Persuasion (6 page)

The thought of Lula grasping for childhood things, longing to have a part of Watson’s Landing with her, even after all those years in San Francisco, made Barrie feel like she was trying to breathe underwater. When it came to her mother, her emotions were still too raw. How was it possible to both love and hate someone more after they were dead?

She still needed to read her mother’s letters, but . . . Not yet. Not if she wanted to be fair to Lula while she read them.

Returning to the table with the stack of plates, she found Eight leaning back watching her, his legs stretched out in front of him. The last bits of sun through the window cast his face in shadow, and he looked like an unfinished statue, perfect and maddeningly
im
perfect. Barrie’s heart filled with ache and want.

“What?” He folded his arms across his chest as Seven’s master-of-the-universe tread sounded on the porch outside.

“Nothing,” Barrie said, turning away. “Nothing at all.”

Eight glanced at his father through the glass-topped back
door, and stood up in one graceful move. “I know you’re mad because I made a fuss.” He stepped in close to whisper into Barrie’s ear. “But the other night I thought I’d lost you before we even had a chance. That’s not going to happen again. It’s not about you not being strong enough. Watson’s Landing is yours—I get that. And everything else? School? All that? We’ll figure it out.”

Figure it out. That was Eight’s solution for everything. He was so sure about things that had no surety, as if he could simply will things to turn out all right, while Barrie had to fight for each scrap of conviction.

“Please tell your dad not to scare Pru about the man I saw,” she whispered back. “There’s no point making her more upset, and whoever it was has long since gone.”

“Maybe, but it’s worth looking around to figure out where he came from. And if we don’t find him, I’ll stay until the motion detectors are installed. It’s not like there aren’t extra bedrooms.”

Barrie bit her lip, holding back the refusal that would only lead to another argument. The idea of having Eight think he needed to spend the night, of thinking that she and Pru weren’t safe in the house, of not being able to keep
themselves
safe . . . No. That wasn’t acceptable.

After they’d said good-bye, she waited on the porch until Eight and Seven had reached the bottom of the terrace steps. Then she marched through the kitchen and pushed open the swinging door that led out into the corridor.

“Where are you going?” Pru demanded, running after her and hitting the door with the heels of her hands to keep it open.

“To see the footprint. I need to remember what happened.”

“What do you mean ‘remember’?”

Barrie pulled up short a few feet from the foyer. It hadn’t been something she’d considered consciously, but now that the words were out, she realized they were exactly right. She needed to see the footprint, see something of Obadiah’s, to make the memories clearer.

“It’s just a figure of speech,” she said.

“Don’t go out there by yourself. At least hold on a second, and I’ll come with you.” Pru disappeared back inside the kitchen before Barrie could answer, and when the door swung open again, she marched out like vengeance in a sundress, carrying a shotgun and stuffing brass-topped red gun shells into her pocket.

A search of the flowerbed didn’t so much as raise a ping from Barrie’s finding sense. Her memories of Obadiah returned when she saw the footprint, then swirled away into fog again each time she moved her eyes away. She kept reminding herself she was looking for an intruder, for a man named Obadiah, and at least that fact stayed with her.

What was wrong with her memory?

And how had Obadiah vanished? There hadn’t been time for him to get to the other side of the house, and if he’d ducked around toward the chapel, Eight would have seen him. That left the oak avenue that led out to the gate.

With Pru beside her, she headed across the gravel driveway. They had almost reached the first of the thick tree trunks
when Eight and Seven came back around the side of the house from the maze.

“Oh, Lord. Now we’re in for a lecture,” Pru said as Seven approached with long, angry strides that kicked up dust.

“I thought I told you to stay in the house,” he said before he’d even reached them. “You trying to give me a heart attack, woman? Traipsing around here with a shotgun. Do you even know how to use that thing?”

The color in Pru’s cheeks deepened, and her chin came up. “I hear it’s pretty self-explanatory, actually.” She adjusted the gun in a way that said she knew exactly how to use it. “And if you don’t want me to put a load of buckshot up your backside to prove it, I’ll thank you not to talk to me like that. Barrie thought that this would have been the most logical place for someone to duck out of sight in a hurry. It made sense to come and look. Did you find anything out back?”

“No sign.” Seven’s voice was grim, and he turned back to Barrie. “What was the guy wearing? Could he have waded ashore? Were his clothes wet? Can you give us any sort of description?”

Barrie stared blankly, digging down into her brain, but the harder she tried to remember, the more her thoughts turned to mist.

What in the hell was wrong with her?

“It’s okay. Don’t stress about it.” Eight touched her shoulder, and that small contact made her calmer.

Seven glanced from her to Eight and back. A gust of evening wind blew his hair into his face, and he pushed it aside without taking his eyes off her. Barrie fought to keep herself from squirming—being read by two Beauforts at once was exponentially worse than when Eight was the only one doing it.

“All right.” With a disconcertingly easy smile, Seven turned and spoke to Pru. “Seeing as how you have the gun, why don’t you and Eight go around toward the chapel and check if there’s any sign of anyone down that way. Barrie and I can walk up toward the gate.”

Pru arched her brows at Barrie, who gave a shrug and started plodding toward the plantation’s main entrance with a wary glance at every tree and bush along the way.

Twilight was turning the sky a bruised lavender as the last rays of the sun spilled over the river behind the house. Shadows darted across the lawn and chased one another up the lane, and the stillness gave a sense of time passing at a pace different from that of the world beyond Watson Island. Touching one of the ancient trunks that stood at the edge of the grass, Barrie absorbed the hum of energy beneath her fingers and closed her eyes.

She opened them again as Seven stopped beside her. “I’m not
going to apologize for not cowering inside,” she said. “Pru and I are the ones who have to live here. I hate that I feel like I am constantly having to fight everyone to have my opinion matter.”

