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Aunt Pheeney fluttered up from her sofa, a puzzled look dancing over her round features. “What’s that, dear? Did you say something?”
Elisabeth rose from the pianoforte to join her aunts by the fire. “I said the two of you are about as subtle as a herd of stampeding oxen.”
She ignored Aunt Pheeney’s hand pressed in motherly fashion against her forehead, the offer of a shawl against the December chill, the suggestion of an extra pillow behind her, “as that chair has always been uncomfortable.”
Aunt Fitz merely regarded her steadily from half-lidded eyes before picking up a letter from a tray by her chair. “There’s something for you just come from Belfoyle.”
Aunt Pheeney snatched it from her sister, handing it to Elisabeth with a suspiciously satisfied smile. “Open it. It might be important.”
She hated the unbidden skip of her heart. As if somehow miraculously after all this time word would come that Brendan had returned.
Tearing open the wax seal, she scanned the page. “It’s from Cat,” she said, though she’d a strong feeling her aunts already knew that. Had probably set it up in a flash of inspiration. She could hear them now: We’ll force her out of her shell like prying open a crab.
Well, she liked her shell, thank you very much.
“Cat’s asked us to join them at Christmas. Sabrina and Daigh MacLir will be there with their daughter, and Jack O’Gara’s been invited. Even Miss Roseingrave and her grandmother are expected.”
“Oh, it sounds absolutely delightful. Nothing like a houseful of family to make a holiday sparkle,” chattered Aunt Pheeney, grinning like a Cheshire cat. “And having little ones about makes it even better. Isn’t it Lord Kilronan’s boy’s first Christmas? I saw His Lordship just the other day. He looked proud as a peacock.”
Elisabeth felt the lump in her throat drop into her stomach. A child. Brendan’s child. She would have liked that, but as with so much else, it had not been fated. She’d not even been allowed that much of him.
She chided herself for her weakness. Her maudlin droopiness. It had been long enough. She needed to move on. To stop hoping. To forget. Just as Brendan had.
“We’ll begin to lay out your clothes this afternoon. Perhaps a trip to Ennis next week.” Aunt Pheeney’s cheerfulness was almost painful. “You know what Bacon says: ‘Riches are for spending,’ and I saw the loveliest velvet in Nicholas blue the last time I was there. And there was a fabulous picture of a morning robe in the latest Ackermann’s. Let me see if I can find it.”
She began rummaging through a stack of magazines and papers beside her chair, looking so pleased Elisabeth couldn’t bear to disappoint her. And why not order a new gown? It would go with her new resolve. She would lock away her time with Brendan as a glistening, beautiful memory to last her a lifetime.
“There’s a letter from your uncle in London as well,” Aunt Fitz said, her gaze narrowing. “He writes to say Gordon Shaw was married last month.”
Elisabeth frowned. It had been six months since Gordon had arrived at Dun Eyre, looking as smug as ever as he asked her to reconsider a marriage between them. Six months since she’d sent him away, wondering if she was giving up her last chance at a husband and a family of her own.
“I’m happy for him,” she said as Aunt Fitz continued to regard her steadily. “I am. We would have made a horrible hash of things had we wed.” She rose, dragging her shawl close around her shoulders. “Excuse me.” Chin up, she forced herself to walk sedately from the salon. “I’ve just forgotten something in my room.”
Twin pairs of worried gazes bored into her back. The buzz of whispers trailing behind her. “Told you not to throw that at her . . . a shock.”
“Needed to know . . . not coming back . . . over . . .”
Once out of range of her aunts’ custody, Elisabeth dashed up the stairs, through the upper corridor, to the long gallery, where she sank onto a sofa, her breath coming in short, heaving gasps as she fought back foolish tears.
How long she remained there before her aunt found her, she couldn’t say. One minute she was alone with the portraits for company, the next Aunt Fitz was beside her, an arm around her shoulders, a hand smoothing her hair as she’d done when Elisabeth was a child.
“I don’t know why I’m crying. Had we married, Gordon would soon have been miserable and I—”
“Would have found yourself married to a man you did not love. Young Lochinvar still holds a tight grip upon your heart.”
“I’ve tried so many times, Aunt Fitz. I tell myself every morning: I shall make this the day I finally stop believing he’s going to come back. Then I dream of him, and it’s so vivid it’s as if he were in the room with me. I see that his hair needs trimming and he’s thinner. I see a scar upon his cheek that wasn’t there before. He takes my hand, but he never speaks. And when I wake, I can smell his scent on my pillow and feel the heat of him in the bed beside me. I know he’s not returning. It’s been too long and my hope is gone, but I’m afraid if I make myself forget, he’ll stop coming to me. I won’t even have my dreams.”
They sat in silence, each lost in her own thoughts. Elisabeth felt herself relax in her aunt’s quiet embrace, her muscles slowly unwinding, her breathing slowing to normal.
Aunt Fitz gathered Elisabeth’s hands in her own. Her gaze lifting to the portrait of her parents. “You remind me of your grandmother.”
Elisabeth wiped her face, sitting up to gaze at the woman in the portrait’s dreamy features, her wistful smile soft as a spring rain. No one had ever compared Elisabeth to her before. Her grandmother had been tiny, wispy, faded, and quiet. Everything Elisabeth was not.
“She too retreated into dreams when she lost the one most dear to her,” Aunt Fitz explained.
“Grandfather?”
“You never knew him, he died long before you were born, but the two of them loved deeply. Perhaps too deeply, for his death seemed to kill a part of her. From that time on, she was never the same vibrant, beautiful woman we had known. She became as much a wraith as any spirit.”
