P.P.S. As an inducement, I dangle before you the late Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s comment on Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother’s cottage.
She touched his letter to her cheek and smiled. So it was reciprocal, this camaraderie of theirs, and not a figment of her imagination.
She hummed those most famous bars of The Blue Danube, twirled about the room, and began packing.
TWENTY MILES AWAY, at the manor in Henley Park, Lord Fitzhugh, Fitz to his friends, gazed down on his sleeping wife, who, presently, without opening her eyes, reached up and rubbed the palm of her hand against his stubbles.
“You haven’t gone for your ride?” she murmured.
He loved the sight of her unbound hair. For so long he’d only seen her hair properly coiffed. The sensuality of her hair—of her person—was still a revelation. “I can’t tear myself away from you.”
She was trying not to smile too widely, holding on to her bottom lip with her teeth. “Exactly what an old married lady wants to hear from her husband when she wakes up in the morning.”
She was only twenty-four years of age. And although they’d been married since she was sixteen, they had not consummated their marriage until recently. The consummation had made a difference, naturally. But the real difference had been made through almost eight years of affection, friendship, and common purpose.
He had loved her long before he realized he had also fallen in love in with her.
Now she opened her eyes and regarded him teasingly. “Get up, sir. You are the master of this house, sir. Duties await.”
He was a most dutiful man, but on the first day of the rest of their lives, he was not about to let drainage, roofing, or factory reports get in the way. “And duties can wait a little longer.”
She twirled a strand of her hair and peered at him from beneath her eyelashes. “Oh, so you mean it is time for marital duties again?”
“It is always time for marital duties around here,” he teased her back, enjoying the flush in her cheeks. “But actually, my dear, I propose to whisk you away on holiday—a proper honeymoon.”
Her eyes widened. “Really? Where?”
“Shall we go back to Italy?” They’d once had a lovely, if platonic holiday on Lake Como.
“We should. But we can’t afford to be gone that long—the Season isn’t finished and we still have to chaperone your sister.”
“In that case, how about a quick jaunt to the Lake District?” They’d spent several weeks there after their wedding, but they’d been strangers with almost nothing to say to each other. “This time I will be a most solicitous bridegroom.”
She wrapped her arms about him. “Yes, I adore the idea.”
Then, after a moment, “I only wish Mrs. Englewood can be as happy as we are.”
Another woman would little concern herself with the happiness of a rival who almost made away with her husband, but Millie, he knew, had always felt guilty for the pain she had caused Isabelle, even though she herself had never had a say in the selection of her bridegroom.
“Hastings has promised to write her every other day. I cabled her sister yesterday, asking her to keep me informed of Mrs. Englewood’s welfare.” He wanted the very same, a sunny future for Isabelle, but there wasn’t much more he could do now without making an intrusive nuisance of himself.
Millie sighed softly. “In that case, let me begin packing.”
“Later,” he said, pulling away the sheets that covered her person. “Marital duties first.”
“Yes, of course.” She wrapped one leg about his middle. “Marital duties always come first.”
MY DEAR MR. FITZWILLIAM,
I was not so drunk last night as to wake up this morning with rue and self-loathing. In fact, though the sight of the bright sun streaming into the house reminded me anew of the hopes I’d nurtured as little as twenty-four hours ago, I am in far less despair than I could have believed as little as twelve hours ago.
I am grateful for your kindness and friendship, sir. And I can only hope that I will not flood your desk too liberally with missives. For in my relentless need to hold on to everything old, I have forgotten the joy of making new friends. And a friend of your caliber—I could live another fifty years and encounter none finer.
Yours,
Isabelle Englewood
P.S. I anxiously await the disclosure of Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s very private message.
P.P.S. Am about to detrain in Aberdeen. The thought of holding my children in my arms again warms me. You, sir, I hold firmly in my affection and my esteem.
P.P.P.S. I would have posted this from the rail station itself, but I was met by my sister and our five children—what joy! In addition, the sight of my twin nieces made me realize that I still had a few more words to write. Namely that except for the very first time I met them, I have never mistaken the twins for each other. Despite their almost disorienting resemblance, each girl is resolutely her own person.
