“Stay a little longer,” he said. “A week. Give me one week to persuade you. Don’t leave tomorrow, Lauren. It is too soon.”
“I have accomplished everything I came here to do,” she said. “And I have had my adventure, my summer to remember. There is no good reason to prolong it and every reason to end it. It is time, Kit. You will soon realize it for yourself.”
“Stay,” he urged her, “until we know for sure whether or not you are with child.”
“If I am,” she said just as coolly as before, “I will write to you immediately. If I am not, I will write to cancel our betrothal. I will wait until I know, Kit. I can do that just as easily at Newbury. And I really believe I am not. There were only two occasions, after all.”
One. There had been only one occasion when she might have conceived. “I hope you are,” he said, gripping her hand even more tightly. “I hope you are with child.” Did he? Was he so desperate that he wanted her to be coerced?
“Why?” she asked.
Because I love you. Because I cannot bear the thought of life lived without you. But he could not hang that albatross about her neck. It would be horribly unfair. She might somehow feel honor-bound to stay with him, to marry him, to give up the life she dreamed of, now so close to being in her grasp.
“It is because you have . . . possessed me, is it not?” she said. “As a gentleman you feel you must persuade me to marry you at all costs. There is no need—not unless I am with child. It was not seduction. What I did, I did freely. It was part of the adventure, part of the memorable summer. I will never regret it. I will always be glad that I—that I know. And that it was with you. And that it was so . . . wonderful. But you owe me nothing, certainly not a lifetime of devotion. You are free, Kit. So am I. Free!”
She made freedom sound like the most desirable state of the human condition. He might have agreed with her a month or so ago.
He tasted defeat. How could he argue against a plea for freedom?
“There is nothing I can say to change your mind, then?” he asked.
“No.”
He lifted her hand, set his forehead against it, drew a slow breath.
“Thank you,” he said. “For all you have done for me and my family, thank you, Lauren. You have been sweetness and patience and generosity and unfailing dignity.”
“And thank you.” She set her free hand on his arm. “For my adventure, Kit. For the swimming and riding and tree-climbing. For the—for the laughter. And for persuading Grandpapa to tell me the truth about my mother. That is a more precious gift than I can put into words. Thank you.”
He felt her lips against his cheek and fought the urge to pull her into his arms, to use his superior physical strength, to flatly refuse to let her go—ever.
“Tomorrow morning, then?” he said, his eyes tightly closed. “We will need to be cheerful, will we not? Regretful for the brief parting, but cheerful because wedding plans are being set in motion. Basically cheerful, yes. I’ll kiss you, I believe. On the lips. It will seem appropriate.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “There will be others gathered to see us on our way, I daresay. There will be others watching.”
“But now,” he said, bringing her hand to his lips, “we are alone together. For the last time. Good-bye, then, my friend. Good-bye, Lauren.”
“Oh, my dear,” she said, and for the first time it seemed to him that her voice faltered and emotion crept in. “Good-bye. Have a good life. I will always remember you with—with deep affection.”
He stood there for several silent moments, his back to the house, his eyes closed, her hand to his lips, memorizing the feel and the soap fragrance of her and the gentle aura she seemed to cast about him, before escorting her back for what remained of the birthday ball.
Chapter 22
Summer had lingered on through the hot, lazy days of August and well into September. But it was finally giving place to autumn, it seemed. There was a distinct chill in the air and clouds were gathering overhead, low and heavy. It was going to rain.
She was in the very worst place she could be on such a day, Lauren thought. She was on the beach at Newbury Abbey. Not only on the beach, but perched on the very top of the great rock that appeared for all the world as if a giant must once have hurled it there from the cliffs above to land in the middle of the wide expanse of golden sand. She was sitting with a cloak wrapped warmly about her, her arms clasping her updrawn knees beneath its folds. But she was hatless—her bonnet lay at the foot of the rock, wedged into a narrow cranny with her gloves, where they would not blow away. The wind—no, it was more like a gale—whipped her hair back from her face and tasted of salt. The sea, on the ebb and halfway out along the sand, was slate gray and rough and flecked with angry white foam.
She was feeling almost happy. She allowed herself the qualifier of almost because she had accepted the fact that self-deception was also self-destructive. She would not deceive herself any more or hide behind any mask in an attempt to shield herself from the reality of her life.
Hence the beach, which she had never liked until recently, especially on a wild day. And hence her perch on top of the rock, which she had never climbed before today. Climbing it had been forbidden when she was a child, and so of course both Neville and Gwen had scaled it several times. Equally inevitably, she never had. Climbing it more recently had been unladylike. She could remember her shock at seeing Lily sitting up here one day, not long after her arrival at Newbury.
And hence too her bonnetless state. The wind and the sea air would do dreadful things to both her complexion and her hair. She tipped her face higher into the air and shook out her tangled hair with smiling defiance.
Hence also the fact that the likelihood of rain was not sending her scurrying back to the dower house for shelter. If she got wet, she would also feel cold and uncomfortable and might ruin her bonnet and her good shoes. She looked up at the clouds and challenged them to rain torrents on her head.
She was not with child. She had wept in the privacy of her own room when her courses had begun less than a week after her return from Alvesley. She had grieved for the child who had never been and the marriage that would never happen. At the same time she had been overwhelmingly relieved. She had written the next day to Kit, breaking off their engagement—the most difficult task she had ever undertaken in her life.
The thought of it—of the moment the letter had left her hands—could still make her chest tighten with an almost unbearable pain. She would not allow herself to think of it. At some time in the future—still rather far in the future, she believed—she would be able to look back on the brief summer at Alvesley and remember with pleasure what had surely been the happiest time of her life.
But not quite yet. At this precise moment in her life she was almost happy. She accepted with quiet patience that she was not entirely so.
Tomorrow she was going to Bath. Oh, not permanently yet, but the wheels were being set in motion. Gwen and Neville were going to accompany her. An agent had found four different houses he considered suitable residences for a single lady of modest fortune. She was going to view them all and make her choice. Against the advice of everyone except Elizabeth, but with the reluctant support of all, she was about to embark upon the rest of her life. Not a passive observer any longer, but an active participant.
The mist of spray from the sea—or perhaps it was the beginning of the rain—was dampening her face. Her hair was going to be impossibly curly when she got back home and her poor maid was called upon to do something with it. Lauren closed her eyes and felt enclosed by wind. Exhilarated by the wildness of it. Empowered by it.