Decisions were permanent, and although we could regret some of them, we couldn’t call them back.  I had made some poor ones.  Neil had too.  I guess the best we could hope for, was to love each other as honestly as possible on each day we had left together.  And hope for many, many long years of those days in our future.

He still had his head in my lap when he asked, “I want to take you somewhere before we go back to London.  Please?”

“Of course, my darling,” I answered immediately.  “Wherever you go, so must I.”

25

From Washington D.C., Neil brought me to Scotland.

He told me he just wanted one weekend where we could rest and be together, without any distractions from work, or the myriad of other problems that had a way of taking one’s attention away from what you really wanted to be doing.  He wanted me all to himself.

He’d also said that it was time for me to see his inheritance from the uncle he’d never met.

The whole idea of it still amazed me.  Neil, a landowner, and from the looks of it, there was a lot of land involved.

  “I can’t believe this,” I mumbled looking from the window as the car pulled into a long drive bordered with more trees.

“What can’t you believe, Cherry?”  Neil was doing that thing where he liked to surprise me and gave virtually no information, just to torture me.  Made me insane, but he sure seemed to be enjoying himself.

“This is a bloody estate with an enormous amount of land and, well, you made out like it was just an old house on a plot with some trees, not something out of Pride and Prejudice.”

“Is that Mr. Darcy’s house you mean?”

“Yes, it was named Pemberley, if you care to know.”  I still hadn’t seen Neil’s house come into view, and was getting very impatient as I peered out the window.

“I’ll make a note of it.”  He leaned over to give me a kiss on the side of my temple.  “I know how you love your romance books.  You’re always reading in bed.”

“And you’re always making a point to distract me when I’m trying to read in bed.”

“Damn straight, woman.  Do you think I’m a moron or something?” He nuzzled my neck.

“Shhh.”  I pointed stealthily in the direction of our cab driver with my finger.

“But I’m just kissing your neck,” Neil whispered, “that doesn’t make any sound.”

I continued looking out the window, and let out a scream about a minute later when our cab turned down what looked to be a private road.

“Who is needing a very firm “shhh” now, huh?”

I didn’t pay any attention to him.  My eyes were riveted to what framed the road.  Lining both sides of us were trees completely covered with white and pink blossoms.  A surprise for November, but they were definitely blooming.  The Autumn Cherry.  It comes into bloom for a second time in autumn.  All the way up the drive leading to his house.

“These are the autumn cherry trees you told me about…”

“Yes, darlin’.  Aren’t they pretty?”

I didn’t answer him.  I couldn’t because my vocal chords had frozen.  I nodded my reply to him with my hand firmly attached to the window of the cab.

Rivers of tears were streaming down my face.

* * *

The next minutes were a blur as I indulged in an ugly-cry moment.  Neil seemed to know what to do with me, though.  Thankfully, he took charge of everything else in his life so competently, and, it seemed, me as well.  He’d always had an uncanny ability to know when he needed to—the part about taking charge of me.

He paid the driver and sent him away, before leading me up the stone steps of his house on very wobbly feet.

Mansion was a much more accurate description of what I was staring at.

Four massive, white stone pillars held up the façade, which framed a beautiful door painted in a rich shade of dark blue.  Yellow and grey stone, trimmed with white bricks made up the rest of it.  The house was flanked by colossal pine and oak trees on a lush green park, that spread out for what seemed like miles.

He then greeted an older man, with graying hair, who appeared to be waiting at the top of the steps for us.  Neil introduced him to me as Batesman, and the two of them had a small chat, while my knees felt like they would buckle at any moment.  I made a valiant attempt to say hello and not frighten the poor man to an early death.  Highly doubtful I could be successful on that one.  Well, we would just have to wait and see if Mr. Batesman died in his sleep tonight, wouldn’t we?  Wait, more importantly begged the question—Neil had a servant?  In his Scottish mansion?  On his frickin’ country estate?!

My head suddenly ached terribly.

I needed a ginormous glass of red and then a chaser of something much stronger.  This was Scotland; maybe there were bottles of hundred-year-old Scotch down in the cellars left over from the smuggling days of Jack Sparrow and his ilk.  I’d bet my sarcastic thought was closer to the mark than not.

I followed along as he led me by the hand, and felt more and more out of my element.  My sense of security with him, of us, felt strangely threatened.  This was all something new to me.  A part of him I had no knowledge of, introduced into his life at a time when I wasn’t there.  He’d learned everything of this place…without me.

I let him lead me along blindly, as I was no longer able to see anything of the inside of his magnificent house, my eyes so blurry with tears.