Forever and Forever (Historical Proper Romance) (35 page)

“But you are ready now?”

Her smile grew and she nodded.

A tremor of fear rushed through him. What had prompted such a change of heart? Was he a fool to trust it? Falling back to his better judgment, he took a step back and gave her hand a squeeze before releasing it and putting out his arm once more. He could not erase the smile from his face, and he did not want to, but neither did he want to act rashly. He needed to think on what had transpired between them, dissect and quantify the insight he had gained, before he allowed his heart to take flight.

“Perhaps I had best see you home,” he said softly.

Thirty-Seven

Vain Regrets

Fanny looked into Mr. Longfellow’s face, illuminated by the gaslights of the Commons, and wished she could read his thoughts. She couldn’t blame him for being hesitant, after so many years of keeping him at a distance, but she hoped he could feel what she felt and know what she knew.

She had been nervous about seeing him again. He’d been back from Germany almost six months, and she had begun to wonder if the opportunity for them to talk would ever come. What if she still felt uneasy in his company? What if she could love him from afar but not up close? And yet, as soon as she’d made the decision to cross the room and talk with him, those fears had lifted. He was the same man who wrote poems of such depth, tenderness, and passion. The discomfort between them was gone, and the realization was invigorating—only she did not know how to make sure he understood the change. Short of seducing him into understanding, however, she did not know what might do the job. And she was not yet desperate enough to resort to feminine wiles.

“Perhaps you
should
see me home,” she said in response to his suggestion. It would be good to have some time with her thoughts, to review this night and become comfortable with the changes in their relationship. Likely he would need that same time. She could only hope that once they parted company, he would not talk himself out of the good that had transpired between them.

How they would proceed was out of her hands, and she knew it. The entire time they had known one another could testify against her, but she hoped with all her heart that tonight would be enough to overcome the past. They turned toward Beacon Street and walked in silence.

The front door opened when they reached the steps, telling her that Mathews had been waiting for her return. Would Mr. Longfellow forgive her all the things she’d said and the thoughts she’d had about him not being good enough for her? Would he forget that she had once called him old and thrown his love for Mary Potter in his face? She wished she could convince him that her intent tonight was worthy of his trust. Her only hope was that the feeling she’d had so often that he could see through her, beyond her moods and her masks and her challenges, would help him see and feel her sincerity tonight.

“Good night, Miss Fanny,” he said. He bent over her hand and kissed the back of it in such a way to ignite the very fire she both feared and longed for. Through reading Mr. Longfellow’s poetry with new eyes and a fresh heart, she had come to understand his passion. She felt quite wicked to want to explore that passion further. He straightened and fixed her with a gaze that made her feel more wicked still.

“Good night, Mr. Longfellow.”

“Henry,” he said. “I would be very pleased if you would call me Henry.”

“Well, then, good night, Henry.”

His name was sweet on her lips. He released her hand, but he was still standing on the sidewalk when she reached the front door and glanced over her shoulder. She smiled before she entered the house, and Mathews closed the door.

The household was quiet—small children meant that the family did not entertain late anymore—and so she made her way carefully up the stairs where her maid awaited her. Fanny could not get the evening out of her mind and reviewed the events over and over again as her hair was unpinned and she readied herself for bed. Where could she have spoken better? What exactly did Mr. Long—
Henry
—say and how did he say it? She could not misconstrue that he was open to her change of heart, but her fears were not entirely satisfied either.

What will happen next?
she wondered as she burrowed beneath the covers, grateful that her maid had set a water bottle there early enough to warm the sheets.

“What if I am too late?” she asked the dark and empty room. She wished Molly were there to talk to. It seemed so long ago that they had been able to take one another’s presence for granted, and although Fanny had become used to the distance between them, tonight of all nights she longed for her sister’s encouragement. Molly would feel Fanny was doing the right thing, wouldn’t she? She could help Fanny believe that she was not too late.

Molly was not there to say such things, however, and Fanny was left with only her own company and seven years’ worth of memories of pushing Henry away. Over and over again. She wondered now what she had been afraid of, why it had seemed so necessary to keep him at a distance. Why had she been so certain he could never make her happy?

“What if I have lost my chance entirely?”

Thirty-Eight

Personal Easter

Henry sat at his writing desk, looking over the field that seemed to dribble into the Charles River. The water looked inviting, and the day was quite fine for early May. Perhaps he could find a friend up for some rowing. It was not typical for sport to call to him, but he had been living on nervous energy ever since writing Fanny the letter.
The letter.
Just thinking of it prompted him to jump to his feet and pace the floor where perhaps General Washington had once paced. But Washington had Martha at his side; she’d come to him in this very house and attended him though he was leading an army. What a lucky man Washington was to have such a woman.