My Dear Mrs. Englewood,
I take pleasure in your reunion with your children. And I rejoice in your compliment. It is decided then: We are friends and nothing shall stand in the way of our friendship.
Your mysterious comings and goings have become a topic of much interest in the vicinity. I have disavowed any knowledge of your schedule or your intentions. Not as easy a feat as I first imagined: I was interrogated by Mrs. Beauregard, proprietress of the farm next to Doyle’s Grange who saw me out of her window, making my way to my house, when she got up for a glass of water in the middle of the night. Rest assured, however, I divulged nothing. On the other hand, now I have a reputation for sleepwalking. All in your honor, lady!
I hope you find Scotland fair and the company of all the children bracing.
Your devoted servant,
Ralston Fitzwilliam
P.S. Thank you for your reassurance that I am not a mere stand-in for Lord Fitzhugh. Allow me to assure you in return that I have never been made to feel as one. Even when you didn’t know who I was, you knew very well who I wasn’t.
P.P.S. Mrs. Fitzwilliam, bless her memory, wrote, “My own Big Bad Wolf ate me—and I dare say I liked it.”
My Dear Mr. Fitzwilliam,
Scotland is indeed fair, though we are shortly departing for the Lake District—my sister had made plans before my return to the country. The company of all the children is beyond bracing. Hyacinth, my daughter, is a most mischievous girl. My sister loves to point out how similar she is to me as a child. I look at her and marvel that I was ever so rowdy and fearless.
My sister worries that losing Fitz again is too heavy a blow for me. I will not pretend it does not hurt, but part of me wonders if it isn’t a blessing in disguise, a failure that forces me to look forward to see what the future holds, rather than backward, trying to recreate a past that never was.
In my original plans, by now the children and I would be at Doyle’s Grange, and not tagging along to the Lake District, where Fitz and his wife had honeymooned years ago. My sister had offered to change the destination, but I told her it did not matter—and I did not feel myself to be lying outright. Lying somewhat, but not lying outright.
Yours truly,
Isabelle Englewood
P.S. Country gossip is delightful. A sleepwalking gentleman? Can a sleepdancing one be far behind?
P.P.S. I have yet to tell anyone about you, lest they think I have made you up out of whole cloth. Do reply, dear friend, and reassure me again that you are not imaginary.
P.P.P.S. I made a mistake of sitting down to read your letter with a cup of tea. When I reached Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s comment—well, let’s just say that the entire letter is tea-stained and I very nearly killed myself laughing. What I pity she and I never met. We’d have been such a pair of mischief-makers.
P.P.P.P.S. I know my curiosity is unseemly, yet I must ask, were there only three locations on that map? Or were there more that you have not divulged yet?
My Dear Mrs. Englewood,
You are hereby assured
that I am not imaginary, but very much real—and deeply curious about where in the Lake District you are headed.
I write to you from a hill overlooking Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s final resting place in Dorset. I visit the area every time I return to England, walking through the village, and perhaps venturing as far as the gate of the churchyard. But today marks the first time since her interment that I have touched her tombstone with my own hand, and traced the letters and numbers that mark her all-too-brief life.
And wept as I was never able to, all those years ago, at the sight of her casket being lowered into the ground.
Now I sit here, upon this familiar hill, overcome by an entirely unfamiliar lightness of being, as if I am closer to the clouds than to the ground.
Thank you, once again.
Your devoted servant,
Ralston Fitzwilliam
P.S. On the map you would have also found the house in which Goldilocks becomes an intruder.
P.P.S. Mrs. Fitzwilliam would have enjoyed your friendship enormously. That her words have made someone spew tea years after her passing is no doubt delighting her in the hereafter.
“WHY ARE YOU CARESSING THAT LETTER?” asked Louise, Isabelle’s sister.
