"You are a quite shameless maneuverer, Neville," Lauren told him.
"Are you glad of it?" He moved his head closer to hers.
She thought for a moment, her head tipped to one side, the telltale dimple denting her left cheek. "Yes," she said quite decisively. "Very."
"We are going to remember this night," he said, "as one of the happiest of our lives." He breathed in the freshness of the air with its faint tang of saltiness from the sea. He squinted his eyes so that the lights of individual lanterns in the rock garden ahead all blurred into one kaleidoscope of color.
"Oh, Neville," she said, her hand tightening on his arm. "Does anyone have a right to so much happiness?"
"Yes," he told her, his voice low against her ear. "You do."
"Just look at the garden," she said. "The lanterns make it seem like a fairyland."
He set himself to enjoying the unexpected half hour with her.
Chapter 2
Lily found the driveway beyond the massive gates to the park—a wide and winding road so darkened by huge trees that grew on either side and whose branches met overhead that only the occasional gleam of moonlight kept her from wandering off the path and becoming hopelessly lost. It was a driveway that seemed more like four miles long than two. Crickets chirped off to either side and a bird that might have been an owl hooted close by. Once there was the crackling of movement off in the forest to her right—some wild animal that she had disturbed, perhaps. But the sounds only succeeded in intensifying the pervading silence and darkness. Night had fallen with almost indecent haste.
And then finally she turned a bend and was startled by light in the near distance. She found herself staring at a brightly lighted mansion with another large building to one side of it also lighted up. There was light outside too—colored lanterns that must be hanging from tree branches.