“Perhaps. But I’m not starting with this piece.” Was she trying to break him? “Return it to the Galaxy. Better yet, donate it to a museum. But it’s not staying here.”
You love her.He pressed his hands against his ears, starting for the kitchen. He’d confront this archbishop, this man of God—“Why did you marry us?”—sort out this love business, and be done with it.
“There’s a note on the back.” Robert’s voice roped Stephen to a halt.
Stephen glanced down the curved staircase at his butler. “Bring it here, please.”
Robert handed him the greeting-card-sized envelope and Stephen removed the card. The butler-valet-aide went on his way as Stephen sank down to the nearest chair and read.
To say I love you is more than mere words.
’Tis a truth in my heart.
I love you, my darling, and you’ve married me.
And we will never be apart.
The words were distant, but he knew them. From the card he bought at the shop the night they married. He crumpled the card in his big hand, dropped it to the floor, then smashed it with his foot. Now she played dirty. Unearthing tender memories he only planned to review as an old man, gumming his breakfast, mumbling of a love no one knew about, and they’d think him senile. The babbling Prince of Brighton.
Stephen glanced back at the painting. It was beautiful. But what were her intentions, sending him the Braithwaite painting? Did she intend to torture him, remind him of what he could never have? His heart palpitated at the idea of hanging that painting, hermemory, in his apartment.
Shoving to his feet, he returned to his room for his walking boot, phone, and wallet. Twenty minutes later, through the light Sunday morning traffic, he parked his motor at the south bay and caught the morning ferry to Grand Duchy of Hessenberg, the island nation south of Brighton, just as she pulled from the docks.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Corina peered out the cab window as the driver turned down the long driveway toward her parents’ home, exhausted. She tried to sleep during the long flight home, but the moment she drifted away, the fullness of Stephen’s embrace jolted her awake.
Then she realized she wasn’t in his arms, so she tried to sleep again. But rest never came.
She hadn’t planned on coming back here, but she’d miss her flight home to Melbourne. She needed to talk to Daddy anyway, tell him the truth about Carlos face-to-face.
She was grateful for the light traffic and quick drive from the airport to Marietta. For the driver who didn’t ask too many questions. For when he pulled past the front gate and down the long, live-oak-shaded drive of home.
She was even more grateful for Adelaide and Brill, her guardian angels, if not in reality then in theory, who said good-bye with sad looks on their angelic faces.
“I told him I forgave him, Adelaide. And I meant it. I–I think that’s the core of loving well, don’t you?” she asked, wanting truth, wanting confirmation that she’d succeeded in her mission.
Adelaide caressed Corina’s arm. “Indeed I do.”
“Maybe I should stay? He might come around.”
“Leave it to the Father, lass. You needn’t fret so. You’re in his gracious hands.”
“Adelaide, I wish I had your confidence.”
Then the taxi arrived and there was no time for more discussion. She was going to miss those two. Whoever they were.
Adelaide and Brill watched her go in the thin light of dawn, and Corina captured the image of the old inn with its single-pane window filled with gold light and the odd and ancient proprietors waving good-bye.
Halfway over the Atlantic she realized she’d not taken one photograph of them. She pulled out her laptop and journaled her thoughts.
The cab driver curved around in front of the veranda and stopped. He popped the trunk as Corina stepped out into the early afternoon heat. Mid-June promised a sweltering summer.
Had it only been a little over a week since she was here? It felt like a lifetime.
“Here you are.” He set her suitcases by her feet.
Corina paid him and he bid her a good day. She picked up her luggage and started for the house. She missed Stephen. If she’d stayed longer, could they have started over, fallen in love again, and repaired their annulment?
