“By the time I even learned he was ill, it was already too late. I’m glad you were with him.”
Micha drew in a breath, but it shuddered between his lips, and then his fine, dark eyes flooded with tears. He gasped out an anguished obscenity, and, suddenly, he was in Larcombe’s arms, the two of them clinging together, like twin vines.
Hope found she was not particularly disconcerted by the sight of two gentlemen embracing, and her decency—such as it was—remained staunchly unthreatened, but she stepped away to give them the privacy of each other. She studied the headstone, which was a smooth piece of stone, simply carved:All he did, was done in love. Thomas Edward Mandeville 1831–1890.And she wished for Ian, that she might weep, and be held, also.
“All right.” Micha’s voice was rough with tears. “You can come back. I’ve finished making a fool of myself now.”
Hope turned to them. They were still partially entwined, hand in hand. “It’s no more foolish to mourn than it is to love.”
That made him smile. “You might not be his daughter, but I can tell he raised you.”
And that made her smile. “I’m proud to bear such a legacy.”
They were silent awhile. A breeze rose up and gently stirred the flowers on Thomas’s grave, bearing away a handful of scarlet and gold petals that soared into the pale sky like a flotilla of tiny kites.
Micha rose to his feet. “Perhaps we should not linger. Your mother will surely want to see you. And various of the Nettlefield ladies who, I swear, must be immortal. Oh, and there’s children. I’ve no idea who they belong to, but there’s about twenty-seven of them.”
Larcombe grinned, showing slightly crooked teeth. “There are three of them, Micha. Three.”
“Are you sure? They seem innumerable.”
“I am quite sure. Unlike you, my darling secretary, I can actually count.”
Their laughter warmed her, as did the prospect of her waiting family, but Hope was not ready to leave Thomas to his sunlit silence. “In a moment.”
“I ... you know ... I think I should go back.” Larcombe’s fingers brushed the inside of Micha’s wrist, before he released his hand. “I can tell them you’re coming. There’s no rush.” He strolled away through the churchyard, a slight, rather dandified figure, light-gilded among the swirling autumn leaves.
“He seems to take great care of you,” offered Hope, noting the way Micha’s eyes pursued the viscount into the distance.
“Yes.” He smiled his brilliant, heart-stopping smile. “I care for him very deeply.”
“I’m so glad you’re happy, Micha.”
He ran an idle, caressing hand over the top of the grave marker. “Thomas deserves nothing less. His letters were always full of joy. He loved you and your mother very much.”
“Yes, I know. He loved you too.”
“And I’ve never stopped loving him.” A shadow swept across his eyes. “I don’t suppose I ever will.”
Hope was too much a scientist to care very much for a divine presence she could neither see, nor prove, nor analyse, but she would not have denied solace to a grieving man. “Perhaps you will see him again.”
“Do you really believe that?” Micha’s lip curled into a sneer so familiar it made her ache a little for all the lost possibilities of life.
“Well ...” But she was too like Thomas to countenance a lie, even a soothing one. “Well ...Ido not. But people believe and disbelieve all kinds of things. Some people do not believe in evolution. It does not mean they are correct.”
Micha laughed suddenly, a touch of bitterness, and a touch of mischief. “Oh Hope, you haven’t changed.”
“I am quite a bit taller, thank you.”
After a moment, he said, “But what does it mean, if there’s nothing? Where does that leave us?” His voice cracked. “Here we are, partingfrom each other all over again, and I can’t even visit. He can’t even send me letters. He’s simply gone.”
“Some cultures,” she suggested gently, “believe in continuance.”
“Reincarnation? Past lives? All that spiritualist shit? Fuck, no.” The sneer was back. “One life has been quite enough for me. I’m not doing this again.”
Hope gazed at him, in mingled sympathy and bewilderment. A thousand lives would not have been enough to satisfy her curiosities or diminish her passions. Though she grieved with him, she wished she could offer him some comfort. Thomas would have known what to say. “Perhaps it is more abstract than that. Perhaps there is continuance through time.”
“There’s what?”
