by Devon, Eva
Annabelle could only imagine that to lose it would be more painful than almost anyone could bear. Annabelle had never known the kind of happiness that Jane must have known but she was not jealous. Unlike Jane, Annabelle had had nothing to lose.
Taking a long swallow of wine, Annabelle rushed, “Oh, yes. I received my education about the ways of the world almost from the moment that I exited my mother’s womb.”
“How is such a thing possible?” Jane asked, her dark brows rising as she, too, took a sip of wine.
“Well, I was born in the East End of London,” Annabelle said quickly, determined not to cast a self-pitying air upon her own tale of woe. “And I was born in a hovel with a father who hated me almost on sight for I was not a boy.”
Annabelle pursed her lips. “And he hated my mother for having me. And he hated my mother for not bringing him the fortune that he thought that she would. So my father was a cruel, manipulative man who knew how to use everyone about him, and I do mean everyone.” Annabelle forced herself to draw in a calming breath. “There was not a single person that he did not see as a tool for his own advancement.”
Suddenly Annabelle laughed. It was unbidden and brittle to her own ears. “You know, it never occurred to me, but my father and my uncle are extremely similar men. They’re not related at all and they come from two entirely different worlds, you see.”
Jane cocked her head to the side. “Go on,” she urged as she steadily drank the rich hued liquid.
Swallowing back a growing tide of unpleasant feelings, Annabelle, too, drank a good deal of her wine. Then she continued, “My father was a horrible, horrible man who came from horrible, horrible circumstances. I think he might have even been born in an actual gutter. It’s remarkable that he rose so high and learned to speak so well that he could seduce my mother, the daughter of a lord. But there it is.” She shrugged, taking no pleasure in her father’s manipulative abilities. Even he had, no doubt, half-killed himself to learn them. “And my uncle, on the other hand, he was born to every advantage with every education and with every possible whim given in to, yet he was also awful and cruel.”
Jane sighed. “It seems to be the way of many men. No’ my brother, of course.”
“No,” Annabelle said softly and without reticence. “Not your brother. He is an altogether different sort. And he seems to, like you, to have been happy once.”
Jane looked away. “He’s no’ happy now.”
“No.” Annabelle winced. “There is something that haunts him.”
It was Jane’s turn to suddenly laugh. “It is me. And the things I’ve done.”
“I don’t see how that could possibly be true,” Annabelle insisted.
“I haunt him just like I haunt this castle.” Jane’s brow furrowed. “Didna ye think for a few moments that I was a ghost of some sort? Something out of a perfectly, deliciously, awful gothic novel? A creature lurking the halls and wandering the Highlands?”
Annabelle grinned. What else could she do? “Yes, I suppose there was an aspect of it to you. But I’m not taken to such fantasies. You see, I think the horrors in this world are real enough without inventing any.”
Jane’s lips parted in surprise. “How intriguing. Do ye no’ care for novels then? Do ye care only for reality?”
“Quite the contrary,” Annabelle said with a shudder. “It is the fact that reality is so awful that I like novels so much. I’ve read a great many. I still hope to read more. The fact that your library downstairs is so grand is giving me a great deal of hope because I think I shall be here for a very long time, or at least. . .”
“Yes?” Jane prompted.
“I hope I shall,” Annabelle whispered, half-afraid to curse herself by declaring it aloud. “It is so beautiful here. My heart, my soul, I can’t explain it. I feel as if—”
“Ye’re free?” Jane asked.
Annabelle nodded, glad Jane understood. “I think it’s very strange, isn’t it?”
“No, no’ at all,” assured Jane passionately. “Ye see, people do feel free here. It’s no’ like London. It’s no’ like Edinburgh even. It’s no’ like the south. Here, one can feel wild almost. Almost like an animal and it’s truly magnificent. Oh, there are still rules here, but it is when one goes away that truly horrible things happen.”
A dark look passed over Jane’s features. “When I was brought back from London, I had to be kept sedated for some time. It wasn’t until I realized I’d truly come back to the Highlands that I felt any peace after. . .”
Annabelle said nothing lest she break Jane’s trust. Even so, her heart raced at whatever secret the young lady kept. It had to be a painful one.
Jane drank her wine to the dregs and stared into the bottom of the glass. “My father didna like to leave here. And when he did, it always took a great deal out of him.”
“Was your father a kind man?” Annabelle asked.
“Yes,” Jane said with a sad smile. “Too kind, I think. He destroyed himself, ye see.”
“I’m so very sorry,” Annabelle replied honestly at the taboo revelation. Self-slaughter was not generally mentioned, not even in her childhood circles.
“Perhaps I’m too much like him,” Jane said softly. “I think my brother is more like our mother. She was verra strong and verra good. But. . .”
“Yes?” Annabelle prompted.
“Neither of them could live long in this world it seemed.”
“That must have been very hard for you,” Annabelle said, having no understanding of what it might be to have loving parents.
“No harder for me than it is for anyone else,” Jane replied.
