His Haunted Heart (4 page)

“You’re upset.” His voice seemed to flow in tune with the other sounds of the house as though it was also a product of this environment, made to fall into balance with the rest. I didn’t expect anyone to come looking for me. Usually, when I got upset, everyone was content to leave me be. After all, they didn’t want my presence in the first place.

Though a thousand responses came to mind, none exited my mouth.

“I didn’t realize that I would be married today, Delilah. Please, understand. There are people that will be expecting me.”

I wished that tears could be sucked back in as easily as they fell.

“It’s fine,” I said, straightening my posture, hoping to show him that I was unfazed by his icy repertoire. “I’m just a little overwhelmed. Of course you have better things to tend to.”

If ever there was a ploy for attention that was it.

Just when I thought he’d taken his leave, I felt two warm hands on my shoulders. A shiver journeyed down my spine, alerting me to his proximity. “Not better, just business. I will be back tomorrow afternoon…unless you’d like more time to yourself.”

I smiled, but tamped it down in a hurry. “We should probably get to know each other better. We are married. Anyway, I’ve had plenty of time to myself. I’m really not all that entertaining.”

He chuckled. I felt the bass of it in the air. The weight of his body slumped against my back while his forehead leaned on the frail hairs that grew at the base of my scalp. “You’re a funny one. Yes, we are married. I promise to be back as soon as I can so that we can learn more about each other.”

I nodded. I was acting like a child. What did I really expect, love at first sight? Only if he was blind would that notion be so simple to wallow in.

I needed a subject change and fast.

“What should I do while you are gone? I don’t really know my place here.”

He began to speak. As he did, the heat of his words weaved into the back of my hair and caused every inch of me to stand at attention. “You are free here, Delilah. There may come a time when you will be able to help me with my business or find an interest of your own. We have plenty of land here and things to keep you occupied. I’m sure Mother would fill your time with her stories alone.”

“I’m not one to sit around, Porter. I will find something worthy to keep me busy.”

He backed away and took a few steps so that the toes of his boots hung over the edge of the porch. Crooking his neck back and forth, he grew agitated with something just out of his sight. His brown bunched right above his nose and a vein made its presence known below his ear. His jaw, structured like a statue, ground back and forth.

“Let’s go inside. Please be careful out here at night. The swamp hides its secrets until we are alone.”

Chapter Four

Porter

The bastard was in the trees, creeping, constantly creeping, like he always did. The fog, keeping the water company, did nothing to disguise him. If he tried any harder, squirming around, he would transform into the worm he was on the inside. All it took was the break of a twig and a whiff of his forever overpowering aftershave to know he was skulking around. He’d been trouble since before he was born and if it wasn’t for the contract our families drew decades ago, he wouldn’t be anywhere near me now.

The initial words that drove Marie into his arms was me warning her against it. I told her to stay away from him. I knew there was a rebellious nature about her that was constantly submerged and wanted out. I’d been warned about it by her father, her mother, and anyone else who had caught my ear.

Even his name was trouble. His mother cursed him the day she named him Rebel.

Wanting to get Delilah away from him, I took hold of her hand and went back into the house. The motion took her by surprise and she tripped over the threshold. I caught her in an awkward sideways hold. She weighed nothing and my thoughts were taken back to the measly helping she was given in her parents’ home. Her skin felt boreal and again, my need to take that from her overtook any other instinct.

“Let’s get you by the fire, you’re cold again.” Distracting her with her own discomfort was desperate, but making her aware of her new admirer would probably only fuel her curiosity.

Though Delilah didn’t strike me as disloyal as Marie had been.

I was betting everything on that hunch.

I hoped against hope it was the case.

As she stepped in front of the fire, the light from the flames cast a glow on her scar and I turned out of fear that I would gasp, showing my still present shock. I’d tried. The entire day, I’d tried my best not to look at it. She was beautiful, it was true, but that scar told me so many things about her. I would’ve preferred to hear them from her mouth instead. The laceration screamed at me, so callous on this otherwise gentle creature. It seemed shallow to ask her to discuss trivial things when already my bond with her was tethered in something deeper than favorite colors and how early she rose in the mornings—whether I willed it or not.

