He took hold of her gloved hand in his. ‘But where are we going?’ he asked.
‘Somewhere that means a lot to me.’
Following the footpath that was so deep with powdery snow it was coming over the tops of the wellington boots they had found by the back door, and which they’d borrowed, they eventually emerged into a clearing. Ahead of them was St Mary’s. It was too early for the Christmas morning service yet and Isabella wondered if it would be cancelled in view of the weather.
She led Max around the church, and when they had reached their destination, she bent down and with a gloved hand, swept away the pillow thickness of snow that covered her father’s gravestone. She did the same for her mother’s next to it.
‘My parents, Elijah and Allegra Hartley,’ she said, looking up at Max. ‘I’ve never brought anyone here before. I promised myself that only the man I truly believed in would be worthy of making this visit with me.’
He hunkered down in the snow next to her, but didn’t say anything. The muffled quiet that enveloped them was absolute. Not a bird chirped. Not even the crows and rooks that could usually be heard cawing in the tops of the trees stirred.
Her voice hushed, Isabella said, ‘I told you before that I never knew my mother, but what I didn’t tell you was that Elijah, the man I always regarded as my father, wasn’t.’ She turned to face Max. ‘It’s never bothered me that I was illegitimate, the same as my mother; not when Elijah raised me as his own. He loved Allegra so much; he promised her when they married, and she was pregnant with another man’s child, that he would always take care of her. And me.’
‘It takes a special kind of love to do that,’ Max said softly, taking off a glove and brushing away the snowflakes that had settled on her nose and cheeks.
‘Yes,’ she murmured. ‘You need to know that any man who professes to love me has a lot to live up to. I couldn’t accept someone who wasn’t prepared to love me in the way that Elijah loved my mother.’
‘He was a rare man.’
‘He was,’ she said simply.
‘Do you think he would have approved of me and the age difference between us?’
She smiled sadly. ‘I never knew him to be anything but open-minded and fair. But I’m pretty sure he would have been wary of your motives until he knew you better. He would also have known that I’m just like my mother, so I’m told, headstrong and wildly impulsive, so . . .’
‘So he would have known it would have been futile to interfere?’ Max finished for her.
‘More or less,’ she said through frozen lips, her teeth beginning to chatter.
Rising slowly to his feet, and holding out his hands, he pulled Isabella up into his arms. ‘We should go now. Before you perish from the cold.’
They walked back to Island House in sombre silence, the only sound to be heard in the still of the frozen morning, was the crunch of snow beneath their boots. What was he thinking? she wondered. That he couldn’t live up to the expectations she had of him?
‘Max,’ she said, when the footpath was behind them and they were walking the length of the garden at Island House, following in the footsteps they had made earlier, ‘if you feel, after what I’ve just shared with you, that this is a turning point for you, I will understand. There’ll be no hard feelings, I promise. I’d just prefer to know.’
‘You’re right,’ he said slowly, coming to a stop and staring straight ahead of him. ‘It is a turning point. And not one I can pass over lightly.’ He then swung round to stand directly in front of her.
At the intensely solemn expression on his face, Isabella’s legs turned to jelly. Just as she had feared the worst on the train yesterday, she braced herself now.
Chapter Seventy-Six
Island House, Melstead St Mary
December 1962
Red
From the bedroom window, Red watched Max and Isabella in the garden. If he didn’t know better, he’d say he was witnessing a proposal of marriage. Why else would Max be down on one knee in the snow?
The next thing he saw was Isabella clapping her hands together before dropping to her knees and flinging her arms around Max’s neck. She must have thrown herself at him with some considerable force as Max then toppled backwards, taking her with him. Smiling to himself, Red watched them roll over in the snow like a couple of crazy kids. He didn’t think he’d seen two happier people. Well, apart from him and Romily pelting each other with snowballs yesterday!
He wondered what Romily would make of the scene he was witnessing, given her reticent manner towards Max.
Unlike her manner towards him in bed last night, he thought with a grin. ‘I ought to warn you,’ she’d said, when they’d made it upstairs to her room and began undressing each other, ‘I’m a little out of practice.’
‘Me too,’ he’d said.
She’d laughed and told him he was a shocking liar.
He had felt self-conscious when he had taken his pyjama bottoms off and had to remove his prosthetic leg. It was a sensation he had not experienced before. Perhaps it was because he’d wanted the moment to be perfect, for Romily not to be disappointed in him. As they explored their bodies and found their rhythm, her every caress, her every kiss, and every look, tipped him closer to the edge of losing himself in her.
Now, this morning, and already showered and dressed, he moved away from the window. With some difficulty, he knelt beside the bed and just drank in the face of the woman he had travelled halfway around the world to be with. Everything with Romily was new and magical to him, and completely unlike how he’d felt with any woman before.
‘What have you done to me?’ he murmured. ‘And where do we go from here?’
At his softly spoken words, she stirred.
‘Hello you,’ he said as her eyes flickered open. ‘Happy Christmas.’
‘Happy Christmas to you, too,’ she said.
‘You’re beautiful when you sleep,’ he said.
She smiled. ‘You say the nicest things.’
‘I do my best.’
She stretched her hands above her head. ‘What time is it?’
‘Half-past ten.’
All trace of sleepiness was instantly gone from her face. ‘It can’t be! Not when I have so much to do.’
‘Relax. I told you, I’ll help you in the kitchen. If there’s one thing we Americans know how to cook, it’s a turkey with all the trimmings.’
She slid a hand round the back of his neck and pulled him closer to kiss his mouth. ‘Mmm . . . you smell nice. What’s the cologne you’re wearing.’