Remember When (Ravenswood #4)

Chapter Twenty-One

Not long after Matthew returned to his brother’s house, having been persuaded to take some luncheon with the Greenfields, all became a frantic bustle as the ladies began to dress in their chosen finery and panicked over missing items and wanted the curling iron all at the same moment and worried that the first guests would arrive before they were ready to receive them and fussed over the two young children who had escaped from the nursery and called for their nurse to come and get them—and then called for the men to come and get ready too.

“At least an hour earlier than we need to do it,” Reggie said, giving a mock sigh for his brother and his son. “But we had better go up anyway before the ladies have a collective apoplexy.”

Matthew dressed in the evening clothes he wore on all such occasions and came downstairs at the appointed hour. He was feeling far calmer than he had expected, considering the whole event was in his honor. Perhaps it was because life here now was less about formality and rules and doing things right and more about warmth and love and family interactions. Reggie’s household was nothing like Matthew had expected it to be. It was nothing like it had used to be under his parents’ rule even though the house was the same, with very few real modifications.

The drawing room was the largest room in the house. Beyond it was another room of a decent size, variously called the salon, when he was a boy, or the library, or the music room, though there had been precious few books there and the only instrument in it was an aged pianoforte, always out of tune and rarely played. There were wide double doors connecting the two rooms. Matthew could not remember the doors ever being opened. They were open tonight, however, surprising him with the discovery that the combined space was impressively large. The pianoforte in the smaller room was new, or at least newer than the one it had replaced. The lid over the keyboard had been raised. There was music on the stand above the keyboard and a small pile on top of the instrument. There was a bookcase too, filled with books, along the back wall.

In the drawing room itself, the furniture had been pushed back against the walls and the rugs removed. The wooden floor of both rooms gleamed with a fresh coat of varnish. Candles burned in the candelabra overhead in both rooms, a rarity during Matthew’s childhood, when creating too much light during the evenings was considered a sinful waste of money and candles.

In the dining room, which he had passed on his way down from his bedchamber, the table with all its leaves added was packed as full as it could be with plates and bowls of food. Two side tables offered what looked like a wide variety of beverages and a punch bowl.

But there was little time for a leisurely look around. The family was downstairs too in all their evening finery, smartly dressed servants stood about, ready for action, and the first carriage was drawing up outside the house.

“You must stand between Reggie and me, Matthew,” Adelaide said to him. “Philip and Emily, stand on the other side of Papa.”

There was to be a receiving line, Matthew realized in some dismay. No effort was to be spared to show him off to the neighbors as a valued member of the family—though he was only a carpenter. No effort was to be spared to make him feel the joy his family felt at having him back among them. It was a realization that brought an ache of unshed tears to the back of his throat—and an intense embarrassment as he wondered how the neighbors, some of whom he had known as a boy, would feel about this grand gesture.

And then, of course, there was the whole matter of his engagement to Clarissa, which he had confided to Reggie and Adelaide, but not to anyone else in the house.

But this was not the time to dwell upon that or the delight—and surprising lack of shock—with which they had greeted the news.

—

Despite the short distance between the two houses, Clarissa rode to Reginald Taylor’s house with her parents and George and Kitty. It was a bit of a squash in the carriage, but there was something of a wind blowing outside, and Clarissa’s original plan to walk over to the Taylors’ house with her brother and sister-in-law was abandoned in order to avoid arriving with shiny cheeks and nose and hair that had been blown into an unruly bush.

They arrived early, something her parents had always done when they were invited out and Clarissa still tended to do. Even so, they were not the first to arrive. The house was buzzing with the merry sounds of conversation and laughter when they were admitted. It also seemed filled with light, very different from the gloom she remembered from the few girlhood visits she had made here. It hardly seemed like the same place.

She was amused to see a receiving line at the drawing room doors. Poor Matthew must be cringing with embarrassment. Yet he did not look particularly uncomfortable. He looked his usual placid, cheerful self as he stood between Reginald and Adelaide, who beamed at him while introducing him to friends and neighbors he had never met before. He was shaking hands and smiling and talking.

It was strange to see him tonight, a mere few hours after their encounter out at what she now thought of as their tree, knowing that everything had changed between them. That they were to marry. That they were betrothed.

She wondered if he had told anyone yet.

