twenty-three
“How could you think that of me?”
a voice thundered from below-stairs.
“Answer me, Jo, this instant!”
Laurie’s voice.
No, that could not be quite right.
For one thing, Laurie was supposedly oceans away, in another country. And for another, that was not his voice. It resembled it closely, but Jo had never heard him scream like that, in pure agony.
Jo ran to the landing across the gallery, leaving her manuscript unfinished, and peered downstairs. It was an hour before midnight, and almost everyone had withdrawn to bed.
A half-asleep servant appeared to have opened the front door against his better judgement, and was now struggling against someone who was pushing his way in. That ‘someone’ had a tall, lean figure which Jo could have known anywhere. He’d cut his hair since the funeral, and lost more weight.
And he was absolutely screaming.
“This is insanity! How could she ever think that of me? How could she accuse…?”
“Beg pardon, my lord,”
Sainted John’s calm baritone interrupted the chaos. Jo saw him from above as he ran from the library to the servant’s assistance.
“How may we help you in this hour of night?”
Laurie stopped screaming long enough to take in his appearance. A tremor shook his body, as if he were holding in an emotion of great intensity. Jo was suddenly overcome by the need to laugh.
He looked positively deranged and tragic at the same time, standing there with his cravat slightly askew, as if he had galloped here all the way from Paris.
Paris. Amy.
The laughter died as abruptly as it had come. She turned away to leave.
I cannot be here. This cannot be happening.
“Do I know you, my good man?”
Laurie’s voice was asking Sainted John downstairs. It sounded faint, as if he were beginning to wonder whether he had taken leave of his senses.
“This is Orchard Hall, is it not? Seat of Viscount Vidal?”
“Indeed it is,”
John replied, and Jo could not resist turning back for a peek. She saw John sweep an arm to welcome Laurie in.
“I am Lord Brooke, Margaret’s husband. And you must be Lord Lowry, if I recall correctly?”
“Afraid not,”
Laurie said, swaying on his feet. He looked like he were about to drop dead on the carpet.
“What you see before you, sir, is what’s left of the former Lord Lowry.”
He leaned his elbows on his knees, struggling to catch his breath.
“I appear to have turned into a lunatic.”
Jo took pity on the poor man—John, that is.
She climbed down the stairs as slowly as she could, but eventually, she was standing in front of Laurie, without having thought of anything to say to him.
Immediately, he straightened. His eyes were a study in torment and beauty. How could he be even more handsome now than he had been before? Her heart, which she thought safe from him, blew wide open as if from a strong wind.
“Jo,”
Laurie murmured in the reverent tones of one who was in the presence of a spirit.
“How could you!”
That destroyed what was left of her self-restraint. She clamped her lips shut, because if she spoke now, she would cry.
“How could you think that your sister…”
Laurie sputtered, “that your… How could you even consider the possibility that I…”
He appeared to have trouble forming words.
“How could you even think that I would look at another woman? And your sister, of all people? Great heavens, of all the mad things…”
He suddenly went very white, and John rushed to catch his arm before he fell.
“I’m sorry,”
Jo murmured, but Laurie was not capable of hearing her.
“Quick, his other arm,”
John said, leaping to action.
Between them, he, Jo and the manservant, half-carried Laurie to the parlor and helped him sit down. Laurie kept trying to breathe and almost choking, but Sainted John reassured Jo that as soon as he had a ‘spot of brandy’ down him, he would be as good as new.
“I’m sorry,”
Jo said again, uselessly.
“Fellow must be deep in his cups,”
Sainted John tried to console her.
“Not drunk,”
Laurie somehow, in his semi-conscious state, had the presence of mind to defend himself.
“Have been travelling without stopping since I got that blasted letter,”
his words were interrupted by painful gasps.
“Changed horses. Rode again. Repeated the process. Did not even take water.”
“Well, take some now,”
John encouraged him, forever calm in the midst of utter absurdity.
At some point between the brandy and the water, Laurie’s color returned to his face, and his eyes stopped having that frightening glazed-over look. They searched the room frantically. Searching for her.
“Jo,”
he said when they found her.
He tried to stand up.
“We had better leave you two alone,”
John said quickly, and closed the doors behind himself and the servant as they exited, not giving two straws about the impropriety of leaving a lady alone with a gentleman.
Or what was left of him, anyway.
Jo and Laurie were left alone, he sprawled on the couch, fighting for his life, she trembling by the door, afraid to even look at him as if she’d be turned into a pillar of salt.
“I’m sorry about the letter,”
Jo said for the hundredth time.
“I did not… I did not mean for it to nearly kill you.”
“You are going to be the death of me, woman,”
Laurie said, emptying the glass Sainted John had poured for him himself. He stood. He was not shaking anymore.
“Come here. What was that mad, absurd thing you wrote in your letter? How did you think your sister could ever hold the least appeal for me, when you exist in the world?”
“I am sorry,”
Jo repeated.
