I sucked in my breath, feeling the hurt the Colonel must have felt. I saw him on his knee before his children, all spit and polish, his sword at angles against his thigh, and knew that the question was answered then and there. He would never take them away.
“Did it get better?” I asked.
“When I assured them they would not have to leave their home. Then Nannie dropped Beth’s hand and smiled, a perfect image of Anne, and Edmund asked me straight away if I had brought him any Gurkha knives.”
I smiled. “Had you?”
“Yes, one. A Kukri military sword, actually, which was very sharp and given to Richard for safekeeping. And during the next few days Edmund rode with me each morning in the park and my darling Nancy beguiled me thoroughly at breakfast and tea. But Nancy would not walk with me alone, and Edmund declined with grace and good manners to visit Talbots with me, which was just was well, considering my father’s ill-humor. He would have gone with me, Edmund would, had I insisted, but I did not. I could not count on my father to greet him with any warmth.”
The candles guttered and one by one winked out. I made no move to replace them, daring the mosquitoes to come, and waited while the Colonel rifled through his memories.
“So I made my trip to Talbots.” he went on quietly, “and was received with cool politeness by my father, whom I saw only at dinner the three days I was there. And during those days I rode to every corner of the estate, remembering with fresh pain how much I always loved it. When I returned to London I made the rounds of the town with my brother, nights of cards and dinners and women. Alex is rather good at cards, which is fortunate, because he lives a London life much beyond the purse of his Talbots allowance. Alex loves London. He had not been home to rusticate, as he put it, in above two years.”
The Colonel rose and leaned against the railing of the deck, facing out to sea. “And at the end of several weeks,” he said finally, “I knew that Nancy would always charm me and Edmund would forever do me honor, but in their eyes I could never replace Beth and Richard. I was their father no longer.”
He paused. “India cost me my children and my anger turned on myself. After all, there was no one else to blame.”
I had guessed, but it broke my heart anyway. I left my chair and stood beside him at the railing. I don’t think he realized I was there until I reached up my hand and touched his cheek. It was wet. I knew it would be. He had lost everything: his children, his place in time. I wanted him to know that he was not alone.
“Robert,” I whispered. For the first time I spoke his name instead of his rank.
He turned to me and lifted his hands, lacing his fingers in my hair, tipping my head back, studying my face in the moonlight. Suddenly his mouth came down on mine in a hard, taking kind of kiss: a demand. And I met it without question or hesitation, stepping into his arms as if I had been waiting for him all my life.
Chapter 28
It was fully light before we slept and long past noon when I awoke.
In Robert’s arms. In Robert’s bed. Not in mine, mine and Cameron’s — I never slept there again. And that first morning, or afternoon, I lay with my back against his chest, his arm beneath my breasts, and listened to the sea through the opened window. The day was still and quiet, as if it too were sleeping. As if all of time stood still. I wanted it to stay that way forever. I wanted to be in this man’s arms the rest of my life.
Thinking this, I was almost overwhelmed with nameless panic. And then I remembered that he couldn’t stay here. Wouldn’t stay here. That our mission was to find his way back. Curiously, illogically, I felt … relieved.
The phone rang. I could hear it in my bedroom across the hall and knew it was Lila calling from Uncle John’s, wondering why I hadn’t phoned that morning. I could imagine her in my uncle’s kitchen, drumming her perfectly manicured fingers, wondering if I was ever going to answer.
But I didn’t. And eventually she hung up swearing, I am sure, at the broken answering machine we had never bothered to replace. Beside me, Robert shifted. His hand feathered up my thigh and his lips brushed my shoulder.
An invitation.
*****
Much later we got up and showered and made our way downstairs where we brewed coffee and wandered out on the deck. There in front of us lay my dress, a bright puddle of pink peonies by the railing.
“I really wish, Kathleen,” Robert began sternly, “you would resist the urge to disrobe outdoors, discarding your lovely gowns with such careless abandon.”
“It would have stayed on,” I pointed out, “if you hadn’t unzipped it.”
“Clever things, zippers. I don’t think I quite appreciated them before.”
I picked up the dress and shook it out. “Thank God for the sand dunes,” I said seriously, referring to the lots Lila owns on either side of us. “Otherwise, we might have made a spectacle of ourselves for the neighbors.”
“We did make a spectacle of ourselves. They simply didn’t see us. Besides, it wasn’t long before we took our spectacle indoors and upstairs.” He glanced at me. “I don’t suppose you actually know your neighbors?”
I shook my head. Fortunately for us (considering the circumstances), the place has been sold so often we’ve long since lost track of the current owners. “What shall we do today?” I asked.
“I think we’ve already done it,” Robert told me, smiling back. “Anyway, the day’s half gone. It’s after three o’clock.”
“We could eat something. We could go get a Big Mac,” I suggested.
“Pardon me?”
“Don’t tell me I left McDonald’s off our curriculum?”
“Apparently you did. I’ve never heard of him.”
“It,” I said, correcting him. “A major icon of the modern world.” I paused, then added: “I think we need to make another field trip.”
