Forever and Ever

InterMix titles by Patricia Gaffney

To Love and to Cherish

To Have and to Hold

Forever and Ever

Forever and Ever

Patricia Gaffney

I
NTER
M
IX
B
OOKS,
N
EW
Y
ORK

INTERMIX BOOKS

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have control over and does not have any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

FOREVER AND EVER

An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author

PUBLISHING HISTORY

New American Library edition / April 2003

InterMix eBook edition / June 2013

Copyright © 1996 by Patricia Gaffney.

Excerpt from
To Have and To Hold
copyright © 1995 by Patricia Gaffney.

Excerpt from
To Love and To Cherish
copyright © 1995 by Patricia Gaffney.

Cover design by Sarah Oberrender.

Cover image: Castle Balmoral, Scotland © silky/Shutterstock.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

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375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

ISBN: 978-1-101-63175-1

INTERMIX

InterMix Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group

and New American Library, divisions of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

INTERMIX and the “IM” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

For James Holmes Gaffney,

the world’s greatest dad

I

The tower clock on All Saints Church struck the quarter hour with a resonating thud. Connor Pendarvis, who had been leaning against the stone ledge of a bridge and staring down at the River Wyck, straightened impatiently. Jack was late. Again. He ought to be used to it by now—and he was, but that didn’t make his brother’s habitual tardiness any less aggravating.

At least he didn’t have to wait for Jack in the rain. In typical South Devon fashion, the afternoon had gone from gray to fair in a matter of minutes, and now the glitter of sunlight on the little river’s sturdy current was blinding. It was June, and the clean air smelled like honeysuckle. Birds sang, bees buzzed, irises in brilliant yellow clumps bloomed along the riverbank. The cottages lining the High Street sported fresh coats of daub in whimsical pastel shades, and every garden was a riot of summer flowers.

The Rhadamanthus Society’s report on Wyckerley had said it was a poky, undistinguished hamlet in a poor parish, but Connor disagreed. He thought the authors of the report must have an odd idea of what constituted poverty—either that or they’d never been to Trewythiel, the village in Cornwall where
he’d
grown up. Wyckerley was friendly, pretty, neat as a pin—Trewythiel’s opposite in every way. Connor had been born there, and one by one he’d watched his family die there. Before he was twenty, he’d buried all of them.

All except Jack. And here he came, swaggering a little. Even from here Connor could see the telltale glitter in his eyes; it meant he’d recently downed a pint or two or three in Wyckerley’s one and only alehouse, the George and Dragon. But his thinness and the gaunt gray concavity of his cheeks stifled anything reproachful Connor might have said, and instead he felt that squeeze of pain in his chest that overtook him at odd times. Jack wasn’t even thirty yet, but he looked at least ten years older. The doctor in Redruth had said his illness was under control, so worrying about him made no sense. Connor told himself that every day, but it didn’t do any good. Fear for his brother was as dark and constant as his own shadow.

“Don’t be glaring at me,” Jack commanded from twenty feet away. “I’ve brought yer ruddy letter, and there’m money in it, I can tell. Which makes me the bearer o’ glad tidings.” Producing an envelope from the pocket of his scruffy coat, he handed it over with a flourish. “Now, where’s my thanks?”

“I’d say you’ve already drunk it.” But he said it with a smile, because Jack could charm the red from a rose—and because he was right about the envelope; it had a nice, solid heft that said the Pendarvis boys wouldn’t go hungry tonight in Wyckerley.

“Open it up yonder, Con. Under the trees. Cooler.”

“Are you tired, Jack?”

“Naw. What I am is
hot.
”

Connor said no more, and they ambled toward a clump of oak trees at the edge of the village green, opposite the old Norman church. But it was warm in the afternoon sun, not hot, and he knew it was the support of the iron bench under the oaks Jack wanted, not the cool shade.

“The George is a rare friendly place,” he remarked as they went.

“Is it, now.”

“Oh, indeed. The ale’s fine, and there’m a gel who serves it called Rose. I think she fancies me.”

Connor rolled his eyes. “Jack, we’ve been in the town for two hours. You can’t have made a conquest already.”

“Can’t I?” He flashed a wicked grin. Only a year ago the white of his teeth would have lit up his healthy, ruddy-cheeked face, and the twinkle in his eyes could have compromised a nun. Now the skin stretched tight over the bones of his jaw, and his smile looked skeletal. Cadaverous. “She fancies me, see if she don’t. I telled ’er I’d come back tonight wi’ my little brother, and she could pick between us.”

“Hah.”

