The moment they passed through the archway to the drawing room, Nathan felt Elizabeth being pulled away from his arm by Grace, who was not only looking extremely healthy, but was clearly not suffering from any residual weakness from her recent troubles.
Elizabeth raised her eyebrows and gave Nathan a smile. He kissed her hand and smiled back, nodding as he let her go.
The truth was, Nathan was glad that Grace hadn't pulled both of them toward Charles Kensington and his mother, Cecile, who were regally holding court by the massive marble fireplace. Nathan was much more of a stand back and watch before jumping in variety of partygoer, and the reason Elizabeth hadn't dragged him with her was because she knew that.
Nathan found himself suddenly nervous as he arched his neck slightly, hoping to loosen the collar that was feeling more and more like a noose. It clearly wasn't only the Kensingtons that had been invited to dinner. He did a quick count and stopped at twenty. And though Nathan wasn't much of a drinker, he wanted to have something in his hands, so he accepted the crystal champagne flute that was offered on a silver tray by one of the servants. A servant who was, perhaps, wearing a tuxedo that was stored in the same closet from which Collins had pulled the one Nathan was now wearing. It was all a little overwhelming.
This was really the first time he'd seen Elizabeth in full Hamilton mode, and he watched, mesmerized, as she floated effortlessly across the room. Seeing her kiss Cecile Kensington on one cheek and then the other, and watching her accept a light peck on the cheek from the man Nathan could only surmise was the infamous Clyde himself, Nathan was drawn back to the young woman he'd first met out at the stagecoach. The memory only made him more in awe of Elizabeth's courage.
To leave this life of privilege and wealth, one that would be so easy to stay immersed in forever, and to travel across the country to a town like Coal Valley to teach their children, was an act that was nothing less than heroic. Nathan unconsciously reached up to loosen his tie so that he could take a deeper breath. His love for Elizabeth in this moment was something he couldn't adequately describe, and all he could think of was that this woman was his wife, would stand by him as they raised Allie together, and would someday, God-willing, be the mother of his children. He felt again like the luckiest man on the face of the earth.
Nathan smiled, remembering himself as the lanky, awkward teen of just a decade ago. As he'd stuttered through painful conversations with girls, that boy could never have imagined what was in store for him, on every level possible. The woman in the robin's egg blue dress – elegant, smart, kind, compassionate, exquisitely beautiful – had promised to walk through life with him. As long as they both shall live.
After a moment, Elizabeth stole a glance backward, and Nathan gave her a soft smile. Even from across the room he could feel her love, though it eased his nervousness only slightly. When she turned back to the conversation, Nathan moved slowly toward the corner behind him, employing all of his learned techniques of surveillance, as he faded into the background and became almost invisible.
Charles Kensington. The life that Elizabeth hadn't chosen. With his square jaw, dark hair and blindingly white smile, Nathan could feel his practiced charm oozing from across the room. Charles was fond of touching Elizabeth as he spoke; his hand on her arm or shoulder, familiar in the way old friends could be without thinking. But when he touched Elizabeth's wrist and his hand brushed her charm bracelet and held there, Nathan felt a rush of hot jealousy that took him so by surprise, he found himself leaning against the wall behind him for support.
As a young man, Nathan had never been sure enough of his sway over women to get to the point of jealousy. The envy he'd felt in the Force when others had received commendations or he'd been passed over for a posting he wanted, was completely different from this. This was a searing, dark pain that made him a little lightheaded, and there seemed to be only two choices. Either he had to walk across the room and pull his wife away from the charming Clyde, or he would need to walk back through the archway and out of the front door to get some fresh air in his lungs.
Lucky for Nathan, Julie gave him a third choice. He felt her at his arm as she took it and gently moved him toward the window. "You, my dear brother-in-law, are looking very handsome tonight. I was just asking Clara if there was any chance we'd see you in your red serge. She was telling me how you rescued her by the river, and it sounded like a romantic novel!"
Nathan gazed down at Julie and then back at Elizabeth, his eyes still a hard icy blue that made Julie raise her eyebrows and look back over at her sister. She squeezed Nathan's arm protectively, understanding immediately. "We've known Charles our entire lives. Elizabeth took lessons from the same teachers, shared the same friends." She looked up at Nathan and smiled. "If something was going to happen between the two of them, it would have happened long ago."
