“And forgot your coat,” she said. “But I like you in your shirtsleeves. And I could watch you forever at your archery and not grow tired of it.”
They stood gazing into each other’s eyes, their arms still about each other. She was wearing a muslin summer dress with no shawl and no bonnet. She was rosy complexioned and bright eyed.
“Devlin came yesterday with Gwyneth and the children,” she said. “They left again this morning. Matthew, I am to have my cottage. Devlin is going to send an architect here so I can tell him exactly what I want, and the building is to start within the next few weeks and be finished by winter. Can you believe it?”
It was difficult. He would have expected her son to put up all sorts of objections to her dream.
“He insists upon paying for the house,” she said, “since, as he explained, it will be on Ravenswood land and therefore legally his. But I am to pay for all the furnishings and the landscaping and planting of the garden.”
“Am I going to be allowed to visit you there?” he asked, smiling back at her. “Or will that red door be locked against me?”
“Oh,” she said, her smile softening. “You must have a key of your own, Matthew.”
He laughed, though he felt a stabbing of emotion at her words and the look on her face.
“Have you had your invitation?” he asked her.
“How delightful it was,” she said. “Did they send one to you too, even though you are to be the guest of honor? The pleasure of your company is requested for refreshments, conversation, cards, and dancing if the young people and the young at heart insist upon it. And then, more prosaically, the date and time and Adelaide Taylor’s signature. No mention of your name as the special guest.”
“For which omission I am very grateful,” he said. “Perhaps Adelaide is a bit afraid I will turn coward and not go and she will end up looking foolish.”
“And feeling massively disappointed,” she said. “You will go, Matthew?”
“I will,” he said. “Will you?”
“Of course,” she said. “Mama and Papa will be there too.”
“Reggie insists upon sending his carriage for me,” he said. “I daresay he will be happy for you to use it too.”
She took her arms from about his neck and pressed her hands against his shoulders. “Come inside,” she said. “Tea was brought out an hour ago, but I waited for you.”
“Thank you,” he said, sitting beside her on one of the sofas.“Tell me. Are you closer to discovering what you came home to find, Clarissa? Despite all the interruptions?”
“I am,” she said, taking his hand in hers and lacing their fingers. “I believe I am going to be able to have my own life and my family life too. It might be said that I have always had both anyway, but—”
“I understand,” he said.
“I even read for an hour this morning after Devlin and Gwyneth and the children left,” she said. “That must sound very trivial. But I have been unable to concentrate upon any book since I came home.”
“And I was able to shoot today,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “I saw. Is the turmoil starting to feel less…tumultuous, then?”
“It is,” he said. “I have a brother and sister-in-law, and a whole family surrounding them. It is not going to be easy or comfortable sorting everything out, and I know I will dread the coming of next Friday almost as much as I dreaded my visit a few days ago. But…” He shrugged. “It will be done.”
She tipped her head to rest on his shoulder, and he turned his head and kissed her—warmly and with deepening intensity as her free arm came about his neck again and her hand cupped the back of his head, her fingers pushing through his hair.
She was so beautiful, he thought, moving his head back a fraction from hers to gaze at her, heavy lidded and smiling dreamily back at him.
“What are you thinking?” she asked, her voice low.
He was thinking that he wanted to make love to her and that perhaps she wanted it too. But…in a glass-walled summerhouse in broad daylight, with gardeners forever busy in the park?
“I am thinking,” he said, “that I could drink that whole jug of lemonade myself if you do not first claim a glassful.”
She laughed and pushed away from him. “And all this food will grow stale if we do not eat it soon,” she said. “That would be a shame.”
“It would,” he said, and told her, as she moved forward on the sofa to pour their drinks, about the party the evening before and the bundle of food he had taken home and the duplicate plate of leftovers Mrs. Holland had brought him earlier.
