New Haven, Connecticut
Autumn 1955
In the journalism department at Yale, George was at the top of his class. He was known for his smarts. He’d made editor of the Yale Daily News, a campus paper that rivaled anything a college had ever produced. His colleagues on the paper called him Clark Kent because his investigative skills were legendary. His rivals called him “Clark Can’t” because he seemed to have no luck with the ladies.
There was a reason for that, but no one would ever know it. George had given the girl he loved to his brother.
That was how he came to think of the situation. How he would always think of it. No one else was aware of his sacrifice, because he kept the truth in the deepest, most secret corner of his heart. Yet George’s brother had no idea George had handed Charles his heart’s desire.
There was no point in discussing it. George didn’t want his sacrifice to be known. He wasn’t a candidate for martyrdom. He was just seeking a way to escape into the future and stop dwelling on the past, stewing about things that might have been, if only he’d been more confident. More assertive. More willing to follow his heart.
Then again, he rationalized, a romance with Jane Gordon wouldn’t have gone anywhere, anyway. They came from different worlds and would have been destined to break each other’s hearts by summer’s end. So it was Charles, not George, who would suffer that heartache.
Their parents would probably never know of the drama and rivalry surrounding Jane Gordon. Contrary to their mother’s oft-expressed hopes, neither brother found himself tempted by the Darrow sisters. The Darrows and the Bellamys had harbored aspirations of a dynastic union between the families, but despite their best efforts, nothing materialized.
From time to time, someone would ask him why he was in such a lousy mood so much of the time, or why he didn’t throw himself wholeheartedly into the fun and challenge of his senior year at Yale.
Many seniors were melancholy, already regretting the end of their time at Yale. Not George. He couldn’t wait to be finished. To be gone. Because now, Jane Gordon was in the picture. It wasn’t enough that the past summer had been filled with her. She was in New Haven, too, living with relatives and looking after her mother. Even worse, George had heard she had a job on campus. It was amazing to him that he’d never encountered her before.
George was determined to create an amazing future for himself. In order to do that, he had to quit thinking about Jane Gordon. He had to pretend he felt nothing for her, and he had to stop wondering if she felt the same way. They had never spoken of their feelings. He might be wrong. Might be making an assumption. Might be reading more into the situation than was actually there.
Except he wasn’t. There was a small, barely acknowledged part of him that knew the truth—something unspoken but powerful had sprung up between him and Jane. He knew this as surely as he knew the principles of objective journalism.
And so did she, though she’d never said a word about it. Her attraction to him couldn’t be seen or touched, but he felt it the way he felt the autumn rain on his shoulders as he crossed the campus between classes and seminars. Occasionally he wondered if he’d only imagined it. Then he’d remember the expression on her face, that night on the deck overlooking the lake, and he’d feel sure she was fighting an undeniable attraction as hard as he was.
George and Charles both belonged to different fraternities and different eating clubs at Yale. This was unorthodox within the same family, but the brothers instinctively felt the need to live separate lives. Their schedules rarely intersected, and Charles’s obsession with athletics kept him busy at the boathouse for rowing practice, the tennis courts or golf course. George was a member of the shooting club and did no other sports. He saw very little of his younger brother. He dared to hope that Charles had come to his senses and realized it was better for everyone concerned to stop seeing Jane Gordon.
At a mixer with Vassar early that fall, George had the first inkling that she was still in the picture. He was waiting his turn at the bar when he heard one of the Darrow girls—he often forgot which was which—speaking sotto voce. Clearly she didn’t realize George was nearby.
“Didn’t you hear?” she said. “Charles Bellamy is seeing some local girl—a townie. They say she works as a chambermaid at the provost’s residence.”
“That can’t be right,” another girl said. “Charles Bellamy? He would never…”
George had heard enough. With a stone-cold feeling in his stomach, he approached his brother the next day.