Kitty slid an arm through hers. “This is lovely to see, is it not?” she said. “George has told me some stories about what this home used to be like. He has told me what a rebel your fiancé was as a boy. Does that not sound wonderful—your fiancé? He is ruggedly good-looking in his carpenter persona. I have always thought so. But he looks downright handsome in evening clothes. Oh, Clarissa, I am so glad you have found romance in your life at long last. It is what you came home from London to discover, though you may not have known it at the time. George always calls me a hopeless romantic. But then he is one too, so it is a case of the pot and the kettle. Ah, it is our turn. I am so looking forward to the evening.”

She released Clarissa’s arm in order to pass along the receiving line with George.

“I am very happy you came, Lady Stratton,” Adelaide said a few moments later. She leaned forward a little and lowered her voice. “But soon I must beg leave to call you Clarissa. You are to be my sister-in-law and I could not be happier. Reggie could not be happier.”

Ah. They knew, then.

“Please call me by my given name now,” Clarissa said, and moved on to stand before Matthew and set her hand in his. They exchanged a lingering smile.

“No regrets?” he murmured.

“Not yet,” she said.

But it was time to move on to Reginald, who took one of her hands in his and kissed her cheek.

“I am a happy man tonight,” he said.

The people who were already in the drawing room stood in groups talking. George led their parents to a couple of unoccupied chairs against one wall and proceeded to introduce Kitty to other guests. Clarissa moved from group to group, as was her custom at social gatherings. But she enjoyed those in the country far more than she did the more glittering parties in London during the Season.

After a while it seemed the invited guests had all arrived. There was no more receiving line, and both the drawing room and the smaller room beyond it were full of people, chattering merrily and rather loudly. Reginald took his brother about, clearly bursting with pride and affection.

How touching and unexpected it was. Clarissa hardly recognized Reginald as the young man who had always seemed so dour and disapproving when she was still a child—so very much like his father, in fact. Even at her mother’s birthday party he had seemed a bit stiff with her. She had not liked him. Now it was hard not to.

The guests soon disposed themselves into three familiar groupings. Those who wished to play cards moved to a salon close to the drawing room, where tables had been set up for them with new packs of cards awaiting their use. Those who wished to talk sat or stood in groups close to the walls or wandered to the dining room to fill a plate with dainties or a glass with a favorite beverage. A young lady Clarissa did not know seated herself at the pianoforte in the other room, and those young people who wanted to dance clustered about the instrument suggesting music and dance sets. Reginald, after huddling with them for a minute or two, announced a Sir Roger de Coverley. Lines formed, and the dancing began on a floor that was just large enough to accommodate those couples who chose to use it.

Clarissa watched the dancing for a while before going through to the dining room with her mother, who fancied a cup of tea. They stayed to converse with the vicar’s wife and Mrs. Jakes and to sample a few of the savory dainties. Matthew was deep in conversation with Captain Jakes, she saw when they returned to the drawing room, though they were soon joined by other guests. Everyone wanted to have a word with him, it seemed.

After a while there was a break in the proceedings while servants moved around the perimeter of the room with trays of champagne they offered to everyone. The card players came in to swell the crowd, and Reginald moved to the empty center, a full glass in one hand. He held up the other hand to attract everyone’s attention.

“I hope you are all enjoying the evening,” he said. There was a murmur of assurances that indeed everyone was. “But before you resume whatever you were doing before I interrupted you, I invite you all to join me in a toast to Matthew, my brother, who has come home and been restored to us after more than thirty years.”

There was another murmur, louder than the first, as everyone raised their glasses and drank the toast. Clarissa blinked her eyes in an effort not to weep openly. The servants moved about the room again, refilling glasses. Matthew nodded his acknowledgment of the toast and looked a bit sheepish. His eyes met Clarissa’s across the room and he grinned.

“Thank you,” he said when an expectant hush fell upon the room. “This has been a happy day for me. I will, however, be happier still when I am no longer the focus of everyone’s attention.”

Laughter greeted his words as Reginald held up a hand for silence again.

“And I have the honor of making another announcement,” he said. “With the permission of those concerned.”

Ah. It was going to happen, then, was it? All of Matthew’s family was here except for one nephew. And Clarissa’s own family was here, even though none of her children were.

“My brother is newly betrothed,” Reginald said, “to the lady many of you will remember as Clarissa Greenfield, now Clarissa Ware, Dowager Countess of Stratton. You will join me, if you please, in a new toast to the couple.”

His last words, though, were half lost in a swell of astonished and pleased exclamations. Soon everyone’s glass was raised again in the new toast, and Matthew wove his way among guests to stand before Clarissa, take her hand in his, and bow over it.

“I believe we are fully committed now,” he murmured to her.

