More apologies for the length of time that it takes me to write a chapter these days. Sorry.
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Anthony followed the unhurried line of gentlemen back to the drawing room. He immediately looked around for her. She was talking to her cousin Isobel. Everything was so natural, so normal. So abnormal for him, so out of place. This beautiful, quiet drawing room was so civilised, populated as it was by ladies in gorgeous evening gowns, although the gentlemen...the men...were all in uniform like they had been in the German trenches, just a different uniform. He, however, had spent over three years in tattered and patched rags of lowly work clothes, a thick woollen jumper so often mended that it was more knots than knitting. His uniform had been the thing that had almost got him killed.
A passing footman offered him coffee and his attention was jerked back to the present. The DSO ribbon on his chest burned. It was the highest ranking decoration in the room. He had seen people looking at it all evening. Why him? Why?
Weaver's voice in his head told him to breathe deeply and slowly, and he did. It made a slight difference, but even a slight difference meant that he was in charge, not the panic. Blocking all other sounds from his head, he grasped that tiny sliver of control. The accusing roar in his head slowly subsided.
When he felt he could safely do so, he looked up, looked for her again. She had crossed the room, come towards him but had been stopped by Lady Delaware who was visiting her son who was upstairs. He had lost a leg. Edith was kindly answering questions about him, but looking round at Anthony with increasing impatience. He smiled, and she smiled back. That smile made everything worth it. He could bear anything, he thought, if he could carry on being the recipient of those smiles.
Finally, she was free. She handed her coffee cup to Carson and approached him. He shook his head in disbelief. Why had she settled for him?
"Hello again" she murmured in a way that was far more darkly alluring and exciting than she had intended, he was sure.
"Hello" he managed to respond.
Despite the ease with which they had talked of flippant things at dinner, now that they had to think about the future, what would happen after this evening, they were both tongue-tied, staring at each other, each trying to guess what the other was thinking. Somehow, Anthony found the courage to break the impasse.
"I was thinking, hoping really...and of course you may be far too busy...I'm well aware how much you are needed here...but, if you would like to, you would always be welcome to...to t-tea at Locksley. I think we can rustle up a scone and a cup of something."
She burst into a huge, beaming smile, and he knew that she had just been waiting for him to show his hand.
"I would like that very much."
"Excellent. Would tomorrow…?"
"Tomorrow would be fine, I'm sure. I'll speak to Major Clarkson. Four o'clock?"
"Four, yes. Do you have a driver, or shall I send Stewart to collect you?"
All the other guests were slipping away, some to leave to go home, some to return to their duties upstairs with the officers.
She turned to lead him towards the front door, and quietly divulged over her shoulder "No need. I drive myself these days".
He wasn't shocked, but he was taken aback.
"How...how marvellous! I always knew…" He stopped as Carson helped him into his coat.
"Knew what?"
"Knew that you were the most astonishingly splendid woman I had ever met."
She blushed and looked down, genuinely embarrassed and he was inordinately pleased.
"Until tomorrow then."
He took her hand and kissed it again, and then he was gone.
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Stewart was amused and worried in equal measure. Sir Anthony had been looking out of the library windows eagerly for the last hour and it still wanted ten minutes to four o'clock.
"Are you sure about this tie, Stewart? It's not too...gaudy?"
Stewart glanced down to hide his grin. Sir Anthony would never be caught dead wearing any item of clothing that could be called 'gaudy'.
"It is just a shade lighter in colour, sir, than the one you wore yesterday, and in my opinion, if I may say so, it better complements the tweed of the suit."
... and it brings out the blue of your eyes, which is more to the point when meeting Lady Edith…and when you keep putting obstacles in your own way you'll need all the help you can get…
"I don't think she's coming, Stewart. Something's got in the way, or...or she found something to get in the way."
He continued staring up the driveway though, like a small boy waiting for Father Christmas with hope and disbelief the equally matched forces battling for his heart.
Stewart coughed.
"Yes, Stewart?"
"Even if your supposition were accurate, sir, I believe Lady Edith would still have the manners to inform you that she had been unavoidably detained."
Anthony frowned at the window pane.
"Mmm" was his only reply.
Stewart vaguely wondered if his master was going to be like this all the way up until the wedding. He might have to have a discreet word with Lady Edith herself.
At that moment, Anthony sighed. The large, unwieldy car was brought round the wide arc of his driveway and brought to a stop before his front door with exquisite control. He admired it as a beautiful piece of driving; the fact that it was Lady Edith driving made him quite helpless with love.
Stewart had long since left the library and was ready to greet the visitor when she alighted from her vehicle. Anthony heard the conversation in the hall.
