“You are right.” She smiled ruefully at him. “I am sorry. You will come to my wedding?”
“No,” he said. Baldly, just like that, with no hesitation at all.
“No?” She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Why not?”
“Clarissa,” he said with soft reproach.
She felt deeply hurt even as she understood and was relieved that he would not be there.
“If you were female,” she said, “you would have to come. You would be my bridesmaid and would be needed to hold my gloves and flowers if I was carrying any.”
“I am not female,” he said.
“No.” She laughed shakily. “And you would look silly holding my flowers. Oh dear, this feels very like goodbye. It is not, surely. Is it?”
He drew breath as though to answer her, but then he shook his head slightly and remained silent. His face tried a smile but settled upon a frown instead.
She opened her mouth to speak, found there was nothing to say, and closed it again.
They had never been at a loss for words with each other. Until now.
She turned and made her way with long strides toward the house. It was goodbye, even if they continued to see each other from time to time in the future. She could feel a single teardrop running down her cheek.
It was goodbye.
And tomorrow was a new beginning. For her it would be the beginning of happily ever after. She felt a spring in her step, and a leftover heaviness in her heart.
What would tomorrow bring for him?
Chapter One
1818
Clarissa Ware, Dowager Countess of Stratton, drew in a deep breath of fresh air as she stood looking out through the open window of her private sitting room. It was sheer bliss. She could smell the freshly scythed lawn below that stretched ahead as far as the ha-ha. She could smell the sweetness of the wildflowers in the meadow beyond it and see the sheep grazing there. Sunlight sparkled on the river below the meadow and shone bright upon the village of Boscombe on the other side. Was there any lovelier place on this earth to be?
Ravenswood.
Home!
It was so different from all the bustle and stale air and limited horizons of London, where she had spent the past few months, rushed off her feet as she presented Stephanie, her youngest daughter, to the queen, and introduced her to theton. That latter duty had meant attending as many balls and routs and garden parties and soirees and other entertainments as could reasonably be fittedinto the twenty-four hours each day allowed. The spring Season had an overabundance of pleasures to offer as one mingled with as many of one’s peers as one could. There had been scarcely a morning in which to linger in bed, or an afternoon in which to relax with a book or her embroidery. There had been almost no evenings to spend at home in the familiar company of her family. Even the nights had frequently been shortened by a particularly glittering ball.
At last she was home, however, and, for the first time she could remember, she was home alone. Alone except, that was, for the army of servants who kept the vast mansion running smoothly and administered the farms and kept the park surrounding the house in pristine condition. She was alone, however, in the sense that there were no other family members here with her and no guests. And it was going to remain this way for at least the next couple of months.
She felt slightly guilty at the delight she felt at the prospect of being alone for so long, for she dearly loved her family and close friends. Sometimes, however, she yearned for solitude, for time to be alone with her own thoughts and reflections. Now, after the insanely busy months in London, she craved it more than ever.
And there was the added fact that in a few short months she was going to turn fifty. It was all very well to tell herself, as other people had been telling her with annoying frequency lately, that fifty was just a number, that she was only as old as she felt, that she would be the same person the day after her birthday as she had been the day before.
Fifty was a number of undeniable significance. It was a reminder that her youth had been left behind so long ago that sometimes it felt like something from another lifetime or something that had happened to someone else. Her young womanhood was long gone too. Her children were all grown. Stephanie, her baby, wasnineteen years old. Clarissa had already been married for two years when she was Steph’s present age. Devlin had been born when she was eighteen.
Caleb had died of a sudden heart seizure six years ago.
Oh, fifty seemed so much larger a number than forty. Or even forty-nine. There was something very decisive about it. Half a century.
One of the sheep in the meadow baaed indignantly at a bird that had swooped too low over its head. The bird perched on the edge of the ha-ha close by and serenaded the sheep with cheeky indifference to any danger posed by the much larger animal. Clarissa smiled as she watched.
It was not that she was feeling particularly maudlin about her advancing age. There had been considerable happiness in her life up to this point, and there was every chance that there was more to come. As far as she knew, she was in excellent health. Her children were all doing well. Her grandchildren were an endless delight to her—four of them so far, with two more on the way. Pippa and Lucas were expecting again sometime after Christmas, as were Ben and Jennifer, though it was the first for them as a couple. Five-year-old Joy was Ben’s daughter from a previous marriage. Clarissa’s parents were both still in good health. George, her brother, was happily married to her longtime friend Kitty, both of them after a lengthy widowhood.
There was much cause for contentment, then, in Clarissa’s life. It was true that Stephanie had not enjoyed her debut Season, but at least she was now officially out, and her confidence had surely been boosted by the two perfectly eligible offers for her hand that had been made very properly first to Devlin, Clarissa’s eldest son, now Earl of Stratton. Steph had refused both offers, but Clarissa hadhopes that one of these days her daughter would surprise herself and actually welcome just the right marriage. It was not a good idea, after all, for a woman to remain a spinster all her life, though Devlin and Gwyneth would always welcome Steph to continued residence here at Ravenswood, as they had assured her after she refused the second offer. And the choice between marriage and the single state was Stephanie’s to make.
