The Barefoot Bride (47 page)

Each time one of her tiny hands struck him, he cringed not from
his
pain, but from
hers.
He remembered her as a child. A sweet but silent little girl. He saw her as a lovely but distant young woman. The years had tumbled by, and as they had, he'd paid her very little mind.

"But I did try, Desdemona," he mumbled down to her and then winced when her nails raked his cheek. "Remember? I told you your eyes would make the best marbles if only we could get them out of your head. But you didn't answer me! You
never
answered me! You were a fragile doll who sat where you were placed, dressed in what someone chose for you, and slept where you were lain!"

He caught her pummeling hands. "I was little too! I didn't know how to play with dolls. And when I grew, I had even less time and patience to learn. You have to understand, Desdemona! I didn't know what to do with you! Dammit to hell, I
still
don't know what to do with you!"

Swirling from the deep recesses of his mind came the image of someone who
had
known. Chickadee McBride. It had taken the touch of a whimsical, uneducated mountain girl to bring the doll to life.

Saxon's eyes narrowed as he stared hard at Desdemona. "You're going to die, aren't you? You're
willing
yourself to die! Without her... without Keely..."

Roughly, he pushed her back into her chair. "Listen carefully, Desdemona. She's gone, and she's never coming back. I sent her away because she wouldn't have been happy here. I couldn't let her stay. Can't you understand that? You love her as I love her! Because of that we have to let her be where she needs to be!"

Desdemona looked up at him, profound sorrow spilling from her huge violet eyes.

"Her departure didn't mean she didn't care about you, Desdemona. One of the last things she told me was to take care of you. You've given me little chance to do that, but I won't let you die, do you hear me? All those things you miss doing with her—making snowmen, building a sled, picking flowers, singing—I can do all those things with you. Hell, I'll go shoot a bear and we'll sew it into a coat if that'll make you start living again! We're going to have a new life together, you and I. We'll do whatever you want, I'll give you whatever you desire. Desdemona, ask me for the world, and I'll see that you get it. Once we inherit our fortune—"

She flew from the chair, her hand slamming across his mouth, her fingers pinching his cheeks. Quickly, she slipped her other hand into his coat and withdrew his wallet. Snatching all the money from it, she shredded it into tiny pieces, flung them into the air, and threw herself on the quilt lying on the floor. There she sobbed anew.

Saxon shook torn money from the top of his boot. Desdemona obviously wanted no part of money. Dammit, she was going to continue to wither away!

Without Chickadee, she was going to be dead before—

His head snapped up. He stared at air, at nothing. Without Chickadee, Desdemona had no will to live. But Chickadee wasn't coming back. She would never set foot in Boston again. His shoulders slumped. What the hell was he going to do now?

"You'd die in the mountains, Desdemona! Life there is too primitive. I can't see you there. You're so delicate! How could you survive the life you'd have in those hills? There are no comforts there whatsoever. There aren't even any doctors for miles around! Betty Jane—she only has herbs. You'd have to bathe in streams, eat bear meat and greens that are so potent you can barely swallow them!"

Iffen I changed the cookin' water o' these here greens, the pot likker wouldn't be no good. Pot likker richens the blood, y'know.

"Richens the blood," Saxon whispered Chickadee's words. "Desdemona..."
Pot likker richens the blood.

Desdemona's sobs slowly ceased. For one long moment she gazed up at Saxon, a plea in her amethyst eyes.

"You'd survive there, wouldn't you?" he asked incredulously. "If Keely were with you, you'd survive in hell! You'd not only survive, you'd
thrive!"

Desdemona knifed to her feet and threw herself into his arms, her head bobbing on his chest.

"No!" he bellowed down at her and snatched her from him. Misery smothered him. Anger at the injustice of it all. "Desdemona, I can't take you to her! I had to make her
hate
me! There was this bear cub... she was like that animal. Wild, Desdemona,
wild!
I could think of no other way! Sticks, rocks—I had to throw them at her! I had to hurt her!"

