Chapter Twenty-Two #2
He sat, arms around his legs. The girls were sitting astride the branches of two pine trees, weaving and yelling. Mr. Lockwood looked at Anna, amusement in his eyes.
“Can you fill me in?”
So, we are just picking up where we left off?
“They have been captured by pookahs.”
“Pookahs?”
“Irish fairy creatures. They can assume any shape, but Louisa tells us they prefer to be horses. When in such form, they have a bad habit of luring people on their backs and then taking them on death-defying rides.”
The girls, having finally noticed Mr. Lockwood’s arrival, climbed out of the trees and came over to greet him. He rose and gave them all hugs.
“I must apologize. My arrival seems to have broken the pookahs’ spell. I do not like to have deprived you from what seemed to be a most exhilarating ride.”
“Oh, it’s all right,” Julia said reassuringly. “We were going to go dig for treasure anyway.”
The girls ran off, and Mr. Lockwood resumed his place beside Anna. He was quiet, and she wondered if he was preparing to dress her down. It might be a relief. A kindness, really, to be offered the chance to explain, and to tell him how sorry she was.
She was astonished, therefore, when he turned to her and said, “I owe you an apology, Miss Bradley.”
“How could that possibly be, Mr. Lockwood, when I have done you the most terrible injustice?”
“But you had a reason, did you not? My sister has told me how you came by your misperceptions. She also informed me that the first offense was my own, when I failed to show up for a dance. I confess I do not remember the evening in question, but I was a rather selfish young man, and I am sorry for that.”
Anna felt her face grow red. “It was one silly dance. It does not excuse my assumptions.”
“It was an honest mistake. I feel terrible regret for how I behaved on the boat. I knew something must have caused the change in your manner, and if I had not been so cold and stiff, perhaps you would have told me,” he said.
“I’m afraid I’ve learned that I can be devilishly prideful.
I was wounded, you see, that you might think so little of me.
In case you had not noticed, I had fallen quite in love with you. ”
With effort, Anna kept her jaw from dropping, but she could not prevent her heart from hammering, or her soul from singing. “You … you had?”
“I had. I have, rather. And the reason I came back here, besides to apologize, was to ask you if there was the smallest chance of your ever feeling the same.”
She sighed and looked up at him, unable to keep the smile from spreading across her face.
“I think the chances are quite good, Mr. Lockwood.”
He reached for her hand and threaded his fingers through hers.
“I will try my best to be worthy, for I am determined to marry you, if you’ll have me.”
“You wish to marry me, Mr. Lockwood?” she asked, astonished again.
He pulled her closer, took her face in his free hand, then kissed her. She returned the kiss, most enthusiastically.
“I do wish to marry you,” he said, when he finally pulled away. “And I also wish you would stop with this ‘Mr. Lockwood’ business and call me Harley.”
“I will, if you would call me Anna.”
“With pleasure. I confess I’ve been calling you Anna in my mind for the longest time. I have also read Liberty Island, and I think it’s an absolute marvel.”
“Thank you,” Anna said.
“In fact, it was to be my consolation if you did not accept me. If nothing else, I knew I would always have your book.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was reading a story inspired by a world I had come to know and love, written by a woman I had come to know and love. I felt keenly the privilege of having immersed myself in all of this,” he said, with a sweep of his arm taking in the island.
“I was so engaged, I read it once without stopping, but then I read it again, awed by the way you created different characters and stories, but still captured so perfectly what was best and truest about Jumaru.”
He was looking around at the clearing, but then he turned to Anna again. “I knew, if nothing else, I could always pick up Liberty Island, and it would transport me back to what had been some of the happiest days of my life.”
Anna beamed up at him.
“Do you want to write more such stories?” he asked.
Anna picked up a dry pine needle and twirled it in her fingers.
She recalled earlier, when she became aware of a seed of hope that had been planted in her heart.
She had dared not identify it, but now she knew that this was what it was.
She wanted to marry this man, but she also wanted to write more books.
Women almost always had to make a hard choice between marriage and career. Perhaps a marriage to Mr. Lockwood would be the exception that proved the rule, but she could not be sure.
“Yes, I would like to write more such stories,” she said finally.
He nodded. “I believe you would enjoy living at Wendover, and I can promise you would have the quiet and the time to write. That said, I am willing to live wherever you would like.” She must have looked astonished because he looked at her a little more closely and added, “You would have my full support, of course.”
Support. It was amazing how easily this rolled off his tongue, as if her continuing to write after they were married was perfectly natural and expected. Of course he was Eugenia’s brother, and she had taught him well.
“I am sure I would like it very much.”
“I should tell you, too, that I am thinking about buying the Grahams’ cottage. I wonder if you’d like that.”
“A house?” Anna said, putting her hands to her cheeks in mock surprise. “A house of our own, on Guillotine?”
“It’s just a cottage,” he said, waving a hand. “Nothing to lose your head over!”
She threw back that very head and laughed; then he pulled her closer so it could rest on his shoulder.