I stopped flailing my arms in useless efforts to inflict some further harm to him. My blood drained from my face. A tingling started behind my ears, and my knees went weak. "I don't believe you," I said brokenly. I felt bruised, beaten. "It can't be true. I'm not Troy's niece, I can't be!"
"I'm sorry, Heaven, so sorry. For you would have been perfect, the very one to save him from himself. But I have sat here this evening and heard your story of how Leigh met Luke Casteel, and heard the day of their marriage, and there is no way you can be Luke Casteel's daughter, unless you were born prematurely. Did your granny ever hint that you came early?"
Backing off from him, I shook my head
numbly. I wasn't Pa's daughter. Pa. A scumbag Casteel.
"You said your father hated you, hated you from the day you were born. Heaven, it is entirely possible, Leigh being what she was, that she told your father she was pregnant before she married him. And now I am certain about who you are. It's your hair, Heaven, and your hands. Your hair is the same color and texture as Troy's, and your hands and fingers are shaped like his. Like mine. We both have the Tatterton fingers."
He spread his hands, displaying his long, tapering fingers, before I gazed down at mine. They were the same hands I'd seen all my life, small with long fingers and long oval nails—and half the women in the world had hair my color. Nothing exceptional.
And I'd always believed Granny's hands would have looked like mine if she hadn't kept them working slavishly most of her life.
Stunned and aching, sickened almost into vomiting, I turned and left his office. Stumbling up the stairs and into my room, I threw myself on my bed and cried.
Not a Casteel? Not a no-good, rotten, scumbag Casteel with five uncles imprisoned for life?
Tony strolled into my bedroom without
knocking, to perch lightly on the foot of my bed, and this time his voice was soft and kind: "Don't make it so difficult, darling. I'm so sorry to ruin your romance with my brother. Though I am delighted to have you for my daughter. Everything will work out, you'll see.
I know I have shocked and hurt you, and despite all that I've told you, I did love your mother. She was only a kid, and still I can't forget her. And in my own way I love you. I admire you and what you have done for my brother. I will be more than generous, so keep that in mind when next you see Troy. Tell him anything that will sound plausible. Don't give him pain that would drive him to end his life. For don't you know that's what his dreams are all about? He was born self-destructive! He is disappointed in the world, in everyone who died or went away and failed him, and so he seeks to escape."
He moved to lay his heavy hand briefly on my shoulder before he got up and half turned toward the door. "Be good to him, for he's fragile, not like you or me or Jillian," he said in a choked voice. "He is an innocent in a world of vultures. He doesn't know how to hate. He only knows how to love, so he can later suffer and feel inadequate. So give to him the best you have in you, Heavenly, the very best you have to give.
Please."
"I already have!" I screamed, sitting up to hurl a pillow at the door where he stood. "Does he know?
Have you told him that you could be my father?"
I saw the shiver that ran down Tony's body. "I could not bring myself to tell him. He respects me, admires me, loves me. He has always been the best thing in my life, despite all the trouble he was. I am begging you, on my knees, to find some other reason for breaking your engagement. He will hate me if he knows the truth. And will I be able to blame him?
You could have saved him . . and I am responsible for taking you from him. I only hope and pray you can find the right words, for I cannot."
An hour passed during which my tears
evaporated. An hour in which I bathed my face and eyes with ice water, and very carefully I applied makeup. Then, with no real words stashed in my brain to help him survive without me, I slipped through the maze. I knocked on Troy's blue door. There was no response, just as Tony had warned me there would be none.
It was late now, about ten. There had never been a more glorious evening. Birds snuggling down for the night chirped and cheeped sleepily. Hundreds of rose bushes wafted sweet perfume to tickle my nostrils. Primroses and pansies glimmered beside his blue door. Gardenia bushes waxed brightly in the moonlight, their blossoms huge and almost blue. The air was as soft as a lover's kiss, and he was inside, shut away.
"Troy," I called as I opened his door and hesitated on the threshold. "It's Heaven. I'm back. I'm so sorry I fell ill and couldn't return on the day I promised . ."
