Page 67 of The Summer Country

“Did you have a pleasant wedding journey?” Charles ventured.

“What, are you thinking it ought to have been you?” Robert demanded. “My wife does.”

“You’re mistaken,” said Charles, unsettled by the unexpected attack. “Her heart was always yours.”

Robert flicked the tip of his crop against his boot. “A strange way she has of showing it. All I get are complaints.”

“She has a blunt tongue.”

“What do you know of her tongue?”

Charles winced. “Nothing like that. I hold your wife in the greatest respect.”

“As she does you. She throws you up to me. Did you know that?” Robert adopted a piercing falsetto. “‘If I’d married Charles . . .’ I’m sick of it. I wish she’d married you and had done.”

“No, you don’t. Not truly.” Charles looked at his brother in confusion, wondering how they had come to this in just over a month. They’d seemed well enough pleased with each other when they married; more than pleased, if Jenny was right. “Besides, she wouldn’t have had me. She only does it to goad you.”

“And how would you know? Oh yes, all those cozy picnics together. She’s been cutting up rough because I had the gall to make a gift of money to her uncle. Her own uncle!”

Charles looked closely at Robert. “I understand they don’t get on.”

“Ingratitude, I call it. He ran this estate for her for well over a decade. Why shouldn’t I back him in a little venture? He’s a warm man; we’ll see the money back. And even if we don’t, he’s earned it, that’s what I say.”

“Have you ever asked her why she dislikes her uncle so?”

“No, but you clearly know all about it.” Robert looked at his brother with raw dislike.

“Only what I’ve heard from others,” said Charles, which was true as far as it went. Everything he knew came from Jenny’s lips, not Mary Anne’s. “Think of it. How would you feel if I went about telling people you weren’t right in the head?”

“Who’s to say that he was lying?” As if realizing he had gone too far, Robert shrugged, dropping the crop on the floor and kicking it away. “She’s deuced difficult. She seems to think I should apply to her for permission to use my money. What do you say to that?”

“Legally, it certainly is your money. But hadn’t you thought . . .” At the expression on Robert’s face, Charles gave up the effort.

“If I wanted your advice,” said Robert, “I would ask you for it.”

There was nothing for Charles to do but take his leave. Jenny met him at the door with his hat and gloves.

“Not exactly billing and cooing,” he said softly.

“The Old Mill?” said Jenny in an undertone, as she held his gloves out to him, one by one.

Charles forced himself to concentrate on pulling on the gloves, finger by finger. “I’ll be there.”

Jenny offered him his hat, head bowed. “Sir.”

Behind her, Charles could see Robert, watching.

He rode to Peverills before setting back again to the Old Mill. Just in case anyone might be watching.

The Old Mill was as they’d left it. A little damper, perhaps, after a season of rains, a little greener about the edges, but with the same smells of dirt and loam, bringing back a host of memories. Jenny kissing him for the first time. Lying together. Talking together. That strange pull of flesh to flesh, mind to mind.

She’d been so distant today at Beckles. Charles had a moment’s fear that time had dampened her ardor, that she might no longer feel as he did.

But any doubts were quelled when she appeared in the doorway of the mill.

Charles opened his mouth to say something, he wasn’t even quite sure what, but he never got the words out. He wasn’t sure who moved first, or if they both moved at once, but they came together like raindrops on a windowsill, running together so they blended into one, indistinguishable. She held his face in her hands and kissed him until his lips were raw and the air whistled in his ears. Their clothing only got in the way; piece by piece, rapidly, clumsily, they struggled out of their clothes, pulling each other closer, coming together with more passion than finesse, her cry and his shout echoing together in the damp, dark space.

They made a nest of their discarded garments, snuggling together beneath the breadths of Jenny’s chemise. A button from Charles’s waistcoat was biting into his back. He shifted, bringing Jenny with him, saying ruefully, “I’d meant to welcome you back in a better way than that.”