He found Charles hard at work—at the campus squash courts, lobbing his way to a victory over his best friend, Samuel Lightsey. It was a golden Indian summer day, the temperature reaching toward eighty. Despite the heat, autumn was in full regalia, the quadrangle carpeted with leaves that scrambled before the breeze.
Watching his brother—strong and athletic, his every move shaped by the grace of self-confidence—George could not stave off a feeling of envy. The polio had taken much from him, but what he regretted the most was the loss of speed and grace. Although more than a dozen years had passed since he’d been stricken, he could still remember what it felt like to run like the wind, to master any sport he attempted.
All of that had gone by the wayside. George did his best to not let it matter. Ultimately, though, regrets washed through him every time he encountered a physical challenge. He pulled back from anything that might show the world his weakness. The swimming pool therapy and the exercises that had gotten him out of the wheelchair only went so far. He was grateful enough to have regained the ability to walk. He wished he could find a way to keep himself from yearning for more.
It didn’t help to have a brother who was a natural and effortless athlete, who dominated every sport he attempted. Charles never flaunted his prowess, but he didn’t hide it, either. He loved sports and challenges too much to pretend he wasn’t any good at them.
At the end of the match, Charles simply raised a fist in victory and then shook hands with his opponent. They noticed George watching from the sidelines, and Charles waved him over.
“Hiya, big brother. Just finished a match. You should have seen the way I schooled this fellow.”
“I’ll get you next time,” Samuel vowed. “Gotta bounce. Meeting my fiancée for dinner. Gwen doesn’t like me to be late.”
George sensed Samuel’s pride in his new status as a bridegroom-to-be. He had proposed to his sweetheart a couple of weeks before, and he’d been walking on air ever since.
Charles slung a towel around the back of his neck and found a seat in the shade. He took a long drink from a canteen and then offered it to George, who shook his head.
“Hey, Sam asked me to be his best man. How about that?” asked Charles.
“Terrific. Seems like guys are getting married left and right these days.”
“Seems that way.” Charles twirled his squash racket.
“I guess we Bellamy boys are late bloomers when it comes to girls,” George suggested. “Unless there’s something you’re not telling me.” He didn’t want to have to repeat gossip, but he needed to figure out if there was any truth to the rumor.
“Well, now that you’ve brought it up,” said Charles, “there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. I wanted you to be the first to know.”
George already did know. In some part of his mind, the news had already embedded itself. Asking for an explanation had been a mere formality. He sat very stiffly, keeping his face from giving anything away. “Go on,” he said.
“I got a girl,” Charles said. “The most wonderful girl in the world, and I’m going to ask her to be my wife.”
No, thought George. Don’t say it.
“It’s Jane Gordon.” Charles blushed and grinned.
George’s heart hit the pavement. His palms began to sweat, and his mouth went completely dry.
Charles didn’t seem to notice. “Remember, I started falling for her last summer at Camp Kioga,” he said. “She lives in New Haven, you know.”
George did know. “I heard she does some kind of domestic work,” he said dully.
“She keeps house for the school provost. I can’t wait for you to get to know her again, now that we’re all grown up. She’s swell, like she’s always been, ever since we were all kids. It’s only natural we’d fall in love.”
George shook his head. This sounded like a disaster in the making. “It won’t work, Charles. I know she’s…” An angel, he thought. A dream in the flesh. “…a nice girl. But it could never work.”
There was one beat of hesitation, long enough for George to realize Charles wasn’t completely naive about these things. But he held his ground. “We’ll make it work.”
“Mother and Father will never stand for it.”
“They’ll get used to the idea. Hell’s bells, all they have to do is get to know her and they will love her as much as I do.”
“You are delusional. This is our parents we’re talking about. They’d disown you before they’d stand for you marrying a—a chambermaid.” George tried to maintain a reasonable tone.
“Housekeeper. If they disown me for finding the girl I love,” Charles said stubbornly, “then they’re not the people I thought they were.”
“Don’t make them choose,” George warned his brother. “They’ll never forgive you.”
