Claire

by A. S. Harrington

  It was perhaps the laughter more than the rest that was so refreshing, and after luncheon he allowed her to bundle up in her pelisse and hat and gloves and stroll around the bare garden with him. He asked her questions about this flowerbed and that hedge, almost as though he assumed she meant to take up an extended residence.

  Claire knew very well that he did not, and that this amiable and idyllic interlude that he had provided for her was out of consideration for her health and her quick recovery, and not out of any particular desire to install her here. She did not allow herself to think about it; she had lost so much that had been dear to her just a few short weeks ago, that she refused to think of losing him also, and consequently she allowed herself to go along with the delusion, because it was so very easy to do so.

  “It is a lovely garden already, Varian, and it won’t require a great deal of work to have it very nice by the summer,” she said, leaving out any reference to herself that might put him on his guard.

  “What?” he exclaimed, grinning at her. “No gazebo? No ornamental pond?”

  “But you have an ornamental lake, Varian; I really cannot see that you will particularly need a pond,” she replied, without a flicker.

  “Well, all right; though I shall confess it, I do like the gazebo,” he said, as they strolled past the formal hedges and down a small set of wide steps toward the lake, both of them pointedly ignoring a bracing November wind.

  “Well, then, you ought to let that hedge grow a little higher, and put one in there behind it; it would make a delightful trysting spot, out of sight of the house, and I am certain that future residents would be most appreciative,” she said, pointing past the hedge, where there was a small private corner.

  “What do you mean, future residents?” he asked, taken aback. “I think I shall get a great deal of use out of it as well!”

  And she had laughed to conceal that horrible emptiness that came over her of a sudden, at the thought that he would very likely bring his lover there, and— the thought struck her forcibly— he might even marry again.

  She concealed all that very well beneath her smile as they strolled back toward the great house; she admired the rose bed and the bulb bed, already dug and mulched, just as she thought it should have been done. She assured him that it would all be perfectly lovely.

  Then he made her lie down for a while, upstairs; he had wandered inside her bedchamber, rather casually, without asking her permission, and asked if she minded if he read in her windowseat while she napped. She gave him a perplexed look, and then said that of course he could.

  Nor had anything ever been so pleasant as that nap. Claire did not dream, but slept contentedly, deeply, and when she opened her eyes, the first thing she glimpsed was Varian’s golden head just past his book, him in the loose shirt that he had told her he liked to wear in the country, with two pillows and his dark woolen coat folded up behind his head, and his country boots propped up on the opposite end of the windowseat. The afternoon sun that washed over him was almost as golden as his hair and the tanned skin of his face.

  Perhaps Varian felt her watching him; he raised his eyes suddenly, smiling at her across the room. “Sleep well?”

  She stretched and sat up, and breathed in deeply as she swung her stockinged feet over the edge of her bed. “Wonderfully,” she said quietly, without looking at him.

  He put up his book; she heard his boots find the floor, and then heard him coming toward her.

  “You’ve slept away the afternoon; come down for tea, if you feel up to it,” he said, pleasantly, standing over her with his hand extended.

  She pulled on her slippers and took his hand, and was surprised when he raised it to his lips and kissed it as she stood up. “You have the most delightful color today, Claire, that I am thinking you really are better. You shan’t tire yourself, shall you?”

  Her cheeks flushed, this time with delight, as her blue eyes met his. “No, of course not, not with your doting on me so,” she said, almost without thinking, and he smiled down at her in the most friendly fashion, so that she did not regret it in the least.

  “You don’t mind if I do so?”

  Claire returned his smile with one of her own. “Oh no; truly, it’s quite pleasant, being doted on,” and he laughed at her, and they went downstairs to scout out sustenance. Some quarter of an hour later they discovered a bountiful tea laid out in the upstairs parlor, where Claudia and Tony sat side-by-side on a comfortable sofa. Claudia was tucked comfortably within her large husband’s placid embrace as if it were the most natural thing in the world that she should be there.