There was a deep desire to protect her—a longing for her to seek her comfort from me and me alone.

“What do you do for work?” she asked. I’d thought it was common knowledge what I did. It was the reason I didn’t go into the town much. Either I was asked for money or a loan. The begging was incessant.

I smothered my relief at her beginning the conversation. “My father owned several banks. I also do some investing.”

She sat in the chair that she’d occupied earlier, mulling over my words. “I’ve tried all day to remember if we went to school together, but I couldn’t remember you.”

In The Rogue, all children were educated together in one classroom. After the eighth grade, it was the parents’ discretion as to whether or not the child continued on. If they did, they were taught by the Constable, one of the few in the town who’d completed college on the outside.

“I was taught at home. Then I went to college on the outside.”

Marie used to beg me to take her to the outside world constantly. She loved the glamour and the unabashed recklessness of the city. The more I indulged her, the more she craved it. It was like feeding an insatiable monster.

She looked at the fire, rubbing her hands together and taking in my response. “I’ve never been to the outside. It sounds like a horrible place. Well, they say it is anyway.”

That was the typical opinion, ingrained into us from birth, of The Rogue. We were taught to fear the outside, in a strenuous effort to keep us on the inside.

“It can be. Just as The Rogue can be an awful place. Evil permeates people, no matter how well they hide.”

My comment seemed to sober her. Sitting in front of a fire on a hallowed night was probably not the way she’d envisioned her honeymoon. Then again, I was probably a far cry from the quintessential husband. That was the fault in my planning. Even the money I’d paid for her hand couldn’t buy her affection.

“You look worried,” Delilah said, shifting her body to face me.

I didn’t know how to answer her without cracking my chest open and revealing the spark of care I’d already grown for the stranger I’d been married to for less than a day.

“I tend to be a bit of a worrywart. I suppose you will have to get used to it. Like right now, for instance, I’m worried that this is all one big disappointment for you.”

A flash of emotion passed over her face, causing a hue to take over her cheeks and her eyes to squint, before she corrected it. Here was my new wife and I had no idea what that face detailed or what the meaning was behind it. Those were things, I supposed, that a normal courting male would already know about his beloved.

Yet, there I sat, clueless as the day I was born.

She looked around our sitting room, taking her time to inspect each element. She must’ve thought us haughty and spoiled coming from where she had.

“Do you play?” Her thin finger gestured toward the plethora of instruments in the furthest corner of the room. It had been ages since I’d played for anyone. Marie had begged me to, I suspected, out of pure boredom. But by the time she did, my feelings for her had shifted from intrigue to downright hatred—yet I couldn’t bring myself to end the engagement. She’d be ruined and so would her reputation.

“I do. Maybe I could play for you tomorrow.” The abruptness of my offer astonished me as much as it did her, for she shifted in her chair with a jerk.

“It’s been so long since I heard music—except for church service. Which one do you play?”

I turned around to assess the inventory of instruments. A violin, a viola, and the cello stood docile on their stands. “All of them—there’s a record player in the library near the office as well.”

“A Victrola?”

“Similar. I’ll show you one day.”

Her face returned to a calm stare before she turned to warm her feet. The fire’s warmth easily penetrated the thin sheaths she called boots. She said nothing in response and I’d lost count of how many times I’d made a complete ass of myself.

“I have to admit, Porter, I feel a little ill-matched here. Out of place.

No answer I could give her would take away the hurt now filling her eyes. One night couldn’t erase the years of degradation I’d assumed she had to put up with. She had no idea that if there was anyone not up to task in this duo, it was me. I had to try to convince her to stay. Before her, my life had become a mundane existence.

“You—you were what I needed.”

The winds outside kicked up and rustled the shutters barely hanging onto the house. The flames in the fireplace danced at its bidding.

They knew a half-truth when they heard one.