“The fact that it happens to so many people, the loss of their parents,” said Annabelle, “does not make it less sad. In fact, I think it makes it more so. Think of all the people wandering this world in mourning for their parents and mourning for the parents that they never really had, or the parents that were so wonderful and then they’re suddenly gone from their lives.”
Annabelle bit her lower lip, her own heart suddenly full. “I don’t see how humans function really or how humans are capable of going on, but we do.”
“Do we?” Jane whispered. “No’ always.”
Annabelle took a careful sip of her wine, pondering this statement. It was an accurate one, but it did give her pause. Was Jane simply referring to her father? Or something else.
“Yes, I suppose that’s true,” Annabelle said. “But, I find that life can be most abruptly ended so I don’t give it a great deal of contemplation and I try to value everything that I have, every day that I have, even if it’s rather awful.”
Jane all but gaped at her. “Ye mean that?”
“Yes, I do,” said Annabelle firmly. “I have known truly awful days. I have not had enough to eat. There have been many days when I have had naught but scraps to warm me and I have been beaten and derided. I’ve had people treat me as though I was the worst groveling dog and expect me to lick their hands for the little they gave me. Yet, I did not give up.”
Annabelle straightened. “I am incapable of giving up.”
Jane stared at her. “I should like to be like that.”
“I don’t know,” Annabelle replied.
“No,” cut in Jane, “I should. When one is so determined to value life, to enjoy it, I think that one must no’ give way so easily to unhappy circumstances.”
Annabelle bit her lower lip again, then drank the rest of her wine in her glass. “Perhaps that is true, or perhaps it is the fact that I have never known the sort of happiness and comfort that you have known. I have never known the loss of it, Jane, so I cannot mourn it the way that you do. I have simply put one foot in front of the other all the days of my life. And I have hoped for what little I can hope for. Somehow, I’ve been as happy with it as I possibly could be. I, too, have done terrible things.”
“Have ye?” Jane asked, astonished. Wordlessly, she crossed to Annabelle and took her empty glass. Without prompting, she refilled both. �
�I didna ken ladies were capable of doing much that which was truly terrible.”
Annabelle laughed again, feeling relief that Jane was accepting her. “Oh, we are. We are, indeed. Now, I could argue that I am merely the blade of another person, the instrument, but I have a mind and heart and soul of my own and I have made the choices that I have made.”
Jane stared at her again as if she had completely lost her wits before she brought her the full glass of wine again. “I doona think that ladies have many choices.”
“We all have choices,” Annabelle contradicted, taking the glass. “Even if we have very little in our lives, we can still choose. We can still choose to cower, or we can choose to thrive. If you think of plants, if you think of flowers. . . even flowers will grow in the mud and the rocks in the most awful of conditions. Do not be a rose; be a dandelion.”
Jane lifted her goblet. “I’m. . . I’m glad ye’re here.”
Annabelle lifted her own goblet in turn. An unfamiliar emotion slipped through her.
She’d never had a female friend. Not in all her life. And she was certain that, for all the troubles that she and Jane had been through, different as they were, she had just made one.
Chapter 21
Lack of courage had never been a dilemma for Tristan.
All his life, he’d met things boldly, head-on. He’d been born the son of a duke. Once old enough, he’d gone off to school in the south. He’d learned to fence, and fight, and ride. Over the years, he’d learned to manage his lands and secure the futures of the people of his clan.
At a young age, he’d gone off to war to fight the despot Napoleon.
When he’d come back, he’d adventured around the globe, and he’d seen wonders that most men could only ever imagine, or perhaps read about in the pages of some book.
When his father had so abruptly ended his life, Tristan had become the duke. He’d become clan laird. Even after all those years in war, after the death of his father, even after all of it, he had still maintained a sense of good inside him, and he had never tried to seek revenge upon anyone before.
It had never been his desire to hurt anyone, not until what had happened to Jane.
That had changed everything.
He would never forget the day she’d tried to kill herself with their father’s pistol. At first, he hadn’t seen how either of them could survive that. And then the revelation that she’d been diagnosed with syphilis. . .
Tristan wiped his hand over his face. Thank God, the diagnosis had been an error. A minor physical illness that had mirrored the pox had driven the final nail into the coffin of his sister’s resolve. But somehow, she’d been spared. Spared the rotting disease and the bullet she’d tried to end her life with.
No, she would not go slowly mad from a disease given to her by Caxton. But her heart and soul were deeply wounded, nonetheless.
Only vengeance had seemed the possible cure. Now? Was that the way?
As he stood in his chamber, waiting, wondering where his wife was, he felt at sea. He knew what he must do. He must do as Drake said. He needed to ask her about her childhood, about the life that had led her to her uncle, and to him, eventually.
But how did one ask such a delicate and potentially explosive thing?
How the hell was he going to get up the courage to ask her to bare her soul when he had bared nothing to her?
He couldn’t tell her his secrets, not now, not while he was still seeking revenge. But if he couldn’t, how could he expect her to? Bloody hypocrite. That’s what he was.
Still, he clung to hope. Hope that she trusted him enough to tell him the truth about her past.
Was there something truly so very terrible in it? Despite Drake’s dire warnings, he doubted it. How could there be? Over the nights they had spent together, he had seen inside her. He had seen her heart, and he had seen her soul.
