old are you, Andrew?’ She knew so much about him, yet so little.
‘I’ll be twenty-six in August.’
‘And I shall be twenty-one, soon.’
‘Good. That’s just right. And did I tell you that you should always wear blue?’
She smiled at him, shaking her head, holding his eyes in a too-long glance. But it didn’t matter, because he was making love to her: not the physical love she wanted so much to share with him; but with every look, every touch, every carefully chosen word, he made her love him a little more, and knew it was the same for him.
‘When we meet again – if it’s still summer – I shall wear this dress for you.’
‘It will still be summer, Julia. Soon, I shall have a week’s leave of absence. I have no close family to spend it with, so I could well come to –’
‘To York!’ she supplied, joyously. ‘I could meet you there – I’m sure I could. When will it be?’
‘In June. The second or third week.’
‘And you’ll come? You won’t change your mind?’ Her cheeks flushed hotly, a small, happy pulse beat at her throat. ‘I – I couldn’t bear it if you didn’t.’
‘I shall come. Only if my employers at the hospital decide otherwise will I not be there.’
‘And you would write and let me know if you couldn’t – write to Hawthorn, that is?’
‘I would let you know.’ They had stopped walking now, because the park gates were only a few steps away and each was reluctant to walk through them.
‘Andrew – you will try to make Aunt Sutton’s acquaintance? You’ve got to agree it would help?’
‘I don’t know, lassie. I’d like fine to meet your aunt, but if I don’t – well, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. Because it’s a big world we both live in, though you’ve seen precious little of it from inside your safe, sedate walls. But nothing can change these last few days. You know it and I know it. There’ll be a way,’ he said comfortably, confidently. ‘We’ll find it, between us.’
‘Andrew,’ she whispered, ‘we’re almost back and Hawthorn will be hovering and we mightn’t get the chance, so –’
‘So will you stop your chatter, lovely lassie, for just long enough for me to tell you I love you?’
‘I will. Oh, I will …’
‘Mind, I don’t know what’s come over me,’ he said softly, shaking his head at his own foolishness, ‘for I’d got my life all mapped out and everything in its place, and there was no place in it for a wife – not just yet. And now look at me.’
‘I’m looking. And I love what I see,’ she laughed. ‘And we’d better go and eat Hawthorn’s scones or she’ll have the constabulary out looking for me … It is true, isn’t it? And you will come to York?’
‘Aye. And I’ll leave my card at your aunt’s house.’
‘Then there isn’t any more to be said, is there?’ she whispered. ‘Except that I wish you would kiss me goodbye, when you leave.’
‘I will,’ he smiled. ‘Be sure, I will …’
He had kissed her, Julia thought dully, when he left Aunt Sutton’s. When she had begged Hawthorn with her eyes not to come to the door with them, he had cupped her face in his hands and laid his lips softly to the bruise on her forehead. Then he had kissed her mouth, softly, tenderly, lingering his lips on hers as if claiming them for his own.
Now this train was taking her from him. With every minute it was pulling them further apart. Soon they would reach York, then take the little slow train to Holdenby where the carriage would be waiting. They would be more than two hundred miles apart. Half a day apart.
‘Don’t be sad, miss. We had a lovely time. If you’re sad, her ladyship’s going to think the holiday has done you no good at all. Drink up your wine now.’ Aunt Sutton had given them wine for the journey; sweet, local wine from the Camargue.
‘Come again soon,’ she had said heartily. ‘Come when I’m at home, both of you, and I’ll show you a London you’d never have thought existed.’
Both of you, Alice had particularly noted, and it pleased her because she had liked Aunt Sutton the minute they met. And she couldn’t, Alice thought guiltily, be sad. Not for a minute, for, wonderful as London had been, soon she would see Tom, would run to his arms and tell him how she had missed him – after they had kissed …
‘I don’t believe it happened, Hawthorn; not any of it.’
‘It happened.’ Gently Alice laid a fingertip to a bruise, now shading paler and fading to yellow at the edges. ‘And miss, remember that night – the two white wishinghorses?’ Since the stop at Darlington they were the only occupants of the compartment and to talk was easier. ‘A wish each, we had …’
‘I remember.’ The smallest smile tilted the corners of Julia’s mouth.
‘Well, I can tell you mine now, ’cos it’s come true. I wished you could find someone like I’d found Tom – and you did. That very night, you did.’
‘Then white-horse wishes must be powerful stuff, because I wished for much the same thing.’
‘There now. You should go and tell it to the rooks when we’re back, miss. I always tell them. Share your secrets with those old rooks and they’ll keep them safe. And you can tell them when you’re unhappy, an’ all. Don’t think they can do a lot about unhappiness, but it helps to tell them.’
‘You won’t say anything, Hawthorn – not at home, I mean? Not until I’ve got used to it all – sorted myself out?’
‘You know I won’t. Not a word. When they’re talking about your eye in the kitchen, I shall tell them what we said it would be. And I’ll wish like anything I don’t get a letter from London, ’cos that would mean he wouldn’t be coming on holiday.’ And goodness only knew how she’d take it. She’d set her hopes on York, Miss Julia had. ‘Oh, can’t you tell her ladyship? She’d understand, I know she would, and then there needn’t be any lies and always having to watch what we say.’
‘I can’t, just yet. I couldn’t risk a refusal. She could well be angry, you know. I’ve broken all the rules.’
‘Which rules?’ There were no rules about falling in love. It happened, and there was nothing anybody could do about it, thanks be.
‘Our rules. There’s a way of doing things for us that’s simply got to be, and one of the things you don’t do is go against convention. I did. I went sneaking off like a scullery maid to meet him – oh, I’m sorry, Hawthorn, I didn’t mean to sound arrogant, I truly didn’t. But I ran after him. I knew exactly what I was doing and I didn’t care. No lady does that, does she? You didn’t.’
‘We-e-ll – not running as such. But I always made sure to take Morgan out reg’lar, before servants’ teatime. And once I went as bold as brass to the rearing field, ’cos I knew he’d be there. And I acted all surprised, like, though I’m glad I did it. That was the night he walked me back and asked me to be his girl, so don’t take on about what you did, Miss Julia. Men need a helping hand, sometimes, and you didn’t have a lot of choice – not with only three days left.
‘But your mother is a lovely lady, and you told me, didn’t you, that her and Sir John were secretly in love ever before they were matched. She’d understand. She would.’
‘A young doctor without expectations? Hardly