Rude Awakenings of a Jane Austen Addict (31 page)

I raise the cup to my lips, and as I gaze at the fire burning merrily behind the lady, I cannot deny that in the brief time I have been here, I have had more choices in a single day than I had in my entire life as a gentleman’s daughter. Choices of everything from what I might wear and how I might spend my day to how I could earn my living. But yet the thing which I now know I want the most seems the farthest from my reach.

I take a deep breath. “You said before that I had not finished what I started. But what else can I do? I thought Wes was a good man, and indeed, I cannot deny that I formed an attachment to him.”

She smiles. “No. You cannot.”

“But what is there to be done? On the one hand, he said he told Morgan that he could not get involved, and he claims this was all for me. But is he not bound in honor to her? And even if he were not, what he said to me clearly undoes any feelings he might have had.”

“Is that so.” She pours more tea into my cup. “Drink, my dear.”

I take a tiny sip.

“Why don’t you tell me what he said. Exactly.”

“He said that he didn’t care how many men a woman had slept with. But that no man wants to see a woman stoop to someone like Frank. You see? In his eyes I am worse than ruined!”

“Are you sure that is exactly what he said?”

“Of course I am.”

“Drink your tea, my dear.”

I do. And it is as if my mind has slowed.

She cocks her head to the side, smiling kindly at me. “You’re sure those were his exact words.”

“Well, I—” Somehow being right is not all that important anymore. “He said”—and I close my eyes to picture him speaking—“
I don’t care how many men a woman has slept with. But what no man wants to see is his woman stoop to the likes of someone like Frank.
”

She arches an eyebrow. “Whose woman?”

I gasp. “His woman.”

“And?”

And I summon his words as if he is speaking them himself: “
Or have such low self-esteem that she would consider a life with him. To think that she can’t have better than that. Because she can.
”

“Very good. And what is the most important part of what he said?”

“Low self-esteem? I gather from my reading that the word has taken on a somewhat different shade of meaning in this time.”

“Yes, it is more than simply having a favorable opinion of oneself. It is about respect for one’s true dignity, not simply for the face we present to the world. And surely it is true that a lady who would choose a life with Frank, or someone like Frank, must not esteem herself very highly. And for Wes, it was painful to watch. So yes, this is an important part of what he said, but not the most important.”

And all at once I understand. “It pained him that she thought she could not have someone better than Frank.
Because she can.
”

“And who, my dear, is this mysterious ‘she’?”

I smile with the most glorious happiness. “I am.”

“You see? There is still much to be done.”

Yes, there is. Because I
can
have better. For myself. And for Courtney. After all, am I not the steward of her life? Her future happiness—and mine—is in my hands. Except—

“What of the lady? Morgan. Is she to be forgot?”

“The lady, as a creature of this time, has far more choices than she would have had in your time. And with choice comes responsibility. Wes told her what the limitations of their alliance would be, and yet she chose to pursue it. That she suffers now deserves all of our compassion, but it does not require the sacrifice of Wes’s liberty. He has not acted dishonorably.”

A thrill of relief rushes through me at the thought of Wes unshackled and free, as Anne thought of Captain Wentworth when she learnt he was not to marry Louisa Musgrove after all.

Yet there is still one unanswered, and unavoidable, question.

“What am I to make of his lying to protect Frank, whom he knew was with another woman?”

“You must ask him that yourself,” says she. “Welcome to the age of communication, my dear. One needn’t wait till one is engaged to engage in the difficult subjects.”

And if he acquits himself? What then? Will I, in turn, be whole in his eyes? Her eyes are gentleness itself, and she answers my thought as if I have spoken it aloud. “When you unite with your true love, it will be as if he is your first, and you his. In the eyes of love, there is no past.”

And my eyes fill with tears of joy. All forgiven. All washed away.

“Go forth,” says she, “and choose the present.”

Twenty-seven

T
he lady rises and offers her hand. “I do hope we meet again, Miss Stone.”

Miss Stone!

