To Cecilia’s surprise, her letter actually did arrive mid-morning the day after the ball, delivered by a footman in Grimsby livery. She unfolded the paper carefully and scanned the words to be sure it was her letter, then re-folded it and found it a place in her reticule where she could guard it closely.
By the time they reached the Fitzsimmons farm, though, she’d forgotten all about her letter. There was so much to take in: the main house that was larger than her cousin Philip’s home in the Cotswolds, the multitude of outbuildings, the adorable little lambs and foals, the friendliness of James’s parents.
The biggest surprise, though, was a house tucked back in a corner of the property. Two stories high and built in red brick, it drew a grin from James that was so big Cecilia thought his face might split in two.
“This one is mine,” he told her, throwing his arms wide. “The main house is where my parents lived when Father inherited this place, and where my sister and I spent our childhood. But when I came of age, I wanted something for my own.”
“It’s like a dower house,” Cecilia replied with a wink, taking his offered hand as they circled the structure. “Except that the son of the family lives here rather than the dowager.”
“Exactly. The property still officially belongs to my father, and this was a way for me to have some privacy and autonomy until the day comes when I inherit.”
He escorted her through the interior, pointing out structural features he’d requested and the decorating he’d done himself, all with that wide grin.
“It’s very cozy, James. And I don’t mean that as a euphemism for ‘small’ either—this house looks to be the same size as my home in Hanover Square. And every room feels like a place I’d enjoy spending time.” She squeezed his hand gently. “You clearly do.”
“I do,” he echoed. “My parents keep talking about moving out of the main house and giving it over to me, but I keep telling them not to. I’m more than happy here.”
They stopped before the entrance to an empty room on the ground floor, and Cecilia peered inside. “Why haven’t you furnished this room?”
“I was saving it as a sitting room for my eventual wife.”
His words were even in tone and volume, but his eyes locked onto hers as he spoke. All she could manage in response was, “Oh.” She released his hand and clasped hers together. “We probably ought to—”
“James? Are you in here?” a female voice called from the front door.
“Mother?”
Cecilia followed her husband back through the house toward the door and discovered Mrs. Fitzsimmons standing in the entry.
“There you are,” she smiled at her son. “Your steward is looking for you, and I was hoping to show Lady Cecilia some of the duties belonging to the lady of the manor.”
Cecilia shared a look with James and gave him a small nod. Finding out how the farm worked was one of the reasons she’d wanted to make this trip. “That would be lovely, Mrs. Fitzsimmons. And you must call me Cecilia. I am family now, no matter how that came to be.”
She felt warm pressure on her hand and James flashed her a smile. “I’ll leave you two, then.”
Cecilia spent the rest of the afternoon shadowing her mother-in-law as she went about her daily routine. As James had told her at Orchard Lake, there was little difference between running a large farm and a small estate. The Fitzsimmons farm employed fewer servants inside the house than Alston did at any one of his country estates, but they’re number included the usual housekeeper and butler, along with a variety of maids and a few footmen. The kitchen garden was larger than Cecilia’s in Town and Mrs. Fitzsimmons was more involved with the care of hers than Cecilia, but that, too, was familiar.
“All these years I thought being a farmer’s wife would be completely foreign to me,” Cecilia smiled after they’d gone over the dinner menu with the cook. “Yet, the things you’ve shown me here today are the things I do in my own home.”
“It was different for James’s great-grandparents,” Mrs. Fitzsimmons responded. “The farm was smaller then, and so was the income it produced. They employed one maid-of-all-work and a few field hands, but that was all. When I married Mr. Fitzsimmons, I thought that’s what I was walking into, myself.”
“Were you terrified?”
Mrs. Fitzsimmons giggled. “I was. My mother-in-law had gone on to her reward before I came here, and Mr. Fitzsimmons’s grandmother was in ill health, so I had no one to show me what to do.”
“I would have been overwhelmed,” Cecilia said softly.
“Oh no,” Mrs. Fitzsimmons replied quickly. “I am a gentleman’s daughter and managed without too much trouble. You, having been raised in grander circumstances than I, would have made this house your own in short order.”
“I suppose I would have.” She glanced around Mrs. Fitzsimmons’s sitting room with its oak escritoire and chairs upholstered in powder blue, thinking of that empty room in James’s house. Would she choose different fabric for her chairs? A different wood for her writing desk? Would James sit with her in the evenings and discuss the day’s business while she embroidered?
“Thank you for taking me under your wing,” Cecilia smiled. “If there is nothing else for today, I believe I’ll lie down for a while before dinner. For all the traveling I do, I still haven’t managed to learn how to sleep well in the carriage.”
“Of course. Do you remember the way?”
“I can just follow the path, can’t I?”
Mrs. Fitzsimmons’s eyes widened. “Yes, if you were going to James’s house. Your chamber is upstairs. We assumed that since yours was a marriage of convenience...”
“I see. Well, then, upstairs I shall go.”
There was an unexpected twist. After spending weeks upon weeks with James—including a few coaching inns with only one room available—she was to finally have her privacy back.
But did she want it?
~*~
James lay in bed that night and tried to sleep, but his eyes remained open and his mind alert. He thought that, between the fitful sleep he managed traveling from London and tramping all around the farm this afternoon, he’d be falling asleep in his supper. But here he was in his own bed at last, with the familiar sounds of his home around him, and he remained wide awake.
“Well, if I’m not going to sleep, then I should do something useful,” he said aloud, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He found a pair of trousers to put on and grabbed a clean shirt from his clothespress, pulling it on as he moved through the moonlit house. A pair of thick stockings his mother had knitted for him completed his ensemble and warmed his icy feet.