  Claudia noticed then the heightened color of her sister, and the delightful way in which Varian teased his wife, and how he brought her tea and a scone, and how occasionally when he was discussing something with Tony, his eyes would wander over toward Claire’s face, catch her gaze and smile, and then would return to his friend. Claudia’s perceptive gaze noticed all this; she did not, however, have the least idea of what was going on inside Claire’s heart.

  For Claire had begun to wonder by the end of the following week if this had been so very wise after all. If she had been in love with her husband before, she was a hundred times moreso now. If Claire had thought in London that she did not wish to lose Varian, the very idea of it now seemed like cutting off a limb or leaving behind a part of herself. It was the bittersweet contentment of her slumber that caused her the greatest distress, and yet she could no more have desired to have it change than she could have wished to be captured by African pygmies.

  The first few nights Claire had slept restlessly in her own room, disliking to call him. In spite of it, Varian had come in once or twice when he heard her awaken, and had sat with her for a while until he had said something to make her laugh. But the nightmares had not gone away or even lessened as she recovered; if anything, it seemed that as her initial illness and exhaustion had passed and physical health had returned, her renewed energy had somehow brought with it a growing inability to sleep in peace. His attendance on her meant that he, too, rarely spent more than an hour or two asleep.

  Which is why Varian came inside her chambers early in the morning a few nights later, after he had already been twice in her room, and without saying a word, picked her up, pillow and all, carried her into his chamber and dumped her ungracefully into his bed, and then threw his dressing gown over a chair and climbed in next to her and pulled the blankets and quilt over the both of them.

  “You shall just have to like it,” he said with a touch of exasperation, “for I am damned tired of staying up all night.”

  As he pulled her close next to him and wrapped his strong arms around her, a small voice emerged from the mound of bedcovers. “I’m sorry, Varian; I don’t mean to trouble you, indeed I don’t,” Claire said unhappily.

  “No, you have the forbearance of a saint, only I know you are shaking like a leaf in there, afraid to close your eyes, and I cannot bear to see you so distressed. So from now on, you shall sleep in here with me, and we shall both be much better for it. Agreed?”

  She felt a sudden sting of tears behind her eyelids. In truth it was the first time she had allowed herself to think much past these pleasant few weeks at Banningwood, for she rather suspected that he meant to send her back to Merrill House with Claudia and Tony. He did not know how very heavenly it was to sleep here within his arms, within that warm oasis of contentment here next to him in his bed; nor would he know how very badly she would miss this particular spot when she left Banningwood. “If you’re certain I shan’t be a bother,” she said quietly, considering the future.

  But he was already asleep, his breathing even and slow. For a moment longer she stared into the darkness outside of this haven of hers, and then she laid a light, uncertain arm across his bare chest, feeling the four perfectly parallel lines of Balaghat’s bequest as she allowed her hand to brush across them lightly.

  As if in answering response to that first unsure caress, his embrace tightened aroun
d her in his sleep, and, had she only known it, he was smiling in the darkness over her head, perhaps not quite so asleep as she imagined.

  It was after dinner one evening four days later at the whist table that Claire’s worst fears were realized. The three of them, Tony, Varian, and Claire, had taught Claudia to play whist, the game having been one of the petty amusements she had missed in her youth while buried in Shakespeare, and the thing of it was, she had become a rather stout player. In fact, Claudia had just taken another one-and-six off Varian and Claire.

  “You know,” Claudia said as Varian gave up the last of his cards, “I shall miss these happy evenings once we’ve gone home.”

  “What, fleecing at the whist table?” an indulgent Tony quipped.

  Claudia, ignoring her husband, smiled and said, “Varian, promise me you’ll visit Merrill House in another month or so. I shan’t want to lose my game.”

  Everyone laughed. Suddenly a grim dread froze in the pit of Claire’s stomach. Although she smiled lightly, she felt herself pale. “Well, perhaps we can find a fourth until Varian comes to visit,” Claire said, only they had been laughing over some remark from Tony, and she didn’t much think anyone had noticed.