She smiles slyly and holds my hand between both of hers. “That is your name, is it not?”

I laugh. “Yes, I suppose it is.”

Her eyes twinkle. “A rose by any other name, and all that. Now go forth and do that life proud, because it is the only life you can manage. We cannot be trying to manage two lives at once, can we? So don’t you worry about what you left behind. Well, off with you, then.”

She pats my hand, and I bow. “I am most grateful to you.”

“Yes, yes, now let’s see what you do with it.”

She gestures towards the door, which has opened somehow on its own. I turn back to her, and she is gone, and so is the cheerful little parlor, and the table, and the chairs, and the fire—the room is once again the dark little store-closet it became after our last meeting.

I shiver, but not with cold, as I reenter the corridor outside the room and close the door behind me.

Let’s see what you do with it,
she said. What she gave me is a great gift, and what I do with that gift is my choice.
With choice comes responsibility
, she said.
Go forth, and choose the present.

What was it Anna talked of the very first day I arrived here?
Each of us has the power to create heaven or hell, right here, right now
. The present. Right now.

I rush out of the passageway and into the club again, making my way through the press of people and the wall of music, and I spy Deepa leaning against the bar.

“Deepa!” I grab her and enfold her in my arms.

“Let a girl take a breath,” she laughs when I finally release her. She regards me and smiles her delight. “You look like a different woman.”

I laugh. “That is it—I
am
a different woman! And it’s the best thing that ever happened to me! Must run—thank you, Deepa!”

And I dash through the club and out of the door and to my car. Pull the phone from my bag. Call Wes.

The phone is ringing. Oh, dear, what shall I say? I have never done anything like this in my life. It’s going to be all right. Just remember what the lady said about the age of communication.

The phone stops in mid-ring. “Courtney?” says Wes’s voice into my ear. “Courtney? Are you there?”

“Yes, I—Wes, I would very much like to talk to you and would it be convenient if I—”

“Thank God,” he says. “I can be there in five minutes.”

“No, I’ll come to you.” And instantly my mind traces the route to his house, until I see the house itself, though I have never been there before. Cellular memory.

“Tonight?” he says.

“Now, if that is okay with you.” What a forward little baggage I am. Proposing I drive myself, unescorted, at night, to the home of a single man.

“Of course.”

“Excellent. I’ll be there soon.” Well, well. Different world, different rules. Besides, I wish to have the freedom to drive off whenever I wish, rather than repeat that trapped feeling I had earlier when I could not even escape into my own home. And I shall be stronger if I am not in my own apartment, where the working lights and all those other lovely conveniences restored shall be a reminder of my obligation to Wes’s kindness.

Enough thinking. I must drive.

My inner map does me proud, so long as I direct my attention only to driving and not to the conversation before me, and within five minutes, I am parking across the street from the very same house I saw in my mind’s eye, a low rectangular box of a house partially obscured by tall shrubs.

As I approach the door, I take a deep breath and knock. It opens instantly, as if he has been waiting on the threshold for my arrival. His face is flushed, his expression grave.

“I’m so happy you’re here,” he says, and smiles almost shyly, gesturing for me to enter.

The large, open space is at once new and familiar. I know I have never been here, but there is something comforting in its familiarity, and indeed there are fleeting little pictures in my mind of sitting at the long table, having a meal with Wes and several friends, and of lying down afterwards on the low, cream-colored sofa.

“Something to drink?” he asks.

“Yes, please.”

I gaze out upon a softly lit garden beyond a wall of windows. There are tall wildflowers, shrubs, and little stone benches bordering a winding gravel path.

“Here.” He hands me a tall iced glass. “Why don’t you sit down?” He motions to the sofa, and a book lying on a low table before it catches my eye—
Northanger Abbey
.

I pick up the book. “You have read this?”

He smiles. “Don’t look so surprised. I even liked it.”

I cannot help but wonder . . . “Wes, did I—did I ask you to read this book?”