*****
I called the farm before we left and chatted with the children for nearly fifteen minutes. A stray cat Aunt Helen rescued a few weeks ago just had kittens so there was a lot to talk about.
“There are three black ones and two orange ones,” Sammy told me gravely. “But they aren’t all black or all orange. They have white on them, too.”
I sensed Sammy was going someplace with this so I waited.
“Aunt Helen says when the kittens are weaned, the mother cat has to be fixed.”
I heard the concern in his voice and I knew his brow was furrowed because it always was when he was troubled. “Do you know what ‘weaned’ means, Sweetie?”
“Yes. Lalla told me.”
“Did she tell you what ‘fixed’ means?”
“No.” Pause. Then, in a very small voice: “Is the mother cat broken?”
I smiled. During the last week I had had lots of practice explaining things, so creating an explanation for spay-and-neuter that would reassure a five year old was a relatively simple (and sweetly charming) task. Relieved, Sammy handed me off to Blythe, who elaborated further on the kittens (two black ones had white spots between their ears and all five kittens had white feet), before surrendering the phone to Lila who had been standing beside her, audibly impatient.
Lila spoke to me for approximately three minutes, most of which was taken up with the exciting news that Phillip Olson had called and would be joining everyone for dinner later in the week. I knew this pleased her because it would give her a chance to charm him out of that piece of land he owns, that once, back around the time the Titanic sank, belonged to River House.
“Oh,” I said, my memory jogged. “I’ve bumped into him a couple of times since I’ve been down here.”
“Yes,” Lila fairly purred. “He said he saw you and that you looked well. Rested and all.”
I pondered this for a few seconds. “So he’s going back to Fredericksburg?”
“Yes, taking Route 17 so he can cut over here on his way. He has a show at Belmont coming up and he needs to get organized.”
Belmont was once the home of Gari Melchers, early twen
tieth century artist and a quiet Fredericksburg celebrity. Today the house is a museum and gallery, and a venue for everything from weddings to, well, art shows. I debated asking Lila if Phillip had been sent down here on a mission from her to keep an eye on me, but decided to let it pass. He almost certainly didn’t see me with Robert, or if he did he didn’t mention it to Lila. There was no point in pursuing the issue.
Lila didn’t mention calling earlier, and since I ostensibly wasn’t home to hear the phone, I couldn’t ask her about it. Besides, she was in the process of making hurried goodbyes, anxious to repair to the terrace with Helen and a Bloody Mary. I hung up and wandered out to the deck to collect our empty coffee cups.
I was at the table stacking one cup into another when I looked up and saw a man in a brightly colored shirt and a floppy hat standing in the dunes that separate our house from the one just north of us. People on the beach are always climbing up into the dunes, often with a camera to photograph the view. Which was what the man was doing, or trying to do — but his sunglasses kept interfering with the viewfinder. Finally he took them off, tried to slip them in his shirt pocket, and missed. The glasses slid down his shirt front and hit the sand. When he bent to pick them up a stray breeze caught his hat and sent it spinning across the dunes.
Amused, I moved to the deck railing and watched as he went hopping after the hat. I lost sight of him for a moment as he disappeared behind a large clump of sea oats, but eventually he emerged, hat on head and glasses (I presumed) in pocket. He fumbled around with his camera for a couple of more minutes, and the strap, which should have been around his neck, dangled uselessly from his hands. Finally, standing in profile to me perhaps 50 yards away, he raised the lens and aimed it toward the sea.
I had been waiting, actually, to see if he’d drop the camera like he did his glasses, and when he didn’t I got bored and almost turned away. But then I saw him turn in my direction slightly, lens pointed southward down the beach. I imagined the whirling sound of advancing film, saw him pivot another few degrees and then another, the camera still at his eye. The lens zoomed, and I imagined that sound, too, knowing that what would come into focus now would not be just the south expanse of beach but also a side view of the front of the cottage. An instant later I saw him do a double-take as if he found something unexpected framed in his view finder.
That something unexpected was me, of course. I raised my hand to wave at him, but he pretended not to see. Instead he spun back around, giving me his profile, and clicked furiously at the sea. He was so busy ignoring me that he never even saw the big golden retriever that bounded up the dunes just in front of him until it leapt up unexpectedly, throwing its huge front paws happily against his chest. The man yelped and dropped (finally) his camera. I saw him teeter and flail his arms, and then his feet went out from under him and down he went, the dog on top of him. For a moment all I saw was a golden, plumy tail.
“Willy!” A woman’s voice called. I turned my head and saw her crest the dunes. “Oh, Willy! Not again! Bad dog, Willy!”
I would bet Willy was our visitor the other night, the door-opening dog. I smiled, and watched the woman haul the retriever off the man and help him up. She tried to brush sand from his shirt, gave up and collected his hat and camera instead. She seemed agitated and apologetic, the man seemed agitated and embarrassed, and Willy, who was racing mad circles around them, seemed agitated and thoroughly delighted. I was highly amused.
Unfortunately, this little piece of theatre detained me just long enough to allow Robert to beat me to the car. By the time I rushed downstairs to tell him about the dog, the car was running and Robert was behind the wheel. Being an intuitive sort of person, I instantly sensed trouble.
