Chapter Twenty-Five
After a while, Rynn stood up and turned out the lamp beside her bed.
Then she crossed the room to the door that he’d closed, opened it and padded across his dark bedroom to where a sliver of
moonlight peeking through the curtains illuminated the long form that was Thomas, tucked up in bed. His chair waited nearby.
He wasn’t asleep. She could tell by his breathing. He lay on his back, his head propped up on pillows because having his head
elevated during the night kept the worst of the coughing at bay. She could feel his eyes on her, feel his gaze tracking her
until she stopped by the side of the bed.
“Rynn? Is something wrong?” His voice was heavy, as if he were tired, or weary, which in this case were two very different
things.
“I thought about it.” She sat down on the bed beside him. She couldn’t see much of him: the gleam of his eyes where the moonlight
caught them, the darker shape that was his head and shoulders against the pristine white of the pillows. “And I made a decision.
I want this to be a real marriage, too.”
She heard the sharp intake of his breath. Then he reached for her even as she leaned forward to kiss him.
“Are you sure?” he asked when they broke apart.
“I’m sure,” she said, and slid into bed beside him.
The earth didn’t move. The stars didn’t shake. But there was a sweetness to their coming together, a tenderness from him toward her that made her heart melt, a silent pledging of lives being joined even as their bodies became one.
And in the end, she wasn’t sorry. Wherever this path took her, she was willing to go.
In the days that followed, they were happy. She was happy. Not that she didn’t have regrets, because she did. She regretted that the choice she’d made meant that she could
never really go home again, regretted the loss of self that came with being Lady Thomas Dunne, regretted the passing of the
Rynn Carmichael that she had been into the misty realm of the past.
But she didn’t regret choosing to stay with Thomas as his wife. She didn’t regret choosing the life she knew they could build
together. She didn’t regret the safety and trust she had found with him or the knowledge that he genuinely loved her and would
always put her well-being first. She didn’t regret relinquishing her girlish love for Donal and replacing it with this new,
more mature affection that she had no doubt would only strengthen and grow over time.
As for Thomas, happiness transformed him. His eyes were brighter, his smile was sunnier and his renewed energy and determination
to get better led to him making great strides physically. His doctors still considered it unlikely that he would ever walk
without the aid of his sticks, but they no longer felt it was impossible.
That was all the encouragement Thomas needed to work ferociously toward that new goal.
“How do you feel about spending next spring in Paris?” Thomas asked her as Meadows drove them home after they watched Gerald Patterson defeat reigning champion Norman Brookes to win the gentlemen’s singles title at Wimbledon.
A keen tennis player before the war, Thomas had followed the play with an enthusiasm that Rynn, who’d never played, couldn’t quite summon.
But she’d enjoyed the day, and the crowd, and the pleasure that Thomas had taken in the match.
This was the first Wimbledon in four years, and the packed stadium said everything that needed to be said about the public’s appetite for a return to normalcy after the austerity of the war years.
“Paris sounds lovely.”
“I promised to show you the world, if you remember, and I intend to do it. Paris is just the start. Where else would you like
to go?”
They discussed the merits of various destinations, not that Rynn could contribute much because, except for her present stay
in England, she’d lived her entire life in Ireland. In the end, she left the itinerary to Thomas, who promised her the most
fabulous trip she could ever imagine, adding that it would be the first of many. She, in turn, occupied herself with getting
the house they’d leased in Kensington ready for Granny and Glenna’s visit. Still unable to shake the suspicion that she was
being watched and/or followed whenever she left Hartford House, she looked forward to moving into the new house with Thomas
as soon as it was ready. Green Park assumed ever more monstrous proportions in her imagination, and she could hardly bring
herself to glance in its direction. Although nothing happened, and she saw no one suspicious and no one approached her, she
couldn’t rid herself of the thought that sooner or later Bingle’s death would surface with catastrophic consequences.
The feeling of dread that resulted was like a small dark cloud hovering constantly on the horizon.
