Deceived (v1.1)
Page 41
“The children were my excuse,” he said. “Oh, I suppose I would have married you if only for their sakes, Elizabeth. Yes, I suppose I would. I ache with love for them, you know, even though I will not even see this little mite for another how many months? But I don’t ache for other people’s children. I don’t recall even feeling a mild affection for anyone else’s. I ache for these because they are ours. Because we created them together. Because they are a visible product of our love. I never was very good at words, was I? That was part of the trouble with our first marriage. Always force me to put into words what I sometimes take for granted you know. Will you? Promise me?”
“Say it.” Her arms had slipped up about his neck. The magic was coming back. She was feeling as she had felt on this beach with him on other occasions. But perhaps it was better now because there was all the richness of memory to link them together, memories of love and joy, memories of pain—oh, too much pain. The magic was returning. And she could see from his eyes, his blue, blue eyes, that it was coming back for him too. They were smiling into hers.
“I love you,” he said. “From the first moment I set eyes on you, Elizabeth. And every moment since. I have never stopped loving you. I never will.”
“Oh.” She sighed with satisfaction. And she lifted her face, smiling, at the unfamiliar sensation of his nose rubbing against hers.
“Christopher, me too. At the back of the pain and the hatred and the—oh, the foolish, foolish stupidity. I kept it very quiet and very deep and very secret from all but the inner depth of my heart. I even felt ashamed of it. But I always thought of you. Every night before I slept. I never once missed, even the night before I was to marry Manley. Especially that night. I thought of you and prayed for you and loved you. I used to imagine your arms about me. That is how I got myself to sleep.”
Her face was eager, open, happy. He wanted to shout for joy. And why not? If a man could not shout out with joy on a wide open beach on his own property when the wife he had thought lost to him for life has been restored to him and along with her a daughter and another child in the making and the prospect of a life lived happily ever after—although he would have to work for that ending for the rest of his life. If a man could not shout out with joy under such circumstances, then he might as well be mute all his life.
He had been smiling at her, quietly, contentedly. She was taken completely by surprise when he lifted her suddenly by the waist, twirled her about and about, and shouted out with a sound that was not quite a bellow and not quite a yodel but a strange mixture of both and neither. Elizabeth found herself giggling helplessly.
And then they were standing on the beach again, several yards away from the great boulder, and they were smiling at each other again with smiles that threatened to break into laughter or into some other exuberance at any moment.
He was wonderful, she thought. And miraculously everything was going to be all right. He was her husband and her friend and her love. And she was going to make sure that it stayed that way. For the rest of their lives. No matter what.
She was beautiful, he thought. And happy. All the shadows had gone from inside her and he could see only love for himself and hope for their future in her eyes. It was a future he would live moment by moment, holding each of those moments in his hand as if it were a fragile blossom soon to wither. Not one of those moments was to be wasted. He would make each one precious to her and therefore to himself until he drew his dying breath.
And even then.
“Christina will want you to rebuild her sand castle,” she said.
“Of course.” He rested his forehead against hers. “That is what sand castles are for—to build and to rebuild when they fall down. Like marriages.”
“Yes. Oh, yes.” She turned her head so that their mouths met. And then she drew it back again and looked up to the top of the cliff.
“The whole world might be lined up there to watch us at any moment,” he said.
“Oh dear,” she said, “that would not do at all, would it? What do you suggest?”
They smiled into each other’s eyes again like a pair of conspirators.
“We will get awfully sandy,” he said.
“But there is plenty of water back at the house,” she said.
“Yes, of course,” he said. “How sensible.”
But they risked the world’s eyes and the world’s censure anyway by kissing deeply for several minutes before withdrawing to the sandy privacy of the lovers’ cave.
Historical Note
The events happening in England from April to June of 1814 as described in this book are accurate with a couple of exceptions.
London went almost wild with excitement over news of Wellington’s invasion of France from Spain and the allied entry into Paris from the north, both of which facts forced Napoleon Bonaparte to surrender and to abdicate as Emperor of France. Most of the allied rulers and head statesmen went to England in June, at the invitation of the Prince of Wales, the Regent, in order to celebrate the victory. At the same time the Regent was very unpopular with the British while his estranged wife, the Princess of Wales, was correspondingly popular.
One inaccuracy in the book concerns chronology. In reality the Carlton House dinner, reception, and presentation to the queen took place during the evening of the day following the arrival of the visitors in London. The visit to the opera and the embarrassing arrival of the Princess of Wales before the second act began happened later in the visit. For the sake of my plot I have moved back the Carlton House evening one day and moved up the opera visit.
The other inaccuracy concerns Pulteney’s Hotel in London. I believe, though I am not certain, that the Grand Duchess Catherine rented the whole of the hotel for her stay and that of her brother, the Tsar of Russia. However, my hero is an earl and his sister is the daughter of an earl. They are important enough that I squeezed them into a suite at the hotel, though they do have rather poor service after the unexpected arrival of the Tsar.