He looks puzzled. “No. My niece, Emma, did.” He smiles again. “I believe her words were, ‘Solid coming-of-age story with a clever satire of gothic novels and a feminist subtext.’ Emma’s thirteen.”

“I can hardly imagine being so self-possessed at such an age.”

But before I get too distracted by the precocity of Wes’s relations, I must attend to the business that brought me here. I sip my drink for courage, but it gives me none, despite its being heavily laced with vodka. If only I had some of the fortune-teller’s tea.

I look out on the garden again; it feels like an age since I walked amongst green growing things. “Wes, might we go outside?”

He hastens to the wall of windows, slides one of them open, and motions for me to go through it.

I step outside, and the sound of the gravel beneath my shoes instantly summons a memory. I am pacing this very same path, the gravel crunching beneath my shoes, and I am fretting over the fact that Frank is supposed to be here and is not, and neither is Wes, and I am unable to reach either of them and I just know that something is amiss and—

“Courtney?”

Wes’s voice brings me back to the present.
Choose the present,
the lady said. A most unusual credo for a fortune-teller, now that I think on it. And most wise.

“Wes, I must ask—” Oh dear, there is no polite way of posing such a question. “Wes, you lied to me about Frank when you knew he was with another woman, and I would very much like to know why.”

There. I’ve said it. Easier than I could have imagined, though my heart is racing so fast I can hardly breathe.

He draws in a long, shuddering breath, meets my eyes, and looks down at the ground before raising his eyes to me again.

“I knew he was there. He called me forty-five minutes after he was supposed to have shown up here, and I heard a woman’s voice in the background answering the phone for the cake place. I knew he was up to something, but I had no proof. When I confronted him, he swore there was nothing going on. Said he was on his way out of there and would explain it all later. Don’t make a mess where there is none, is what he said to me. And so he asked me to tell you his meeting was running late if you called and, God forgive me, that’s what I agreed to do.”

“But why not tell me what you suspected?”

“I had no proof. And frankly, I didn’t trust my own motivations for telling you.”

Wes looks down for a moment and then meets my gaze. “I didn’t want the woman I loved—the woman I
love
—to marry this guy. But who was I to decide what would make her happy?”

The woman I love
. That is all I can hear.
The woman I love
. He loves me. He loves
me
.

“Agreeing to be his alibi was the worst mistake I ever made, Courtney. I don’t blame you if you can’t forgive me.”

There are tears in his eyes, and one of them breaks free and runs down his cheek.

I reach up to his face to wipe his tear, and he moves my fingers to his lips and kisses them.

“I think we’ve both made mistakes,” I say, and for a moment I am afraid to meet his gaze. But I do. “Can you forgive
me
?”

He raises my chin with his hand and looks into my eyes. “There’s nothing to forgive,” he breathes. “Nothing at all. I love you, Courtney. I’ve always loved you.”

He puts his arms around me and I can hardly breathe. I reach my arms up around his neck and he leans down and touches my lips with his own, and it is the softest gentlest sweetest kiss I could ever imagine. And then the kiss becomes more urgent, and he wraps his arms around me even tighter and I am dizzy with his kiss, with his scent, with the sound of his breathing and the little moans that escape me, and I have never wanted anyone as much as I want Wes right now. I am shuddering with desire, and when finally the kiss ends, he is trembling, too, and I rest against his chest, listening to the thudding of his heart, and I know that this is more than mere desire, that I love this man more than I have ever imagined I could love anyone.

Which is why I must be completely honest with him.

I summon my courage for what I have to say.

“I have a confession to make.”

And I take a deep, deep breath, for I have been warned by Deepa that some things should not be shared with just anyone. But Wes is not just anyone, and I want no dissembling, no dishonesty, no pretense in my connection with him of all people.

“Whatever you want to tell me,” he says, giving me little kisses all over my forehead and cheeks and moving down lower to my neck. My breathing quickens and I am getting so distracted that if I do not pull away—very gently—I shall not be able to go on.

“Wes, if you truly want to be with me, then you must allow that I am not who you think I am.”