Simply Unforgettable

Gardens. Everyone else in Bath had more sense than they, it seemed.

When they reached the top of the hill, they paused again to look down on trees and lawns and winding paths. A roofed pavilion was in view to the left. So was the famed labyrinth a little lower down. Maps of the maze were available from the Sydney Hotel beside the entrance to the Gardens, Frances had heard, for use by those too afraid of getting lost for an indeterminate length of time before finding their way out again. Behind them was a row of swings, one of them creaking in the wind.

There were all the signs of the fact that these were pleasure gardens, not least among them the sheer beauty of nature. Yet she felt the very antithesis of joy as she looked on them all. Where was this hour leading them? It was leading absolutely nowhere at all.

His silence unnerved her, though she had sworn to herself that she would not break it again. But when she looked across at him, she found him looking back, an unfathomable expression in his eyes.

His words took her totally by surprise.

“Do those swings beckon you as strongly as they do me?” he asked her.

What? For a moment her mind was catapulted back to the inn kitchen on the first morning they spent there, when they were eating breakfast and he had suddenly challenged her to a snowman- building contest. That, she realized then—yes, just that—had been the real start of everything between them. If she had refused . . .

She turned her head to look at the swings. The broad wooden seats were suspended from tree branches overhead on long, plaited ropes. Because they were set in a grove of trees, they looked as if they were sheltered from the wind. Only the one swing at the far end swayed and creaked.

“Even more strongly,” she said, and she turned, catching up the hems of her dress and cloak as she did so, and strode toward the nearest swing.

The need to break the terrible tension between them was overwhelming. What more sure way than to frolic on a child’s swing?

“Do you need a push?” he asked as she seated herself.

“Of course not,” she said, pushing off with both feet and then stretching out her legs and bending them back under the seat to set her swing in motion and propel herself higher and higher. “And I bet I’ll be first to kick the sky.”

“Ah, a challenge,” he said, taking the swing next to hers. “Did no one ever teach you that it is unladylike to make wagers?”

“That is a rule imposed by men because they are afraid of losing to women,” she said.

“Ha!”

They swung higher and higher until the ropes of their swings creaked in protest and the wind whipped at her skirts and the brim of her bonnet and fairly took her breath away on the forward descent and ascent. With every upward swing Frances could see more and more of the gardens below. With every downward swoop she was aware of tree branches rushing by only a few feet away.

“Wheeee!” she cried on one descent.

“The exact word I was searching for,” he called, passing her in the opposite direction.

They were both laughing then and swinging and whooping like a pair of exuberant children until by unspoken assent they gradually slowed and then sat side by side, their swings gently swaying.

“One problem,” he said. “There was no sky to kick.”

“What?” She turned to him, wide-eyed. “You did not feel it? That means you did not swing high enough to touch it. I did and I win.”

“You, Frances Allard,” he said, “are lying through your teeth.”

He had said those exact words before, and the occasion rushed to her mind with startling clarity. They had been lying in bed, and she had just told him she was not cold and he had replied that it was a pity as he might have offered to warm her up.

I am frozen, she had said then.

You lie through your teeth, ma’am, he had answered her, but I like your spirit. Now, I suppose I need to think of some way of warming you . . .

What was she doing here? she wondered suddenly. Why was she doing this again—frolicking with him, wagering against him, laughing with him?

Just a few minutes ago, it seemed, she had been trying to get Rhiannon Jones to feel the melody with her right hand and allow the passion of it to rise above the accompaniment with the left.

“Frances—” he began.

But at that exact moment a large drop of moisture splattered against one of her cheeks and she saw a few more darken the fabric of her cloak. He held out a hand, palm up, and they both looked up.

“Damnation!” he exclaimed. “We are about to get rained upon, and you did not bring an umbrella even though I advised you to do so. We are going to have to make a dash for the pavilion.”

He took her by the hand without a by-your-leave, and a moment later they were running toward the pavilion a short distance away down the hill while the heavens gave every indication that they were about to open in earnest at any moment. By the time they reached shelter, they were both breathless and laughing again.

The pavilion had been built more as a sun shelter than as a refuge from the rain. It was walled on three sides, with a roof that jutted out in front a couple of feet beyond the side walls. Fortunately for them, the wind was blowing from behind and the inside of the shelter remained dry. They sat on the wide bench against the inside wall and watched as the expected deluge arrived. It came down in sheets, drumming against the thin roof, forming a curtain across the front opening, almost obliterating the view of lawns and trees beyond. It felt like sitting behind a massive waterfall.