Judgement by Fire

by Lydia Grace

  Chapter 18

  Time, which had been her enemy in the blazing cottage, was again playing tricks on her. Where its flow had seemed to drag, seconds feeling like hours as she’d struggled to free herself from a fiery tomb, then it had raced too fast to that moment on the edge of the incline when she’d seen the man she loved about to kill his own cousin. It had slowed to a crawl, giving her mind time to print the image indelibly on her brain, then it had seemed to stop entirely when that gunshot had echoed through the trees.

  Now, lying in Jon’s arms on the bed she’d used once before in the guest room of the Rush farmhouse, Lauren remembered again the moments when the gunshot had echoed through the woods and she thought a bullet had ended Jon’s life. At that moment, she knew it was her fault. That she had distracted him in his own self-defensive attack on Stephen, and Stephen had seized the opportunity. Nevertheless, she’d known, too, with aching clarity that Jon would never have forgiven himself if he’d brought that boulder crashing down on his cousin’s skull. She couldn’t tell him any of this, couldn’t explain her actions or why she’d inadvertently put him in danger—not now.

  Tears fell in tiny streams down her cheeks, stinging the cuts, which were a relic of Stephen’s assault, and sobs began to rack her.

  The strong arms around her tightened, and Jon dropped a kiss on her cheek.

  “It’s reaction, love, don’t worry. Just let it all out. You’ve been through an awful ordeal.”

  Jon held her, his own heart breaking as he listened to her sob herself to sleep. He pulled her sleeping form close to him, wanting to savor every moment, because he knew this would be the last time they would lie together.

  He awoke from a nightmare where he watched helplessly as Stephen placed the snub nose of the gun inside his own mouth, raised his other hand in a grim salute, and pulled the trigger. The slow motion horror of the dream memory sent him clawing his way back to consciousness to find the dawn had already begin to paint pink streaks across the glittering brightness of an early Spring Ontario morning.

  Lauren, awakened by his sleep-drugged struggles, was clinging to him, her lips seeking his, her hands softly caressing him. She held him to her, and kissed him slowly, deeply, a kiss full of longing and need and love. But suddenly, with his last ounce of willpower, he broke off the kiss, pulling himself from her arms. God, how he’d like to give in to her sweet temptation, to taste the wine of her lips, to bury himself in her beauty and hope for forgetfulness!

  It wasn’t to be. Gently, he moved her hands from him and slid from the bed.

  “Jon?” her question was sleepy and puzzled.

  “No, Lauren. I can’t.”

  He stood staring out at the growing dawn and heard her move in the bed behind him.

  Misunderstanding, Lauren said softly, “It’s all right, Jon—we’ve both been through so much—just come back to bed and hold me.”

  “No.” She didn’t understand; how could she? He couldn’t bring himself to look at her. Lauren watched as he stood in front of the window, his back to her, and she shuddered as she flashed back to the time when she had seen Stephen’s back view, lit against her own living room window and the last puzzle pieces had begun to fall into place.

  But Jon didn’t notice her shiver, or the remembered horror that flashed across her face. Instead, refusing to look at her, he said in a tight voice, “I’m of no use to you, Lauren. I can’t love you.”

  Shocked, Lauren gasped and began to rise from the bed. Then common sense got the better of her, and she said quietly, “Jon, it’s only natural that there should be difficulties, after all that happened yesterday.”

  “No, Lauren. I mean I can’t love you. But you’re right—everything that happened yesterday did make me see that.” The coldness in his voice made her shudder. Pulling on a robe, she went to stand behind him, putting a tentative hand on his shoulder.

  He shook her off. Her heart pounding in sudden fear, Lauren wanted to clap her hands over her ears to prevent herself ever knowing the words that he was about to say. However, she knew that wouldn’t save her.

  “It’s over, Lauren. Over. Whatever we had, it’s gone. Be grateful for that.”

