Jennifer Horseman (45 page)

"Stop it, love. You go too-"

"I'm sorry ... I'm sorry." She looked up at the heavens as though the light could help her stop the useless tears. "Here you are ready to claim me, and I know I should be grateful that somebody wants me for something, but if, if you could just give me a moment ... I don't want to feel anything when you rape me again, and right now I feel so much like dying . . . I'm afraid I might. How terrible to have given him ten thousand pounds for naught—"

Garrett seized her arms, jerking her toward him. The violence of his emotions hit her in a dizzying wave of heat, a fire threatening to engulf her in its flames, an emotional violence she mistook for another. She wondered when she would get used to the idea of being beaten.

"Aye, love, you have reason to fear, and for that I will take my emotions from you. If revenge was your motive, you have been paid in full." He stared for a moment longer, as if needing a last long look before he abruptly released her and with fluid ease rose and called to his mount. The great beast pranced quickly to his side, tossing his head as he was mounted. Then Garrett was gone.

With him went her feelings; they vanished now. Like a chilly draft through a window, a torpid numbness slowly seeped through her skin, until she felt a vast, barren, snow-covered land fill her very soul, a place where neither thought nor feeling could exist. The sound of a horse's hooves barely penetrated her consciousness.

Leif swore softly as he took in the sight. After dismounting and tying the reins to a nearby branch he stepped to where she lay still on the grass.

She felt his strong hands come under her, lifting her to her feet. She met the warm feeling in his eyes as he studied her, but even that wealth could not penetrate the emotional ruin of her senses. "It's time to go home now."

Home . . . home . . . home, echoed endlessly in her mind and she closed her eyes. "Where is that, Leif? Where?"

"Kourtain Castle, far away in the lake district."

Garrett's house, where his mother and sister lived, where all his dependents lived. She shook her head. "No ... no, I can't go there with decent folks — "

"Hush now!" Leif would hear none of this. "If this godforsaken day has taught you anything, it should be that unlike that worthless bastard, Garrett will never abandon you. You have no choice in this."

Leif turned from her pain, heading to the branch where the horse's reins were tied. His back was to her when he felt a sudden chill go up his spine. A warning of danger, one he knew well. He turned around, his keen gaze sweeping the quiet stillness of the glen. Nothing. He quickly untied the reins, pulling the mount to her side. He swung up, then lifted her onto the saddle in front of him. He took one long last look at the surrounding trees before giving rein to the mount.

Concealed in the bushes, Tomas stared after the sight until even the horse's hooves disappeared altogether. His heart beat irregularly, a cold sweat covered his brow. He closed his eyes, clutching the money bag until his knuckles ached with the strain, afraid it would disappear as easily as it had come, this after counting it thrice. Ten thousand pounds, and the key to getting Juliet baek, a key in the form of a name . . . Kourtain Castle in the lake district . . . Kourtain Castle!

And just how much would the identity of Black Garrett be worth?

"You are a poor friend indeed, Laydy Funston!" Precariously balanced on the top rung of a ladder, the young woman reached for another apple in the tree, voicing complaints out loud to her companion. "First of all, you never want to do what I want to do, do you? You can't ride and you can't sing. Why, you can't even read! Your backgammon is terrible and your manners are worse." Her long plaits swung back and forth with a | disparaging shake of her head. "As a matter of fact, I your insolence borders on wickedness, plain and simple! |Tis a wonder mother's let you stay this long. I dare say, I she would have tossed you out with the rubbish, if you fhadn't been a gift presented by my brother—" f A half-eaten apple hit her arm. Seeing Elsbeth's startled gasp of outrage, Laydy Funston jumped with glee, agilely ducking the young woman's return throw. She hopped up to another branch, plucked an apple, and tossed it back. Quick with her anger, Elsbeth tossed a succession of four apples, missing her mark by inches until —

Arms circled like wings flapping in flight, but it was too late. The young woman tumbled four steps to the ground, landing with a thud on her bottom, the apples rolling over her new yellow day dress. "Ohhh!" Laydy screeched, jumping with excitement.

