MRS. ENGLEWOOD SET THE GLASS ASIDE, and exhaled from parted lips. Those lips were quite red, her breath just noticeably uneven. The sight and the barely audible sound of it made Ralston’s body tighten rather pleasurably. He shifted in his chair.
She, on the edge of the bed, sat straighter, as if better posture would cut the sudden tension in the room. But it only drew his attention to her beautiful neck, above the collar of her nightgown and the lapels of her dressing robe—then down to her bare feet on the carpet, the most substantial evidence that she had indeed meant to take him to bed, for a lady’s feet were never bared except in the most intimate of circumstances.
She arched one foot, her instep high and shapely. He had a vision of himself holding that foot, holding both her feet, in fact, one in each hand, drawing them apart—
He rose before his thoughts could get away from him and replenished her glass. She murmured a “Thank you,” as her toes delved rather deeply into the fibers of the carpet. The strain in the tendons of her foot made him tighten further. He pulled in a deep breath as he sat down again, trying not to dwell on unprofitable notions.
She needed a friend, not a lover.
“Do you remember what you said to me when we first met—that you are interested in my story?” she asked, returning his attention to the conversation.
“Yes?”
“Why are you interested in a story that you could already tell was full of torment, as writ large on my face?”
Because I recognized your grief, he wanted to answer, as if it were my old friend, too.
But he could not quite bring himself to say it, so he shrugged.
“I see,” she said, narrowing her eyes slightly. “Do you know now, Captain Englewood sometimes came home aching from a day in the saddle—and wanting to be fussed over. But he could never tolerate the sound of himself complaining, so his devoted wife had to deduce where and how much he hurt and then pamper him accordingly.”
She was more perceptive than he had given her credit for. “Are you suggesting, Mrs. Englewood, that I have the appearance of a man staggering across the threshold, groaning?”
“No, I am suggesting that you have the appearance of an otherwise stoic man who is perhaps ill-served by his stoicism. And now allow me to be like that fictional detective—what is his name?”
“Sherlock Holmes.”
“Indeed, I will be Mr. Holmes and divine the story of your life. And if I am right, you have but to take a sip of your wine.”
“And you, will you drink when you are wrong?”
“I shall take the liberty to imbibe either way—it is an excellent night to be tipsy, perhaps even outright intoxicated.”
As if to underscore her point, she drank from her glass, then focused her attention on him. He did not fail to notice the quick blinking of her eyes, which happened almost every time she looked full-on at him—she still had to make an effort to untangle him from her Fitz. It was an odd feeling: whether anyone cared for his face or not, he’d never been consistently mistaken for someone else. Particularly not in such a manner as to yank the beholder’s emotions left and right, for he could see them on her face: confusion, a flicker of involuntary hope, then resignation, the three bundled now in such a tight package that they were but one fleet shadow upon her face, chased away the next moment by a conscious resolve on her part to appear normal and unaffected.
She touched the rim of her glass to her chin. “The color of your complexion indicates that you have been abroad a great deal in hot, sunny places.”
He took a sip. “Good, but a low hanging fruit. What else can you guess?”
“You have been to India.”
He obliged with another sip. “That fruit was so low it had already landed on the grass and been pecked over by all the birds of the orchard.”
“North Africa, too.”
“Slightly less low hanging. Logical deduction, or lucky guess?”
“Somewhere in between. Let’s see. You are not a member of the diplomatic corps—these gentlemen do not go out in the sun much.”
“Indeed I am not.”
“And you are not a soldier. I have been around a great number of those; I can tell one from a furlong away.”
“Not a soldier.”
She blew out a breath. “It is the end of low-hanging fruits as we know them. Now I must actually climb the tree—or shake the branches awfully hard. Do you happen to be an adventurer?”
“No.”
“I have no other ready guesses. What are you then?”
“I am a cartographer.”
She sucked in a breath. “All the mapmakers I have met are secretly spies.”
“Not surprising, given that mapmakers who pass through military cantonments are likely in the employ of the empire. But mapmaking also has legitimate civilian uses. No construction of roads, railroads, and canals can proceed until those in charge have the most accurate maps possible.”
“I don’t doubt that, but what are you?”
“Not a spy,” he answered honestly. “Though I will admit, on certain expeditions the local embassy has been known to insert one or two gentlemen as ‘observers’. Those gentlemen, I imagine, are indeed spies—or at least better trained in covert arts than I.”
“I’m surprised the spymasters didn’t exert greater pressure on you to swell their ranks. They are not always scrupulous in their recruitment methods.”
“I am lucky: I can name myself the Duke of Perrin’s heir.”
Her eyes widened. Most ladies, upon learning that he was in line to inherit a title, glowed with greater interest. Her reaction, however, was all alarm. “Are you? I hope you will be one of the more fortunate peers who will not need to marry an heiress to keep a roof over your head.”
