Sweet Awakening by Marjorie Farrell Page A

a while, however, he had been everywhere alone that he had visited in fantasy with Clare. Having faced down the worst, he realized he would survive her loss. Perhaps he would even come to think of her as she did him: an old and dear friend. Perhaps by the fall, he would be able to see her and simply enjoy her presence in his life. He hoped so.
    Early one morning of his third week home, the groom brought both his gelding and Sabrina’s mare to the front of the house. When Giles looked at him inquiringly, the man said that Lady Sabrina had informed him last night that she had planned to ride with her brother.
    “Well, if she does, she had better get herself down here, then,” said Giles as he heard his sister coming down the steps behind him. He sounded annoyed, but was secretly glad that she had taken the initiative to join him.
    “I am right behind you, little brother.”
    Giles turned and gave her the first real smile she had seen on his face in weeks.
    “Good morning, Sabrina. I hope you are willing to forego breakfast, for I intend to be out for a few hours.”
    “I had Cook pack us a picnic,” she answered, pointing to the saddlebags on her mare. I thought we could ride up to Camden Hill and breakfast there?”
    “I would like that.”
    The fields were shrouded in mist, and the two rode silently through the early morning fog. Their silence was a comfortable one, however, and Sabrina, who had been worried about breaking into Giles’s lonely routine, knew that she had been right to do so. When the sun finally started to burn the mist away, their horses perked up, and they had an exhilarating gallop before winding their way up to the top of the hill.
    “I could never have lived in Kent,” said Sabrina, waving her hand at the scene below them. “It is too flat. Too much of a sameness.”
    “I love our west country, too,” said Giles, really seeing his surroundings for the first time in days, other than just as a backdrop to a ruined dream. The hills and the hedges were a shifting canvas of greens as the clouds covered and uncovered the sun, and his heart lifted at the sight of it.
    Sabrina pulled the saddlebags down and spread out the old cloth Cook had provided.
    “Ham and cheese and fresh bread and apples, Giles.”
    “I am ravenous.” And he was, to his surprise.
    The apples were a bit mealy, for they were the last from the cellar, and as Sabrina bit into hers, she shrieked and sprayed apple all over her riding habit.
    “Found a worm, have you, Brina?” teased Giles. “Well, save it for fishing.”
    “It is not funny, Giles,” complained his sister in the same tone she had used as a child when he teased her. “I might have swallowed it.”
    “Here, have some cider,” said her brother. “That will wash everything down. The worm might have had a twin for all we know,” he added, with a wicked grin.
    Sabrina choked on the cider, and then, looking over at her brother, she had to laugh. “You are as awful to me as ever, Giles.”
    Giles lay back and watched the clouds scudding over the sun.
    “Do you remember the day Clare came to Whitton for the first time? We were lying right here on Camden Hill, wondering what she would be like.”
    “I remember,” Sabrina said softly.
    “I didn’t fall in love with her that summer. I think it was two years later. But I knew very early that it was Clare, Sabrina. I’ve loved her for a long time.”
    Sabrina reached out and grasped her brother’s hand. “I have been worried about you, Giles.”
    “Oh, I will be all right. I admit I have been in hell since the betrothal announcement, but I seem to be coming back. Although, I must agree with Virgil, that the road from Avernus is not easy.”
    “I know all the right words to say, Giles, but I don’t think they would mean anything to you.”
    “Like: ‘You will get over it. You will find someone else.’ Or ‘time heals all wounds?’ I’ve been saying them to myself. I just wish ...”
    “What,