“That’s baloney.” But a note of worry crept into his voice.
“And what about her family?” George persisted. “They’re not going to approve, either. They wouldn’t want to see their daughter trying to fit into a family where she doesn’t belong.”
“She belongs with me. Damn it, George, we’re in love. Don’t tell me there’s anything wrong with two people being in love.”
“It’s not love,” George snapped. “You’re infatuated with each other. It’ll fade away—”
“It’ll last forever. I feel it in my bones. I thought you’d be happy for me.”
“Happy to see you marching straight into disaster?” George demanded. “I just don’t want you getting hurt.” As he spoke, he wondered if there was another reason for his objection, buried deep inside.
“What hurts is being apart from Jane,” Charles insisted. “Wait until you fall head over heels in love. Then you’ll understand.”
George crushed his hand into a fist, rubbed his bad leg hard. “Give it a rest, Charles. You are young. There’s no hurry.”
“That’s why we’re going to wait until next summer to get married.”
Married. Charles and Jane, married. “It’s not going to work.”
“It’s Jane, for God’s sake. We’ve known her forever. We were the Three Musketeers, remember? One for all and all for one.”
“We were kids, playing a game. This is life. Marriage isn’t a game. It’s playing for keeps. You’ll end up miserable. She’s a domestic, don’t you get that? She comes from nothing. She has no education, no refinements. She’ll drag you down—”
“Hell’s bells.” Charles glared at him. “At least I’m not a coward. You’re a cripple, George, but not in the way you think. You’re crippled by your own fears.”
George couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. “Go to hell,” he said.
“Say, you just got me all riled up, George. I was going to ask you to be my best man—”
“Don’t,” George warned him.
“I won’t,” Charles said. “And I don’t need your blessing. I’d like to have it, but I don’t need it.”
George was appalled by Charles’s plan. It felt wrong in too many ways to count. But Charles was determined; he forged recklessly ahead, picking out a date the following August, planning an open-air ceremony at Camp Kioga. The guy had stars in his eyes.
Maybe, thought George, it was Jane who would see reason. Yes. He would talk to Jane, make her see what a mistake this was.
He waited one evening outside the provost’s residence. It was a cool autumn twilight, the sky heavy with unshed rain. Visitors, faculty and administrators came and went. Then he saw a janitor come around the side of the building and realized the hired help would use a different entrance. He went to the mews behind the row of grand houses and leaned up against an old carriage house that had been converted into a garage. A row of dustbins and garbage cans leaned against the building.
He wasn’t sure what he’d say to her; they hadn’t seen each other since closing day at camp last summer. He halfway talked himself out of approaching her. Then, just as the lights came on in the windows of the big white house, a few people exited through the back. No one seemed to notice him as they headed to the street.
He picked out Jane immediately: a slender girl in a dark dress, with an apron and a heavy-looking satchel. Although he didn’t want to feel it, his heart took a leap. She walked slowly, with a shuffling gait. He looked around, seeing students strolling between dining halls and libraries. In sharp contrast to Jane’s somber dress, they looked lively and fashionable in argyles and sweater sets.
“Jane,” he said, approaching her, trying not to limp.
“George!” Her face lit with a smile that made him catch his breath. “This is a surprise.”
He glanced around. Then he felt ashamed for feeling furtive. “I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said. “I wanted to talk about, uh…” What an idiot. What a tongue-tied idiot.
She slowed her steps, tilted her head to one side. Something flickered in her face—recognition. Yearning. A tacit acknowledgment of the unspoken emotions that had flown between them last summer…before Charles had commandeered her attention.
George cleared his throat, battled his nervousness into submission.
“It’s about Charles,” he said.
Her eyes narrowed. The wind plucked at her apron. The expression on her face indicated that she understood just what the issue was. “Then shouldn’t you be talking to Charles?”
“He won’t listen.”