They were both untarnished, even if her eyes shone with sadness.
The door to his chamber creaked.
Tristan tensed.
Annabelle slipped through, quietly closing the door behind her. She braced her back against the panel for a moment then strode forward. Her long skirts trailed about her legs and she met his gaze in the darkened room.
Only the light of a few tapers danced across the floor and, of course, the golden glow of the fire bathed them in its golden glow.
She met his gaze without fear, without concern.
That gave him pride and hope, indeed.
Annabelle saw him as an equal.
She was not afraid of him. There was nothing in her stance which suggested she was concerned or afraid that she might have displeased him in some way. Oh no, she was beginning to embrace her place here at the castle, and he was deeply grateful that she did not feel as though she need answer to him, as she had likely felt the need to do with her uncle.
“Have ye enjoyed yer evening?” he asked, aware that he had given her complete free rein of the castle.
“It has been most interesting,” she replied, her cheeks rosy. “And you? I heard a great many voices downstairs.”
“Yes,” he said. “Several of my friends arrived from all over the country. Dukes.”
“Dukes?” she echoed. “How very powerful you and your friends are.”
He didn’t demure. Instead, he continued, “I did send someone to find ye, in case ye wished to meet them, but they could no’ discover where ye were. Where did ye go?” he asked easily, for it had not been essential.
“I have been exploring the castle,” she replied. “It is very large, and there are many, many rooms.”
“How true,” he said, leaning against the mahogany table near the bed. “I ken people who have gotten lost here.”
“It would be easy to do,” she agreed, her hair slightly mussed which was highly unusual for her. Annabelle was usually so controlled. But not this night.
“If one did not have a good sense of direction and an understanding that if one looks outside and sees a window,” she arched a brow. “One could easily lose one’s bearings.”
He laughed. “Annabelle, ye are a marvel.”
“I’m glad you think so, Your Grace.”
“Tristan,” he replied.
“Tristan,” she repeated.
For a moment, Annabelle worried her lush lower lip, then she said boldly, “I saw a particularly interesting portrait today,” she said.
“Did ye?” he questioned, his breath nearly catching in his throat as he dug his fingertips into the table’s edge.
The castle was full of them, of course. All of his ancestors’ and many strangers’ portraits that had been bought from masters painted over the centuries decorated the many walls.
“Yes,” she said. She drew in a deep breath which expanded her breasts against the cut of her bodice.
“I met Jane,” she rushed.
He swallowed, unable to reply. Out of all the things that she might have said, this was the very last thing that he had expected.
“Jane?” he questioned.
“Yes,” she confirmed, then she smiled, a rather gentle but surprisingly teasing smile. “You know Jane.”
He forced himself to smile in turn. “Indeed, I have kent Jane all my life.”
“You love her very much, don’t you?” she asked.
At this unexpected turn, he felt as though the floor had spun out from underneath his feet.
Slowly, he turned away and faced the windows. Quietly, he looked out to the silver loch below, dancing under the moon’s beams. This was not the conversation he had been prepared to have.
He had been prepared to ask about her life, not discuss his. But perhaps this was what was meant to be.
Perhaps he wouldn’t be a bloody hypocrite after all.
If he spoke of Jane, if he could manage to rip open the wound of that pain, then perhaps she would be free with him. Still, he had spoken of it to only to his dearest friends, only the dukes that he had forged a bond with over war.
“Jane,
of course, is my sister, and yes. I love her verra much,” he replied simply.
“So she said. I like her a great deal,” Annabelle replied.
“Ye do?” he asked, stunned, and then hating the fact that he sounded shocked.
Once, everyone had adored Jane. She had been the light of any room she entered.
For the last several months, Jane had been nearly unapproachable, angry, full of weeping at one moment, full of fury at another. She said little, and spent most of her time with books, and music, and walking the Highlands. She wandered the castle at night, a ghost of a woman.
“I do like her,” Annabelle reaffirmed. “I do not know what has happened to her, but she has survived it, and one must admire that.”
He closed his eyes for a long moment, bracing himself before he turned back to her. “I’m glad ye admire her. I admire ye.”
“Why, thank you.” She smiled ruefully. “I do think Jane and I have a good deal in common.”
Tristan cocked his head to the side. “Do ye? I would have thought that ye were the first person to say that ye had nothing in common.”
“Why?” she queried, tucking a lock of errant dark hair behind her ear. “Is it because I was at the mercy of my uncle? She is at the mercy of whatever has happened to her. There’s really little difference. I suppose the only difference, of course, and something that she and I talked about, is that she actually truly was once happy. . . just like you.”
He winced.
It was true, of course. He had had a happy childhood, and he had been very happy with Jane, running over the hills and playing amongst the heather. There had been very little to darken their world, not until their mother had died suddenly of illness.
Ah, his mother had been a glorious woman.
She had always been full of smiles and laughter. She’d read them stories, and played games with them, and run about like a wild thing herself. It had been a shock to the entire family when she’d suddenly died of a fever, but most of all to his father.