"Why you miserable, miserable monkey! You better not let me catch you, for I—"

Hearing the clamor of horses' hooves and carriage wheels, Elsbeth stopped and turned to see four men escorting a carriage through the neat rows of apple trees. "Leif . . . Gayle!" She jumped up, calling to Laydy, "Laydy, Gayle's here . . . Gayle's come back!"

Kourtain Castle stood as a monument to Lady Evelyn's maternal great grandfather and his architectural gifts. The stone walls and thick wood beams of the century-old keep rose on the edge of the deep still waters of Lake Kourtain and seemed to be a natural part of the forest of pines and oak that spread over the rocky mountains. The lake itself looked like a shining gem set prettily amidst great stones and trees. Trees shaded the water's edge a dark green color that changed to a blue reflection of the summer sky farther out. The stone castle was built in a long rectangle of various heights marked by four towers. A gravel courtyard opened from the two shorter, wider towers in front. Bright blue and white flags circled each of the towers and draped like a smile across the front. These remained from Elsbeth's fifteenth birthday party, only because Lady Evelyn thought the bright colors made the grey stone more welcoming to her continuous parade of guests.

Yet the real attraction of the old castle was not the irregularly shaped stone walls or even the idyllic blue water surrounded by forest. The attraction lay in the blossoming flowers and sculptured bushes and trees that grew in magnificent profusion around the castle. Like an ornate gold frame around a picture, the breathtaking landscape far outshone the sedate stone beauty of the castle. A garden artistry, Garrett felt, that reflected his mother's soul; reflected her ability to nurture all the life surrounding her: her family and many friends, workers and village people, the wild and tame animals that made Kourtain Castle their home.

Lady Evelyn's closest friends in this life were the three gardeners who helped make her garden the beautiful sanctuary it was. Presently, she toiled alongside them on her hands and knees with gloved fingers in the earth, aiding the labor of a summer sun that set the blossoms to full color at last. She stopped for a moment to let her senses rejoice at the profusion of color and scents: neat clusters of red and orange—gold marigolds, the daffodils and red poppies, pansies and yellow chrysanthemums, purple and white lilacs, all set against ivy. Ivy everywhere, claiming the castle keep as no army ever could.

Sadness came to her warm, brown eyes as she looked at last on the tuberose, just coming up now alongside the rosemary. The flowers of bereavement and remembrance, sent by Garrett some two months passed now after Edric's death. Edric was gone forever. At last she came to feel acceptance of her loss, though this was a hard treasure to find, buried as it was so far under her shock. ~5h~e had known other losses: as a child she had lost a sister; later, her parents; and then two husbands. Most recently, and somehow the hardest of all, she had lost her first grandchild. She had never lost one of her own children; though like all mothers, every once in a while she would find herself briefly flirting with the tragic scene of the death of one of her children. That child had always been Garrett. "Garrett, dear Lord, keep Garrett safe

Garrett had never been safe, not since the day nearly twenty years ago when she banished him from his family and his home. To save him, she said over and over in a daily ritual of reckoning that forced her to remember the boy Garret had been. "He is not my boy . . . this could not be made by my blood. . . ." Stronger by a hundred and that much more willful, this boy could not be made from the flesh of either herself or her gentle husband. At age five, Garrett shocked a roomful of his father's friends as they gathered around the chessboard for the championship, simply by taking a move after the game was thought lost. Within two more moves he called check and mate. The gentlemen had laughed, amused, certain it was a parlor trick arranged by her husband, who never did deny it as he heard his five-year-old boy whisper to him, "Your friends appear rather slow witted, Father." Then Garrett's cruelty with the servants and his terrible strength. He was only seven when he beat a brawny lad of thirteen for kicking a stray dog, beat him until it was not known whether the boy would live. The conceit and arrogance just kept growing, monstrously growing, scaring her until she came more and more to the unconscionable idea of sending him away. . . .

She always thought Edric was God's recompense for the pain she had endured by giving Garrett up to the world. Edric became her comfort for having done what no mother should ever have to do. Edric was always the opposite of Garrett: Edric with his kind brown eyes, a shroud of happiness and laughter, blessed with a perfectly simple life: the boys' school and the university, the two-year commission in the military, a history of days filled with nothing more exciting than the benign pursuits of gentlemen: church outings, fox hunts, pretty girls at teas and soirees. Edric was always her favorite, closer to her than all the others, probably, she believed, because she showered all her love for Garrett onto him.