There was no response. There was no scent of bread baking in the oven, or bread that had recently been baked. The cottage was too still, too orderly, frightening.
I ran to his bedroom, throwing open the door.
He lay on the bed, with his head turned toward the open window. Soft breezes fanned out his curtains, almost brushing a vase full of roses from a table.
"Troy," I said again, moving closer to the bed.
"Please look-my way. Please say you forgive me for not keeping my word; I wanted to, desperately wanted to."
Still he didn't look my way. I drew closer, then moved onto the bed, and gently turned his head my way. The moonlight through the windows showed me his glassy eyes, his blank stare. He was a million miles. away, snared in some horrible dream. I knew that, just knew that!
My lips pressed down softly on his. I murmured his name over and over. "Come back to me, Troy, please, please. You are not alone. I love you. I will always love you."
Over and over I called him back, until at last the glassiness in his eyes departed, and slowly they came into focus. Delirious and happy delight took away the stare, even as his fingers reached to trail over my face. "You did come back . . . oh, Heaven, I was so terrified you wouldn't. I had a weird feeling you went to that Logan Stonewall again, and discovered you love him, and not me."
"You, only you!" I cried passionately, raining kisses all over his chilled, pale face. "I had the flu, darling. I ran a high fever for days and days. The telephones were down, the bridges were out, and the roads were flooded. I returned to you as soon as I could."
His smile was thin and weak. "I knew I was being silly to allow myself to become so depressed. I knew you would come back, subconsciously I knew that . . ."
I snuggled into his embrace and felt his hands slip into my hair. My face pressed down against his chest. I heard his heart beating slowly, so slowly—how fast was a normal heart supposed to beat? "I don't want a big wedding, Troy. I've changed my mind about that. We'll slip away from Farthinggale Manor and have a small private ceremony."
He held me tightly against him, stroking my hair, putting small kisses on the top of my head. "I'm so tired, Heaven, so tired. I thought you wanted a large wedding."
"No, I want only you."
"Tony has to be at the wedding," he whispered with his lips brushing my forehead. "It wouldn't be real without him. He was like my father . . ."
"Whatever you want," I mumbled, holding his frail body closer. How thin he'd become. "You are totally recovered from your pneumonia, aren't you?"
"As recovered as I ever am from any disease."
"You'll never be sick again! Not when you have me to take care of you!"
All through the night he held me, and I held him. We talked of our dreams, our life together, and for the life of me it all seemed like smoke spiraling out the windows and fading into the night. How could I marry him now? How could I not marry him, no matter what our relationship?
Toward dawn, I brought up the portrait doll of my mother again. Did he know if Tony had made the model? Did at one point in time Tony feel more than a stepfather toward her?
His dark eyes clouded. "No! Not in a million years! Heaven, Tony could have any woman he wanted! He was madly in love with Jillian! There wasn't a woman around who didn't make a play for him . . . why since the time he grew his first beard, he's never had to chase any woman. They chased him."
I knew as I lay in the circle of his arms that he'd never admit to himself that Tony used women, and had used Jillian in his own thoughtless way, to provide his younger brother with a mother and a sister while he went his own merry way chasing every skirt in town, and all over Europe. Tears were in my eyes as I turned to embrace him before I returned to the big house. "I'm sorry to be so suspicious. I love you, love you, love you—and I'll be back as soon as I catch up on some sleep. Don't go away, promise?"
He sat up, clinging to both of my hands. "Have lunch with me, darling, about one."
I thought I could return to my bed and sleep the sleep of the deeply justified, but I tossed and turned, and finally ended up at the dining table downstairs where Tony was already ensconced, eating one slice of honeydew melon after another. He began to ply me with questions immediately. Had I seen Troy? Had I broken our engagement? What had been his reaction?
What had been my explanation? I had been kind, considerate, caring, hadn't I?
"I said as little as possible about you." My voice was cold, hostile. I hated him every bit as much as I hated Pa. "Out of consideration for Troy, I covered for you, though if Troy wasn't so sensitive, I would have let him know exactly what kind of man his beloved brother is, and was."