“Hah! Oh, ’tis a fine enough place even for you, yer honor. The mugs’re clean, and nobody spits on the floor. I’ll tell the men they must watch their coarse language, for there’m a barrister among ’em.”

Connor snorted. Once he’d had dreams of becoming a lawyer, but they had died a long time ago. He would laugh when Jack called him “your worship” or “your honor” for a joke, but under the careless pose lay a regret so deep, he had stopped thinking about it.

Under the trees, sunlight played on the grass in dappled patterns, shifting with the breeze. Connor stretched his long legs out, watching Jack do the same. Jack was taller, older, and until he’d gotten sick, a good deal stronger. When they were boys, he’d always been the leader, the caretaker. Now their roles had reversed, and they both hated it. Couldn’t speak of it. Ironic that, for the last few months, they’d even changed names.

“So,” said Jack, spreading his arms out across the back of the bench, “how much have the Rhads coughed up this time?”

The plain envelope bore no return address. Connor opened it and thumbed through the banknotes inside the folded, one-page letter. “Enough to cover the note of deposit I’ve just signed for our new lodgings.”

“Well, that’s a relief for you, counselor. Now you won’t get pinched for false misrepresentation o’ personal fiduciary stature.” Jack chortled at his own humor; he never got tired of making up names for laws and statutes, the sillier sounding the better.

Connor said, “I had to pay the agent for the lease of six months. Forty-six shillings.” It wasn’t Connor’s money, but it still seemed a waste, since they wouldn’t be in Wyckerley past two months at the most.

“What’s our new place like, then?”

“Better than the last. We’ve half of a workingmen’s cottage only a mile from the mine. We’ll share a kitchen with two other miners, and there’s a girl who comes in the afternoons to cook a meal. And praise the Lord, we’ve each got a room this time, so I won’t have to listen to you snore the glazing out of the windows.”

Jack cackled, going along with the joke. There were times when he kept Connor awake, but it was because of his cough and the drenching night sweats that robbed him of rest, not his snoring. “What do they say about the mine?”

“Not much. It’s called Guelder. A woman owns it. It’s been fairly—”

“A
woman.
” Jack’s eyes went wide with amazement, then narrowed in scorn. “A woman,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Well, ee’ve got yer work cut out right and proper, then, ’aven’t ee? The radical Rhads’ll be aquiver wi’ joy when they read yer report this time.”

Connor grunted. “The woman’s name is Deene. She inherited the mine from her father about two years ago, and she owns it outright, without shareholders. They say her uncle owns another mine in the district. His name’s Vanstone, and he happens to be the mayor of Wyckerley.”

“Why’nt they send you to that un? The uncle’s, I mean. ’Tis bound to be far better run.”

“Probably, and there’s your answer. The society hasn’t employed me to investigate clean, safe, well-managed copper mines.” No, but the selection process was still fair, Connor believed, if only because conditions in most Cornish and Devonian copper mines were so deplorable, there was no need to doctor reports or tinker with findings. Or pick a woman’s mine over a man’s in hopes of finding more deficiencies.

He put the envelope in his pocket and clasped his hands behind his head, blinking up at the sky. He’d have no more afternoons to loll away on a bench in the sunshine after today—he hoped; even this brief hour of idleness was making him restless. If Jack weren’t here, he’d be settled into the new cottage by now, unpacked, outlining his report or scouting the neighborhood, maybe planning an article he had in mind for the Rhadamanthus Society’s monthly broadsheet. “Slow down,” Jack was always telling him, “stop and look about you every onct in a while. Sleep late, Con, have a drink. Take a woman.”

Fine advice if a man had nothing better to do, or if he could look around at the wicked world and honestly say he wouldn’t change anything. But Connor wasn’t that man. Too much was expected of him—he expected too much of himself. Slowing down never crossed his mind unless Jack made an issue of it, and then it always took him by surprise. What a foolish way to squander your one short life.

But the June afternoon was lazily spectacular, and he couldn’t deny that it was pleasant to sit in the shade while butterflies flickered in and out of sun rays slanting down through the tree leaves. In a rare mellow mood, he watched two children burst from a side door in the church across the way and run toward the green. A second later, out came three more, then four, then another giggling pair. Shouting, laughing, they skipped and ran in circles and tumbled on the grass, giddy as March hares. He’d have thought Sunday school had just let out, except it was Saturday. The children’s high spirits were contagious—more than one passerby paused in the cobbled street long enough to smile at their frolicking.

Half a minute later, a young woman came out the same door in the church and hurried across the lane toward the green. The schoolteacher? Tall, slim, dressed in white, she had blond hair tied up in a knot on top of her head. Connor tried to guess her age, but it was hard to tell from this distance; she had the lithe body of a girl, but the confident, self-assured manner of a woman. He wasn’t a bit surprised when she clapped her hands, and every shrieking, skipping child immediately ran to her. What surprised him was the gay sound of her own laughter mingling with theirs.