“Of course it matters—but you’re not invincible. Or infallible.” He sighed and steepled his fingers in front of his lips as though searching for words, which was something that Barrie imagined happened very rarely. “I understand what a struggle all this is for you. You’re still grieving and settling in. You and Eight have spent virtually all your time together since you got here, and I can see why you wouldn’t want to say good-bye. But he just told me about turning down the scholarship. You have to make him change his mind.”

“Why?” Barrie braced herself against the oak tree and stared at him. “You didn’t want him to leave in the first place—that’s why he had to get the scholarship.”

“My objections were never about the scholarship—or even about playing baseball.” Seven took two steps toward the gate and stopped with his back to her. He ran a hand across the back of his neck. “All I wanted was for my son to choose to stay here and practice law. To decide he
wanted
to do that, before he found out he had no other options. I thought if he decided for himself, he wouldn’t feel as trapped. After almost losing him . . . I realize that was a mistake. He deserves the chance to experience life away from the island while he can.”

Barrie stared hard at his back, but he refused to turn and
look at her. “While he
can
? Are you trying to say that Eight’s bound to Beaufort Hall the same way I’m bound to Watson’s Landing?”

“Not exactly. Not until after I’m gone and he inherits.”

The words defied comprehension. Yet the signs had all been there when she and Seven and Eight had been together in San Francisco: the way Seven rubbed his head, his irritability, his eagerness to get back. Barrie had assumed that was all due to his missing Pru . . . How had she missed making the right connection?

Probably because, even though Eight knew about the headaches that came on every time Barrie left Watson’s Landing, he had never mentioned that his father had them.

“Eight doesn’t know about your migraines, does he?” she asked. “Or about the binding?” Her voice wobbled, and she stopped and took a breath before she continued. “He didn’t understand why I was getting headaches any more than I did when I first got here. Which means you’ve never told him—”

“Is that so wrong?” Seven turned and frowned down at the fine, white shell dust that coated the toes of his burgundy wing tips. “Try to understand. All I want is for him to have a semblance of a normal life. None of the heirs ever have real choices—our lives are mapped out for us by decisions that were made three hundred years ago. I’ve resented that since I first found out that was what was waiting for me. I wanted
Eight to have at least the illusion of having chosen. I swore I would find a way to make it different for him.”

“That’s still you choosing
for
him. He doesn’t want to be a lawyer. Don’t you know him at all?” Remembering the bleak expression on Eight’s face when he had told her about his dyslexia, she wished for the first time in her life that Mark had taught her something more useful than how to pick out a great pair of shoes. A solid right hook, for instance, would have been great for waking Seven up.

She fought to keep her voice steady. “Eight’s learning disability makes him self-conscious. Instead of telling him you’re proud of him for who he is, though, and saying you’ll support him no matter what he wants, you’ve tried to force him into a mold he was never going to fit. He thinks that means you’re disappointed in him for not being more like you.”

That was a worse betrayal than anything Lula had ever done. Lula might not even have known about the binding. Since Emmett had wanted the gift buried and forgotten, Barrie had to assume he had never explained it to Lula any more than he had to Pru. But also, Lula had been Lula. She’d never made any pretense of being up for a mother-of-the-year award.

“You have to tell Eight. Warn him.” Pushing away from the tree, she walked to where Seven stood. “You should have warned
me
when I first came.”

“Pru wasn’t sure you even had the gift, and she didn’t want us saying anything in case you didn’t. At least until you’d settled in.” Seven placed both hands on Barrie’s shoulders. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure how to tell you until I knew you better. But I do know Eight. His happiness obviously means a lot to you. Think about it. Wouldn’t you keep a secret to keep him happy?”

Barrie shook her head. “Not this secret. It isn’t mine to keep. Or yours. And he’s going to do what he wants about going out to California, regardless of what I tell him.”

“Is he?” Seven’s face was pinched with regret. Barrie tried to picture what she would have done in his shoes, but she couldn’t say. Seven’s good intentions didn’t change the fact that hiding something this important from Eight was wrong. All that did was set him up for an even bigger trauma later.

Seven glanced toward the corner of the house to see if Eight and Pru were returning yet, but they weren’t. Digging into his pockets, he jiggled his keys or loose change—something that sounded like raw nerves jangling.

“I love Eight,” he said simply. “Thanks to the Beaufort gift, that fact alone makes it painful for me to refuse him anything. On the other hand, I’m also his father, which means I have responsibilities beyond what the gift urges me to do. Eight thinks he knows what the compulsion to give people what they want feels like. He has no idea how much worse
that will become, and I won’t tell him and spoil his happiness. But that’s why you have to let him go. You have to
want
him not to stay, and you can’t tell him about the binding.”

“How do I make myself want something that I don’t really want? I can’t,” Barrie said.

“You will if you care about him at all.” Seven’s eyes softened into sympathy, but he averted his face almost immediately as if he realized how much she didn’t want his pity. Of course he realized. He
knew
.

“With all that’s happened since you arrived,” Seven continued, “I’ve finally come to see that, to Eight, baseball is much more than a sport. It’s who he is. Don’t you see? These things that we Beauforts and Watsons refer to as ‘gifts’ are as much curses as anything the Colesworths have to bear. The ‘gifts’ keep us bound here so tight, we don’t even bother dreaming. You’ve already given up on wanting to go to art school. But you at least had the chance to consider what you wanted. Beaufort heirs have always stayed here and practiced law, so that was what I was going to do. I never even let myself think about other options when I was growing up. Dreams shape the kind of human beings we become. Not having a dream gave me a smaller future and made me a smaller person. It would be selfish for me not to want more than that for my son.”