Authors: Annette Reynolds
Chapt
er Thirty-Eight
As the ferry entered the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Mary Delfino stood at the portside railing of the top deck, the wind beating against her smiling face. The sun reflected pinpoints of light across the choppy water, but the large ship barely felt the waves. They’d left Port Angeles behind twenty minutes ago, and Mary looked back at the Olympics. Rivulets of snow trickled down the dark mountains while Mount Olympus hid from sight, its majesty shrouded in clouds. She drew a deep breath of cool, ocean air, barely aware of the hundreds of other passengers. This felt like her own personal cruise ship. No one else mattered but the two people she loved – the two people who had made this trip possible.
“How did you get up here?”
Mary turned at the sound of Nick’s annoyed voice. “I walked, just like you.”
“You’re not supposed to be trekking up and down stairs.” He linked his arm in hers. “Why don’t you sit down?”
“Because I’m fine. Stop treating me like an invalid. Wasn’t it bad enough you had me carried up the stairs at the beach like some sort of Egyptian deity?”
Nick grinned. “Come on, admit it. You felt like Cleopatra, and you loved it.”
“I did no such thing,” Mary said with great indignation. Then her joy got the better of her, and she smiled. “It must have been quite a sight, though. I can’t wait to see the pictures. Where
is
that girl?”
“Looking for you. She’ll find us eventually.” Nick looked out across the strait. A group of seabirds skimmed the small whitecaps in search of food. “Tough to get lost on a boat.”
“Ship,” Mary corrected.
“Whatever.”
Mary squeezed his arm. “Is it my imagination? Or does Madeleine seem a little preoccupied.”
“If you mean, does she seem a little flakier than usual, then yeah – she does.”
“I wouldn’t go so far as to call her flakey, Nick.”
“There you are,” Maddy said, coming up behind them. “And you’d better not be talking about me when you use the word flakey.”
Nick watched the wind lift the hair away from her smiling face and he thought how beautiful she was. “Never,” he said. And as he leaned in to kiss her, Nick whispered, “I can’t wait to get you alone.”
Mary sipped her favorite tea, observing Nick and Maddy’s barely-contained desire, and was glad she’d suggested substituting their hotel’s perfectly adequate high tea for the one at The Empress Hotel. Not only did they serve the Darjeeling blend she loved so dearly, but their rooms were conveniently close, something she was certain would be a good thing at any moment.
The dining room was a hushed haven of English reserve. Done in rich velvets, dark antiques, and light wallpapers, it had a cozy feel. Madrigal music served as background for the rhythm of silver teaspoons clinking against china teacups. The staff – dressed in period garb – walked back and forth carrying large trays covered with teapots, plates filled with the makings of The New Britain Inn’s version of a full tea, and some of the lightest scones Mary had ever tasted. Under the thick carpet, the floor creaked with their every step. It was a comforting sound.
Nick was feeding Maddy a spoonful of his Trifle, unable to tear his eyes away from her mouth as she took it in. Mary could barely contain her laughter at the look on their faces when she said, “Would you two mind if I went up to my room for a short nap?”
Nick, on his feet in an instant, said, “Are you sure?” while his eyes impatiently searched for their waiter.
“I’m very sure,” Mary replied. “One more minute, and the hotel will have to apply for an adult entertainment license.”
As Nick hunted down the young man who was unfortunate enough to have the temerity to wait on other tables in his presence, Mary had been studying Maddy.
“You look like the cat who swallowed the canary, Madeleine.”
“Do I?”
“Yes. Poker-faced you’re not.” She smiled. “Your eyes give everything away. Are you going to share your good news?”
“Yes, but Nick has to hear it first. I hope you don’t mind.”
Mary’s eyes widened, and she said, “An addition to the family?”
Maddy looked at her, aghast. “Not quite,” she said. “At least, not in the way you’re thinking. And I’m not saying any more.”
“Okay, ladies. We’re all set.” Nick helped Mary out of the carved armchair.
