But those memories rang hollow before the lily-covered casket. They’d spurred Stuart for so long, their venomous potency had diminished to a fraction of their former power.
Stuart lifted the spray of lilies and set it aside. The lid of the casket was heavy, but it rose smoothly. Inside the elaborately padded coffin, Bertie lay in formal repose. He wore his hair swept back, in the same style Stuart remembered from his late adolescence. That hair, however, had thinned in the twenty intervening years. Where it was brushed away from his forehead, Stuart could see the edge of Bertie’s scalp, a congealed shade of bluish-white.
Until this moment, he had only understood Bertie’s death intellectually.
He stared at Bertie’s throat—surely the collar had been pulled too tight. A fresh boutonniere of red rose had been pinned to Bertie’s lapel. Bertie’s hands—so alike to his own, when the brothers otherwise bore little physical resemblance to each other—were folded together across his abdomen. And next to his hands, the envelope marked “To be buried with me.”
From outside came the sound of carriage wheels crunching on the gravel drive. Mourners were arriving in front of the church. Soon they would populate the pews. Stuart lowered the lid of the casket.
There were voices. The first mourners were already walking up the steps of the church. But they sounded very far away.
That photograph. It had been May, hadn’t it? And they’d been in a part of the gardens that had later been dug up and completely rearranged. It had been during Sir Francis’s brief passion for photography. And they’d had trouble holding still, lapsing again and again into giggles. And—
Stuart opened the casket, opened the envelope, and removed the photograph of Bertie and himself. He barely had time to slip it into his breast pocket and put back the lilies before the vicar returned.
The vicar smiled at him, brimming with incurious good nature. “All right, sir?”
Verity wept.
She had not expected to cry. She’d thought of Bertie only in passing since his death. But as the organist struck the last quivering notes of “End of the Road,” and six of Bertie’s Harrow classmates hoisted his casket onto their shoulders, the tears came, as if they’d been there all along.
He hadn’t loved her the way she’d hoped he would, but she’d been able to make a good life for herself here, under his aegis. In the ten years since the end of their affair, he’d never once made inappropriate advances toward her, never unleashed groundless criticism against her work, never withheld a raise when she’d earned one.
Around him, the estate—and her kitchen—had revolved with a steadfast, comforting regularity. His habits gave rhythm to her life. His palate guided her gifts. Her true North he hadn’t been, but he’d been a solid path that had not led into murky woods, nor shifted uncertainly underfoot.
And she’d scarcely realized how much she’d appreciated it, until this moment, when he would be packed under six feet of earth, when it was too late to tell him that she was grateful for his decency and consideration.
After the funeral, Michael located Verity in the kitchen. She was alone. Luncheon, a cold buffet, had been prepared in advance so that all the servants could attend the service.
He inhaled the air. “Madeleines?”
“Madeleines,” she answered. The first batch had already come out of the oven, little golden shells cooling on the rack.
“In memory of the late Mr. Somerset?”
She sighed softly. “A tribute.”
After the end of their affair, she’d never made madeleines again for Bertie, her one lone revenge. A petty gesture, now that she thought of it. She loved nothing more than that her food should bring people pleasure. And Bertie had adored her madeleines to bits.
“A farewell tribute?”
“I suppose you could say so.”
“No, I meant—is it a farewell to us? Are you leaving?”
She looked about her beloved kitchen. She would have to leave its familiar odors and textures behind too. And her rooms, her sweet home and shelter. The grounds of Fairleigh Park. The gardens that rivaled earthly Eden come the first month of summer.
“I saw you cry at the funeral,” said Michael. “You stayed because you loved him. And now he’s gone.”
No, I stayed because I love you.
Love had once been such an easy subject. When he’d been a child, they’d made the expression of love a game of hyperbole. My love for you is deeper than the tunnel to China. My love for you is enough to melt all the steel in Damascus. My love for you is more constant than p (this after Michael had learned about the circle at school).
But somewhere along the way they’d lost that camaraderie, especially after she’d told him that no, she wasn’t his mother, and that she had no idea who his parents were.