The Lady of the Storm - 2 (4 page)

He dropped the bedcovering, took a step backward. His voice, when he spoke, sounded oddly breathless. “Yes, yes. I’m sure you do. Now, be a good girl and get dressed.”

Cecily rose to her knees. He just didn’t understand and this might be her one and only chance to tell him. She had to explain, and then surely he would fall into her arms as she had dreamed. Unlike Becca, Cecily would have the boldness to take what she wanted. And she had never wanted anything more than she wanted Giles Beaumont.

So despite the heat in her face, she confessed her heart. “You think I’m like all the other girls, don’t you? But, Giles, I’m not. None of them are worthy of you. Not a one of them will cherish you the way I do. I am your soul mate, and ours will be a greater love than you can possibly imagine. You just don’t know it yet. You just need…”

He’d stepped closer again, his hand reaching out to her face as if her words had somehow cast a spell over him, and he couldn’t stop himself. His handsome features had softened; his eyes glazed with some emotion Cecily couldn’t identify, yet somehow understood.

She suppressed a grin of victory.

But his fingers halted mere inches from her face, and he snatched them back as if the thought of touching her might burn him as easily as molten metal. He shook his head, water droplets spraying her skin like tiny spears of ice. And then he laughed. “Who the hell
are
you?”

“Why, I’m…” She could not say her name, for the meaning of his words slowly drifted past the intensity of her feelings. How could he not know her? She loitered in the forge every day. She knew his every habit. What he liked to eat, how the corners of his eyes crinkled when he smiled, the way he would grow silent when angered.

And he couldn’t even recall her name?

He hadn’t noticed her among the bevy of his admirers. She hadn’t been worthy of his notice.

A humiliation unlike anything she had ever known before suffused her. She had confessed an infatuation that was entirely one-sided. Hers. She gathered up her clothing and backed out of the room, her passion turning into a rage that threatened to overwhelm her. She ran before the control over her magic slipped beyond redemption.

And learned that love could fool. That passion could blind. And that…

Will cleared his throat from the doorway of Old Man Hugh’s cottage. Cecily untangled her fingers from the blacksmith’s hair. How long had she been sitting here staring at him? Revisiting memories she’d thought she had managed to bury years ago?

She attempted to rise but Giles’s eyelids suddenly flew open and he grasped her hand. “Must leave… keep you safe.”

His big hand felt so warm, her fingers dwarfed in his. Something ran through her, a frisson of feeling similar to what she had felt all those years ago. She should never have allowed that old memory to resurface with such excruciating detail.

And yet, she now realized he had lied to her. That night, he had known who she was. He had used those words to hurt her, to discourage the childish infatuation she’d felt for him. But his laughter had been genuine, of that she could be sure. For he had been assigned to protect the Rebellion’s tool, had never truly seen her as a person. And what a lark the tool had turned out to be!

Cecily twisted her hand from his and near growled her next words. “I told you, I’m not going anywhere with you.”

But his eyes had already rolled back into his head.

Will stood frozen in the doorway, his brown gaze flicking from her to Giles. “What is going on between the two of ye?”

“Nothing.” Cecily stepped over to his side and took his hand, so much smaller in comparison to the blacksmith’s. “Father asked him to watch over me while he was away; that’s all. Although why he would choose such an oaf is beyond my ability to comprehend.”

Will bristled. “Thomas should have asked
me
. He knows how I feel about ye.”

Cecily could not explain to him about the Rebellion. About who her true father was. For then she would have to explain about the night she’d escaped the clutches of an elven lord. And how even as a child, she had killed more than a hundred men in the process. Today had been bad enough.

“I don’t need anyone to watch over me, Will.”

“Aye,” he replied as he led her across the village square. “Ye’ve proven that, well enough.”

She caught some inflection in his voice, perhaps a bit of the betrayal he’d mentioned, but chose to ignore it. She would just have to work twice as hard to make the villagers forget what she’d done here today. It would take a bit longer for them to forget this incident. But she had every confidence they would. She would not give up her life here so easily. She had worked too hard for it.

“Do ye wish me to help bury her?” whispered Will.

Cecily realized she’d stopped beside her mother’s body. What was she doing here lying in the dirt? Mother hated to get dirty.

“Yes,” she replied. “Let me fetch a blanket, Will.”

Before he could respond, Cecily dropped his hand and ran to their little cottage on the outskirts of the village. Thomas had built it close to the ocean, for he knew his daughter couldn’t bear to be far from the waves. The thatch had been burned along with most of the south wall, and it reeked of smoke when she entered it.

Cecily opened the cedar trunk that sat at the foot of her mother’s bed. She pulled out the quilt she had so painstakingly sewed many a night, dreaming of when it would be spread on her marriage bed, the beam of Will’s smile as she proudly displayed the work she had done for him. She had pieced the blue-and-green cloth in a pattern of waves, with dolphins leaping from between the curls, and then overlaid the entire piece with tiny stitches of even more waves.

Mother had professed it to be the most beautiful quilt she’d ever seen.

Her poor mother could not sew. Indeed, it appeared she had no skills whatsoever, and Cecily often wondered what grand house she had lived in that she couldn’t manage to do anything for herself. But feared to ask about their life before they’d come to the village.

Cecily took to domestic life like she took to the sea. She had but to watch a quilting circle once to learn to sew. She cooked all of their meals, inventing her own dishes to tempt her mother’s delicate appetite. She tended the finest garden in the village, her vegetables and herbs always growing large and fine. She spun her own thread, wove her own cloth, and made her dresses from hand-drawn designs that Father would bring from London.

