Slightly Married

by Mary Balogh

  And without Eve.

  He needed to relax. And England was experiencing a heat wave—day after day of blue skies and sunshine and a heat that soaked through the skin to soothe muscles and offer a warm balm to the soul.

  It was difficult to understand his attachment to the children, who at first were his excuse for staying, but who soon became a large part of his reason. Perhaps it was because he knew they were the only children that either he or Eve would ever have. He could never come back once he left. She had made that very clear down at the river. If she had borne a child of theirs, she would have allowed him to visit during leaves, but she had not conceived during the week they had slept together.

  The moment was all, then. These few days—as many as his conscience would allow him to steal—were all he would ever have with his wife and his children. Yes, strange thought indeed—his children. Theirs.

  Eve declared a holiday from the schoolroom. Aidan took Davy about with him a few times, and soon the boy became his shadow wherever he went, even if it was just a visit to the stables or a stroll into the village.

  They inspected the home farm, with Eve's steward the first time, alone together the next time, and Aidan pointed out to the boy all the different crops that were growing, taking him right into the fields, stooping on his haunches with him so that they could both touch the plants and see and feel the differences among them. They watched the animals grazing, cows in one field, sheep in another. They wandered about the barnyard, helping feed the pigs and chickens, looking inside the barn itself, still partly filled with last year's hay, one of the cows chewing contentedly there, its sickly calf beside it in the hay. He taught Davy how to milk the cow when it was explained to them that the calf was unable to feed without some help. They both tasted a mouthful of the warm, sweet liquid. They watched the smith at work. All the while Aidan breathed in the familiar smells of a working farm and felt the familiar pull of rural life.

  The next time Eve and Becky went with them, the dog bobbing along with them on its three good legs, using the fourth as an occasional prop. They did not stay together the whole while. Eve and Becky stepped inside some of the cottages to visit the laborers' wives, and Aidan spotted Becky a short while later playing outside with a few other children. In the barnyard later she lost interest in the larger animals and sat in the grass and dust, playing with the most placid of the barnyard cats while the dog, which appeared to fear cats, pressed close to Eve's skirts.

  Both children had grown sun-bronzed, Aidan noticed. So had Eve despite the floppy, shapeless straw hat she wore almost everywhere—the same hat she had worn on that very first day, if he remembered correctly, though now it was trimmed with pink ribbons instead of gray. She was wearing a pale pink muslin dress, which was neither new nor fashionable. She fit her country surroundings to perfection. Aunt Rochester would be horrified if she could see her now. She was purely pretty.

  By the time they turned their footsteps homeward—they had walked instead of bringing the gig—they were all looking dusty and somewhat disheveled, especially the children. The day was particularly hot. Becky was up on Aidan's shoulders, clinging to his hair—he had not worn a hat. Another day was winding to its close, he thought regretfully. He could not delay his leaving much longer.

  The river came into view to their right.

  “Now that,” he said, pointing, “used to be the answer to a hot day when I was a lad. We used to go swimming.”

  “Oh, did you?” Eve looked at him with bright eyes. “So did we. Percy and I. It was forbidden—our father had a fear of water. We used to go over there, where we were hidden by the trees from the eyes of anyone who might have reported us.” She pointed a little farther along the river. “I used to have to sneak up to my room when we went home in order to hide my wet hair and then pretend to have washed it.”

  Aidan looked down at Davy. “Do you swim, lad?”

  “No, sir.” The boy shook his head.

  “What?” Aidan frowned at him. “You cannot swim? Intolerable! We must set that matter right. And there is no time like the present.” He turned in the direction of the river.

  “Aidan!” Eve was laughing. “You cannot teach Davy to swim now. We have no towels.”

  “Why would we need towels in this weather?” he asked. “Becky, do we need towels?”

  She grasped his hair a little more tightly. “No, Uncle Aidan.”

  “But I cannot, sir,” Davy protested. “I would sink. I would drown.”

