Summerset Abbey: Spring Awakening (Summerset Abbey Trilogy) (32 page)

“God forbid,” he breathed reverently, and bent to kiss her lips.

His mustache tickled her upper lip enticingly, and heat rose from Victoria’s toes and swept through her entire body. She broke away, gasping again. “I can’t breathe!”

His eyes gleamed at her. “I can’t either. Your asthma must be catching.”

Tenderness filled her and tears came to her eyes again. “I do love you so, Kit.”

He grinned down at her, a smug look crossing his face. “You know this means I was right all along, don’t you?”

*  *  *

It seemed appropriate that the wedding would take place in the rose garden their father had redesigned. They had planned on having the ceremony in the conservatory if the weather hadn’t held, but the day had dawned clear and the spring rains had been held at bay.

Rowena wore a simple dress of burnt umber that didn’t quite reach her ankles. Instead of an ornate veil, she had twisted her hair up, and Victoria had adorned her with lilies, their father’s favorite flower. Victoria stood by her side, and Colin had managed to get leave at the last minute and had joined the wedding party to stand for Sebastian. Kit hadn’t been able to come and Victoria had been crushed.

Rowena glanced at her baby sister while the vicar nattered on and on. Victoria simply glowed with love. She and Kit had broken everyone’s heart by getting married hastily the last time he was on leave. Aunt Charlotte had been so grateful that she was actually going to get to attend Rowena’s wedding that she hadn’t made much of a fuss over the arrangements. Maybe even Aunt Charlotte could see that things were changing.

Just as Rowena’s father had said they would.

Prudence couldn’t make it because Maggie Rose was still too young and too tiny to be out and about. Besides, Prudence and Andrew were so wrapped up in one another that they couldn’t be bothered. Soon Andrew would be at school and Prudence would be busy with her duties keeping house for Andrew and taking care of her baby. The role fit Prudence far better than she ever thought it would. Rowena could feel Prudence’s love and blessings all the way from London.

A bee, no doubt attracted to her lilies, buzzed around her for a moment before being lured away by the sweeter scent of the roses surrounding them.

It was funny how quickly even a society wedding could be arranged if the participants brooked no opposition to their plans. Sebastian had written Rowena two weeks ago, telling her he would be on leave, and she wrote back telling him to come prepared to be married. The cable he sent back said simply,
I am always ready to marry you
.

She caught Sebastian’s eyes and smiled. Contentment settled in her heart like a curled-up cat. She loved this man. She might not love him in the same wild way she had loved Jonathon, but this love would not burn out like a firework; the love she shared with Sebastian was steady and sure and full of hope for a good life and future.

Her voice as she repeated her vows was strong, for she had never been more sure of anything in her life, except perhaps her passion for flight. Mr. and Mrs. Dirkes stood behind her in the crowd as did Cristobel. At first, Rowena was hesitant to ask Jonathon’s mother to attend, but Mr. Dirkes assured her that she would be touched by the gesture. Their presence here on Summerset land told her more than anything else how things
had changed. The new Mrs. Dirkes had even treated her uncle cordially, though Cristobel had been much more reserved in her greeting. Rowena understood. The pain of losing one’s father never went away.

But today, Rowena almost felt as if her father were with her, especially as she gazed over the garden, the early roses just now blooming with color.

Sebastian turned to her and she realized she had been daydreaming and it was now time for him to kiss her. His lips met hers and she thrilled at his touch. She would have a good life with this man. He pulled away, his dark eyes smiling deeply into hers. Then they turned to the small gathering to the sound of applause.

Just then another sound caught Rowena’s ear, and she glanced upward automatically. It sounded like one of the new, experimental SPADs Mr. Dirkes was collaborating on.

“Merciful heavens!” Aunt Charlotte cried. “It’s an air raid!”

“I hardly think it’s an air raid, dear,” Uncle Conrad said mildly. He seemed pleased with himself, and she turned to Mr. Dirkes, who put his hands up in the air. “It’s not an air raid, folks, don’t be alarmed. It’s a little surprise for Rowena.”

“I told you people would be alarmed,” Rowena heard Mrs. Dirkes say.

The air filled with the sound of aeroplanes as three new SPADs flew low over the wedding party, sharply lifting over the high roof of Summerset. Rowena shaded her eyes as they circled around in unison.

Cristobel clapped her hands. “How wonderful!”

“What a fabulous idea!” Elaine agreed.

Rowena turned to Mr. Dirkes, whose broad face held a pleased smile at the success of his surprise. “You did this!”

“I thought you would like that,” he said. “It was partly Albert’s idea, but it took some finagling to get the timing right. They’ll be heading on to Dover after this.”

Tears filled Rowena’s eyes. “Thank you so much. I can’t tell you how much this means to me.”

Mr. Dirkes pointed to the sky. “Watch now.”

All turned their gazes upward as the planes swooped to make another low pass, then gasped as the three aeroplanes seemed to wave their wings at the wedding party.

Sebastian’s arm tightened about Rowena’s shoulders, and she watched as the aeroplanes flew off into the distance.

I
cried when I finished writing
Summerset Abbey: Spring Awakening.
When authors spend as much time with their characters as I do—especially when those characters and storylines span an entire trilogy—we become incredibly attached to them. This was especially true for me. You see, shortly after signing the contract for the
Summerset
books, I was diagnosed with throat cancer and underwent treatment and recovery while writing these stories. So Rowena, Prudence, and Victoria will always be very special to me. Whenever life became too overwhelming or I was in too much pain, I would immerse myself in their lives to escape from my own. I was transported over and over to Edwardian England to spend time in the gracious manor houses, luscious green fields, and chic London salons that define the landscape of these women’s lives. My heart ached when Prudence realized that her life had irrevocably changed following Sir Phillip’s death, and I rejoiced when her baby was born safe and sound. I feared for Victoria when she was imprisoned and cried when she realized that Kit was her true love only after sending him away. And finally, I sobbed with Rowena as she said goodbye to her first, passion-filled love and instead married the man she would grow old with.

