'I couldn't get back to sleep after I got off the phone with Mum,' I explained. 'So I went for a walk.'
My brother slowed the car to let a hedgehog scramble across the road. 'You didn't lock the door when you left.'
'I'm not overly fond of that new lock,' I told him. 'It's very stiff, and I can't always turn it. So unless I'm going to be miles away from home, I just don't bother. Besides,' I added in a practical tone, 'Iain does work in that back garden, sometimes, and he might need to get a drink of water, or use the lav.'
"The village life, indeed.' My brother smiled, faintly. 'If I were a less trusting person,' he said, 'I might think that you'd gone on one of your little excursions into the Middle Ages.'
"The seventeenth century,' I corrected him.
If he asked me directly, I thought, I would have to tell him. I had never been any good at telling lies to Tom—he could always find me out. But he didn't ask.
'Whatever.' He shrugged, and gathered speed again, and we drove the rest of the way in silence.
Twenty-two
The month of June was a glorious one, long sun-filled days and warm, scented nights, when the summer breeze came drifting across the greening fields while a nightingale sang to its mate in the darkness, down by the murmuring river. Even the rains fell more softly, and the little dovecote garden crept shyly into bloom. The columbine and iris bowed down to make way for bolder sprays of red valerian, and a mingled profusion of clustered Canterbury bells and sweet william, pale blues and pinks intertwined, danced at the feet of more stately spears of deep-purple foxglove and monkshood.
The changing nature of the garden fascinated me. By borrowing books from Iain I learned the name of each and every new flower, and soon the flowers themselves were working their way into my drawings, lending joyful colour and variety to the dark medieval forests of my fairy tales. My editor was thrilled with the samples I sent her, and if she noticed that all my princes bore a peculiar resemblance to one another, she made no comment.
I, too, was blossoming, basking in the sweet exhilaration that heralds the beginning of a new romance.
Geoff had returned home two days after my walk by the river, and on the Saturday evening, as promised, he treated me to dinner and dancing at an elegant restaurant this side of Swindon.
It was an incredibly magical night, like something out of one of the fairy tales I'd been so diligently illustrating. The restaurant itself might have been a set from a film—all candles and flowers and linen and waiters who never hurried. By the time we had finished our after-dinner cognac, I think I had fallen halfway in love with Geoffrey de Mornay. I'd have had to be superhuman not to.
We didn't really change toward one another, but as the month waned, it became apparent that something had been added to our relationship, a hint of potential yet to be realized that lurked beneath the friendly smiles and easy conversation. I was being wooed.
With my days divided equally between work and play, I had little time for further experimental trips into the past. Whenever I felt the warning dizziness begin to rise, I quickly forced it back, closing my eyes tightly and resisting the whirling darkness with every ounce of my being. Plenty of time for that later, I reasoned. But every morning, when I paused to finger Mariana's bracelet, the jeweled eyes of the birds of paradise stared up at me in mute accusation. 'I haven't forgotten,' I argued, speaking as much to the face in the mirror as to the gilt birds. 'I only want a little bit of fun, that's all.'
It was rather like being on holiday. Geoff and I walked the long paths that snaked through field and countryside, spent afternoons poking about antique shops, and evenings playing darts and sharing stories at the Red Lion, under Vivien's indulgent eye. I celebrated my thirtieth birthday at the Lion, and the taps flowed freely, each of the old men at the corner table insisting on standing me a birthday drink. I had forbidden anyone to buy me a gift, but still Geoff gave me roses, and Vivien produced a pair of earrings, and even Iain gave me a present—a shining garden trowel with a bow tied round it. 'So you'll stop losing mine,' he told me dryly. 'There must be ten trowels rusting in the field as it is.'
At the month's end my parents finally flew back from Auckland, and Tom and I drove together down to Heathrow to collect them. True to form, they insisted upon seeing my house straightaway, before going home to Oxford. Their reactions were much as I'd expected. My mother, her mind full of plans for wallpapers and curtains, wandered round the rooms in a pleasantly preoccupied state, while my father bounced once or twice on the floorboards to check the soundness of the structure. Hands in his pockets, he lowered his chin to his chest and nodded, faintly. 'Very nice,' he said. It was the highest praise I could have hoped for, and my spirit swelled.
I grew reckless in my happiness. On one memorable afternoon in the first week of July, Geoff coaxed me into going riding with him, despite the fact that I hadn't been on horseback since my schooldays. Fortunately, only the horse seemed aware of my lack of skill, and I put on a brave show by keeping my back ramrod straight and my expression calm.
'You see?' Geoff turned an encouraging smile in my direction when we paused to rest the horses. 'You needn't have worried. You ride perfectly well.'
Leaning forward in my saddle I patted my mare's neck, silently thanking her for graciously allowing me to stay on her back. 'Yes, well.' I affected a casual tone. 'I suppose there are some things one never forgets.' The mare's ears twitched, catching the lie, but Geoff was already looking the other way.