“The offering this morning was an excuse for her to let me know that your son’s carriage had left Ravenswood, presumably bound for Wales,” he said. “The Misses Miller brought the news of its arrival to the gathering last evening.”
“Ah, the joys of belonging to a small rural community,” she said, handing him his glass and an empty plate for him to fill himself.
Matthew took a mouthful of his lemonade and contemplated the feast set out before him.
Chapter Twenty
Clarissa enjoyed the following week more than she had enjoyed any other for a long while, it seemed to her. She spent hours at a time alone, both indoors and out, and was thoroughly at ease in her own company. She was embroidering and reading again, though she spent a great deal of time too just sitting or walking and gazing about her, appreciating the fact that she was alive and healthy and in possession of an abundance of blessings upon which to build a future that would be personally fulfilling without also being selfish. She wrote letters. She called upon friends and neighbors and received them when they called upon her.
An architect presented himself at Ravenswood a mere two days after Devlin left to look at and survey the piece of land she had chosen by the river and to make notes of what her ladyship wanted. He returned two days after that with detailed drawings of a two-story cottage, cozy enough just for her but large enough to allow her to entertain groups and accommodate overnight guests. There was to be a whole section at the back for the kitchen and servants’quarters. She expected that Millicent would move there with her, and she would need a housekeeper and cook, preferably all in one person, and a gardener and general handyman. Perhaps she would be able to find a married couple to fill the roles. There was to be space for a garden, which she planned to fill with shrubs and flowers as well, and a lawn. She pictured a vegetable and herb garden to the east of the cottage.
Her ladyship could expect work to begin within the next couple of weeks, the architect informed her with a bow as he took his leave. Clarissa felt a bit breathless. Could all this really be happening? And so quickly? Her dream of having a cottage of her own had only recently been conceived, as well as her search for the perfect setting.
She saw Matthew a number of times during that week. Their friendship was no longer to be hidden away. Mostly they met and strolled in the park in the late afternoon or evening, but once Clarissa walked into the village and, by prearrangement, met him outside the inn and shared a pot of tea with him in the dining room, enjoying the view over the village green from their table by the window. They even allowed themselves to be persuaded into eating some of the landlady Mrs. Berry’s freshly baked rhubarb tart with their tea. Afterward they went together to the shop, since Matthew needed a few groceries and Clarissa wanted to look at a newly arrived batch of embroidery silks. The Misses Miller, wide-eyed and simpering, were almost visibly storing up the sensational news to spread among their customers for the rest of the day.
As they left the shop, Matthew reminded her his brother was insisting upon sending his own carriage to convey him the day before the party in his honor. Matthew was trying to persuade Clarissa to share the conveyance with him since she had been invited and fully intended on going.
“It seems a bit pointless to take two carriages, one behind the other,” he said.
But Clarissa felt uneasy about accepting. Reginald had not specifically suggested that she travel with his brother. Perhaps he did not think it necessary to do so but simply assumed she would. She was not sure she wanted to give him and his wife the impression that she and Matthew were a couple, however. And were they? They had acknowledged only a friendship so far, though they frequently shared hugs and kisses and once or twice an altogether more heated embrace.
She did not know if she wanted them to be a couple.
She suspected he did not know if he wanted it either.
They were middle-aged and set in their ways. He had enjoyed independence for many years. She was just discovering her own. Perhaps the whole of their relationship would be ruined if they tried to take it further, and that would be incredibly sad.
As it turned out, she was saved from the dilemma of deciding whether to go with Matthew in his brother’s carriage or take her own when yet another member of her family—and surely the last—arrived unexpectedly at Ravenswood two days before the Taylors’ party.
Clarissa was in the turret room, a place in which she had spent far more time during the past month than she had in years past. She was dreaming of her cottage and of the grandchildren who would be born soon after Christmas. She was dreaming of Nicholas coming back to England soon, to stay, she hoped. She was dreaming of Owen finding his way in life and of Stephanie finding happiness. One thing she was not doing was reading the book she had brought with her. It was always virtually impossible to read in the turret room.
But she sat forward on the couch when she heard horses’ hooves and carriage wheels. Looking out the windows, she saw that a traveling carriage was coming up the driveway, but not one that any of her local friends would be using so close to their own homes. It stopped before the front doors below and to the left of her, and out stepped her brother, George, and then Kitty. Their visit was unplanned and unhinted at in their most recent letters. Clarissa laughed softly to herself as she got to her feet and made her way downstairs.
“We decided we simply must spend a few days with Mama and Papa before going home,” George said a few minutes later, after Clarissa had gone downstairs to greet and hug them. “I have been feeling guilty over missing Mama’s birthday. A special one too, her seventieth.”
“I insisted that we come anyway, late as we are for the birthday,” Kitty said, beaming at Clarissa. “And I insisted too that we call upon you on our way there. I have missed you dreadfully.”
They would have had to make a detour of many miles to come here. Ravenswood was not on their direct route from London to her parents’ house. They intended to resume their journey after taking tea with Clarissa and relaxing for an hour or so.
“Mama and Papa will be delighted to see you,” she said as she led the way to the drawing room, where tea was served almost immediately.
“Are you not lonely here all on your own, Clarissa?” her brother asked. “Though I daresay you have been making some new friends.”
“One specifically?” she said while Kitty winked at her, unseen by her husband. “The one that has brought you here, though I am sure your desire to see Mama and Papa is genuine? Matthew Taylor is not a new friend, however, as you are well aware, George. Wewere close friends through most of our growing years, and we are friends again.”
“Some of your neighbors have been a bit…concerned about it,” George said.
“So I have heard. But I have also decided to let them be,” she said. “It is really none of their business, is it?”
“I suppose you think it is none of mine either,” he said, frowning. “Clarissa—”
But Kitty was patting his arm. “Mr. Taylor transformed Jenny’s life when he made her that wheeled chair the year before last,” she said. “It also happens to be a work of art. And he made the cane that has helped enable her to dispense with those useless crutches she used to have. I would like to be his friend too if only because of what he has done for my niece. Clarissa is a grown woman, George, as I have been explaining to you since we waved her on her way back to Ravenswood.”
“I know,” he said. “And she is five years older than me. You have been reminding me of that too, Kit.”
She beamed at him and then at Clarissa. “We must be on our way soon,” she said. “We still have another ten miles to go. I suppose you do not want to come with us, Clarissa? Nothing would make us happier.”
“Well, as it happens, I do,” Clarissa said, and watched as both their faces lit up. “I was going there tomorrow anyway. I have been invited to a grand party Reginald and Adelaide Taylor are organizing for Friday. It is in honor of Matthew. I am quite certain you will be invited too.”
