Page 9 of The Witching Hour
He told her it had been just like that, falling in love with her—that he could no longer remember who he’d been, before her.
He spoke until the pale winter sun rose to its highest peak in the sky, then began to fall again, the shadows lengthening across the bedchamber. He spoke until his throat was raw, and his eyes began to feel so heavy he lay his head down on the bed beside her, still murmuring to her until sleep took him at last.
* * *
Sylvie openedher eyes as the grandfather clock on the landing began to chime midnight. She lay still for a long moment as the lethargy of illness gave way to the strange, fleeting animation of half-life as the clock ushered in the witching hour.
Someone had pulled the draperies open. The dark clouds of the night before had dispersed, and a shaft of watery silver moonlight fell over the bed. James was here with her, fast asleep beside her, his dark hair disheveled from the slow movement of her fingers through the thick, chestnut strands.
Ah, that’s what the soft tickling sensation between her fingers was, then. She was stroking his hair.
Her gentle caress hadn’t woken him. He was in a deep sleep, his face turned toward her, deep lines of exhaustion etched into the corners of his eyes, his fingers grasping a fold of her nightdress, as if he could keep her with him if he only held on tightly enough.
She stroked his cheek, a low, deep sigh on her lips.
This man! This wonderful, maddening, infuriating, beloved man, telling her their love story while she lay motionless in her sickbed, wrapping it up in picnics and pink sashes, summer roses and daisies, lazy days of sunshine and poetry.
Keats, not Byron, of course. She’d never much cared for Byron.
How could she have forgotten how sweetly he’d offered his heart to her, four years ago? How could she have done anything else but fall madly in love with him in return? Now here he was, courting her a second time, and even knowing how badly things had gone wrong between them, hereshewas, falling in love with him all over again.
What was death, after all, in comparison to a great love story?
Nothing, it seemed, could stand in the way of true love. Nothing, that is, but the lovers themselves. She let out another sigh, her fingers tracing his cheekbone, the pouting line of his lips. How could it be that the deep love they felt for each other hadn’t been enough to see them through? How had they managed to make such a cursed mess of the precious gift they’d been given?
And wasn’t it likely they’d do the same thing again, if given the chance? If she did return to him, what guarantee was there she wouldn’t find herself once again alone in this castle, with James far away in London?
Nothing, after all, had changed between them—
Well, no. That wasn’t true. One thing had. Rather an important thing, really.
Before she’d fallen ill, she’d blamed him for the troubles in their marriage. He’d left her behind, and so it had all been his fault. That was how it went in her head, anyway, but only a child persisted in blaming others for their own misery.
She was no longer a child.
She’d been at fault, too, just as surely as he had.
How many times had James begged her to go to London with him, in those early years? A dozen? More than that? As many times as she’d refused, until he’d become so discouraged, he’d given up pleading with her. She’d claimed delicate health as her excuse, but that wasn’t the truth of it. No, it was that she’d been afraid to leave her home, afraid to face the grandtonin London, afraid they’d mock her as an ill-bred country girl, and James would come to regret marrying her.
In that way, hadn’t she let her fears come between them, as much as he had his ambition?
She eased the coverlet back, shifting on the bed so she was stretched out beside him, her face close to his, and lay there thinking as he slept beside her, until at last she realized all the thinking in the world wasn’t going to bring her the answers she sought.
No, this needed action, and she was wasting time. The witching hour was waning with every moment she lingered in her bed. She had so little time, and she was letting it slip through her fingers, as surely as she’d been letting James slip away from her over the past four years.
There was a weeping willow tree near the field where they’d used to picnic when they were courting, just on the other side of a small footbridge that stretched over a creek flowing through a rocky riverbed. It was a great, big willow, the long, curved branches reaching down to the ground. She used to hide there when she was younger, her back resting against the rough, gnarled wood, and dream her girlish dreams.
Last night, she’d dreamed of that tree, and it was calling to her now, calling her to go to it. Perhaps she’d find her answers there, or perhaps…perhaps she’d find a new dream.
She inched closer to James, who slept on, oblivious. Closer, until her mouth was hovering over his, his gentle exhales tickling her lips, and then closer still, their breath mingling.
Softly, softly, her parted lips found his.
How long had it been since she’d last kissed him? Nearly a year, perhaps longer, but it was just as lovely as she remembered, just as intoxicating, that dizzying meeting of their lips the sweetest of promises.
But she didn’t dare linger.
She rose from the bed, gathered her long white nightdress in her fists, her bare feet silent against the floorboards, and hurried down the stairs and through the glass doors that led from the library into the garden, and from there into the field beyond, the dewy grass cool and damp against her skin.