Isabelle stilled abruptly. Was that what she had been doing, stroking Mr. Fitzwilliam’s words? She set down the letter. “Hastings wrote again.”
It was not a lie. Hastings had written again—he was Fitz’s best friend and was no doubt writing at the latter’s behest.
“But that is not Lord Hastings’s letter, is it?” said Louise, ever astute.
Isabelle considered the question and realized that she had no desire to lie to Louise, or even to fudge her answer. She wanted to talk about her wonderful friend.
“The letter is from Mr. Fitzwilliam, my neighbor at Doyle’s Grange.”
“A very enthusiastic neighbor,” pronounced Louise, “considering that his letters arrive with the regularity of sunrises.”
“I encouraged it.”
Louise chewed her toast contemplatively. “And is Mr. Fitzwilliam the reason you are not as distressed by Fitz’s decision as I was afraid you might be?”
“Yes.” A lovely, clean answer for all the lovely, unmistakable feelings inside her.
Louise’s mouth was wide with both surprise and joy. “Isabelle. Oh, Isabelle.”
Isabelle felt a similar warmth welling inside her—and a great relief, like stepping on solid ground after days on a choppy sea. Now Louise no longer needed to worry about her. “Don’t say anything to Fitz yet. I know you have been writing to him.”
“No, no, my lips are sealed. Now tell me more about your Mr. Fitzwilliam.”
But before Isabelle could say anything, Louise frowned, as if remembering something. “He doesn’t go by Fitz, does he?”
Isabelle’s pleasure faded. She had not even brought up the resemblance, and already Louise wondered whether her preference for Mr. Fitzwilliam had something to do with Fitz. “No, he does not. And what do you wish to know about him?”
MY DEAR MR. FITZWILLIAM,
We shall be staying at the Lakehead Hotel in Ambleside.
I cannot take credit for your lightness of being, but sometimes I feel as if I share in it.
I was drafted into a game of hide-and-seek yesterday afternoon. But I was not an unwilling participant and it was quite good fun hiding under a bed with my daughter, trying not to giggle audibly when her cousin’s feet appeared right before our eyes.
After we’d been spotted, Hyacinth leaned into me and said, “I like it when you laugh, Mama, even if Victoria also heard you.”
A lightness-of-being moment, without a doubt.
Yours truly,
Isabelle Englewood
P.S. I hesitate to say this, for fear of how preposterous it would sound. But I wish I had been there with you at the churchyard. Not by Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s headstone—I would not dream of such an intrusion into your privacy—but by the gate, perhaps, for when you came out.
P.P.S. I cannot wait to learn Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s remarks concerning the Three Bears’ house.
P.P.P.S. You are no longer a secret. I have confessed to my sister that my well-traveled, well-connected neighbor from Somerset has been heroically lifting my spirits. I have even described you as handsome—“at least as handsome as Fitz” might have been my exact words. Whether out of prudence or cowardice, however, I have not mentioned The Resemblance. But now, having lied by omission, I fear I might have made that particular subject more difficult for the future.
I hope not.
Chapter Six
“MAMA, CAN YOU FIND ME A SUBMARINE BOAT?” asked Hyacinth.
Isabelle and her children were on a knoll just behind their hotel in Ambleside. Louise, worn out by a long hike in the hills, was taking a nap, as was her son. Her twin daughters were in their room, having a tea party with their dolls. Hyacinth had managed only a quarter hour of the doll’s tea party before she clamored to be taken outside, and Alexander, her devoted shadow, had followed along.
“That might not be easy, my love,” answered Isabelle, stretching out her hand from underneath her parasol. It was much easier to be a black-swathed widow in England than it had been in the sweltering heat of the Subcontinent. The heavy silks didn’t weigh her down as much; the skirts, just as narrow as before, somehow allowed her to move more freely.
Or perhaps the spring in her step had nothing to do with the bracing air of the North Atlantic and everything to do with her reawakened optimism. For too long her goal had been to protect herself against further pain and loss, and it had made her definition of happiness smaller and smaller. But now she felt as if she’d ripped off her blindfold to stand blinking in the sun, marveling at the size of the world and all the colors and shapes she had forgotten.
