by Edith Layton
They dropped their cudgels and fell to their knees in terror, and groveled in the dirt at his feet. He stared down at them. “Go now,” he said in an ominous tone, “to a church, confess all, and ask forgiveness.”
They scrambled backward and then rose to their feet, turned and fled. Well, he thought, there were worse places he could have sent them. The girl stood, rooted to the spot, shaking.
“Mister,” she said, “What d’ya want?”
“Nothing you can give me,” he said. “Go now.”
There was no one he wanted to make love to but Eve. There was no one he wanted to talk to but her. Not even his own people, not even if he could find any here.
There had been a time when his people had lived in the heaths near London, in the fields beyond it, on the grassy strands by the great river, in the very parklands. There were none now. He remembered them as though in a dream: his merry, beautiful folk as they danced in the moonlight and laughed through their days. Gone.
Even the other folk, not of his kind, but not of mankind: the shy and busy little brown nation who lived in holes in the earth; those creatures who had lived in the very river itself: the ugly and the lovely, they were all gone. From the smallest to the giants, even the tiny sparkling winged creatures who played at the foot of unsuspecting human’s gardens were no longer there. He didn’t regret the absence of those vicious, spiteful things. The only good they’d ever done him was the amusement he felt when Eve had asked if he had wings.
He didn’t know where any of those folk had gone to, nor did he seek them. They had left; their day was over. The nights were emptier, except for the humans. And he didn’t have anything to say to them right now. London depressed Aubrey more and more. But he stayed. She’d be back soon. He knew it.
He rode through the parks on his best horses. He sat by the banks of the Serpentine and watched the humans at play. Whenever he saw anyone who might know him, he became someone else. He was safe from criminals and well-wishers. He was in the largest city in Europe: invisible, alone, and deep in thought through each night, and all through the days. Waiting.
Eve sat in the sunny parlor and tried to read her book. Her friend was upstairs, napping. The household was quiet. Eve put down her book; she couldn’t read. The sun poured through the window and glinted on the words on the page as it did on the snow on the ground outside, and it blinded her. Yet she couldn’t bear to close the drapes to dim the room. It had been so gloomy for so long.
Days had turned to weeks; soon it would be months since she’d seen Aubrey. She began to realize that she wouldn’t see him again, not until the baby was born in the spring, she supposed, and not even then if it was a mere mortal. Who knew where Aubrey had gone? Not her father, because there was no word of him in his letters. Her father believed they were still together. And she’d no word of Sheridan either.
If it weren’t so cold and the roads so icy she might consider going to see her brother, and that way, maybe finding out where Aubrey was as well. Or so she thought until it thawed for a day and she realized she didn’t want to travel now, and didn’t want to chance seeing Aubrey again. Doubtless, he’d be with another female. Of what breed, she couldn’t guess. But a man—a being—who’d lived so long and loved so often wouldn’t go without lovemaking for very long.
She’d served her purpose. If she put a hand on the tight swelling in her newly forming belly she could sometimes feel the slightest fluttering now. She would have the babe; that was certain. The thing now was to stop grieving, and start planning. Because the longer she sat alone with this silent new life, the less willing she was to give it up.
It didn’t matter what his father was. He’d said he was from another world, a different people. She hadn’t believed it, now she did. What difference did it make? She was not a brood mare. She was a person. A human being, and that was not an inconsiderable thing. There was no saying that Aubrey and his sister were better because they were different kinds of beings. This was her world, and it would be her son’s world in whole or in part. If it chanced that he wanted to go with his father when he grew older, so be it. But he would not be taken from her at birth. Women had very little choice in the matter of their children’s upbringings in any world. But clever ones might.
Where could she go to find a safe harbor? Not his land. Not anywhere she knew in her own. She’d have to be resourceful. She had funds. She’d go to a new place, somewhere by the sea. She fancied living by the water. Perhaps she’d go to the east, to Rye or somewhere in Kent. Or maybe westward, toward Wales, or deep into Cornwall. Perhaps not Cornwall or Wales, she thought quickly, thinking of the magic and legends associated with both places: pixies and brownies, giants and all sorts of magical creatures.
