The Double Rose (13 page)

Without asking, he scooped her exhausted body up into his strong arms like a gallant knight from a fanciful fable or a twenty-first century jerk taking a cheap shot in a vulnerable moment. Marie decided to perceive his actions as the latter. Her arms and legs thrashed about wildly, causing his hold to tighten.

“Okay! Calm down, and I will put you down.” As soon as her feet hit the floor, she turned around, and with every fiber of her weary might, she slapped his face, then stormed up the steps, leaving him to shut down the lights on his own. Her door was bolted before he could engage in his goodnight ritual.

* * *

Josh forcefully thrust his door open with both hands while he turned his neck and gazed at her closed boudoir. It seemed to him that Marie was determined to misconstrue everything he did.

* * *

Before crawling into bed, Marie prayed, “Our Father, I know you have a perfect plan for me, but I sure don't know what it is. Why did you bring me to this old mansion? And why is Josh Ryan suddenly a fixture in my life? You know that he makes me crazy. Please give me Wisdom. Amen.”

Marie curled up under the covers.
God, if it’s not too much trouble, answer my prayer with a sign of Biblical proportions. I'd have no trouble understanding that.

Chapter 14

Rain and Fire

Languedoc Region, France

Friday, 20 July

It was one o’clock in the morning and Marie had not fallen asleep. She deduced that the Tarzan incident before bed was partially her own fault for letting down her guard. Tomorrow there would be no more familiar activity with Josh. No more hugging, no more touching, and definitely no more goodnight pecks on the cheek.

Hours passed. The fierce storm steadily intensified. High winds rattled the windows making it more difficult for Marie to sleep. After spending a restless night tossing and turning between the sheets, Marie decided to get out of bed. The view from her high, second-story window alerted her to the brewing, black clouds in the distance.

Books littered the floor in the library where Marie dedicated the last day of her quest. Emotionally drained, combating a cloud of despair, she sullenly wondered
, Has God led me on a wild goose chase?

* * *

Josh tried to stay out of Marie’s way. It was an easy goal to achieve, due to the painful fact that he had no opposition. But he was on a quest of his own. Her reluctance to accept him as a suitor was a challenge worth the effort to vanquish.

During his initial investigation of the estate, Josh had observed a bedroom with rose embellishments. Determined to keep his promise to Marie, he scoured the room, hunting for the ominous book of poems, or clues to its whereabouts.

* * *

Marie had avoided Josh at breakfast time, but her growling stomach brought them together at noon. Armed with her journal and pen, she ignored him, one bite of turkey sandwich at a time, even though he was only two feet across the table from her.

“The silent treatment is juvenile.” Her eyes addressed his observation with a defiant glare. “Why are you mad at me this time?”

The flirty dimple on his right cheek, as if a waving red flag, reminded her of last night’s resolve.

“I am not mad at you, Josh, but . . . ” He sarcastically nodded his head, signifying he expected a but. “I have to work out a few things about the man in my dreams before I can deal with you.”

He returned her teasing little smile with a firm, deep, penetrating soul chastisement. “I am not some kind of business transaction. I am offering you my heart, my love, my eternal devotion.” He stood, then walked around the table and stooped next to her seat. “It would be nice if you could consider a word a tad more personal than ‘deal’ when you are talking about my affection for you.”

His penetrating eye contact disconcerted her more than any other intimate advance: holding hands, caresses or massages, his arm over her shoulder, or even his little goodnight kiss on the cheek. “Calm down. Let’s not get hysterical. All I am saying is that I had my life planned before you showed up out of the blue, after an absence of five years, and tried to reconstruct my future. Pardon me for not consulting you!” She stood in a huff, hoping to retreat with the last word. He stepped into her path before she could walk away, forcing her to listen to him face-to-face.

“I have no doubt that you planned out your future with high expectations. But I believe that the future we could have together is far more enriching than the future either of us could have apart.” She turned and walked away from him as his voice followed her out of the room. “How can you ignore a man pouring out his heart to you?” No response. Somehow she could. “Okay. Have it your way. I'll investigate upstairs.”

It was not that Marie would not respond to Josh as much as she could not, because she did not understand her own feelings.
Perhaps Maman is correct. I need to find inner peace before I can be half of a healthy couple . . . hmm . . .
An epiphany struck her,
The journey to Grandmother Marie's poetry book is an important step on my path to inner peace.

Five hours passed, and Marie had made no progress in the library. She stopped rummaging through the books on the floor and tossed herself on the sofa instead.

Bang . . . Bang . . . Bang . . .

“What is that noise?”

Bang . . . Bang . . . Bang . . .

She sat up.

Bang . . . Bang . . .

Entering the foyer, she listened carefully to ascertain its direction. Her imagination took flight step by step as she ascended the staircase.
What is that man doing now?

Down the long corridor, past the portraits, around the corner, the banging intensified with each stride. Kneeling on the floor in a Renaissance-style bedroom suite, Marie discovered Josh knocking in a wall with a hammer. She screamed. “Are you crazy?!”

Steady with the hammer in spite of being startled, he continued banging the wall. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I am crazy! Crazy enough to keep my promise.” He quit hammering and turned his head toward the doorway where she was standing. “Look around the room.” Josh stood, then walked to the four-poster brass bed and pointed to a framed double rose quilted square above the headboard.

Marie entered the vintage bedchamber awestruck, then sat on the quilt covering the bed. “I can’t believe I never searched the bedrooms.”

Josh sat next to Marie and placed his arm around her shoulder, unaware of her middle-of-the-night resolution to banish such behavior. “Are you okay?”

“I am fine, but why are you tearing down the wall?”

“After I discovered the quilted double rose, I had a hunch that the book might be somewhere in this room.”