  “I suppose we’ll go in the morning,” said Claudia, still laughing a little, after she had given her very large and amused husband a small glance of promise. “For I don’t wish to wait until it rains again, and I rather imagine it won’t be another day or two. That deluge Tuesday last has left the roads poor enough, I am sure,” she said, and after shuffling the cards with an amazing dexterity, and dealt them out.

  “In the morning?” inquired Claire, not quite able to manage a smile. She saw Varian watching her, and repaired her expression instantly. “So soon, Claudia?”

  “You know, I think Cleo shall need me, for she is not as brave as we had always thought,” said Claudia, picking up her cards, and examining them at length through her spectacles. “You don’t mind, do you, Claire, dearest?” And had peered at her youngest sister over them.

  “No, of course not,” said Claire instantly, and picked up her cards, smiling down at them, and thinking of something altogether different. She and Varian lost soundly, which was no great surprise after all, considering that she hadn’t the least idea what her cards were, and much less what he had.

  “Are you tired, darling?” Varian asked, after they had finished the rubber.

  “Just a little,” she confessed, smiling briefly and dropping her glance to her hands. “You don’t mind if I beg off another game?”

  They all gave their instant approval. Varian lingered briefly to speak to Tony and to bid them goodnight and came upstairs to find the doors between their chambers closed for the first time in a month. He went straight through them without knocking and found her, weeping, in the greatest distress, hung over her windowseat, with three handkerchiefs in her lap.

  “Claire! Darling— ” He came over to her instantly and lifted her up and laid her head against his shoulder and his hand on her hair. “What’s all this? Have you fallen ill again?”

  She had dragged out her valise and her trunk, which was what had started the tears; he saw the offending articles now, for the first time, the valise on her bed, and the trunk lying open by the clothespress.

  “No,” she managed, on a hiccup, and truly did make an effort to control her weeping, although it was utterly useless.

  “Why have you got out your valise, darling? You know you’re not yet strong enough yet to travel,” Varian said gently, perhaps suspecting more than she thought.

  Claire heard those reassuring words and with it came a sudden abatement of her tears. “But— ” she whispered, wiping her eyes with her handkerchief, and then she resolutely blew her nose in the most unaffected fashion, which brought a small smile to his face.

  “There shan’t be any question of your going home with Claudia this time; your doctor won’t allow it,” he added immediately.

  “Varian— ” She raised her head from his shoulder and gazed at him, her eyes pink from weeping. She sniffed, her straight, dark brows elevated in a question. “Don’t you mean me to go home to Finchingfield with Claudia and Tony? Isn’t that what you had planned that I should do?”

  “Well, no, darling, not this time, not after the accident. Perhaps after Yule, if the roads aren’t too bad, we might— ”

  “Varian— ” Claire stared up at him. “You aren’t— sending me away?”

  “Sending you away?” he repeated blankly. “Whyever should I wish to send you away, Claire?”

  She glanced down at her handkerchief, and with the slightest tremor in her voice, said, “But I— I lost the baby, Varian; and that was to be my place here. As the mother of your son. I— ”

  “Haven’t I disabused you of that particularly stick-headed blunder of mine yet?”

  “What?” she asked, frowning slightly.

  “I haven’t made you forget all that yet, Claire?”

  “Forget all of what?” she asked again.

  “Of my inexcusable behavior. Of my unforgivable treatment of you after you took that damned letter to Canning’s house,” Varian said.

  “I— ” she began, glancing down at the leather button of his coat.

  “For I have never been so unhappy in my life, you know, that month you were in Essex; it was all I could do not to post up and bring you straight home, and I did give in once or twice to at least stopping by and inquiring of you from Rajat. And when you finally did come home, I was the greatest oaf in the world; here I was desperate to have you back, and when you came back, all I could do was accuse you,” he said casually. As he stood there staring down into her face he was suddenly, abruptly serious; his light voice, his smile disappeared, in a moment of heartfelt feeling. “And that day of the accident— ” Varian was suddenly, painfully, at a loss for words; he shook his head briefly. “When I climbed down into the rubble inside the coach and found Consuela dead and you beneath her, so still and white, and I thought I had lost you— God, Claire,” he said, suddenly pressing her to him possessively. “I thought you were dead as well, Claire. Rajat and I carried you up here and laid you out on your bed, and I thought you were dead.”

