by Claudy Conn
Such was the joining of Heather Martin and the Comte de Brabant.
Across the ocean, at Windmera in Cornwall, Godwin felt as though a knife had sliced through his heart and hopes. She wasn’t coming back. His life, his hopes, his dreams were over.
He heard a pony’s hooves approach and watched as Roderick jumped off and approached, eyeing him worriedly. “Come, sir, the horse auction in town will be starting soon. We have just enough time to get there.”
“Yes, son…off we go,” Godwin said, and as he left, he turned again to look out to sea.
And so a chapter ended only to be reopened in later years.
Look for Windmera-Illusion (Part Two) coming in July
An excerpt:
Windmera—Illusion
By Claudy Conn
When we left Heather Martin in Windmera-Desperation, decisions that would affect all their lives had been made.
Thus, it was that Heather made her fateful decision that day and kept her promise to God. In so doing, a portion of Heather Martin was put to rest, perhaps never to be recalled.
Such was the joining of Heather Martin and the Comte de Brabant.
Across the ocean, at Windmera, in Cornwall, Godwin felt as though a knife had sliced through his heart and hopes. She wasn’t coming back. His life, his hopes, his dreams were over.
He heard a pony’s hooves approach and watched as Roderick jumped off and approached, eyeing him worriedly. “Come, sir, the horse auction in town will be starting soon. We have just enough time to get there.”
“Yes, son…off we go,” Godwin said, and as he left, he turned again to look out to sea.
And so a chapter ended only to be reopened in later years.
Swift as a shadow, short as any dream,
Brief as the lightning in the collied night,
That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth,
And ere a man hath power to say, “Behold!”
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
So quick bright things come to confusion.
Shakespeare,
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
~ One ~
February 1812
VARIEGATED SHADES OF GREEN OSCILLATED at her side, rising heavenward in a sky that seemed to meet and stroke the earth. Ahead, a creamy sand stretched beneath bare feet. Huge boulders of aged grey coral rock traced a path to the translucent sea of aqua and deeper blues. It was as though an ancient God had painted the scene and then brought it to life.
It was perfection. She walked amongst the isle’s offerings, her roan doggedly following her steps in the sand.
Her hair of thick black silk blew around her face in the wind, and she had to constantly remove it from her eyes. She stopped at a pool of water left by the receding tide and thought as she gazed into its clear stillness.
She could recall how many times her father had called her an English hoyden.
He had also been fond of telling her she had her mother’s violet eyes and exquisite face, the only difference being her black hair. Her mother had been a redhead.
Windmera gathered her skirts, hiking them up and tucking the hem into her waistband, before she stepped into the shallows of the beautiful aqua colored water. She was sure that her father, had he been alive, would have scolded her to take care for the proprieties.
She was Windmera, Mistress of Brabant, and her flighty Aunt Louise agreed with many of her notions that a woman should have the same freedoms as a man.
Windmera had been born to Heather and Maurice nineteen years before. Her life had started on a wild winter night. The island had been struck with the tail of a hurricane. The gale blew fiercely, making it impossible to ride for the doctor, but it was her time to be born, and born she was. She arrived fighting for breath, determined to take her place in the world, and so she had.
Her parents and everyone at Brabant Plantation lavished affection on her, thus, she grew into a maid full of willfulness. She was headstrong in everything and yet modifying such faults were her capacity for compassion, her ability to love the smallest and meekest of God’s creations, her scampish charm, and her naughty wit. She was a fighter, a rebel, and even the passing of first a mother she worshipped, and not long afterwards, a father she adored, she remained unbroken.
She had turned to her Tante Louise who had been a light in her life. And, of course, Bunky. After her father had passed three years ago, those two had seen her through the crisis of a grief that had sorely challenged her.
Dear Bunky, who had come with her mother to Barbados. Bunky, her cherished uncle, ‘never a servant’, her mother had often objected when he called himself head groom.
She could hear her mother laugh and say, “Head groom? No, you are a brother, always a brother.”
Between Bunky and her Tante Louise, she found much joy and laughter, each she thought funny in their own way. They had been there for her when her mother died because her father had been so stricken with grief that he took to spending much of his time away from the house.
Her mother’s memory, beloved and dear, often troubled her. During the last moments of her mother’s life, she knew her mother wanted to tell her something and kept looking at Windy’s father as though asking for help in that regard.
In the end, Windy had to lower her ear to her mother’s lips and she heard only one word, “Godw…”
And her mother passed.
Now, shoving the dulled grief away, she waded into the aqua ocean’s stream, when the sound of a man’s voice called out and caught her attention.
She shaded her eyes to see a sailor in a captain’s hat and a billowy white shirt walking her way.
He was an older gentleman and oddly enough, he called her by her mother’s name. “Heather…Heather Martin?”
Claudy Conn, a native New Yorker, now lives with her husband, Bob; Rocky Man, who weighs in presently at 190 pounds and their horse, Southern Pride.
She loves horses and riding and raised her ten-year-old gelding Southern Pride from the moment he was born. She also loves gardening, swimming, skiing, hiking, and travel—and of course, reading, writing, but no, she says, no arithmetic!
To get her monthly news, her reviews for all her new paranormal romances, and excerpts, come on and visit her at her website.
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