The Lady Always Wins(9)

Ten years ago, when she was fifteen, everything had changed. By that time, they’d been friends for years, and—as his parents had realized with dawning horror sometime during the first week of summer—they were rather too old to be wandering about alone. Why, anything could happen!

They had talked with Ginny’s aunt. It had been agreed by all the adults that they weren’t to see each other unchaperoned any longer. But Simon had pooh-poohed the very idea. What, he had said scornfully, were those old biddies imagining? Really?

What indeed? she had echoed, just as scornfully. But inside, she’d cringed just a little. She had just begun to imagine things that brought a blush to her face.

They’d become rather adept at sneaking out. Just to fish, he’d said. And climb trees. And walk. But over the course of the summer, Ginny had fallen secretly, passionately, horribly in love with him. She didn’t dare mention it—she was sure he would have laughed at her, if he’d known. She’d kept the emotion to herself through their morning walks and their dares. She’d not said anything, not even when they met late one night to watch a meteor shower.

Until Simon had turned to her one August evening, shortly before he was scheduled to leave. And in that peremptory, arrogant manner that he had, he’d announced, “I’m going to kiss you tomorrow.”

Ginny had flushed all over. Her lungs had burned. Simon was older—a full year older. He was on the verge of attending university. She’d imagined him with other girls, walking the streets of Cambridge. Those other women would be pretty and soft and ladylike. They were all well-to-do, just like him. And they’d be beautifully dressed in clothing that was all lace and flounces and kid leather.

At his proclamation, she’d burst into flame, a riot of innocent expectation.

“Well?” he’d demanded. And that was when she’d realized that he was nervous about how she might respond.

“No,” Ginny had said, her mouth dry.

“No?”

“You’re not going to kiss me tomorrow,” she’d managed to get out.

He had taken one step toward her.

“You’re going to kiss me right now,” she finished.

“Oh, God,” he’d said. “Ginny. Ginny.” And he had leaned in and kissed her, the dark green leaves of the oak shielding them from the summer sun.

After that, he’d made his way to Chester-on-Woolsey whenever he could, telling his parents he was visiting friends. They had kissed and held hands and talked and planned. They’d argued and schemed, too—and the game they’d made of arrogant assertions coupled with dares had become all the more exciting.

They’d had two years of stolen visits. All the while, Ginny waited for him to realize that she wasn’t what his parents would call the “right kind of people.” Ginny knew too much of the world to believe that a boy like Simon would marry a girl like her. He was talking about taking articles, becoming a barrister like his father. She was turning her gowns for the third time, and hoping that nobody noticed how badly the pattern had faded. Still, she’d been too much in love to put him off.

And then his parents had found out they’d been seeing each other in secret.

Ginny sighed and shook her head, pushing away those old memories. He was too old to be disciplined by his father now. Simon was watching her carefully, as if no time at all had passed since their clandestine meetings so many years ago. They came up under the oak and stopped, turning to one another.

The leaves were the light green of spring. Everything was different from the day of their summer kiss all those years ago. Almost everything—there was still that sense of charged expectation, that tingling in the palms of her hands.

She had to say something. “You never did become a barrister.”

He shrugged. “Ginny, I’m rude and arrogant. Half the time, I forget myself and curse, and never mind the company. Do you know what would happen if I did that before a judge?”

She couldn’t help herself; she smiled.

“Besides, my father would have expected me to work with him, and after what happened with you…”

“He wasn’t wrong.”

“Devil that,” Simon muttered.

“Your father was right,” Ginny repeated. “When I knew you would be destitute, I told you I was marrying another man. A wealthy man. You can’t argue with that, Simon. It’s a fact.”

Telling Simon he couldn’t argue with something was, she remembered, an exercise in futility. He could argue with a deaf chicken. But this time, even though he glowered, he managed not to say anything back. Finally, he looked heavenward and tried something else. “So. How did marriage suit you?”

“He was a good man,” she told him.

“Old, though.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Thirty-three when I married him. Were it not for his heart, he would still be alive.”

He looked up once more. “God help me for asking this, but…he treated you well?”

Ginny sighed. “He did. He was a good companion.”

His voice lowered. “Was he anything else?”

“If he’d wanted a chaperone,” she said tersely, “he surely would have advertised for one. I was his wife. In every way. And one cannot spend seven years with a man, through sickness and health, without coming to care for him. He was a good friend. He didn’t ask for my love when we married, but he needed my loyalty. You know what his nearest relations were like.”