They stopped outside the door and wrapped their arms about each other again.
“I love you,” he murmured against her lips.
“I love you more,” she said.
“Most.”
“Very most.”
“A superlative cannot be added to. I win,” he said, and deepened the kiss.
George opened the door, clearing his throat as he did so. He must have been standing behind it, waiting for them, Clarissa thought. Kitty stood beside him, twinkling at them both.
“I was beginning to think you were walking all the way back to Ravenswood,” George said.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The new building being erected on Ravenswood land, across the river and somewhat to the east of the village of Boscombe, attracted a great deal of attention during the following months.
Word quickly spread that it was to be a dower house, though it soon became clear that it was no small mansion, as many such houses on large estates were. Even the wordmanorwould be a bit of an exaggeration. This was merely a sizable cottage with an upstairs and a down and a thatched roof to make it impossibly picturesque. It had clearly not been designed to accommodate many overnight guests. But then, who would need to stay there when the vast mansion that was Ravenswood was just a short walk away?
The cottage went up with astonishing speed, the Earl of Stratton having apparently instructed the architect that there was to be no dillydallying, that it was to be completed before winter descended upon them. It made the perfect picture against the backdrop of the meadow, in which sheep continued to graze, undismayed by all the noise and bustle of the workmen who sawed and hammeredand shouted out instructions and questions all day long. One could only imagine how much more perfect the cottage would look when it was finished and a garden had been mapped out and planted with grass and flowers and shrubs and perhaps a few trees, and when hollyhocks and hyacinths and other tall flowers grew against the walls of the house. And would there be a rustic fence?
It was going to be a cottage worthy of a storybook cover.
It was to be the new home of the Dowager Countess of Stratton, the earl’s mother. When that rumor was confirmed as actual fact, some of the inhabitants of the village were disturbed, even outraged. Was there some rift within the family, as there had been ten years ago after the calamitous ending to the ball at the summer fete? Was her ladyship being banished from Ravenswood itself by her vengeful son, whom she in turn had banished after that ball? Was she to be hidden away on the riverbank, out of sight of the main house itself?
Common sense soon prevailed when it was pointed out that the earl was not a vengeful man. And they were reminded of the dowager countess’s preference for solitude this past summer and of her friendship with Matthew Taylor. Rumor had it then—and it was soon confirmed by those in the know—that the couple was betrothed, that there was to be a wedding in the foreseeable future. That the cottage was to be their love nest, so to speak.
Most of the villagers were enchanted by the romance of it all. A number of them acquired the habit of strolling along the riverbank on the Boscombe side even when they had no reason to do so except to gaze across at the small army of workers erecting the lovely new building, future home of two unlikely lovers.
The wedding was to take place before Christmas in the village church. That news too became general knowledge long before it wasofficially announced. And everyone was to be included in the celebrations, just as they had been when the present earl married Gwyneth Rhys a few years ago. There was to be a grand feast for all in the ballroom at Ravenswood the night before the wedding. And though the church would be reserved for invited guests for the wedding itself, there was plenty of space to stand outside and get a good view of the bride and groom and all the fancy guests in their wedding finery. Sir Ifor Rhys, the church organist and choirmaster, was to give an organ recital the following day before the wedding decorations inside the church were taken down.
It was a marvel to many that Matthew Taylor did not change at all during the months of his betrothal, while the cottage was being built and plans were being made for his wedding to the dowager countess and the village buzzed with the excitement of it all. He did not suddenly become the gentleman he was by birth. He did not grow idle or conceited. He continued to live and work in his modest rooms above the smithy. He continued to buy his food at the Miller sisters’ shop and take the occasional tankard of ale at the village inn. He still mingled with everyone, whether of high or low estate, never refusing an invitation.
As for the dowager countess, she remained as charming and gracious as ever. And perhaps more beautiful than ever, some said, even though her fiftieth birthday was celebrated during the autumn.
—
Clarissa forced herself to stay away from the cottage during the daytime while it was being built. She did not want to get under the feet of the workmen, who were toiling so diligently over its construction. Most evenings, though, she walked down to see what progress had been made, even when darkness started to fallearlier. Sometimes Gwyneth or Devlin or Owen went with her once they had returned to Ravenswood in the autumn. Often Matthew met her there and she would lean back against his chest while his arms came about her waist, gazing in wonder at her growing dream and planning with him exactly what the garden would look like when work on it could finally begin next spring.
“I must have daffodils,” she said.
“And snowdrops,” he said.
She had a gardener. He was also a general handyman. Millicent had cleared her throat and actually spoken while brushing Clarissa’s hair one evening at bedtime. It was a week or so after she had been told about the cottage and asked if she would continue as Clarissa’s personal maid. She had a brother, she explained now, who was an avid gardener but was leaving his position at another grand house because of conflicts with the new head gardener there. The brother’s wife worked as an undercook at the same house but had long dreamed of being fully in charge of her own kitchen and even of having the running of a smaller establishment. Millicent had spoken with them, and they were eager to be considered for the position at Lady Stratton’s cottage.
“We have always been very close, my brother and I, Your Ladyship,” she had said. “And my sister-in-law and I get along very well too.”
Clarissa had interviewed the couple, liked them, and agreed to employ them as soon as the cottage was finished. That would be soon, before the wedding, which she and Matthew had set for the first week in December. She wanted to spend her wedding night in their new home. And it was theirs, not just hers. Although Devlin was paying for the house itself, which would belong to the estate, itwas Clarissa and Matthew who furnished it. And he insisted upon sharing all the costs.
“Otherwise,” he explained when she protested, “it will never seem like my home, Clarissa.”
He made the dining room table himself and other items of furniture. She embroidered new cloths. They purchased what neither could make.
Devlin and Gwyneth had come home from Wales late in the summer and Owen had come back from Penallen soon after. Nicholas, finally home in England to stay, had a week’s leave to spend at Ravenswood in the early autumn. He lifted Clarissa off her feet and twirled her about by way of greeting and in spite of the old war wound to his leg that had left him with a slight limp. He headed off to the village soon after his arrival to interrogate Matthew—his word—and then shake him by the hand with a grip that had come close to crushing every bone in it. Or so Matthew had reported later to Clarissa.
Nicholas looked almost achingly like his father. He had the same rugged, fair-haired good looks and the same openhearted charm. But he was not Caleb. There was a firmness about his jaw, a military uprightness to his bearing, an occasional hardness to his eyes that proclaimed him a man of firmer character.
