Timeswept Brides

Or perhaps it was only his near-death experience that had shown him how precious love is, how unimportant in this life are anything and everything else but love.

Only Adèle mattered.

He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it. "A pe

She looked up with luminous eyes, which she was trying to keep quiet and dignified. He knew her so well. He knew her thoughts. Adèle had always been a part of himself, the uncompleted part of himself until he had married her and united his body and his heart with hers.

"I have never waltzed," she said. "Perhaps I will disgrace you."

He smiled slowly at her. "You dance beautifully," he said.

"You have never seen me dance," she said. "We have never danced together."

"We have," he said quietly. He wished the carriage were not dark inside. He wanted to see her blush. "We move together perfectly. We always share the same perfect rhythm."

She looked at him blankly for a moment. And then he saw comprehension light her eyes. "John," she whispered. "Oh, for shame."

He lowered his head and kissed her. "As I thought," he said. "I ca

"For shame," she said again. "Where are your ma

But he knew she was pleased. She always called him "sir" when she was pleased.

He wondered suddenly how it was he had recovered from his consumption. He did not know of anyone else who had done so. For what sort of miracle had he been singled out? And why? It must have been done as a reward for Adèle's goodness. Certainly there was nothing he had done in his life to deserve such a reprieve. And then he felt dizzy- and remembered exactly what the miracle had been. Except that it seemed too fantastic and too bizarre to be believed. Had it really happened?

Their arrival at the assembly rooms was greeted with avid curiosity and great enthusiasm. The assemblies were open to everyone, he and Adèle had been told, there not being enough people of the upper classes to make them worth holding. There was a certain charm, he thought, about mingling with people of all classes, about watching groups of farm laborers performing an energetic and intricate Welsh folk dance, and about hearing the Welsh and English languages mingling in the conversations about them.

Not many of those present knew the steps of the waltz. Only two other couples apart from him and Adèle took the floor when the dance was a

There had been a time, he thought as the music started, when he had waltzed as an excuse to get a female body against his own-a body that he hoped to put beneath his own on the bed at his flat after the dance was over. He could not for the moment remember when that time could have been. But now he danced the waltz as it was meant to be danced, keeping Adèle at arm's length from his body, twirling her to the steps of the dance about the perimeter of the ballroom.

There were murmurs of appreciation from the nondancers, a smattering of applause. There was the exhilation of moving to music and no thought for the moment of his weakness. And there was the beauty and grace of his partner. She soon forgot her alarm at having to waltz for the first time before an audience. She kept her eyes on his and followed his lead as if she were a part of him.

He forgot the audience. He forgot their surroundings. He forgot they were waltzing. They danced together as they made love-in perfect rhythm, in perfect harmony, a world and a universe unto themselves.

He loved her. He had always loved her-from the begi

It was over too soon. He was dazed when the music stopped and he realized that he had been merely waltzing with her in the assembly rooms at Awelfa. She was flushed and bright-eyed and so beautiful that he found himself looking around jealously at all the other men present.

She is mine, he foolishly wanted to warn them all.

"John." She stepped a little closer to him as a crescendo of applause and laughter greeted their efforts and those of the other two couples. "You are tired. Sit down for a while."

"Yes, little guardian angel," he said, gri

He spent an interesting hour sitting and talking with a group of men on a variety of topics, including the state of farming in West Wales and the dangers of the coast for navigation. There was great need for lighthouses and other warning devices in the area, it seemed. Adèle-he scarcely took his eyes off her all the time-talked and laughed with other women and danced one quadrille with a portly tenant farmer who had two left feet and no musical sense at all. Yet she smiled at him throughout the set with sweet charm.

She was at home in this sort of place with this sort of people, he thought. As was he. The thought surprised him. He had always loved the country, but he had always been restless and eager to get back to the bustle and the sophistication of town life. He felt no such eagerness now. He still felt, as he had felt a few weeks ago, that he could stay here forever. Provided Adèle was here, his whole world was here. And perhaps there would be children. Now where had he heard recently that there would indeed be children? Who had predicted something so unpredictable?

But of course he knew it himself. He knew it from his own studies of family history. He found himself frowning. How could he have studied the future? But then it was not the future he had studied. It was the past. He was from the second half of the twentieth century. How could such a momentous fact keep slipping away from him?

It was long past midnight when he and Adèle finally rode home. She curled up against him on the carriage seat when he set an arm about her shoulders, and yawned.

"Sleepy?" he asked, rubbing his cheek against her hair.

"Mm," she said. And then she sat up hastily. "But you are the one who must be tired, John."

He chuckled and brought her head back where it belonged. "Did you enjoy the evening?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. "Everyone was kind and very friendly. Mrs. Beynon was trying to teach me some Welsh. But everyone went off into peals of merriment at something I repeated after her. I dared not ask what it was I had actually said." She giggled.

He yawned.

"John," she said, spreading a hand on his chest. "It must have seemed quite pathetic in comparison with ton balls. Did you find it very-provincial?"

He understood her insecurities far better than she realized. He had taken Adèle and her constant, unconditional love so much for granted in the past. He had given her no such constancy in return.

"I have never enjoyed a ball as much as tonight's," he said, shrugging his shoulder so that he could touch her lips with his own. "Because you were there with me, Adèle. Because all evening long I could feast my eyes on you and tell myself that you were mine."

"Oh." Her lips formed the shape of the word against his. He felt the warm exhalation of her breath.

He kissed her.

Sometimes, he thought, he could almost persuade himself that he had died and gone to heaven after all-only to find her there before him, waiting for him so that she could love him for all eternity.

And so that he could love her for an equal length of time.

He was going to bathe in the ocean. It was a dreadful thing to do, because the ocean water was always cold and there were always waves and breakers to take one unawares. He was just asking to catch a chill. He was so very much better-full of new strength and vigor, slender still but no longer painfully thin. But there was no point in tempting fate.