“The dowager countess and the carpenter?” he said. “It sounds like the title of a rather lurid tale, does it not?”
She shook her head and laughed. “But will you come?” she asked. “Just sometimes?”
He continued to frown. “I come into the park occasionally on open days,” he said. “I practice archery in the poplar alley.”
“Thursday is an open day,” she said. “Three days from now. May I have the pleasure of watching a private demonstration of your skill with a bow and arrow?”
“At three o’clock,” he said. “After I have finished work. Weather permitting.”
“I shall put in an order for fine weather and look forward to seeing you,” she said.
He began the descent of the hill without another word, though he stopped close to the top in order to offer the support of his hand again.
“Thursday, then,” he said abruptly when they reached the terrace.
And he strode away without further ado, along the outside of the west wing and around to the south wing and out of sight.
Clarissa stood on the terrace and watched him go.
She was still half wishing she had kept her mouth shut. He had not been vastly pleased by her suggestion. She was not sure she was. It might be quite impossible to recapture anything of the friendship that had been so precious to them both all those years ago, when they had been different people. Yet they had talked together easily today, as though they had been doing it all their lives. And he had told her things he had never told anyone else—about the years he had spent in Switzerland, learning the intricacies of carving wood, about his discovery of thePietàin Rome and its effect upon him.
How she wished she could see that sculpture for herself.
No, she was not going to regret her impulsive decision to delay his departure this morning or her suggestion that they be friends again. People would talk, he had said. Let them. Friendship was too precious to be abandoned just because of wagging tongues. Besides, she had never found the people of this neighborhood to be particularly malicious. Even after the great scandal of that ball ten years ago, they had somehow been able to pick up the pieces of their lives, she and Caleb, and limp on together, largely because the people of Boscombe had chosen to behave as though nothing momentous had happened that night.
Matthew had gone in search of himself all those years ago, though he did not see it that way. And it seemed to Clarissa that he had found himself. She had never undertaken a similar search—until now. She had not realized that perhaps she ought. She had busied herself instead, made herself useful, tried to make herself warm and lovable to those who depended upon her. But it seemed there was less and less to busy herself about. Her usefulness had diminished, especially after Devlin’s marriage.
Perhaps almost more than anything else she needed a friend.
Chapter Four
What Clarissa must be in need of, Matthew guessed, was a friend for the summer, someone who was not family. Some sort of crisis, if that was not too strong a term, must have brought her home to Ravenswood early and alone, when she might surely have remained in London until the end of the Season and then gone with one of her children or her brother to wherever they intended to spend the summer months. He could not remember her being alone here any other time.
It would be impossible, of course, for the two of them to be anything like the close friends they had once been. Her family would not approve. Nor would their friends and neighbors. Besides, their lives, hers and his, were almost as different now as it was possible for them to be. Apart from the memories they shared, they had nothing upon which to build an enduring friendship.
Twenty years or so ago, after returning to England from his long travels, he had given up all interest in and adherence to the very rigid British hierarchical system. The fact that he was agentleman by birth and upbringing meant nothing to him. Nor did any interest he might once have had in rebelling and deliberately not being a gentleman. He still spoke like one, he supposed, because that was the way he had always talked. But to himself he was simply a person doing what he chose to do with his life, earning enough money to satisfy his modest needs, as he had done during his years abroad, mingling with people who pleased him, whether they were aristocrats or farm laborers.
There had been need of a carpenter in the village of Boscombe, and he had decided to settle here, not because Clarissa lived close by but despite that fact. He would not go to the house his grandmother had left him. She had given him a home there after his father turned him out following his abrupt marriage to the already pregnant Poppy Lang, and she had shown a stiff sort of kindness to his wife. But she had let him know at every opportunity that he was a disgrace to her and his whole family. Why on earth she had decided to surprise everyone—it must have been a hideous shock to his father and brother—by changing her will in his favor, he had no idea. Perhaps she had done it while Poppy was still alive and pregnant and had simply forgotten afterward to change the will back to the way it had been.
In choosing Boscombe as his home and place of business, Matthew had also moved close to Clarissa, of course, but that fact had meant nothing to him. He had a lingering fondness for her, perhaps, but nothing more than that. Except…Well, he had carved that image of her as he remembered her from the last day of their friendship, one of the most deeply emotional experiences of his life.
Now she wanted them to be friends again. Not just friendly, but friends. Her invitation to him to stay for coffee after their business meeting and his acceptance had seemed innocent enough, but ithad not taken long out on the terrace for the years to fall away and send them back to when they had talked to each other as though they were talking to their own souls. She had asked about his travels, as other people still did occasionally, but he had not been content to give the usual vague description to satisfy her curiosity. Rather, he had delved right in and given her a lengthy account of his enchantment with the wood-carvers of Switzerland and of his fateful encounter with thePietàin Rome. He had even told her about shedding tears in a public place.
What was it about Clarissa that had always induced him to bare his soul to her? Had she done the same with him? Certainly it had never been on the same scale. Yet the friendship had been genuine.
He was uneasy about encouraging any permanent sort of renewal of that friendship, however. But he could, he supposed, spend a little time with her at Ravenswood until her family returned home. He had his work as an excuse—actually, as a reason—not to go too often or stay too long. Besides, she claimed to have come home in order to spend time alone while she came to terms with her advancing age. She would not expect any new friendship that sprang up between them to be like the old, when they had often spent long hours and even whole days together. So he had suggested she come to the poplar alley, where he went to practice archery a couple of times a week if he could get away and the weather was decent.
Thursday was overcast and a bit cheerless, though there was no sign that rain was imminent. He went there after working all morning and through the luncheon hour on Miss Wexford’s table. Perhaps Clarissa had changed her mind, he thought, not sure if he would be disappointed or relieved if she had. But he could see her strolling at the far end of the alley, close to the summerhouse, assoon as he turned off the path that ran along the southern edge of the park above the meadow. He propped his bow and quiver against one of the tall trees and went to set up the target the correct distance away. She had seen him and was coming toward him.
Sheer grace and beauty, as she always had been.
He stood and waited for her and felt again the long-forgotten lifting of his spirits at the sight of her approaching.
“I hope I will not be a distraction to you,” she said as she drew close. “But I am looking forward to a private demonstration. I have never been able to watch you compete in any of the contests at the summer fetes. I have always been too busy with the craft and baking displays at the hall.”
“Perhaps,” he said, “you have not missed much.”
“Oh, but I believe I have,” she said. “My children are in awe of your skill. Owen in particular once told me that if you were ever to miss the bull’s-eye during a contest, the whole nation would go into mourning.”
