He had been afraid he would break down with inconsolable grief at seeing finally the indisputable evidence of Jerome’s nonexistence. He was dead. His remains were beneath the ground here.
Kit smiled. “He used to tease me,” he said, “when I came home on leave and he would have heard of yet another dispatch in which I had been singled out for commendation. I would die a gloriously heroic death, he used to say—when Mother was not around to hear him say it, of course—and there would be no living down my memory. It would be insufferable. I think it might have amused him if he could have known that he was the one destined for the heroism. And the death.”
“There are worse ways to die, Kit,” Lauren said.
“Yes, there are.” He had seen too much of death to cling to any illusion that it was reserved for old age. “Good-bye, brother. Rest in peace.”
He had to blink then, several times. And he had to release the pressure of his grip on Lauren’s shoulder. She was leaning against him. Her arm was about his waist.
Perhaps after all, he thought, he had not lost the right to grasp hold of whatever remained of life and live it to the best of his ability. Jerome had lived his life. Syd was living his. They were his brothers and he would love them both to his dying breath, but when all was said and done he could live only his own life. He had done his share of foolish, even wrong things—but who has not? He had the freedom to live on and try to do better. It was all he could do.
He felt suddenly, strangely happy.
“Let’s go home,” he said.
“Yes.”
He took her hand in his and drew it through his arm.
The afternoon brought friends and neighbors and tenants and laborers and villagers—people of all classes from miles around, in fact—to the lawns of Alvesley for a garden party that was enlivened with contests of all descriptions for all ages.
Lauren had her part to play—almost her final part—and played it to the full. While the earl and countess judged the needlework and baking and woodworking contests and the dowager listened to the poetry contestants proclaim their verses but refused to judge them because all the poems had been written in her honor—they were drawing a great deal of attention and much laughter—Lauren and Kit organized the races and other physical contests.
There were footraces and sack races and three-legged races for the children, though Kit ran the latter too with young Doris, there having been an uneven number of would-be contestants. There was a batting contest for the young boys with a cricket bat and ball. There was a wood-chopping contest for the young men and an archery contest too, though the winner of that was the sole female entrant, Lady Morgan Bedwyn, who had ridden over to Alvesley with Lord Alleyne. She would not be at the ball in the evening, she admitted haughtily when pressed, because Bewcastle had the Gothic notion that at sixteen she was too young. She threatened to put an arrow between Lord Alleyne’s eyes when he laughed.
There was tea for everyone when it was all over, and Lauren circulated among the visitors, plate in hand, making sure that she had a friendly word with almost everyone who had come. But she was feeling hot and nearly exhausted. How was she ever to find the energy to dance during the evening?
It was a feeling shared by others, it seemed. The earl, after the final visitor had left, suggested that they all retire to their rooms for a rest. He would see to it that a bell was rung loudly enough to rouse them all in time to dress for dinner and the ball.
“Come for a walk?” Kit asked Lauren, taking her hand in his.
A walk was the last thing she needed. But it was her final day and already it was late afternoon. There could be panic in the thought if she allowed herself to dwell upon it. But there was still a little time left, this evening and . . . the rest of this afternoon.
She smiled.
He did not take her far. At first when he set out in the direction of the lake she hoped that perhaps he would take her to the island again. She hoped that perhaps they would make love one more time. But although part of her longed for it, she was not sorry when he led her only as far as the secluded spot where they had stood yesterday, across from the temple. The sun was in such a position in the sky that the surrounding trees shaded the bank.
“What a busy day!” she said, sinking to the grass beside him. “I hope it will not prove too tiring for your grandmother.”
“She is lapping up every moment of it,” he said, stretching out on his back and closing his eyes.
Lauren took off her straw bonnet and lay down beside him. He felt for her hand and held it in his. It felt so natural now, she thought, to be alone together like this, and to touch each other with casual gestures of affection. And seductively comforting.
He did not want to talk, it seemed. Neither did she. She wanted to concentrate on this, perhaps their final time alone together. She wanted to memorize it so that she could call it to mind anytime she wished to in future. It was a memory she would avoid for a long time, she suspected, as being just too painful a reminder of a brief summer when life had come vividly alive and love had been born with startling unexpectedness. But eventually she would remember this lazy heat, the cool springiness of the grass, the smell of flowers, the droning of insects, the warmth of his hand.
She slept.
She swatted at the ant or whatever it was crawling across her nose and trying to wake her when she had no wish to awake. But it was a persistent insect and trailed boldly across her nose again. She brushed it away crossly and then someone chuckled softly and kissed her warmly on the lips.
“It was you!” she accused sleepily, seeing the telltale blade of grass in his upraised hand. “Horrid you.”
“There is a ball to attend, Sleeping Beauty,” he said.
“That was Cinderella.” Her eyes drifted closed again. “Wrong story. Sleeping Beauty did not attend any balls. She was allowed to sleep for a hundred years.”
“I wonder,” he said, “if she was this cross with the prince who kissed her.”
She opened her eyes and smiled at him again. “Was I really sleeping?”
“Snoring like thunder,” he said. “I could not snatch a wink myself.”
“Silly.” She sighed with contentment. For the moment she had forgotten that this was the final day.
“Lauren,” he said, “I would like to have our wedding date announced tonight.”
She was finally, irrevocably awake.
“No, Kit.”
“Why not?” he asked. “We are betrothed, and I thought you had perhaps grown fond of me—and of my family. You must know I have grown fond of you.”
“Yes.” She lifted a hand to push aside a lock of hair that had fallen over his forehead. It fell back as soon as she had removed her hand. “But it was not part of our bargain, Kit.”
“To hell with our bargain.”
“Don’t talk like that,” she said. “It is not nice language.”
“My abject apologies, ma’am.” He grinned at her. “Neither was it a part of our bargain that we indulge in carnal relations. We must marry, you know. You may very well be with child.”
“I hope I am not,” she said. “It would spoil everything. I think a wonderful thing has happened here, Kit, much more than we could ever have anticipated. I believe we have helped set each other free. Really free, not just of certain social restraints, but of all that has held us back from happiness—for years in your case, all my life in mine. We must not snare each other now before we have even had a chance to test our wings.”