  “Jon, I love you…”

  “Then be glad it’s ending now. I can’t love you. Stephen got one thing right. I’ve destroyed everyone who has ever loved me. Don’t you see that? My mother left me, and my father….I did everything I could to hurt him, and when he needed me, I was off playing soldiers in some misbegotten desert war. Stephen,” he almost gagged over the word, hatred, and pain warring together within him. “My cousin, we grew up together. And I didn’t have a clue what was going on inside him. Didn’t see his hurt, his pain, his hatred.”

  Lauren swallowed hard, trying to hold down the pain that swelled in her breast. She wanted to hold him, soothe his pain away, but his rigid back and harsh words held her back.

  “You weren’t responsible for what Stephen did…” she began, trying to find the words she needed to say.

  However, he cut across her thoughts.

  “I should have seen what was happening. I would have seen if I’d been more human and less involved in the business. The same thing happened to my father. The company was everything and it didn’t matter who got hurt, or who needed him when he wasn’t there.

  “What happened to you was my fault. I was too blind, too preoccupied, to see what was going on under my nose. It was only the grace of God that you weren’t killed in that cottage. Maybe you should just be grateful it’s ending now.” Then, without even glancing at her, he was gone.

  Lauren collapsed back on the bed, tears running down her face, stinging the bruises and cuts as she replayed over and over each and every word he’d spoken and the impact of each shook her like a blow

  *

  Lauren heard the sound of a car outside, and then heard Mary Wilson open the door to visitors. Even the familiar voices of Paul and Lucy Howard didn’t rouse her to gather her things and join them. Her heart screamed at her to stay, to try to see Jon, to reason with him, to force him to talk things out. She knew he was never going to forgive her. It was an irony that she, who had been so afraid of Jon Rush taking over her life, had effectively undermined his own self-determination. In trying to stop him defending himself, she’d taken away his control over his own actions. She’d interfered in something she didn’t understand—the relationship between two cousins who looked so alike and were so different—and it had almost cost Jon his life. Even the fact that Stephen had chosen to put a bullet in his own head would forever cast a shadow between her and the man she loved. She had interfered. Now she had to pay the price.

  Earlier Mary had knocked gently at her door, bringing in a small breakfast tray and the news that the police were waiting downstairs to take her statement. Although Lauren had tried to hide the fact that she’d been crying, she knew Mary had looked with pity on her tear stained, swollen face.

  It was obvious, too, that the older woman was aware of what had transpired between her and Jon when she told Lauren, “Mr. Rush said to tell you he’ll be away for the next few days.”

  Her obvious sorrow and disappointment squeezed Lauren’s heart, but both women knew they were helpless in the face of Jon’s determination.

  So, before going down to see the police, Lauren had telephoned Paul and Lucy.

  “Could you come and pick me up?” she’d asked, and Lucy’s sensitive ears had picked up the desperate emotions in her friend’s voice.

  Without asking any questions, she’d told Lauren they would drive out to Jon’s farm immediately and take her home to West River and Haverford Castle.

  A detective from Toronto was in the large, bright sitting room. He and a uniformed colleague from West River had been sipping coffee and enjoying some of Mary’s homemade raisin oatmeal cookies when Lauren finally entered the room. She’d hoped to see Chief Ohmer’s familiar face, but the two officers had treated her with kindness and courtesy, putting her at ease and helping her throu
gh the ordeal of remembering the previous day’s events, right down to minute details she hadn’t even been aware of at the time.

  “We may need to talk to you again, but this all seems very straightforward.”

  “I’m glad you think so,” Lauren had told the young detective, fingering the bandages that swathed her painful, swollen wrists and fingers.

  The man’s handsome face creased in a frown of concern. “You’re an artist, aren’t you?” he asked. “What does the doctor say about your hands?”

  Lauren shrugged. A few weeks ago, painting had been her reason for living. Now it barely seemed important that she would be able to paint again.

  “She said to wait until the swelling had gone down before I try to pick up a paint brush, but that the worst damage is external and doesn’t engage any important nerves,” Lauren told the officer.

  When they had left, she returned to her bedroom. She knew Jon was still in the house. She could feel him as if her heart had grown an extra sense that quivered at his nearness. Yet he’d told Mary a lie to pass on to her. If he really didn’t want to see her, then fine. Lauren sat on the bed, her mind numb, waiting for Paul and Lucy.