This young women became a treasured part of my life and I will never forget them. Thank you for allowing me to tell you their stories. I hope you loved them as much as I did.

gallery readers group guide

summerset abbey:

Spring Awakening

t. j. Brown

Sisters Rowena and Victoria Buxton and Prudence Tate, who was raised as their sister, are all trying to understand where they fit in their newly reshaped family and in Edwardian England when World War I breaks out and changes everything. Prudence’s husband, Andrew, is shipped off to war just weeks before she discovers she’s pregnant with their first child; Rowena accepts a daring mission transporting planes for the British government as a female pilot and crosses paths with a former lover who makes her question her engagement to Sebastian; Victoria is pushed to her limits when she’s sent to an active combat zone in France as a volunteer nurse—and when she realizes she’s made a terrible mistake in sending Kit away. Their independent spirits are tested and their lives changed as war alters everything they thought they knew about life . . . and about love.

1. Has anyone in your group read the two previous novels in the Summerset Abbey series? Is there anyone who has not? Did you find it easy to follow the story without the first two books for context? How does it enrich the experience to have read them? Discuss how the reading experience changes when you are reading a part of a series.

2. When Rowena is waiting for Sebastian in Brighton, she wanders into a bookstore, thinking that “
losing herself in a book would be a welcome distraction
.” Have you ever felt that way about reading? What is it that drives you to read? What role do books play in the characters’ lives, especially given the lines from literature they quote throughout the story?

3. “
This is way it had always been done and the way it will always be done
,” Elaine says of the Christmas gift-giving at Summerset Abbey. How do you see this reverence for tradition in other areas of the characters’ lives? Is what ways is this changing in the timeframe of the story, and why? Do you see any of the characters successfully breaking free from tradition? Are there ways they choose not to?

4. How do the different settings for this story enhance and even define what occurs in them? Think about how scenes set at the different locales—Summerset Abbey, Victoria’s single-girl London flat, Prudence’s small city apartment, Brighton—are influenced by the rooms and worlds in which they take place. How does the absence of the Mayfair House loom over the characters and their actions?

5. In many stories about war, the men go off to fight while the women stay home and keep the home front running. That model is upended here—Rowena flies war planes and even faces down enemy aircraft, while Victoria heads to the front to nurse the wounded. In what other ways do the characters defy our expectations in this story? What do you think the author’s intentions were in writing nontraditional roles for her characters? Is it effective?

6. “
She’d proven her worth and her skill and yet she was still being held back because of her sex
,” Rowena stews
when Mr. Dirkes tells her she can’t fly across the channel. Rowena is not the only character facing discrimination because she is a woman, though. What roadblocks do the other characters face? How do they react?

7. Do you think the men in this story are limited by the roles they are approved to play, much as the women are? Almost all of the young men in the story join the war effort. How many of them do you think chose that role, and which were conscripted into service because that was what they felt they had to join up? How much freedom do any of the characters—male or female—really have over their lives?

8. Rowena likes flying because, “
up here she was in control of her own destiny
.” But is she? She is reliant not only on having the aircraft available to her—the plane her uncle bought for her; the planes Mr. Dirkes allows her to fly—but also the functioning of that equipment and the weather, both of which are out of her control. Do you think Rowena is deluding herself? Or do you think she is grasping at the small bits of power she is allowed to have? In what ways do we sometimes keep from admitting the whole truth about our motives?

9. “
I would very much like to marry you, as long as we would be equal partners and you would give me equal say, no matter what the conventional mandates of marriage would imply
,” Victoria tells Kit. As readers, we love her strong, spunky view of the institution. But her idea of marriage seems to reflect modern attitudes. Do they seem at all anachronistic to you? Does it matter to you if they are? How much do we necessarily read our values into a text, and how do you think that changes our understanding of a character?

10. In light of the feminist themes throughout the book, what do you make of the fact that everyone assumed Prudence’s baby would be a boy?

11. Rowena admits she will always love passionate, volatile Jonathan, even as she falls for and prepares to marry steady, strong Sebastian. Which man do you think she ultimately loved more? Which do you find more appealing, and why?

12. What do make of the title
Spring Awakening
? How do you see themes found in imagery of spring—new life, blooming, resurrection—throughout this story? Do you see awakening as an apt illustration for what happens to Victoria, Rowena, and Prudence? The book shares its title with a controversial play and also echoes the title of Kate Chopin’s novel
The Awakening
, both of which focus on themes of transgression. Do you see any echoes of that in this story?

13. By the end of the book, Rowena is married to Sebastian, Victoria is engaged to Kit, and Prudence and Andrew are married and have a baby. Through the course of the series—and, in fact, through the course of this book—each pair took a roundabout road toward love. Which sister do you think is the happiest with her choices by the end, especially as they relate to marriage?

14. Despite the modern ideas about marriage and family threaded through the story, this book ends with all three sisters married or on the road to marriage. Do you think it could have ended any other way? Would you have been disappointed if it did? What makes it so satisfying to us to see the characters fall in love? Do you believe that readers always want a happy ending, and if so, what do you think it says about our desires?