by kimberly
"It was thoughtful of you to consider me," Julienne remarked. Her head swiveled in every direction, trying to gauge the dimensions of the huge house as she followed him down the long hallway that branched off in several directions. One would have to leave a trail of breadcrumbs not to get lost in its immense, maze-like depth.
He led her around a corner and down another, shorter hallway before he swept open twin doors, ushering her into a lavish suite. The four large rooms were furnished in the decor of a bygone era. Beneath her feet, plush carpeting stretched out in an ocean of pale blue. Thick, rich wallpaper patterned with soft pink rosebuds gave the illusion the ceiling was higher than the eyes imagined. Blue velvet draperies hung over the windows and the double French doors that led out onto a "Juliet" balcony, the heavy material tied aside to let the sun and air stream in. When the draperies were let down, the room would be dim and deliciously cool, even on the hottest of evenings. The seventeenth-century French Baroque furniture was old, elaborately carved and polished to a mirror-like sheen. The treasure of the suite was the huge canopied bed jealously guarded by matching bed tables. Antique oil-burning lamps only added to the enchanting ambience of the suite. It was like stepping back a hundred years in time.
Tactfully, things Cassandra had acquired in her life at Blackthorne Manor had been left with the furnishings. As she walked around the rooms to take in their individual tones, she tenderly touched items her mother must have used when living there. One in particular caused her vision to grow misty. It was a comb from a silver vanity set. Anlese must have given it to Cassandra, for it was inscribed with an appropriate endearment from a mother to a daughter.
Mom didn't love her enough to take this, she thought miserably. I don't understand. This suite is so beautiful, grandmother so sweet. How could she not have wanted to come home?
Julienne set the comb down. She didn't want to fall apart, feel the ugly grief twisting her heart with cruel hands. To hide her face, she stepped to the nearest window. She stared out over the tangle of gardens below.
"It's beautiful here," she choked, briskly wiping tears from her eyes with the tips of her fingers. "I don't know how Mother could leave it behind." But she did have a suspicion about why Cassandra Blackthorne had abandoned the plantation. Cassandra had lived for the night. Big cities, bright lights, strange men. She'd craved crowds, bodies packed into a steaming room pulsing with loud music and shouting voices. An unwilling accomplice in her mother's disintegration, Julienne had been forced to go along, watching and then, later, repeating her mother's ruinous life.
"Let go of the past, lass," Saint-Evanston said from behind.
"I want to," she said in a rush of breath, almost a sigh, "but it's always there, dogging my every step. I've had everything these last few years, yet it all came to nothing. It's like seeking the Emerald City, only to find it's nothing more than dust pouring through your fingers."
She walked unsteadily to the bed and sank limply down on its comforting support. The unbidden tears continued to fall down her face, sobs shaking her frail body. She cried in grief, in loss for the past and in terror of the future she could not see for herself. Had fate also written her off as a lost cause? She wiped her eyes with his handkerchief. Traces of her make-up stained the white material. Another chip in her mental stack of coins was lost as her façade continued to crumble.
He crossed to the bed, moving with a stealth that was a part of his self-possessed manner. One of his hands curled around the bedpost as he rested his head in familiar repose against the wood.
"Even stone becomes dust," he told her. "Fame. Fortune. Beauty. All erode under the unrelenting hand of time. None of it is meant to last forever."
Unsettled by his direct gaze, she turned her eyes toward the carpet. Her hand lifted self-consciously to her scarred cheek.
He reached out unexpectedly. His hand slid under her chin, tilting her head to a sharp angle so that he could take in a full view of her face. His skin was smooth, cool, but not unpleasant. The pressure of his fingers was sure, certain, that of a man who knew how to caress a woman's skin. "You think you are gra'nna, ugly, now? Believe me when I say they do not show as badly as you believe. You are still brionnach."
A shiver rushed up her spine at his touch, bringing an unexpected infusion of pleasure. Her eyes searched his. Was he being sincere? She thought he was. He had a silent way of looking at her that made her realize what desire really meant. "You complimented me, I think, even though I don't understand half of what you say."