Nathan exhaled and looked gratefully at Julie. "Thank you," he said, meaning it entirely, but unable to expand on the sentiment.
Julie stopped in front of the large picture window that looked out onto the immense front drive, now filled with carriages and automobiles. She turned so that she was facing Nathan directly, and he moved his gaze from Elizabeth. Julie smiled up at him. "I have never seen her look at anyone the way she looks at you. My dear sister is completely and devastatingly yours, Nathan."
Nathan had liked Julie immediately. On their picnic out to the carriage house he'd had a chance to get to know her better, and the stories she and Elizabeth had told of their growing up in the mansion and on the grounds of the estate had made him aware of how very different children's lives can be. In truth, Nathan had much more in common with James, the stablemaster, than he did with any of the Thatchers. But Julie was an effervescent, strongly loyal and big-hearted girl. Nathan had the feeling that she spent much of her time trying to dispel the notion that she was silly and shallow, at the same time she continued to reinforce the idea with a number of rather silly and shallow pronouncements.
Julie was charmed by the idea that she and Nathan had first encountered each other in a four-poster bed with him in a state of undress and his arms tightly wrapped around her. Nathan had a feeling she would be telling that story for quite some time, and he only hoped she could prevent herself from embellishing it too completely.
But where Nathan had been in his element on a horse and picnicking out on the old carriage house porch in his riding boots, he was very aware that in this drawing room he was in Julie's element. She had just rescued him from doing something foolish and he felt the smartest thing to do now would be to defer to her better judgement.
Nathan narrowed his eyes slightly. "He keeps touching her," was all he managed to say. He didn't think he was on the verge of doing bodily harm to the man across the room because it wasn't his way, but he did feel a heat rising in him that was entirely unfamiliar.
It wasn't unfamiliar to Julie, however. She'd driven a number of men to this state in the short period of time she'd been out in society, and she recognized it immediately. She laughed softly, "You'd beat him easily in a fight, you know. It really wouldn't be fair."
That finally pulled Nathan out of the darkness, and he laughed too, looking back at her. He raised an eyebrow. "I have never in my life seen as many diamonds as there are in this room right now." He shook his head slightly. "I feel just like a fish out of water."
Julie reached up and straightened the bowtie that he had recently loosened. "Well, you don't look like one. You look like you belong here." She let her eyes roam around the room and took his arm again as she inclined her head at a couple on the far left of the party. "Those are the Thompsons. In timber, and they make us look like paupers. Next to them, Armie Franklin and his wife, Pearl. They eloped last month against his father's wishes and they're only here trying to work their way back into society. The dapper gentleman next to them is Alain Bouchard, in steel, from a very old French family. The woman seated is our Aunt Agatha, Mother's sister." Julie leaned in and whispered, "She has a very salty tongue, and I love her dearly because she regularly embarrasses Mother."
Nathan laughed, feeling himself beginning to relax a little. He gazed over at a very staid-looking couple who were talking to no one and looked even more uncomfortable than he felt. "Who are they?"
Julie raised her eyebrows mischievously. "Oh, that's Garrett and Matilda Camp." She turned to Nathan and said softly, "New money," as if it were an indictment. "They struck oil on their farm outside of Florenceville when they were digging for a well, and now they're richer than most of the people in this room." Julie smiled up at Nathan. "I think they're nice. But no one else here will talk to them all night. Mother only invites them because it makes her look charitable."
Nathan was at a loss to know what to say about any of it. He felt as if he'd been picked up and deposited on another planet, and in reality, he had been. He could only remember his mother's words. Be yourself. It was all he knew how to be.
Julie looked up at him. "Ready to join in?" she asked him, smiling brightly. "They won't bite." Then she giggled and said, "Much."
Nathan tilted his head at her. "You're not helping," he said, taking a deep breath and looking over again as Grace Thatcher laughed a little too loudly at something charming that Clyde had just said. Nathan looked back at Julie and raised his eyebrows.