Cecily glanced around their little cottage, her gaze picking out the many things she’d created to make it a home. From the curtains at the windows to the seashells filled with flowers, the room spoke more of her tastes than her parents’. Mother professed time and again that she didn’t understand where Cecily had acquired such a gift for peasant life. Father only smiled and patted her hand in sympathy. And then winked at Cecily.

Father. What would he do when he came home? He adored Mother.

Cecily curled the blanket under her arm and ran back down to the village clearing, hopping over the small streams and rivulets that laced the land. Will stood patiently where she had left him.

Cecily laid out the blanket, and Will helped her place Mother in the middle of it. She brushed the dirt from her mother’s hair and dress, then carefully folded the quilt around her. “There now. This will protect her.”

Will nodded, as if what she said made any sense at all, and picked up Mother, following the line of villagers out to the small cemetery. Too many of their own would be buried today.

The plot stood on a small knoll, the driest place near the village. The elven lord of Dewhame had changed the land with his magic: springs spouted from meadow and wood, ponds softened any lowland, rivers and streams flowed in a wild profusion across the landscape.

Cecily knew that although the sovereignty of Dewhame had always been green, it had lacked the wealth of water the Imperial Lord Breden of Dewhame had created with his magic. Since the liquid nourished her very soul, she could not regret the change in the landscape, despite her adopted father mourning about how England had looked before the invasion.

Cecily dug the grave herself, until it grew too deep for her to get out of, and then Will helped her up and took over the task. Other than the weeping of the women, the villagers went about the burying of their dead with quiet grief.

Although many offered their sympathy to one another, not a one spoke a word of comfort to Cecily. She tried not to be hurt. Hadn’t she lived among them for years? Hadn’t she tended their families when one of them grew ill? Hadn’t she brought them gifts from the ocean to sell at market to help them through the winter? Surely her display of magic had not made them forget she was still one of them.

She had frightened them. Their fear would lessen when they realized she hadn’t changed. That she was the same girl, despite carrying too much of the elven blood.

Cecily sat at her mother’s side, watching the hole growing ever deeper, her chest tightening until she could scarcely breathe. If she allowed Will to place her mother in the grave, it would all become real. Oh, her head knew very well that her mother had died, but her heart had not acknowledged it yet. She could not allow it, or surely she would splinter into a thousand pieces, never to be whole again.

“Cecily?”

She stared up through the branches of the old elm tree, watching the sunlight filter through the leaves. If she didn’t answer Will, he might go away. She could not put her mother into the ground. She could not. Then it would be final. And she would never hear her mother’s laugh again, or feel the softness of her arms enfold her, or know the joy of her words of praise when she thought Cecily had done something particularly clever.

She couldn’t do this.

Will tried to take up the blanket. Cecily frowned at him, picked up her mother herself. She felt so slight. So frail.

Will jumped down into the hole and lifted up his arms. Cecily carefully handed Mother to him, and when Will crawled back out and made to cover her with dirt, Cecily grabbed his arm.

“Wait.”

And she flew down the small rise, into the meadow, gathering as many flowers as her arms could hold, and then took them back to shower down around her mother.

“This will make it bearable for her, Will.”

He only nodded, and followed her on her next trip, this time partway into the woods, gathering violets and wild roses and buttercups. Then he followed her back toward the ocean, and they gathered knotgrass and sea holly and the small yellow flowers that grew along the cliffs.

By the time they returned, most of the villagers had finished their burials and left. The few who remained kept their eyes averted from Cecily’s.

Will began to shovel the dirt onto their mound of flowers.

“Wait,” she panted, and raced back home, stripping her garden bare of any plants that had managed to flower, gathering the honeysuckle she’d cultivated near the front of the cottage, until she could barely see past the blooms in her arms.

When she’d dropped them down into the hole, the combined perfume of the blooms made her head spin. But she nodded at Will, who had waited with infinite patience for her to return. The sun started to set while he shoveled, and this time she joined him, until they laid the last clump of earth atop the grave.

“She will like being surrounded by the flowers.”

“Aye. Ye did right, Cecily.”

He took her hand, and they stood for a moment without saying a word. Mother knew what lay in her heart, without her having to say it over her… place of rest.

Will escorted her back to her empty cottage, placing his cheek against hers in farewell. “Are ye sure ye will be all right by yerself?”

Cecily nodded. “I can’t stay at your place, Will. It wouldn’t be proper.”

He flushed. “I was thinking of Becca. Surely ye can stay with her a time?”

She should have known Will would never suggest anything improper. But even if Becca would welcome her, Cecily knew her friend’s family would not. They had always stared at her odd eyes with suspicion, despite everything she’d done to endear them to her.

“No, Will. This is my home. I just hope it doesn’t rain tonight.”

He nodded, red hair falling about his forehead. “I’ll see about fixing the roof in the morning.”

Cecily smiled with gratitude. She knew she could count on Will. Despite everything he saw her do today, he still cared for her.

Night had fallen and shadowed the familiar interior of the cottage, and Cecily shivered as she closed the door, grateful that at least the smoke had finally cleared. She lit a rush light, the meager illumination doing little to vanquish the shadows. But she hesitated to light a fire. The early summer night was too warm, and their pile of wood too meager. Mother kept saying that as soon as Thomas returned she would set him to chopping wood.

But Father had not returned. And now Cecily wondered if he ever would.

While she ate a cold meal of bread and dried fish, she wondered if the blacksmith had been right. Thomas had never been gone this long before. He often went away for months at a time, never telling them where he was going, or what task the Rebellion had set for him. Cecily had reassured her mother that Thomas could take care of himself. Hadn’t he shown her the way he could make himself almost disappear? Hadn’t he regaled them with stories of his escapes from danger time and again?