Simon

Before removing his coat or loosening his neck cloth, Simon found and opened the letter. Cora had been right—his anticipation was intense to hear her reply.

Dearest Simon,

Yes.

Sincerely,

Cora

Simon barked out a laugh. This was the answer she coyly withheld from him as they sat on the garden bench? Suddenly, he considered other questions he might ask that would warrant such a simple answer and greatly please him to receive. Would you care to dance? Will you come with me? Would you stay longer? Can I do something for you? May I kiss you? Would you be my duchess, my wife? May I hold you? The list seemed inexhaustible.

He hoped that in the future he would receive many such answers from Cora. Then he read and reread her answer. Five words—each one seemed significant to him. “Dearest”—he hoped she chose that word carefully and meant it keenly. “Simon.” She didn’t use “Duke” or “Mister” or any other title that obscured who he really was. He wanted her to see him and the simple use of his name told him that she did. Finally, “sincerely.” He wondered which synonym could be substituted here and retain her emotional intent. Genuinely. Profoundly. Wholeheartedly.

After savoring the message, he continued reading the postscript to the letter.

P.S. As you know, I’m a good shot. Is the hunt competitive? It’s okay if it’s not. I just want to have my game face on if I need it. Are there rules I ought to know about hunting parties?

My father thought it was important for me to learn to shoot and began taking me with him after my ninth birthday. My first hunting trip was for rabbit. We bagged a couple and took them home. He was a firm believer in two things: if you shoot it, you clean it, and if you shoot it, you eat it. That’s something I respect. I did both and felt such pride in my accomplishment that I volunteered to attend hunts with him whenever he asked.

What will we be hunting? Whatever it is, we’ll be eating it. Now that you know my two rules, how do you feel about having me come along?

My father and I spent many hunting seasons together over the years. I’ve bagged and eaten deer, antelope, elk, bear (very mild flavor), bison (not unlike well-aged beef but with an even richer flavor), and various fowl. I have only ever refused to hunt pheasant. They’re too beautiful to shoot. So I hope that isn’t what you’ve invited me for, or I will have to stay in the house and sew a pillow or something equally dull.    

Simon read the letter several times. The delight never faded. Before going to bed, he stacked it with the others she’d sent.

The next morning, though strictly speaking it was past midday, Simon ambled past the door to the family dining room for the third time in an hour to see if Cora had come down for breakfast yet. Apparently, his sisters and Lady Atkins had entered since the last time he’d checked. There was no way he would enter now and risk getting invited to sit near them. He had a much more inviting plan for a breakfast companion. He ducked back around the doorway.

Simon knew Cora was up, so he’d just wait for her to appear. He’d walked past her assigned bedchamber before he’d come downstairs an hour and a half ago and heard battle sounds. He’d smiled, imagining her exercising inside like he’d witnessed a month ago. She was small but fierce.

He would soon have to leave Aunt Nellie’s house to check on some business interests on his way to returning to his home. That meant only one more day of Cora’s company before several days without. He’d make the most of it—riding, taking walks, games or cards possibly—whatever she’d like.

“Good morning, Your Grace.”

Simon spun on his heels to find Cora scooting behind him to enter the breakfast room. “No, you don’t. There will be no “Your Grace” or “Duke” or anything except Simon between us.” He offered his arm, and they entered together. He didn’t even tick his eyes toward the other women but led Cora directly to the sideboard laden with everything a guest might want.

Simon enjoyed watching her fill her plate—ham, tomatoes, baked beans, mushrooms, eggs with crumbled black pudding. She sat at the corner of the table as far away from the other women as possible. Predictable and preferable.

He carried his own plate, balancing the extra scones, and laid it at the head of the table across the corner from Cora, putting her on his right. As he did, two scones tipped on the edge but didn’t fall.

“Oh, Simon, do come sit with us this morning,” his sister Georgia said overly loudly even for Simon’s hearing.

It annoyed him that his sister would so blatantly ignore Cora’s presence. He hoped that in her exuberance to pair him with Lady Atkins, her manners slipped unintentionally. He nodded toward the ladies and managed the smallest smile. “Good morning. I’m afraid now that my plate is set, I dare not pick it up again. Since Miss Rey is likewise already sitting, we’ll stay. Enjoy your breakfast.”

As Cora began cutting a piece of ham, he noticed that each of the other women had but toast and tea set before them. There were so many little things he loved about this woman. Before he and Cora finished, he asked, “Would you care to go riding today?”

