The following afternoon when they drove up the drive and halted before the house, she stumbled out of the carriage, walked to the mound of earth beneath the old oak tree, and lay down upon it.
“I miss him, Beast,” she said into the grass. “I knew him only a fortnight and yet I miss him like I miss you and Petti. I love you,” she whispered. “I love you.”
A sennight later a letter arrived from General Dijon with news of the betrothal of his daughter to the Earl of Case. Since he would be remaining in England until after the wedding, he did not require Ravenna’s response to his offer of employment quite yet. Extending an invitation to the wedding, he indicated that a formal invitation would arrive shortly from Airedale.
“Will you accept?” Sir Beverley said.
Ravenna dropped the letter onto the grate and watched the flames eat it. “I haven’t yet decided. With Petti’s house now, and all the work I already have in this county, it seems absurd to take a post in America. I am thinking of setting up my own practice from the other house.”
“But will you accept the invitation to the wedding?”
The door beneath her ribs cracked open again and the ache sprang out.
She affected a shrug. “Why wouldn’t I? Arielle is a sweet girl. I like her very much. And Iona will probably attend. I would be glad to see her again.”
Sir Beverley peered at her through half-lidded eyes. “Why wouldn’t you, indeed?”
Because he allowed me to walk away.
She had not bluffed. She had anticipated his disenchantment and had been wise to put him off swiftly.
Another letter arrived, this one posted from London.
The wedding will be in Lisbon. Papa is thrilled at the prospect of joining Prince Raynaldo’s stables with his. Oh, dearest friend, how is it possible that I could be so fortunate, so blessed to be marrying the man I admire above all others and making my father and mother happy at once? It seems a dream, but I never wake from it! You must come stand beside me. Sebastiao has sisters and cousins that will attend me for the ceremony, but I will not be happy unless you are with me on that day. You vowed to me you would. I expect you in June.
Ravenna set that letter on the grate too.
“It is possible . . .” Through the drawing room window she watched the setting sun bathe the park in dusk. “Is it possible to love a man after knowing him only a fortnight?”
Paper rustled, a page of Sir Beverley’s journal turning. “It is possible, my dear, after only an hour.”
She stared at Petti’s empty chair, now in shadow. “And yet, given . . .”—grief, loneliness, pain—“given all, you do not regret it?”
Sir Beverley lowered his paper. “Given all, how could I?”
When she received word that the first of the tenants’ ewes had dropped a lamb, she walked to the farm to assist. As always, the lambs all came within days of each other, tiny and confused, then hungry, then sleeping. She wanted to sleep too, to fall into a field of wildflowers beneath the spring sunshine and disappear.
The long days and nights of lambing came to an end on a morning dark with clouds that stretched across the sky. Dragging her weary legs and arms from the barn, she declined a ride home in the farmer’s cart and set off, cutting through the wood carpeted with bluebells.
The rain began in thick droplets spaced far apart. As the trees thinned, it grew heavy, splashing off her nose and cheeks in giant splotches, washing away the dirt and straw, soaking through her hair and filling the woods with its soft, steady rhythm.
At the edge of the woods Ravenna’s footsteps faltered, the exhaustion of every limb, every thought, every feeling that she had held at bay now overcoming her. She halted and for a moment swayed, and the rain slid down her cheeks, tasting of salt as it mingled with tears. The scents of spring and birth stirred by the downpour rose around her, urging her to lift her face and spread her arms and run as she had always done. But her legs would not obey.
Her knees buckled and she dropped to them in the bed of flowers. She sought the ground with her palms, then laid her head upon the sodden carpet, curled up on her side, and closed her eyes. She thought perhaps that if she were Arabella she would imagine this was fate: to be soaked to the bone, then fall ill with a fever and perish just when she had finally understood the truth of her heart. If she were Eleanor she would ponder something profound, then write about it.
But Ravenna did not believe in destiny and she was not an adept writer. And the grief was too powerful to bear. Tucked into a ball, she lay aching until, eventually, she fell asleep.
The lathe of a dog’s tongue on her cheek woke her. Not even in dreaming could she mistake the modest size of this animal’s greeting for Beast’s giant lick. Still, her heart constricted. Then it constricted again, harder, for another loss altogether, because it did that lately, collided one hole in her heart with another to make one gaping wound.
She opened her eyes to discern which of the farmer’s sheep dogs was cleaning the salted raindrops from her face. Her breaths stuttered. She lifted her hands and held the soft white and black head far enough away to study him. His muzzle was a bit longer, his ears floppier and his nose a shade broader, all in the manner of young animals that grow at astounding speed. But his face was entirely familiar.
“Gon?alo,” she whispered, her heartbeats quick.
He yipped and sprang away.
Shoving hair from her eyes and swiping a damp sleeve across her cheeks, she pushed up to sit and peered into the thinning rainfall. Toward her across the field cantered a handsome dappled Andalusian, the man astride the mighty animal handsomer yet. She could not stand up or indeed move at all; her trembling limbs rebelled.
Vitor drew the horse to a halt, dismounted with agile elegance, and walked toward her.
“What—” She coughed upon rainwater and stumbled to her feet. He was real, here, in the rain before her, his dark eyes taking in her bedraggled hair and gown covered with sheep muck. “What are you doing here?” she finally managed.
“Are you all right?” His gaze swept the impression that her body had made in the bluebells, then her body.
“I—I was— The lambing, you see— That is to say, I haven’t slept since—” Since she had left him. She drew a tight breath. “On my way home, I paused to rest. I suppose I fell asleep.”
“In the rain,” he said. “In a patch of wildflowers.”
“Oh, you know,” she said airily, waving a damp, unsteady hand. “It’s a remarkable challenge to keep goose feather pillows dry out of doors. Substitutions are occasionally necessary.”
“I daresay.” His dark eyes quietly smiled.
“Why are you here?”
“I came to give you this.” He opened his greatcoat and from it produced a lump of shaggy white fur barely bigger than his hand. The rain pattered upon the pup’s silky head. It lifted its nose, cracked opened it eyes, and sniffed the air. “He is not Beast, of course. But I don’t like the thought of you being alone. And this one”—he glanced at the long-legged pup dancing around his knees—“likes him, so I supposed he would suit.”
She was afraid to reach out and touch it—touch him—lest he should disappear and prove a dream. “How do you know about Beast?”
“You told my brother. After I decided through careful consideration that the beast you spoke to him of was not a man, I recalled that you had mentioned him to me before. Sir Beverley has just now taken me to visit the old oak. I am sorry, Ravenna.”