She looked up at the clear blue sky to stop her tears before returning her gaze to the earth that she loved, her mind turning circles over the life she could never fully know, Garrett's world. Garrett's unfathomable complexities and worldly experiences and knowledge, sojourns into strange, dark places that altered the light of his mind and separated him from others, his strength and will, the intrigues that forever changed the world. She wondered if she would trade the wealth of her pride to give him a simpler, happier life too—

"My lady, look!" Hale called nearby.

Lady Evelyn looked up to see the coach and riders approaching. She stood up and brushed the loose soil from her smock, calling to Milly to open the doors and go about getting refreshments for the unexpected guests. "Why, it's Leif and Gayle!" She waved, moving to the drive to greet them just as Elsbeth ran into the courtyard, chased as always by Laydy.

The carriage came to a halt, and Leif, Gayle, Heart, and Kyle dismounted simultaneously, lining up to greet Lady Evelyn. With no pretense of formality, Leif and Evelyn embraced. Elsbeth knew something was amiss before her mother did, for Gayle's smile and greeting could not hide the heavy emotion in his eyes. His greeting was not at all as usual, greetings that often made her laugh and blush as Gayle mimicked his father's brogue to tell her she was a bonny lass indeed, gettin' prettier each time he saw her, and the last time, "Dear Elsbeth, have you traded your dolls for a portrait yet? No? Not yet? Ah, Lord, but to feel hope, however small it be!"

Subdued and confused, Elsbeth watched as Gayle opened the carriage door. He reached a hand inside, pausing when no one took it. "Juliet," he beckoned softly, "they're only the best people in the world. Come now, my father and I are right at your side."

The pale fingers of a small hand touched his and a slippered foot touched the step. Elsbeth saw the ripped, worn slipper first, then the folds of her brother's cloak, before a young woman stepped onto the gravel beneath the bright sun. She was quite simply the most hauntingly beautiful young woman Elsbeth had ever seen, and for one painful moment she braced, afraid Gayle was going to break her heart with the introduction. Yet no, the torn slippers, Garrett's cloak, the dark circles under her lowered eyes, the very sadness accenting the breathtaking beauty, said the young woman had another story entirely.

Never in all her forty-seven years had Lady Evelyn felt more emotion upon a presentation than now. The feeling went far beyond any reasonable explanation. It was as if she stood in front of a great mural painted with the colors of the young girl's life; as if she knew even then the terrifying nightmarish shapes that could be drawn from the girl's memory, shapes that would explain the sadness and shame, the torn traveling clothes covered by Garrett's cloak, an extension of his protection even in his absence.

"Lady Evelyn may I present Miss Juliet Stoddard. And Juliet, the ladies Evelyn and Elsbeth, Garrett's mother and sister, respectively."

Lady Evelyn held her breath waiting to see the young woman's eyes as she still clasped Gayle's hand tightly, dropping to a brief curtsy before at last looking up. Quickly, furtively, she showed her eyes, a mirror to the soul. Lady Evelyn understood Shakespeare's words for the first time, for the dark blue eyes were the source of her startling beauty, revealing everything—her profound grief, pain and sadness.

Garrett, Garrett, what is this? What have you done to her? As if to answer the question, Leif handed her Garrett's note. She read the ever-succinct note:

Standing before you, Mother mine, is a young lady I love far more than life. Imagine the worst; she has endured it. In the whole of your life past and future, no one will ever need you more.

Juliet saw the lady but briefly. A painfully familiar face, yet at the same time not. Like Garrett, Lady Evelyn was tall and statuesque, a feminine and pretty resemblance that she could never have imagined until actually having seen it. The attractive features seemed much softer and kinder, but she had Garrett's same dark eyes and dark hair, swept off her shoulders and contained in a black net, one matching the black mourning color of her dress. The depth of sympathy in those eyes could not be met and it sparked a confused tumble of emotion before she turned to see Elsbeth, Garrett's youngest half sister.

"How do you do," Elsbeth said, exercising her own caution, a measure contradicted by the curiosity sparkling in her enormous eyes, a sweet smile offered like charity, an attempt to ease Juliet's own trepidation.