Gene of Isis

‘No,’ he said frankly, ‘but I shall thankfully accept any role in your life where you will actually acknowledge my existence.’ He almost flinched as he awaited a scathing response.

I could have lashed out and pretended to find insult in his straightforward manner, but the truth was I appreciated his forthrightness. ‘I know I have been very unfair on you, Mr Devere, but ever since my coming out, all I have heard from everyone around me is “marry Mr Devere”! I am sure that I could walk out on the street and ask any passer-by, who should I marry? And they would answer—’

‘Mr Devere,’ he concluded with a smile, completely in sympathy with my reasoning. ‘It couldn’t perhaps mean that it is the right thing to do?’

‘How could it be?’ I retorted, ‘when you are everything in a husband that would cause me bother.’

‘Really?’ He chuckled, as if he couldn’t imagine what was so unacceptable about him. ‘Do tell.’

‘Well, to begin with you are a social creature, and I long for a reclusive life of study. You are a gentleman with a lust to be a lord, which will tie you to England, and I have a lust for travel. And finally…you are altogether far too handsome. I would be forever fending off mistresses.’

Mr Devere smiled broadly, acknowledging that I thought him handsome. Now I was flirting with him—how did that happen?

‘How is this plan then? We marry, spend our honeymoon with my brother and sister, and your brother and sister, at the Devere chateau in Northern France. Then we could leave them and use my yearly inheritance to do some extensive travel. We could return to England whenever your father eventually dies and leaves us your estate, at which time we could deal with the lordship situation.’

I was dazed, and I couldn’t work out if he was serious or not. I’d never bothered finding out what his intentions were. ‘That is a really good plan,’ I credited, to see what he’d say.

‘You would find those terms acceptable?’ Now he was trying to clarify if we were still jesting.

‘Would you find those terms acceptable, Mr Devere?’ I threw the ball back in his court.

‘I cannot possibly imagine a more agreeable arrangement,’ he assured me, never fearful to expose his true feelings, and I knew they were his true feelings as his light-body was very lovely to behold and free from blemish. ‘You see, Miss Granville, although I do not have Lord Hereford’s experience with travel, I am very eager to experience travel for myself.’

The stunned smirk on my face must have said it all. ‘I feel it is too much to be widowed and then engaged again in the same day.’ I explained my reluctance to admit that what he proposed was a dream come true. ‘May I have a little time to digest this conversation?’

‘Of course.’ He seemed satisfied and yet reluctant to leave. ‘And tomorrow when you see me, will you be distant once more?’

I had barely noticed that all through our dialogue we had been inching closer to one another—now we were very close indeed. The firelight ignited the look of longing on his face as it neared my own.

Our lips met only briefly but my senses were still racing for hours after the event.

I lay in bed that night with myriad conflicting emotions all fighting for precedence and after being tossed from excitement to grief, to guilt, to pain and back to that kiss, I was so exhausted that I slept.

‘Wake up, Ashlee…is it true?’ I didn’t have to open my eyes to know it was Susan, and she was really excited about something.

I didn’t want to wake. I was in a warm place with Mr Devere, and I was coming to his rescue. I was wearing men’s clothes and wielding a sword. I had defeated his captors and he was just about to kiss me in appreciation for saving his life.

‘Ashlee!’ The way Susan was shaking me took me back to our childhood. ‘Wake up!’

‘I’m being kissed, go away,’ I mumbled, as Susan was well used to my elaborate dreams.

‘And by whom are you being kissed?’ she asked.

My eyes burst open and I sat bolt upright with a gasp.

‘So it is true,’ she deduced from the look on my face, and she seemed frightfully pleased about it.

‘How fickle does that make me?’ I grabbed my head, as it struggled to catch up with the way my world had spun around completely in one day. ‘How do you know about it?’ I was suddenly horrified that Mr Devere might have let a rumour slip.

‘He hasn’t told anyone anything,’ Susan reassured me. ‘It’s just that when he returned to the ball last night he appeared to be quite a different man than he has been these last few weeks.’

I smiled. ‘Different, how?’

‘He seemed like a man in love, and not a lover scorned.’ Susan giggled as she observed my broad smile. ‘Come to mention it, so do you.’

I shied from the comment and climbed out of bed. ‘This is all a bit sudden.’

‘Well, the wedding is only weeks away, and it would be just as easy to have a triple as a double ceremony.’ Susan was excited although she was trying very hard to repress it and not pressure me. ‘Oh, do come with us to France, Ashlee…we could have such fun and adventures. It would be just like one of your stories!’

‘Yes, it would.’ I smiled at the comparison. ‘But…’

Was it because I had heard it stated that I was destined to marry Mr Devere that I was fighting the event so hard, or was it because I knew this would be a lifetime commitment and no short-term affair?

‘So much has happened. I need time to catch my breath,’ I replied sensibly. ‘I should like to see my first intended buried before I think about taking another.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Susan could not share my grief. She was having the time of her life and was finding it difficult to relate to my feelings. ‘I just want everyone to be as happy as I am which is not really fair of me in your case.’