“Darn. I’ll have to say no. Aunt Nellie has arranged an outing for the children, and I’m helping attend them. We’re going to the river, so they can play in the water—really to have a picnic and fishing, but we all know how that’s going to turn out.”

“Perhaps next week, then.” Simon tried not to show it, but he felt robbed of her company. He had received a message that he needed to leave earlier than he’d originally planned, so he could take a small detour to assess a bridge that had been damaged in recent rainstorms. At the latest, he needed to leave before evening. He was grateful that she had accepted his invitation to his home, and they were not parting company for a long period, merely a few days.

“Why don’t you come with us?” Cora’s touch to his shoulder turned his attention immediately to her. “Not really a ducal thing to do, so you’ll have to leave your persona behind and just be yourself for a few hours.”

Was she challenging him? He was never more himself than when he was with her. Cora’s smile said she knew exactly what she was doing—that her request was just the thing she knew he’d rather do.

“Thank you. I accept.”

“Wear something that can get muddy. We’re meeting at the pavilion in an hour.”

When the time had passed, the children ran ahead with Nellie and a maid as Simon and Cora followed the group. By the time they got to the banks of the pond, Aunt Nellie had tossed in a number of lines and had children settled in for fishing. Simon directed Cora to a simple wooden bridge overlooking the stream that fed the pond and pulled her down to sit with him on the edge.

They sat silently, Cora watching the children and Simon watching her. She was sitting so close that her arm gently brushed against him as her feet swung beneath the deck of the bridge.

The afternoon sun shone without clouds obscuring the sky—a rare thing that. They sat companionably for a few minutes before he asked, “You said that your mother was deaf. What was that like?” Simon worried that his condition would worsen with age, as hearing often did. How would he communicate with friends and family? Would he just be left alone and outcast? Perhaps he was hoping that her experience would give him hope.

“I don’t know. Being Deaf was normal for my mom, and I didn’t know anything else. I could hear my dad, and I could see my mom.”

“How did she get your attention when you were in trouble?”

“I never got in trouble.”

Simon laughed.

“Well, she signed my name, or she waved her arms or stamped her feet to get my attention.”

“Could she speak?” Simon’s question seemed to startle Cora.

“No. But many who are deaf can. I guess you wouldn’t know the possibilities not having grown up around it. We used sign when it was just our family around. It was my mother’s language—it was her voice. Her hands moved in a way that conveyed the words that anyone could sign, but in a way that was uniquely her. If I could have seen only her hands signing, I would have been able to pick her out from the way they moved.”

Simon noted the partial smile on Cora’s lips at the memory.

“What did your name look like?” he asked, then immediately wondered if he shouldn’t have. “Is it too personal?”

“It’s personal but not private—it’s my name. A name sign is given to you by someone who is Deaf. It’s highly personalized and carries meaning beyond labeling you. The name my mother gave me was—” Cora went silent and raised her right fingers to her slightly puckered lips, then moved then to touch above her heart. “That means Cora. She told me I was like a kiss to her heart.” Cora made the movements again. “I miss her every day.”

“Did you have a name for her?” Simon asked. He wanted to reach for her hand but didn’t want to hamper her ability to sign the word to him.

Cora nodded slowly, then raised her hand, placing her thumb near her mouth. Then she dropped her hand to touch her chest with her middle finger. “Technically, this means Mother,” she said as she touched her face again, her palm open. “And this means heart,” she said as her fingers swung down to touch over her heart. “But together, they’re my mother’s name from me. I guess I associated heart with her because of her reason for my name.” Her eyes misted over and she added, “My dad told me that as a toddler, I would just sign Mother for her. Then one day when I was four, I added ‘heart’ to it and never stopped or changed again.”

She looked into his eyes, and he felt the intensity of her gaze. “It felt good to sign her name just now. We share the sign for “heart” in our names. It’s like we have the same middle name.” Her eyes had unshed tears in them. “It’s been a long time since I had anyone to talk to about her. With my friends, I use words. They seemed watered down in a way, without the meaning embedded in the movements. There’s comfort to feel her name in my hands and on my face and chest.” Simon noted a tear escaping the corner of her eye. “It’s more real to me.” She nodded, confirming that truth to herself.

Simon momentarily covered her hand that rested on her lap with his own. Not a word was spoken, but their smiles matched each other’s before they began watching the fishing scene again.

“Would you show me other things you could say to your mother?” He didn’t shift his eyes away from the children nearest them, afraid she would sense his vulnerability. After a long pause, when he looked at her, she smiled hugely at him. For some reason, his request seemed to please her.

“What would you like to know how to say?”

“I don’t know. I just find it fascinating that your mother spoke that way with you.”

