“I had not thought of it,” Matthew said. “Perhaps I ought.”
“That owl,” Ben said. “It is a masterpiece. Is it for sale? I would love to give it to my aunt for Christmas, although that is looking ahead quite a way.”
“I would be delighted,” Matthew said, with just a slight pang at the thought of parting with what was his favorite piece apart from the one that he kept in his bedchamber. “Is she the aunt who turned up so unexpectedly at Ravenswood during the fete a couple of years ago?”
“My mother’s sister,” Ben said. “Of whose very existence I knew nothing until that day. She lives with us at Penallen. It has turned into a happy arrangement for all of us.”
“Then she will have her owl for Christmas,” Matthew said.
“Thank you.” Ben looked from one to the other of them. “I may come for it tomorrow?”
—
They left soon after that. Matthew stood at the top of the stairs watching them descend to the street. There was no sign of a carriage. They must have walked here.
Life had certainly changed for Ben Ellis two years ago with thearrival of Lady Jennifer Arden, sister of Lady Philippa’s husband, as a guest for the summer. And then with the unexpected appearance of an aunt and a half brother to fill in some of his blank history on his mother’s side. Apparently all he had known of her until then was that she had been the mistress of the late earl, his father, until her death when Ben was three.
Ben’s life had changed for the better since then.
But his own? And Clarissa’s? It was impossible to know yet. All they could do was live from day to day and face whatever changes came—either separately or together.
Togetherwas not a word he had ever really associated with Clarissa and himself. Not, at least, since he was eighteen.
He sighed and went back inside his rooms and shut the front door.
A bright red door, he thought, the only specific feature yet planned for Clarissa’s dream cottage. He smiled and then chuckled aloud as he went to fetch and then wrap the wooden owl, which was still poised for flight while holding his gaze with a stubborn determination not to be the first to look away.
—
Three mornings later the carriage from Ravenswood stopped outside the smithy. Matthew was already trotting down the stairs. Within a minute he was inside the carriage and it was in motion again.
“I could have walked up to the house,” he said.
“And good morning to you too, Matthew,” Clarissa said. “Our friendship is no longer a secret. Why should I not stop for you here, with perhaps half the village looking on? It does not matter.”
“Your sons left yesterday?” he asked.
“They did,” she said. “I felt guilty about not encouraging them to stay longer. But I know Ben was anxious to return to Jennifer, whom he should not have left in the first place. I know too that Owen brightened considerably at the prospect of spending a few weeks by the sea. Joy was over the moon that he was going with them. She has major plans for him.”
“And you are happy to be alone again,” he said.
“I really was sad to see them go so soon and to know they had come here only to make sure I had company and was not lonely,” she said.
“And were not being devoured by a big, bad wolf,” he said.
“There is that too.” She smiled. “But I am happy to be alone again.”
He was looking slightly pale, she thought. His manner was a bit strained. He seemed more like the old Matthew than the one who had lived and worked here for the past twenty years and more. It was hardly surprising. He was on his way to see and talk with the brother with whom he had had no dealings in more than thirty years.
They sat in silence for a while. Clarissa knew that nothing she could say was going to take his mind off the ordeal ahead. If he needed to talk, if he needed her to talk, then he would take the initiative. It was strange how she had forgotten, though he had not, the long silences that had characterized their friendship almost as much as all the intense talking and more relaxed chatting and laughing they had done. And it was what she had craved in the past few years, was it not? She understood silence more consciously now. It was through silence that she was becoming more comfortable with herself and the irrevocable turn her life had taken with Caleb’s death six years ago. The members of her family had been preciousgems of love and concern, making sure she was almost never alone, except in her bed at night, involving her in their own activities and conversations. Their great kindness had been part of her problem, though. She could wallow in it quite happily for the rest of her life if she chose. But at the end of it all, would she feel that she had somehow wasted the second half of her life?
Matthew spoke at last.
“There was a time,” he said, “when he was my favorite person in the whole world. My hero, the person I aspired to grow up to be like.”
“Reginald?” she said.
“Reggie, yes,” he said. “The ten-year age difference seemed enormous when I was a child. He always seemed grown-up to me, and kind and indulgent and…fun.”
