“Tickets please.”
She came to with a start and felt herself blush as if the ticket collector could read her thoughts. The burly man gave her a swift glance as he punched her ticket. “Next stop is yours, miss,” he said.
“Yes, thank you.” She stood and collected her thoughts. She knew what she had to do.
That evening when dinner was over and coffee served, she took her father his daily cigar. He’d taught her how to select one from the sweet-smelling box that was imported from Cuba, how to cut the end and hold the match just so to light it evenly.
When it was drawing to his satisfaction, she took her place on a padded stool.
“What do you want to tell me?” he asked from behind a spiral of smoke.
“What makes you think I have something to tell?”
He tapped the ash carefully into an ashtray. “My girl, I haven’t watched you grow up without knowing most of what goes through your head. Sometimes I lost track, but when your mother died I promised myself I would never be a distant father.”
She got up and sat on the arm of his big, leather chair. “You’ve been a wonderful father,” she said, placing a kiss on the bald spot on his head.
“And you know how to twist me ‘round your little finger.” He sounded grumpy, but she knew he was pleased.
She leaned her cheek on his head. “You never married again.”
“No.” He tapped the end of his cigar again. “I always felt what your mother and I had couldn’t be duplicated. Then I was busy with the House of Lords, the estate…” He sighed. “Time slips by very fast, Emmy.”
“How did you know you loved my mother?”
“Goodness, child, what brought this on?” He cleared his throat. “Bit embarrassing, really. I couldn’t get her out of my head. Couldn’t imagine living without her, I suppose.”
“So you asked her to marry you. Had you known each other long?”
“Three weeks, actually. Raised a few eyebrows, I can tell you.”
“What did you say when you asked her to marry you?”
He cleared his throat again. “We were standing by the water jump at a cross-country meet. I had a new horse I was trying out, and she came with me. She had on a very pretty frock, I remember, and a big hat-”
“What did you say?”
“I think we waited for the horses to go by and I looked at her, held her hand you know, and said, ‘I suppose you wouldn’t care to marry me, would you, old girl?’”
Emma burst out laughing. “Oh, Daddy. You are so unromantic.”
“Well it worked. She said yes. We had ten years together and I had you. Ten years is more than many people ever get.”
Emma stood up and went to the window.
“So do you want to marry him?” her father asked.
She whirled around. “Who said anything about marrying anyone?”
“No one, but you’ve been wandering around the house like a lost soul since you came back. A good fellow is he, this Italian?”
She ran to him and hugged him. “A very good fellow.”
“Wants to marry you, does he?”
“That’s what I mean to find out.”
Marco was surprised to find his hand was shaking. He was afraid. This mattered too much to him. He stared unseeing out of the window of the train, his body tense, his hands flexed around an unread newspaper. Smoke from the puffing engine drifted past the window and the wheels clacked rhythmically, sounding out her name with their clickety-clack.
The man opposite moved his leg and Marco shifted to give him room. He’d forgotten how cramped these English railway compartments were. Five or so to a side, two doors at each end, luggage rack overhead. Locked into an unwelcome proximity between stations. No corridor, no way to stretch your legs, no view of other travelers save those in your compartment. In a way, it was a good thing to be a prisoner. Once committed to the journey, there was little opportunity to turn back.
Emma had no idea he was coming. He wondered if the days had dragged as interminably for her as for him. He could have cabled, or telephoned when the ferry docked, but the same fear had made him hesitate. Suppose she told him to go away, that she didn’t want to see him? Now she was safely back in her tidy English woods, with her tidy English life, maybe the whole delirious time spent with him was a bad dream.
Did it matter to her that they had known each other only a matter of days? He remembered his literature teacher explaining how the classical playwrights had compressed everything into a span of twenty-four hours. Well, he was right about how much you could cram into little more than a day and a night. The three unities, of place, time and theme. Wasn’t that what had happened between him and Emma? Tragedy, fear, ecstasy, danger had tumbled over themselves to insinuate themselves into the scenario being played out.
The man across the narrow aisle folded his newspaper and reached above his head for a briefcase. The cadence of the wheels changed as the train began to slow. A miniature railway station like a child’s toy came into view and the train came to a halt with a loud hiss of steam.
A porter hurried by, shouting the name of the station.
His fellow traveler stepped to the door and lowered the window by its strap to reach out for the door handle. As the door swung open, he turned to Marco. “I think this is your stop, sir. Couldn’t help hearing you mention it to the collector.”
He gave a brusque nod as if embarrassed that he’d broken the code of silence and stepped down to the platform. Marco gathered his portmanteau and his coat and followed him out into the fresh, cool air of the English summer evening.
He found a car to take him through the narrow lanes to Lord Bicester’s estate. The driver wore a flat, tweed cap and muddy Wellington boots. He smelled of hay and animals and had a country burr to his speech.
“They must have forgot to send the car for you, sir,” he said. “Did you change your train?”
“No,” Marco answered. “I wasn’t able to give them an exact date for my arrival. They know I can find my way.”
“Ah.” The man’s voice was noncommittal. “Foreign, aren’t you, sir? Been here before?”
“I’ve lived in England, but I don’t know this part of the country.”
“Ah. Friend of the family, sir?”
Marco suppressed a smile. Everyone always wanted to know all about a stranger. His own village was exactly the same. “Not of the family, no. I’m a friend of Lady Emma.”
“Ah.” The driver braked for a blind spot on a corner and tooted the horn. “Lovely young lady that. You’re not the first young man to come to see ‘er.” He gave a belly laugh.
Marco found it hard to join in the mirth. “I suppose not,” he said with a weak smile. “Er, I don’t suppose there are other guests right now?” Why hadn’t he thought of the possibility that Emma had resumed her lifestyle, including suitors and a social whirl?
“No, sir, I don’t believe there are. Real quiet it’s been since Lady Emma came home.” His voice dropped. “They say she was kidnapped and tortured, poor lady. Them foreigners treated her very badly.”
Was that the story Emma was telling? His heart sank.
Just then the house came into view, a huge pile with turrets and hundreds of windows glinting in the setting sun. Deer grazed in the park, and sculpted lawns stretched into the distance.
The driver slowed to a crawl and drew to a halt in front of the steps leading to the main door. Marco got out and took a deep breath. He had faced guns and treachery without fear, but the thought of seeing Emma again was enough to make him want to get back into the car and drive away. How could one small woman terrify him to this extent?
He dug in his pocket for some money and turned toward the house. At that instant Emma herself appeared from around the corner, her arms full of cut flowers.