He decided to tackle the pile of correspondence that had piled up in his absence, taking out a fresh sheet of paper as he opened the topmost letter. Before he could read a word, he was startled by a noise at the front of the house.
Was someone knocking?
When he opened the door, he was greeted by the sight of his wife bundled in what his mother liked to call a wrapper, her bright hair hanging in a thick braid over her shoulder.
“Cecilia? What are you doing here at this time of night?”
“Perhaps we could discuss it inside? Spring may have come to England, but you’d never know it this night.”
He shook himself and held the door wider for her. “Of course. I’m afraid the only fire laid is in my bedchamber, though. Do you mind talking there?”
She smirked at him as she entered the house, twining her arm around his. “How scandalous, Mr. Fitzsimmons! Whatever will the neighbors think if they find out?”
“Let us hope we never have to find out,” he replied with mock seriousness. “This way, my lady.”
When she was seated before the fire and suitably comfortable, James tried again. “To what do I owe this pleasure, wife?”
“Is it a pleasure, husband?” she asked softly.
How was he supposed to answer that? “I have only spent two days with you that were not somehow pleasurable: the day you refused my proposal, and the day you proposed to me.”
“Do you mean that?”
The firelight was flickering over her face, illuminating it one moment and plunging it into shadow the next, making it difficult to read her expression. There was no other chair in the room for him to sit in, so he knelt before her and took her hands in his.
“Yes.”
She let out a breath as if she’d been holding it, awaiting his answer. “Do you think... Do you think we might have more pleasurable days together?”
His mouth pulled into a wide grin. “I certainly hope so.” Her answering grin made his heart flutter in his chest.
“Good. Because I believe we’ve been given a second chance, my love, and I am loath to squander it. Lying in bed tonight, it was all I could think about. Now that you’re back in your own home and the farm is safe, you don’t need me any longer. My letter is returned and my brother spared the stress of a scandal, so I don’t need you any longer, either.”
James felt his face fall. Could she see his disappointment in the dark room? “I suppose not,” he replied, keeping his voice as neutral as he was able.
She squeezed his hands and drew them into her lap. “But just because we are no longer dependent upon each other doesn’t mean this is the end of our relationship.”
“Do you want this to be the end?” He couldn’t keep the emotion out of his voice now. Not when his future was being decided, when her chilly hands were warming his very heart.
“No,” she said resolutely, releasing his hands and fished around in the pocket of her wrapper. When her hand emerged, it was holding a folded letter with her own faded handwriting. “But I don’t think we can have this again, either.”
He took the letter when she offered it, sitting back on his heels as his eyes roaming over the old paper. It was a letter she’d written to him during their courtship, not long before he’d asked for her hand, filled with florid descriptions of her love and longing for him. He remembered penning similar letters to her, and how he ached for her when they were apart for more than a few moments.
“I believe you’re right about this,” he said, gesturing with the letter. “This is not who we are anymore.”
“Precisely. But my dearest James, we’ve already begun forging a new path—together—and I want very much to continue along it with you. Will you stay with me, and remain my husband?”
“On one condition.”
He heard her suck in a breath. “What?”
“That you move into this house with me for the remainder of our stay here. We may no longer be young, but I still miss you when we’re apart.”
She slid from her seat and caught him in a warm embrace. “I believe I can meet that condition.”
She kissed him then, with such enthusiasm that the pair of them toppled over. James couldn’t stop the laughter, but wrapped his arms around his wife sprawled atop him and managed a few more kisses.
“I love you, Cecilia Fitzsimmons. I have since the day I first laid eyes on you, and I always will.”
She rubbed her nose against his, then claimed his lips once more. “And I love you, James Fitzsimmons. I have made some mistakes along the way, and we have had more than our share of heartbreak because of it. But I promise to keep loving you as best I can for as long as I live.”
She bent to kiss him again and he rolled them over, propping himself up on one elbow as he looked down into her eyes. “I will hold you to that promise, wife of mine.”
Cecilia’s answering smile shone almost brighter than the fire. She ran her fingers through his hair and massaged his neck. “You’d better.”
Later, when they were cuddled up together in James’s bed, Cecilia planted a kiss on his shoulder. “How are we going to manage this?”
“I thought we managed rather well,” he grinned back.
To his delight, she laughed. “Yes, I think we did. But that’s not what I meant. We have two different lives; yours is here, while mine is mostly in London. I’m happy to spend time here, of course, but you’ve been so anxious leaving the farm in someone else’s hands.”
He took a deep breath, studying his wife as she braced her arms on his chest and pushed herself up. She’d spent her share of time in the country, and he had no doubt she’d be happy here. But she’d been so at home in London, and he knew how much she enjoyed the whirl of the social season.
“The steward acquitted himself decently,” James allowed, brushing her long hair behind her shoulder. “With Father here to keep an eye on him, I could steel my nerves enough to leave the farm.”
“Truly?”
The hope in her eyes helped him warm to the idea. “Certainly. We can make our home here most of the year and spend the summer in Town for the Season. It’s a bit far from your brother, but not prohibitively so.”
What he didn’t say was that, if Cecilia were summoned to Alston’s death bed, she might not make it in time from the Fitzsimmons farm. But he suspected she already realized that. And she might be too far away no matter where—or with whom—she was.
“Sounds like you’ve put some thought into this plan of yours.” She caressed his cheek with her fingertips. “Thank you for that.”
“What will it be, then, my lady? Can you see your way to a rural life?”
He held his breath, not even caring how obvious it was with her lying on his chest.
“How could I not?” she said, smiling softly in the firelight. I’ve waited all these years for a second chance with you, my love. I’m not about to let you go now.”
James wrapped Cecilia in his arms and kissed her hair. “That, my dear, is music to my ears.”