“I will. Be well, Mr. Forsythe.”
He smiled as he faded, giving her his jaunty salute.
A wind sprang up, mist wafting between Clara and where Mr. Forsythe had stood. When it cleared, he was gone.
Harvey rose, tail waving. He barked at the empty space then looked up at Clara in inquiry.
“Where the devil have you got to?” Alden’s voice rolled over them before he came crashing around the hedge. “There you both are. I thought I’d have to hunt for you again.”
“As I mentioned,” Clara said to Harvey, “he’s churlish when he’s worried.”
“I am not churlish, I am—” Alden broke off, but his scowl didn’t smooth. “What are you looking at?”
Clara peered into the space where Mr. Forsythe had been, half expecting him to pop back in with a humorous comment about Alden.
But he was gone. A breath of cool wind touched her cheek, and she thought she heard the whisper of laughter.
“Nothing,” she said. She turned, sliding her arm through the crook of Alden’s. “We should go home now.”
“We should, yes.” His voice softened. “I apologize, Clara. Thinking of Forsythe makes me melancholy, though it has become easier these days.”
“I must have been mistaken about seeing him,” Clara said, knowing Alden would never believe the truth. She laid her head against his shoulder. “We will always think of him, and remember him. He was a good man. A very good one.”
“In his own way, yes, he was. A true friend.”
“If you’d like, I can ask my mother if she’ll plant a rosebush at his marker,” Clara said. “One in his favorite color. She can find roses of all shades, even blue and silver.”
Alden huffed a laugh. “He’d like the silver. Always had to be the epitome of fashion.”
“Then he shall have it.” She took the leash Alden carried and hooked it to Harvey’s collar. “Shall we go?”
“A moment.” Alden turned Clara to him and pulled her to him for a heated kiss.
It went on, that kiss. Alden explored her mouth, tangling with her tongue. Clara clung to him, her blood warming, the cold of the night receding.
She heard laughter again, and possibly a whisper.Well done.
When the kiss ended, Alden brushed back a lock of Clara’s hair. “Let us go home, my love.”
It would be a true home, Clara thought as they turned their steps toward the gate. With Alden and Harvey, her family not far away, and surrounded by the wild beauty of the Heath.
They emerged from Highgate not long later, the mists fleeing as they strode down the hill toward the bonfires and revelry. Warm cottages lay on the edge of the Heath, with the welcoming lights of home.
Behind her, Clara heard the creak of a gate, and then a sigh, one of release and contentment.
Alden pulled her to him again for another kiss, then they broke apart as Harvey yanked them on, trying to make for the Griffin cottage and his late supper.
Clara laughed, and Alden’s rang with hers, as they ran with him for home.
The End