She tossed her head and walked on, leaving the campus behind. George had no choice but to follow her. And a tiny part of him was willing to admit a twinge of curiosity about the way she lived, in a part of New Haven he’d never seen, despite his years as a student. The air smelled of rain, and the wind picked up, ripping dry leaves from the maples lining the streets. Within a few blocks, they came to a working-class neighborhood of nondescript buildings and row houses.
“Then why come to me?” she demanded.
“Because you will.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Jane, you understand the way the world works. You know marrying Charles would tear both our families apart.”
Her face paled. “He told you we were getting married?”
“Don’t do it, Jane. It would destroy our parents—”
“Be honest, George. For once in your life, be honest. Tell me what your real objection is.”
He regarded her, keeping his face devoid of expression, hiding everything. “You don’t really want to know that.”
The rain started in earnest, sheets of big drops. They took shelter in the doorway of a linen shop that had closed for the day. The breeze lifted her hair in whimsical tendrils, creating a crown of autumn-colored curls. Instead of flinching from his anger, she took a step toward him. There was a terrible unspoken plea in her eyes, a mixture of pain and passion and a longing that mirrored his own. She took another step, and he had the strangest fantasy. The shop window behind her displayed a draped ivory tablecloth, and for a second it resembled a bridal veil, spread out behind her. She stood so close he could practically taste her, the lips full and soft-looking as she said, “Yes, George. I do.”
With her yes filling him completely, George forgot where he was. He swept his arm protectively around her, and that was his undoing. Her nearness and the feel of her next to him turned into a consuming fire, fed by all the moments of self-denial, finally burned to ashes by the simple, stark honesty of her touch. His will was not his own; desire became a force larger than himself. He could no sooner stop it than he could stop the wind. He grabbed her by the upper arms, hauled her against him and crushed his mouth down on hers. At last, he thought. At last.
A sound came from her—resistance? Surrender?—and there was a thud as her satchel hit the ground. Her fists dug into his shirt.
George tried to ease away. This was his brother’s girl. Some small corner of his brain acknowledged that—his brother’s girl.
But something kept him from letting go.
Jane. Jane held him there, clutching his shirt, kissing him with the same hunger he felt.
And then something shifted. A change in the wind, lashing like a ribbon of ice.
No, he thought. No no no.
With an effort that felt physically painful, he stepped back, holding her at arm’s length.
She blinked against the driving wind, and tears streamed from her eyes. “George—”
“Damn it,” he said, too afraid to hear her out. “We can’t….” He fumbled for the right words. “I came to stop you from marrying my brother.”
She stared up at him. She looked beautiful, shattered, her eyes begging him for something he didn’t have in him to give. “George,” she said softly. And then even softer, her voice all but drowned in the squeal of the wind. “You know what will stop me.”
He did know. And it was the one thing he could not offer.
“Nothing but trouble can come from this,” he said, his heart turning to stone even as he spoke. “Leave the Bellamy family alone, Jane. I’m asking you—”
“And that,” she said, snapping the spell like a dreamer suddenly disturbed from sleep, “is why I refuse to do as you say.”
“Jane—”
She picked up her satchel. “If you care about your brother, you will forget this ever happened.”
“If you cared about him, you wouldn’t have let me kiss you,” he shouted above the wind.
“I didn’t let you.”
“No, you begged me for it.”
Her face paled to a dull white. “If anyone is going to ruin anything, it’s you, George. Unless you find a way to be the brother Charles needs you to be, then everything will be ruined. You have to understand that I want you—”
“No,” he said. “Don’t say any more—”
“I want you,” she persisted, “to be happy for Charles and me. To dance at our wedding as we celebrate our love.”
“Your love?” he asked incredulously. “Your love?”
“Charles loves me,” she said. “He’s the one who dared to say it.” With that, she tugged her shawl more tightly around her. Then, in a whirl of wind and icy sleet, she walked away with a curious dignity, her head held high, despite the lash of the rain in her face.
He called her name but the wind snatched it away. Her words echoed in his head. He’s the one who dared to say it. Even louder was the roar of the words she didn’t say—she had not said that she loved Charles.