Could I . . . Would she . . .
Henry did not know how to form his hopes into words, so he settled for images. He remembered the look on Fanny’s face when she’d stood beside him that night at the Nortons’ party. He remembered the warmth of her hand when she’d placed it on his cheek. The brilliance of her smile. The clarity of her eyes. All the supposed healing he thought he’d found in Germany slid aside to reveal the flame of hope that had never truly gone out but that now offered another kind of healing within its light. He’d accepted he could live without her, but now he was presented with a new future he’d dared not expect.

When Henry had exercised through his impatience, he returned to his writing desk and forced his mind to focus on the next line of the poem he was working on. The cadence was off. He needed a different word or phrase for “reprimand” and turned his attention to the stack of books beside the desk in hopes that work could envelop him, fold him in tight and keep him aware of only this ink on this paper.

Sometime later, a knock on his sitting room door caused him to look up from his paper, which had blessedly consumed his attention. He stood and crossed to the door. Miriam, standing almost as tall as he did, held out an envelope.

“Just came for you, Mr. Longfellow.” He took the envelope, and she leaned forward to point at the return address printed in familiar hand. “Don’t Miss Appleton live on Beacon Street?”

Henry felt the muscles of his face pulling into a grin, and for the first time in a while, he did not mind that everyone in Cambridge knew of his
tendré
for Miss Fanny Appleton. “That she does, Miriam,” he said. “Let us hope it is good news.”

He closed the door and crossed to his desk. For a moment he simply looked at the thing: the fine paper, the perfect letters. There was a chance that this letter would not bear the news he was hoping for. She could reject him. Again. And yet somehow he knew she would not. In the past, he had felt hopeful but desperate. Now, he simply felt the rightness of everything. The past, the present, and the future.

Without wasting another minute, Henry turned the envelope over and broke the seal. He unfolded the letter, took a breath, and began to read.

With every word his heart grew lighter, the air was clearer, the sun moved higher in the sky. He finished reading and bowed his head as peace and calm washed over him like the waters of baptism. The afflictions of his soul had been swallowed up, and his heart began to pound with a new rhythm, as though forever changed by this moment—his personal Easter, where all was redeemed and salvation was nigh.

“Thank you,” he said in tender prayer. He paused another moment before jumping from his seat and running for the door.

He took the front stairs—thinking of Mrs. Craigie and how she had not liked him to use those stairs—and sent a little smile heavenward to her. She would find this turn delightful. It was because of her that he had tried to forget Fanny, tried to move forward without her, and perhaps that was why Fanny’s heart had finally come to him. As with Abraham and Isaac, he had been willing to give up, but in the end it had not been required of him to do so.

Henry grabbed his coat and hat from the rack by the door and was buttoning his coat when Miriam came into the foyer.

“Where are you going?” she asked, looking him over from head to toe.

Henry beamed at her. “I am going to Beacon Street.”

“Shall I call a carriage?”

“I could not sit still if I wanted to,” Henry said. “And I don’t want to!”

He pulled open the door and fairly ran toward Cambridgeport, pressing his hat further onto his head during the walk he had taken so many times before. Across the river by the West Boston Bridge and along Charles Street until finally he turned the corner onto Beacon Street.

How many times had he walked the Commons hoping for a glimpse of his
Dark Ladye
? And now she had called him to her. Despite his awkwardness. Despite his missteps. Through some prism he was eager to understand—but did not yet know—she had come to feel just as he did. She loved him. She’d said so in her letter. Every dream of his heart was to become a reality.

Henry slowed his steps as he approached the grand house. He stood on the sidewalk a few moments longer, letting his eyes travel from the ground level to the rooftop. He thought back to that night at Craigie House after Fanny had rejected him the first time and how Miss Lowell had listened to his confusing account of it. “She does not love me,” he had said. Because of that, Fanny could not move past the obstacles between them. He’d decided then—that day—to establish his writing career, to be patient, and to not give up hope. It had been five years since then. Five years! And yet here he was, in exactly the place he’d been the first time. But he was a better man now.

And she was ready.

He took the steps with reverence and removed his hat, smoothing his hair which was in need of a trim. At the front door he took a breath, said a prayer, and knocked.

He expected the butler to open the door—would she miss having a butler?—but instead Fanny herself stood there. She looked him in the face, a smile growing on her fine lips. “I had hoped it was you,” she said, thrilling him to his very toes. “Won’t you come in, Mr. Longfellow?” A maid approached as Henry entered the foyer. “Please bring tea to the drawing room,” Fanny asked the maid. The young woman curtsied and headed for the kitchen.