Smithy grunts in the affirmative. She takes a closer look at me, sticking out her hand. I take it. “You must be the birthday girl everyone’s makin’ such a fuss about.”
Antonia slips in to hug me, announcing, “So you’ve finally rid yourself of that dreadful stuffed-shirt professor, have you? What was his name? Doesn’t matter, you’ve done quite well for yourself. You’ve brought a gorgeous boy with you.”
“I could easily get back into this car and be off,” Jamie says, not entirely joking.
Antonia huffs. “Well, if you’re going to be a priss about it.” She goes to her son and takes him full around. Jamie kisses the top of her head. No matter what happens, I’m already so happy. Just seeing them together, here, meeting Smithy, makes the last week worth it.
Jamie puts one arm around Antonia and the other around Smithy and turns toward the house. “Now, Mother, I’ve promised Ella the grand tour and she’s quite keen. You know how she loves history, and you’re the perfect person to . . .” He trails off and stops walking. I follow his gaze to the open doorway.
William looms over us. He jerks his head. “Hello.” He looks to me. “Welcome, Eleanor.”
“Thank you,” I reply. “I’m very happy to be here.”
He turns back to Jamie, takes him in, assessing. “Jamie.”
“Father.”
“You’re looking rather well. As it were.”
“You as well. As it were.”
In the silence, they stare at each other. Two bulls on opposite sides of a pasture.
“Boys, please,” Antonia stage-whispers, jerking her head toward Smithy. “Must you be so effusive in front of the staff?” Smithy cackles, her laugh sounding exactly like I imagined it would. I have to bite my lip to keep from joining her.
William reddens. “Yes, well. I’ll have Colin take care of the bags and such.” With that, he turns back into the house. Jamie takes a breath and we all follow him.
ANTONIA, PEEKING INTO an under-the-stairs bathroom, says with a sly grin, “The wood on these walls was nicked from Warwick Castle during the Reformation.” Then Jamie whispers to me, “Kenilworth.” Antonia continues, “Right before my great-great-great-great-grandfather was given the house and land by James the Sixth.” (Jamie whispers, “The Fifth.”) In a fifty-foot-long gallery overlooking the pond, Antonia points to a portrait and declares, “That is Jamie’s ancestor, a MacTartanish, who hid from the English during the Troubles by dressing as a woman and living in the kitchens with the servants.” (Jamie whispers, “MacTavish; stables.”) Antonia points into a rock-walled, dungeon-looking room in a turret and announces, “Elizabeth imprisoned Mary Queen of Scots in these rooms in 1437.”
Jamie: “Absurd.”
Antonia: “She escaped by rappelling down a bedsheet tied to the radiator.”
Jamie: “A medieval radiator, you see.”
Upstairs, we come to a long, wide hallway with rows of tall white doors on each side. Two across from each other are open. “This will be your room,” Antonia says, sweeping into the one on the right. I follow her and notice that my bag has appeared on a settee at the foot of a massive canopied bed, curtained with heavy antique brocade. Four huge windows overlook the vast property, all the way to the cliffs beyond. Every piece of furniture belongs in a museum.
“This is stunning.”
I’m about to gush further, but Jamie, who’s ventured farther into the room, searching for something, speaks first. “Mother, where’s my valise?”
“In the Rose Room, dear.”
Jamie’s hands find his hips. He levels a look at Antonia. “Is that so?”
She slinks for the door, coming back to me. “Your father and I thought it best. There are traditions of the house, long-standing traditions.”
“All the way back to the Eskimo invasion of 45 BC,” Jamie mutters.
Antonia leans in to me. “I’ve put slippers by your bed. The hallway floor gets rather chilly at night. Wouldn’t want you getting cold feet.” She exits to the hallway, leaving Jamie and me alone.
“What did she say?” he asks. He sounds stroppy, impatient. Jesus. Get him anywhere near William and it’s as if he filches only the most unpleasant aspects of his father’s personality.
I squeeze his arm. “We’ll be fine.”
Jamie exhales. I know why he’s upset at being separated. We haven’t had a chance to be together yet—what with his recovery, and the floors, and my, you know, sucker punching.
Jamie seems to relax. “Right. Well, then.” He looks around the room. The fleur-de-lis wallpaper, the gilded vanity and mirror, the abundance of decorative pillows. He seems reflective. It’s obviously been a while since he’s walked these rooms. When I go back to the house I grew up in, I’m always shocked at how small it is. This is clearly not that experience, but I can relate to seeing something so familiar with new eyes. “It’s rather . . . fussy,” Jamie mutters. “And cold.”