  Finally, minutes after hearing them arrive, she steeled herself to pick up the few items she had with her. Last night a nurse had gently cleaned her face and hands, and Lauren had managed to clumsily clean her own teeth before falling into bed with Jon, clad in one of his oversized shirts.

  Both of them had fallen onto the bed already half-asleep. Their exhaustion had been total after the events of the day and its aftermath of police questioning, doctors’ examinations, and endless explanations. Now she desperately wanted to shower, but the bandages had to be kept dry and the thought of struggling to wash herself with bulkily bandaged hands encased in plastic bags was too exhausting. So instead she shrugged into the black wool jacket and pants that Mary had had cleaned and then stored from Lauren’s previous visit.

  With her sprained shoulder supported in a sling, even brushing her short auburn hair was too great a challenge. It didn’t really matter, anyway. Nothing did.

  *

  Jon watched from an upstairs window as Lauren walked stiffly to Paul Howard’s car, the older man and his wife gently supporting her, Mary bringing up the rear with a small bag. It amazed him that, after all she’d endured, face pale where it wasn’t swollen from the cuts and bruises his cousin had inflicted, that this woman could still look so beautiful. He knew he’d hurt her desperately, and she’d been weeping quietly when he’d walked from the room, yet she walked out of his life with her head held high.

  Not even the ordeal of yesterday, nor its aftermath including having to face the police alone this morning, could dim that bright spirit. This was all for the best, Jon decided, standing at his high vantage point and watching the scene below. Her pride and her courage would help her through this loss, too, and eventually she would find another man to give her wonderful, generous love to.

  Yet the thought of another man sharing the passionate gift that Lauren had bestowed upon him caused his stomach to tighten and his heart to pound with possessive jealousy. It was all he could do to stop himself rushing downstairs, pulling her into his arms, and claiming her for his own.

  However, he couldn’t do that. He had to let her go. He loved her too much and he knew that he’d wreck her life as he’d destroyed the lives of the others who had loved him, needed him. He was, after all, his father’s son.

  Yet his eyes were bleak as he watched her get into the car and speed away.

  *

  If Lauren had glanced back as she left, she would have seen Jon standing in the upstairs window watching her go. She didn’t, because her heart knew he was there, and she knew also that he was in pain as he stood there. And he did nothing to stop her and that meant that she could do nothing, either.

  She needed time to think, to sort out what had gone wrong. Then, perhaps, she could try to put it right. Jon had made it very clear that he was not going to call her back, and she was too hurt and too proud, at this moment, to go after him. She had taken too great a battering over the past few days, and her pride was a tattered rag, but it was all she had left and she couldn’t lose it, which meant they were at stalemate.

  *

  The weeks that followed passed in a womb-like calm for Lauren, sheltered under Lucy’s broody-hen wing from anyone who would have ruffled the designer calm that lay over the Haverford Castle in general and the Howard cottage in particular.

  Not that any great fuss was made. Lucy continued to closet herself in the separate studio as she toyed with ideas for her next book, while Paul followed his own interests. The three of them came together over supper and spent the rest of the evening watching television or a movie with a bottle of good wine and occasionally a take-out pizza. The temporary calm was broken only on one occasion, when Lauren had insisted, to Paul and Lucy’s horror, that she wanted to go to Stephen’s funeral service.

  “Just the graveside service, I wouldn’t go to the church,” Lauren said firmly.

  In the end, rather than have her go alone, all three of them had joined the long line of expensive cars that turned into the broad driveway of Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto. In a perverse way, Lauren had always been fond of the vast, open cemetery, partly because her own father rested there and partly because its vast vistas and the strange, gaunt shapes which unfolded in the marching lines of monuments were pleasing to her artist’s eye.

