"I am dying, Adèle," he had said gently. "I do not have long left. I have nothing to give you, dear."
Somehow-she was not normally a bold woman-she had persuaded him that indeed he did. That he had the power to enable her to be with him all the time, making him more comfortable.
"I cannot stay close to you if I am not married to you, John," she had said. She had taken both his thin hands in hers and had kissed them repeatedly. She had not known quite where her boldness had come from. "I can think of no greater happiness than being close to you."
And so he had married her just one week later. He had decided on some impulse to bring her here, to his home in Wales, for their wedding trip. Everyone had thought him mad. It was such a long distance over roads that were notoriously rough. But she had not tried to argue with him. She had known it was a dying man's wish-to die in the place he considered the loveliest in the world. In the place that had the loveliest name she knew-Cartref. Home.
She had come here with a strange hope in her heart. It was the hope for a miracle. It was strange because she had never had hope, not since the moment she had realized he had consumption. Even when he went to Italy, she had had no hope. When he had come home and when she had begged him to marry her, there had been no hope beyond the dream to be his wife and to have the privilege of comforting his last days.
But throughout the journey, hope had built, even as his body became weaker with exhaustion and as the coughing spells became longer and more frightening. By the time they reached Cartref that new and strange inner part of herself knew that he was going to recover, even while the rational, practical part of her was certain that it was impossible. She must not buoy herself up with false hope, she had told herself repeatedly.
Besides-the thought had saddened her-if he recovered, he would find himself trapped in a marriage that was not entirely of his own choosing.
During the three days following their arrival in Wales, then, she watched the changes in him with a bewildering mixture of hope and cold reason. He was rallying after the exhaustion of the journey. He was rallying from the pleasure of being in a place he loved. And from the knowledge that no further great effort would ever be required of him. They had both known, though it had never been spoken between them, that he had come here to die, that he would never have to make the return journey to England.
It was not unusual, she knew, for patients to rally and even seem to recover from serious illnesses for a short while. That was what was happening to John. She tried to believe that and to be grateful that she was to have a little more of him than she had ever expected, especially during that dreadful journey. She had even doubted once or twice-or the part of her that had not been borne up by that strange hope had doubted-that he would get as far as Cartref.
On the first day he dressed for dinner-his valet had looked at him in amazement and then at her in inquiry when he demanded it-and came down to the dining room with her. He even ate. Not a great deal, it was true, but then since their wedding it had seemed to her that he existed on air. He had eaten no solid food.
"I have to eat," he told her with a smile, tackling the fish course. "I just looked at myself in the looking glass, Adèle, and I am nothing but skin and bones. I do not know how you can bear to look at me."
She would have wept except that there was a twinkle in his eye. "You are John," she said. "I could look at you every moment for the rest of my life and not grow tired of doing so."
He chuckled-and her heart turned over with joy at the sound. "And I am so weak," he said, "that I fear I made a dent in both the banister and your shoulder coming downstairs."
They had taken the stairs one at a time, with a long pause on each one. The butler had watched anxiously and incredulously from the foot-John's valet had carried him upstairs on their arrival.
On the second day he insisted on taking each meal in the dining room, even breakfast. And he forced himself to eat. She could tell that it was an effort and part of her wondered if it was worth torturing himself when… But there was the other part of her that hoped and did more than just hope. There was a part of her that knew.
He would not go back to bed except for one hour in the afternoon-he had her promise to wake him after an hour, provided she was awake to do it. He insisted that she lie down with him, and he held her hand, twisting her sapphire ring, until he drifted off to sleep.
For the rest of the day he walked. It was incredible to see. He would not sit down to conserve his energy. And he would not allow her to close the downstairs windows after he had thrown them all open, even though the air coming off the ocean was brisk. He walked all about the house, slowly and doggedly, her arm drawn through his, though he assured her that she must not feel obligated to trudge her slippers to shreds on his account.
"I would trudge my slippers and my boots and the soles of my feet to shreds to be with you," she told him, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder. "But do not exhaust yourself, John. And do not catch a chill."
"Sea air and exercise are good for a person," he said. "Once I am stronger, I am going to be marching along the beach and running up and down the hills to build an appetite for breakfast."
She laughed against his shoulder. Helpless laughter that bordered on tears. "Will I be able to keep up to you?" she asked. "Or will I have to trail along half a mile behind?"
"I shall match my strides to yours," he said. "But we will have to get you fit enough not to pant and wheeze as we run."
"Up hills?" she said, still laughing. "Hills, John? Have mercy."
He even went outside on that second day and strolled very slowly with her along the graveled paths between the flower beds that stood between the house and the rough trail that descended the hill to one side of the house and ascended on the other side to the village of Awelfa, just out of sight over the crest.
He stopped frequently to draw deep breaths of the fresh salt air. She was terrified that he would bring on another of the coughing spells. He had not had one since just after their arrival the day before.
And then once, before they strolled on, he dipped his head and kissed her. He kissed her the way he had kissed her yesterday-and never before that-with his lips parted and his tongue stroking over her lips and even pressing through. A shocking, wonderful kiss. One that made her knees turn weak. A fine prop she would make for him if he kept kissing her like this.
And that was the biggest change in him, she thought, and the one she had been most trying to ignore, because she had accepted the way he was and had thought to be happy with it long after he had gone. She had accepted that he loved her but that there was no magic in his love.
Since their arrival, since that coughing spell and the short sleep of exhaustion that had followed it, he had been different. There had been something in his eyes, something in his voice, something in his kiss… And something in his words, too, though she guessed he was speaking them out of tenderness and gratitude to her. He knew that she loved him more than life and he knew that she was going to have a leftover life to live very soon. He was being wonderfully kind to her as he always had been.
But there was something in his eyes. The eyes cannot deceive as well as the voice can.
On the third day he decided that they would go walking on the beach.
"John." They were in the dining room at the time, having just risen from breakfast. ' 'Is it wise? You are so much better. Would it not be wiser to rest today? To get your strength back gradually?" She stepped closer to him and framed his face with her hands. "There is even a little color in your face today."