She began looking around her then, partly because she could no longer meet the steady stare of his green-grey eyes, but also because she was searching for some place where they might go. The churchyard was too public. Other people were likely to wander that way at any time, and every man or woman or child seemed a threat to her happiness. She felt that they were all in league to call her away, to make her leave him and go back to the dry sterile protection of her uncle and aunt.
At the side of the church was a garden and beyond it the meadow which separated Heathstone from Bluebell Wood. Why, that was the place of course! In the wood it was cool and dark and there were many little nooks where no one would ever see them—she knew several, remembered from the Fairs of the past three or four years. Now she started off that way, hoping that he would think they had merely chanced upon it.
They went through the garden, climbed the stile, and set out across the meadow.
The grass there was sown thickly with buttercups and field daisies and wild yellow irises. Underfoot the ground was spongy with contained water and their feet sank a little at every step. Farther ahead near the river was an orange wash of colour where the marigolds grew, and as they came closer they could see the tall green reeds standing in the water. On the banks were pussywillow trees and across the stream at the edge of the forest was a cluster of aspen, their leaves glistening like sequins in the sun.
“I’d almost forgotten,” he said, “how beautiful England is in the spring.”
“How long since you left it?”
“Almost sixteen years. My mother and I went abroad after my father was killed at Marston Moor.”
“Sixteen years abroad!” she cried incredulously. “Lud, how’d you shift?”
He looked down at her, smiling with a kind of tenderness. “It wasn’t what any of us would have chosen, but the choice wasn’t ours. And for my part I’ve got no complaint to make.”
“You didn’t like it over there?” she demanded, shocked and almost indignant at this blasphemy.
Now they were crossing the swift-flowing river on a narrow shaky footbridge built of logs; below them the fish darted and dragon-flies zoomed low over the water and among the lily-pads that grew in a quiet pool. On the other side they entered the forest and took a wandering faint little path which led among the trees and ferns and flowering wild hyacinth. It was cool in there and still, fragrant with the smell of flowers and rotting leaves.
“I suppose it’s petty treason for an Englishman to admit he likes another country. But I liked several of them—Italy and France and Spain. But America most of all.”
“America! Why, that’s across the ocean!” That was, in fact, all she knew about America.
“A long way across,” he admitted.
“Was the King there?”
“No. I sailed once on a privateering expedition with his Majesty’s cousin, Prince Rupert, and another time on a merchant-fleet.”
She was entranced. To have seen such faraway places—to have even sailed across the ocean! It was incredible as a fairy-tale. Heathstone was as far from home as she had ever been, and that just twice a year, for the spring and autumn fairs. While the only person in her acquaintance who had been to London, twenty-five miles south-east of Marygreen, was the cobbler.
“What a fine thing it must be to see the great world!” She heaved a sigh. “Have you been to London, too?”
“Just twice since I’ve been old enough to remember. I was there ten years ago and then again a couple of months after Cromwell died. But I didn’t stay long either time.”
They had stopped now and he gave a glance up at the sky, through the trees, as though to see how much time was left. Amber, watching him, was suddenly struck with panic. Now he was going—out again into that great world with its bustle and noise and excitement—and she must stay here. She had a terrible new feeling of loneliness, as if she stood in some solitary corner at a party where she was the only stranger. Those places he had seen, she would never see; those fine things he had done, she would never do. But worst of all she would never see him again.
“It’s not time to go yet!”
“No. I have a while longer.”
Amber dropped onto her knees in the grass, her mouth pouting, eyes rebellious—and after a moment he sat down facing her. For several seconds she continued staring sulkily, mulling over her dismal future, and then swiftly her eyes went to his. He was watching her, steadily, carefully. She stared back at him, her heart pounding, and there began to steal over her a slow weakness and languor, so consuming that even her eyes felt heavy. Every part of her was tormented with longing for him. And yet she was half-scared, uncertain, and reticent, filled with a sense of dread almost greater than her desire.
At last his arm reached out, went around her waist, and drew her slowly toward him; Amber, tipping her head to meet his mouth, slid both her arms about him.