  Today though, with spring well underway and bright sunshine spilling down on the dark-coated assembly, she found herself wishing as fervently to be far away as she had wished earlier to be there. As far as she could tell, the whole entourage was from Rush Co., with other business associates and a handful of media people hovering discreetly at a distance. The only real mourner stood beside the grave, his blond head bowed, his tall figure looking isolated and lonely despite the group gathered around him. Lauren’s heart cried out, ready to burst with his pain, yet she found herself frozen to the spot, some two hundred feet away, where she stood with Paul and Lucy.

  Jon, Jon, I love you, she screamed silently within herself.

  But he doesn’t want you, replied the voice in her mind, and she bowed her head to hide the tears. Lucy placed her hand on Lauren’s arm and whispered to her that it was time for them to leave if they wanted to avoid getting caught up in the crowd of mourners. Lauren nodded, but as she raised her head for one last look, she caught Jon’s gaze fixed on her over the heads of the crowd and the intensity in his deep blue eyes took her breath away. It was all she could do to stop herself stumbling unheeding through the crowd to throw herself in his arms, but the next moment he had looked away, making it plain he wasn’t going to acknowledge her.

  You imagined that look. You wanted to see it there, and you did. But he didn’t even look as if he recognized you. He’s forgotten already.

  Numbly, she pushed through the mourners towards the Howards’ car, her tears earning her startled looks from those who were there only because of business connections with Rush Co. or curiosity over the strange death of a member of one of the city’s richest families.

  “Not too many tears being shed there today, eh?” Paul grunted as they drove slowly through the cemetery and onto Mount Pleasant Road.

  “No,” his wife, sitting beside him in the front seat, agreed, “I’d say the only mourning being done was by Jon and he must have some pretty mixed feelings.”

  Then, catching sight of Lauren’s pale face in the rear-view mirror, Lucy changed the subject entirely, chirruping on with a brightness she didn’t feel about a whole new story idea she’d conceived for her line of children’s books.

  So Lauren returned to Haverford Castle. She could have gone home to stay with her mother, but she knew that the gulf of understanding between them was wider now than it had ever been. Lauren didn’t think she could face the constant unspoken reproach that she wasn’t the daughter her mother had hoped for, that there was no little house in the
suburbs, no wealthy and ambitious husband, no clutch of grandchildren.

  And there never will be, now, Lauren’s little voice whispered, and her heart contracted as she remembered the night driving home with Jon, when she’d been swept away by profound emotion as she’d imagined holding his child in her arms.

  One by one, or in small groups, the other artists at Haverford Castle had called by to visit Lauren, offering her support and sympathy, and practical offers of help in the use of studio space, replacement clothing and furniture, and other incidentals. Lauren was both touched and astounded at the number of local people outside the rarefied stratosphere of the artists’ colony who also dropped by to see her and wish her well.

  After one such visit, Lauren was standing in the doorway, tears in her eyes, watching the demolition workers tearing down the last remains of the little studio cottage she’d loved so much, when the mailman arrived and handed her a bunch of letters. Most of them were for Paul and Lucy, but two, with Toronto postmarks, were for herself.

  Opening the first, she found a check, along with a letter on a notepaper of a firm of very well known corporate lawyers. The amount noted on the check was enough to take her breath away. In concise, emotionless legal tones, the letter informed her that Rush Co., as the new legal owners of the Haverford Castle property, felt it incumbent on them to offer Miss Lauren Stephens a sum of money to replace goods belonging to her that were damaged or destroyed in the recent unfortunate fire at the said property.

  “Good God,” Lauren burst out, spontaneously adding a number of well chosen swear words.

  Her outburst brought both Lucy and Paul out onto the front porch to see what was wrong. Dumbly, she handed them first the letter and then the check.

  Paul gave a low whistle at the amount, and added that, in his opinion, this was damage control.

  “They don’t really have to pay you anything, but they’re covering themselves in case you decide to try your luck with a court case,” Paul, in lawyer mode, told her.

  In contrast to Lauren’s stunned anger, Lucy gave out a wild whoop of joy. “Lookee, kid, we’re going to have the best shopping trip you’ve ever seen! Go get yourself in gear, and we’ll show them city slickers how country folk can shop till they drop!”