“But I was committed this afternoon,” she said.

And then they were surrounded by well-wishers, who came to shake Matthew’s hand and squeeze his shoulder and slap him on the back and to kiss Clarissa’s cheek and wish them both happiness and long life together and to ask what their plans were for the wedding.

Clarissa felt a bit guilty that all this was happening tonight, when none of her children even knew of her engagement yet. But they soon would. She had only to think of how fast they had learned of her friendship with Matthew. Besides, she would write to each of them as soon as she returned home, perhaps even before then. And besides again, her parents knew and were present tonight, beaming upon all who went to congratulate them. Her brother was here too, looking happy.

Oh, and she was happy. She was positively bursting with happiness.

Reginald, who was still standing in the middle of the drawing room floor, held up his hand once again after a while, and a sort of hush descended upon the room.

“The young people have been asking all evening for a waltz,” he said, “though I understand very few of them actually know the steps. They have been relying upon someone to show them so they may try for themselves. George Greenfield and his wife have admitted to knowing the waltz. I understand it is quite popular at London balls these days. A few of our other guests have danced it too, including Lady Stratton, hardly surprisingly. And I have just learned from the younger Mrs. Greenfield that during an assembly at Ravenswood a year or two ago, the dowager countess waltzed with none other than my own brother. I do require proof, however. Now, without further delay.”

There was a gust of laughter as Clarissa caught a look of dismay on Matthew’s face.

“Good God,” he murmured irreverently. Or perhaps it really was a plea to the divine to rescue him.

Clarissa laughed.

“We will see them waltz together now,” Reginald said. “Everyone else who wishes to join them may do so after the first minute or two. Matt? Lead your betrothed onto the floor, if you please.”

Everyone squeezed back closer to the walls to make the dancing space larger.

Someone began to clap slowly when Matthew did not immediately move, and others followed suit. Someone cheered. Someone else whistled.

Matthew shook his head, took Clarissa’s hand in his, and led her onto the clear space of the dancing floor.

—

For many country folk the waltz was still unknown, it seemed, or was merely a rumor of a dance that was not quite proper because it involved two partners dancing exclusively with each other and touching each other throughout. There were those, on the other hand, who had heard it was the most romantic dance ever conceived.

Matthew wished the dance to perdition. Yes, he had waltzed once, in a crowded ballroom a long time ago. But Reggie’s guests, gathered to celebrate his homecoming and now his betrothal to the dowager Lady Stratton, were watching with avid interest, and Matthew was touched by their wholehearted welcome. He could feel their eyes upon him and Clarissa, a far from comforting feeling. But he owed them something. More important, he owed Reggie and Adelaide something. Not to mention Clarissa.

She was smiling at him.

“I hope I do not end up making a spectacle of you,” he said. But he refused to do any such thing. He was about to dance with the most beautiful woman in the room, his lifelong friend, the girl with whom he had fallen painfully in love all those years ago, the woman with whom he was deeply in love now. And by some miracle she loved him in return. She had agreed to marry him—for who he was, without any attempt to change him into a more obvious and respectable gentleman, though he had made the offer.

Just as he was, he was her world, as she was his.

“You will not,” she said, smiling softly into his eyes as he set a hand at the small of her back and took one of her hands with his other. She set her free hand on his shoulder, and there was a sort of sigh from the gathered guests. Even the card players had not yet returned to the salon and their games.

The young pianist struck a chord and began to play a relatively sedate waltz tune, one that enabled him to remember the steps and lead his partner with some confidence.

For a few moments, as they gazed into each other’s eyes, he was aware of their audience and of his steps and hers. But the waltz—he remembered this about it from that set he had danced with her at Ravenswood—had a way of weaving its magic, and soon he forgot everything but the music and the gleaming floor beneath their feet and the candles glowing in the candelabra overhead and becoming one circle of light as he twirled her about a corner of the room. He was aware of evening gowns becoming a kaleidoscopic swirl of pastel shades and of jewels, whether real or merely paste, winking in the light. He was aware of other dancers joining them after a while. But his own world was bounded by their arms, his and his partner’s, and centered in their bodies, close to each other but not touching. His focus was upon Clarissa herself and her smile. And his own overflowing happiness.

The waltz was indeed and by far the most romantic dance ever created. He did not want it to end. But, of course, it did—to enthusiastic applause.

No longer did he feel obliged to circulate alone among Reggie and Adelaide’s guests. With Clarissa on his arm, he spoke with everyone, both old neighbors he remembered and new ones he had never met before tonight. And despite the fact that his new engagement was foremost in his mind, he also felt the warmth of homecoming.

