It had not helped this year, of course, that Owen, Clarissa’s second youngest, had also been in town for the Season, enjoying himself with a group of friends, most of them from his Oxford days. One of those friends was Bertrand Lamarr, Viscount Watley, who had spent a few weeks at Ravenswood with Owen a couple of summers ago. He had been a delightful young man then and still was now. He was in town with his twin sister, Lady Estelle Lamarr, this year and had been delighted to introduce her to the Ware family, whom he remembered with great fondness. He was the sort of young man girls dreamed of—tall, dark, handsome, and genuinely charming. Lady Estelle was outstandingly lovely too. Poor Stephanie had lived through agonies during those weeks here two years ago. She had been seventeen and self-conscious and convinced she was the ugliest young woman in existence. She had gone to great lengths to avoid the young god with whom she had clearly been smitten.
Poor Steph.
Two years had not changed her. She had reacted exactly the same way to him this year, though it had been admittedly easier to avoid Viscount Watley among the crowds in London than it had been in the family setting at Ravenswood.
Almost the whole of Clarissa’s family had been in London this year, though Ben had remained home at Penallen with Jennifer andJoy, and Nicholas, now a full colonel with his cavalry regiment, was still somewhere in Europe, though he expected to return soon to England, where he would take up a military post at the Horse Guards in Whitehall.
In many ways it had been a wonderful few months for Clarissa, surrounded by family and friends, always busy, always with interesting new acquaintances to make—and even a beau of her own, who had actually hinted at marriage. She had been tempted. But when Lucas, Duke of Wilby, had announced that he was taking Pippa and the children back home to Greystone for the sake of his wife’s health, and Stephanie had jumped at the opportunity to go with them to see her sister through her confinement, Clarissa had declined the invitation to go with them then or to join them later, after the Season was over. Instead, she had announced her intention of returning home to Ravenswood.
There had been a chorus of protests, for no one else had intended to come back here yet. Devlin and Gwyneth were planning to go straight to Wales with their children after the parliamentary session and the Season ended to visit Gwyneth’s Welsh relatives. They had wanted Clarissa to go with them. Her relatives would be more than delighted, Gwyneth had assured her. She had pointed out that Sir Ifor and Lady Rhys, her parents and Clarissa’s closest neighbors and friends, would be going there too for a month or so. George and Kitty had begged Clarissa to remain a little longer in London and then return home with them for the summer. Owen had offered nobly to escort his mother home to Ravenswood and spend the summer there, though there was nothing in particular to attract him. There was to be no grand summer fete this year, the organizing committee having decided that there was just too much work involved to make it an annual event.
Clarissa had smiled at the reason they had given for the decision. While Caleb was alive, he had always insisted upon the summer fete as an annual event, proclaiming that all the effort involved was in itself such a delight that it hardly qualified as work. But there had been no committee in those days. It was Clarissa who had done the huge amount of planning and organizing, with help from the servants and from her children as they grew older. Caleb had simply paid the bills.
She had refused Owen’s offer, and he had gamely tried to hide his relief.
She had come home alone yesterday—apart from an entourage of servants and outriders, of course. It had felt and still felt like a very special treat, though it was more than just that. She needed to adjust to the fact that she was about to turn fifty, that she was moving into a new phase of her life—had already moved, in fact, for she had been a widow for six years.
It was not easy when one had been a wife for twenty-seven years. It took far longer to adjust than anyone who had not experienced the death of a spouse could possibly understand, even when the marriage had not been entirely an easy one. Was there such a thing as an easy marriage, though? But she was going to be fifty soon, and it was time she embraced her freedom.
Whatever that was going to look like.
She was not lonely. There was a difference between loneliness and aloneness. She was about to discover what aloneness felt like. Not total solitude, however. She was not going to be a hermit for the next couple of months until Devlin and Gwyneth returned from Wales. She had friends and acquaintances here to visit and be visited by. There would be certain obligations she had no intention of neglecting. But she would keep it all to a minimum and makesure she spent most of the time alone with herself. It would be something quite new.
