And she did not mistake him for Fitz in the least.
Then all the norms of etiquette and decorum began pressing in. Isabelle dropped her hand and drew back into her seat. He, too, looked as if he was at a loss for words.
She cast around for something to say, “Do you carry a picture of Mrs. Fitzwilliam with you, by some chance?”
He pulled out his pocket watch. It had a hidden compartment that held a small photograph of a pretty, demure-looking young lady. In return, she opened the locket she wore around her neck to show him a photograph of her entire family, taken six months before she became widowed.
“Was Mrs. Fitzwilliam as decorous as her image would like me to believe?”
“Ha! Mrs. Fitzwilliam lived to belie her image. Magnificent mustache on Captain Englewood, by the way.”
She smiled. “Ridiculously so, isn’t it? I stepped on his foot twice the first time we danced because I kept staring at the mustache.”
Dear Lawrence had grown so conscious of it that he’d shaved off the moustache entirely before he came to call on her the next day and she had not recognized him without it.
“Are you sure you are not blaming this magnificent moustache for your own clumsiness? Perhaps you are naturally mistake-prone.”
“I will have you know, sir, that I am light-footed and graceful, and never has a more elegant figure graced a dance floor.” She rested her head against the back of the chair and sighed. “I miss dancing. It has been so long since I last danced.”
She missed the crowd, the excitement, the sensation of being young.
He rose from his chair. “Then let us dance.”
She sat up straight. “Here?”
The room was not large, and there were too many pieces of furniture.
“There is a terrace in the back. Come, the moon is rising.”
Dancing, the two of them pressed together. She had not forgotten what he felt like in a heated embrace: a big, strong man, fully aroused. She was hot in the back of her throat—and everywhere else too, it seemed.
“What about music?”
“I will provide the music,” he said, gathering the bottle and the wineglasses. “But do take a wrapper. It will be chilly outside.”
“Won’t we be seen?”
“One would have to be standing directly at the gate, peering in. It is late enough that no one respectable would be out walking and anyone driving would be unable to see out the window.”
He held out his hand. She placed her fingers in his, but she still hesitated. “Do you miss dancing, Mr. Fitzwilliam?”
“I miss—I miss not forcing myself to have a good time.” He smiled ruefully. “Does that make any sense?”
It made perfect sense: Only a man who had disguised his heartache with gaiety would have found anything remarkable in her naked pain.
“Then let us dance,” she said, rising.
THE TERRACE, ISABELLE HAD BEEN TOLD by the estate agent, had been refurbished with limestone quarried from the Mendip Hills. Low guard rails of wrought iron, with motifs of vine and grapes, surrounded the terrace. A short flight of stairs—only two steps—led down to the rear garden where an unusually large rowan tree stood, its leaves glistening in the moonlight.
It was the sort of tree upon the branches of which young lovers stole kisses, then later carved their initials into the bark to commemorate the sweetness of first love. She smiled a little, remembering an enormous oak at home, under which her sister and the young man she would eventually marry used to sit on a picnic blanket and read aloud to each other from a book of poetry.
Mr. Fitzwilliam hummed a few opening bars of The Blue Danube, then swept her into the first turn. She sucked in a breath at the sensation: She felt almost…weightless.
As a girl she’d burned with excitement at being alive, but then she’d changed. Throughout her marriage, she’d dreaded any news of unrest and upheaval—she wanted her husband to be a peacetime soldier and only a peacetime soldier. Instead of exploring the streets of India, she’d stayed behind the walls of the cantonment. And even there, the earlier version of herself would have wanted to be a leader of society, organizing functions and events, taking the newly arriving ladies under her wings. But she never did much more than what civility and reciprocity demanded, preferring to only look after her own family.
Fitz’s wife had once reminded her that all had not been lost, that she had gone on to have a devoted husband and two beautiful children. Isabelle had answered flatly that it had not been the same. That nothing could approach the perfect, unmarred happiness she’d known with Fitz.
It had not been a verdict on her husband or her marriage, but on the person she had become, one who approached life and joy, especially joy, with fear, always afraid that moments of lightness and laughter were but prepayment for some future devastation. It had been one of the reasons she’d latched on so tightly to the idea of making a life with Fitz, because she wanted to return to her old self, the one who lived and loved with zest and abandon, and she’d believed him the only possible path back.
Yet here she was, dancing as if she were flying.
“You are right,” said Mr. Fitzwilliam in her ear. “You are wonderfully nimble on your feet.”
She shivered from the nearness of his lips. She was alive, as she hadn’t been for very long. What a terrifying yet enthralling feeling—electric, like the sensation of his breath brushing her skin. She inhaled his scent, spice and musk against the woodsy freshness of the night air.
Moonlight cast the shifting shadows of the rowan tree upon his person. His hand was warm at the small of her back. Her motion and a cool breeze lifted the edges of the short mantle she’d put on over her dressing robe, making her feel as if she’d truly sprouted wings.
They spun in ever wider, ever faster circles. She felt dizzy, an effervescent dizziness, as if she’d been indulging in champagne. On impulse, she threw her head back. The entire sky seemed to revolve around them, the stars streaks of faint gold.