He stormed toward the window and viciously kicked at a potted plant in his way. "I told her things she won't ever forgive me for! I made her loathe me! If I went to her, tried to explain they were only lies... she'd never believe me! I tried to make a lady out of her. She'll remember that and see it as proof that I wanted her to be someone other than who she was! I made her bleed... The wounds... they'll never heal. They're too deep, too severe!"

Desdemona rushed to him. She took his hands and placed them over her heart, then she put her hands on his.

"Hearts," Saxon bit out. "Love? No, Desdemona. She doesn't love me anymore. I destroyed her love for me on purpose. That was months ago. By now—dammit, by now she's probably already seeing someone else! And why shouldn't she? She thinks she's repulsive to me and that I'm humiliated by her!
I made her believe that!"

He left Desdemona and stalked to the other side, of the room, stopping in front of the chair. He stared blankly at it before sinking into it. "In less than an hour I'm to be married, Desdemona. Wed to a woman I can't stand the sight of! And here I sit, and there you are. Neither of us wants to be here, yet it's here we must stay. You will die, and I? I already have, Desdemona. I died the day she left.

"Look all around us, sister. This world—this diamondlike world with its brilliant facets has destroyed us both. You were caught in its coldness, shivering through year after year. And I... I immersed myself in it and was soon frozen within its frigid walls. And then came the sun, the warmth, Chickadee McBride. The only person either of us has ever known who had the ability to melt this ice castle we live in, and what did I do? I sent her away! Dear God, Desdemona, what did I do to all of us?"

He welcomed the horrible ache inside him. But no matter how much it hurt, he knew the pain he'd given Chickadee had been far worse. That she'd suffered at his hands, cried her rare tears for him... Her hatred was no more than he deserved for not having enough faith in their love. For not believing in its powers to overcome all obstacles as she'd begged him to.

His chin fell to his chest. He saw her quilt lying at his feet. Bending, he picked it up and ran his hands over its colorful design, for the first time noticing one side of it was patchwork, and the other side was intricately embroidered. "She was working on this the day she left," he mumbled. "She seemed desperate to finish it."

The need to see her threaded picture suddenly seized him. He spread the quilt out on the floor and felt his body grow alternately cold and warm as he deciphered Chickadee's beautiful embroidered message.

There were four separate scenes stitched on the covering. The first, at the top left-hand corner, portrayed buildings, gray and ugly. Boston? Saxon wondered. His brows knit in determination as he tried to understand, and then he noticed a shiny gold thread woven through the city scene. Curious, his eyes followed it. It left the city and ran through a large section of blue he took to be the ocean and entered the next scene.

Chickadee's Appalachia. Hills, some green, others turquoise, were the background for a tiny brown cabin. Patches of green Saxon knew to be mountain laurel surrounded the cabin, and there was even a black bear peeking out from behind the lush vegetation.

The golden string twined through the hill scene, swam through another piece of ocean-blue, and led up to the top of the quilt again, where there were more stitched buildings. Yes, this was Chickadee's ugly interpretation of Boston.

The thread then traveled through more sea-blue and down to the right side of the quilt, where there was another Appalachian scene. It curled through sapphire streams, twisted through emerald treetops, and wreathed around verdant shoulders of more mountains. The string seemed almost alive as it danced and glimmered through all the soft hues of the Blue Ridge.

And there it ended.

Saxon's breath caught in his throat. He felt lightheaded from the lack of oxygen. But understanding was far more important than air. His fingers clutched at the quilt while his eyes retraced the golden string's journey.

Life ain't really nothin' but a strang. You can yank on it, allus a-tryin' to find whar it leads. But you ain't never gwine know lessen you jist up and foller it. And I cain't tell you no more'n that on account o' yore gwine have to figger it outen all by yore lonesome. But Saxon, the day you quit a-tuggin' on it, that strang's gwine take you to whar you was allus meant to be.

"My life—this string," he mumbled to his sister, his eyes never leaving the quilt. "She told me this story... The string—it starts in Boston. But see where Keely ended its journey, Desdemona—in her Appalachia."

He stood and looked at his sister, but it was many moments before he could speak. "She gave me what she said was the only thing she could give me," he said quietly, understanding slowly coming to him. "Said she hoped it was going to come to me when I needed it the most."