Toward the east, then, Eve thought. She didn’t dare cross the ocean, for fear of harming the babe. But if Aubrey broke his word and came to her instead of waiting for her, she would go there. He might have no power there.
In the meanwhile, she’d buy a cottage and call herself a respectable war widow. She’d have her baby in peace. She knew she’d never sleep in peace again, wondering if he’d ever come for her or her baby; wondering if she’d ever feel his long, strong body next to hers in the night, wondering if he’d ever really loved her.
She wasn’t sure she could withstand him in either case. But if it were possible, by legal means and the force of her determination, she would. She bent her head over her book, and only raised it when she realized a good guest did not get a fine leather book stained with tears.
“Mrs. Ashford?” the butler said.
She looked up.
“You’ve a visitor, ma’am. Shall I show him in?”
She closed her eyes. Her father? Her brother? No, she knew who it had to be. Her pulses were already beating a tattoo, as though his very closeness had set her heart working too hard. She nodded, wiped her eyes, and sat up straight.
He wasn’t just as handsome as she’d remembered. He looked even better, the shock of seeing him made him even more magnificent to her than she’d recalled. He wore simple, casual clothing but he glowed. His eyes were bright, and he smiled. She had to narrow her eyes as she had against the sunlight he dazzled her so.
“Eve,” he said.
“You said you’d wait for me to come to you,” she said, not daring to smile back at him. “You may go,” she said.
Aubrey was taken aback. But she’d said it to the butler, who bowed and left them. When Aubrey realized whom she’d spoken to, he came into the room and to her side. “I said I’d wait,” he said. “But I changed my mind”
She stiffened. “You lied? You went back on your word?”
“Yes,” he said simply. “For two reasons. One is that I want you to know that there’s a present waiting for you at home.”
She waved her hand and looked away. “I don’t care for jewels and such. Surely you know that?”
“Not care for your gem of a brother? How remiss of me not to know that.”
She sat up. “Sherry? He’s back?”
Aubrey smiled. “Yes, for a few weeks now. Ready to go back, remembering only having an affair of the heart with a heartbreaking older woman. It’s done him no harm in any way. He left nothing behind him: no guilt, and no progeny.”
“How did you get her to give him up?”
“He produced nothing but trouble, from me. We spoke and she agreed it seemed reasonable that your gift runs only through the female line. She has a short span of attention but a long memory, which gives her respect for my persistence.”
He stared at Eve. “I did it because I promised to. But I also needed something to gain access to you. I had to see you, had to know how you’ve been. How are you?” Before she could answer, he went on, “I can see you flourish. But I’ve been wretched, and I’m not doing well at all. I need you, Eve.”
“You need my son,” she said after a moment.
He came and sat beside her in the window seat. “True,” he said. “But I also need and want you. My so
n will come, and we’ll decide what to do when he does. But I came here for you, never doubt it.”
“No,” she said, looking away. “We can’t decide later. I won’t have him raised in another land, and that’s that. I don’t belong in that place, even if he does. And I won’t give him up to strangers.”
“Am I a stranger then?”
Now she looked at him. “Oh, yes, Aubrey,” she said sadly. “I’ve thought about it long and hard, and you are. Different blood, different worlds, different views of both worlds. If our child is like you I’ll eventually let him go. I’ll have to, as all mothers must do, in time. But I want the chance to rear him, to love him, to teach him about my world, my people, and the heritage I give him.”
“I’ve thought long and hard too,” he said, taking her hand. It was icy cold in his grasp. He ran his thumb over the back of it as though trying to restore warmth. “I come to think that all your people stem from the same roots. You are a repository of what came before. Nature is stingy. Nothing is thrown away. Those that were here and are gone, live on in your people. Who is to say what it was that your mother bragged about in her ancestry? You are the powerful ones, after all.”