  “I'll teach you not to sink,” Aidan told him. “I'll teach you not to drown.”

  Eve came along too, as well as the dog, which bounded along ahead of them to drink. She would not swim herself, Eve protested when they drew close. How could she when she had no suitable clothing with her? But she did take off her shoes and stockings and pulled off Becky's dress so that the child could splash about in the water in her shift. Aidan pulled off his boots, stockings, and shirt, but reluctantly left his pantaloons on. Davy stripped off to his drawers under Aidan's directions. He appeared not at all excited at the idea of learning to swim.

  The water was deliciously cool, Aidan discovered when he stepped into it. It reached to his knees, though the river was wide at this point, and he guessed that it was quite a bit deeper farther toward the center. He reached up a hand for Eve.

  “Your dress is going to get wet,” he said, noting appreciatively the trimness of her ankles as she drew the fabric up above them. “You might as well take it off. I have seen you in less than your shift, after all.”

  She gave him a speaking glance as she tested the water gingerly with one toe and then lowered first one leg in and then the other. Her dress was bunched above her knees, but she must have realized the impossibility of keeping it dry and let go her hold on it. It floated about her on the water as he lifted Becky in and handed the child to her. Becky shrieked with the shock of the coldness. Davy did not, even though he shuddered and looked thin and white-bodied and miserable.

  Eve played with a visibly and audibly happy Becky while Aidan set about the task of teaching the boy how to breathe, how not to fear the water, even when his face was fully submerged. Eve was holding Becky while she floated on her back. Aidan did the same with Davy, though the boy was extremely reluctant to lift his feet from the riverbed.

  “It is a matter of trust, lad,” Aidan said at last. “You have to trust me to hold you and not let you sink. Will you do that?”

  “Yes, sir,” the boy said solemnly.

  After that, he floated, Aidan's hands firmly beneath him, feeling the boy gradually relax, gradually trust the water itself to hold him up. Aidan released his hold with one hand and merely kept the other splayed beneath the small of Davy's back for confidence. He looked back at Eve, who was spinning Becky in a slow circle, her dress totally wet and clinging to her slender curves. Even her hair was damp.

  And then Davy gasped in horror and scrambled to his feet.

  “My drawers, sir,” he said. “They have come off.”

  And sure enough, the truant drawers were floating off with the current, already out of the boy's reach when he tried to grab them.

  Becky had noticed. “Davy's drawers!” she shrieked.

  Aidan waded after them. He could have reached them in a moment, but he slowed down when he realized that the boy was splashing after him and that he was laughing—giggling, rather, with a child's mingled embarrassment and hilarity.

  Aidan grasped the drawers just before they would have swirled out to deeper water. He swung them over his head.

  “Come and get them,” he said.

  Davy had come up to him, still convulsed with mirth, one hand covering his private parts beneath the water, the other reaching up in vain for his drawers.

  “I cannot reach, sir,” he said. “They will see!”

  Aidan dangled them a few inches lower, laughing back at the boy. “Maybe I should get you to swim for them,” he said, threatening to throw them out into deeper water.

  �
��N-n-no, sir. G-g-give them to me.”

  It was such a delight to see the boy actually laughing that Aidan was tempted to prolong the teasing. But he would not cause undue embarrassment. Still laughing, he dangled the drawers within reach, and then, when the boy grasped them, caught him in one arm and pulled him half under into the deeper water, mock-wrestling with him before finally setting him down safely on his feet in chest-deep water so that Davy could scramble into his drawers without exposing himself.

  It was at that moment that Aidan, glancing back up the river, locked glances with Eve, who was standing quite still in the water, holding Becky in her arms. There was an arrested look on her face. It was only when he noted it that Aidan realized he was still laughing. Being totally undignified, in fact.

  He gazed rather sheepishly at Eve, his laughter fading to a mere grin.

  Davy was still giggling, safely ensconced in his drawers again.

