A Wedding Story (25 page)

R
egular articles appeared on the front page of the
Daily Sentinel
during the next ten weeks.

The small fishing vessel bucked through the channel. Two hours past sunset, two days after Christmas, the temperature was dropping, damp, icy wind ripping across the water.

Kate shivered. Immediately Jim slipped his arm around her, wrapping her in warmth, and she leaned against him, sinking into the sensation, trying to imprint each scent, each touch.

Almost over.
One way or another, they were reaching the end of this journey. Ahead of her the white curve of the coast shimmered in the moonlight. The land rose higher behind it, tiny flicks of light here and there where houses roosted, a denser cluster by the curve of the bay where a village nestled.

She peeked up at Jim. He had his collar pulled up around his neck, his shoulders hunched against the cold. His skin reddened, the sharp angles of his face set impassively as he stared at the approaching shoreline, and the truth that she’d been assiduously ignoring for weeks hit her like the cold, a slap that couldn’t be avoided and bit deep, chilling to the bone.

Almost over,
she thought again. Any excitement that idea might once have sparked had died long ago. Win, lose…she’d be losing either way. Because this small, full, wonderful interlude in an otherwise pallid life would be over. It had to be.

For what were her choices? To follow Jim around the world? The idea tantalized her. As he had promised, he had kept her safe. Comfortable…well, not quite, she admitted honestly, although discomfort was a smaller price to pay than she might have thought to be with him. Yes, despite her worry, she’d held up all right in the mountains. She did not delude herself into believing that the Pyrénées were the Himalayas, nor that enduring a few weeks was anything like spending months, even years, on expedition.

The wind gusted, kicking spray into her face, stinging her eyes. She tasted brine, and regret.

For the truth of it was, as hard as she tried not to, she slowed him down. He worried over her. Went out of his way to court her along the way, to keep her warm and safe and dry. And they’d been in places far less remote than he typically chose to explore. She absolutely refused to be a handicap to him. Not to mention that she suspected his next trip would be back to the Arctic, taking another run at the North Pole. He was simply not the kind to allow a failure to rest. And to be out of touch with her sisters for months, perhaps even years on end? She could not imagine.

So where did that leave her? The woman who waited at home, worrying, praying, hoping for a few precious months of happiness before he left her again? Certain every second they were apart that this time might be the one he did not return from? She could not conceive of living a life that was primarily bound by loneliness and terror. And she knew herself. She would not be able to resist attempting to lure him into staying with her, trading on his emotion and hers, keeping him from his work a month longer, and then another, until it became more about duty than choice. Until they both blamed each other for not being something that they couldn’t.

What, then? Perhaps she would marry again, she thought. Not for security this time, but for companionship and affection. Maybe there would even be a man with children again, younger ones this time, children who might not resent her as much as the doctor’s had.

Depression pressed down on her, dark and thick as the clouds overhead.

“Almost there,” she murmured. “If you’re right about the clue.”

“It’s the right place,” Jim said.
England,
he thought, trying to make the word sound anything but foreign in his head.
England.

“‘The hawk’s perch soars o’er sea and land, a folly meant to rule—’”?

“‘Failed in its purpose, except to view, but beneath it lies the jewel,’”
she finished, wincing. “That’s so awful.”

“But easy,” he said. “And that’s good.” After all these years of running from this place, forcing from his mind every memory and every thought until even he sometimes forgot where he’d come from, he was almost back.

He’d barely glanced at the clue before he knew where they were going. Out of all the places in the world, that they should send him here—it should have surprised him, a coincidence so large it bordered on absurd. And yet…he’d simply gone still inside, eerily calm. No matter how deeply he probed, there was nothing of the turbulent roil of emotion he might have expected. Nothing at all, in fact, but a vague amusement that Fate had finally taken him in hand and forced him back. As if he’d always known that this day would come eventually, that no matter how hard he ran he could never completely get away.

“How far is it?” she asked.

“Not far. Six or seven miles.”

She shivered against him again. Poor thing, he thought, hugging her closer. He’d grown so accustomed to her there, tucked against him, the feel of her body against his in one way or another, that now it felt strange whenever she wasn’t there. As if he’d lost part of himself, an empty pain like a phantom limb.

She would have lasted about five minutes in the Arctic if she found England cold. The sky spit a few flakes at them, melting so quickly on his face that he first took them to be spray. But he could see them in the light, icy little bits carried along on the wind, threatening to turn to sleet.

“Are we far behind, do you think?”

He shook his head. “They’ll be taking the main shipping lanes, most likely, landing in Portsmouth or Brighton. I paid old Ned there to take us right into Shorehampton, and we can start from there.”

“We can’t land any closer?”