They left the dining room and entered the small lobby dubbed the Baronial Hall – with its dark, oak paneling and coffered ceiling – through an enormous set of pocket doors. Nick took Mary’s elbow as the three of them climbed the staircase to the second floor. A calming light entered the mid-landing from large, leaded glass windows. The telephone ringing in the lobby was the only clue they were in the twentieth century. The inn had only stood its ground for a little over fifty years, but felt as old as Shakespeare’s sonnets, and Mary never failed to marvel over this fact.
They walked along the second floor landing, and with a hint of amusement in her voice, Mary asked, “What are you two going to do while the old lady takes her nap?”
“We’ll probably take in the sights around the hotel,” Maddy answered.
“Ah, I see.” Mary took out her room key. “Well, make sure you visit the replica of Anne Hathaway’s cottage. It’s quite lovely.”
“We’ll see if we can squeeze that in,” Nick said.
Mary stepped inside her room. “Once you’re finished ‘taking in the sights,’ as you so euphemistically put it, just give me a call.”
As she closed the door, a genuine yawn escaped her, and Mary slipped out of her shoes and onto the bed.
The massive canopy was made of sky-blue brocade interwoven with small golden stars. Mary sleepily gazed upward at the man-made heaven and thought how fortunate she was to have been blessed with such wonderful young friends at the end of her life. So many people her age had been left behind in the dust of families too busy to care about them, and of friends who had passed on. She knew so many with minds still eager and spirits still lively; the only limitations placed on them set there by misguided sons and daughters who saw only wrinkles, and heard only numbers.
Yes, there were the others, who felt their advanced years mandated they act their age. But those people probably thought they were old when they’d been fifty or sixty, unwilling to learn anything new, or try anything different, because – by golly – why should they have to? They’d learned enough, and didn’t need to try the couscous when they already knew what the meatloaf tasted like.
Mary’s eyes closed, and she smiled at the sight of Nick eating Melton Mowbray pie for the first time. He always seemed to relish anything new, and she liked him for that. And Maddy, taking the wheel from Nick once they’d reached the Inner Harbour, saying, “I’ve driven in Greece, Italy, and France, where you take your life into your hands just sitting at a traffic light. This should be a piece of cake.” Maddy had driven off the ferry, and onto Victoria’s streets, as if she’d lived there all her life, her eagerness to explore evident as they took an unprescribed route through the countryside and still ended up at Butchart Gardens.
The gardens had been spectacular. It had been many years since Mary had seen them in their full summer glory. She’d taken most of her trips in the fall, after the hordes of tourists had left the island. But today the palette of colors under the August sun actually hurt her eyes. They brought back the memory of the first birthday she’d celebrated as Mary Delfino, and how singularly romantic everything had seemed. How John, her husband of only three months, had fallen under the garden’s spell, too. They’d spent most of the late afternoon there, and as summer’s late darkness began to fall, the Japanese gardens provided the seclusion the newlyweds yearned for. Mary couldn’t set foot on the tranquil paths without remembering how she and John had thrown caution to the wind one warm Canadian August night. It seemed like just yesterday. And she’d watched as Nick and Maddy took in the garden’s beauty, knowing their own memories in the years to come would be just as untouched as her own.
Mary fell asleep to the sounds of birds singing for their evening meal, their warbles and trills coming in her open window with the warm breeze. She dreamt of her husband, but it wasn’t the John Delfino of her early married life. This was the man she’d come to love so much more deeply as the decades passed.
There was nothing unusual about the dream. The two of them simply sat on a bench in the middle of a rose garden, holding hands, and talking of day-to-day things. But as happens in dreams, the ordinary became extraordinary. The roses were all the same color – red, with a silvery underside. As Mary leaned over to inhale the scent of one perfect flower, she noticed the name of the rose printed on a small stake:
Love.
‘How perfect,’ she thought. ‘We are surrounded by Love.’
As if to punctuate this thought, Madeleine entered the garden with Nick. They, too, held hands as they walked under the long archway, still far from where Mary and John sat. Mary looked at her husband and said, “You’ll get to meet Madeleine and Nick at last.” Yet when Mary looked down the path again, she saw it wasn’t Nick at all, but the beautiful man with the dark, lost eyes.