He looked at her seriously. “That’s not to the point. The point is that the most astonishing thing has happened, Eve. You left, and you took the heart I never knew I had right out of me. And I believe that if I had one, you’d have taken my soul as well. I’ve lived a long time. I’ve lived for laughter and pleasure and amusements, and I’ve had more of those things than most creatures even dream of. But I’ve gained nothing. And I have nothing now.”
“How much does any being have?” she asked. “You have more life than we do. We have this little time on earth, and must make the most of it.”
“But at the end of life, if you’ve lived right, you have love,” he said. “And memories of it. You also leave something behind you, apart from the echo of your laughter. You’ve contributed to your world. You have children, or you raise other people’s children; you build for the future, you help preserve other creatures and the earth itself. We don’t.”
“Not all humans do that,” she said.
“None of us do,” he said. “We never have done. We can’t. We use the world and other creatures. Maybe that’s why we are become so diminished. The worlds, yours and mine, require something of us and if we can’t contribute, it stops supporting us. I require you, Eve. I would stay here with you, and my son. If he’s of my people I’ll educate him and let him choose his own path. If he’s yours, we’ll do the same. And if he’s a combination of our blood, he may do great things for both our worlds.”
“But you can’t stay with me that long,” she said with a sad smile. “At least not for more than six months at a time.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’ll grow old. You’ll lose your longevity. You said so. You have centuries left to live.”
“Do you dislike me so much? Would you wish that for me?” he asked, gripping her hand tight. She stared at him.
“Do you know what it is like?” he asked her. “I didn’t until just recently. It is centuries of nothing. It’s an eternity of being with the same people who mean little to me, or finding myself constantly in new places among strangers who mean nothing to me. It is being without love in whichever world I inhabited. We don’t love, Eve. My people lust, as you know. They’re capable of liking, and they may even admire others, but they never love another creature. Now that I’ve found what love is I don’t want to be without it.
“What is life without it? I can tell you. It’s an endless road of mindless pleasure. It’s hunger without appetite, and no matter how you fill yourself, never any satiation. Centuries go by in a blink, the world changes, but you never change or change it. That’s never enough. You’ve changed me, though, Eve. I can feel it. I’m not mortal yet. But I may yet be, if only because I discovered my heart, and it is yours. Maybe I’ll have a soul as well as a heart one day. I hope I can grow one. That’s the strength of your people and the reason why you prosper. You have purpose. I want one too. And I want you.”
“I suppose I can come with you for each six months,” she said hesitantly.
“No. Haven’t you been listening? I don’t want that. I want life with you, and that means to live as you do, and die as you do too.”
She bowed her head. “I can’t take your heritage from you,” she said in a whisper.
“No, you can’t,” he agreed. “I give it to you.”
“You’ll lose your powers.”
“I don’t think so. Not until I die, at any rate.”
She picked her head up, trying to look deep into those splendid eyes. She knew what lay ahead even if he didn’t, and so much as she wanted him, he had to know. “And will you feel that way when you find your first gray hairs?” she asked him.
“When you lose a tooth? When one hurts? When you see firm flesh wrinkling, turning softer, when you feel your strength diminishing and beauty fading?”
His eyes sparkled. “I’m shocked at you, Eve. Are you so superficial, to want to throw me over if I become less than beautiful in your eyes? Would you not want me if I lost a tooth? Which one?”
She laughed, but sobered quickly. “I was talking about your aging as well as mine. Aging isn’t one of our virtues, Aubrey. It’s just a certainty, if we’re lucky to live long enough. It’s not enchanting. Neither is death. Give up your life for me? It’s too much of a sacrifice.”
“There’s no sacrifice if it’s what is most urgently desired. I’m much wearier of living to no purpose than I am afraid of dying.”
Her smile was wistful. “And what if I can’t bear to see it happen to you?”