She divided her attention between his words and his strong arm nestled on her shoulder.
Should I listen to my head and stand by my resolution by brushing off his arm, or should I listen to my heart?

Thunder burst like a bomb, interrupting Josh’s explanation. He rose with a look of concern, eliminating her need to choose what to do about his arm, and peered out into the storm, watching the rain beat against the window panes.

“I actually found the book a few hours ago.”

“Excuse me?!”

“Let me explain.” He accentuated the remark with a hand gesture, then opened the nightstand drawer and handed her the book. “Read the dedication first. It is on the inside cover.”

Shaking her head in disbelief, she ran her fingers over the embossed double rose, then, after  flipping the cover, she ran them over the dedication.

“This book of poems is dedicated to my daughters, and to the generations after them. May it be an inspiration to the ones who see the vision and wear the tokens of my love. In my room, they shall stay until the day she comes.”

Marie affectionately admired the contents of the room. “This was Grandmother Marie’s room. She slept here.” Tears welled in her eyes from the joyous sense of being connected to her ancestor.

Marie anxiously thumbed through her grandmother’s old poetry book and randomly picked one to read.

             
Love is the breath between her lips

             
Wisdom proceeds from her mouth, rosy pink

             
She calls to them on land and ships,

             
‘To all—gather home from fruitless trips

             
Make haste before the light does sink

             
Time is your enemy as the day dips

             
My Sweet,’ she says to one and all

             
‘Truth prevails from winter through fall’

             
And lo, she will forevermore call,

             
‘Love is life

             
It is the master key.

             
Tis metamorphosis of you and me to we

             
Take flight, oh fear, to foreign trips

             
On this shore, you shall not tarry!’

             
A new vision, a new era she equips

             
The scale of good and evil now tips

             
Evil heaped like discarded baggage He does carry

             
Time will no longer be weary drips

             
But beauty untold more pure than whitest snow - -

             
Every man, woman, boy, and girl shall know

             
Disdain speech be halt, let yesteryear go!

             
Within the ring of new life they will sing,

             
‘All praises to our God and King!’

As Marie stared dumbfounded at the heirloom book, Josh said, “Did you catch the words in the dedication?” He flipped the pages back to the dedication, then pointed to the elegant script as he read the words, “
'Wear the tokens of my love.
' I think there may be something hidden in this room; something that can be worn.”

“Is that what the hole in the wall is all about?”

“I thoroughly searched this room. The only other double rose image was a faded stencil on the wall behind that bureau.” He pointed to the bureau. “Breaking through the wall was the only way to find out if I was right. I had better be, because I don't know what I will say to Jacques and Marianne if I'm not.”

“Did you find anything?”

Josh returned to the felled wall. “Let’s find out together.” He grabbed the cracked plaster with his bare hands and yanked down enough of it to expand the hole two feet, then reached into the interior of the wall and pulled out a small jewelry box caked in dust. After brushing off the dust with the corner of his T-shirt, he handed it to Marie.

Her teardrops anointed the painted double rose decorating the lid before she could open it. Hesitating, she looked up at Josh, then down at the fruit of his daring act, then back at his face. “I am sorry for how stressed I have been all week.” Her apology resonated with sincerity, but then she lighten it up. “I mean ever since I was five.” His forgiving eyes let her know all was well, and a ping of emotional warmth from being near Josh flashed through her. It was a joy unlike anything she had experienced before.

With earnest anticipation, she gently opened their mysterious find. “Oh!” she gasped. From within the little box she pulled two necklaces—a gold cross with two intricately sculpted roses at its center; the other had strung coral and onyx stones with a tarnished, silver-mounted lion claw.

“These must have belonged to Grandmother Marie and Grandfather Misai.” Stunned, she ran her fingers over the smooth, golden cross.

“She hid them away for you and the man you love.” He restored his arm to her shoulder beneath the weight of her smooth-as-silk hair.

Marie struggled to see through the tears in her eyes. “I am glad you are here. I doubt
 . . . I mean, I am certain I would never have found these without you. My head was buried in the wrong place—the library. Thank you. Josh.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek as the small bulbs in the hallway chandelier began to flicker in a familiar way.

“We better clean up this mess before we get stuck in the dark again. Maybe we can make it look,” she eyeballed around the room, giggled, then continued, “less terrible. Then we need to tackle the library. I think I may have made more of a mess with my rampage there, than you did bulldozing that wall.” She cocked her head toward the gaping hole.

They spent the next couple of hours undoing the damage they had created. As Marie scurried up and down ladders, the mundane task of restoring hundreds of books to their shelves was seasoned with fantasies of Grandfather Misai’s art studio, wondering how and where he worked.

At midnight, they shut off the downstairs lights together and ascended the steps to their bedrooms for the last time.
Should I let him have his silly little goodnight kiss
? Or not? She debated with herself as each step slowly ate away her time to think. Finally, the moment arrived. She had to choose.

“We have had a lot of ups and downs this week,” he began his ritual, running his fingers through her hair. He looked deep into her eyes as he had the nights before. “I want you to know that being here, alone with you, has been the most rewarding week of my life.”

Her heart won, and she offered him her cheek.

“Goodnight, Marie.”

Saturday, 21 July

A soft, feminine voice aroused Josh from a deep sleep. “Wake up.”

The illumination of the intruder bewildered him. Apprehensive, he demanded to know the lady’s identity.

The ageless woman wasted no time on his curiosity. “The house has been struck by lightning. It is on fire. You must hurry,” she urged him into action, then faded into a transparent form before she vanished.

It took no longer than two seconds for his feet to smack the cold hardwood floor. He thrust his warm bare feet into his faded western boots. The discomfort from falling asleep fully dressed earned him the extra minute it would have taken to throw on clothes.