A lazy smile drew up the corners of his fine mouth, a reaction that pleased her. This was the first time he'd attempted to make any sort of physical contact with her. The touch of another human being, so vital, sent tingles through her body. The slow pulse of physical attraction began to beat in her veins. She wished desperately that he would lean over and kiss her, not as a father would kiss a daughter but as a man would kiss a woman he desired.
"I said you were a lovely young woman," he repeated in English. "You disbelieve me?" His hand dropped away, taking with it the pleasing sensations it had delivered.
"No," she blushed, flustered by his words and her body's reaction to his nearness. She drew in a deep breath to steady herself. His voice had carried an unexpected hint of warmth, his words caressing her as gently as the brush of a feather. "I'm just very skeptical of men and their motives in this present day."
"You have been greatly abused through this life. I see in your eyes the decaying of your soul."
His observation delivered an unnerving sensation. How was it he managed to delve so deep, so quickly, into her brain?
"You're looking at someone who's been at the edge." She laughed, a nervous guttering that grated her ears with its falseness. It was eerie to be around a person whose thoughts leaned toward the darker side of humanity. She rubbed her hands together, suddenly aware of the numbness nipping at the tips of her fingers. She glanced down, shocked by the bluish cast tinting her nails.
"The way you talk, I think you've seen the edge yourself, Morgan." She used his given name, and didn't realize she had.
"Do you believe so?" His smile vanished as a hard line set the edge of his jaw.
She returned his penetrating gaze, refusing to back down. Look the oracle in the eyes, even if the truth is ugly. "Yes."
"No one is spared the beasts glutting themselves on mortal frailties," he said. Agreeable as he had been only moments before, his lively frame of mind had shifted gears toward bitter introspection.
Julienne felt as if a wasp had flown into her throat. She was incapable of spitting it out, nor could she swallow it. Trapped there, it stung hard and deep, like his words stung her brain. Morgan distinctly recognized the demons inhabiting the far corners of her mind.
Does he see mine because he has his own? "Do you ever lose the devouring?"
"To lose the devouring, one must lose the fear."
"How do you lose the fear?"
"You must not." A disquieting grimness heightened his accented words. "To lose the fear is to lose the soul. And when you have lost the soul, then going over the edge is your only escape."
"Stop," Julienne begged, shivering.
The faraway gaze left his eyes and he forced a sardonic expression. "Forgive my Irish inclination to dramatics," he apologized. "Here, at Blackthorne, you have a future, if you so wish. Anlese will help. She believes there is light in all darkness."
"What do you believe?" She ignored the warning bells going off in the back of her mind. She had to ask.
"I know only the darkness," he said without hesitation.
Though his tone remained even, Julienne was struck by the underlying vitriol lacing his words. Apprehension immersed her senses, sending fear bobbing to the surface of her mind.
Play with fire and you're going to get burned.
Words she should heed, but didn't want to. Without thinking, she reached for his hand. She would offer anything to feel his touch again, even her very soul.
Morgan
abruptly straightened away from the bedpost. Dark brows drawn down over his hooded obsidian eyes, hackles up, he withdrew, gliding like an affronted feline out of her reach. She could see as well as sense the tension in him. His action was clear. He did not welcome her uninvited touch.
"There is no solace I can offer you," he said in his brisk, forthright way, reinstating the impenetrable barrier of indifference he'd greeted her with in the airport lounge. For some reason known only to him, he'd let it slip briefly. He seemed to be regretting it, as if he were determined not to show he harbored benevolent characteristics.
Julienne was momentarily confused, wondering what she'd done to put him off. A thousand recriminating thoughts hammered deep inside her skull. Did he sense that his touch aroused her? Was her need for a man's affections so transparent? Had she appeared too clingy and insecure?
"Oh." What else could she possibly say? Nothing. Not a damned thing. Lips pursed tight in frustration, she cast her gaze around the room, determined not to let her hovering tears fall. She gritted her teeth, setting her resolve, too prideful to let him know he'd wounded her.