She turned to him and put her hands on his shoulders. "Even if Elizabeth had never met you, she still wouldn't be with Charles. And now that I see you and my sister together, I can't imagine her with anyone else." Julie moved closer. "Don't let this room full of peacocks make you feel you need to be any different than you are. Who you are is quite enough."
Nathan smiled and then said simply, "I'm glad you're my sister."
Of course Julie knew Nathan and Colleen's story from Elizabeth's letters, and tears came to her eyes. She leaned up and kissed Nathan on the cheek. "That may be the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me."
Nathan had the good manners to blush a little.
Julie blinked a few times and raised her chin. "You ready?" she asked.
Nathan nodded. "Ready," he said, putting out his arm for her to take.
"Once more unto the breach, dear friend," Julie said. To Nathan's raised eyebrow, she said, "Putting my literary education to good use."
"A lot of them died at Agincourt, you know," Nathan said, beginning to walk toward Elizabeth.
At that, Julie laughed as if Nathan had just told her the most amusing joke in the world, and four heads turned: Elizabeth, Grace, Cecile and Charles.
"Elizabeth, your husband has the most wonderful sense of humor!" Julie said, overflowing with mirth. "But I've monopolized his company for long enough. It's time some others got to enjoy him."
Elizabeth put her arm through Nathan's just as Julie released him. He felt like a baton being passed from one sister to the other for safekeeping, and it made him smile. It also gave him a measure of confidence.
He put his hand out and looked Charles Kensington straight in the eye. "Charles," he said, "My wife has told me so much about you."
"That's the last of it," Lee said as the workmen carried out the leather chair.
Lee had hired two men to move the furniture from the small flat into the wagon. The sun was beginning to go down, and he and Rosemary had decided that it made much more sense for her to get a room at the Chestnut Street Bed and Breakfast where Lee would be staying. They'd both realized it as Rosemary's bed was being carried out the door, and they'd laughed at the same moment.
"Probably not sleeping here tonight," Rosemary said.
Lee grimaced and then smiled apologetically. "I may not have thought that through completely..."
Their lodgings had been chosen in part for the locked barn behind it, where Lee would be able to park the wagon full of Rosemary's belongings safely overnight. When they arrived, they found that the Chestnut B & B had only one room available beyond the one Lee had already reserved.
As they stood in the doorway, still catching their breath from the long climb up the steep staircase, Lee watched as Rosemary's face went through a number of different emotions. The room wasn't much bigger than a broom closet, and the configuration of the roof above it meant that more than half of it would need to be traversed while bent nearly double to avoid hitting one's head on the angled ceiling.
"All we got," Mrs. Broad said, shrugging. The name was well-suited to her short and stout stature, but she was a kindly and apple-cheeked woman. The aroma of the homemade shepherd's pie that was wafting up the stairwell reminded Lee and Rosemary that they'd hardly eaten all day.
"We'll take it," Lee said quickly. Then he amended himself. "I'll take it. Mrs. Thornton will be staying in the first room I reserved."
Rosemary frowned. "Lee. I can't ask you to do that."
Lee laughed. "This room is perfect for an old bachelor like me," he said good-naturedly. He suddenly had the funny picture in his head of their Hope Valley Mountie trying to move around in here. "Not like I'm Nathan, after all," he said.
Rosemary laughed. "Well, yes, that's true," she said.
Mrs. Broad was anxious to get back to her dinner guests. She looked back and forth between them and raised her eyebrows. "Yes?" she asked simply.
Lee and Rosemary both said yes at the same time, looked at each other and laughed again, and Mrs. Broad nodded. She'd run this little inn for over a quarter of a century, and though she tried not to poke her nose into people's business, if these two weren't already married, she thought they should be.
Cecile Kensington looked down her pointed aquiline nose at Nathan and adjusted her spectacles. "Ah, Elizabeth. This must be your Mountie." Nathan thought it came out just exactly as it would have if she'd said this must be your cocker spaniel, and he found himself wanting to smile. Mrs. Kensington looked him up and down and finally said, "He's alarmingly tall, isn't he?"
Nathan looked over at her son and did a quick measure with his eyes. Charles was only a couple of inches shorter, but Nathan knew that his own slender build often made him seem taller than he actually was. Charles met his eyes, and Nathan could see that he was also smiling, but only in amusement at his mother.