  “Well, lad,” Aidan said, “are you ready for deeper waters? Will you come and swim with me if I promise not to let you go?”

  “Yes, sir,” the boy said. But it was not the usual passive obedience he was expressing this time. His eyes shone with eager, boyish excitement. He had forgotten his fears. He was enjoying himself. He was a young child out with an adult he trusted.

  Aidan wrapped an arm about him and floated lazily on his back, propelling them along with his feet. He could feel the sun warm on his chest. Eve and Becky, he could see, were no longer in the water. They were in full sunlight on the bank, the dog settled beside them. Eve was pulling the child's dry dress on over her head, presumably having first removed the wet shift. She had no such comfort herself, foolish woman. Her dress clung wetly to her, looking rather like a second skin. She would have looked no less modest swimming in her shift.

  Would this all seem like a dream when he was back with his battalion? he wondered. As painless and insubstantial as a dream? He quite fervently hoped so. But what dream would he dream for the rest of his life, to give him the hope all people needed in the future? His dream for the past several years had been a modest one—a home, a wife, a family after he had finally set his career behind him. Even the more recent dream had been hardly less modest—a continuation of his career, Miss Knapp as his wife, sharing his life. He had not loved her, had not expected ever to do so. All he had dreamed of was comfort and contentment. Would there ever be another dream? Could there ever be another?

  Suddenly the sun felt a little less warm, the water a little colder.

  THE REVEREND THOMAS PUDDLE CAME TO DINNER that evening, invited by Aunt Mari, who had assured him that Eve would be delighted and would in fact be disappointed if he did not come.

  Eve was indeed delighted. While she had been spending more time with Becky and Davy and Aidan, the vicar had been spending more with Thelma and Benjamin, and that very afternoon he had come to the point and offered Thelma marriage.

  “I begged him to think again,” Thelma told Eve, “to consider what it would mean to his position, his family, his parishioners, but he would take no for only one reason, he told me, and that was if I truly did not love him and wish to marry him. I could not lie to him, Eve. I adore him with all my heart. So does Benjamin.”

  Eve's only response was to hug her.

  “But I have given him only a conditional acceptance.” Thelma moved out of Eve's embrace, looking troubled. “You took me in, Eve, when everyone else treated me like some sort of leper. You gave me employment and a home. Becky and Davy still need my services. I would not—”

  But Eve silenced her with one raised hand. “There are other governesses,” she said. “I will find one. And if I lose her to a good man, I will find another. It will be a treat to visit the vicarage and not be forced to walk in the churchyard for the duration of my visit, no matter what the weather.”

  They both laughed.

  “I wish you such happiness as I am feeling,” Thelma began, but Eve held up her hand again.

  “I am happy,” she said. “I have my home and my family. I have my children. And I have friends and neighbors.”

  “And Colonel Bedwyn?” Thelma asked.

  Eve shook her head. “I daresay he will be leaving within the next day or two. He will wish to see his family again before returning from leave.”

  It was a cheerful, festive dinner, with a smiling, blushing Thelma and a smiling, blushing Reverend Puddle, and Aunt Mari in fine form, happy for everyone and chattering away about the wedding that must be planned and the wedding assembly and a dozen other happy topics. She was as alert and tireless as any of them.

  She was yawning profusely later when Eve went down to the drawing room after her usual hour of reading stories to the children and then tucking them into their beds and kissing them good night. Thelma had left after getting Benjamin to sleep, to walk the Reverend Puddle home—a sheer romantic absurdity, of course, since it must be perfectly plain even to an idiot that he was then going to have to walk her back home. Aunt Mari was alone with Aidan.

  “The sun and heat today and all the excitement over Thelma and the vicar have quite done me in,” she complained. “I'm off to bed early. So you needn't remain indoors to entertain me any longer, Colonel. Here is Eve come back from the nursery. Why don't the two of you go out for a walk on such a lovely evening?”