Things were tense for the Bellamy brothers all that winter and into the following spring. George and Charles avoided each other, drifting further and further apart. George had made no secret of his disapproval of Jane. He had been a complete idiot about it, to be sure, but he couldn’t unsay the words he had hurled at Charles. Nor could Charles unsay the things he’d leveled at George—coward. Cripple.
Ever since then, the brothers had dealt with one another on a perfunctory basis. Their manner toward each other was like an early frost—cold and brittle, though not very deep.
George’s final year of schooling was challenging, and his plan to go to work abroad materialized. He was offered a chance to work at the International Herald Tribune, a prestigious paper headquartered in Paris.
Charles was more and more absent from the school social scene. He either didn’t notice or didn’t mind that people gossiped about him for having a “townie” girlfriend. George’s parents found out about the situation and despaired over Charles, but he would not be swayed. The Bellamys clung to the hope that Charles was swept up in an infatuation that would wear off.
George wasn’t so certain; Charles could be stubborn. George kept his own pain hidden behind a mask of disapproval. He steered clear of the provost’s residence, not wanting to encounter Jane. He still believed Charles was making the mistake of his life with this girl, but he was done trying to interfere.
Until one windswept night in late March. Winter that year clung to the northeast with stubborn talons. Only the week before, there had been more snow. People worried aloud that springtime would never come. Freezing rain slung itself sideways against George’s window, reminding him inevitably of another stormy night in the fall, and a kiss that still haunted him no matter how many months had passed.
As an upperclassman, he had the privilege of a single private room on the ground floor. His desk was situated below the single window. A narrow, Spartan bed was set against the opposite wall. He was up late as usual, working on a paper for a demanding professor. The rhythmic clack of his typewriter and the zip of the carriage return accompanied the din of the storm outside.
At first he didn’t hear the knock at the door. Then the noise penetrated his consciousness, an urgent rapping. Mystified, he opened the door.
“Jane?”
“Please, I need to come in.”
He stepped aside. “You’re soaked to the skin.”
She was crying, shivering from the cold. “George,” she said through chattering teeth. “Oh, George.”
“Over here,” he said, grabbing her hand. Her skin was wet and icy cold. “You need to warm up, or you’ll catch your death.” He brought her over to the big iron radiator, which exuded a dry heat. “It’s after midnight. What the hell is going on?”
She was trembling so much she had trouble speaking. “It’s…it’s Charles. And me. Both of us. We quarreled, and it’s over between us, and the buses aren’t running and I didn’t know where else to go…” She shook with cold and with sobs that seemed to come from the deepest part of her.
George went to the door, looked one way and then the other. The hallway was completely empty. It was an infraction of the worst degree to have a female in one’s room, though in practice it was quite a common occurrence.
Not for George Bellamy, though. For him, this was a first.
To his relief, no one seemed to be around at this hour. He shut the door quietly and turned back to Jane. Her face was pale as milk, her lips a vivid, alarming blue, and she convulsed with shivers.
He snatched his terry-cloth swimming robe from its hook on the back of the door. “Get out of those wet things,” he said.
Her hands shook so much she couldn’t unfasten her own buttons.
“Here,” he said, “let me.”
His hands were shaking, too. He forced himself to concentrate on the task at hand. She wore a shirt dress fastened in the front by nine buttons. He counted them as he worked his way from north to south.
The soaking wet fabric clung to her chilled skin. He peeled it away, trying to maintain a clinical detachment, not really succeeding. He draped the wet dress over the radiator, and steam rose from it, creating an eerie light in the room.
Beneath the dress she wore a slip so sheer he could see everything beneath it. Without so much as a beat of hesitation, he peeled this off, as well. And even covered in goose bumps, even shivering and sobbing, she was unbelievably beautiful.
Swearing between his clenched teeth, he wrapped the big robe around her, held her close and rubbed her vigorously. Water from her dripping hair seeped into the shoulder of his sweatshirt. She felt like heaven in his arms.