Maguire returned to Ireland as de Valera’s work in the United States began to bear fruit, resulting in America requesting that the Dail Eireann be given a hearing at the Paris Peace Conference and expressing sympathy with the desire of the Irish people to establish a government of their choosing.
This diplomatic path to Irish independence—gaining international support for an autonomous Irish republic and thus forcing Britain’s hand—had a great deal of support among the less militant wing of the Republicans.
Although the struggle for independence continued, while this peaceful resolution to the Irish Question remained on the table large-scale violence did not break out.
Instead, isolated incidents like the assassination in County Tipperary of an RIC district inspector by Irish Volunteers in retaliation for the ill-treatment of an Irish prisoner while in government custody kept the conflict bubbling at just below boiling point.
The big news as reported in all the papers was the Versailles Peace Treaty, signed on June 28, officially ending the Great War, which had started on that exact date five years earlier, when Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated at Sarajevo.
Thousands of people flocked to London in anticipation of the festivities, which were to include a victory parade featuring nearly fifteen thousand British Empire servicemen, with innumerable parties and balls leading up to it.
Kensington Gardens was transformed into a camp for the troops, and every hotel, inn, rooming house and temporary lodging in the city was full to bursting.
People camped out in the parks, while others slept on sidewalks and in doorways.
Traffic of all descriptions clogged the streets, and the King and Queen were wildly cheered wherever they went.
The newspapers were full of the patriotic exploits of the Prince of Wales, who was, if possible, even more popular than his parents.
One less positive aspect of the celebrations was that every type of vice—drunkenness, drug use, prostitution—exploded out of the slums and back alleys into the mainstream parts of the city, and the bobbies worked double and triple shifts without making a dent in the epidemic of crime.
The mood in the city was volatile, with hundreds of unemployed former soldiers protesting the amount of money spent on commemorating a war that had killed more than eight hundred thousand British military personnel and left the economy in a shambles.
Other, more deadly if less visible visitors found their way into London as well. The first hint that a mortal threat had come
in with the crowds was a notice posted in the daily newspapers seeking more nurses at the Royal London Hospital because of
a sudden influx of patients. The second was a small article in The Morning Post detailing a family of seven in Whitechapel who had all died within twenty-four hours of each other of a mysterious lung infection,
cause to be determined. The third was word that a connection of Lord North’s who was stationed in the makeshift army camp
in Kensington had come down with what was suspected to be the Spanish flu. The fourth was an ominous headline in The Telegraph warning “Hospitals Bracing for Another Wave of Influenza.”
“We have to get you out of town,” Rynn said to Thomas in alarm as more people sickened and it became clear that another wave
of the Purple Flu, as the Spanish flu was called because of the cyanosis that turned sufferers’ lips, fingertips and toes
a dreaded purplish-blue shade in the end stages, was indeed beginning a sweep through overcrowded London.
“I don’t think I’m at any more risk than anyone else,” he protested. “My health is much improved.”
“Your lungs.” Having risen from the breakfast table when she’d read the article, Rynn had already set Parry and Hinkley to
packing their bags before waylaying Thomas on his way to an early-morning meeting with his bankers. “They haven’t fully recovered.
You still cough at night. And you’re easily winded. We don’t dare chance it.”
“I’m not an invalid. And I’m supposed to take part in the parade.”
Rynn wouldn’t be dissuaded, and the Duchess, when approached, agreed with her.
“You must leave London,” she said to Thomas. “As warm as the weather is, you’ll find it more pleasant in the country anyway.” Her face brightened. “Perhaps we should go to Ashton as well. Geoffrey and Alice can come, too, and Maud if she wishes. We can make a family party of it.”
“If I must go somewhere, I’d rather go to Ballyshannon Court.” Thomas looked at Rynn. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Mother,
you and Papa can come as well.”
“Your father will never agree to that. No, we’ll go to Ashton. But you must do as you wish, as long as you get out of town.”
“Instead of Granny and Glenna visiting us in London, we’ll visit them,” Rynn said. “That’s a splendid idea. But we must go
right away.”