Come into the garden, Maud,
For the black bat, night, has flown,
Come into the garden, Maud,
I am here at the gate alone.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Maud (1855)
‘Where are we going?’ Maud asked in a whisper.
Dominic chuckled. ‘You’ll see.’
He took a hand as he led her through the woods.
Owls hooted in darkness. The trees in the dim light appeared quite black, twisted monstrous shapes, but Maud was not afraid, not with Dominic holding her hand so snugly. The moon was full and he carried a lamp, too, as they made their way along the woodland path. Moths danced beside them, attracted by its glow.
‘We’re almost there,’ he told her. He stopped and raised her hand to his lips. He kissed her palm, then her inner wrist.
Maud shivered.
He drew her into his arms. ‘Are you cold?’
‘Not at all,’ she murmured against his chest. ‘Just a little impatient. It feels like I have waited for you for ever.’
It was a relief, to have those feelings. She had been so afraid that her desires would have been tainted, ruined in some way. But they had not been stolen from her.
Dominic tipped up her chin and claimed her lips. His mouth told her more clearly than words that he, too, was impatient. She wound her hands around his neck and told him in the same mode that she had been virtuously restrained long enough and that now was her wedding night.
‘I don’t want you to think I would treat you the way you were treated before,’ he’d told her on the day he’d given her an engagement ring.
‘I know you would never do that,’ she had replied. Yet there had been some nerves she’d been unable to deny to herself.
But now the insidious fear Lord Melville had sown was quite swamped with desire for her husband. And he wanted her to wait, even now! Oh, it was enough to make a respectable governess develop all kinds of notions.
He drew back, disentangling her hands from about his neck. His fingers brushed the ring. It was made of diamonds with an emerald in the centre. He’d said it reminded him of her eyes, save it could never be so beautiful. She wore a golden wedding band now, too. When he’d slipped it on to her finger in the village church, she knew she had never imagined such happiness. She hadn’t expected there to be more to follow.
‘Tell me where we are going,’ she pleaded again.
His smile gleamed in the moonlight. ‘It’s a further adventure for Princess Swallowtail and the White Admiral.’
She laughed.
‘You’re the one who is making up the stories now,’ she teased him.
‘Not far now.’ He took her hand. ‘Are you sure you don’t want a honeymoon in a distant land? It was your dream to be an explorer, after all.’
‘Cornwall proved to be adventure enough,’ she told him. ‘Does that count?’
‘I believe it does.’
They walked on, in silence.
Then he stopped. ‘We are almost at the place where we found the White Admiral. Do you remember?’
She nodded.
‘I wanted to kiss you then,’ he told her.
‘You did?’
‘Indeed. That’s why I’ve brought you here tonight. To finish what we started.’
Her pulse fluttered.
He tightened his grip.
‘I can see a light. There, just by the path,’ she said, peering ahead.
He let go of her hand and indicated the path. ‘Follow the fairy lanterns. They’ll guide your way.’
She glanced up at him, trying to read his face, but it was in shadow.
She took a step, then another. More tiny lanterns appeared, some set by the path, others hanging from trees. Their flames flickered slightly in the breeze, sending ripples of dim light through the forest, shifting shadows, bringing the woods to life as if touched by magic. Moths fluttered. Maud continued, hearing the tread of beloved footsteps behind her, her shoes sure on the leafy lamplit path.
She had slipped off her satin slippers before she left the house and put on her walking shoes, but she still wore her blue stockings beneath her dress. She’d also thrown a shawl over her shoulders against the night air. Now it slid down. She let it fall over her elbows as she stepped onwards through the magic of the forest, not in the least cold.
‘Maud.’
She paused at the low voice behind her, looked enquiringly over her shoulder.
‘Allow me.’ Dominic stepped a pace ahead and lifted a bough so that she could pass underneath.
‘Oh!’ Maud cried.
A glade in the forest opened up before her, twinkling with a hundred little lanterns. She gasped again as she recognised it. It was the dell in which they had caught the elusive Admiral.
But the glade looked quite different now and not just because of the lanterns in the night. Erected in the centre of the dell was a beautiful tented pavilion, made of white silk. Ribbons flowed from it.
‘It’s like a fairy tale,’ she whispered.
‘I wanted tonight to be a fairy tale for you,’ he said. ‘The beginning of your happily-ever-after.’
‘It is a fairy tale. It’s better than a fairy tale,’ she said. She could not believe he had thought of something so beautiful for her, he, a practical man who built railways.
‘You will have no nightmares, I trust, sleeping out of doors.’
‘I don’t think I will have nightmares ever again,’ she said, honestly. ‘Not with you sleeping beside me.’
‘Then I must always sleep beside you. And you’re safe here. I hope you know that.’
‘I do.’ It was a sanctuary within a sanctuary in Pendragon Woods. ‘This place has not been ruined for me.’
She refused to allow it.
‘You don’t need any more time,’ he confirmed.
‘Only time with you.’
The silence that she valued as much as words hung between them.
‘I want us to make new memories,’ he said at last. ‘Come inside.’
He lifted the silken door.
She ducked her head and entered.
The ground, too, had been covered in silk. Downy mattresses and pillows had been heaped to make a snowy bed.
Saffron was sprinkled over the covers. The tiny strands of orange-red stigma seemed to set the white counterpane alight. The whole bed seemed to glimmer with a strange fiery light, as if covered with fireflies.
‘Look up,’ he told her.
She looked up to see that the roof of the silk pavilion was made of netting. Through it, she could see stars winking down between stirring leaves. Moths of brown, white and grey, their wings silvered, danced over the sheer rooftop.
‘I didn’t bring my butterfly net!’ she exclaimed with a soft laugh.
His grin flashed.
‘That’s most remiss of a governess,’ he drawled. ‘We shall have to explore other pastimes.’
‘Shall we?’
‘Indeed.’ He took her in his arms.
‘They’re drawn to the light,’ he murmured. ‘Shall I put out the lamp?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘You want to see the moths?’
She twined her hands around him. ‘I want you to see me. I want to see you.’
He studied her face.
‘Are you sure?’
She nodded.
‘Then I shall release you from your cocoon.’
His smile gleamed in the low light and his lips descended upon hers. Then his fingers were upon the butterfly buttons. One by one, she felt them give way.
Maud shivered—not with fear.
With love.
And she was free.