Once Upon A Dream by Grace Burrowes Mary Balogh Page B

question.
    "I have everything I could possibly want," she said. "I have employment that I have enjoyed. It has brought me a sense of worth and has brought me into
    company with adults and young girls whom I esteem and even love. I have a family I love dearly."
    She had not quite answered his question, he thought. Or perhaps she had. Perhaps being independent, doing what she loved and what was important to her had
    brought her happiness.
    "And you?" she asked him. "Are you happy? But you spoke somewhat on the subject when we dined together."
    "I had a happy marriage, which was all too brief," he said. "Now I have my home, my friends, and my children. I am well blessed. And at last I am open to
    future happiness. I have concluded that it is not disloyal to the dead to live on."
    She turned her head to look almost fiercely at him. "Oh," she said, "you are so very right."
    Their eyes met and locked. And there was a pause in the conversation, charged with something unidentifiable while a flush rose to her cheeks. And he asked
    the unpardonable question.
    "Why have you never married?" he asked her.
    They were strolling beside the lake, the wilderness walk above them, trees just ahead of them to offer seclusion from company and shade from the sun. Off
    to one side, beyond the end of the walk, was a round stone building that looked like a dovecote.
    She smiled faintly and lowered her eyes. "Perhaps," she said, "because I was too much of a romantic. I was betrothed once upon a long time ago to a cavalry
    officer. I was head over heels in love with him. No one had ever loved as we loved. Had I been a poet, I would doubtless have filled volumes with flowery
    verse pulsing with emotion. Though I must not make light of what was very real. He was killed in Spain at the Battle of Talavera, and I really did not
    expect to live on myself. Or want to. If I could have died of grief, I would gladly have done so—not out of any poetic ideal of sentimental grief but
    because it was really too painful to be borne. Alas, I could not die. But I would not love again. How could I? The only love of my life was gone forever.
    Grieving, remaining true to his memory, became a habit with me, a habit I have always thought to be a virtue until recently. But my devotion has not made
    any difference to him, has it? He has been dead all this time."
    They had stopped walking, as though by mutual consent. They were among the trees, though in a grassy clearing. The water here was dark green as it
    reflected the leaves on the trees. One tree was bent toward the water, a stout branch reaching out over it, and it struck Michael that it would be a daring
    boy's dream as a diving platform. And a girl's too, he added mentally, thinking of Georgette. An invisible bird was trilling from somewhere among the
    trees. A distant swell of cheering from the direction of the cricket pitch only accentuated the peace that surrounded them.
    "How lovely it is just here," she said. "It is very peaceful, is it not?"
    "There is something about water and trees," he said, "that is soothing to the soul."
    She turned her head to smile at him and he smiled back—before lowering his head to hers and kissing her. It seemed the most natural thing in the
    world, a gesture of shared pleasure in the moment and of affection too. When he moved his head back she was still half smiling, and her eyes gazed back
    into his without wavering. He touched the fingers of one hand to her cheek and moved them down to trace the line of her jaw to her chin.
    "I am sorry," he said.
    "Please do not be," she told him, her voice a mere whisper of sound.
    And he gathered her into his arms and did what he had been dreaming of doing ever since that evening at the inn more than a week ago. He kissed her
    properly, as a man kisses a woman to whom he is sexually attracted. He parted his lips over hers while her own lips relaxed and her arms came about him,
    and he teased her lips until they parted and then stroked his