“And my father. She spoke with both of us. It’s just the way it’s done where I’m from. Since my father and I could hear, we spoke the words and signed them as well, so we were all included when we were in public, but in private we just signed. There were few secrets in our home.”

“Everything? You could sign everything?” He’d thought there might be a bank of important words that they had shared. It opened his mind to consider full conversations. What would it be like to drop the language barriers that held people back?

While he lived in Scotland, he’d learned about a school in Edinburgh that taught children to talk with their hands. Before he left, he’d toured the private facility but didn’t gain anything substantial that could help. He noticed that some children spelled out words with their hands or they lip read as he did.

He missed so much of what went on around him, and yet he felt extremely blessed to have retained some hearing. Many hadn’t as a result of wounds, illness, and injuries in addition to those who were born without hearing. The people in the community who were deaf were left on the margins of society, especially those of lesser means. He imagined the good that could come of this language Cora knew.

Cora nodded in reply to his question. “Anything you can say, you can sign.” Her hands moved up and down in front of her, and she said, “Children.”

Then she pantomimed what looked to Simon like her holding a fishing pole, and he guessed, “Fishing.”

“Yes,” she said as she nodded her fist in front of her.

“I see what you mean by the movements also having extra meaning,” he said.

Then her open hand fanned upward twice on her chest. “Happy.”

Simon opened his palm as she had done and repeated the gesture. “Me too.”

A wave of water, too much to have been an accident, flung across the front of them both. Two boys near them had waded into a knee-deep pool and were scooping their hands across the top of the water, firing the waves in every direction in their glee. Simon slipped from the bridge and joined in the fun.

Although he could move a great deal more water with each scoop, there were many more children all intent on dousing him as their only target. The cool water was refreshing on what was turning into a hot day. The battle continued for several minutes.

After the children ran out of the stream in retreat, Simon looked for Cora. She sat near the shore with the children’s strings of fish at her feet. “Are you quite done, Your Grace?” she called.

“I suppose since the enemy has disengaged.”

Aunt Nellie wrapped the children in blankets and began passing out sandwiches. Simon, huddled in a blanket as well, sat next to Cora to eat a bite, too. Curiosity niggled at him until he asked, “How did your parents meet? Their difference seems like something that could keep them apart.”

“It might have only my father didn’t know it. They were in a math class in college.” Simon realized that his eyebrows had risen at the idea of a woman in a college class with a man, but Cora continued. “He saw a beautiful though quiet and very studious woman. He said he knew at once he had to meet her, so he wrote a note and asked the students between them to pass it to her.”

Cora stopped as if that was all there was to their story, but Simon nudged her for more. “And … ?”

“And she read it. Then she wrote a reply saying that he could continue to send her notes in class, and she would let him know if she was interested in meeting him face-to-face. My father wrote more notes to my mother than he did about the math lectures for the next two weeks, and she agreed to meet with him after class. He caught up to her just outside the classroom door, and she handed him another note. It said simply, ‘I’m Deaf. I can read your lips and read your notes, but unless you can sign, we might not be able to get to know each other.’ My father took that as a personal challenge. He dropped a class, added a sign language class, and continued to write notes to my mother as they began to court.”

Perhaps Cora hadn’t made the connection that Simon had—that their courtship was enhanced by writing to each other as well—but it made him feel a kinship to Cora’s parents.

“And if they hadn’t any paper, they would write messages on each other’s hands,” Cora said.

Simon held his hand, palm up in front of Cora. “How did that work?” he asked, unable to keep the mischief from his voice.

Cora’s answering smile told him that she was willing to play along with his request for a demonstration. Her small hand cradled his as one slender finger moved across his open hand. A tickling sensation followed her fingertip, and reverberated through Simon’s arm and chest. Although her head bent slightly to watch as she wrote, occasionally she glanced up, and the sight took Simon’s breath away. He wanted to fold her in his arms and stare into her eyes. His body ached with the restraint he felt at continuing to hold himself away from her. The only way he could think to sate the desire was to kiss her. He looked into her eyes again and down to the smile on her lips. He stopped himself from leaning toward her. Not here—the children. What he wouldn’t give to be alone with her right then.

That’s when he noticed that her finger had stopped moving, and she asked, “What did I write?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” he answered honestly. His mind had been utterly otherwise engaged. “You’d best try again.”

She softly chuckled and said, “And you’d best concentrate.”

“I was. Just not on the letters.”

Aunt Nellie called out that they were heading back to the house. Simon extended his arm to Cora and escorted her back to Twickenham Manor.