Mary Balogh - Bespelling Jane Austen

Was this she?

“I do beg your pardon,” she said again, flushing. “Of course we have never met. How could we? The Reverend Mitford has been here only three years, and I know you have not visited him in that time.”

“Your instinct is right and your logic is wrong, Miss Everett,” he said. “We have known each other for a lifetime or ten. For an eternity, in fact.”

His voice sounded breathless to his own ears. But he managed to smile and speak lightly, as though jokingly.

Could this be she?

“We have never met, have we?” she said, laughing.

“Not until today,” he said. “Will you take my arm?”

She hesitated for a moment, but then placed her hand lightly through his arm and rested it in the crook of his elbow.

His breath seemed suspended altogether.

He was so suffused with familiarity that he felt quite dizzy. He knew that touch.

He made more deliberate use of his cane for a few steps until he had recovered his wits and his equilibrium.

They were together again, then.

It began again.

They were to have yet another chance at love.

The dizziness threatened to overwhelm him.

Could this be?

JANE FELT FOOLISH FOR ASKING THAT QUESTION out loud when she knew perfectly well that they had never met. He would think she was flirting with him.

Though he had been kind enough to make a joke of it.

We have known each other for a lifetime or ten. For an eternity, in fact.

His eyes crinkled attractively at the corners when he smiled.

The visit to the vicarage had been a little strange altogether. Because elderly Mrs. Mitford had been dressed in her Sunday best and had been looking bright and happy to have visitors on her birthday, and because both Louisa and Edna had virtually ignored her after speaking the obligatory greetings, Jane had done something she had never done before. She had stepped close to Mrs. Mitford and hugged her, and instead of recoiling, the lady had caught hold of her hand and held it tightly all the time they sat together.

Did she still remember that long-ago afternoon when Jane was four? Clearly, she did not bear a grudge if she did. But why would she? Jane had been little more than a baby.

But Jane had remembered.

She had once been absolutely convinced, with no shadow of doubt, that Mrs. Mitford had once been her mother. With her child’s logic, she had not stopped to ask herself when that might have been or how she could possibly have two mothers.

All she could remember now was that it had been a powerful conviction.

This afternoon she had sat hand-in-hand with Mrs. Mitford. And she had felt a strange welling of affection, bordering upon grief.

As if Mrs. Mitford really had been her mother once upon a time.

Perhaps she ought to try remembering more of what she had so ruthlessly suppressed all those years ago.

Or perhaps not.

At this precise moment all her attention was focused upon the man with whom she walked. She wished she had not taken his arm. She had walked thus with any number of gentlemen, but she had never before felt this…this awareness, this heat, this difficulty in breathing normally, this frantic need to say something to break the terrible tension which no doubt she was the only one feeling.

She did not like the feeling at all. She could actually hear her heart beating, as if it were lodged in her eardrums.

“It is a lovely day,” she said with bright cheerfulness as they passed between the gates into the park.

“It is,” he agreed.

“It has been a lovely summer.”

“It has.”

“I suppose,” she said desperately, “it does not compare favorably to India, though.”

“If you refer merely to degree of temperature,” he said, “you are quite right. I love India, but there is nothing lovelier than a fine summer day in England. It is where my heart belongs, for this lifetime at least.”

“You are expecting more than one lifetime, then?” she asked him, relieved to feel amusement.

“Oh, certainly,” he said, sounding equally amused. “How else are we to learn all there is to learn from life? And how else can life be fair, as we all feel it ought to be but as it seems so often to be decidedly not? ”

“These are strange beliefs,” she said, “for a man whose brother is a clergyman.”

“Perhaps,” he said, “they can remain our secret.”

They both laughed.

She could feel the warmth of his arm through the sleeve of his coat. She could smell his cologne. She felt ever so slightly dizzy.

Surely she knew him.

But how could she?

“This appears to be a lovely park,” he said as they proceeded along the wooded driveway.

“It is,” she agreed.

“I daresay,” he said, “it is at its loveliest now at the height of summer.”

“It is,” she said and could think of nothing else to say to prolong the conversation.

“It will be a long and tedious walk to the hall, Miss Everett,” he said, “if we maintain such a polite, lovely conversation.”

“Is the walk too far for you?” she asked half chagrined, half hopeful. “Please do not feel obliged to accompany me all the way if you would rather return to the vicarage. I walk alone in the park all the time.”

“I have neither the wish nor the need to return so soon,” he said. “It is, as we have agreed, both a lovely day and a lovely park. What is the very loveliest part of it?”

“The lake,” she said. “But my favorite feature is the small summer pavilion. It has a wooden bench outside it overhung with roses. There I can sit and saturate my senses with beauty. Or simply dream.”

“You enjoy solitude, then?” he asked her.

“And company, too,” she said. “I like people who are genuinely cheerful and kind. I like them even better if they have interesting conversation and informed opinions on matters of general concern. But yes, I enjoy my own company, too.”

“Because you are genuinely cheerful and kind and interesting and informed?” he said.

She laughed.

“Are you imagining,” she said, “that the pavilion and bench are close enough to the water that I can gaze admiringly down at my own reflection as I sit there?”

“Perhaps,” he said, “you will take me there, Miss Everett, so that we may sit together on that bench, which you have made sound so idyllic. And perhaps I may be permitted to gaze upon you even if the water is not close enough to throw back your reflection.”

She darted a startled glance at him.

“Now?” she asked.

“It may be raining tomorrow,” he said.

“We would have to walk across the lawn,” she said, “or through these trees and then along a rough, narrow path around the far side of the lake.”

“Is it too rough for you?” he asked her. “Should I carry you?”

She answered his smile with one of her own.

Louisa and Edna would wonder what had become of her. But no, of course they would not. They would not even miss her. Neither would her father. And if Amelia Mitford missed her, it would surely be with some gratification, as Jane’s absence with Captain Mitford would give her more time to spend at Goodrich with Louisa.

Suddenly Jane wanted very much to take Captain Mitford to the summer pavilion, to prolong this time with him. She was…Oh, of course she was not falling in love with him. That would be more than absurd. But she was very much attracted to him. It was such an unfamiliar feeling that she felt quite dizzy again.

“It is quicker to go through the trees,” she said. “But it is rougher.”