The River of No Return

not think that.” His smile was gone. “Your courage encourages me. In fact, I think we ought to walk again, quickly.” He held his arm out.
    She took it. They set out walking. Clare and Bella and Solvig were well ahead of them now, and just ahead the path dipped into some trees.
    “Did you read the poem?” he asked in a dry tone of voice, as if he were a schoolmaster.
    Her blood was singing in her ears. She could barely recall the poem now. She had just kissed him right out under the sun and clouds. And he had liked it. Julia felt a smile spread across her face. “Oh,” she said nonchalantly. “It was good enough.”
    “Good enough. You minx!” They passed under the trees, and they might have been all alone in a green world. “So it was all old hat to you, was it?” Falcott asked softly. “One of the most erotic poems in the English language?”
    She shrugged. “Maybe.”
    With a quick motion he grabbed her waist and pulled her close against him; she laughed, but his face was very serious. “Really, Julia? I would very much like to test your comprehension.”
    She pushed her hands against his chest. “Let me go, you provoking man. I understood it very well.”
    He released her and took her arm again. “All right then,” he said as they resumed walking, “answer me this. What does John Donne say about freedom?”
    Julia blinked. “Freedom? Freedom was not what I was paying attention to in that poem.”
    “And you claim to have read it carefully? Tut tut, Miss Percy. I am disappointed in you.”
    “Oh.” She sketched him a low curtsy. “Mr. Schoolmaster Lord Blackdown, sir. I am sorry to have fallen in your regard.” She held out her hand, palm up. “I am ready for the ruler.”
    “No, listen, Julia.” He caught the hand she held out and kissed the palm, then held it firmly as they continued walking. “The poem isn’t simply about . . .” She felt him searching for a word and was glad when he chose the plainest one. “It isn’t simply about sex. Listen.” He quoted: “‘How am I blest in thus discovering thee! To enter in these bonds, is to be free.’”
    They walked hand in hand for a moment, Julia’s playful courage dissipating. “I don’t understand what you are saying, my lord.”
    “You have called me Nicholas before. Please dispense with this ‘my lord’–ing.”
    “I cannot call you Nicholas in public. You are Blackdown.”
    “I am not Blackdown.” His voice was harsh, and his fingers tightened painfully around hers.
    “Are you not?” She looked up at his angry face. “Is that not the most signal thing about you?”
    His hand relaxed. “I’m sorry.” He managed a small smile. “I know it makes no sense. It’s just that I spent years liberated of that man, and I didn’t miss him at all. Now I’m back and I find it hard to make peace with him.”
    “You had amnesia.”
    “Yes,” he said slowly. “Across those years that I had forgotten myself, I became a different man. A man named Nick Davenant. Now that I am returned, I find that I don’t care very much for this great marquess, this Lord Blackdown.”
    She said nothing but held his hand tightly. Nick Davenant.
    Meanwhile Nick—she could never think of him as Blackdown again—dropped his gaze to their clasped hands. “When we last spoke about such grandiose topics as freedom, after that kiss, at the edge of the woods . . .”
    “You told me you were not free.”
    “I was not speaking of another woman, Julia.”
    “I know. You were talking of the count.”
    He stared. “How do you know that?”
    The truth wanted to burst from her. No . . . it wanted to rise from her like a feather on a breath of wind. But instead she dropped her gaze from his and walked more quickly, pulling on his hand. Who then was this Nick Davenant, this new man? She could not quite bring herself to trust him . . . or to break faith with Grandfather.
    They emerged from the trees into the sunlight, and Nick took her arm decorously again, but she could feel the tension in him. When he spoke, his voice was low and urgent. “What do you know about Count Lebedev? What do you know about me? What do you know . . . about your grandfather?”
    “My grandfather?” Julia’s heart lurched. This was cutting to the heart of the matter. Soon enough he would be asking her about time! “Nothing,” she said emphatically, her memory flashing to Grandfather on his deathbed, begging her to pretend. Her thoughts toppled into