To cover the awkwardness between them, he fished his pocket watch out of his vest and flipped open the lid to look at the time. "I believe Anlese mentioned tea. She should be joining you shortly." He shut the watch and returned it to the pocket in one fluid move.
"It's a good English tradition, done Southern style, I suppose."
His gaze turned cool, as detached as his manner. "The Irish dislike the English and their traditions, so I will not be taking tea with you."
That said, Morgan exited the suite, closing the doors behind him.
Chapter Seven
Alone, Julienne got up quickly. Crossing the room, she peeked out into the hallway. Morgan Saint-Evanston didn't notice. He walked away from her rooms, locking his hands behind his back. It was a pointed gesture indicating that he was not interested in further contact with anyone who might come his way.
Such an odd man.
She shut the door softly, feeling a twinge of guilt. She had no right to be spying, yet she hadn't been able to resist. She found she harbored a curiosity about him. It was clear to her there were problems in his life he did not want to approach. He was a confusing man. Cold on the surface, cool in public, yet given to fleeting bursts of compassion when he saw pain.
You need to get him out of your head, her inner sense of self-preservation warned. Still, too, was the question she had not asked. Why was it so hard to spit out those words? Was it because she did not want to know? She recognized there was some magnetism drawing her to him. That personal charisma that he manipulated casually yet effectively, was dangerous to one so emotionally fragile. The shared sense of damnation was feeding the romanticism of her ruinous ego. Such an enticement was bound to lead to trouble.
Give it up. She sighed and packed her attraction to him deeply away in her mental trunk. There's no way he can be for me. She would do better to squelch her Electra-like fantasies and turn her attention elsewhere for a lover.
Feeling exhaustion nibbling at her, she returned to the bed and sat down. She ran her palms over the hand-sewn blue quilt, feeling its pattern beneath her fingers. The mattress beneath it was invitingly soft. Her stomach rumbled, and she realized that she'd had nothing substantial since this morning. Her nerves were consuming all her energy. Numb with exhaustion, she was badly in need of a solid meal and a long nap. Slipping out of her shoes, she sighed and lay back. She hugged her arms to her thin body and curled her knees to her chest, realizing how cold she was. The dull throb in the back of her head was beginning to advance, growing fiercer, taking no prisoners to numb her thoughts as it charged. She hated headaches. The bad thing about cold turkey withdrawal from cocaine was that it bought a lot of these bitchy little friends with it. Headaches. Shakes. Night sweats. Depression. Depression was the very best of her recent friends. A pit in her soul, she'd dived wholeheartedly into its depth, letting herself sink into its caliginous black waters.
I want to go to sleep, she told herself. I need to go to sleep. Shut down, brain, please quit running.
To sleep, perchance to dream…
To sleep, perchance to die…
Morgan had asked her if that was what she wanted--to die. No. No, she didn't. She shivered and tucked her chin between her chest and her knees, creating a warm little enclave with her breath. She closed her eyes. Death was decay, darkness, a deep hole where maggots feasted upon a rotting corpse. It seemed a barbaric tradition to dress a body in its finest clothing and lay it in an expensive, satin-lined coffin. Why try to make death beautiful when all that was going to happen was that the deceased would go into a hole and be covered with dirt?
Plain old dirt…
Ashes to ashes…
Dust to dust…
Why have a priest pray for you, for your immortal soul? What if there was no soul? Death was an ugly thing--a devouring evil, and she didn't want to die.
"But nobody lives forever," she whispered in the sanctity of her tiny world.
Julienne squinted her eyes tight, then opened them. Unfolding her body, destroying her safe womb, she blinked and rubbed them to clear away the blur floating in front of her vision. She was so weary of fighting sleep. She needed an anchor, a safe harbor with a lighthouse beacon guiding the way. Was Blackthorne Manor that place? Surely she was safe here, the home of her early childhood.
This is my starting over, she thought. Can I be happy here? If nothing else, the plantation offered absolute privacy and isolation from the outside world. If she didn't wish to see anyone she didn't have to. In fact, with a house this size, she would probably have to seek out companionship if the mood so struck.