Her lack of reaction to my raw confession left me wanting—yearning for her approval or at least, her understanding. Anything to make me feel like less of a good businessman and more of a husband.

One hefty exhale and she presented the gift I craved. “Sounds like fate. You needed someone and I needed a savior.”

I hadn’t ever really believed in fate or any other all-powerful outside force before Marie. I believed in it afterwards. I began to think that whoever it was despised me.

We both sat, not speaking.

“I’ve made tea, if anyone would like some.”

Leave it to my mother to interrupt with more talk of food. Delilah placed her flattened hand against her belly and groaned. “I’m so grateful, but honestly, I don’t think I could take a drop without bursting.”

My mother and I both chuckled at her outburst. Relative to a normal person, she’d eaten a small amount, yet she was stuffed. The words she spoke were always clearly earnest. She made our home lighter. It was as though the fog that usually clung to my eyelids was blown away by her candor.

Discounting Delilah’s protest, my mother placed the tray on our coffee table and began to mentally divide the servings with a pointed finger.

“This is lavender tea. It will calm your nerves and allow you a good night’s sleep. Humor an old woman.”

Guilt was my mother’s specialty. Delilah shot me a look that begged me to intervene or to at least sympathize, but on that particular point, I had to agree. My wife was skin and bones and if anyone saw her, they’d think I was abusive or neglectful. Though the depth of The Rogue’s sins reached hell itself, the blatant abuse of a woman was frowned upon—though no one, it seemed, had intervened in Delilah’s parents’ neglect.

The hypocrisy of a society birthed upon a high moral compass was infuriating.

The only sympathy Delilah got from me was a shrug.

“Just a tiny bit, please.”

My mother filled her cup to the edge, almost overflowing.

We sipped our tea in quiet, allowing the outside sounds to fill the air. Mother’s eyes roamed from me to Delilah more than once, prompting me to say something—but nothing came. I had plenty of questions, but the silence seemed to have a calming effect that surpassed the tea. Her tea cup resting in her lap, only minutes later, Delilah’s eyes drooped. Minute by minute, her awareness faded. The fire in the hearth mirrored her, dying down a little with each fall of her eyelids. The teacup tipped and threatened to fall. I reached for her cup and took it without a flinch from her direction.

“You’ve stuffed her into exhaustion.”

A giggle from my mother waived off my accusation.

“Take her to bed, poor stick of a girl. Give me two weeks tops and those frilly dresses you’ve purchased will have to be let out for sure.”

With one arm under her knees and one behind her back, I gathered Delilah against my chest and began to carry her to her bedroom—our bedroom. As we ascended the stairs, her right hand fisted the front of my shirt and the faint movement melted me. Peace brandished her sleep in the depth of her breaths.

Like this, with the left side of her face against me, I couldn’t see the roughness of her life played out along her jaw.

She was beautiful, it was true, but that line just took center stage.

“Maybe,” she whispered in a voice that could easily be the mouthpiece of heaven. Her raven lashes fluttered and her eyes moved as if the person she was dreaming of was approaching her.

“Maybe what?” I whispered back, my mind shackled with a tormenting need to know what she was dreaming of, or who.

“Don’t hope,” she breathed and her voice carried a tone of exasperation. My steps faltered with her words. If she was telling herself or someone else not to hope, it meant that hope was present. Hope was a privilege I’d given up on a long time ago.

I laid her down in the bed a few seconds later, making sure to remove the pathetic excuses for shoes from her feet and stoking the fire in her room. The comforter was tucked around her and she turned and embraced the damned thing. One day, she would reach for me in her sleep.

Before leaving, I drew the curtains closed. It was in tugging on the last curtain that my nightmare came to full fruition outside, startling me. I didn’t know if I’d actually called out in fear or whether it was just in my head, but turning around and seeing no movement from Delilah; I knew it was silent.

My once dear Marie stood outside in her juvenile form, floating in the distance.

She seemed to make herself known more and more. I supposed it didn’t bother me much. If I wasn’t careful, her image would scare me a little from time to time.

But other than her nagging and whining, Marie had never hurt a fly.