The Heiresses (41 page)

And the nurse was right, for there was Edwin, sitting up in bed, eating a plate of sandwiches and drinking a cup of tea with his left hand. His right arm, however, lay rigidly beside him, splinted and bandaged. “Oh!” Clio cried. “So it is true! You’re all right after all! And Thalia?”

“Yes, it’s all right. It seems we’ll both live. She’s over there, behind the screen.” Edwin pointed. “Just having a rest. Before you go over there, though, I must warn you—she’s taken a nasty knock to the head. They’ve given her something to help her get some sleep.”

Hestia, Clio, and Ro crept over to look behind the calico screen that stood around the bed offering some privacy. Behind it lay Thalia. Not the golden-haired, quick-witted, darting-eyed Thalia that Clio had come to know so well, but an ashen-faced version of the same. Clio held her hand to her mouth as she surveyed the damage to her sister. There was obviously an injury to her head. A large plaster had been placed on her forehead, above her right eye. Bruising crept out from either side of the raised mound and some blood stained her wide, lace-edged collar.

“My goodness,” Hestia said as she exhaled, sitting down on the edge of Thalia’s bed. Both Ro and Clio reached over to her and each took one of her hands. “Oh, thank heavens she is all right.”

“They gave her something because she was working herself into a state trying to remember what happened,” Edwin told them, from across the room.

“What do you mean?” Clio released Hestia’s hand and walked across to Edwin’s bedside.

“Well, after that bump to her head, she couldn’t remember who she was, or where she was going.”

Clio gasped. “She’s lost her memory?”

“No, no. They’ve said it’s going to be fine. It took her only a few minutes to remember her name and the year and so on. She was even asking for all of you by the time we got to the hospital. It was where she was driving to that she couldn’t remember. I’m sure she will recall later on, though. Everything else seemed to come back easily enough.”

Clio breathed a sigh of relief. “And that’s all that’s wrong with her? Nothing else?”

Edwin shook his head. “No, not a scratch on her other than that bump to the head.”

“And yet you’ve broken your wrist?” Clio turned her concerned gaze to Edwin’s bound arm.

“No, luckily. Thumb only. Where I grabbed the wheel.”

“What exactly happened?” Ro walked over to stand at the end of Edwin’s bed.

“To tell you the truth,” Edwin said as he frowned, “I don’t entirely know. Thalia kept going on and on about having to go somewhere and see someone, but she wouldn’t tell me where, or who, or what it was all about. She was desperate to see Lady Hestia, though. She was almost beside herself—sort of triumphant and fearful all at the same time. She was acting so strangely I thought I’d better go with her to make sure she was all right.”

“So, you got in the motorcar…” Ro prompted Edwin to go on with his tale.

“Yes, we set off and it didn’t take long at all before she began to drive more and more erratically. I tried to get her to pull over and let me drive, but before I knew what was happening, she’d taken a corner too fast. I tried to grab the wheel, but it was too late.”

Clio felt her shame rise once more as she realized what she had thought about Edwin while he was actually busy protecting her sister. “Thank you so much, Edwin,” she said. “For looking after her.”

“It was nothing,” Edwin said modestly. “Anyone would have—”

But Clio cut in here. “No, they wouldn’t have. It really was very good of you.”

Ro saw here that other, more private, words were about to be said, and turned at once and beat a hasty retreat back to Thalia’s bedside.

Clio gestured toward the side of Edwin’s bed. “May I?”

“Of course! Sorry, do sit down.”

Clio perched beside Edwin, already feeling her heart start to beat faster in her chest at what she was contemplating. “Ro said you only met up with Thalia outside the town house. Was there another reason you were coming to visit this afternoon?”

Edwin gulped quite visibly. “Well, yes. It was your portrait, actually. I meant to give it to you the other day, then I forgot because we all became terribly busy with that impression of the woman. Anyway, I thought … well, that I should give it to you. I thought that when I hadn’t heard from you in all that time … since that day in the garden of the nursing home … I mean, well, I thought you didn’t care to see me again. And then I figured you might think it strange that I still had the portrait and that you might not want me to have it and … oh, I don’t know…” The usually confident Edwin lost his steam at this point.

