Her eyes had filled with tears. Two of them spilled over and ran diagonally across her cheeks as he watched. "I knew it too," she whispered. "I thought you would die on the journey, John. You were so very weak, so very ill. But I knew that if I could only get you here to Cartref all would be well."
"The world would think us mad if we offered this as an explanation," he said.
"The world may think what it will," she said.
"Adèle." He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed the ring. "I know that for many years I was too busy to love you as you deserved to be loved. I had to be near death to understand how far more precious than anyone or anything else in my life you are. Will you stay here with me for the rest of our lives? Will you work with me here in this neighborhood? There is much we can do. There is a lighthouse to build, for one. Will you have our children here and bring them up with me here?"
Her eyes were soft and huge with wistfulness and love. "You will miss England," she said. "And London. You were always restless."
"No longer," he said. "I am where I belong and where I want to be-for the rest of my life. Why leave heaven merely to go back to earth?"
He saw final surrender in her eyes then to faith and trust and love. She finally believed in him. It was the greatest gift she could have given him. Though he almost changed his mind a few moments later.
"John," she said softly. "About those children. I think-I am not quite sure, but I think I am with child."
For all the heat of the sun beating down on their bodies then, he took her into his arms and held her close. He kept his eyes tight shut. He did not know how the miracle had happened or why. But it had happened. He had been given the gift of a new life and he was going to give back the gift of love for the rest of his life. Every day of it.
"My love," he whispered to her before drifting toward sleep. "Ah, my love."
"Some grand engagement day this is turning out to be," she said as he was waking up. "You fell asleep, John. How totally humiliating to have had that effect on a man." But there was laughter in her voice to temper the words.
Yes, he had been fast asleep. The first thing that struck him as he came floating up to the surface again was that he felt different. Totally different. Unaware of his body, unaware of his breathing, unaware of his weakness, almost as if he were healthy again. Or as if-as if he had died and was waking up to a new world.
He was healthy. There was sudden conviction in the thought and his eyes shot open.
He found himself gazing into Allison's accusing-and amused-eyes.
He knew her name. He knew her. He reached back cautiously and a little fearfully into memory and found that he had a memory that was not quite his own.
"Heavenly days," she said, "you must have been very fast asleep. Where were you? A million miles away?"
A million miles? Two hundred years, actually. He had fallen asleep in Adèle's arms. He had been very close to death. He had known that. He had wished he had the energy to tell her how much he appreciated what she had done for him, marrying him, surrounding him with her love so that he might die in peace. And yet, honest within himself, he had known that his own love, though real, was no match for hers. He had always loved her tenderly but without passion. Dear, gentle Adèle.
"Something like that," he said, turning onto his side, turning onto the tall, slender body of Allison-who was his fiancée. "Actually I was building energy. And don't try contempt on me again. You were sleeping too. It was a long journey." He was able to remember the journey and at the same time think of it in amazement. A red sports car-no horses. London to Cardiganshire in one day. Wow! What had the world come to?
"Energy." She set her arms about him and wriggled her legs out from under him, one on either side of his. She pulsed suggestively beneath him and smiled at him from half-closed eyes. "Interesting. Proof necessary. Lawyers are always armed with proof."
Energy. He felt his strength and vitality with something bordering awe. It had seemed an eternity since he had been able to do anything-even lifting an arm-without having to gather every last ounce of energy for the effort. And it had been an eternity-or two hundred years anyway.
They dispensed with clothes in a frenzied, undignified rush and made love on a gust of energetic and impassioned lust. He had never enjoyed making love more.
But then, he realized while they lay together afterward, panting and relaxing and smiling at each other, and while he found her hand and played with her ring with one thumb and forefinger, he had never loved anyone as he loved Allison. She was the perfect mate for him-as energetic and as restless and as ambitious as he. And as much in need as he of the anchor of love-married love.
"John," she whispered to him. "Without meaning to be in any way critical of past performances, I would have to say that that was by far the greatest. There were fireworks. And symphonies-with loads of percussion."
"I shall try an encore later," he said. "After dinner. Are you hungry?"
"Ravenous," she said.
He had eaten nothing but gruels and liquids for longer than he could remember, though he was also able to recall the vegetable curry he had eaten on the road from London earlier in the day.
"For food?" he asked her, leering at her. "Or for-"
She punched him none too gently in the stomach. "For food," she said. "But then later-dessert, please, sir."
Adèle called him "sir" when she was feeling light-hearted and pleased with him. It had not happened a great deal lately. Poor Adèle. Had he really died and been reincarnated? Was she grieving for him? He knew that Adèle would grieve in her own quiet, accepting way for the rest of her life. But that had been two hundred years ago.
And then, as he was tidying himself, ready to go down for dinner at the Cartref Hotel, he remembered something- with the memory of the twentieth-century John Chandler. The Regency Viscount Cordell and his wife had lived a long life here at Cartref. They had had children. He must have recovered from his consumption, then. He felt dizzy for a moment. Was he going to go back? Soon? He felt guilty, hoping not.
He was very deeply in love with Allison, he realized. He felt as if he always had been-or with the idea of her before he actually met her two months ago.
All that had been a week ago. They had spent their week in Cardiganshire on a sort of trial honeymoon, as they frequently told each other, laughing. But they had not spent all of it wandering the beaches and hills as he had intended when they came. They had zoomed all about West Wales in his car, seeing the countryside and the places worth seeing, like St. David's Cathedral and Pembroke Castle, sampling the quaint restaurants and pubs they passed on country lanes.
They had done one thing they had planned to do when they came, though-many things, actually. They had made love enough to exhaust them both for a year, they had agreed on one occasion before going at it again. He was going to have to make an honest woman of her soon, they had both agreed, too.
In fact, all week they had seemed to be in total agreement over everything. In total harmony with each other.
He was afraid at first that he was going to have to go back. He was afraid every time he woke up that he would find himself desperately ill again with Adèle nursing him with her selfless love.
He knew why he was healthy, of course. This John Chandler was strong and healthy and resistant to tuberculosis. And he knew what must have happened-what he hoped had happened. John Chandler-the twentieth-century one-had taken his place, taking his virtual immunity to the disease with him. He had recovered and lived with Adèle for many years.