The Fifth Kiss (14 page)

Olivia instinctively rebelled against Clara's stubborn insistence on secrecy, especially as the summer wore on and Clara's condition worsened perceptibly. But Clara was adamant, and Olivia let her have her way. She did her best to make the time happy for her sister, arranging for the children to spend time with their mother during the hours when Clara felt relatively well, taking them out on picnics or excursions when their mother was ill, keeping the atmosphere of the household as cheerful as she could and supporting her sister's spirit when it weakened. It was a taxing and difficult time, and often, when she fell wearily into bed at night, she wept herself to sleep.

When the strain became unbearable—as it did from time to time—she would go to the stable and take out Strickland's most spirited gelding for a brisk gallop. Nothing was so soothing to her spirits as flying across the fields on the back of the magnificent, glossy-coated horse. Strickland had named him Pegasus; it was an apt name, for the creature did indeed seem almost winged as he galloped with graceful ease over hill and field. Olivia had been an indifferent horsewoman until this summer, but now she seemed to ride by instinct. On Pegasus' back, she could feel the rhythm of his movements, her body relaxed, and she learned to move with the motion of the animal. It was remarkably invigorating to speed across the landscape, feeling the wind beating at her face, hearing its whistle at her ears and seeing the trees whipping by in a blur of green. For those few moments, she could stop her thoughts, dull her worries and surrender to the sensation of motion—pure, natural, death-defying motion.

She had no idea that, while she indulged herself in this one pleasure, she was being observed. At first from the schoolroom window, then from the stable loft and finally from behind a hedge that divided the two broadest fields, Cornelius Clapham watched her with adoration. It was on horseback that she looked most like the girl of his dreams—her eyes shining, her cheeks rosy from the whip of the breeze on her face, some strands of curls escaping from beneath her little riding hat and flowing back from her face. It was a sight that took his breath away.

As time went on, the watcher grew bolder. He took a hiding place behind a tree not far from the stables. From there he could see her when she was starting out or just reining in, closer and in slower motion than he'd been able to see her from his other vantage points. Whenever he noticed, from the schoolroom window, that Higgins, the groom, was saddling Pegasus, he would set Perry at some engrossing task and steal out to take his place behind his tree.

On an afternoon in late summer, when Olivia was drawing near the stables after a rather longer gallop than usual and had just tightened the reins to indicate to Pegasus that it was time to slow down, she was abruptly distracted by a glimpse of a white face peering out at her from behind a tree. In fright, she gasped and, already having been tightening the reins, gave them a jerk that pulled too sharply on the horse's bit. The unsuspecting animal neighed loudly and reared up on his hind legs, throwing his rider off his back and making a dash for the safety of the stable. Poor Olivia flew through the air, landed in a painful heap on the ground, and fainted.

When she drifted back into consciousness, her first awareness was of a wet cloth being applied to her forehead. Then she heard a voice whispering near her ear in a tone of agony, “Miss Olivia, Miss Olivia,
speak
to me!”

She blinked her eyes open. “Mr. C-Clapham? Is that
you
?”

“Oh, thank
God
!” he sighed in relief, pulling her to him in a clumsy embrace.

Her mind was only slowly beginning to return to its normal awareness. She realized that she was lying on the ground, that there was a painful bruise in the region of her left arm and shoulder, and that the tutor was inexplicably cradling her upper torso in his arms. “What happened?” she asked confusedly.

“It was all my fault,” the tutor said, looking down at her in abject misery. “I frightened the horse.”

Olivia shut her eyes and tried to remember what happened. “No … it was
I
who frightened the horse,” she said slowly. “I was startled by a … a face.”

“Yes,” the tutor muttered. “Mine.”

Her eyes flew open. “Yours? But, Mr. Clapham, whatever were you
doing
?”

The fellow bit his lip in shame. “I was … watching you,” he admitted.

“I don't understand. Why?”

