Falling in Love With English Boys (32 page)

“Since you offered me tea in your flat. Especially when you told me you wanted a satellite for your birthday. In the Royal Academy, at Hatchards, standing in front of that bloody Napoleon statue. I wanted to kiss you last night, but you went all spastic on me just at the moment.”

I remembered and winced at the memory. “Not my finest moment. I was thinking of . . . Hey!” Bad thought. Bad. And then, what’s a worse thought?—that there is a girlfriend, or that there might not be a girlfriend but I might totally ruin the Moment by asking?

Like there’s any contest. I asked. “What about your girlfriend? The very
bella
Bella.”

Well, ladies, as it happens, the very
bella
Bella has had very dubious girlfriend status since India. They fought endlessly through Italy, almost split up three times between Venice and Jaipur, and called it quits at the Delhi train station. He was relieved (“It had been pretty awful for a few months”); she apparently had second thoughts during her time in Greece (“She started calling all the time when she got back, wanting to
talk
”), and even I understand how hard it can be to completely, totally close the door on something that had been going on for so long and was, at least for part of it, good (“So much
history . . .
”).

“You asked me,” he said. “You asked me how long we’d been together and I wanted to say we
weren’t
together, but she was back and calling and you were so bloody cool, Cat. Like a cat. I couldn’t read you . . .”

Cool like a cat. Oh, stop laughing, Jen.

Turns out I was right: he didn’t have a clue that I liked him. Gotta remember to tell Consuelo. Crap. Totally forgot to tell Consuelo about the fight she and Bayard never had.

Forgot everything for the next hour or so.

“Come on,” Will said eventually. “There’s something I meant to show you before.” He held my hand all the way upstairs.

Boys’ rooms are always kinda strange, no matter who lives in them. Either they’re filled with dusty sports trophies, or the walls are covered with posters of scowling, diamond-grilled rappers or swimsuit models (I hate to admit Adam had one of each), or the technology cords cover everything like colorful snakes. They all smell like socks, the level of stinkiness determined, I think, by the resilience of whoever does the cleaning.

Will’s room does have a very faint sock thang going, but otherwise it’s good. No posters, no trophies, no cables. The only definitive boy-was-here display is a group of tin soldiers on top of a glossy old table. There are a lot of books, a few framed maps and paintings on the walls, a very slick laptop, and even slicker plasma-screen TV. A big, tiled fireplace takes up the middle of one wall; a big, modern-looking bed takes up the one opposite. I didn’t want to spend too much time looking at the bed.

So, I’m thinking, What if he wants to . . . I mean here, now . . . There’s a real bed but no flowers or “I love you” or . . . Right place, wrong time? Right time, wrong place? How about anyplace. Another time.

He did that mind-reading thing. “As much as I have thought about it, Cat, about you—as much as I intend to keep thinking about it and you, this isn’t the time. Or place. So relax.” And he sez he can’t read me. I must have looked and sounded like a deflating balloon. “A little less visible relief would be nice for my fragile ego.”

So I kissed him, to show him his ego had nothing to fear, and he was the one who had to (gently) disentangle us after a few more minutes.

“I thought you’d like to see that.” He pointed to the painting on the wall above the desk.

I took a closer look. “It’s Katherine!”

I’d seen the b&w photocopy, with the diary, but that was like seeing a kid’s clay model of the Golden Gate Bridge. The portrait isn’t all that big, but it’s amazing. I gotta go look at more of Turner’s stuff. She was really beautiful: rose-and-ivory skin and incredible topaz-colored eyes. I could even see a little of the modern-day Percivals there in the masses of dark hair and determined chin.

“I don’t know if it’s incredibly sweet or kinda creepy that you have this on your wall.”

Will shrugged. “She came with the room. In fact, she was right there when my great-grandfather lived here. He wrote about it in a letter to my great-grandmother before they got married. Says that’s why he first fell in love with her: she reminded him of the girl he’d grown up looking at. I think maybe this was Katherine’s room when she lived here.”

Ever get that dizzy feeling when something weird-but-good happens? Between all the smooching and the letter in the
Waverley
and the picture, I thought maybe I would sit down for a sec. I opted for one of the two armchairs near the fireplace. It creaked so loudly that I spent a tense moment waiting for it to collapse under me.

“That chair,” Will said, “once supported Lord Byron’s arse. Of course, it might have been the other one—” He laughed as I very carefully and gingerly levered myself out. “Oh, for God’s sake, Cat, it’s just a chair. Far more interesting things have probably happened on pieces of our furniture than on that one. Sit.”

Instead, I wandered over to look at the soldiers. They were old and well loved; some were missing their weapons, some bits of their paint. Will leaned past me and picked up a particularly battered one. “The Duke of Wellington. Probably made a few years after Waterloo.” He chose another. This one was smaller, rounder, and was wearing a sillier hat. “Napoleon.”

He handed them to me. They were cold and heavier than you’d think, and I had this image of generations of little Percivals banging them against each other in endless battle. “Did these come with the room, too?”

“Nope, but they’ve been handed down from Percival son to Percival son for at least a hundred years. There’s this cool but weird thing in my family: for the last hundred and fifty years, every male Percival has had one son and one daughter. No more, no less.”

Okay, smack me, but of course I thought it: I could live with that—one boy, one girl.

