Jacques had telephoned to say he would drive to Crowhurst to see me. I wanted to tell him so much, to see him here, on English soil. I was nearly hysterical with joy and went on and on at first as to how grateful I was he was safe, was here . . .
“Dearest,” he interrupted me. “We have been apart too long for too many damned reasons. Just give me the directions for when I get close, and I will be there as soon as I can.”
I explained the twists and turns of the lane, then made him promise to drive carefully. He laughed. “If I told you the places I have been and things I have done these last few years, you would not worry for a motorcar drive to peaceful Surrey. Your father gave me the directions out of London—twice—but I needed to know which lane to turn in, that is all. If I could, I would fly and drop myself right in by parachute, but I hear there are no good farmer’s mown fields nearby. I will see you soon, hold you soon, my too-long long-distance love.”
And he was gone—but coming soon. I paced a rut in the flagstone floors waiting, waiting after all this time. I walked outside in the brisk autumn afternoon air, then back inside, out again. I had forgotten to so much as get a warm wrap, so went back in and up to my bedroom and stared at myself in the mirror, still hearing his words, his lovely voice in any language, for we had spoken in English just now.
Give me the directions . . . when I get close, he had said. What direction would our lives take? I had felt he was close to me for years, for so many difficult years, and now it was almost real.
Here I was forty years old, and he forty-nine. I had several silver strands in my dark hair and worry lines at the edges of my eyes. How would he look after the horror of the war? We both had long lives behind us but what was ahead?
I went back downstairs to rearrange the bowls of asters and dahlias yet again. “Mrs. Marlborough?” Hatherly called, coming in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. She knew to get right in front of me when we talked. “You be sure you want me to go, and you do the serving and all for your guest? You can just leave the dishes.”
“Perhaps I shall. Yes, I will be fine and thank you for preparing that lovely shepherd’s pie, salad, and trifle.”
“All right then. Be here tomorrow afternoon.”
“I do not know what I would do without you,” I said, and gave her a quick hug.
Beaming, she went out the back door. I saw her go by the window, as she rode a bicycle and had only two farmhouses to go to her big family, though she lived here. But she was grateful for the time away because her father was ill.
I don’t know what I would do without you, my own words rang in my ears. How had I done without a man to love all these years since, well, since I lost Win? And that was girlhood infatuation. Papa had mentioned that Win had been married for years. But there were big barriers to Jacques and I really being together, at least as man and wife. I was sure he wanted that and I did, too.
It was perhaps the one hundredth time I glanced out toward the lane when I saw a small, black roadster pull in. Yes. Yes!
I ran outside, trembling, fighting tears. Jacques leaped out so fast he did not close the motorcar door. We came together hard, and he picked me off my feet and spun me.
“Thank God, thank God you are safe and here!” I cried.
“My love. I want this dance for the rest of our lives.” He put me down and kissed me so hard I could not breathe. I clung to him, kissing him back. I was dizzy with joy, dizzy with love as we finally stepped apart and studied each other.
He looked thinner, and his hairline had receded a bit. Crow’s-feet perched in the corners of his eyes, and little shadows etched them deeper. He had a single slash of a white scar on his forehead that had not been there before. But nothing mattered except that we were together.
He picked me up again, slammed the motorcar door with his foot and carried me over the threshold as if we were newlyweds. This was real. This was real!
IN A GOLDEN splash of sun through the big oriel window, we talked for hours, holding hands, kissing, perhaps unbelieving we were really together and no one had to rush away.
“Yes, my love, I admit I was in great danger more than once,” he answered my repeated question he had shrugged off at first. “I flew over German troop movements when night was falling on the evening before the Battle of the Marne. I was able to give French and British troops information about German general Alexander von Kluck’s advance, and that helped us give the Huns a devastating defeat.”
We clinked our wine goblets to that.
“I was promoted to colonel after that and oversaw a group of scout aeroplanes,” he went on, his eyes so intense that I thought he must be seeing scenes in his mind. “It was when I received that command that I sent you the short letter, about my past, my marriage. I wanted you to know everything, to understand—even if I did not come back.”
“And my father said you did more than all that. He told me he had wanted the Americans to get into the war even when the president and Congress were dragging their feet. He said when some American aviators wanted to help out and were rebuffed at first by France, you said they should be able to contribute.”
“True,” he said, putting his goblet down and tightening his grip on my hand. “But he perhaps left out two things. One, I only convinced my superiors to let the American pilots in when we French lost so many men and aeroplanes. And second, your father donated $20,000 to the support of what we called your Yank flyers, the Lafayette Escadrille. I honor your father as someone who may have inherited his fortune, but who uses it for the good of mankind—as well as for the good of his sons and his beautiful daughter. And the fact you are an heiress has nothing to do with my devotion to and passion for you. I must soon become the chairman of the Balsan family business and will need to serve as director of other companies.”
“I never thought you were after Vanderbilt money, unlike a certain duke I could name. I know your family is wealthy, too. I vow, I never even considered that.”
“I like that—I vow. Let’s work on that, now that I have lived through that damned war and you a difficult marriage and lonely, long separation. And you understand about my earlier marriage and dissolution, then?”
“I am hardly one to criticize anyone for a forced marriage.”
“Yes, that, but yours was not your fault, so your father tells me. But now we must decide how to proceed about us, if you are willing.”
“More than willing!”
“I will remember those words, too! I am hungry for our time together, for you.”
