Page 193 of Feathers in the Wind
‘No, not at all. I was just thinking...your stay here is transient. I don’t want to...’
Don’t want to do what, Jessie? Let yourself fall in love with this man? Too late.
‘I just don’t have time for love or romance or any of that nonsense.’ I said.
‘Master Westmacott has much to answer for.’
I closed my eyes to fight back the tears and sensed, rather than saw him draw near. He folded me into his arms and I found I couldn’t resist leaning my head against his chest. He smelled of my soap and something else, spicy and foreign.
His lips brushed my hair. ‘Jessie, my witch,’ he whispered.
‘I’m such a fool.’ I sniffed. ‘I only met you two days ago and you don’t even belong here. You could be whisked away at any moment and then where will that leave me?’
His chest rose and fell beneath my cheek as he sighed and his breath whispered past my cheek as he replied, ‘I do not know the answer to that question, Jessie. I’m here for a reason. It was not some momentary lapse in God’s concentration that sent me over your wall.’
‘A reason? What reason? How--’
He laid a finger against my lips. ‘Later.’ He stroked the hair back from my face and smiled down at me.
The blood coursed through my veins in a way that would have given Dr. Harvey pause. Whatever had brought him here didn’t matter, not for this moment.
He continued. ‘You are right, Jessica. I know I must go back to my death. That is my fate and cannot be changed. I would rather die in the knowledge that, for a few brief moments, I had some happiness with a woman who intrigues me beyond measure.’ He smiled and tugged gently at a lock of my hair.
‘That is the corniest pick up line I have heard,’ I muttered as his lips touched mine, stifling my objections.
It may have been corny but it was effective. I would have given myself to him there and then on the bridle path.
I closed my eyes and parted my lips, devouring the taste of him. In my carefully ordered life, the pattern of time had not only been disrupted, but had given me the opportunity to forget for a while that I was a sensible, responsible doctor. For a fleeting moment I could just be a woman; a woman responding to a man in a way she had never experienced before.
I stood poised on the edge of a cliff from which I might never return. He could be gone tomorrow, tonight even, and I would be left forever wondering what it would be like to lie in his arms. We parted and I leaned my head against his chest. He rested his head on mine, engulfing me in his strength and solidity. I closed my eyes listening to the steady rhythm of his heart against my cheek.
I don’t know how long we just stood there in the middle of the path, lost in each other. He straightened and looked down the path we had just walked. As we parted, I fought to restore my breathing to normality, and saw what he had seen, a pair of lovers, arms entwined around each other, walking toward us.
‘The restaurant is just along here,’ I said, my voice quavering with emotion. He looked down at me and smiled. ‘Do they serve a good meat or a pie? I fear you are starving me, Mistress Shepherd.’
‘They do an excellent steak,’ I replied with a smile.
As we turned toward the town, he put his arm around my shoulder. I felt its weight, warm, reassuring and decidedly alive, and slipped my arm around his waist and we strolled like the lovers we passed, toward Northampton.
* * *
The Cosy Nookhad been a favorite restaurant for Mark and I. Mark would ridicule its kitsch name but he could not deny the food was good. The host, who knew me of course from those trysts with Mark, didn’t bat an eye when I arrived without a booking and in the company of a different man.
He seated us outside on the broad terrace overlooking the river where we could watch the colorful canal boats tied up to the riverbank. The delicious warmth of the English summer day folded us in its velvety embrace.
On a whim, I requested two glasses of champagne.
Nat took a tentative sip and pulled a face. ‘I would rather have ale.’
I smiled. ‘For us, champagne represents good fortune, something to be celebrated.’
‘And what are we celebrating?’
‘I don’t know,’ I admitted.
A triumph over the immutable laws of nature and physics? Proof there really are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophies, or was it simply that whatever the years between us, just for today, just for this moment, we were a man and a woman enjoying a lovely meal in a beautiful place.
I ordered a beer for Nat and finished off his champagne.
