by Speer, Flora
She loved most of all the moment when he went rigid and caught his breath, and then relaxed and moved more slowly in her, for she knew in that instant she was giving him what no one else could, his own fulfillment with a woman who loved him deeply and completely.
Only slightly less sublime was the time immediately afterward, when he gazed at her in the candlelight as though she was some incredible miracle of womanhood, when he told her he loved her, no matter what might happen in the future.
When he slept, with his hand on her breast and her head on his shoulder, Aline lay quietly so as not to disturb him. She did not feel like sleeping. She was too happy. She lay warm in his arms, listening to his breath and feeling his heart beat, and knowing that in Adam she had found the love she had always wanted.
Outside Shotley Castle the snow fell steadily and the wind blew, shaking the shutters in the lord’s chamber. Adam stirred and turned over on his back, releasing Aline from his embrace. She tucked the quilt in around his shoulders and kissed him lightly.
“Hmm. Love,” he murmured, and drifted off to sleep again.
A blast of cold wind blew the shutter open, letting in cold air and a shower of snow. Aline leapt out of bed to close and latch the shutter. She paused with one hand on the shutter, staring at the snow. Through a thick haze of white she could barely see the castle walls. The wind stopped for a moment, and in the stillness big, fat flakes floated gently downward across the window opening, just like the flakes she had noticed from the library on the day when she had first come to Shotley.
A slight stirring of air blew flakes against her face and bare shoulders. She was standing in the wet, melted snow that had blown in already and now more was drifting into the room through the unglazed window. Shivering violently, she began to push the shutter closed…
The stone window frame began to dissolve. The latch and shutter vanished. Around her there was only white…snow…cold….
“Adam!” Aline turned toward him. She saw his bed, saw Adam sit up and throw back the quilt.
“Aline!” He was on his feet, trying to reach her, but his figure began to waver and blur before her eyes.
“Adam, I love you!” She knew what was happening, and she prayed he had heard her last cry. She had heard his, in her heart if not actually in her ears.
“Aline…love….”
Then all was white and cold and silent.
Chapter 6
“Excuse me, Miss Bennett. Miss Bennett? Are you sick?” The voice was deeply masculine, with a cultivated English accent.
“What did you say?” Aline took her eyes from the falling snow beyond the library window to stare at the man in the chair next to hers.
“Are you all right? You’ve been sitting there so still, and you didn’t answer when I called to you.”
“I must have been dreaming,” she said, looking around in wonder. “What a strange dream. It was so real. I was speaking Norman French.”
“Dreams can be like that,” he said. “You are Aline Bennett, aren’t you? “I’m Phillip Mallory. I was at your grandfather’s funeral. We nearly collided when you left your sister’s house in some haste.”
“Oh?” Aline was having trouble adjusting to being back in the library. How could she have had so long and vivid a dream?
“I volunteered to follow you,” Phillip Mallory said. “Your sister thought you would come here. She’s worried about you because you’ve been so upset over your grandfather’s death.”
“That seems a long time ago now,” Aline murmured. Then she remembered what Luce had said. “You’re the man she wanted me to meet. I’m sorry about that; Luce never stops her matchmaking efforts.”
“This time it wasn’t matchmaking,” he told her. “She wanted us to meet because I called her this morning, not knowing your grandfather had died and hoping to visit him. He and my grandfather were boyhood friends. I met him once. I met you that day, too. You were just a little girl and I was all of fourteen.”
“You knew Gramps?” She looked at him with more interest after hearing that. Even sitting in a big library chair he looked tall, and a bit too thin, as if he didn’t eat regularly. His hair was dark with grey streaks in it. His eyes were dark, too. On his ordinary face an indefinable sadness lay. Until he smiled. The corners of his eyes crinkled and his entire face was lit with pleasure. But he wasn’t looking at Aline.
“I remember this, and how beautiful the illuminations were,” he said, indicating the Book of Hours that still lay open in front of Aline. There was the December page, with the painted castle gate under a blue, blue sky, with the men straining to pull the Yule log across the snow and, in the great hall the lady sitting by the fire. Aline pushed the book along the table toward him so he could look at it more closely.
“If you want to touch it, you’ll have to wear these,” she said, pulling off the white cotton gloves.
She went absolutely still from shock. On the index finger of her left hand was a golden ring with a flower carved into its surface. At the center of the flower was a small red stone. Aline turned her hand over to stare at the smooth back of the ring where the metal had been heated and stretched to fit Adam’s hand.
Adam! He had not been a dream. She didn’t know what had happened to her in the library that afternoon, but whatever it was, the ring was proof that she had not imagined it. Adam, Connie, Blaise, all of the folk of Shotley Castle were real and she had walked among them, had talked and laughed and loved…Oh, Adam, my dear, lost love.
“This book is still as beautiful as I remembered.” Phillip Mallory’s accented voice recalled Aline to the present. “No wonder your grandfather treasured it. I’m glad he gave it to a library where others can see and appreciate it, instead of selling it to a private collector. Do you come here often?”