There was one other thing she wanted to do, however, and perhaps today would be the very day to do it—before she lost her courage, as she had done a number of times over the past few years. She just had not known what she would say to him. But now she had the perfect excuse—no, reason—to call upon him. Ben and Jennifer were expecting a baby. She would go and talk to him about that, and slip in the other thing—if she could find the right moment and if her nerve held.
How very foolish she was being! She was not usually either timid or indecisive.
She turned from the window at last and cast a rueful eye at the clock on the mantel and then at the nightclothes she still wore. She had spoiled herself this morning and had breakfast brought up to her sitting room rather than sit in lone splendor in the breakfast parlor, waited upon by a silent, attentive butler and footman.
She crossed the room and pulled on the bell rope to summon her maid. It was time to get dressed and begin this precious interlude of aloneness, when she could be entirely her own person and do whatever she pleased—even have breakfast in her rooms every single morning if she chose.
What a luxurious adventure she was embarking upon.
—
Matthew Taylor had spent the morning at the home of Colonel Wexford just outside Boscombe. The colonel’s unmarried sister, who had lived with him for years, had decided that it was high time they replaced their old, battered dining table with a new one.
“Even though it is polished twice a week and covered permanently with a linen cloth and then a lace one, Mr. Taylor,” she said, speaking of the old table, “I am still fully aware of all the scratches and nicks and water stains upon it. I am always anxious when we have dinner guests lest for some reason the cloth has to be peeled off and our guests will see the sad state of a table that was probably as old as the hills even when Andrew first allowed it into his home.”
It had come with the colonel’s bride many long years ago. “It was her pride and joy and her mother’s before her,” the colonel explained to Matthew rather sheepishly. “No one else in the regiment had anything to compare with it in size and grandeur. Especially a humble lieutenant, which is what I was at the time.”
“I know it is of sentimental value to you, Andrew,” his sister said more gently. “But it is time for a new one, you must admit.”
“If I must, I must,” he said with a mournful sigh and a wink for Matthew. “Measure away, then, Taylor. Prue will tell you exactly what she wants, and you can draw up plans for her approval. What am I, after all, but the man who will pay your bill and eat at the new table?”
“Oh, take no notice of him, Mr. Taylor,” Miss Wexford said. “If Andrew had lived on Noah’s ark, he would probably still be there now, comfortable with its familiarity.”
Matthew had measured and taken notes of exactly what Miss Wexford envisioned, and promised to return the following day with drawings for her approval.
Matthew Taylor was the village carpenter. He had both his living quarters and his workshop in rented rooms above the smithy in Boscombe. Cameron Holland, the blacksmith, was his friend, as was Oscar Holland, who had announced his retirement severalyears ago and since then had made an appearance almost every day back at the smithy, interfering with its smooth running, if one listened to Cam—making sure that everything was kept in good working order, as it had always been in his day, if one listened to Oscar. Matthew chose not to listen too attentively to either one. Father and son bickered and outright argued at least once a day, but they were clearly fond of each other and both were excellent smiths and well-liked members of the community.
Matthew was not nearly as outgoing as they were, but he was not a hermit. He was friendly with almost everyone in the village and the countryside surrounding it. Most people did not seem to know—or they had forgotten—that he had been born and raised a gentleman, that his brother was a prosperous landowner a mere ten miles or so away, that he himself owned the property next to his brother’s, which his grandmother had left to him on her passing.
He had not settled there, however. He had chosen instead to lease it out and hire a good steward for the farm. He was known here simply as the village carpenter. The rooms in which he lived and plied his trade were modest, to say the least, not to mention the fact that they were above the smithy, with all the noise and smells that fact entailed.
He was content with his life. Perhaps even happy, though he thought of happiness as an active, sometimes volatile thing, and his feelings about his life were more muted. That suited him. There were too many ups and downs associated with happiness or active emotion. Contentment offered a more attractive alternative, though he was realistic enough to realize that events could not always be controlled and might at any moment upset the habit of years.
Miss Wexford had ideas for a very ornate dining table indeed. They were not to Matthew’s taste, but they were the customer’schoice and he would give what was asked of him, perhaps with an attempt to tone down some of the more extravagant excesses. He would do all in his power, though, to give her what could be her pride and joy, as the old table had been her sister-in-law’s.