"What reason did you give him?"
"I gave him none. We are still engaged. I don't know how to destroy him, Tony, I just can't do it!"
"I can see you are building a tower of hate for me. Maybe you are right to wait a few weeks before you tell him you've found out you are still in love with that young man of yours. Logan, isn't that his name?
Troy will get over you. I'll be here to support him. I'll see to it that he recovers. And the best way to do that is through work. Once Troy accepts the fact that you love someone else and won't be marrying him, he'll make substitutes for your love. I'll do what I can to see he finds another girl he wants to marry."
It hurt so much to hear him say those things that I wanted to bay at the sun like a wolf did at the moon, like Sarah had once done when her last baby died. In my chest was a living pain. And beside me was the man who had started everything. "What a detestable person you are, Tony Tatterton! By God, if I knew it wouldn't hurt Troy, I would tell him exactly what you did to my mother! And he'd hate you! You would lose the one person who is most valuable to you!"
He threw me a pitiful look. "Please . . .
remember, you would destroy him. Troy lives on faith and belief. He isn't like you or me, able to survive no matter what the circumstances."
"Don't ever compare me to yourself again!" I yelled.
He didn't respond, only reached for another melon to slice.
"Promise, Heaven, promise to say nothing to Jill about any of this."
I got up and stalked by Tony's chair without promising anything.
"All right!" Tony yelled, abruptly out of patience, jumping up and seizing my arm and whipping me about so I saw his usually pleasant and handsome face turned monstrous with anger. "Go back to Troy! Go on! Destroy him! And when you're done with him, run to Jill and destroy her! And when you've finished off everyone in Farthy, run to your father and ruin his life! Ruin Tom's and Fanny's, and don't leave out Our Jane and Keith! You want revenge, Heaven Leigh Casteel! I see it in your eyes, those incredible blue eyes that speak of a devil inside more than they speak of an angel!"
I slung my balled fist at him blindly, striking nothing as he released me so suddenly I fell off balance to the floor. Quickly I scrambled to my feet, to spurt ahead so fast he wasn't able to say another word before I was running up the stairs to the safety of my bed again. My crying place.
At one o'clock I was again in the cottage, and this time Troy was out of bed, looking a bit stronger as he smiled at me. "Come," he said, beckoning, "I want you to see this train set-up that has just been finished, and then we'll eat."
What he had to show me filled one huge corner of his workshop. It was a tiny stage-set with soft lights glowing, and hidden spots lit up the sets, and miniature trains picked up passengers and let them off, only to pick them up again, repeatedly taking them around mountains steep and dangerous; I thought, as I watched the tiny Orient Express chuggity-chug, chuggity-chug, starting slowly, gaining speed, forever climbing, forever taking risks, daring everything only to reach the heights, only to descend much more quickly than it had ascended, that Troy was trying to tell me something through his tiny trains.
What was it that Troy tried to say with these three little trains that wove such intricate paths through different territory, yet always reached the same destination? Didn't the whole human race ride trains throughout life, reaching highs, sinking to lows, riding the plateau between extremities more often than they soared or fell. I chewed thoughtfully on my lower lip, pressed my forehead with my fingertips . .
and stared at a little girl who had been added to the passengers. A dark-haired little girl wearing a blue coat with matching blue shoes. She was enough like me to cause me to smile. For the trains that apparently led nowhere still gave the passengers thrills. The little girl didn't get off the train at the destination, only an old woman wearing another blue coat with matching blue shoes. And eagerly I went back to the train depot, and saw again the little girl in her blue coat boarding another train . . .
Oh, but he was good at this toy making, giving it meaning, imparting without words his beliefs, and as I turned away from the trains, I felt the familiar fascination gather me into its arms. "Troy, Troy!" I called. "Where are you? We have a thousand plans to make!"
He was seated on one of the window seats again, his long legs pulled up, his skilled and graceful hands loosely locked below his knees—and all the windows were wide open and the cold, damp wind swept through his bedroom!