She started to speak in broken phrases but was still too cold and upset for coherence. She had been drinking, too. He could smell the faint, yeasty essence of beer on her.
And all against his will, he was flooded with desire. He tried to focus on what she was saying. Over and over again she said, “We quarreled. It’s over. He doesn’t love me after all. I’m left with nobody to love me.”
“Hush,” George said, cradling her head against his chest. “Hush, it’ll be all right.” He knew he ought to ask her what happened with Charles, but the truth was, something else was happening here and he didn’t want to say anything to stop it. He’d let an opportunity slip past before, and he wasn’t about to do it again. Instead he let the soothing, whispered words come without thought. “Hush, Jane, it’ll be all right. I’m here. I love you.”
Her breath stopped, halting mid-sob. She gazed up at him, her eyes luminous in the glow from the desk lamp. “George?” She offered his name as a question, or maybe a supplication.
He couldn’t think when she gazed at him like that. All he knew was what his heart told him, with no regard for common sense. He was in love with her. He had been for a long time, but never allowed himself to express it until now. Simply saying the words unlocked a mystery that had hidden inside him all his life. Now he knew for certain what love felt like.
“Yes,” he said, cradling her face between his hands, talking between kisses. “Yes, it’s true, I love you. I never said anything because of Charles, but now I can tell you—I love you. I always have.”
The robe parted, and he yanked off his sweatshirt one-handed over his head, filled with a wild need to feel his flesh next to hers. She was still chilled, but soon warmed in the press of his embrace, and within a few moments, a fire flared.
In the tiny, cramped dorm room, the only place to go was to the bed. He lay her down and kissed her with a long, searing kiss, half-drunk with wanting her. She was everything—the world, the universe, everything. He touched her everywhere and she was still crying, but softly now, and every few moments she would say the words “Please.” And then “Don’t.” And then, “Stop.”
Please don’t stop.
George couldn’t have stopped even if he had wanted to. The fire would not be put out. She was everything he’d ever wanted, every dream he’d ever had, and he was not going to stop. Ever.
The night went on and on. They were by turns urgent and then tender, impossibly slow and irresistibly quick. Emotion and fulfillment flowed like a river between them, and George finally knew the true meaning of ecstasy.
Did she know she was his first? He’d always been awkward with girls and self-conscious about his bad leg, and he’d never had a serious girlfriend. Now he was glad his heart had made him wait for Jane. He wasn’t certain whether or not she realized that, and whether or not it mattered. At one point—he was sure he had not imagined it—she leaned down and touched his withered thigh, anointing his flesh with her tears.
George couldn’t be sure he was doing everything right. He was too embarrassed to ask, so he focused on Jane and took his cues from her. If he touched her one way and her breathing changed, or if she made a tiny involuntary sound or clutched at him, he knew he was on the right track.
He felt drawn to her in so many ways. As kids, they’d clicked together like matching pieces of a puzzle. Even when he was recovering from polio that second summer, when he hated everything in the world including himself, she hadn’t given up on him. She’d forced him to push to the edge of his limitations. To push beyond. When he saw her again last summer, so very different, yet fully recognizable, she’d taken his breath away. So much so that he’d been unable to speak.
That had been his fatal error. He’d missed his chance with her while Charles stepped boldly in. George regretted that moment so much, the hesitation that had cost him his heart. He would tell her he was sorry. He would spend the rest of his life making it up to her.
The rest of his life.
Suddenly the idea of making a life with Jane Gordon did not seem so insane. All his stupid prejudices fell by the wayside. The thought of stepping past artificial barriers erected by his parents struck him as incredibly liberating. No wonder Charles had been so convinced the world would embrace his romance with Jane.
Charles.
George wasn’t ready to think about his jilted brother just now. Jane filled George’s heart to overflowing. For the moment, everything he had to give was hers.