As if heaven-sent, the soothing scent of vanilla wafted into the air around her. Breathing in its wonderfully sweet aroma, she felt her headache recede. Her mind found the peace that had been eluding her. A feeling of relaxation washed over her tense body. The pain in her guts, so wrenching earlier in the day, lessened, eased by her great need for rest. Her eyelids lowered again. She was on the verge of drifting into sleep when a knock came at the door. She sat up, startled to see Anlese and Melissa hovering uncertainly at the room's entrance
"May we come in, or would you like to rest awhile?" Anlese inquired.
Melissa carried a large silver tea service set for two, with a small plate of elegantly prepared watercress sandwiches and freshly baked, golden, buttery-rich shortbread cookies from Gretl's kitchen. The German cook had certainly outdone herself, arranging the tray with skill.
Wiping clammy hands down her skirt, Julienne slid her legs off the bed. "Come in, please. I hope you didn't go to any special trouble for me."
Anlese leaned heavily on her cane as she walked into the room. It was clear she could no longer get around without its aid. "It was no trouble at all. It's good to have someone to talk to after all these days of leisure. Morgan is most of the time a poor companion for conversation."
"Oh, I disagree. He was quite entertaining on the drive here."
The two women shared a brief laugh.
"Come, girl, give your old Grammy a hug." Anlese held her arms open. Barefoot, a little embarrassed, Julienne padded across the room. She gave Anlese a brief hug and, after a moment of hesitation, a kiss on the cheek.
"I'm glad to be home," she murmured, squeezing the old woman's hand.
Anlese's blue eyes fixed on her face, shining with her inner joy. She reached out and gave her granddaughter a loving caress on the marred cheek.
Julienne stiffened and drew away. The imp of insecurity sat on her shoulder. With a jaunty snap of its whiplash tail, it nudged her vanity with its pronged pitchfork. It was still too soon for her to acknowledge the scars on her face to other people. Anlese noticed her unease and drew her hand away. An uncomfortable silence ensued.
I seem to be striking out double-time today. First Morgan, now Anlese. She was doing a wonderful job of stepping on toes during this rendition of "getting to know you." The
se people were trying to accept her into their lives, maybe not with the finest of grace, but they were trying. She must try harder, as well. She banished the imaginary imp with an impatient flick of her fingers. Goddamn thing, go away!
Anlese finally chimed in, "I imagine this place must be a change from the big cities. A shock to your system, so to speak."
Julienne nodded in response, regretting her bad behavior. There had only been love in her grandmother's touch. She doubted the old woman even cared about the scars. If she had even noticed them at all, they must have been the last things on her mind. "It is, believe me. I just hope I can get used to the silence."
"You will, dear. You will. Although, I think you will find, sometimes, things aren't as quiet as you would imagine."
"Oh?"
"Morgan is known to go off on one of his tantrums," Anlese explained. "He and Ashleigh are not getting along these days."
"Ashleigh?" Julienne arched a curious eyebrow. Had she been a dog, her ears would have swiveled forward on her head. Is Ashleigh his wife?
"Those two are oil and water, always carping at each other." Anlese broke into a laugh and rolled her eyes to the ceiling. "They argue, but it's never serious, mind you. He just reaches a point when he needs time away from her, from all of us, really. When that happens, we manage quite well."
"I'll take your word for it," Julienne said cautiously. "Things, though, must be a little strained by my arrival."
Anlese hastened to reassure her. "They are, dear, but you've nothing to do with it. Morgan's been in a difficult mood and Ashleigh, bless her heart, just doesn't understand." Her hand rose to sweep back a few imagined loose hairs in her stiffly sprayed silver coiffure. Despite her arthritis, her movements were graceful. "But enough gossip. Shall we be seated? I would hate to preside over cold tea. It would not be becoming to my reputation as a hostess."
"Do you entertain often?" Julienne accepted the prod and seated herself at a table. Anlese took the opposite chair, smoothing the folds of her gown as she sat.
