The Promise of Change - By Rebecca Heflin Page 0,40
for her. In fact, he’d been avoiding them–until now.
How could he be falling in love with her? They’d just met for heaven’s sake. He might be a romantic, but that didn’t mean he believed in love at first sight, despite his grandmother’s arguments to the contrary. Utter nonsense.
He’d take his own words to heart: enjoy the time they had together.
“Are you ready to see the idyllic village of Chipping Campden?” he asked, eager to save her from further embarrassment, and himself from further introspection.
As they drove towards Chipping Campden he attempted to bridge the distance between them by asking about her education and interest in literature.
“After graduation, I taught literature to middle school students.”
“Wait, I thought you were a lawyer—”
“I am, or was, or I don’t know.” She grimaced. “Anyway, I had a previous career.”
“I think I would enjoy teaching literature, filling those eager minds with Shakespeare, Milton, and Donne. Why did you change careers?”
She looked at him as if he’d sprouted two heads. “Clearly you’ve never taught hormonal, silly teenagers Romeo and Juliet. Believe me, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Listening to their nervous twitters and giggles when one of them read from the balcony scene set my teeth on edge, so after what seemed like three long years of that, I went back to law school,” she explained with a shrug.
She made it sound so simple, when in fact she’d agonized over the decision to abandon her teaching career for law school.
After a few seconds of silence, she laughed out loud.
“What’s so amusing?” he asked, turning to look at her, with a questioning smile on his face.
“Oh, I was just imagining you reciting Romeo’s final lines to a room full of impressionable teenage girls.” She giggled like the schoolgirls she referred to.
“What’s amusing about Romeo’s death?” he asked, appalled.
“Nothing . . . it’s tragic, but I was envisioning the wistful expressions on the girls’ faces, and their sighs of longing.”
He still looked confused.
“You may not realize it, but you are devastatingly handsome, and I am sure every girl in the class would have had a crush on you. Add to that the tragically romantic lines spoken by Romeo as he looks upon Juliet for the last time, and you would have had every girl in the room eating out of your hand.”
He turned to her again, this time with a brilliant smile, “You think I’m devastatingly handsome?”
“Yes.” She blushed at her open admission. “I can’t think of a red-blooded female who wouldn’t think that.”
He turned his eyes back to the road, still smiling, seeming quite pleased with himself.
“So, an Earl-come-actor. How does that happen?” A little chagrined at her blunt question, she sought to soften it. “I mean, I imagine you have plenty of responsibilities as Earl, how do you have time to work elsewhere?”
“The estate has a manager to handle the day-to-day operations, so quite frankly I didn’t have enough responsibilities to occupy my day. And the monotony of the tasks was not my cup of tea.” He sighed, as if remembering the boredom of which he spoke. “I enjoy working with people, but I also need the flexibility of working with ideas.”
“More importantly, gone are the days when the aristocracy can sit on their plump bums with their gouty feet propped on a pillow in front of a fire. Most have to work hard just to keep their estates afloat.
“And besides, I’d always wanted to act. I performed in some community theatre productions while I was at Oxford, thinking that would satisfy me. It wasn’t until the role of Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing that I realized acting was my calling. I auditioned for small parts in BBC productions until I landed the role of Jude. And the rest, as they say, is history.”
“Funny, I’d always found the monotony of my jobs comforting somehow . . . predictability I guess.” She said the last as if to herself. “Anyway, it’s great that you found your calling. Not everyone is lucky enough to love what they do.” She sighed and turned to look at the countryside. She’d been so engrossed in their conversation, that she’d missed most of the passing scenery. It flew by in a green blur.
“You’re not happy in your career.” It was a statement, not a question.
“My second career. I wouldn’t say that I’m not happy. I’ve been quite lucky . . . until now.”
“Being lucky with your situation and being happy with it are two different things,” he interrupted