He’d been gone so long, one might have thought he’d forgotten what it looked like. The smell of the water, the way the low hills rolled back from the shore. But it all came back to him as if he’d left only days before. He remembered where the roads curved, where the land lifted and dipped. It was as if the places one saw as a child imprinted themselves upon one, carving a map in relief that could never be fully obliterated.

“No,” he said. “That section of the coast is nasty. Abrupt shallows, shifting sand bars, cliffs, rip tides. This’ll be safer. It won’t take long to get there.”

Jim was terribly wrong. He should have known, he thought. Once Fate had decided to take him in hand, she would not allow him to swing so close to Harrington and ignore it.

By the time they’d disembarked and located a small open carriage and horse for hire—and made their way unerringly through the town, Kate noted, no need for Jim to pause at corners to ponder the direction—the flurries turned to a torrent, thickly pelting down, piling against houses and hedgerows.

“Perhaps we should put up for the night,” she suggested, glancing at the spill of large white flakes, glittering in lamplight, dropping out of the darkness, thinking fondly of comfortable inn beds, warm fires, and a naked Jim beside her.

“The farther we get today, the closer we are to the end,” he said. “The road’s not remote.”

The end.
It’s not what he meant, Kate told herself, even as the chill settled into her stomach and lumped there, painful and heavy. “All right.”

About a half-inch of snow coated the road. Jim had to coax the small, sturdy mare to set out on it but once they got going she went on well enough, hooves slicing neat half moons into the white that blurred and then filled smooth almost immediately.

They had to be near Jim’s home, Kate reasoned. He was too sure of the road, his gaze firmly fixed forward as if there was no point in looking around because he already knew what he’d see. Curious, she strained to peer through the snow until her vision fuzzed, unable to make out more than the occasional dark spear of a tree, the black bulk of a cottage with light blinking in its window, half of them, she was sure, as much her imagination as reality.

The world was hushed, as if the snow muted her hearing as much as her sight. The sea, Jim had told her when she asked, was no more than a half mile to her right. But she couldn’t hear it at all, as if the storm absorbed its sound.

The snow grew thicker—in the air, on the ground, until the horse began to labor to pull them through.

She put her hand on Jim’s arm to gain his attention. “Should we stop?”

This time he nodded. “The next place—we’re almost there, I—”

They hit ice lurking invisibly under the snow. The world spun, a crazy whirl of white and dark flashing by. The wheels shrieked over the surface and, before Kate’s mind truly registered what had happened, they were tilted at an odd angle, half buried in the ditch.

She pressed a hand to her chest where her heart beat a violent protest.

“Are you all right?” His hands were at her face, lifting it up to his: harsh lines, dark eyes, a backdrop of whirling white. “Damn it, Kate—”

“I’m absolutely fine,” she said quickly, smiling, before he could apologize. “I always did like to spin.”

“Are you sure?” He squeezed her shoulders, ran his hands down her arms as if to find out for himself if all her parts were well and whole.

“Completely.” She nodded. “The horse?”

He leaped out of the curricle and ran around to the front, unhitching the mare before coming back to assist her down. The snow, heavy, cold, gave beneath her as he set her down; she sank to her shins.

“She’s fine,” he said. “But the carriage’s done for.”

“What’s next?”

“We walk,” he said. And they did, Jim in front, breaking a trail while she waded after him, leading the mare behind her.

“How far?”

“Only a few hundred steps,” he answered over her shoulders while he plowed steadily on without hint of hesitation or fatigue.

They made an abrupt turn. Kate hurried behind him, expecting a cottage, perhaps a stables. Instead they passed between two stone pillars looming out of the snow, dark and malevolent guardians. Their path grew winding, veering to the right and left, a narrow trail between thick stands of trees that marched near, stretching overhead. Brush grew thick beneath them, dark tangles sifted with white.

She glimpsed a dark bulk over his shoulder, a huge shadow through the snow that she at first thought a hill, a small mountain. But then the indistinct form took shape, a rambling geometry pierced by chimneys. A house, more massive than she’d ever seen, dark stone that seemed windowless. But there were windows, she realized as they approached: empty rectangles—no glass, no light—carved gracelessly in the charcoal stone.

Jim stopped at the base of the front staircase, face uplifted while flakes melted on his cheeks, clung to his lashes. “Welcome to Harrington,” he said. “Makes the Cuckoo’s Nest look like a veritable palace, doesn’t it?”

“Maybe it’s not as bad as it looks,” she said. Two urns had tumbled from their perches, blocking the door. One door, where there was meant to be two, the space yawning black like a gap-toothed smile. “I mean—”

“Oh, it’s as bad as it looks,” he said, starting up the stairs. “Be careful, half of them have crumbled.”

“But the mare?”