Elizabeth Mansfield (13 page)

"Then you haven't seen the turret room?"

"I've climbed up to the top of the west turret. And into all three others. Isn't this one the same?"

"No, it's quite different. It's larger than the others—more like a tower, I'd say—and contains more than bare stone walls with narrow openings. This is truly a room... my favorite room in the house, actually. But why waste words, which are always inadequate in these matters? Come, let me show it to you."

She felt suddenly shy and hung back. "Are you certain I'm not detaining you?" she asked. "Surely you have more important things to do."

"Nothing, I assure you. And if I did, I'd happily put it off. I'd much rather keep you company than do anything else."

His words filled her with an unfamiliar joy. As she followed him along the corridor and up a narrow, dark, winding stairway, the words reverberated in her mind like a strain of exquisite music.

As they climbed higher, the shadows surrounding them grew lighter and lighter until the air was as bright as day. The stairs eventually led to a small platform, and then, with one last turn, they were there, on the threshold of the most magnificent room she'd ever seen. It was a wide, circular room completely bathed in light. It seemed like part of the sky! There were hardly any furnishings to obscure the view— only a low fireplace opposite the entrance, with a desk and chair before it, and low, cushioned window seats below all the windows, marking the room's perimeter from the fireplace to the doorway in two unbroken lines. The circular effect was repeated, and enhanced, by the round carpet— all rich reds and golds—set in the center of the stone floor. It was a most unusual room, quite strange, she thought, and quite perfect.

Holding her breath, she moved to the center and turned slowly around. To the south, where the land fell away in a long, gentle slope, the view was mainly of fleecy clouds in a sea of blue, so close she felt she could put out her hand and touch them. To the east, far down below her, was the pond with its waterwheel, looking tiny, and the home woods beyond. To the north were the formal gardens, the walkways, a stretch of green fields, the orchards, and, far away, a stream flowing beneath an arched bridge. And to the west she saw a road winding over swells of land to where the spires and roofs of a distant village seemed to be rising through the mist. "Oh, my
dear,
"
she breathed, spreading her arms wide and whirling around, "it's a miracle!"

The dizzying turn made her totter, but he'd been standing behind her and caught her at the waist. Holding her lightly, he turned her to face him and gazed down at her with a look she could not fathom. "It's you who are the miracle," he murmured.

The words confused her. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"I'm sorry," he said, abruptly letting her go. "I don't know what I mean." He walked away to one of the windows, dropped down on one of the seats and stared out at the view.

She didn't understand his change of mood.
Would I understand him better,
she asked herself,
if I had my memory?
She felt quite inadequate in comprehending the subtleties of human relationships. Nevertheless, she tried to do what she could to recover the closeness that she'd felt a moment before. "Never mind," she said soothingly, sitting down beside him and putting a hand on his arm. "Whatever you meant, the fact remains that this room is wonderful."

He turned round to face her and forced a smile. "I'm glad you think so. It's my private place, you know, where I come when I have to wrestle with a problem or have a need to be alone. I haven't brought anyone else up here before."

She blinked at him, puzzled. "I don't understand. You sound as if you have more use of this house than Lord Inglesby."

He gaped at her for a moment, then winced and dropped his eyes. "Inglesby gives me the run of the place," he muttered, getting to his feet. "We are good friends, you see. Share and share alike."

"I see," she said. But she didn't see. The friendship between Inglesby and Lord Lucas was another human relationship she didn't understand. The friendship of the two men was obviously close and of very long standing, and although Cassie admired their attachment—their interplay, their joking, their intimacy, their affectionate understanding of each other—she couldn't quite comprehend it. The two men were so different. Lord Lucas, tall and spare, with thick, straight, unruly hair, warm, dark eyes and sensitive mouth, was invariably restrained, thoughtful and keenly aware of what others were feeling. Lord Inglesby, on the other hand, not only looked different from his friend—being broad-shouldered and stocky, with curly red hair, light, suspicious eyes and a dissipated mouth—but seemed to Cassie to be brash, overly blunt and insensitive.