“I love it. All of it. Every corner.” I look up at him. “I love her.”
He looks down at me, finally meeting my eye. A heat sparks there, a heat I haven’t seen in months. A heat that isn’t banked or contained. A heat like “Dover Beach.” Like the Buttery. Like his dining room. A heat with potentiality. “I love her, too,” he murmurs.
I don’t know why we can both say that so freely about his mother, but haven’t yet said it to each other, about each other. Maybe he doesn’t feel it. Maybe he’s just English. Maybe he’s protecting himself.
I know which reason is mine.
I go up on tiptoe. I kiss him softly. He kisses me back. Not so softly.
“Are you two coming?” Antonia calls from the hall.
Jamie groans in the back of his throat, like a discontented bear.
Antonia leads us back downstairs, describing the frescoes and the battle they depict (which even I can see is, in fact, a hunt). We stop in front of two solid oak doors.
“Last stop.” Antonia smiles. “The library. Where Jamie once locked his brother in a suit of armor.”
“He asked me to!”
“Overnight?”
I laugh. Antonia nods toward the doors. “You do the honors.”
I happily grab hold of the round knobs and push the double doors open with purpose, as if I were presenting mother and son to the room—
Why are there balloons?
Why are there streamers?
Why is William smiling?
What are they doing here?!
“Surprise!” everyone cries.
Charlie, Maggie, and Tom (wearing some kind of hunting outfit and waders) charge over and sweep me into a group hug. Tears spring to my eyes. Over Charlie’s shoulder I see Jamie’s smile become a laugh as he and Antonia embrace. I hear him say to his mother, “Completely surprised.”
“Couldn’t have come off better,” she confirms.
I disentangle one arm and reach out for them both. Jamie laces his fingers through mine. He leans forward and finds the space to kiss my cheek, warming me to my core, a roaring fire on a winter night. He planned this. Even though he was pissed at me, even though he didn’t want to come, he did this for me.
I love this man. I love everything about him.
I promise myself that I’m going to tell him that.
AFTER A BIRTHDAY tea in the library, I open presents. I get a collection of (used) philosophy books from Tom, a leather-bound journal from Maggie, and a bottle of fine Scotch from Charlie, which manages to get William’s nod of approval. Although he keeps leaving the room to take a call, he always comes back. While we haven’t said anything to each other, we’ve exchanged a number of tight smiles and nods. Progress?
Jamie hands me one final card. “From Ce.” I look at the envelope, my name written in cursive on the front. As I slip my finger under the flap, Jamie continues, “She desperately wanted to be here, but she had an obligation from which she couldn’t extricate herself.”
Maggie, sitting across from me on a love seat next to Tom, nudges him in the ribs. “How sad for you.”
Tom seems distracted, preoccupied. He’s still unable to meet Maggie’s eye. “Cecelia Knowles? Ancient history.”
Her mouth forms a confused moue, although she continues to tease him. “Oh, is that so?”
Tom nods tightly. “I’ve moved on. To more fertile ground.”
Charlie, who’s been inspecting the first editions around the room, doesn’t even have the wherewithal to turn to Tom when he groans, “Oh, good God, who now? Vegetable, mineral, or beast?”
“I’m not at liberty. To say. At present.”
Maggie faces forward again, placing her hands primly on her knees, out of things to say. Even as I extract from the envelope a gift certificate for a spa in Oxford (and silently thank Cecelia for knowing just what I need), my eyes are drawn to Maggie and Tom, who now sit next to each other like two owls sharing a stumpy tree branch, staring straight ahead. Maggie meets my eyes, brow furrowed.
But then Jamie leans over and whispers in my ear, “My gift will come later.”
I turn to him, raising an eyebrow, whispering back, “It better.”
“It’s not that.” His eyes drop to my mouth. “Well, it very well could be that.” He looks back up. “I have a present, of sorts. Rather silly and sentimental. Not for public consumption.”
Before I can reply, my phone rings. I dig it out of my pocket as the room goes quiet. “Don’t mind me!” I urge, and everyone resumes their conversations. Everyone except William, who continues to watch me. It’s like the Blenheim ball all over again. I stand and walk to a corner of the library as I answer. “Gavin.”
I’m greeted by a tinny, speakerphone rendition of “Happy Birthday.” Janet’s horribly off-key and Gavin’s deep bass drowns her out, but it’s still sweet of them. When they’re done, they applaud. For themselves. Why do people do that?