He felt as though in the jigsaw puzzle of his life, the final piece, which he had not even realized was missing, had fallen into place so that now the picture was complete and he could be perfectly at peace. Not that life could ever be that simple and orderly, of course, but tonight he felt like a whole person, and he had his family to thank and Clarissa and her family—and even himself for opening his mind and heart to new possibilities after he had clung so long to his cozy cocoon.

“I want to thank you for all this,” he said when they came upon Reggie and Adelaide a short time later in the hallway leading to the dining room. He hugged his sister-in-law and wrung his brother’s hand. “I cannot tell you how happy your unconditional acceptance has made me.”

“All streets have two sides to them, Matt,” Reggie said. “We are grateful to you too for coming. And also to you, Clarissa. We were not at all sure our plans for tonight would not end in disarray.”

“You have made us both very happy,” Adelaide said, beaming at them. “Come and have something to eat. I do not particularly want to be serving the remains of this feast for the next week.”

The party was still proceeding in lively fashion an hour or so later when George Greenfield came to tell them he and Kitty were taking his parents home.

“They are tired,” he said. “You will squeeze into the carriage with us, Clarissa?”

Matthew opened his mouth to speak, but she answered first.

“No,” she said. “You go on, George. Matthew is going to walk me home.”

“Ah,” George said. “We will see you back at the house, then.”

“I am, am I?” Matthew asked after George had stridden away to assist his parents out to their carriage.

“Of course,” she said. “It is one of the primary duties of a betrothed man to walk his beloved home when the carriage offered for her use is already filled with other couples.”

“Rule 647, I believe?” he said.

“Rule 648,” she said. “Number 647 is the one about him first fetching her bonnet and shawl and reticule while she takes her leave of her hosts.”

“Right,” he said. “I remember now. And 649 states quite categorically that he gets to kiss her good night after delivering her to her own door. I will see you out in the hall in two minutes.”

Ten minutes passed before they left the house with a grand farewell from all his relatives, who had gathered in the hall to wave them on their way. By that time the card games in the salon close by seemed to be breaking up. In the drawing room the music had stopped and there were the distinctive end-of-evening sounds of neighbors taking their leave of one another. It was almost half past eleven, very late for a country party and a sure sign that everyone had been enjoying the evening and was reluctant to see it come to an end. Adelaide and Emily would be over the moon with gratification at the success of their party.

—

The sky was clear and the moon was almost at the full. The stars were at their brightest. Matthew did not take a lantern with him from his brother’s house. It was not needed. They walked at first hand in hand and then with an arm about each other’s waist, over the familiar route to the Greenfield house. They did not speak for a while. Instead they enjoyed the coolness of the air—there was still a steady breeze blowing—and absorbed the night sounds of insects whirring and an owl hooting in the distance.

She and Caleb had never walked like this. But she banished the thought from her mind before it could develop further. She did not want to compare and would not. She was happy now, and that was what mattered.

“You are not sorry you came, then?” she asked him after a while. “I know you were nervous about this party.”

“It ought to have happened years ago,” he said. “My reconciliation with Reggie, that is, not necessarily the party. But perhaps neither of us was quite ready until now, just as you and I were not. It is not always wise to try to hurry life along. No, I am not sorry, Clarissa. Not about anything that has happened this year.”

“Not even Prudence Wexford’s table?” she asked.

He laughed. “It made her happy,” he said. “And I made it as tasteful as I could while still giving her what she dreamed of.”

“I am not sorry either,” she said. “Though when I came home to take a long and solitary look at my life to determine where it ought to go in the future, I had no idea my search would lead me to you or to a cottage by the river, or to the discovery that though my children are very protective of me, they also respect my wishes when they understand just what they are. I had no idea about any of this. I have always called regularly upon Mama and Papa, and I have occasionally met some of their neighbors. But I have always avoided your brother and his wife whenever I could. They seemed a dour couple to me, and I blamed Reginald for not loving you as he ought to when you were a boy. I did not expect that I would be proved wrong and come to like them exceedingly well.”

“Do you want to go directly home, Clarissa?” he asked when her father’s house came into sight.

“Do you have anything else in mind as an alternative?” she asked him.

“I have been wondering,” he said, “what our tree looks like by moonlight.”

“Well,” she said, “we have the perfect night to find out.”

