She bit her lip and felt the tears spring to her eyes.
“The pearls look good on you,” he said. “Your ‘something new’ for your wedding.” He smiled and stepped closeenough to lift her left hand. He looked down at her rings.“And your something old and something blue.” Hefrowned again, then, and paused for a while, thinking. “Ihave said that before—just recently.”
“You said it the day before our wedding, when you put it on my finger,” she said.
He continued to frown for a moment longer and then shook his head and smiled. “Yes, of course,” he said.“And it was the something borrowed, too—yours for lifeand then to return to the family treasures.”
He raised her hand and kissed the ring, and then turned her hand over to kiss her palm and her wrist.
“Did I tell you on our wedding day how beautiful you were?” he asked.
The tears were back again. “You were very ill,” she said, “and using all your energy to try not to look it.”
“I shall tell you now, then,” he said, setting his fingertips against her cheek and bending to touch his lips to hers. “You are the most beautiful woman in the world,Adèle—in your wedding gown and without it.” He grinned at her,looking quite like the old handsome John. “Especially without it.”
She blushed. It seemed rather foolish to her that she could still blush at such words after two weeks of continualand quite uninhibited intimacies.
“I like making you do that,” he said. “Are you planning to get up from that stool tonight, or shall I have the horsesand the carriage returned to the stables? Horses and carriage—a slow and quaint method of travel, but very romantic.”
She stood and picked up her shawl and fan. “That was a strange thing to say,” she said. “Quaint?”
“Yes, it was strange, was it not?” he said, rubbing two fingers from the bridge of his nose to his hairline and back,and frowning once more. “I have been having strangedreams. I do not know what I was thinking. Are youready?”
“Yes.” She smiled at him. He was dressed in blue and silver and white. He had not yet, of course, regained hisformer splendid physique. Perhaps it would be months before that happened. But even so he looked splendidly handsome to her. “John, you look—gorgeous.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” He chuckled and made her an elegant bow as he offered his arm. “A gorgeous cadaver,perhaps. But gaining flesh at a steady rate. My valet hashopes of having to squeeze me into my clothes rather asinto a second skin before too many months have passed.He despises being able to slide me into them with suchease.”
She laughed and took his arm. She was going to put fear behind her, she decided. For now at least there were healthand happiness to be celebrated. And an assembly to be enjoyed. And it seemed—itwas—so ungrateful to be afraid.
He was going to waltz with her. She had never waltzed before, though she had learned the dance and had watchedit being performed. And she had dreamed....
Tonight he was going to waltz with her.
He thought of Allison during the carriage journey to Awelfa. While he did so, he heldAdèle’s hand in both ofhis and played with her ring, twisting it with a forefingerand thumb.
How could he have forgotten even for a moment when it was he had spoken those words last? He had spoken themto Allison as he put the ring on her finger. He could remember it clearly now—though he could also remembersaying the same words to Adèle the day before their wedding—God, he had been feeling ill.
He had to concentrate very hard to remember Allison’s face. He knew she was tall and slender and elegant andblond. But he could not quite bring her face into focus. Hethought of his car as the carriage lurched rather uncomfortably over the far from smooth track—calling it a romantic mode of travel had not been altogether accurate. Allhe could remember for the moment was that his car wasred. He could not for the life of him remember what makeor model it was. Allison had once accused him, half seriously, of loving his car more than he loved her. Yet hecould not recall even the make of the car? Or her face?
He looked atAdèle, quiet and apparently relaxed beside him, though he knew that she was bubbling with suppressed excitement at the prospect of the assembly. He thought backon her as a child and as a girl and found the memories clear and detailed and filled with emotion. He had always adored her. He had not even realized that fully until now. His father had warned him against falling in love with her. Hisfather had been more ambitious for his eldest son. And it was true that he had had wild oats to sow and had sownthem with great energy and enthusiasm. But surely he hadalways known that there was only Adèle.
Or perhaps it was only his near-death experience that had shown him how precious love is, how unimportant in thislife are anything and everything else but love.
Only Adèle mattered.
He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. “A penny for them,” he said.
She looked up with luminous eyes, which she was trying to keep quiet and dignified. He knew her so well. He knewher thoughts. Adèle had always been a part of himself, theuncompleted part of himself until he had married her andunited his body and his heart with hers.
“I have never waltzed,” she said. “Perhaps I will disgrace you.”
He smiled slowly at her. “You dance beautifully,” he said.
“You have never seen me dance,” she said. “We have never danced together.”
“We have,” he said quietly. He wished the carriage were not dark inside. He wanted to see her blush. “We movetogether perfectly. We always share the same perfectrhythm.”
She looked at him blankly for a moment. And then he saw comprehension light her eyes. “John,” she whispered.“Oh, for shame.”