“Move over,” I ordered firmly, addressing him through the rolled-down window.
He smiled up at me, a roguish, charming grin, full of mischief. “I thought I’d drive,” he said.
“Oh sure,” I said. “No problem.”
“Just down the driveway and out Gull Lane to the first turn.”
“Absolutely not.”
“With or without you.” His right hand rested on the shifter.
“You wouldn’t.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t I?” His thumb squeezed the button on the side of the palm rest, releasing the stick. “Let’s see,” he mused. “D is for drive, isn’t it?”
“Don’t!” I cried out suddenly. “Don’t do anything!” I scampered around to the passenger side and scrambled in. “If you must do this, first slide the shifter back to P.”
Obediently he did so.
“Okay,” I said. “Now look at your feet. What do you see down there.”
“Shoes.”
“No, I mean—”
“Pedals.” He gestured impatiently. “My dear Kathleen, I know all this. I’ve been watching you drive this past week. The left pedal is the brake and the right pedal accelerates the car.”
But I babbled my way through instructions anyway, aware that Robert was paying absolutely no attention. When I was done, he sighed audibly. “Now can I slide this charming little stick into drive?”
There’s a turn-around spot at the top of the drive which allows me enough room to park the car facing away from the house so I don’t have to back down the drive each time I go out. This meant that Robert had a straight shot out the drive without being bothered by complicated maneuvers like backing or turning. Having the car parked so conveniently probably encouraged him to attempt this lunacy in the first place, but that was beside the point. At the moment I was grateful for small favors.
“Okay,” I agreed, “but put your foot lightly on the brake, not the gas.”
“Then how the devil is the car to go forward?”
“Gravity. It’s a down-hill run.”
Robert glanced at me, looking aggrieved. “I dislike hearing ladies use words like ‘gravity’ with such self-assurance.”
“I’ll remember that.”
“Besides, the slope is very moderate.”
“It’s sufficient,” I assured him. “Try it.”
He slid the shifter into drive, and kept his foot on the brake as I had instructed. The car went nowhere.
“So much for gravity,” he said, sounding pleased.
“Try releasing the hand brake.”
“Oh, yes. The handbrake. Do I depress this button?”
“Yes. Grip the brake lever, depress the button, and lower the lever. Then ease up slightly on the foot brake without removing your foot altogether.”
This was a little like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. Robert managed it, although he had trouble keeping a light, even pressure on the brake. In the end we made our way to the foot of the drive in a series lurches, coming to rest finally with the nose of the car partially blocking the lane.
“Very good,” I said crisply. “Now get out and let me drive.”
“Not yet.” Already Robert was negotiating the turn. He tugged the wheel to the right and moved his foot from the brake to the gas. Instantly the car shot forward and almost as quickly Robert’s foot came down hard on the brake. I felt my head snap forward and back, and wondered what the symptoms of whiplash were.
Somehow we made it down Gull Lane to the point where it intersected with Coquina Drive. This was the place where we agreed I’d take over the wheel, but Robert wasn’t having any of that. Over my loud and hysterical protests he turned left onto Coquina and drove (ever more smoothly) down to the stop sign where Coquina emptied out onto NC 12.
Only he didn’t stop. Not completely. Instead, he slid past the sign and turned right onto NC 12, heading north.
During the next few minutes I gained a new appreciation of Robert’s amnesia. Where my memory of the first two or three miles should be, there is only a black void filled with visions of torn flesh and twisted steel. We were going to die, and I knew it. And then Robert glanced over at me and smiled.
“You know, it’s much easier to go fast over a straig
ht smooth course than slow over over bumpy, curving lanes paved in oyster shells,” he remarked pleasantly.
Maybe that’s what brought me back to my senses. Suddenly I realized that we were on the north side of Avon, leaving it behind in a cloud of sand.
“Slow down,” I croaked.
“Why? There’s no one else on the road.”
“Because you don’t know what you’re doing. And you’re exceeding the speed limit.”
“What is the speed limit.”
Actually, I wasn’t sure. But I knew it wasn’t on the upper side of sixty-five, which was what he was doing. “It’s forty-five,” I told him, improvising. “Which you’re exceeding by at least twenty miles an hour.”
“Do you suppose anyone will notice?”
“Anyone with a radar gun.”
“A what?”
“Yes, people will notice. Ease up on the gas and slow down.”
But he ignored me, his eyes on the rear view mirror. “I wonder what those flashing blue lights mean?” he asked innocently.
I whipped around in my seat and saw a patrol car bearing down on us rapidly.
“Oh shit.”
“Really, Kathleen. Where did you learn such language?”
I turned back around. “Robert,” I said as calmly I could. “Please ease your foot up off the gas pedal and turn on your right turn indicator. This is important. We’re about to be arrested.”
“Oh, damn. How terribly tedious. I suppose my lack of identification will be a problem again?”
“I think you can bet on it,” I said. “Now slow—”
“I am. Look here, the needle is dropping. Fifty-five, fifty, forty-five—”
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