Black-and-white photos adorned one wall, and Amelia made her interest known. John identified the various relatives, frozen in time in the photos.
One, of a little boy taking tea with his teddies and his obviously adoring mother, caught her eye.
"My daughter, Frances, Hugh's mother. That's Hugh, around three. He was an only child, though she wanted more."
"And she lives where?"
John paused, and Amelia was immediately sorry she'd asked.
“She was killed. A riding accident. Her husband was in a car accident shortly thereafter. He never got over losing her."
"And Hugh?" She thought of the little boy in the picture, with no parents or siblings to take comfort in.
"Came to live with me. I raised him, but it wasn't the same for him. He missed them terribly."
"How old was he?"
"Twelve. Not a good age to lose one's parents."
She placed her hand on John's arm, offering him comfort. "I don't think there's ever a good time for something like that."
Her days fell into a routine. Walking the dogs, exercising the two old horses that still lived in the stable. Enjoying tea every day at five. Working on the letters and journals. Enjoying Lindsey House and all that its eighty acres contained: the dovecote, the boathouse, the flower beds, the library and sitting room, the fresh herbs from the kitchen garden, Hugh's mother's watercolors, the sleepy river with its pair of swans.
The soft roll of the lawns. The beautiful misty mornings. A crackling fire on a cool day, the afternoon tea table set with beautiful china. Feeding the goats and rounding up the chickens. The distinctive scent of the lavender furniture polish the maids used. The exquisite smells of baking from Mrs. Edwards's kitchen.
She began to understand Hugh on a deeply emotional level, and why he'd fought to keep all this in his family. But nothing could have prepared her for actually meeting him.
She'd been breakfasting in the garden, throwing crumbs from her scone to one of the starlings, when she looked up and saw Hugh Lindsey in the kitchen doorway. He was studying her, and had the oddest expression on his handsome face.
He came forward quickly, offering her his hand.
"You must be Amelia. I can't thank you enough for the time you've spent with my grandfather."
She started to rise, but he gestured her back. He sat down in one of the other chairs, a mug of hot tea in his free hand. He was still holding hers.
It happened that instant. To both of them. But he was more honest than she was. She tried to deny it.
"It's fascinating work," she said quickly as she disengaged her fingers from his. She knew she was about to babble, but she didn't care. Anything to put some distance between them.
He was a glorious man, strong in both body and face. Hugh possessed the same dark coloring that had fascinated her in Jonathan Lindsey's portrait in the great hall. The two men looked rather alike, with their high, strongly defined cheekbones, fiercely intelligent blue eyes, and longish dark hair.
He seemed to read her mind.
"Yes, I do resemble him. I hope Grandfather hasn't bored you to tears with his ideas about the Lindsey curse."
"You don't believe in it?"
"No." He set his mug of tea down on the wooden table, leaned back in his chair, and studied her intently. "But I do believe we're here for a specific reason."
"I do, too." She felt slightly more relaxed with him- slightly-and took another sip of her morning tea.
"But I don't agree with Grandfather. I believe we are our own destiny. Through who we are, the choices we make day by day. What we show our children, what we pass on to them. We're constantly creating and molding the future all the time."
He fascinated her. He frightened her. She was due up in the tower room in less than fifteen minutes, yet they talked nonstop for over two hours. When Amelia finally realized the time, she glanced up toward the window of the tower room, which was clearly visible from the kitchen garden.
John, that rascal, was sitting in the window. He laughed out loud as he waved to them.
Hugh's proposal was swift in coming. Within days, he'd shipped a fax machine, several computers, and a modem to Lindsey House, telling all who would listen that he wanted to spend a little more time with his grandfather.
Unspoken was the fact that he spent most of his time with Amelia.
He could be heartbreakingly romantic, and they took long walks with the dogs over the rolling green hills. John worked on in the tower room alone, not minding this particular interruption one bit.
They were having a picnic down by the boathouse one afternoon when it happened. They'd both finished Mrs. Edwards's sumptuous repast, and were lying on the blanket Hugh had spread beneath the huge walnut tree.
"I love the swans," she said drowsily. "They're always together and they look so graceful."
"They mate for life, you know." Something in his tone made her turn toward him. The minute she saw his face, she knew.
"Hugh-"
"Marry me, Amelia."
How like Hugh. Not will you marry me, but marry me. Then she saw the uncertainty in his blue eyes, and her fear lost its edge.
She did love him. Attraction had been instantaneous, passionate, out of control. What had happened in the weeks that followed had deepened that first feeling into something much more. Something she'd never felt before. Something she couldn't have described if she'd tried.
"Yes."
The joy that lit his eyes made tears come to her own.
"Don't be frightened," he said into her hair. He'd taken her into his arms, and they lay like that, content with each other. She wished she could be as strong as he was, as sure. But she wasn't that way, and no amount of wishing could make it so.
"I'm not-I am." She laughed into his shirtfront, dangerously close to tears.
"I'll show you every day, for the rest of my life, how much I love you. You'll come to believe it."
"Yes," she whispered again, against his strong chest. Against the rapid beating of his heart. "Yes."
Amelia sat in the leather chair, listening to the silence of the tower room. She had to get back downstairs to her bedroom and try to sleep. But she had a feeling she would just lie in her bed, willing the morning to come and put an end to her feelings of apprehension.
Why couldn't she just marry Hugh and be done with it? Why did she have to go through such emotional agony over a decision countless young women made every day? She knew, on an intellectual level, why she was scared. Her father had been seriously ill before she'd reached her seventh birthday. He'd died when she was nine. Six marriages had followed for her mother, and Amelia had stopped trying to get close to any in the long succession of stepfathers a long time ago.
She still missed Max Jamison terribly. The only memories she had left of her father were the home movies her mother had transferred to video. There was the father she remembered, frozen in time. Leading her pony as a four-year-old Amelia practically screamed with joy. On a carousel, riding the prancing wooden stallion next to hers. Sharing an ice cream cone at the beach.
Would life have been better, emotionally, if he'd lived? Would she have these terrible fears of ultimately being abandoned?
Her fingers traced the delicate paper of the letter.
My dearest Poppet…
To love like that. So fearlessly. Passionately. Suddenly depressed, she wondered if she'd ever really been in love. Even with Hugh.
A cloud passed over the moon, and the tower room was plunged into darkness. Amelia was afraid for only a second, then she felt her eyelids drifting shut, the letter slipping from her fingers. The leather chair was so soft, and she was so tired, she'd rest just for a moment… a moment in time…