Mr. Clapham was twenty-eight years old but had never been in love before. What little he knew of love came to him from Greek drama and Roman verse. But from that reading he had the distinct impression that love grew out of just such dramatic scenes as this. Fate had dealt him a unique opportunity for a moment of intimacy with the woman of his dreams, and he was not a man to let the chance go by.
Carpe diem
, Horace had advised. This was his opportunity to seize the day, and seize it he would. “Can't you guess?” he asked looking down at the girl in his arms with a meaningful intensity.

“No, I can
not
,” Olivia said with a touch of asperity, feeling suddenly quite uncomfortable and wishing to be helped to her feet. She pushed at his enfolding arms so that she could sit up.

But Mr. Clapham had decided to seize the day. His hold on her tightened, and his eyes glowed with longing. Before she knew it, he lifted her tightly against his chest and kissed her with fervent ardor.

Olivia made a furious sound in her throat and struggled to disengage his hold on her. But the tutor's grasp was stronger than she'd expected. With a painfully throbbing shoulder, and a head still swimming from her fall, she was not capable of resisting so tenacious an embrace. She could feel the trembling of his arms and the rapid beating of his heart. Although she was furious with him and annoyed at herself for having fallen into this fix, she was aware of the urgency of his embrace and the tenderness of his kiss. It moved her somehow.

But when he lifted his head, she pushed him forcefully away from her. “Mr. Clapham,” she exclaimed, “have you lost your
senses
?”

His heart was hammering in his chest and his blood pounding in his ears. He'd gone too far to retreat now. “I
love
you,” he declared, and he reached for her again, his chest heaving in his attempt to catch his breath.

“Don't you
dare
do that again!” she snapped forbiddingly. “Stop this nonsense and help me up!”

“But … didn't you
hear
me? I said I love you!”

“Rubbish! Are you going to get to your feet and help me up, or must I shout for the groom?”

Turning quite pale, the tutor scrambled up and helped her to her feet. She stood up unsteadily, wincing with pain and rubbing her bruised shoulder and arm. “Are you very much hurt?” he asked solicitously.

“Don't touch me! It's no thanks to you that my
neck
isn' broken!”

“Forgive me, Miss Matthews. I never meant—”

Olivia softened. “No, of course you didn't.” She looked at him curiously. “Whatever
possessed
you—?”

Her matter-of-fact manner was quite disconcerting, but he plunged ahead heedlessly. “I told you. I love you.”

She glared at him impatiently. “And I said
rubbish
! How can you love me? We've barely exchanged a dozen words.”

“But that doesn't signify. I've loved you from the f-first moment I laid eyes on you.”

Olivia ceased massaging her arm and stared at him in astonishment. “Have you really? How very strange. We're not even
friends
.”

“Must people be friends to be in love?” he asked, bewildered by the unexpectedly analytical turn in the conversation.

“I don't know,” Olivia said with a thoughtful dispassion. “I had surmised that one must develop
some
sort of amity or
rapprochement
toward the loved one before one could claim to feel such an
enveloping
emotion. That is why, Mr. Clapham, I don't take this declaration of yours at all seriously.” She brushed off her skirt and began to walk toward the stable.

He stared after her, nonplussed, and then ran to catch up with her, falling into step beside her. “I … I wish, Miss Matthews, that you will not dismiss my feelings for you on that basis,” he said in some desperation. “I don't think anyone really knows
how
love comes about. Why, Catullus wrote,
I hate and I love. Why I do so I do not know. But I feel it, and I am in torment
.”

Olivia snorted. “In
torment
? Now, really, Mr. Clapham, this is too silly. Please don't spout Catullus at me. I'm in no mood for foolish quotations. The emotion that you feel is concocted out of the air. It is based on so insignificant an acquaintance that it cannot be worthy of the name of love. Take my advice, Mr. Clapham, and forget the matter entirely.”

Mr. Clapham, deflated and depressed, cast her a look of woebegone despair. “I suppose you'll wish me to pack my bags and leave,” he murmured sadly.

She stopped and turned to him. “Leave? Why would I wish you to leave?”

“Won't you ask her ladyship to
dismiss
me?”