He looked down at the quilt again, smiling so broadly that his grin took over his face. "She knew—Desdemona, she knows I love her! She knew it when she left, and she knows it now! I thought it was her pride that kept her from telling me she hated me! But it wasn't pride, Desdemona. It was love! She saw right through that act I put on for her. She left me this message—she wants me to follow her! Desdemona, don't you see? She
knew
I was lying to her! Somehow, probably those heart eyes of hers, she figured it all out after she left the bedroom that night! At this very moment, she's waiting—she knows I'm coming! With her, in the Appalachia! It's where I was always meant to be!"

He ran to his sister, picked her up, and whirled her in circles, his laughter bouncing off the walls.

"What a touching scene," Araminta's voice dripped from the doorway. "Simply touching."

Saxon looked at his grandmother and crossed to her, his expression, his stride, his very aura frightening her. She reached up, her scrawny hand shivering over her brooch.

Saxon stared at the pin and smiled. "Whatever power that thing had is lost, for I feel none of the fear it used to make me feel, Grandmother."

Araminta shrieked when he reached for the brooch and tore it from her gown. With horrified eyes, she watched him fling it at the window. It sailed right through the glass, flew into the courtyard, and finally landed in a small pond, where it floated for a second before if sank, leaving only ripples as evidence that it had ever existed.

"For years that thing scared me," Saxon admitted. "When I was a little boy, I was sure you'd stolen it from a Cyclops and the monster would come to this house for revenge. Even after I was a man, it made me nervous. Just as you did."

He stalked her. Araminta backed away until she met the wall behind her. "Get away from me! Thatcher!"

Saxon loomed above her, then bent his head closer to hers. His eyes were drawn to the area beneath her mouth. "Warts?" he asked, staring at the three growths on her chin. "They must be new. I've never seen them on you before. But how well they suit you, Grandmother. A witch is not a witch without warts!"

As his gaze stabbed into her, Araminta knew without a doubt that whatever mastery she'd hoped to retain over him had vanished. This was a new Saxon before her: one she'd seen slowly evolving as of late; one she'd done everything within her power to keep from surfacing. This was not Saxon, her grandson.

This was Grayson Blackwell's son.

She would stand up to him just as she had stood up to Grayson! "Unless you cease this disrespectful display immediately, I will be forced to destroy you, Saxon. I have shouldered as much as I am able, giving you chance after chance to redeem yourself and be the man deserving of the Blackwell fortune. But you insist on taunting me just as Grayson did. And not even marriage to Myrtle will save you this time. Unless you show the respect due me, I shall change my will for the final time and cast you out into the streets this very afternoon! Just as I did with your father, I will disinherit you, and this time there will be no hope for you!"

Saxon laughed. "No hope? My dear lady, where there is love, there is always hope. I was a fool not to believe that before now!"

"You... you—"

"Am a man in
love.
Not with money, not with society or my estimable station in life. I am in love with the mountain angel who saw a part of me that miraculously escaped your venom, and if I live to be a thousand years old, it won't be enough time to thank her for nurturing what little good there was about me. I love Keely, Grandmother. I leave this very afternoon to find her, and I'm taking Desdemona with me!"

Araminta reached for her brooch before she remembered it wasn't there. "Penniless! You'll go penniless!"

"Wallow in your gold. Grandmother! I want none of it! My pockets are empty, and I'll go from here with nothing but the clothes on my back, for doesn't everything I own really belong to you?"

"Most assuredly it does! Everything—"

"Except my heart. Except the one thing you never managed to get control of. But how you tried to make me love money. And I did, I suppose. But it never loved me back, Grandmother. I'm not leaving as the poverty-stricken man you believe me to be. I leave here with love, a treasure so boundless there is no way I can ever get my fill of it!"

Desperately, Araminta searched for another weapon. "Yes," she hissed when she remembered what that weapon was. "Desdemona... I still retain custody—"

"You'll never find her. With Keely's help, Desdemona and I will elude you and any detectives you send after us. And if you dare try to stop us before we leave, I will lock you in that trunk you used to lock
me
in!"