I dunno if Will was thinking the same thing. Probably not. They never do. He was probably thinking about whether we could both fit in one of the Byron chairs.

We could. At least until his phone went and we both nearly jumped out of our skins. It’s just too easy to forget there are other people in the world when you’re with a guy who kisses like he does.

“My dad,” he said, looking at the screen. “Dinner’s ready. He made ham and farm greens.”

Dinner was fine. The rest of the evening was mahvelous. Will has asked me to pass on a message to you:

•
Will here. Just a few things I feel I ought to set straight: since Catherine won’t let me read her blog, I have decided it’s only fair that she refer to me in all future posts as Prince William, His Studliness, or 007.

•
She has promised to keep certain details out of print.

•
I think she’s f—well, pretty bloody amazing.

•
I will be very, very good to her for as long as she’ll let me.

•
I promise.

I do not know what I would do in these terrible days without Nicholas. He has come to us each morning after he has been to Whitehall, with whatever information he has been able to gather. There is little.

We know the battle began near midday on Sunday last, began, I imagine, just as we were returning home from services at St. James’s. It ended near midnight, near the time that I set aside
Waverley
and extinguished my candle. We know the fighting was fierce, and both sides felt certain of both victory and defeat over the many hours. We know that thousands of men fell, and that our forces were victorious.

I feel disloyal to my country, but what is victory when I do not know if my brother is among the men who fell?

We received a letter this morning, and our hearts leapt. Upon opening it, we saw that it was not news we wished to hear. Charles had posted it two days before the battle.

Brussels, June 14

My Dearest Family,

I have too little time to write, and too much to say.

It has been confirmed that the enemy has moved, and is within twelve miles of where I sit. Hence, we, too, shall move. After all the waiting and the anticipation that slid into complacence and ennui, the time for battle has surely come. I am not frightened. I have done this before; I know what to expect. And in knowing, I also know how important it is for me to send this letter. I can think of little worse than to meet any sort of misfortune and not have taken even these mere minutes to send you my boundless and grateful love.

Also, I must beg an indulgence of you, Kitty, and ask you to deliver a message for me. I have not time to write another letter, yet things must be said. Try not to be angry at either me or the party to whom I will ask you to speak. Our attachment developed quickly and simply. We had not been in each other’s company more than a half-dozen times before we realised how nearly incomprehensible it was that we had ever
not
known each other, or loved. She is my second half, and I hers. We agreed to keep our attachment silent until my return, so that we might have the joy of telling each of our families when gathered. I am such a blithe fellow; when not actually facing battle, I conveniently forget what battles truly are. Now, with only the certainty of violence ahead, and no certainty of ever seeing England or those people I love again, I regret that. So, Kitty Kit, say aloud, “Yes, Charles, I promise not to be angry and to deliver your message.” Go on. Say it.

I made Mama stop reading and did as he asked, speaking the words aloud.

Now, please, when next you see Luisa Hartnell, tell her this: I
shall
return to her, and when I do, I will not leave again. Yet, and I wish I did not have to write these words, should I breathe my last on a Belgian field, it will be with gratitude for having had even a day of her love. Tell her not to mourn long, but to be happy for the time we had, and when she is old and grey and sitting surrounded by grandchildren, to remember one man who loved her well and not nearly long enough.

For you, Mama, and you, Katherine, I have not adequate words. You have been my cornerstone, the core upon what the best of me is built, and the Home to which I have always cherished the return. Pray that I shall have one last such return from war and no more to it.

Yours ever,
Charles

Luisa. Charles loves Luisa and she him. I thought, for the merest instant, that I should be angry for the secrecy, for the fact that they must have met in private, perhaps even in the middle of very public places, and found themselves so connected that the rest of the world, that
I
disappeared. Yet I am not angry. What better connection to have, than my brother and my dearest friend?

I have not wished to go out in the days since we received word of the battle. I have thought it best to be home at every moment, in order to be here for the
one
moment when that all-important missive arrives. Mama has urged me to go; Nicholas has done the same. Luisa came this morning, as she has done every day. Now that I am aware of her circumstances, I am awed anew by her kindness. Always it has been about my worries. In retrospect, I know now that she has been paler of late, and has certainly grown thinner even in a mere few days. Still, not once did she require comfort from me, only offered it. Tonight I shall accede to Mama and Nicholas’s urgings and attend the Stuarts’ party. I shall give Luisa Charles’s message. I do not think I shall be very merry, but I expect I shall not be alone. Among those celebrating England’s victory are many like me, still waiting for news of brothers and sons and husbands who were part of it.

When I told Mama of my intentions, she wholeheartedly approved. Her own health has not been helped by this waiting, but she rallied and will, I believe, be well enough to accompany me.

“Shall you feel easy in the company of Mr. Baker and Miss Northrop, should they be in attendance?” she asked after we had sent off a note to Nicholas.

“Oh, certainly” was my reply. Oddly enough, it is true. I have thought so little of Mr. Baker in the last few days that I was almost surprised to have to do so now.

He bruised my heart in his way—as did Papa in his—but had no power to break it. I do not think I care to sit and have a cosy chat with him, but I believe I will be able to be in the same room and feel neither fury nor sorrow. A little sadness, perhaps, for the loss of my romantic plans.
They
made me quite happy. Mr. Baker did, perhaps, for a short and illusory time, but I think could not have in the end.