“Today is the first time.”
“Ah, of course. You are here because of the funeral. It must be comforting to hold something he loved.”
“Actually…” She paused. If she told him where she had been during that snowy afternoon, and what she had done there, how the first bitter grief of her grandfather’s death had left her because she had spent a holiday with a Norman baron, he would think she was crazy. She said something else instead. “The book once belonged to a woman named Judith.”
“I do recall your grandfather saying something about the names at the end. I’m afraid I was so bowled over by the glorious paintings that I didn’t really pay much attention to his account of the history of the book.”
“Oh, my God!” She gaped at him, memory flooding over her. “For all the times I looked at the book when Gramps had it, I always looked at the paintings, too, and the illuminated capital letters and the decorated margins. But you are right; there is something written at the back.” She would have seized the book had he not lifted a white-gloved finger to stop her from touching it. Carefully, he opened the book to the last page. Unlike the illuminated pages of the book, where the words were still sharp and black, on this one page the ink had faded until it was so pale she could barely read the words written there.
Adam, Baron of Shotley, to Judith his wife. Squeezed in between that first line and the next was a note in someone else’s hand. Maud, his second wife, wed in the year of our lord 1126. Below, in the first handwriting again, was a neat list, each name on its own line.
Blaise of Shotley
Constance his wife.
Adam their son, born October in the year of our Lord 1122
Aline their daughter, born Christmas Day, in the year of our Lord 1125
Beneath this last notation was a single line, by the same hand that had written the note about Maud. Directly below the baby Aline’s name and birth date were the words, A Christmas Blessing
“Adam.” Aline could not stop herself. She put her bare finger on the words she believed he had written as a message to her across the centuries. Adam had known she would look at the Book of Hours after returning to her own time. He had made Robert write the list of names in
his neat clerical hand and then had added his own notes. “I’m so glad you married again. I hope you were happy with her.”
Phillip Mallory was looking at her strangely. She removed her finger from the book and sat with her head down, her hands clasped together in her lap.
“It is always hard to lose someone you love,” he said. “However, I know from personal experience that time does heal the pain. And you do have the book to remember him by. You can come here to the library and look at it when you feel the need to be close to him again.”
“Yes.” Her voice was low. Phillip Mallory had no way of knowing that they were talking about two different men. “Time. It’s already centuries away and it can never return once it’s gone. It is going to take me a long time to recover from what happened today.”
“I understand. I do think you ought to return to your sister’s house now,” he said. Glancing toward the desk by the entrance, he added, “I can see by her frequent looks in our direction that the librarian would like to close up shop and go home.”
“I can’t go to Luce’s house. I don’t want to see a lot of people. Not tonight, not until I’ve had time to get used to what has happened.”
“I rather think all the mourners will have left by now. Lucinda was extremely concerned about your state of mind. It would reassure her if you were to stop by for a little while. I don’t mean to interfere, but it seems to me your sister loves you very much.”
“I know. I love her, too, in spite of our occasional misunderstandings. I said some nasty things to her earlier today. I ought to apologize. All right.” Aline unclasped her hands and stood up. “Since you are wearing the gloves, would you mind packing the book into the box?”
“A favor for a favor,” he said, smiling a little. “May I drive to Lucinda’s house with you? I came to the library in a taxi, and I fear I would have a difficult time finding another on such a night.”
“Certainly. I think I owe you that much.” Aline stopped, reminded of the light-hearted bargaining she had once done with a certain Norman baron. She said nothing more while Phillip Mallory took care of the Book of Hours with a skill that made her believe he was not unfamiliar with rare or ancient books.
They emerged from the library into a heavy snowfall. From somewhere in the direction of the college dormitories came the sound of recorded Christmas carols.
“It’s the night before Christmas Eve,” Aline said, still trying to reorient herself in the twenty-first century. “So much has happened, yet it’s still only the twenty-third day of December.”
“So it is. I expect this has seemed like a never-ending day to you.” Phillip Mallory took her arm to guide her down the icy library steps and along the unshoveled walk to where her car was parked under a streetlamp. “It can scarcely be a joyous and carefree holiday for you this year. Still, no how sad one may be, each Christmas brings its own blessings. You only have to look for them.”
“There was a time long ago,” she said, clinging to his strong arm when she slipped on a patch of ice, “a time when Christmas lasted for twelve days and twelve nights.”
“There are places where it still does.” She could tell by his voice that he was smiling again. “Remember, Aline, when Twelfth Night is over and gone, there will still be a bright and hopeful new year ahead for you. Now, give me your car keys.”
“Why?”
“Because I am going to open the door for you.”
The smile was still in his voice, along with a teasing note. Aline found herself smiling in response to it.
“It’s this key.” She handed him her key ring. When he took it, his fingers closed around hers.
They stood there, beneath the streetlamp, with the snow falling softly upon them, looking into each other’s eyes. And in the distance, the recorded music began to play “The Twelve Days of Christmas.”
* * *
