“But,” he said reluctantly, “if I am not going to have to demand that you sling me over your shoulder and carryme back to the house after all, Adèle, we had better makeour way back there. At a very sedate pace. You may evenpersuade me to lie down for half an hour or so when weget there, provided you will lie down at my side.”
“You know I will,” she said, taking his hand. “Youknow that is why I married you, John. To be always at your side. You cannot know how happy it makes me just to bethere. All my life I lived for the times when you were homeand when you would come to play with the others. I triednot to cling and I tried not to be demanding or to be anuisance—”
He squeezed her hand. “You never did and you never were,” he said. “You were always the joy in my life,Adèle.”
“Oh.” She sounded breathless. “What a lovely thing to say.”
“Our house,” he said, looking up the beach to the manor in the distance. “OurCartref.Shall we stay here forever,my love? Forget to go back to England? Live here and lovehere together, close to all that matters in life? Shall webring up our children here?”
“Yes,” she said softly. “Oh, yes, John. Let us do that.”
Beneath the brim of her bonnet he could see her face. He could see the soft, joyous, wistful dream in it.
And we did it, too,he told her silently.We lived happily ever after here.
She tried to hold on to the cold reality of her sanity. She tried to tell herself that a man who had had consumptionin such an advanced stage, a man who had appeared sovery close to death just a week ago, could not recover hisfull health. Miracles did not happen in the mundane timesof the early nineteenth century.
Soon this last burst of strength and vigor would go and he would go—out into the beyond that did not frighten him,into the kingdom of love where she would follow him oneday. When the time came, she must let him go and be grateful for this precious and wonderful and unexpected week.
In many ways it would be harder to let him go after this week. She had glimpsed the joy of married life this week,as she had never expected to do, and she knew that thebleakness that would come after would be almost unbearable for a long, long time.
But she knew, too, that she would be grateful, that she would live on the memories of this week for the rest of herlife.
She tried to be sane and sensible. She tried to keep herself steeled inside just as she had been from the moment she first saw him after his return from Italy. She tried tokeep herself prepared, to guard herself from total collapsewhen it was over.
But it was difficult to do. She felt almost as if after their wedding, after their departure for Wales, they had traveledinto a new and different world, a magic, wonderful worldwhere miracles happened, where love was to be loved andlife to be lived, where death was not to be feared, wheredeath was not imminent, anyway.
It was not just hope she felt as the days passed and his health showed every sign of recovering. It was knowledge,certainty. It was faith.
And so faith warred with sanity in her mind. And faith was winning.
Every day he was stronger. Every day he ate a little more heartily. He was still very thin, but some of the gauntness,the skeletal look, had gone. There was a suggestion ofhealthy color to his flesh. Every day he walked a little fasterand a little farther. Every day he talked a little more andlaughed a little more and teased a little more.
On the last day of the week they walked all the way up the hill—though they stopped several times to look down at the view and recover their breath—to the village. Theywere greeted with vociferous Welsh cheer at the tavern,where they stopped for lemonade. She knew that wordwould quickly spread that Viscount Cordell was not lyingat home dying but was up and about and apparently recuperating from a long illness. She knew that they would nowhave callers and invitations. The tavern keeper had alreadymentioned an assembly that was to be held soon in therooms above the tavern.
John had said they would be there and would lead the first waltz. Absurd man.
The thought of waltzing with him had made the tears spring to her eyes and she had had to blink and fumble inher reticule and wonder aloud if it was an insect that hadflown into her eye and set it to watering.
The walk back down the hill had been less strenuous than the climb. But he had been tired enough to lie down—withher at his side—when they returned home. But only forhalf an hour. He seemed unwilling to lie down for longerduring the daytime.
Yes, faith was overcoming sanity. She had almost relaxed totally into it. She had almost stopped doubting and fearing. He was getting better. It was not just a respite. Thedisease had gone.
It was with a sick lurching of the stomach, then, that she awoke one night to the sound of his coughing. She sat upsharply. He was standing beside the bed, holding back thebedclothes on his side of the bed.
“I woke you,” he said. ‘‘And in the worst possible way. I just had to get up for a minute. The cough was nothing.But I know it puts terror into your soul every time you hearit. Forgive me.”
She knew he was right. The few coughs she had heard from him in the last week were different. They were notthe deep, racking, gurgling coughs she had heard too manytimes during the journey from England. They were symptoms of nothing. They were merely coughs.
She lay back down and turned onto her side as he climbed back into bed. Life had been so very joyous forthe past week that it was difficult to pick out one singlething that made her happier than any other. But perhaps itwas this. This lying beside him in bed, feeling the warmthof his body next to hers, hearing his breathing. This knowing that she was his wife and had the right to lie here. Shewas glad she had lain in his bed the very night of theirwedding and every night since. She had not asked permission to lie there. She had wanted to be near when he neededher. It was why she had married him.
He had never told her to go away, to lie in her own bed. She would never go away unless he asked her to. Yes, thiswas the greatest joy. She smiled when he turned his headtoward her, though they could not see each other veryclearly in the darkness.
“I disturbed you,” he said. “You were sleeping so peacefully.”
“I am happy,” she said. “You cannot know how happy I am, John.”
He turned onto his side too, and slid one arm beneath her head. With the other he drew her closer so that herbody was against his. He felt less angular and fragile thanhe had felt in the nights after their wedding, when she hadheld him in her arms.
