“What?” she asked warily.
“You may pay for what goes inside the house,” he said. “And for what surrounds it. The furnishings and decorations. The lawns and flowers and hedges. It will be a considerable expense for you.”
“You are saying yes, then?” She clasped her hands and held them beneath her chin.
“I am trying to understand all this, Mama,” he said. “The need to be alone. The new friendship, which some of your neighbors, I might add, believe is probably more than just friendship. The need for a house of your own when Ravenswood is vast enough to swallow a village. The…independence from your own children. Gwyneth has tried to explain it to me as though she understands better than I do. Perhaps she does. Mama…she insists that you still love us.”
She stared at him mutely for a few moments in the gathering dusk. “I let you down very badly once, Devlin,” she said. “I sent you away because you had tried to defend my honor publicly. I suffered for that decision for six long years. I suffered because I love you, as I love all my children, perhaps more than I love my own life. But…I do love my own life too. I want to live whatever remains of it in my own way. But that does not include any separation from any of you. I love you.”
He stared at her in apparent bafflement for a few moments before striding toward her and catching her up in a brief, fierce hug.
“We had better go back to the house before we have to feel our way in the darkness,” he said. “And before Gwyneth organizes a search party. I will contact a good architect and send him here, Mama. You may explain your vision to him and he will draw up plans for your approval. I will explain to him that work on the house is to begin within the month and be finished before winter sets in. He can make all the arrangements.”
“Oh,” she said, taking his offered arm. She could not think what else to say. “Oh goodness.”
Could some dreams really come true?
—
Matthew had discovered over the years that working could sometimes put him into a near-meditative state, especially if the project was one that required some creativity. It helped still his mind, focusing upon the task, letting both skill and artistry flow through his hands and into the wood.
He worked almost constantly through the two days following his visit to his brother and to the churchyard where his wife and daughter lay at rest, and the long carriage ride both ways with Clarissa. His whole being teemed with jumbled thoughts and raw emotions he had not experienced since he was a very young man. He did not try to control them. He worked instead, forgetting to stop for luncheon both days and stopping only long enough the first evening to make himself a thick sandwich, which he carried into his workroom and noticed an hour or so later, the bread hardening and dry on top. He ate the sandwich anyway rather than going to get something else. He forgot to go to bed that night until his eyes were watering so badly he could no longer clearly see what he was doing.
He stopped work the second evening only because he had said he would go to a birthday party Mrs. Holland had organized for Sally, her daughter, who was married to Alan Roberts, the schoolteacher. Cam came to fetch him. It was a boisterous gathering, at which people all seemed to want to talk at once, raising their voices to be heard over everyone else’s, while those who were not talking did a great deal of laughing instead. George Isherwood, the doctor, was there as well as Mrs. Proctor, the dressmaker, the Misses Miller from the shop, and John Roberts, the cobbler. Matthew was fond of them all and did as much laughing as any of them, despite the news the Misses Miller had brought to the party.
The Earl and Countess of Stratton and their children had arrived home from London earlier in the day. The sisters had seen their carriage from the shop window with their very own eyes as it drove past on the far side of the village green. The Strattons must have changed their minds about going to Wales.
“But I wonder why,” Sally said.
Unusually, no one seemed able—or willing—to speculate upon the reason, and there were several uncomfortably silent moments while a few of the guests glanced self-consciously at Matthew.
He enjoyed the evening anyway and slept deeply that night. He worked the following morning until he was aware of a banging on his door and opened it to discover Mrs. Holland standing outside, a covered plate of leftovers from the night before in her hand.
“But you insisted I bring some home with me last night,” Matthew said in protest. “I had cake for breakfast.”
“Oh, did I?” she said with an almost comic look of surprise. “I forgot. Take it anyway. There is so much left Oscar and Cam will be eating it for a week.”
“Well, thank you,” he said, taking the plate from her. “You spoil me, Mrs. Holland.”
“Someone has to,” she said, patting the back of his hand after he had transferred the food to one of his own plates and given hers back to her. “His lordship’s carriage drove away from Ravenswood a few hours ago. It looks as if they are going to visit her ladyship’s relatives in Wales after all. They just stopped here for the night, I daresay. There is nothing better than sleeping in your own bed, is there? I don’t believe the dowager countess went with them. And who could blame her? I would not enjoy traveling a few hundred or a few thousand miles, whatever it is, with two young children, no matter how good they are. So she is home alone again.”
She squeezed one eye shut, rubbed it with a finger of her free hand as though a dust mote had attacked her, and clattered back down the stairs to the street.
Matthew took his bow and arrow to the poplar alley after cleaning up his workroom and casting a critical eye and hand over the almost-finished crib. Once he arrived at the wooded alley, he set up his equipment, noted with something that felt suspiciously like disappointment that he was alone, and began his practice.
It did not go well for a while. He almost gave up in frustration and despair. But what was there in his life that was so disturbing to him? He had work for some time to come, all of it both interesting and challenging. His friends were still his friends. Apart from the uneasy looks that had been cast his way last evening when the Misses Miller had talked of Devlin Ware and his family’s arrival at Ravenswood, he was being treated as he always had been. He had not become any sort of pariah. His family had been restored to him, and he was as determined as they seemed to be to pursue the relationship, to normalize it if that was possible after more than thirty years of estrangement. Poppy and Helena were at peace in their neat, well-kept grave. He would visit them regularly, assure them that they would never be forgotten. He loved Clarissa. Yes, it was as simple as that. He was not sure of the exact nature of the love she felt for him, but even friendship would be enough, as it always had been. And they would remain friends. He was confident of that.
There was no reason, then, to feel out of sorts.
When he lifted his bow again after taking a short break and followed his breath for a while—in, hold, out, hold—he was finally there, one with his bow and his quiver and arrows, with the target and the space between, with the air and the grass beneath his feet and the sky above.
It had been a long practice, he realized when he finally came back inside his body and discovered that his bow arm was stiff and aching, that his fingers were sore and tingling from drawing arrows from his quiver, that his legs seemed almost locked at the knees. He went to pluck the last round of arrows from the target—all had found the bull’s-eye—and looked ahead along the alley to the summerhouse. Even if she had come, he thought, she would surely have left by now.
But soon enough he saw she had come and she had not left. He could see her sitting inside the summerhouse in a light-colored dress, gazing back in his direction. He dropped the bow and quiver at his feet, decided against going back for his coat, and strode off toward her.
She was standing in the open doorway when he reached her and caught her up with both arms about her waist and swung her in a full circle. She wrapped her own arms about his neck and laughed.
“I am sorry,” he said. “I lost track of time.”