“Thankfully, the Perrin estate has always been in excellent repair—not to mention the current duchess is a very wealthy woman.”
She exhaled and raised her wineglass. “A toast then: to becoming a duke without becoming a pauper.”
Wine seemed to affect her swiftly. Her cheeks were already flushed, a flirtatious shade of pink, like that of a woman freshly pleasured. “A toast,” he echoed and drank deeply.
No one ever said being a gentleman didn’t have its costs.
“So…” She twirled the stem of her wineglass. “Have you been overseas so diligently to avoid the scheming mamas?”
She winked at him. All of a sudden he saw her as the girl she must have been once, bursting with vitality and thirst for life, ready to make her mark on the world.
Abruptly her expression turned somber. “No, no, what was I saying? Of course you haven’t been running away from the matchmakers. You have been running from something else altogether—that which you could not bring yourself to speak of earlier.”
HE DID NOT SAY ANYTHING. He didn’t know whether he wouldn’t or couldn’t.
This time, it was Mrs. Englewood who rose, lifted the wine bottle by its neck, and refilled his glass. The hem of her dressing robe brushed against his trousers as she sat down in the chair next to his.
“As a rule I don’t pry,” she said, her voice quiet and solemn. “But I don’t believe you came here to not speak of it. So if you will forgive me, whom did you lose?”
He breathed hard. To calm himself, perhaps—or to hungrily inhale her faint scent of fresh rose petals.
“Is it a lady?” she asked, her instinct unerring.
It was a long time, or at least it seemed so, before he could nod.
“What is her name?”
Now he had no choice but to speak. “Charlotte,” he said, his voice sounding almost rusty. “Her name was Charlotte Fitzwilliam.”
She flinched a little at his use of the past tense. “Your wife?”
“Yes.”
“Were you married long?”
He shook his head. “Three months.”
Two of them absolutely glorious, the last filled with despair and denial. He’d remained by her bedside almost every minute of the day, holding her hand, trying to keep himself together, unable to comprehend the possibility that he might become a widower at twenty-two.
“When she died, I refused to let her body be prepared for burial. I had to be forcibly removed, shouting at the top of my lungs that putting her into a coffin would suffocate her and I would never allow it.”
He looked at Mrs. Englewood and attempted to smile. “So you see, your action can never compare to mine, when it comes to grief-driven irrationality.”
Her eyes glimmered—her tears were again gathering. She rested her hand on his cheek. “I’m so sorry this happened to you.”
He placed his hand over hers. And now that he started speaking, he couldn’t shut up. “Do you know what I regret? Mrs. Fitzwilliam wanted to visit the Faroe Islands during our honeymoon. She’d read all about their misty greenery and those brightly painted houses against a gray Atlantic. But we married in October. I told her the weather would be harsh so late in the year and promised to take her the next summer.”
But Charlotte had not lived to see the next summer. “I went myself—it was an almost eerily beautiful place. I should have taken her that October, so she’d have had her heart’s wish.”
Seven years had passed, but that regret had remained as constant as the sea.
Mrs. Englewood cupped his face with both hands. “No.”
He stared at her, not sure what she meant.
She gazed into his eyes, her own swimming with unshed tears. “I cannot speak for Mrs. Fitzwilliam, but I don’t believe she minded the Faroe Islands. I have always wanted to go to Mykonos and Captain Englewood had promised me he would take me there someday. He died before we could go and I would have gladly given up all chances of ever visiting Mykonos if it would have saved my husband—or just kept him on this earth for a few more hours, to say a proper goodbye.
“So if Mrs. Fitzwilliam had any regrets, it would be that the rest of her life was too short to spend with you—because that was her heart’s desire, not the Faroe Islands, and not anything else.”
Tears slipped down her cheeks. The strangest feeling overtook him. It was a few seconds before he realized that he had a lump in his throat.
“You did say a proper goodbye to him,” he told her. “He went to his rest knowing that he had the love of his wife and children. It would have been more than good enough for me.”
Her lips parted in a slow smile, even as another drop of tear made its way down her cheek. “Thank you.”
He touched his thumb to her cheek, wiping away her tears. Then, to his shock, he realized she was doing the same to him: The tears that had eluded him all these years were falling freely.
And through his tears, she was as beautiful as a dream.
Almost without thinking, he pulled her to him and kissed her.
IT WAS A SWEET KISS, almost like a whispered “thank you” in the ear, a squeeze of the hand, or an umbrella held out in a downpour.
Sweet and brief.
When they pulled apart, Mr. Fitzwilliam did not apologize or explain himself—he had done exactly what he meant to, it seemed, and no words were needed. For a few seconds, they existed in perfect camaraderie, her hand on his cheek, and his hand on hers, two friends who had shared the most intimate details of the heart.
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.”
“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 brush 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.”