Free Twin Willows: A Novel by Kay Cornelius Page A

eyes. Anna did not cry easily or often, but this afternoon as she watched the other girls with their proud parents and admiring beaux, she allowed herself a brief moment of self-pity before she wiped away her tears and squared her shoulders.
    I’m not like those other girls, and I don’t even want to be
, Anna told herself as she stood apart at the reception in the parlor following the Commencement ceremony. Now that she was truly on her own with no one to look after her interests, Anna had no time to feel sorry for herself.
    So absorbed was she with her thoughts that she didn’t see Cook Nancy hurrying toward her until she had almost reached Anna’s side.
    The cook glanced around warily as if to make sure that Miss Martin wasn’t watching. “Miss Anna, this just came for you,” she whispered.
    Anna looked at the folded page the cook handed her, too small to be a letter, and felt her mouth go dry. “What is this?” she asked.
    “I don’t know, Miss Anna. A messenger boy brought it to the back door.”
    “Thank you, Nancy,” Anna managed to say.
    Although no one was paying her any heed, she turned away and started up the stairs toward her room before she unfolded the paper.
    Anna recognized the handwriting instantly and stopped halfway up the stairs. Her heart raced, then all but stopped, as she read Stuart Martin’s brief message:
    Meet me in the carriage house as soon as you can. S. M.
    Anna read the note again and wondered if she dared trust her eyes. Stuart had apparently come back to Philadelphia in secret and now waited to see her. After weeks without so much as a note from him, it seemed almost too good to be true, and her heart began to beat rapidly in anticipation.
    With all the calm she could muster, Anna walked back down the stairs, past knots of conversing graduates and their families in the parlor, where Stuart had told her he loved her, and into the back hallway, where she and Stuart had shared their first embrace. She had been unable to forget those precious moments, so often reliving the way she had felt in Stuart’s arms. That memory remained fresh as she went out the back door and hastened to Miss Martin’s carriage house.
    Anna had just put a hand on the latch of the carriage house’s side door when it suddenly opened, and to her relief, she faced Stuart Martin. He was real, all right, and even more handsome than she remembered. They looked at each other for a moment in silence before Stuart spoke.
    “I see you got my message.”
    Anna nodded and tried to keep her voice level against the rising tide of her pleasure in seeing him again. “I kept hoping you would come for another visit, if not to Commencement.”
    “So did I. Last week I wrote Aunt Matilda that between my own studies and preparing my thick-headed charges for their examinations, I couldn’t leave Princeton. I thought she might share that news with you.”
    Of course she wouldn’t tell me anything about you
, Anna thought. Instead, she shook her head. “No, she didn’t, but I am glad to see you now.” Anna clasped her hands together to stop their trembling, but the gesture did nothing to stay the sudden emotion that roughened her voice.
    “And I am glad to see you, as well.”
    In the dim light that filtered through the dirty panes of the single window, Anna searched Stuart’s eyes for a brief moment as if to gauge the feelings reflected there. Reading the desire in his eyes, she took a step toward him. He opened his arms, and eagerly she entered his embrace. All the longing locked deep inside her flared in Stuart’s fierce hold, and she returned his kiss with all the ardor of his own.
    After a long moment Anna snuggled her head into his chest. “I feared I might not see you again,” she whispered.
    “You know I couldn’t let my best pupil leave without saying good-bye,” Stuart said against Anna’s hair. His hand stroked lightly along her cheek. “Ah, Anna, my love, you are even more beautiful than I