"I would describe Constable Grant more as imposing, Mother. Seems to me a good quality in a member of our esteemed Mounted Police." Charles reached out and shook Nathan's outstretched hand firmly. To Nathan's astonishment, he found himself looking into a pair of blue eyes much like his own, and they were kind rather than confrontational.
"It's good to meet you, Nathan," Charles said with a smile. "Elizabeth is very precious to all of us. I hope you'll forgive us for looking you over too thoroughly, but this marriage has come as somewhat of a shock, and we simply want to be certain she's in good hands."
"I am," Elizabeth said, looking up at her husband. The silence that fell over the group was a result of watching Nathan and Elizabeth gaze at each other. No one seeing them together could have any doubt about the love that existed between them.
Nathan thought he heard a soft exhale escape from Charles as he said, "Excellent…" Nathan looked over at Charles and what he believed he saw was the final moment of extinguished hope. Suddenly Nathan felt sympathy for Charles Kensington - in a moment he knew that Charles had always been somewhat in love with Elizabeth Thatcher, through all those years. And of course, Nathan understood completely why that would be the case. Nathan's own years of being on the losing end of love had created compassion in him. He looked directly at Charles and said earnestly, "I promise you I'll care for Elizabeth until my last breath."
Charles nodded and raised an eyebrow. "Yes," he said softly. "I believe you will."
Nathan watched as the man across from him shook off the disappointment and raised a friendly but challenging eyebrow. "So, Nathan, I suppose as a Mountie, you're somewhat of a horseman? Does that include polo?"
Smiling, Nathan said, "Can't say I've ever played the game."
Charles turned to Grace and Elizabeth. "I had a dickens of a time during the last chucker. Old Wickham got off a shot that no one could lay a stick on." He looked back at Nathan and gave him a grin.
Nathan raised an eyebrow and grinned back. "How are you at barrel racing, Charles?"
Tilting his head, Charles said, "Can't say I've ever tried it."
The two men narrowed their eyes at each other for a long moment, and Elizabeth finally shook her head. "Oh, good heavens," she said, rolling her eyes and laughing. She leaned up and kissed Nathan's cheek. "When you two are done being... men... I believe dinner is served."
Charles laughed. "Tomorrow?" he said to Nathan, his eyes bright.
Nathan grinned and clapped him on the back. "You're on."
"Stand still," Elizabeth said, as she looked into the viewfinder of the camera.
"I've wanted nothing more all evening than to take off this tie and loosen my collar, and you're making me pose for photos," Nathan grumbled, putting his finger between his neck and the starched fabric around it and pulling sharply.
"It will go a lot faster if you'd just stay still." She looked up at him standing against the blue wall. "Good. Now smile."
Nathan looked skyward. "I have to smile, too?" he said, finally giving in to a soft laugh.
He heard the click of the camera, and looked at Elizabeth. "Are we done?"
"Not quite yet," she said, pulling a cord and a small rubber bulb out of the leather case beside her. She attached them the way her father had shown her, and propped the camera up on the dresser. Then she stood next to Nathan and said, "Smile again."
Nathan looked down at her and pulled her closer. He smiled and Elizabeth pressed the bulb. They both heard the click, and Nathan turned to her. He kissed her gently on the forehead and then moved down and pressed his lips to hers. "Been thinking of doing this all night," he murmured against her lips. At the same time he kissed her, he reached up and untied the bow at his neck and then unbuttoned the collar. "Oh, sweet freedom..." he said softly, his relief causing him to deepen the kiss and pull her even closer.
Elizabeth sighed against the soft warmth of his lips and they both heard another click. She looked down at the bulb in her hands and then they both looked at the camera. "Oh..." she said, her mouth slightly open in surprise.
Nathan gave her his crooked smile. "Please don't tell me your father is going to be developing that film?"
Elizabeth laughed softly. "No, Collins does that for him, down in the cellar."
Nathan raised an eyebrow and whispered, "And of course, Collins is very discreet..."
"Of course," Elizabeth said, smiling.
Nathan bent to kiss her again, and this time, Elizabeth very carefully and deliberately dropped the small bulb from her fingers.