  Ah, she was matchmaking to the end, Eve thought as Aidan got to his feet, helped Aunt Mari to hers, and handed her her cane.

  “A good idea, ma'am,” he said. “We will do it if Eve is not too tired.”

  Aunt Mari smiled merrily as she lifted her cheek for Eve's good night kiss.

  Muffin, who had appeared to be fast asleep by the hearth just a moment before, scrambled to his feet and wagged his tail hopefully. Someone had mentioned the word walk.

  They strolled toward the dell, crossing the lawn to the lily pond, pausing there for a while to look at the lilies and trail their hands in the cool water, and finally wound their way among the trees and down the steepening slope toward the brook. Muffin bobbed along with them, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind, sometimes coming to snuffle at Eve's skirt.

  “What is the story of that dog?” Aidan asked when they were at the lily pond.

  “He belonged to one of my tenants,” she said, “a man whose lease I refused to renew because he was violent with his workers. He left Muffin behind, horribly, horribly maimed and abused. One can guess from the look of him now some of what he suffered—though he looks very much better than he did when I first saw him. Everyone thought it would be kindest to shoot him, but I would not allow that. I wanted him to have an experience of gentleness and love first, even if it became necessary to release him later from his pain. But he recovered as much as he ever can recover. Certainly he no longer cowers and whimpers whenever someone strange comes near him.”

  “One of your lame ducks,” he said, seating himself on the low wall. There was no harshness in the accusation.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “One of my precious lame ducks.” She bent to scratch Muffin's good ear.

  She could not erase from her mind the sight of Aidan this afternoon laughing with Davy and teasing him. And of Davy himself, helpless with childish glee. The two somber men of her life, laughing and playing.

  “And is Ned Bateman another?” he asked.

  “Ned? Has he told you, then?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “You are to buy land for him and an indeterminate number of maimed and wounded discharged soldiers so that they can set up their own farm and perhaps workshops too, and they are to pay you back in installments.”

  “Not lame ducks, then,” she said. “They are going to pay me back. They are going to be independent. I only wish I could help more. There are going to be thousands of such men, are there not, now that the wars are over? Men without jobs? Men without their health and often without one or more limb?”

  “Have you considered this thoroughly?” he asked. “Have you had a lawyer advise you? Are you having one handle the business and the det
ails of the loan?”

  “I trust Ned,” she told him.

  “I am sure you do,” he said. “And it is certain he trusts you. But it would be better, and all concerned would be far happier if this thing were done properly and legally. Let me find a good lawyer for you.”

  “No—” She frowned.

  “Let me get Wulf to find you one,” he said. “Believe me, Eve, the men who will be part of this project will feel far more secure if there are papers, if they know exactly what is what.”

  “Will they?” she asked doubtfully.

  “Believe me,” he said. “Let me ask Wulf.”

  She nodded. She knew so little about good business practices. Perhaps it would not hurt to turn for advice to men who knew more, especially when they were her relatives, one her husband, one her brother-in-law.

  “Eve,” he said, “I have sometimes spoken with irritation and even contempt of your lame ducks. I am sorry about that. I honor your generosity and your love for all creatures, no matter their looks or their station in life or their history. Knowing you has been a humbling experience. I thank you for it.”

  She did not know what to say though she stood and stared at him for some time. When had he become so very dear to her? Was there a single moment? But she did not think so. It had crept up on her unawares, this love, this pain. She turned without a word and led the way to the dell.

  “This is where I was that morning,” she said when they were partway down the slope, “when Charlie came down from the house to tell me that I had a visitor—a military gentleman—and I thought it must be Percy. I was gathering bluebells with Thelma and the children while Aunt Mari guarded the picnic basket.”

  The bluebells were all long gone. So were the azaleas. But the dell was beautiful at any time of the day or year. It was lovely now, all deep green in the early twilight, the sky a deepening blue above the tree branches, the brook golden with the rays of the setting sun.