“I was speaking of the father,” Gerald said.
I suddenly felt very tired and very close to tears. I rubbed my forehead and tried to steady myself. “Thank you for coming to find me, Gerald. I ... I ...”
“Hush,” said Gerald. “There’s no need to say anything.” He got to his feet and put out a hand to help me to mine. “Come, I’ll walk you back to the hotel. If you’re planning on an early start tomorrow, you won’t want to sit up late.”
Sunk in misery, I waited on the covered porch while Gerald turned off the lights. It had been a brutally long day, and the few moments of peace I’d hoped to find at Saint Bartholomew’s had been shattered by Gerald’s arrival.
You should have kept a closer watch on Willis, Sr., the small voice whispered, and I flinched, for it was true. If I’d been more aware of his unhappiness, if I’d made more of an effort to bring it to Bill’s attention, I might have been able to prevent this whole sorry mess.
Gerald returned and, wordlessly, we made our way through the shadowy churchyard to the high-walled pedestrian passage. A gibbous moon cast a silvery light on the asphalt path, and the air was alive with whirring night noises—crickets chirped, frogs trilled, and bats fluttered near the lampposts, but no human voices floated disembodied from behind the redbrick walls; the townspeople had traded the cool of their backyards for the warmth of their hearths. I put my arms around myself and shivered.
“Here, have this.” Gerald slipped out of his suede jacket and draped it over my shoulders. “It isn’t much, but ...”
I paused on the path to look up at him. His face was in shadow, but the lamplight picked out the red-gold gleams in his hair. “I know you’d help me if you could, Gerald. And I’m grateful.”
“Perhaps, if you spoke with his son—”
“His son,” I retorted bitterly. “His son should be here with me, instead of—” My throat constricted, and I looked away, blinking rapidly.
“Miss Shepherd,” Gerald murmured. He placed a hand beneath my chin and tilted my face upward. “That married son of William’s is a fool. But I envy him your tears and your devotion.” I felt his hands slip round my waist as he bent his head to kiss me, and though my palms were pressed against his chest, I offered no resistance whatsoever.
I floated out of his embrace in a red-gold haze, and drifted back to the hotel, nestled close to his side, my tears forgotten, unaware of any sound but the soft, insistent beating of his heart. He raised my fingers to his lips when we reached the Georgian’s doorstep, and strode off without a word into the darkness.
I watched the night enfold him, then glided up the staircase, and when a distant voice reminded me of the price exacted by intoxication, I ignored it. For the first time in a long time I felt cherished, and the only weight of which I was aware was the remembered touch of Gerald’s lips on mine.
Nell was asleep when I entered the room, bundled in the far bed, with Bertie tucked in beside her. Reg was still awake, however, sitting up on the pillows of the near bed, looking very much like a father who’d been impatiently checking his wristwatch every hour for the past three hours.
“Mind your own business,” I muttered, and as I reached for the nightgown Nell had laid out for me, I realized that I’d forgotten to return Gerald’s jacket. I ran my hands along the sleeves, slid the jacket from my shoulders, and, turning my back on Reginald, buried my face in the supple leather and breathed deeply.
12.
I awoke at eight the next morning with a guilt hangover so massive it made me sick to my stomach. I couldn’t dial Bill’s number at Little Moose Lake fast enough.
I carried the telephone to the bathroom, to avoid Reginald’s all-seeing eyes, and perched on the edge of the tub, gnawing my nails, while the phone on the other end rang and rang.
What had I done? my conscience wailed. Why had I let Gerald kiss me? What kind of a wife was I?
Granted, I’d been exhausted and depressed, anxious about Willis, Sr., and in need of a shoulder to lean on, but that was no excuse for kissing a strange man in the moonlight. Even if Bill forgave me, how could I ever forgive myself?
I’d worked myself into such a lather of self-recrimination that I nearly shrieked when a voice in my ear announced frostily: “Biddiford Lodge. Who is calling, please?”
It was a servant, I realized, a butler or a secretary who evidently disapproved of phone calls at—I did a quick calculation and winced—two o‘clock in his morning. I offered an awkward apology, asked for Bill, and quailed when I heard my husband’s sleepy voice.
“Lori, is that you?” Bill sounded barely conscious. “Do you have any idea what time it is here?”
“Bill—” I began urgently, but stopped at the all-too-familiar sound of cavernous yawning.