Though they scarcely spoke as the night pulsed away, moment by moment, they drew closer than mere words could ever bring them.
By the time they slept, replete, intoxicated with love, lying across each other in a state of dazed exhaustion, George was finally able to face the truth—his heart was lost entirely. The future he’d imagined for himself was gone now, like an unremembered dream.
Later in the morning, he awoke to an empty room. The swim robe was hung on the back of the door.
George sat up, squinted at the blinding flood of sunlight slipping into the room around the edges of the window shade. He went to the window, raised the sash and then the window itself to look out over the quadrangle. A host of songbirds greeted him. The storm was over, leaving a world washed clean. He could even smell the springtime—damp grass and budding flowers. Overnight, winter had gone away.
A sparkling layer of dew lightly blanketed the quadrangle. Few people were out and about at this hour. The cross-country team, in white shorts and V-neck under-shirts, jogged past in a cluster. Ordinarily George would feel a pinch of envy at the sight of those well-honed bodies, graceful with the innate self-confidence that came from physical accomplishment.
Not this morning, though; not with the memory of the night before lingering so fresh in his mind. As she had that first summer after the polio, Jane had made him look past his limitations and celebrate the things he could do.
After last night, he had the feeling he could do anything.
“Hey, Bellamy, you putting on a show or what?” someone yelled, startling George from his thoughts.
He realized he’d been standing buck naked at the open window, lost in memories of his night with Jane.
“That’s me,” he yelled to his friend Jeffords, who was walking toward the dining hall. “A real showboater.” He wondered how it could be that the world had changed overnight, and no one but him seemed to notice.
He turned back to the room, studied the slant of sunlight across the bed. The sheets and covers had been twisted every which way. Just looking at that bed brought back every touch, every kiss, every intimate detail of their night together. He could not believe how close they’d been.
At weddings people spoke of two becoming one. George had always considered that a lot of hot air. Each person was a separate entity, bound into his or her own skin.
Last night he’d learned otherwise, learned it was possible to break free of one’s own self and cross some mystical divide to join with another. It wasn’t just the sex, either. There was something even more powerful at work, something George hadn’t been certain he believed in until last night—love.
Finally he came to understand why writers and artists through the ages created their work as a monument to the simple human notion of love. Men had waged war, crossed oceans, scaled mountain ranges, all for the sake of love. Epic poems, vast sculptures and even whole palaces had been created to celebrate it.
George Bellamy understood at last.
Whistling through his teeth, he grabbed his towel and robe to head across the hall for the showers. He paused and buried his face in the robe, hoping some of her essence lingered in the fabric. No such luck, though. It simply smelled like…his robe.
In fact, no trace of Jane remained in the room. She had left like a thief in the night, and somehow he’d let her slip away. In the future, he would have to keep her close.
No wonder Charles had been so adamant about marrying her.
The thought of Charles unsettled George. Last night he’d been blind and deaf to everything that wasn’t Jane. And that included his brother.
This morning, by the stark light of a new day, he was forced to confront the notion that he’d made love to his brother’s girl. His former girl, George insisted to himself. She had come to him, tearful and troubled. Until this moment, George hadn’t let himself consider where his kid brother had been last night.
He’d undoubtedly been heartbroken. Perhaps he’d been full of rage, smashing things, tearing his hair out.
That, in fact, was quite unlikely, George conceded. Charles had always been a ladies’ man.
Could be the reason for the rift was that Charles had strayed.
“Your loss, my gain,” George muttered.
As he picked up his shower caddy, a gleam caught his eye. Bending down, he retrieved the object from the floor between the bed and nightstand. It was a silver earring in the shape of a daisy. Jane’s earring.
George placed it carefully, almost reverently, in the top drawer of his bureau. He let out a burst of relief, and realized he had been holding his breath in, with a strange little insane worry.
The earring was evidence that the previous night had really happened. He’d actually taken Jane Gordon to bed.
It was a relief to have physical proof; otherwise there was a danger that he’d dreamed the whole thing.