“No, of course not. Unless, of course, you intend
to persist
in peering at me from behind trees and quoting love poetry to me. Do you?”

He hung his head. “Not if you don't wish me to.”

“I don't. So, please, go back to the schoolroom. Perry is undoubtedly wondering what's become of you. If you have the sense I think you have, you will get back to your work and put this incident completely out of your mind.”

The incident lingered in Olivia's mind, however. Later that night, as she lay abed waiting for sleep to come, it occurred to her that she'd experienced her fourth kiss. Was there anything to be learned from it? The kiss had not been dull, like Morley Crawford's, nor revolting, like Sir Walter Haldene's. It had been urgent and tender and throbbing with feeling. And it had been obvious, from the tutor's breathlessness and a certain look in his eyes when he'd released her, that he'd been deeply stirred by it. She, however, while she'd been touched and had not
disliked
the experience, could not say she'd been stirred. The embrace had not affected her at all in the way Strickland's had. What
was
there about Strickland's kiss that so differed from the others? It was a puzzle.

But Olivia didn't dwell on the puzzle for long. Strickland's return to Langley Park shortly thereafter sent her back to London before she even saw the tutor again. And by the time she returned to the country, her sister's illness had so far progressed that Olivia could think of nothing else.

By late September, it was so plain that Clara would not last the month that Olivia realized it before she heard the doctor's warning. Clara could no longer leave her bed and was so heavily sedated with laudanum that she slept most of the time. When she did wake, her eyes were foggy and her words slurred. Olivia, heartbroken at the prospect of her sister's passing and terrified of the responsibility of carrying the burden of the aftermath on her own inexperienced shoulders, sent the head groom, Higgins, to London to fetch Lord Strickland to his wife's bedside.

In the meantime, Olivia kept a constant vigil at her sister's side. One evening, when the last rays of the setting sun fell across the pillow, lighting her sister's face with a late-summer amber glow, Clara opened her eyes. “Livie?” she asked, her voice stronger than it had been in days.

“Yes, love,” Olivia said, her heart jumping up in senseless hope. “I'm here.”

“Isn't it a lovely evening?” Clara murmured, her eyes clear and lucid again. “So cool.”

“Yes. The sunset takes your b-breath away.” Olivia tried to keep her voice steady and to control her unreasoning elation at seeing her sister so like her normal self.

“Help me to sit up so that I can watch it,” Clara implored.

Olivia's first instinct was to object, for Clara had so little strength that any effort exhausted her. But Olivia forced herself to remember that at this late date her objections would be pointless. She immediately bent down and lifted the thin shoulders, piling up the pillows behind her sister's back and propping her upon them.

“Oh, Livie, it
is
breathtaking,” Clara sighed, looking out of the window eagerly. Before their gaze, the oranges and reds slowly turned to purple. At last Clara said quietly, “It won't be long, you know, dearest. Not for the sunset, and not for me.”

Olivia's unreasoning hope withered, and she pressed her quivering lips together to keep from crying out. Her sister reached for her trembling hand.

“Don't be afraid, love. My mind is quite well prepared. I only wish that I could see Miles. Isn't it dreadful how one wants to have one's cake and eat it too? I long ago decided that I don't want him to see me this way.”

Olivia frowned in guilt and indecision. “Are you
sure
, Clara?”

“Yes. It's better this way.”

Olivia cast her sister a look of dismay. Had she done the wrong thing to have sent for him? Would Clara hate her for it? Should she warn her sister that her husband was at this very moment on his way to her side? “Clara, I—”

“Hush, Livie, let me speak. It has been such an effort for me to do it of late, and now, suddenly, I feel strong enough. There's something I want to say to you.”

Olivia sat down on the bed beside her sister and took her hand. “What is it, Clara?”

“I want you to promise me … that you will watch over my family … and love them.”

“But of course I will! You don't have to ask me that,” Olivia assured her.

Clara peered at her urgently. “You must
promise
, Livie! They will need it so. You must promise to … to love them …
all
!”

Olivia could not keep back her tears. “Don't c-concern yourself, Clara. You have m-my word.”