She woke – startled – her heart beating much too rapidly. The man in her dreams had been Phil Madvick all along. And Mary suddenly knew what it was Madeleine wanted to tell Nick. Why this bothered her – why the fact that Madeleine had found the brother she so obviously loved – was a mystery.
Mary rose from the bed and looked at her watch, surprised to find she’d been asleep for only half an hour.
A cool washcloth on her face brought her completely back to the waking world. The birds were still conversing outside her window. The sun was still shining. Everything seemed the same as it had before the dream, but she knew that was just a façade. Nothing would ever be the same once Madeleine unlocked the box that held her secret.
Chap
ter Thirty-Nine
The bedclothes lay in a heap on the floral carpet. Nick and Maddy lay in a heap on the brass bed.
Eyes closed, Maddy rested her head on his chest. One leg was draped over his thigh. Her fingers traced a light circle around his navel. She listened to the steady thud of his heart and thought this was the reason for human existence: to learn the mysterious inner-workings of the person you loved. To listen to the way his breath moved through his lungs and his heart beat in his chest, and know these were sounds unique to your lover. That when it was the person you were meant to be with, you never forgot them. They became imprinted so deeply that on a night when you were alone, you could conjure them up and rock yourself to sleep with their rhythms.
There hadn’t been time to tell him about Danny. There hadn’t even been time to lock the door. The intense pleasure of escalating eroticism throughout the day exploded the moment Nick kicked the door closed.
Her fingers desperately worked the buttons on his jeans. His hands were lifting the summer skirt she wore as he devoured her mouth with kisses. When he discovered she wore no underwear, his hand slipped between her legs. His voice a low growl, he said, “You should have told me…”
Maddy’s knees buckled at his touch and, without preamble, he’d scooped Maddy up, dropped her on the bed, and straddled her thighs.
“I want you in me now,” she’d said.
For a split second his blue eyes, darker than she ever remembered them being, bored into hers. He entered her with such need – he went so deep – she cried out. But it was an exquisite pain that became an exquisite ache, and she gasped, “Harder!” until he found the right place and the right stroke, and she groaned, “Oh, God – please don’t stop…”
He pushed her hands above her head, and held them there. They watched each other through eyes half-closed, drugged with the heat of their passion. And as her head arched back, and she climaxed, Maddy moaned, “I love you, Nick.”
He joined her moments later, and when his body came to rest over hers, and his mouth was millimeters from her ear, he’d whispered, “I love you, too.”
Now, just as Maddy thought he’d fallen asleep, his voice rumbled up out of his chest.
“What do we tell Mary when she asks us how we liked Anne Hathaway’s cottage – whatever the hell that is?”
“That it was miraculous.” Maddy smiled lazily. “That it might as well have been the real thing.”
“Move your hand a little lower if you want to witness a true miracle,” Nick said, then raised his head from the pillow to watch as she ran her index finger along the ridges of his thickening cock.
“I’d worship it from afar,” she said, sliding her head down his abdomen. “But this is so much more meaningful.”
When her lips closed around him, his head dropped back and, through clenched teeth, said, “I’m going to put you up for sainthood.” But it wasn’t long before he was too close, and his voice was hoarse when he whispered, “You’ve gotta stop, Maddy.”
In reply, the tip of her tongue circled him, and he knew she meant to take this to its now-inevitable conclusion. At the thought of her taking him in, Nick went past the point of no-return, and he let her lead him into the place where surrender was the greatest pleasure.
As he held her, too content to do anything but lie there with his eyes closed, Maddy planted soft kisses on his neck.
“I take it by the satisfied smile on your face you enjoyed that?” she said.
“Mmmm…” Nick forced his mouth to move, and murmured, “Why didn’t you stop when I told you?”
“Why did you even want me to?”
Nick opened his eyes a fraction to gaze at her, and said, “I guess I wanted you to come first.”
She smiled. “Sometimes that just isn’t important. I liked that as much as you did.”
His eyes closed again. “Somehow, I doubt that.”
Maddy was silent for a few minutes. When she spoke again, there was a hint of reluctance in her voice. “Nick, there’s something I need to tell you.”