Page 18 of Make My Wish Come True
Wroxham groped for his hand again, and this time his grip was surprisingly strong. “But you’re drawn to her.”
Adrian drew a deep breath. He was an idiot to speak of this, when he hadn’t managed to speak his peace to Gwen herself. “Yes. Very much so.”
“My advice is to heed it. One dance with your grandmother, and I knew. She dropped her fan at my feet, and when I looked into her eyes, I knew it was a sign from God above that she was my destiny. Forty-nine years of joy we shared.”
You probably didn’t seize her in the middle of the night and make love to her, after that lone dance, Adrian thought. “I’ve only just met her,” he said again.
Wroxham feebly wagged a finger. “With some women, that’s all it takes.”
Adrian looked down and confessed, “She doesn’t know who I am. Westley, I mean. A simple army captain, she thinks me.”
Wroxham smiled. “That… is easy to correct… Go tell her!”
When he went downstairs a quarter of an hour later, he felt both exhausted and restless. His mother was in the drawing room. She took one look at his face and opened her arms. “Oh, my dear.”
His eyes burned and then he was clinging to his mother, rigid with grief as she comforted him, just as she had done when he was a boy and the earl had come to tell them his father was dead in a far-away battle. “He said he was glad it was his turn to be buried.”
She sighed, stroking his hair much like Gwen had done. The thought struck him that he would want his son to have a mother like this—like Gwen—someone caring and kind and loving. “He has seen a great deal in his eighty-three years.”
And what Wroxham spoke of was the half-century of joy, with his Elizabeth. Whom he’d known was the one for him after a single dance. Adrian didn’t know if he really believed that, but he was sure his grandfather was correct about one thing: he needed to see Gwen. Already he felt her absence.
The butler came in with a bundle in his hands. “My lord, a groom discovered this under the blankets in the sleigh.”
Adrian recognized it as he took the soft roll of cloth. These were the buttons he had undone as he kissed his way down Gwen’s breasts. This was the cloth he had slid up her legs before stroking her into ecstasy. Inside was the brush whose strokes he had counted as he listened to her brush her hair; caught in the bristles were several long honey-gold strands of hair, and he knew they would smell of her.
“What is that?” asked his mother in surprise.
He stared at the thin nightgown, the small brush. No soldier could have been more economical in his choice of necessities. He himself had taken a clean shirt and stockings, his shaving kit, and a little box of tooth powder. She hadn’t meant to leave it behind, but she had, because she’d been trying to talk to him. And he’d been guilty and uncertain and anxious to reach Highvale, so he’d put it off until it was too late, and her family distracted her attention.
“A sign,” he said softly.
Chapter 11
After the emotional upheaval of the journey, life at Larkspur Cottage felt very quiet to Gwen.
Gran had indeed been very ill, so ill the doctor had sighed and said it was in God’s hands. That had spurred Gran’s teary letter to Gwen. Maisie, though, opined that the doctor wasn’t good for much, as he tended to think every woman’s illness was vague and mysterious, and she had thrown herself into caring for Gran. She was younger by almost ten years, and she had insisted that Gran would have fresh air and clean bedding every day, vast quantities of tea and soup but no heavy food, and a warm poultice on her chest every night. Gran had rolled her eyes during Maisie’s tale, but with a smile.
“And you mark my words, she began to get better three days before you arrived,” said Maisie to Gwen. “The very day you received her letter and decided to charge across the entire country to her side!”
“Maisie, neither of us had any idea Gwen had even read my letter,” scolded Gran. “It’s a coincidence.”
“Nevertheless, that’s the day you turned a corner, Belinda,” replied Maisie firmly. “God knew you must recover in time to see her.”
“If you thought pixies might have crept through your window at night to breathe good health on you, I would be grateful to the pixies,” Gwen told her grandmother, and gladly let Gran embrace her again.
For the first few days it was lovely; she was overjoyed to see Gran again, and doing so well. Maisie was delighted to have someone else to bake for, and they enjoyed a feast every night, it seemed to Gwen. Reggie was welcomed into the household, and won Maisie’s heart when he caught two of the mice that had been plaguing her for weeks in the kitchen.
Now that Gran was improving, though—and she declared herself vastly better, with Gwen there—there was precious little to do. Maisie and Gran lived simply, with a maid of all work and a man who came by later the day Gwen arrived to deliver coal and make a path through the snow to the well for Cora, the maid.
When Gwen finally confessed that her journey to Blackthorpe had cost her her post, there had been only a moment of shocked silence before Maisie stoutly declared that a young woman as industrious, clever, and good-natured as Gwen would surely find another post as soon as she wanted one, with Gran exclaiming in agreement.
Gwen didn’t say that she wasn’t so certain. She’d felt righteously upset that Sir Edmund had been so callous and rude, and she didn’t regret choosing Gran over the Bradfords. But it meant she had no reference from them, which would make things harder.
She ought to look for another post, somewhere around here. Not as a governess, but perhaps in one of the shops in the village. She liked being near Gran and Maisie, and there was certainly nothing to go back to in Salisbury. The only doubt she had… was Adrian.
She had learned through a few careful questions that the Earl of Wroxham’s estate, Highvale, was five miles from Larkspur Cottage. The earl was elderly, and Maisie’s gossipy friends at church whispered that they’d heard he was dying. Sorrow had squeezed Gwen’s heart at that, thinking of how he’d told her he was rushing home to see his grandfather. At least he’d made it in time, but it appeared that, unlike Gwen’s, his journey was going to end in mourning.
So her captain would be an earl soon, and Gwen was sure she knew now why he’d been so quiet during their sleigh ride to Blackthorpe. He would be an earl, and she was an unemployed, cat-stealing governess. Of course he hadn’t wanted to come in and take tea with Gran and Maisie; of course he hadn’t wanted to discuss that night, even though Gwen had meant to tell him that she was equally responsible and would never expect him to do something ridiculous like marry her.