The sound of laughter, she was surprised to realize, was her own, giddy and clear upon the night air.
THEY DANCED UNTIL MRS. ENGLEWOOD begged, giggling, to sit down, citing her spinning head. Ralston guided her to a swing seat set deeper in the garden. She collapsed into it, still giggling.
He emptied the remainder of the wine into their glasses and sat down next to her.
“Oh, dear,” she said as she accepted her glass, “I am about to turn into a sot.”
She smiled widely as she drank. “Such good wine.” Now she beamed at him. “Such good company.”
It was an extraordinarily trusting look. His pulse raced. He wanted to kiss her wine-sweet lips and revel in the taste of her fire. But he only sat down next to her. “Are you warm enough?”
She snuggled closer to him. “Now I am.”
“You are tipsy.”
“Maybe not so much tipsy as a little lightheaded and very lighthearted.” She sighed, a sound of plain contentment.
He placed his arm around her shoulders, careful not to touch her otherwise. She burrowed a little more into his person, her hair tickling his neck and ear. More than tickling, actually. The sensations she evoked shot directly toward the middle of his person. He swallowed and kept still.
“Did the missus also enjoy dancing?” she asked.
“The missus would have been the first to inform you that she possessed two left feet. She was, however, an excellent tennis player and regularly had the gentlemen begging for mercy.”
“Did you play a great deal of tennis together?”
“No, I counted myself among those gentlemen who begged for mercy.”
Mrs. Englewood set a hand on his elbow, to keep herself steady while she pulled away to look into his face. Such eyes she had, pools of luminosity even when there was barely enough light to see.
“If she didn’t like to dance, and you were less than accomplished at lawn tennis, then how did you two woo each other?”
“I drew maps for her.�
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“What kind of maps?”
“She always enjoyed stories, especially folk tales, fairy tales, and the sort—anything with a talking animal was dear and near to her heart. So instead of writing love letters, I made a detailed map of Alice’s Wonderland.”
She clapped. “How fun.”
And now she gripped onto the back of the swing for balance. He rather wished she would brace against him again.
“Was that the only map you ever made for her?”
He had to remind himself that the eagerness in her voice was not for him, but for a good, entertaining story. “For our honeymoon I drew a large map of a forest, crisscrossed with footpaths. Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother’s house was in section H5, if memory serves. The gingerbread house in which Hansel and Gretel almost met their doom in B11. The seven dwarfs and their cottage were to be found in P2—so on and so forth.”
She laid a hand against her heart. “That is so, so charming. Do you still have it?”
“No, it was buried with the missus.”
Some of the light went out of her eyes. She closed them briefly and laid her head down on his shoulder again. “Did you feel at the time that you could never bear to see it again?”
“Yes, but now I wish I still had it. She doesn’t need it anymore, but I am beginning to forget the exact phrasing of some of the comments that she’d written in the margins of the map. I thought the words would be seared on my mind forever, but time blurs memories, even those I hadn’t believed would ever fade.”
She ran her hand through his hair, a gesture of sympathy and affection. He just stopped himself from taking her hand and pressing a kiss into the center of her palm.
“Tell me about Mrs. Fitzwilliam’s comments. It will help you remember them better for the future.”
“Ah…” He had never spoken to anyone about the map and particularly not the comments, holding them in the innermost sanctuary of his heart.
“I am so sorry. What was I thinking? I was a newlywed once myself. Dare I assume her comments were quite naughty?”
He felt his cheeks warming. “Quite.”
“I’ll tell you a secret: During my honeymoon I wrote a limerick. I did it on the train as Captain Englewood and I left Rome, that beautiful city we never ventured out of our hotel to see.”
Now he was warm everywhere. “I will not ask you what you were so busy doing in your hotel.”
“And you will be wise not to.” She tittered. “My goodness, I am drunk. I am not the most close-lipped of women but I assure you I do not go about on a regular basis disclosing how I allocated my time during my honeymoon.”
“Well, then, since you are already drunk, recite me that unforgettable masterpiece of yours.”
“Well, bear in mind that I adored making love.”
He sucked in a breath at a huge influx of lust.
“Not to mention I found it wonderfully calming afterwards,” she went on. “I always felt invulnerable in the aftermath of the pleasure. My bridegroom was quite happy with how much I welcomed, indeed, demanded his advances.”
He wished she would demand his advances.
She cleared her throat. “There was once a young lady from Bembley, who learned to love married life quickly. Not again, her husband groaned; Yes again, our young lady moaned. So once more unto the breach, well and truly.”
He burst out laughing. “My God! Did you share this with your husband?”
“I did—in the dining car, and he spat out his coffee. Years later he would still lean over to me and whisper, Once more unto the breach, especially when we were at some interminable ceremony.” She laid her hand in his; he wrapped his fingers around hers. “It was times like those that I felt happiest, knowing that I was the only person who could understand the joke.”
And now he, too, understood the secret joke. It had been so long since he felt such closeness, not only to another person, but to everything inside himself that had once made him relish the arrival of each new day.
“Do you still want to know what Mrs. Fitzwilliam wrote on the map?”