Lord Lucas, apparently troubled by her silence, looked down at her worriedly. "What are you thinking about?' he asked gently.

She sighed. "There's so much I don't understand. Even ordinary things that you say to me... that I ought to understand. I suppose this deuced numbness in my brain—"

"No! Dash it all, it's not your fault!" He paced round the room in frustration, as if there were something he wished to explain to her but for some reason could not. "Even with your injury, your mind functions remarkably well. Beautifully, in fact."

"Does it? Truly?" She gazed up at him doubtfully. "Is that what you meant when you said I was a miracle? That my mind functions well?"

"No, I wasn't thinking of your mind at all. You'd said the view was a miracle. But to me,
you're
the miracle, you see, because... because ..." He ran his fingers through his hair in a gesture of helplessness.

"Because—?" she prodded.

The answer seemed to be wrung out of him. "Because you're even more beautiful than the view." Saying the words evidently caused him great discomfort and made him begin to pace again.

"Confound it, Lord Lucas," she said, more confused than ever, "I didn't think you were the sort to tell me pretty lies."

He wheeled about. "How can you think it a lie?" He strode back across the room to her, dropped down beside her and took her chin in his hand. "Listen to me, Cassandra Beringer," he said, forcing her face up so that she had to meet his eyes, "I hadn't intended to tell you this until you'd completely recovered, but the truth is that I'd rather look at your face than at the most magnificent view in the world."

Something inside her clenched with such joy it was almost pain. "You're not making sense," she said, afraid to believe him. "I saw myself in the mirror. I'm not in the
least—"

"Good God, Cassie, hasn't anyone ever told you—?" But, with a sudden recollection of her condition, he cut himself short. "No, blast it, even if someone had, you wouldn't remember."

Her eyes searched his face. "You can't mean what you're saying!"
 

"Yes, I can. And I do."

She had to believe him. His voice, his expression, everything about him was sincere. "Oh, my
dear,
"
she whispered, gazing up at him with shining eyes, "I'll surely remember
thisl
If what you just said is truly how you see me, I'll remember those words all my days."

To her surprise, his face clouded over. "I wonder if you will," he said.

"Do you doubt it? How could I possibly forget—?"

"I'm afraid it's quite possible that, when your memory returns, all of this... this time we've had together in this house... will be erased from your mind."

Her heart contracted in her chest. "Oh, no! Can such a thing really happen?"

"I don't know. The doctor doesn't know. No one knows." He rose from the window seat and stood staring out at the darkening sky. "But you shouldn't let the prospect upset you. This time of your life—this period of recovery—is not important for you to remember."

She stared at his back in horror. "Not
important?"

"No, it's not. It's like being in limbo for you, isn't it?"

"Limbo? I don't understand. Isn't limbo a kind of Hell? If it is, I cannot be in limbo. Sometimes, these past few days, I've felt... almost happy."

He shook his head. "No, I think of limbo as a kind of waiting place, where one is between worlds. In your case, it's the place where you're waiting for your real life to resume."

"My real life... yes." She said the words reluctantly, for she didn't want to agree with him despite the logic of his explanation. "That does seem to describe my situation. I suppose I
am
in limbo now."

He sighed deeply, and when he spoke again, his voice was low and hoarse. "That's why I haven't... I can't..."

"What
is
it?" she asked in agony, desperate to understand him.
"What
can't you?"

"Never mind. It's best we don't speak of it now."

"Why not?" She got to her feet and placed her hand on his arm. "Why can't we speak of it? I believe I can say anything at all to
you.
Why can't you speak to
me?
"

He put his hand on hers, but did not look at her. "I can't. Not yet. Before we can speak of it, you must recognize it... be familiar with it. You must
remember
it."

"What is this
it?"
she demanded, her heart seeming to have jumped right into her throat.
"What
must I remember?"

He looked at her then. "Love," he said.