They changed direction and walked in silence toward the rolling lawns and trees farther into the park. It was not as easy to find their exact destination as it had been in the daylight earlier today. The trees, though not thick, were plentiful enough to cut out some of the moonlight and starlight. But they found the tree eventually—the one he had carved with such exquisite skill and pulsing emotion a few years ago. Where she had told him she was going to marry Caleb, though she was half in love with him and knew him to be more than half in love with her. Where this afternoon he had created new memories by asking her to marry him. Or was it she who had asked him to marry her? Did it matter? They had asked and answered each other, and there was no more melancholy to be associated with this place.

He turned her so her back was to the tree, on the side against which she had spread her right hand on previous occasions, and pressed her to it with his own body. He searched for and found her mouth with his own and kissed her with unleashed passion and urgency. Her arms went about his shoulders and her fingers pressed through his hair while his hands explored her body with a bold disregard for subtlety.

He wanted her. And almost instantly she wanted him too.

“Are you going to make me wait until our wedding night?” he asked, his mouth still on hers. “Whenever that is likely to be.”

“Whenever everyone has been summoned to celebrate with us,” she said. “Perhaps after a cottage has been built by the river and furnished. Perhaps after a couple of babies have been born and their mothers are able to travel. Who knows? But whenever it is likely to be, it is far, far too long to wait.”

It had been so very long. She had been celibate for more than half a decade and had not experienced the joy of unbounded passion for some time before that. She wondered briefly if Matthew…But she did not want to know. It did not matter.

The past did not matter. Nor did the future. Tonight mattered. Now mattered.

“Make love to me,” she said.

It was not, she supposed later, the most comfortable encounter in the world. The ground was hard and uneven. They had only his coat to lie upon and her shawl with which to cover themselves afterward. The wind was a bit chilly. A number of insects had to satisfy their curiosity by buzzing about them and even crawling upon them. Dealing with their clothes without actually removing them all was tricky.

But it was only afterward she thought thus. While it was happening, nothing could have been more perfect.

She shook her head when he would have taken her on top of him to shield her from the hardness of the ground. She wanted to feel his weight on her. She wanted him to take her from above. And it was glorious and wonderful and any other superlative the mind cared to offer her. The foreplay had happened while they stood against the tree. On the ground he entered her almost immediately, his hands spread beneath her to cushion her, her legs twined about his, her pelvis tilted so he could come deep and deeper. And he took his time. They took their time as she matched him thrust for thrust, almost lazily for a while as they savored all the unfamiliarity and all the pleasure of their joining. After a while their lovemaking became more urgent, more frenzied, deeper and faster, until she was hot and slick inside and they were both panting and searching out each other’s mouths again.

And then it was over with a final burst of energy and passion, a moment of excruciating pleasure—or was it pain?—as they reached the climax together, and a descent into the utter relaxation of a sated desire.

“My love,” he murmured against her mouth.

“Matthew.”

They did not sleep. They did not even linger very long. Someone would surely be waiting up for her at her father’s house. And they were going to have to make a probably futile attempt to put themselves back to rights before going there so no one would suspect the truth. But they relaxed against each other for a minute or two, murmuring love words Clarissa could not even remember afterward. It did not matter. Some things were beyond words.

They walked back to the house with fingers twined and shoulders touching.

“We could just elope,” he said before they arrived.

She laughed, though the suggestion was surprisingly enticing. “To Gretna Green?” she said. “Your family would be severely disappointed. So would mine.”

“I suppose,” he said, “weddings are for families, are they not? I am unaccustomed to thinking of families in connection with my own life. Throughout my adulthood I have done just as I please, when I have pleased.”

“I thought,” she said, “that was going to be the outcome of this year for me too. And to a certain degree it is. But my family is at the heart of my life. I cannot live totally independent of them or in disregard of their feelings. I believe you will learn the same thing of your brother and sister-in-law and your nieces and nephews, Matthew, now that you have found them again. It can be irksome at times, but the rewards are beyond measure.”

“So no elopement,” he said. “And no hasty wedding.”

“Irksome, is it not?” she said, and they both laughed.

They stopped outside the door and wrapped their arms about each other again.

“I love you,” he murmured against her lips.

“I love you more,” she said.

“Most.”

“Very most.”

“A superlative cannot be added to. I win,” he said, and deepened the kiss.

George opened the door, clearing his throat as he did so. He must have been standing behind it, waiting for them, Clarissa thought. Kitty stood beside him, twinkling at them both.

“I was beginning to think you were walking all the way back to Ravenswood,” George said.