to show you she cared. I read a book once about a man who said his illness was like a fog with only small glimpses of reality showing through. I imagine in those times your mother would have been desperate to make her love known to you, like a balancing act that she could never win, because she was a prisoner in her mind and with no way out.’
His smile was beautiful as he looked at her. ‘And a sickness is not a choice?’ There was a sort of relief in his words.
‘It isn’t, and we have to be grateful that we don’t have such an affliction.’