Chapter 17

Lady Schofield, already dressed for dinner although she was half an hour early, walked briskly down the hallway to Cicely's room. She was eager to see what the girl had chosen to wear. While she walked, she tucked a handkerchief into the bosom of her mauve jaconet dinner gown and made a small adjustment to the diamond brooch she'd pinned to the neckline. She felt a bit festive tonight; there was something cheery about their dinners these days, now that Cassie had joined the company. Instead of the depressed gatherings they'd endured when she was still bedridden, dinnertime now had all the appearance of a party.

She stopped at Cicely's door and tapped gently. "Cicely, my love, may I come in?"

"Of course, Aunt Eva," came her niece's voice from within.

She found her niece, attired only in petticoats, sitting at her dressing table, trying to twist some strands of hair into curls. "Are you having difficulty?" she asked at once. "I can send my abigail to you. She is very clever with curls."

"Thank you, no," Cicely said, "this will do, I think." And she put down her brush and turned her face toward her aunt for approval.

Eva studied the coiffure with a critical eye. Cicely had pulled her mop of golden tresses back from her face and tied them up at the back of her head with a silk ribbon, letting the mass fall loosely down like a horse's tail. Only two strands were allowed to escape, one on each side of her face. It was these she'd been trying to curl, to small effect. Nevertheless, Eva had to admit that the girl looked lovely. "A bit too casual for my taste," she decided, "but acceptable enough, I suppose, for a country dinner."

Cicely giggled. "Am I to thank you, dearest aunt, for that high praise?" She jumped up and kissed Eva's cheek. " 'Acceptable enough,' indeed! You should say I look ravishing."

"You can scarcely expect to look ravishing when you refuse to employ a hairdresser. You're as stubborn as your mother. But never mind. I only came to see what gown you've chosen."

"The ivory crepe," Cicely said promptly. "It's right there, laid out on the bed."

Eva scowled in disapproval. "But my dear, you wore that just the other evening. Shouldn't you choose something else?"

"No, for I haven't a great number of dinner gowns with me to choose from. Besides, I like the feel of the silk against me. It clings so delectably. That's what Charlie said."

Eva's brows rose. "Charlie? Are you referring to Lord Lucas? What has he to say to anything?"

"A great deal," her niece retorted, pulling the dress over her head. "I... er... value his opinion."

"But why?" Eva demanded as Cicely's face emerged from the neck of the dress. "Lucas has never been considered an arbiter of taste, as far as I know."

"I don't care a fig about taste. I... well, the truth is, Aunt Eva, I like him. I like him a great deal."

"Lord
Lucas?"
Eva's eyes popped, and she sank down upon the bed with a gasp. "You can't mean you have a... a
tendre
for him?"

Cicely colored. "Why should I not?"

"Because you're going to have an offer from Jeremy Tate, that's why not," Eva cried, aghast.

"Stuff and nonsense. Jeremy hasn't troubled his head about me for one instant since we came here." She smoothed the gown over her shoulders and began to button the back. "I don't think he cares for me at all."

"That, my girl, is completely untrue," Eva said with a firmness she was far from feeling. This sudden interest her niece had taken in Lucas was an unexpected development she could not like. But her guiding principle had always been that one should, in all matters, act with decisiveness and firmness. Shilly-shallying never got one anywhere.

With apparently unruffled deliberation, she rose from her perch, went to stand behind her niece and calmly took over the task of buttoning. "Haven't you noticed Jeremy's attentions to your mother?" she asked. "They've been quite marked."

"Have they?" the girl asked, surprised.

"One would have to be blind not to have noticed. And can't you guess why?"

"I can't imagine."

"Because, my dear, he knows he can't win you unless he has her support. Why would he be so solicitous of her unless he was trying to win her over?"

Cicely wrinkled her brow thoughtfully. "Do you really think that's what he has in mind?"

"I'm sure of it," Eva said with absolute conviction.

"You may be right." Cicely smiled at herself in the mirror in the now-buttoned gown. "What other reason
could
he have?"

"Of course I'm right. If you behave as you ought, you'll be betrothed before you know it. And with your mother's complete approval."