“First she taught. Later, by chance, she became a land steward, quite a successful one. As I said, she was not in the common way. You remind me of her.” Randolph glanced up from the fire, which he had been watching with unnecessary vigilance.
“After Alyson vanished, I wondered if it was my fault, so when she returned I asked her. She confirmed that she had overheard me, and that was why she had run away.” He gave a bitter laugh. “This story would be better told at Easter than Christmas. I felt like Peter must have when he realized that he had denied his Master three times before the cock crowed.”
Elizabeth’s heart ached for both of them, two young lovers shattered by a moment of foolishness. No wonder Randolph could not forgive himself. The fact that Lady Alyson had run away from her whole life was vivid proof of the anguish she'd felt at the apparent betrayal of the man she had loved and trusted.
Elizabeth tried to imagine what Randolph’s meeting with his former love had been like, but imagination boggled. “Calling on her must have taken a great deal of courage.”
“I decided that it was easier to know for sure than to continue to live with guilty uncertainty.” The corner of his mouth twisted up in wry self-mockery. “In fact, Alyson was amazingly easy on me. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she had greeted me with a dueling pistol, but instead she said the fault lay as much with her and her father as with me, and that her life had not been ruined in the least.”
“Your Alyson sounds like a remarkable woman.”
“She is, but she’s not my Alyson anymore. A few weeks after emerging from exile, she married one of the most notorious rakes in England. I have it on the best authority that he is a reformed man: sober, responsible, and as besotted with her as she is with him. Alyson is happy now and she deserves to be. She is one of those rare people who forged herself a second chance for happiness.”
Randolph linked his fingers together and stared into the fire. “I’ve been telling myself since September that it all worked out for the best. Her strength of character would have been wasted on me. I have no interesting vices to reform, so she would have been bored by me very quickly.”
“Do you still love her?”
He sighed, his face empty. “The young man I was loved the young woman she was. Neither of those people exists anymore.”
It wasn’t quite an answer, but at least now Elizabeth understood why he had offered her a carte blanche. It was because she resembled the woman he had loved.
Where did his wife fit into the picture? In the lonely years after Lady Alyson disappeared, he must have married without love, and lived to regret it. Elizabeth did not dare ask about his marriage. She’d already been unpardonably inquisitive.
Sadly she said, “Perhaps it is only the young who are foolish enough, or brave enough, to fall in love, and that’s why there are few second chances.”
Having let her hair down metaphorically, Elizabeth decided that it was time to do so literally as well, or she would have a headache before morning. After removing her hairpins and tucking them in the basket so they wouldn’t get lost, she combed her tangled curls with her fingers in a futile attempt to restore order.
When Randolph glanced over, she explained, “In case any wolves or other beasts find their way up here, I am letting my hair down so that I can play Medusa and turn them to stone.”
He chuckled, his earlier melancholy broken. “You should wear your hair down more often. It becomes you.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes in comic disbelief, and he wondered if she ever believed compliments. In truth, by firelight and with her brown hair crackling with red and gold highlights, she looked very winsome. Perhaps not beautiful, but thoroughly delectable.
He hastily looked back at the fire, knowing that that was a dangerous train of thought under these circumstances, when she had made it clear that he did not fit into her plans for the future. Apparently, having loved well and truly, she did not want to marry without love.
Perhaps she was wiser than he, for he had tried that once, with disastrous consequences. Nonetheless, the more he saw of Elizabeth Walker, the more he thought that they would deal very well together, if she were willing to lower her standards and accept him.
Perhaps speaking so openly of their pasts should have made them more awkward with each other, but the reverse was true. The evening drifted by in companionable silence, broken by occasional desultory conversation. They sat a couple of feet apart with their backs against the cliff wall, which offered some protection from the bitter December wind.
Vesuvius was close enough for a faint glow to be visible against the night sky. It was a dramatic but disquieting sight. Fortunately the little fire offered cheery comfort as well as some warmth.
Eventually they made further inroads on the picnic basket and still had enough food for another meal or two. After they had eaten and drunk some of the wine, Randolph asked, “How are you managing? It’s cold now, and it will be considerably colder by tomorrow morning.”
“I’m fine, thank you.”
Elizabeth’s voice sounded a little stiff, and when Randolph looked more closely and saw how she was huddled into the lap rug, he understood why. “You’re freezing, aren’t you? And too practical to say so when we haven’t enough wood to burn it at a faster rate.”
“You said it, not I.”
Randolph peeled his coat off and handed it to her. “Put this on.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said, refusing to accept it and keeping her hands tucked under the lap rug. “That would just mean that you’d freeze, too. I will do very well.” There was a suggestion of chattering teeth under her brave words.
“You don’t appear to be doing well. Come, take my coat,” he coaxed. “Cold has never bothered me much, while six years in Italy have probably thinned your blood to the point where you are more sensitive to cold than the average Englishwoman.”
Elizabeth looked mulish, another trait she had in common with Alyson. Why did tall, stubborn, independent females who were not in the common way appeal to him so much?
He smiled a little, realizing that his question contained its own answer. “If you won’t accept my coat, we'll have to resort to a time-honored method of keeping warm.”