The smallest child, a girl of five or six, leaned against the teacher’s hip familiarly; the woman patted her curly head while she gave the others some soft-voiced command. The children formed a half circle around her. She bent down to the little girl’s level to say something in her ear, her hand lightly resting on the child’s shoulder.

“Look at that, now, Con. That’s a winsome sight, isn’t it?” said Jack in a low, appreciative voice. “Isn’t that just how a lady oughter look?”

Where women were concerned, Jack was the least discriminating man Connor had ever known: he liked
all
of them. But this time he’d spoken no more than the truth. This woman’s ivory gown, her willowy figure, the sunny gold in her hair—they made a most beguiling picture. And yet he thought Jack meant something more . . . something about the long, graceful curve of her back as she bent toward the child, the solicitousness of her posture, the
kindness
in it that took the simple picture out of the ordinary and made it unforgettable. When Connor glanced at his brother, he saw the same soft, stricken smile he could feel on his own face, and he knew they’d been moved equally, just for a moment, by the perfection of the picture.

She straightened then, and the little girl skipped away to a place in the middle of the semicircle. The spell was broken, but the picture lingered, and the image still shimmered in his mind’s eye.

She took something from the pocket of her dress—a pitch pipe. She brought it to her lips and blew a soft, thin note. The children hummed obediently, then burst into song.

Do you know how many children

Rise each morning blithe and gay?

Can you count their jolly voices,

Singing sweetly day by day?

God hears all the happy voices,

In their merry songs rejoices.

And he loves them, every one.

Smiling encouragement, her face animated, the music teacher moved her hands in time to the melody, and every child beamed back at her, eager to please, all wide eyes and happy faces. It was like a scene in a storybook, or a sentimental play about good children and perfectly kind teachers, too good to be true—yet it was happening here, now, on the little green in the village of Wyckerley, St. Giles’ parish. Mesmerized, Connor sat back to watch what would happen next.

The choir sang another song, and afterward the teacher made them sing it again. He wasn’t surprised; smitten as he was, even he could tell it hadn’t been their finest effort. Then, sensing her charges were growing restless, she set them free after some gentle admonition—which fell on deaf ears, because the shouting and gamboling recommenced almost immediately.

“Looks like a litter o’ new puppies,” Jack chuckled, and Connor nodded, smiling at the antics of two little towheaded boys, twins, vying with each other to see who could press more dandelions into the hands of their pretty teacher. Heedless of the damp grass, she dropped to her knees and sniffed the straggly bouquets with exaggerated admiration. Her way of keeping their rambunctious spirits within bounds was to ask them questions, then listen to the answers with complete absorption.

Just then the curly-haired little girl, clutching her own flower, made a running leap and landed on the teacher’s back with a squeal of delight. The woman bore the impact sturdily, even when the youngster wound her arms around her neck and hung on tight, convulsed with mirth. But gradually the laughter tapered off.

“She’m caught,” Jack murmured when some of the children crept closer, looking uncertain. “The lady’s hair, looks like.” Connor was already on his feet. “Con? Wait, now. Ho, Con! You shouldn’t oughter—”

He didn’t hear the rest. Impulsiveness was one of his most dangerous failings, but this—this was too much like the answer to a prayer he’d been too distracted to say. He took off across the green at a sprint.

No doubt about it, the teacher was caught. “It’s all right, Birdie,” she was saying, reaching back to try to disentangle her hair from something on the little girl’s dress. “Don’t wriggle for a second. No, it’s all right, just don’t move.”

Birdie was near tears. “I’m sorry, Miss Sophie,” she kept saying, worried but unable to stop squirming. The music teacher winced—then laughed, pretending it was a joke.

The other children eyed Connor in amazement when he squatted down beside the entangled pair. Birdie’s mouth dropped open, and she finally went still. The teacher—Miss Sophie—could only see him from the corner of her eye; if she turned her head, she’d yank the long strand of hair that was wound tight around Birdie’s shirtwaist button.

“Well, now, what have we here?” he said, softening his voice to keep Birdie calm. He shifted until he was kneeling in front of the teacher, and reached over her bent head to untangle the snarl.

“It got stuck! Now I can’t move or I’ll hurt Miss Sophie!”

Around them the children had gathered in a quiet circle, curious as cows. And protective of their teacher, Connor fancied. “That’s right,” he agreed, “so you must hold very, very still while I undo this knot. Pretend you’re a statue.”