than never.
AFTER MRS. MINCHIN HAD finished having hysterics and Mr. Minchin had finished raging, Flora had summoned the hall boy, the footman and as many of the maids as could be spared, and sent them out with notes for all the wedding guests telling them that the nuptials were canceled and she deeply regretted the inconvenience. She then informed her parents that she was going out for a walk, alone, and such was their stupor at what had happened that they did not oppose her. It was the first time in Flora’s life that she had made them angry and she could tell that they were baffled as well because until now she had never given them a moment’s cause for concern, yet suddenly she had turned into a stranger to them.
She went out of the house and turned away from the village toward the moors. She did not walk with any particular destination in mind, but simply followed where her feet were taking her. She noticed that it was a beautiful early summer day, perfect for a wedding. The skylarks were calling overhead, their song fading as they rose higher and higher into the blue. The wildflowers bobbed on the verge beside the track. Presently she found herself up on the hill, high above the village. Fortune’s Folly was spread out beneath her with the church spire piercing the sky and the lazy curl of the river and the old abbey ruins and the bridge, and Fortune Row where people strolled and gossiped in the sun. She was beyond the reach of them all, even if they were all talking scandal about her canceled wedding.
She looked down. Her shoes were ruined. It was so stupid of her to have come out without putting on stout boots for even in summer the tracks were dirty and rutted. She supposed that she could at least afford another pair, or a hundred pairs, since she wasn’t giving all her money away to Nat Waterhouse anymore. She tried to examine her feelings. She was not sorry that the wedding was canceled. She would have married Nat, of course, and she would have made him a good wife because that was what she had been brought up to believe in. It was what she had thought she was going to do with her life. Yet it was odd, because all along she had known that there had to be if not something more, then something different. A dutiful marriage was one path, true—the path that society in general and her mother in particular had decreed for her and she had not struggled against it. But now…Well, suddenly she felt free and it felt rather strange.
She sat down on the wall. The sharp corners of the stone dug into her bottom and thighs and she wriggled to try to get comfortable. She was out of breath. The morning was hot and the sun was climbing high in the sky and she had come out without a bonnet or parasol as well as in her flimsy shoes.
There were men working the fields away to her right. She recognized one of them as Lowell Lister, Lady Vickery’s brother. She had seen him escorting his mother and sister to assemblies in Fortune’s Folly before Alice was wed. He had never asked her to dance, of course. He was a farmer and she was a lady and it would not have been suitable, despite the fact that his sister had inherited a fortune and gone on to marry a lord.
Flora watched idly as Lowell and his men worked the field, cutting the hay. Lowell was as fair as Alice, and deeply tanned from so much time spent in the outdoors. There was a fluid strength about the movement of his body, a supple smoothness in the way that he bent and used the scythe. Flora could see the muscles in his arms cording as he worked methodically down the field. He led his farmhands by example, she thought. He was not the sort of employer who sat watching whilst other men toiled.
Lowell straightened and pushed the fair hair back from his brow. He raised a stone flask to his lips and drank deep, his throat moving as he swallowed. Then he let the hand holding the flask drop to his side and looked straight at Flora. His eyes were the same deep blue as the summer sky. Flora’s heart skipped a beat. Suddenly she felt very, very hot indeed.
He started to walk slowly toward her. A sort of panic rose in Flora’s chest and she scrambled to her feet, catching her skirts on the sharp stone, and hearing something rip. She slid down onto the track and hurried away down the path toward the village without a word. She could sense that Lowell was still watching her—every fiber in her body told her it was so—and after she had gone some twenty paces she turned to look back. He was standing by the wall and in his fingers was a scrap of yellow muslin torn from her gown.
“Wait!” he said.
Flora hesitated. Lowell came down the line of the wall and when he had almost reached her he jumped over in one lithe movement and was standing beside her before she had barely time to draw breath. He seemed so vibrant and alive, so different from any man that she had ever known, that her senses were stunned for a moment. She could smell the grass and the sun on him and when he smiled at her she felt her heart lurch strangely in her chest.
“It’s a hot day to be walking up on the hills,” he said. He had more than a hint of the local accent in his voice. Unlike his mother and sister he had never erased it. “Would you like a drink?” He held out the flask.
Flora took it from him and looked at it dubiously. After a moment Lowell laughed and unstoppered it for her and passed it back. She placed her lips where his had been and drank deeply. The liquid was cold and deliriously refceshing and tasted of apples. She swallowed some more and saw that he was watching her with the laughter still lurking in his eyes. She felt self-conscious then and passed the bottle back to him, wondering if she should have wiped the neck first.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Miss Minchin, isn’t it?” Lowell said. “Flora?”
She liked the way that he said her name. It sounded very pretty.
She nodded. “You are Lowell Lister.”
He sketched an ironic bow. “What are you doing up here alone, Flora?” he said.
“I wanted to think,” Flora said. She was starting to feel rather odd. The sun was filtering through the green leaves of the ash tree beside the wall and dancing in patterns across her eyelids. She wanted to sit down and rest her heavy head against the solid trunk. She looked suspiciously at the flask that was still in Lowell’s hand.
“Is…Is that…cider?” She had heard that cider was dangerous.
Lowell smiled. “It is. Would you like some more?”
“No, thank you,” Flora said. “You should have stopped me. Cider isn’t a suitable beverage for a lady.”
Lowell laughed. “Why should I stop you? Can’t you decide for yourself what it is that you want?”
Flora looked at him. His eyes were the deepest blue but flecked with specks of green and gold and fringed with the blackest lashes.
“Of course I can decide,” she said, offended. She sat down on the bank. “I canceled my wedding today. That was my decision.”
Lowell’s eyes widened. He nodded slowly and sat down beside her. “Was that what you wanted to think about when you came up here?” he asked.
Flora looked sideways at him. His sleeves were rolled up and his forearm, resting beside hers, was tanned dark brown and sprinkled with hairs that gleamed gold in the sun. Flora’s throat felt dry. Perhaps, she thought, I will have some more cider after all.
“Yes,” she said. “I wanted to think about my wedding and about…other things, too.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Lowell said.
“Yes,” Flora said, looking at him and realizing that she wanted to talk to him very much indeed. “Yes, please.”
Chapter Five
“DEAREST LADY ELIZABETH!” Lady Wheeler gushed. “Such a pleasure to have you with us tonight! So unexpected but so very welcome!” She wafted about Lizzie like an enormous moth, all fluttery arms and flapping draperies. Lizzie hoped that she would not go too near the fire or there might be a disaster.
“You never normally grace our functions,” Lady Wheeler continued. “This is most magnanimous of you!”
“Not at all,” Lizzie murmured. Many of the residents of Fortune’s Folly considered her to be a terrible snob