  “Varian— ” she said, muffled against his coat. He released her slightly and allowed her to raise her head. “I don’t understand. I thought that I had lost you; in fact, after that day in the gazebo, and then— then that night, I was very sure that I had lost you,” she said quietly.

  “My darling Claire, I very nearly lost myself over all that; can you ever forgive me?”

  “Have you,” she began, a little hesitantly raising her eyes to his, “forgiven me?”

  And in answer he kissed her; none of this light brush on her cheek or quick salute on the end of her nose, either. He kissed her as he had been wishing to for weeks, as he had so long ago at the beginning of this horrible misunderstanding between them, the first night she had spent home in London; he kissed her as he had wished to that evening beneath the apricot trees at Vimeiro, as he had that day in the grass behind the gazebo after she had fallen from the tree. With tenderness and longing and hunger and gentleness all somehow entwined together, Varian Drew kissed his wife as he had wished to that day he had come below on the voyage home to England and found her asleep on his pillow; as he had wished to the evening she appeared, in sky-blue Madras silk and diamonds at the top of the stairs at Banning House, after he had missed her to the point of physical pain.

  He kissed her slowly, passionately, awakening some fire within both of them. That careful control that she did not know of, that easy embrace each night as she came to him in his bed, without passion, without physical desire, his control was all fled in an instant, and his hands and body told her, just as his kiss did, that he wanted her.

  With something akin to omnipotence he released her and stepped away; “Forgive me, just once again, can you, Claire?” he said lightly. “I shouldn’t have done that; not just yet.”

  She felt suddenly des
erted as he moved away, as if she no longer had the least power to stand without his supporting her on his shoulder, which was quite absurd, and yet she found herself reaching for support on the windowseat. “Oh, but you should have!” she said, in that frank way of hers. “I thought you did not want to!”

  “Well, no, of course not, at least not until you are completely recovered,” he said gently. “The doctor has told me I must wait a month, you know, and I have been resolute in sticking to his orders.”

  “The doctor— ” She opened her blue eyes wide on him in sudden revelation. “You mean that you have asked him— ” she halted, her eyes widening. “Varian, you have never meant to send me away!”

  “Claire, I am head-over-ears in love with you! I cannot imagine that you should think I want to be parted from you for three hours, considering that I have just spent the last three weeks in your constant companionship!”

  “Oh, yes, and it has been— like a paradise, Varian!”

  His brilliant blues eyes suddenly flashed in pleasure. “Has it?” He smiled at her and bowed slightly. “Then perhaps I might suggest a small outing into the village in the morning to pick up the mail. We shall see how well you do on a short drive, and I have no doubt that by next week you will be bursting to drive to Ely or Cambridge and spend the day.” With a rueful, slightly uncomfortable smile, he added, “Only I shall have to ask you to sleep in your own bed, for just a little while longer, darling; I— I am much more resolute when you are in here. You do understand? You have not been bothered by your nightmares for a week.”

  “Of course, Varian,” Claire said, and smiled faintly at him as he told her goodnight from a safe distance. “And I shall be ready to ride to Ely by next week, much less drive,” she added, as he smiled at her once again from the other side of her chamber and disappeared into his own rooms.

  The doors were left open; she lay awake in her bed, her nightmares forgotten, trembling slightly, and wondering if he were still awake. For she was quite certain that he would not come to her, that he would wait until he was perfectly convinced that she was very much more than healed, when in fact, she had always been of excellent health, and she knew herself to be completely recovered. And now that she knew the truth— now that she had suddenly discovered Balaghat dead and gone for a month— all she could think of was that she missed Varian’s bed and never again intended to spend a night out of it.