“I heard that you…”
I shall kill Justin, she thought. The idiot was wrong.
“It’s you,”
Laurie said, and all murderous thoughts fled from her mind.
“It’s only ever been you.”
“I’m sorry.”
I must stop saying that.
“I jumped on my horse the instant I got your letter, just to clear this up,”
Laurie said.
“I travelled for a day and night without stopping.”
“Just for that,”
Jo whispered. She was standing frozen by the door, and Laurie looked like he wanted to go to her, but he visibly held himself back.
“Yes.”
He was watching her with those sad, sad eyes. He never used to have sad eyes before Meg’s wedding.
“I would do it all over again, just to dispel the very thought from your mind.”
“I was torturing myself with that thought,” Jo said.
“Torturing?”
Up went one black eyebrow. Had his lips been that red when he’d kissed her? Had his teeth been just visible under the curve of the bottom lip? “Don’t use that word. It’s ugly. It’s dangerous. It might teach me to hope.”
“Hope, then,”
Jo said, hardly knowing what she did.
“What?”
He stopped breathing. His eyes grew round. Crazed.
“What?”
Jo repeated.
“Do you realize, Josephine St Claire, do you realize—”
his voice broke as he finally took one step towards her.
Jo tried to retreat, but her back was already to the door—there was nowhere to hide. She gathered her robe closer around her, and tried to remember if she had her hair in a braid or let it free to cascade in wild curls down her back like ‘some sort of fairytale witch-maiden’ according to Meg.
“Do you realize that I won’t stop proposing?”
Laurie was taking another step closer. His eyes were fixed on hers, glittering with unshed tears. He wasn’t even blinking.
“I won’t leave again; it was hell being away from you anyway. I’ll stay here, as I am, rejected, dejected. I don’t care. The minute I saw you again, you were like air to a choking man. I am not leaving you again.”
Jo tried to swallow; her lips had gone dry.
“I choose you,”
Laurie said, “whether you choose me back or not. More than the stars, I shall be constant. Do with that as you will.”
‘Do with that as you will.’
He was putting himself in her hands entirely. He was standing there, his face mere inches from hers, that beloved, sculpted face, which was known to her more intimately than her own. She knew every little detail of it, every single visible or invisible mark that time, pain or joy had left on it.
And he was waiting.
It is time, Jo thought. Finally, it is time. An immense calm came over her. And with it, the one thing she had lacked until now: courage.
She opened her lips and faced him bravely. His eyes flickered with uncertainty: she had not dared to look at him directly so far.
“Ask me again,”
she said, surprised to find out her voice steady.
“I am not asking again,”
Laurie frowned.
“Ask me again,”
Jo repeated. Laurie looked at her as if she was the insane one now. She could not make him realize what she was saying. She had to take a different approach.
“I thought you… I thought you engaged,”
she began.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
His reply was abrupt and decisive.
“Well, since I… Since I rejected you, I thought you might look elsewhere in the family that you love…”
“Are you mad?”
He looked affronted, as if she had just insulted him.
“I never managed to explain my response to you, back then,”
Jo tried again.
“I thought that if I married you, if I allowed myself to l-love you, then you would see my real self, day in and day out, and then I would lose you too.
“You’ll never lose me, Jo, never,”
he said fervently.
“I’ll not leave again. This is for life.”
She laughed and it came out as half-crying.
But I did lose you, she thought. I did.
“Well, you say that now, Laurie, but… It’s one thing to fake fight with you, to play with you, but to love you? I would be all in earnest.”
“Wait, you would?”
He swayed on his feet again, and she remembered how he told her he got ‘dizzy’ whenever he so much as looked at her.
“I already am.”
“You are killing me, here, Jo. I…”
I have finally driven the poor boy to insanity. He cannot comprehend what I am trying to say to him. I really should have expected it.
“Can I say one thing?”
she murmured, feeling her courage seep away under his intense stare.
“Only one? That would be a first,”
Laurie made a pitiful attempt at a laugh.
“Go on, then. Give it a try.”
“Yes,” Jo said.
“What?”
His face was draining of color again.
“Yes. My one thing is this: Yes.”
…
It took him a full minute to comprehend her words.
“You… you said yes,”
he whispered finally.
“Yes.”
“To my proposal? To my… to my love? To my…?”
“To everything,”
Jo said. “Yes.”
“I am getting light-headed.”
“Sit down and put your head between your knees,”
Jo said quickly, fearing a repeat of the incident in the foyer. She put his hands on her shoulders, trying to steady him.
“I don’t want to put my head between my knees,”
he said. She could feel him shaking slightly. His grip on her shoulders increased, as if he were clutching her for dear life.
“Then where do you want to put your—”
His response cut her words short.
He lowered his head over hers and fit his mouth to her lips with a sigh so deep and desperate, it resembled the moan of a drowning man who is taking his first breath.
Dear Beth,
It happened.
-Jo