Clio bit her lip for a moment and glanced over at Hestia and Ro, who were, thankfully, chatting quietly on the other side of the room. As she turned back to Edwin once more, she smiled slightly, suddenly knowing with all of her being that she had been sent a test, which she was about to pass. In that brief moment she felt elated—with a clear head and an even clearer heart. It was Edwin she loved and it was Edwin she was meant for. No one on this earth was perfect: neither man nor woman (Clio herself knew she was far from it). Not Nicholas, not even her father. Nicholas might have seemed to be without risk, but she now knew God was asking her to take a simple leap of faith and this was it. Edwin had proved to her time and time again that he cared for her and for the people who surrounded her in this new life she was living. Now, she was being called to make that leap of faith. She needed to believe that Edwin would be waiting to catch her on the other side. With shining eyes, she edged her body up the bed, closer to his. “That question,” she said, leaning in, her voice a whisper. “The one you asked me that day in the garden at Thalia’s nursing home…”

Edwin looked confused for a moment. “You mean…?” He let the words go unsaid.

Clio nodded, blushing furiously. “Yes. Do you think you could ask me that question again? That is, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course I don’t mind!” Edwin sat bolt upright now, almost knocking over his unfinished tea. He began to swing his legs off the bed before Clio realized he actually meant to get down on one knee once more.

“Oh!” she started, with a laugh. “Don’t get up! As if I would ask you to get up at a time like this!” She laughed harder now, seeing the ridiculousness of their situation.

On hearing this, Edwin wasted no more time. “Clio Silsby, will you do me the very great honor of marrying me?” he asked her, his eyes never once leaving hers.

Clio wasted no more time, either. “Yes! Yes, I will!” she replied, a little too enthusiastically, causing Hestia and Ro to glance over, wondering was happening on the opposite side of the room. Clio, however, who only had eyes for Edwin, never noticed them watching, so she didn’t mind one bit that they looked on as her fiancé’s lips happily met hers.

*   *   *

Two days later, Clio strolled through the central path of the private garden in the midst of Belgrave Square, her right arm entwined with Edwin’s left, good one. “Are you sure you’re feeling perfectly well?” Clio glanced up at him, concerned.

“More than well.” Edwin smiled back down at her.

“I think you should sit down for a moment, just to be sure,” Clio told him, pointing over to a bench just past the next pergola. “Isn’t the wisteria beautiful?” She tilted back her head as they walked beneath the pergola. “It’s late to bloom this year, but I find some things are worth waiting for, aren’t they?”

“I think you may be right about that.” Edwin said laughingly, as Clio hustled him onto the wooden bench seat.

“That’s better,” she said.

“Really! It’s nothing! Only a silly little thumb,” Edwin said as he shook his head. “You’ll be tucking blankets around me next! You should really save your worry for Thalia, though it appears she’s making an excellent recovery.”

Clio nodded. “She does seem to be almost back to normal. Well, apart from that nasty bump.”

“And her memory?”

Clio frowned slightly now. “I’m afraid it still hasn’t quite returned. She can remember everything except what happened that day and where she was driving to. The last thing she recalls is going to bed the previous evening. I think she will remember, though. She just needs more time. And, of course, she is thinking of nothing else, which I’m sure doesn’t help one bit.”

“No,” Edwin agreed.

“Hestia’s gone to fetch her from the hospital now. They should be back within the hour.” Clio stared off into the distance at one of the garden’s many lush, green plane trees.

“Are you worrying about Thalia now, or about meeting my mother next week?” Edwin asked, watching her closely.

Clio chuckled slightly at this. “Most definitely about meeting your mother.”

Edwin placed a hand over Clio’s. “You really shouldn’t worry. It’s as I told you, she was delighted when I informed her of the news.”

“But…” Clio was desperately worried how Edwin’s family would feel about welcoming into their fold the illegitimate daughter of a duke, who had been raised the daughter of a vicar, in a tiny Oxfordshire village. She honestly hoped that somehow Edwin could find a way to explain her situation, as she felt rather faint at the prospect of having to do so.

“Believe me, Clio. When I told her you wanted to move to Kenya, that was all she needed to know. You could have three heads and she would still accept you with open arms.”

“Are you very sure you want to go?” Clio asked Edwin for the thousandth time.

“Of course I’m sure! I’m also sure I have absolutely no idea what use I’ll be over there, but I’ll find something to do even if it’s not farming, which I’m sure I’ll be hopeless at.”

