“It is all done except for a few final touches,” he said. “Mostly a bit of sanding and varnishing. And I will need to see it in place in the dining room to make sure it sits solidly on the floor and will not rock as soon as someone rests his elbows on it.”
“I am glad you said ‘hiselbows,’ ” she said. “A lady would never do anything so shockingly ungenteel.”
“Never,” he said. “Ladies are invariably perfect. Shall we stroll?” He indicated the long alley.
They walked very slowly despite the chill of the day. He set an arm loosely about her shoulders, and she wrapped an arm about his waist. She smiled up at him now and then, and a couple of times he kissed her. Something, he realized, had changed in their relationship since the day of the picnic.
“We are going to be friends, then, are we, Clarissa?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. “We are.”
But of course they were already more than just friends. Therewas some sort of romantic or sexual attraction between them, and they were just going to have to see what came of it. They would have to make decisions as they went along. But ending the whole thing abruptly now, before anything had properly started, had not seemed to suit either of them.
“I am going to ask Devlin if he would very much mind my having a dower house built somewhere in the park,” she said. “I can afford it. I was thinking down by the river, perhaps to the east of the drive and the bridge, between the river and the meadow, with a pretty garden all my own and perhaps a rustic fence.”
He smiled at her. He had learned long ago—from her, in fact—that when someone had a story to tell, it was better to allow that person to tell it without interruption. She had mentioned a dower house when they were at the lake. Obviously she had done more thinking since then.
“Of course Ravenswood is large enough for an army,” she said. “And of course all four massive wings are available for my use except for a very few private apartments. I have one of those myself. It is spacious and comfortable and overlooks the front of the house. But…” Her voice trailed off and she shrugged. “But that is not the point.”
“My rooms above the smithy have a front door,” he said. “I believe maybe that is the point, is it?”
“Yes, exactly. You do understand,” she said, stopping to beam up at him. He kissed her. “Those rooms are your very own, Matthew, even though I suppose they still belong to the Hollands. But you have your own front door and can retreat behind it whenever you choose. You have your own things and your own dreams there. You can keep out the world when you choose or step out into itwhenever you wish. You can decide whom to invite in and whom to keep out. I was honored that you invited me in that morning.”
He did not point out that she had really given him no choice. And she could presumably do the same things with her private apartment at Ravenswood. But he understood what she meant. Total independence and privacy were very precious. Probably she had never had either, despite all the spacious luxury of Ravenswood. She had a loving family, which would always draw her in to share their lives and their company and their love. But her private rooms were only a part of the larger house, which now belonged to her son.
Matthew was beginning to understand more clearly why she had come home alone a few weeks ago and why she had some serious thinking to do about her future.
“I want a whole house to myself,” she said. “Nothing very large. A cottage. I do not want to run away. I love it here and I love my family. But I want a place that is all my own.”
He kissed her briefly and they strolled onward.
“Does this all sound very selfish to you when I already have so much?” she asked.
He looked at the poplar trees in their straight, regimented lines on either side of them, keeping them in, keeping the world out, and understood the lure of the alley—and of a home that was all one’s own, even if it was just in the form of rented rooms.
“It must be difficult,” he said, “to adjust to major change when one is a parent. For years and years you raise your children and love them. For years they depend entirely upon you, a dependence that dwindles as they grow up until the time comes when your roles appear to reverse. Yes, I understand, Clarissa.”
“Ah, Matthew,” she said, stopping yet again. “And our roles havebeen reversed too. Those words—Yes, I understand—were always mine.”
“And infinitely comforting to me,” he said.
“They are now to me when it is you speaking them,” she said. “I have not spoken explicitly to my children about these things, perhaps because the ideas have been all muddled up in my head and are only now becoming clearer to me. But I have hinted at them, and I can tell they do not understand at all. They are merely concerned about me and determined to redouble their efforts to love me and include me in their lives.”
“Perhaps you will marry again,” he said, “and begin a wholly new life somewhere else.” Perhaps her interest in their friendship was simply a symptom of a broader need, one he could not fulfill any more than he could thirty years or so ago.
“Well, there was someone,” she said. “Or rather there is someone, as I have not heard that he has expired since I left London. He is everything I could possibly want in a husband, Matthew. He is titled and wealthy and a fine figure of a man. Like me, he has been widowed for six years, though he is childless. He is courtly and well respected and…interested. He has the approval of my children and my brother.”
Matthew hated him, sight unseen. He did not want to know the man’s name.
“Has he made you an offer?” he asked.
“I escaped before he could do so,” she said.
“Escaped?” he said.
“Well, yes,” she said. “I was tempted, you see. Tempted to be sensible, to slip back into the role for which I was raised and educated, the comfortable role of lady and wife and hostess. I would be mistress of my own home again if I married him. I would not merelybe the Earl of Stratton’s mother. I would be a person in my own right again. He was—is—amiable, as far as I can tell without a more intimate acquaintance. He liked me. He was a good conversationalist.”
“Yet you seem to be more inclined to talk of him in the past tense than the present,” he said.