He didn’t jest now. “You thought you would when we married,” he said seriously.
She sighed. “Yes. True.” She gazed at him with absolute sincerity. “But if we grow old and infirm, what if you grow to hate me for it? I couldn’t bear that. Nor should you.”
He smiled. “Hate you? I doubt it. But who knows? Maybe, at times, if I become human enough, I might dislike you at least once in a while. It sounds amusing. I want that choice. You people love, and argue, and make up, constantly. I’ve watched. I’ve seen it. You wrangle over the stupidest things, and fight to stay together after you fight. You’re petty and foolish and gloriously alive. I’ve come to see that to live with the constant promise of approaching death is to come fully alive. Anyway, that’s my choice. And I chose it. The only question is, do you? Will you have me as your husband, Eve?”
She touched his cheek. Her expression was grave.
He waited.
“I said yes once,” she breathed, “before I knew what it meant with a husband such as you. Now that I’ve been married to you, I’ll say it again. Yes. If you’re sure.”
He took her in his arms. She felt a great sigh move his chest. “I think I’m sure,” he said. “How should I know?” He looked down into her face. “Isn’t that astonishing? Isn’t that miraculous? For the first time in my life, I don’t know!” He looked as though he was going to laugh. But he kissed her instead.
Epilogue
Apple blossoms fell like fragrant snow onto the daisy-dappled grass. Lilacs bloomed, purpling the hedges surrounding the meadow and competing with the great cabbage-sized rhododendron flowers on the hedges that lined the paths. Daffodils shouted back the sunlight, wreaths of bright laburnum hung from every fence, and in the long meadows crimson poppies and anemones burned bright. It was warm, the sky cloudless blue, the breezes mild, and the golden-haired child lay cooing in his bower.
“This is better than being in the house today,” Aubrey said, laying on the grass, his head in his wife’s lap. “Come, Eve, why so silent. Don’t you agree?”
“It’s better than anything,” she said, as she stroked his hair. She sat up, her back against a tree. She looked to the infant in his basket. “Do you think he’s hungry?”
“Oh, we’d know it if he was,” he said with a smile. “Belie
ve it. But I meant that it’s better because this is all transitory. In a month, it will all have changed. And,” he added, slapping at a gnat that had been darting around his face, “it’s especially fine because it’s not perfect and, so, never boring. I can’t remember being more content.”
“Nor I,” Eve said. “Aubrey? He’s so good. He eats and plays, and smiles all day. What do you think? Does he have more of me, or of you, or of those others my mother spoke of, as well as any unknown others—who knows how many others, in my ancestry?”
“I think,” he said, “that he’s ours. And he’s his own. And, in the end, it’s better that we don’t know any more than he does, and don’t guess at what he will eventually show us. We have just to love him now, as we do each other.”
“That much?” she asked.
They sat contented and silent then, listening to the birdsong, and the burst of sudden delighted laughter from their baby.
Other AVON ROMANCES
A DANGEROUS BEAUTY by Sophia Nash
THE HIGHLANDER’S BRIDE by Donna Fletcher
THE TEMPLAR’S SEDUCTION by Mary Reed McCall
TEMPTED AT EVERY TURN by Robyn DeHart
TOO SCANDALOUS TO WED by Alexandra Benedict
A WARRIOR’S TAKING by Margo Maguire
WHAT ISABELLA DESIRES by Anne Mallory
Coming Soon
SEDUCTION IS FOREVER by Jenna Petersen
SIN AND SCANDAL IN ENGLAND by Melody Thomas
And Don’t Miss These
ROMANTIC TREASURES
from Avon Books
BEWITCHING THE HIGHLANDER by Lois Greiman
HOW TO ENGAGE AN EARL by Kathryn Caskie
JUST WICKED ENOUGH by Lorraine Heath
Acknowledgments
To Gillian Roginsky, whose delicious tales of her youth in England always inspire me.