Alarmed, I ran to pull at his arm, trying to bring him out of the nowhere he had lost himself in. "Troy!
Troy!" I yelled, shaking him, and still he gazed straight ahead without blinking. Even as I shook him, the wind gusted in so strong it blew a table lamp to the floor. I had to use all my strength to pull the windows down, and when I had them all closed, I ran to gather up blankets which I swatched about Troy's shoulders and legs; still he had not moved nor spoken.
His face was pale and cold when I touched him, but soft, and that made me cry out in relief. He wasn't dead. Yet the pulse when I felt for it was so faint I hurried to his telephone and dialed Farthy. Over and over again the telephone rang and no one answered! I didn't know what kind of doctor I could call directly.
My fingers trembling, I picked up Troy's Yellow Pages and was thumbing through them when I heard him sneeze.
"Troy!" I cried, hurrying to his side. "What are you doing, trying to kill yourself?"
His eyes were unfocused and blurry, his voice weak when he spoke my name. When he could see me, he seized me as a drowning man reaches for anything, and I was pulled hard against him so his face could bury deep into my hair. "You came back.
Oh, God, I thought you'd never come back!"
"Of course I came back." Kisses I rained on his face. "Troy, I stayed here with you last night, don't you remember?" More kisses on his face, on his hands. "Didn't I tell you I'd returned so we could marry?" I stroked his arms, his back, smoothed down his wild hair. "I'm sorry I came back late, but I'm here now. We'll marry and build our own traditions, make every day a holiday . . ." And I stopped talking because he wasn't really listening.
The chilly room brought on fresh assaults of sneezes, from both of us, then I was drawing him to the bed, so we could both snuggle under mounds of covers and wait for our shivering to end. Even as we lay there, wrapped tightly in each other's arms, the many clocks began all those subtle grinds and movements that would tell the chimes to toll.
Some errant wind managed to come in and
tinkle the crystal prisms of his dinette chandelier.
"It's all right, darling, darling," I crooned, smoothing his dark, rumpled hair. "I came upon you just now during one of your . . what do I call them?
/>
Trances, would that be the right word?"
His arms tightened so much my ribs began to ache dully. "Heaven," he breathed; "thank God you are here. His voice broke and he sobbed, gently pushing me from him. "However much I am grateful, I can't pretend any longer that I can live with you. Or marry you. Your absence gave me the chance to think over what we were doing; your presence deludes me into thinking I'm a normal man, with normal expectations. But I'm not, I am not! I'll never be! I'm warped and unable to change. I didn't think you'd come back, once you got out into the real world and discovered you'd been asleep. This isn't a real house, Heaven.
Not one lived in by real people. We're all fakes, Heaven, Tony, Jillian, me; even the servants learn the rules and play the game."
An ache that had begun when I entered
thickened and grew. "What rules, Troy? What game?"
Laughing in a way that chilled my blood, he rolled over, holding me still, rolled again and again until we fell to the floor, and he ripped off my clothes wildly, and his warm kisses soon turned hot. "I hope we both made a baby," he cried when it was over, and he turned away and began to pick up the pieces of my torn garments. "I hope I didn't hurt you. I never want to hurt you. But I'd like to leave behind something real, made of my flesh and blood." Then, crushing me to him, he began to sob—deep, harsh, terrible sobs.
I held him, caressed him, kissed him a thousand times before we both fell onto the bed and covered ourselves from the harsh cold.
As I lay there beside him and heard him choke back his sobs and Whatever anguish he suffered, I realized Troy was far too complex for me ever to understand. I'd just love him as he was, and maybe one day when he woke up from a dreamless sleep he'd smile before dawn and throughout the day thoughts of dying young would be forgotten.
And I slept. From time to time I woke up slightly, enough to feel air moving around me.
Enough to feel warm arms embracing me.
Then it was another day, and I was in my own room and there was a note on my night table. A short note from Troy.
Dark Angel (Casteel Series #2) Page 32