She sat up and gazed at him. “Of course.”
He still needed a few moments to overcome his residual shyness. “About the gingerbread house she said, This is the house I earned by allowing my bridegroom to have his way with me on a desk.”
She snorted with laughter. “Is that so? You would only draw part of the map if she agreed to a certain marital deed?”
“No, I would have drawn the map for nothing. But it was more fun that way.” He smiled back. “Much more fun.”
“What, may I ask, did she have to do for the dwarfs’ cottage?”
“Take a turn in our hotel room—after I had disrobed her.”
“Oh, my. Newlywed love games indeed.” She sighed. “Oh, to be a newlywed again.”
And then, after a moment of silence. “Or even better, to be an old married woman, thumping her cane on the floor of the parlor, because her husband is making them late for church again.”
“I am always late for church,” he said impulsively.
She brushed her hand through his hair again. “And how fortunate the lady who would be thumping her cane at you someday, my dear Mr. Fitzwilliam.”
“WILL YOU COME BACK and bring your children here?”
Isabelle opened her eyes, surprised that she’d almost fallen asleep. “I haven’t thought about it yet.”
When Fitz had decided that his future lay elsewhere, she’d been sure she never wanted to set foot in Doyle’s Grange again. But now the place held good memories. Wonderful memories.
“What is next for you then?”
“Back to my sister’s place in Aberdeen. My children are still with her and I miss them.”
“Bring them here. Winters are harsh in Scotland.”
“Aberdeen’s is milder than one would expect for a city so far north, or so my sister assures me.”
“Still, it will be cold and dreary. Bring them here. They will thank you.”
But if she were to set up household at Doyle’s Grange, soon her entire family would come by to visit. There would be calls on the neighbors, afternoon tea parties, and dinners to make sure that she was surrounded by kind people. And when they saw Mr. Fitzwilliam, after picking their jaws up from the floor, they would immediately assume that she’d decided to come back to Doyle’s Grange because she wanted to be close to Fitz’s lookalike.
It would be impossible to make them see otherwise. And should word get back to Fitz, she would die of mortification, to have him believe that she wanted to hold on to him so badly anyone who looked like him would do.
And it would be a tremendous insult to Mr. Fitzwilliam too, to have everyone assume he was but a replica of Fitz, when nothing could be further from the truth.
“Let me think about it,” she murmured, the wine and the lateness of the hour making her drowsy again.
“Yes, think about it,” he said softly.
WHEN MRS. ENGLEWOOD’S BREATHS had become soft and even, he lifted her into his arms.
“Careful, old widower,” she mumbled, her words slow and sleepy.
“Ha,” he countered. “This grandpa still has a spring in his step.”
He carried her into the house, up the stairs, and back into her bedroom. She thanked him indistinctly as he set her down on the bed. He took off her slippers, straightened the hem of her nightgown, and covered her with a blanket.
She sighed softly and slept on.
Light from the oil lamp still flickered. Her hair had tumbled loose in the course of the evening. Now midnight black strands of it streaked across the pillow.
But as he looked closer, he realized that not every strand of her hair was the same vibrant raven hue. His dear Mrs. Englewood had a few white hairs that gleamed silver in the lamplight.
He wondered if premature graying ran in her family. If by the time she was forty, she would have a head of snow-white hair.
He wanted to see it. He wanted to be the one to br
ush her hair and jokingly count her last few remaining black strands. And then to kiss her upon her silver head.
“Come back,” he murmured. “And soon.”
Chapter Five
IN THE MORNING, IT TOOK ISABELLE a minute to realize where she was.
She yawned, sat up, and walked about. The house was empty, Mr. Fitzwilliam nowhere to be seen. And he was thorough in removing the evidence of his presence: The wine bottle, wine glasses and corkscrew had all been removed, as well as his hand candle. Even that consulting detective, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, would be hard pressed to conclude that anyone other than Isabelle had been in the house the previous night.
What of their rapport? Had it too wilted in the harsh light of the day? The next time she saw Mr. Fitzwilliam, if she ever did, would she be obliged to pretend that theirs was the most incidental of acquaintances, rather than the sublime friendship it had been, however briefly?
She sat on the swing seat for a few minutes, gazing at the rowan. Its season of flowering had passed; now hundreds of clusters of berries hung from the branches, some still pale gold, others already turning a riotous red.
Slowly she returned to the house. Just as slowly, she made her way upstairs. But as she reentered the bedroom to gather her belongings, she saw an envelope addressed to her on the nightstand. She snatched it up and tore the seal.
My Dear Mrs. Englewood,
I hope you have slept well. And I hope now that you have awakened, you still think upon last night with as much wonder and fondness as I do. If not, allow me to assure you that I will have exited Doyle’s Grange with the utmost care and will not speak a word of our friendship to anyone.
But if you do not regret our hours together, I shall be delighted to hear from you, as frequently as you’d care to write, and follow your progress through the sometimes treacherous shoals of life.
Your devoted servant,
Ralston Fitzwilliam
P.S. You may post your letters to Stanton House, Up Aubry, and they will reach me anywhere.
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