Something Old Rebecca Connolly (ink ebook reader .TXT) 📖

flowers to arrange inside. There were certainly excellent blooms that had been brought in from the main gardens, and they were in exquisite arrangements all over the house. But in her own chambers, she did not want something so perfect, so fine, so cultivated. She wanted the delicate, the wild, the underappreciated, and the natural. She wanted the fragrance that captured being out on the moors and hills, perhaps even standing on the beach with the waves rolling in. She wanted to capture Cornwall in flowers and have a portion of that in her chambers.

If nothing else, there would be a beautiful reminder of the bliss she knew here. And the love. Oh, there was so much love.

Her love for Thomas had grown in ways she’d never dreamed, deepened beyond reckoning, and solidified into a permanence within her. She’d never let go of it or be free of it. That love was now as much a part of her as the hair on her head or the prints on her fingertips. She had never felt that anything was missing in her as an individual, in her nature, or in her heart, but she suddenly felt more complete. More whole. More perfectly herself.

She had always been whole as herself, but now she was more. Thomas, and loving Thomas, had given her wings, and now she was learning to fly.

There was such freedom in the experience, such joy in its beauties. After her years of nothingness, the overwhelming onslaught of sensations, emotions, and change left her feeling bewildered. It was easy enough to succumb to her feelings when Thomas was about, when she was caught up in the spell that only he could cast over her, when he could run his fingers along her arm or smile in that particular way that made her toes curl. So very easy and growing easier the more it happened.

But separated from his influence, rare as that had been of late, Lily found herself wondering… thinking…

What was happening between them? Was this what love was supposed to feel like? Was this madness, this breathless existence, what she could have expected from the beginning had they married under usual circumstances? Was this genuine?

She believed that Thomas loved her. Believed that there was truth in how they were feeling and in the moments they were sharing. But could it be possible that the frantic rush of love and delight she was drowning in was only so splendid because it was new and foreign to her? Would this have happened if they had stayed in London or at Rainford? Would they have found this eventually?

Would the spell be broken soon?

Knowing her husband loved her, knowing how deeply she loved him, would it make a difference to her if the glow of present days faded into the normalcy that Julia had spoken of the other day? If, rather than staying with her every night, Thomas would begin to return to his own bed, and his visits become less frequent? If the truth of these feelings were still there, would the normalcy she had known before become more palatable, should they find themselves there again?

Could she bear it if they did? Or was she simply enthralled with this madness and not with love at all?

It was impossible to know, without more time to explore the emotions and ideas, to see how they would feel when days had passed and bled into years. When they were so familiar with the other they needed no reminders of any aspect or facet. When they could read the other’s countenance with exactness. When they could truly think of the other before they thought of themselves.

Would the rush of it all now even matter then? Would they get to that point?

She had seen so few marriages based on love and even fewer that had gone on for an extended length of time. Her closest friends had married shortly after herself, it was true, and had found love in excess after the fact, which had given her hope for her own marriage, but five years hardly seemed enough time for any of them to know for certain.

Kate, Lady Whitlock, might have a wiser approach than any of them in these matters, given the length of her marriage. It would be worth some thought and perhaps a letter to the marchioness if she truly wished for advice on the subject.

Lily wasn’t particularly keen on sharing the details from her days in heaven with anyone at the moment, even if she were curious about the longevity of it. She refused to let these thoughts that plagued her solitude interfere with her remaining time in this paradise of theirs. There would be no sacrificing whatever remained of this blissful existence to attempt a greater understanding of it all.

She refused to be a bluebell on the moors, blooming for only a short time and trampled into nothingness. She would not have her time stolen away now that she had found such delight in it. Her husband adored her for the present, and, hopefully, forevermore.

She could not risk that when it still seemed so fragile.

Lily wanted this—the madness, the uncertainty, the chaos, the soul-soaring ecstasy of it all. She wanted all of it, in hoards and in waves, until she was consumed by the flames almost constantly licking at her heels.

She’d had enough of the sedate, unremarkable, empty, listless pattern of existence that their life together had been and the disappointment that had come with it.

Flying was so much better than not moving at all.

“Just when I am quite certain you cannot be any more beautiful, you prove me wrong.”

Warm ripples ran down Lily’s back as the voice she treasured above all others floated to her, and she turned in her place by the flower bed smiling over at him, somehow not blushing despite his praise. “With dirt smudges on my apron and my hair a mess, you can say that?”

The truth of the matter was that her husband was the beautiful sight, and