"Good afternoon, my lady."
"Good afternoon, Stewart. It's been a very long time since I saw you last. Have you been well?"
"Very well, thank you, my lady; just extremely busy, as we all are."
"Indeed. But good to see you."
"Thank you, my lady. Sir Anthony awaits you in the library."
"Thank you."
She had dreamed of this library for four long years. It was where she was most at home, where she was most herself, where she was happiest. There were times when she wondered if she would ever see it again. She stepped through the doorway slowly.
"Lady Edith."
He said her name almost reverently and a thrill ran up her spine.
"Sir Anthony, thank you for inviting me. It's so lovely to see Locksley again." And you, of course, and you.
"The pleasure, I assure you, is all mine. Please, come in, sit."
Suddenly, his confidence was back, at least in saying the accepted, time-worn niceties, and in his own domain. He sat opposite where she had on the sofa, and launched into an enquiry into everyone's health.
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She was soon very much at her ease. He was at pains to make sure she was comfortable, and although he seemed to want to talk about easy things still, she didn't mind what they talked about as long as she could be in his company. But there was one thing she really had to raise. During a long pause in conversation she took her opportunity.
"Can I ask...did you ever receive my answer to your letter?"
The change was tangible. His eyes snapped into an unhappy, haunted expression and she felt ashamed to have asked at all.
"Sorry, you don't have to answer that now."
He took her hand gently.
"No, no. You deserve to know. I...that is...I don't know where to begin."
She tried to help.
"I received your letter written in London just before you left for the Continent. It took some time to discover how I could write to you, but your Colonel was most obliging."
"Yes" Anthony smiled, "I expect he would be. He's a Major General now, you know."
"I'm glad. He seemed a...a most capable man. I sent my letters to him and he sent them on to you, he said."
"And I daresay he did, at least to begin with. But I was captured within a week of the war beginning. Everything moved so fast at the start, and then got so bogged down in the mud and trenches for so very, very long. I had a couple of telephone conversations with Maresfield, but I never received any orders or letters from him; nothing written."
"Oh."
They were both quiet, not knowing how to broach this last obstacle.
"I want you to know that I did answer your letter. I did answer your question. I answered…"
Anthony broke in with an almost frightened… "Anyway, so much time has passed, I couldn't possibly insist on anything you said then."
"Even so, Anthony, I want you to know that I accepted you."
She could see the setting sun glinting in his wet eyes.
"Really? Oh Edith, if I had known that it would have made all the difference when I was so hungry I would've eaten belt leather if I'd had any, like some of the other chaps. When I was on trial for my life, and when I was shot in No Man's Land, it was only the thought of you that kept me alive. You stopped me from giving up hope and sinking into death. You saved my life."
He bent his head and kissed her hand, not so gently this time.
"But things have changed. Time has aged me beyond those four years, no don't try to say otherwise! I know they have, in looks and in health, whereas you have blossomed into such a wonderful woman, poised with elegance and achievement. You can drive a car! What other things might you accomplish! And then, of course, there's this…"
He indicated his dead arm.
When he looked up again, she leaned forward, almost angry in her declarations.
"What happened to you was tragic, just like all the young men I have tended to throughout this war! I hate what happened to you! You didn't deserve it! But I would be shallow indeed if my feelings for you were affected by a...a wound."
She sat back again, reeling in her passion.
"I have grown up, that is true. But if I am to find my full potential, I would do so more quickly and with more satisfaction if I could do it with the support of...of the man I love, wounded or not."
"You still love me? Do you really?" His voice was so husky that she only just heard the words.
"Yes, of course I do, silly."
"And if I said that I found that difficult to believe?"
"I would say that I would just have to find many and varied ways of reminding you."
"Oh Edith!" He looked down, not quite believing that they had found each other again.
"And I'll start with this one" and she bent her head up to his to kiss him.
He immediately started away from her.
"Edith! I...I cannot insult you like that. I…"
She moved towards him, unhurried and unyielding.
"You forget, sir, that we have been engaged for over four years. Two kisses in such a long time is surely the height of chastity and restraint."
She quirked an eyebrow to make him laugh and relax again, which he did.
"I suppose you are right."
Awkward and fumbling, Sir Anthony Strallan kissed his fiancée.
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When he came to clear away the tea things some time later, Stewart listened at the door and heard no voices, no sounds, nothing. Smiling quietly, he decided to return to the Servants' Hall until Sir Anthony rang for him.
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Next time, the wedding!
Many thanks to everyone who kept encouraging me to write, especially Guest!