“I was rather hoping you might paint,” Clio said to encourage him. “I’m told the scenery is beautiful. And so very different.”

“I’m hoping everything will be very different over there.” Edwin squeezed Clio’s hand.

“I am, too.” Clio smiled over at him. “Very much so.”

*   *   *

Later that day, after Thalia had returned to the town house, everyone retired for a well-deserved afternoon rest. Clio, however, found rest beyond her and quietly made her way downstairs, not wanting to disturb anybody. She started upon entering the drawing room. “Oh, I am sorry,” she said as she started to leave. She hadn’t expected anyone else to be downstairs, but Thalia was there, reclining on one of the long couches, her eyes closed, Haggis McTavish asleep on the floor beside her. He had barely left her side since she had returned home.

“No, it’s all right.” Thalia sat up almost immediately. “I wasn’t asleep. Don’t go, I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

“To me?” Clio hesitated, turning back toward her sister slowly.

“Yes, you.” Thalia threw her a look. “You needn’t sound so surprised.”

Clio thought she had every reason to sound surprised, but didn’t dare say so. “All right, then.” She didn’t move from her spot halfway across the room.

“Well, come over here.” Thalia already sounded exasperated and she hadn’t even said anything yet.

Clio walked across the thick rug toward Thalia, stopping an arm’s-length or so away from her.

“Sit down!” Thalia said, patting the seat beside her.

Clio sat down, wary. “Have you remembered anything else yet?” she asked.

Thalia shook her head. “No. As hard as I try, I can’t.”

“Edwin was saying perhaps that’s the problem—that you’re trying too hard.”

“He’s probably right,” Thalia told her. “Speaking of which, I hear you’re engaged to Edwin.”

Clio nodded. “Yes.” Her eyes darted to look at Thalia. Would she consider this a good or bad thing, she wondered? Not to mention what Edwin’s sister, Venetia—who she had been studiously avoiding thinking about meeting again—thought.

“And that you’re planning on moving to Kenya?”

“Yes…”

“I hope you don’t expect me to come and save you from the lions?” Thalia asked, quite seriously.

It took Clio a moment or two to realize Thalia was joking. When she did, a lightness came over her chest. “Do you know something? You’re probably the only person I know who I believe might actually be able to save me from a lion!”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Thalia nodded, with a slight smile.

Silence descended over the pair.

Finally, Clio could take it no longer. “Well, I suppose I’ll…” She started to rise.

“No.” Thalia grabbed one of Clio’s retreating hands, forcing her to sit back down once more. “I do have something to say.” She released Clio’s hand and cleared her throat slightly. “I just don’t know how to begin to say it.”

“Oh,” Clio replied. Surely Thalia couldn’t be about to apologize for any of her previous behavior toward her, for she was quite certain Thalia had never apologized for anything, or to anyone, in her entire life. To do so would have been against her very nature.

“The accident…,” Thalia began. “It rather made me think.” She paused here.

“About?” Clio nudged her along, realizing her discomfort.

Thalia took a deep breath. “It made me think about many things. But, mainly, it made me think about the future. You see, the very first thing I remember on waking up, is thinking I was still in the motorcar. Over and over I kept repeating to myself, ‘This can’t be the end. I need to see what happens. To all three of us. It can’t be the end. It can’t.’”

“Oh, Thalia.” Clio couldn’t help it; she reached out and took one of Thalia’s hands. And, amazingly, Thalia let her, as tears formed in her eyes.

“I realized if I can’t love anything, or anyone, they’ll have won. I’ll be just like them. Just like them.” The tears spilled over now and Thalia wiped them away from her blue eyes messily with her other hand.

“Like your family? Your other family?” Clio asked hesitantly.

Thalia nodded. “They’d have won, then. If I was like them. Don’t you see? I can’t let them win. I can’t and I won’t.”

Clio tightened her grasp on her sister’s hand. “I understand. It makes perfect sense.”

“I was so frightened that it was the end. That I’d never see you, or Ro, or Hestia again, when we’d only just begun our journey together. And, in those waking moments, I knew I could have a better life. That I could be a better person. I mean, I know I’ll never be like…” Her eyes moved to Clio’s own and Clio knew instinctively what she was about to say and stopped her.