“Why can’t it be easy?” Hyacinth wanted to know.
Indeed, why couldn’t it be? Happiness had never been about the absence of pain and loss. It was like the sun—one had but to draw aside the curtains and push open the shutters and it would always, always be there.
She laughed at herself inwardly when she realized that Hyacinth was still speaking of the acquisition of a submarine boat. “Well, quite a few inventors, I grant you, are working on submarine boats, but most of them are commissioned by the military. You are not planning to make war on someone, are you, my love?”
“No, I just want to see some fish at the bottom of this mere,” said the girl, her eyes glistening. She scanned the lake, blue in the light of the afternoon. “And see if there is an underwater tunnel that will lead me to the open sea, so I can battle a giant squid.”
Isabelle smiled. She’d been reading Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea to Hyacinth and Alexander at bedtime. The girl’s imagination was in ferment.
“But you might be hurt by the giant squid,” Alexander piped up. “Or you might hurt the giant squid.”
If ever there was a child who didn’t want anyone—or any creature—to get hurt, it was Alexander. Isabelle ruffled his hair. “The ocean is big. Hyacinth could motor about for years without running into a giant squid.”
“Or I could my first week,” said Hyacinth, a dreamy look on her face. “Will you come with me, Mama?”
“I will require you to surface at least once a day so I can have some fresh air. And you must always have a supply of tea and biscuits. If you can manage both, I will come with you.”
The topic was entirely fictional, yet Isabelle felt a stirring of her old spirit of adventure.
“What about me?” asked Alexander nervously. “I don’t want to go inside a submarine boat.”
Small, airless places had always made Alexander anxious, and sometimes downright lightheaded. “Of course you won’t need to go into a submarine boat. You can come along on a regular steamer. You do enjoy those, do you not? I can spend one day on the steamer with you and the next in the submarine boat with Hyacinth.”
This compromise was apparently satisfactory to Alexander. “Can I be
the captain of the steamer? Then I can make sure Hyacinth doesn’t get lost.”
“And I will make sure your ship doesn’t get attacked by giant squids,” Hyacinth reciprocated gallantly. “And we can take turns going ashore to get Mama her tea and biscuits if we run out.”
Isabelle placed her hand over her heart and kissed each child in turn. “That is very, very kind of both of you.”
How fortunate she was, to be in the midst of so much good will and good hope.
“Look, it’s Uncle Fitz,” shouted Hyacinth.
Isabelle’s mind went blank. “What?”
“Over there,” Alexander affirmed. “It is him. Shall we go speak to him?”
Hyacinth was already running toward the man coming up the slope toward them. As soon as Isabelle had a good look at him she broke into a wide smile. No, it was not Fitz, but Mr. Fitzwilliam. And she felt like a child being presented with a surprise cake richly slathered in chocolate buttercream, ready to jump up and down for joy.
Instead she sprinted after Hyacinth. “Silly girl.” She took the girl’s hand and reduced her pace. “Walk, don’t run. That is not Uncle Fitz. That is our neighbor in Somerset, Mr. Fitzwilliam. And you will make a most provocative impression if you were to rush up to him hollering at the top of your lungs.”
“But that is Uncle Fitz. That has to be.”
“I know why you think that, my love—I made the same mistake too, when I first met him. But don’t you remember, Uncle Fitz’s hair is black. Look, Mr. Fitzwilliam’s hair is much lighter in color.”
Alexander caught up to them. “Did you know Uncle Fitz was coming, Mama?”
“That is not Uncle Fitz. That is Mr. Fitzwilliam.” Hyacinth boasted of her new knowledge. “See, he doesn’t have black hair.”
“All right, children. Behave when you are presented.”
Now if Isabelle could only make sure that she herself behaved. She must remember not to wrap both her arms around him as part of her greeting.
A Dance in Moonlight (The Fitzhugh Trilogy) Page 5
