Yes, he knew how long they had been married. He had remembered as soon as he asked the question. He knew,too, that the marriage was unconsummated, that she fullyexpected it would forever remain so. She had married himanyway.
“I love you,” he whispered to her.
Her eyes filled with tears again. “Yes, I know you do, John,” she said, “even if not quite as you would haveloved a bride if you had had more opportunity to choose.But I know you love me. I am content.”
Had he ever given her the impression that he did not love her totally, to the exclusion of all other women? Heknew he had. He knew it as soon as he asked the question,silently this time. He had always loved her as a friend. Hehad loved her, too, as a woman, though there had alwaysbeen a niggling doubt. Was it just habit that made himbelieve that he loved her? Did he really love her? Was heprepared to give up all other women in order to spend therest of his life with her?
Finally the question had become immaterial. He was dying. He had come back from Italy to find her still unmarried at the age of twenty-four, still waiting for him, still lovinghim. And so he had married her.
But looking at her now, he could hardly believe that he had ever doubted the depth of his feelings for her. Therewas something about her just a little too soft, a little toodependent, he had thought. He might prefer someone rathermore forceful, someone with a more vivid personality. Hecould not understand why he had never before fully appreciated her strength of character. She had remained true toa dying man. She had married him, knowing that there wasno future with him—because she loved him.
And yet—his mind became dizzy with disorientation again. It was nothewho had doubted. And it was not hewho now loved her with all his heart. That was anotherman, the one who usually occupied this weak, thin body.He—John Chandler—could have no feelings for Adèle atall. He was in love with Allison Gorman. He was engagedto her. He had just placed on her finger the ring that Adèlewas now wearing.
He knew what had happened, of course. He accepted it with a calm that puzzled and amazed him, as if it were anordinary, everyday occurrence, or as if he finally understood the feelings he had always had about the house andthe ring. He had slipped back into history. When he couldset his mind to working rationally, he would even be ableto work out exactly who in history he was impersonating.He had a smattering of knowledge about the family. Andthis was a Regency man. He should not be difficult to trace.
“If I had had an opportunity to choose my bride at leisure and in full health,” he said, “I know whom I would have chosen.”
She closed her eyes. He knew she was steeling herself against pain, though she showed no other outer sign thanthat.
“The Honorable Miss Adèle Markham,” he said softly, “now Adèle Chandler, Viscountess Cordell. How could I ever have chosen anyone else when my heart was given toher?”
Her eyes opened again. “How kind you are,” she said. “Kinder than usual.” She touched his lips with her fingertips. “And you are talking too much. You will tire yourselfand start coughing again.”
During their journey into Wales he had sometimes been made irritable by her fussing—though that was an unkindword to use. By her everlasting patience and considerationfor his well-being, then.Kinder than usual.It had not escaped her notice, then.
“I shall leave for a while,” she said. “You will be able to rest better if I am not here.”
But he set his arm about her and held her against him. “Don’t leave,” he whispered. He was afraid that if she leftshe would never come back, that he would never see heragain. It was an unbearable thought. And dizzying in lightof the fact that he had just got engaged—to Allison. “Kissme.”
He knew that the joy that lighted her face had always been there when she was a child and a girl. Beautiful, joyous Adèle. He knew, too, that it had not been there a greatdeal in recent years—only the soft, gentle look of love.
“Kiss me, my love,” he whispered again. “Don’t leave me. Don’t ever leave me.”
Her lips were soft, gentle, slightly pouted—quite different from Allison’s wide, sensuous mouth. Adèle kissed as a child kissed, but with the added dimension of womanhood. She kept her lips sealed to his. He parted his lips andlicked at hers. So warm and so sweet. He prodded histongue through the seam to the softer, moister flesh within.She moaned.
He was too tired to become fully aroused. Which was just as well, some sane but distant part of his mind thought.He was kissing someone else’s wife. He was kissingsomeone who was not Allison. But she washiswife. Shewas his love. The only, eternal love of his heart. He wasnot normally given to such poetic flights of fancy.
“Oh,” she said when he drew back his head a few inches. “Oh, John.” Her eyes looked rather dazed.
He did not feel ill, he thought. Just very weak and very tired. He needed food and air and exercise. Lots of all three.He was not going to die. People of the 1990s did not dieof tuberculosis—not in First World countries, anyway. Hehad been vaccinated against it as a child, just like everyoneelse in his class, when a schoolfriend had developed thedisease. But he was not in the twentieth century at the moment. Somehow he had been transported back into the earlynineteenth. Something told him, though, that he hadbrought part of his old self with him, as well as his mind.He had brought his resistance to the disease that had beenkilling John Chandler, Viscount Cordell.He knew the nameof the man in whose body and mind he found himself .
“I need food and air and exercise,” he told Adèle.“What is for dinner? Do you know?”
“John?” she said. “Are you sure? You know how— how upset you become when you cannot do what you tryto do. Perhaps if you rest for a few weeks your strengthwill come back. I am going to see that it does.”
Yes, it had been a trial to him, his weakness. He had never resigned himself to his fate. He had always been aman of high energy, someone who wanted to accomplish agreat deal in this world, someone who could never sit stilland let the world go by him. He had raged against hisillness. It seemed hard to believe now that he had been sucha high-powered man. Why waste life on busy living? Allison would approve of him as he had been, he thought,and felt the dizziness again for a moment.
“And when my strength does come back,” he said, “we will live here forever, Adèle, and never return to the hurryof modem life. We will raise our children here where it isquiet and beautiful, where we can be close to nature andto God.”
She hid her face against him. He knew she was crying. His words must seem cruel to her. “Forever” to Adèle wasprobably only a few weeks, at the most. She knew therewould never be children.
But he thought of something suddenly as he held her close to him. He remembered now. There had been an eccentric Viscount Cordell of the Regency era who had cometo Cartref with his bride for their wedding trip and hadnever returned to England. They had lived here until a ripeold age, the two of them, with their children. He could notremember the exact date of their deaths and he could notremember how many children they had had. But he couldremember one other thing clearly—two things.
That viscount had been John. His wife had been Adèle.
John Chandler, Viscount Cordell, certainly had not died of consumption within weeks or even months of his wedding.
It seemed to her that she had loved him all her life. When he had lifted her down from that stile, he had lifted her intohis life. He had always included her, guarded her, listenedto her, and talked to her after that, though a mere four-year-old girl had seemed nothing but a nuisance to her brothersand sisters and to his and to the other children with whomthey had played. He had seemed so grown-up, so tall, sohandsome, so—oh, so wonderful to her infant’s eyes. Andhe had remained so ever since.