“Oh, the food!” I cried, shifting forward on the sofa to jump up. “What if it is all burned or dried? I must rewarm things and feed you, for you have lost a bit of weight!”
“Rewarming things—everything you say, my sweetheart—has me thinking of other things,” he teased and patted my bum as I rose to go to the kitchen. I wanted to feed him well, but I could hardly wait until the meal was over.
AFTER OUR SIMPLE, yet somehow sumptuous meal—how wonderfully normal to share food together—Jacques built a fire, and we sat on the sofa, looking at the leaping flames and each other.
“I should bring in my satchel from the motorcar,” he said. “I even brought you a gift I almost forgot about.”
“Hm, something wool from your family’s textile business for this chilly weather?”
“You will not be cold, I promise. No, a piece of jewelry I should have brought in with me, an antique piece that was my paternal grandmother’s. An overture to an engagement ring, someday, yes?”
“Yes!”
“Then just one moment,” he added and popped up to go out into the darkness and back in with a battered-looking satchel he dug inside of.
To my amazement, he went down on one knee. “How could I forget I meant to give you this? Sacre bleu, it is your fault for being the ultimate distraction.”
I knew Frenchmen were skilled at lovely words and at love, but I was so certain this man meant everything from his heart. The pin was stunning, oval-shaped, all graceful golden filigree scrollwork with two emeralds in the center. And then I saw the scrollwork was of two clasped hands. Tears blinded me before I blinked.
“It is just beautiful!”
“Perfect then. We will face a common future, get the path cleared so that we may be together for whatever days the good Lord gives us for the rest of our lives.”
I nodded wildly as he pressed the pin into my hands and pulled me to my feet. His arms went around me. I embraced him and held hard. He lifted and carried me up the stairs to my room and slowly, sweetly undressed me as if we had world enough and time, as if we were starting all over again, young and in love, dancing, spinning around . . .
As he made delicate yet deliberate love to me, I realized I had never been really physically loved before. Taken but not loved and adored. Slow, sweet but with leashed passion. So intimate that it seemed to me we became one in more than two bodies uniting. Time stopped, though I wanted to remember and cherish each moment.
After, exhausted, we slept naked together under the covers, huddled close on our sides, as if I sat in his lap. I felt so safe, so alive. And so loved. It was what my wedding night and marriage had never been, a mutual giving of pleasure and trust.
But when I turned to him to tell him so, he kissed me again and ravished my senses.
WE COULD NOT bear to part, so I left my motorcar at Crowhurst, and we drove back into London together, laying plans.
“I know who I will try to get for a divorce attorney,” I told him. “Sir Edward Carson was H. H. Asquith’s attorney general and knows Winston, too, as they have both served in admiralty offices. I have met him at several parties, and he is most impressive.”
“But is Winston to be trusted since he is the duke’s cousin?”
“Absolutely. He has stuck with me and will be your friend, too. After my father and you, I would trust Winston Churchill anytime, anyplace. Sir Edward has a fine reputation and, I hear, is sharp-witted and sharp-tongued. A terror in the courtroom, Winston told me once.”
“Which will make the duke back off?”
“Encourage him to cooperate at least. I think he would have given me the heave-ho, as we Americans say, long ago but for Vanderbilt money. He has carried on an affair with a woman who had been a friend to me for nearly ten years. Since her goal in life is to be the Duchess of Marlborough, and she holds some sway over him, she will be on my side.”
“But can he afford to lose Vanderbilt money for that huge place?”
“Our financial marriage agreement states that he will still receive some funds. But everyone says property and death taxes are going up and up, and the duke is land poor, but I shall leave that up to Sir Edward and my father. Perhaps Blenheim should have paying guests to see its grandeur—ha.”
“Now that is who I would trust with anything—your father.”
I turned to him on the slick leather seat. A bit of rain was starting to spatter on the windscreen. “And I am betting, my dear Jacques, that Papa would trust you with anything, too—including me. He is greatly to be thanked for keeping us in touch through hard times, isn’t he?”
He nodded but kept his eyes on the wet pavement. “And I suppose, since you say you are getting on better with your mother lately, we shall thank her, too, for bringing you to that debutante ball years ago, or I never would have seen you, we never would have danced—and declared we must fight to be together. Consuelo, my love, that fight is not over, for I still do not trust the duke, and I hear a woman seeking a divorce can be shunned and banned.”
“Yes, but times for women here are changing. Besides, I did not closely observe my clever steamroller of a mother for nothing all these years,” I assured him. “Sunny wants my permission for our heir Bert, dear Blandford, to wed a girl not yet twenty and needs my permission for that and for us to present a united front when we attend the wedding. Also, I have kept up a correspondence with the dowager queen Alexandra, and I am sure I can talk her into attending their wedding, hopefully to bring King George and Queen Mary with her, and that would mean the world to the duke. Oh, he owes me in so many ways.”
“Ah, I am dealing with a Machiavelli!”
“Best remember that, my man. I hope to get what I want against stiff odds, and get you, too.”
“I surrender.”
I started to laugh but screamed, too, when a bolt of lightning and a huge crack of thunder came close as if in fierce punctuation. Jacques stomped on the brake pedal as a tree crashed down before us on the road and we swerved sideways.
“Are you all right, sweetheart?” he asked, after bringing the roadster to a skidding stop. “We shall get around that obstacle, too. And the fact it missed us—that is a sign we are on the right road, yes?”
We were both shaking, but I managed, “Together, yes!”