The Woman from Paris(4)

While Tom greeted their father’s aunts, David settled his mother into the front pew. He glanced around the congregation. He recognized most of the faces—relations and friends dressed in black and looking uniformly sad. Then amidst all the gray, pallid faces, one bright, dewy one stood out like a ripe peach on a winter tree. She was staring straight at him, her astonishing gray eyes full of empathy. Transfixed, he gazed back. He took in the unruly cascade of blond curls that tumbled over her shoulders, and the soft, creamy texture of her skin, and his heart stalled. It was as if a light had been switched on in the darkness of his soul. It didn’t seem appropriate to smile, but David wanted to, very much. So he pulled a resigned smile, and she did the same, silently imparting sympathy for his loss.

As David left the church again with his brothers and cousins to bear the coffin, he glanced back at the mystery blonde and wondered how she fitted into his father’s life. Why had they never met before? He couldn’t help the buoyant feeling that lifted him out of the quagmire of grief into a radiant and happy place. Was this what people called “love at first sight”? Of all the days it should happen, his father’s funeral was the most inappropriate.

Phaedra Chancellor knew who David Frampton was, for she had done her research. The eldest of three sons, he was twenty-nine, unmarried, and lived in a house on the Fairfield estate where he managed the farm. He had studied at Cirencester Agricultural College, for while his father had found the life of a country squire unexciting, David was as comfortable in the land as a potato.

Phaedra had only seen photographs of George’s sons. Tom was without doubt the most handsome. He had inherited his father’s blue eyes and the mischievous curl of his lips. But David was better looking in the flesh than she had imagined. He was less polished than Tom, with scruffy brown hair, dark eyes and a large aquiline nose that did not photograph well. In fact, his features were irregular and quirky, and yet, somehow, together they were attractive—and he had inherited his father’s charisma, that intangible magnetism that drew the eye. Joshua, on the other hand, was more conventional looking, with a face that was generically handsome and consequently easy to forget.

She looked down at the service sheet, and her vision blurred at the sight of George’s face imprinted on the cover. He had been more beautiful than all his sons put together. She blinked away painful memories and stared at the man she had grown to love. She could see Tom and Joshua reflected in his features, but she couldn’t see David; he looked like his mother.

She sniffed and wiped her nose with a Kleenex. Julius Beecher, George’s lawyer, who sat beside her, patted her knee. “You okay?” he whispered. She nodded. “Nervous?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”

“I’m not sure this is the right day to drop the bombshell, Julius,” she hissed, as music began to fill the church.

“I’m afraid there’s no avoiding it. They’re going to find out sooner or later, and besides, you wanted to be here.”

“I know. You’re right. I wanted to be here very much. But I wish I didn’t have to meet his family.”

The choir walked slowly down the aisle singing Mozart’s “Lacrimosa.” Their angelic voices echoed off the stone walls and reverberated into the vaulted ceiling as they rose in a rousing crescendo. The candle flames wavered at the sudden motion that stirred the air, and an unexpected beam of sunlight shone in through the stained-glass windows and fell upon the coffin as it followed slowly behind.

Antoinette could barely contain her emotions; it was as if her heart would burst with grief. She glanced down the pew to where George’s aunts Molly and Hester, one as thin as the other was fat, stood with the same icy poise as the Dowager Lady Frampton. Even Mozart was unable to penetrate their steely armor of self-control. Antoinette was grateful for her sister, Rosamunde, who howled with middle-class vigor in the pew behind.

Antoinette felt a sob catch in her chest. It was impossible to imagine that her vital, active husband was contained within those narrow oaken walls. That soon he’d be buried in the cold earth, all alone without anyone to comfort him, and that she’d never again feel the warmth of his skin and the tenderness of his touch. At that unbearable thought, the tears broke free. She glanced into the pew to see the flint-hard profile of her mother-in-law. But she no longer cared what the old woman thought of her. She had toed the line for George, but now that he was gone, she’d cry her heart out if she wanted to.

When the service was over, the congregation stood while the family filed out. Antoinette walked with Tom, leaning heavily on his arm, while David escorted his grandmother. He passed the pew where the mysterious blonde was dabbing her eyes, but he didn’t allow his gaze to linger. He desperately hoped she’d be coming back for tea.