My True Love

by Karen Ranney

  She turned, sighed with acute boredom, and stared out the window.

  There were some moments in her life that had seemed to occur in slow motion. As if her mind decreed that the reality of it be given to her a droplet at a time, the better for her heart to bear either the pain or the wonder of it. As she sat staring out at the scene before her, Hannah realized that this was just one of those moments.

  Anne walked beside a man. They were followed by two other men. Once they stopped and conversed, then continued to walk toward the house. The breath grew tight in Hannah’s chest. There was a look of such longing upon Anne’s face that she marveled the rest of the world could not see it.

  Hannah directed her attention to the man who stood beside Anne. He was tall, possessed of broad shoulders and a way of walking that declared ownership of the very land beneath his feet. There was a bandage on his arm. A mystery solved, then. She’d heard that the earl had been treated for a putrid wound.

  “I’ve had cook prepare you a heartier broth,” Richard said, entering the room.

  “Is that the earl?” she asked, pointing at the man who walked toward the house with Anne.

  Richard glanced in that direction and then back at her. “That’s Stephen Harrington,” he said, “the Earl of Langlinais and your host. I want you in your bed, Hannah. You’ve had enough excitement for today.”

  Stephen.

  She did not argue with him, a fact that caused him to frown. She nodded and allowed him to help her back to bed.

  “Here, I have something for you. A remedy known far and wide for its medicinal properties. You cannot fault it.”

  There on his palm were three tiny tablets. “Anderson’s Pills,” he said. “It will ease that headache of yours.”

  “How did you know?” she said, reaching out for the tablets. “Do you bill yourself as a mystic, too?”

  “Like Culpepper? I do wish you knew something about him. It would be great fun to debate his methods. Do not chew them,” he warned, handing her a cup. “They are to be swallowed.”

  “Why is the earl up and about and I am barely able to escape from this room?”

  “Because your injury was slower to heal,” he said. “Now let me examine your side, and tighten your bandage and be of great charm in order to make your life miserable.”

  “Are all your patients treated with such assiduous good cheer?” He helped her lean forward, and the motion was unexpectedly painful. She closed her eyes again.

  “I wouldn’t cause you pain, Hannah. Truly.” It wasn’t fair that his voice was so gentle. “And I’ve rarely had a patient who’s amused me so much.”

  “Do you make a practice of visiting all your patients so often?”

  “It is a pleasure to come to Harrington Court.”

  He moved to stand in front of her. Hannah stared at the ceiling as he thumped on her chest, made her cough again.

  “What sort of man is Stephen Harrington?”

  “I could have answered that question a few years ago. But I am not so certain now.” He laid his cheek against her chest, and the sight of him lying there against her so intimately discomposed her. “War has a way of changing a man. I know it’s changed Stephen. A year ago he would not have thought to take leave without permission from the king. But he did so without thinking to bring his men home. Every day that passes means he is in that much more disfavor.”

  “He will return, then?”

  Richard removed the sheet slowly, placed both hands on her waist. Once again she looked away. His fingers were warm and gentle even as he secured her bandage.

  “He can do nothing else. The king is determined to win the war and needs men like Stephen behind him.”

  “You are not, I take it, a Royalist,” she said dryly.

  “I do not believe in the divine right of kings. And I think our sovereign has forgotten that he rules by the consent of the governed, not by some dictate from heaven itself.”

  “Yet you are here, in the stronghold of a Royalist.”

  “I have much to be grateful to Stephen for, Hannah. He made me a wealthy man.” He said nothing further, a tactic that he must have known would only incite her curiosity.

  “How?” she said, finally surrendering.

  He smiled at her, looking absurdly pleased. “For years I’d heard tales of the Santa Helena, a galleon that sank in a hurricane in the Caribbean over a hundred years ago. She was rumored to have been carrying more than two tons of silver destined for Spain in her hold. I’d not the money to finance such a venture, but Stephen had.”

  “A sunken ship?”

  “That was the beauty of it. She was supposed to have been caught on a shelf of coral not twenty feet from the surface. I knew I could chart her voyage and Spanish divers would help me find the coral right enough.”

  “I take it you did?”

  He nodded, smiling. “It took three years, but I did. I can still remember it, Hannah. She was barely below the water. Just sitting there all those years waiting to be plucked of her treasure like a virgin with an itch.”

  She looked away, focused on the ornate ceiling above her.

  “Forgive me, Hannah.”

  She nodded, knowing that if she spoke, her amusement might be revealed. He was the most contrary man.

  He straightened, opened his chest, withdrew a squat jar. He handed it to her. “I want you to rub a little of this camphor on your chest at night. It’s to prevent a watery cough. And no, before you ask, it contains no hair of dog or blind man’s spit.”

  She wondered if he knew how much he amused her. “You take all the joy from my day, Richard. But you didn’t answer me. Do you find it difficult to be here when you and the earl have such divergent political views?”

  He closed his chest, snapped the lock into place.

  When he finally spoke, his words were thoughtful. “I know that there are places in England where the country is divided. That brother fights against brother and father against son. But not here. Here a man is not despised because of his views.”

  “And a woman? Is she safe here?”

  His skin turned bronze. “You are indeed safe here, mistress,” he said. “I would never touch you without your leave, Hannah.” He picked up his chest, bowed slightly to her, and left the room before she could recover from her surprise.

  She had been speaking of Anne. But he, silly man, had thought something else entirely. Her cheeks warmed as she stared open-mouthed at the closed door.

  She closed her eyes but was revisited by the image of Anne’s face as she’d stood talking to Stephen. It made her feel as if time was standing still. In Anne’s face was all that she might have felt once, the muted joy, the fervent hope.

  Hannah leaned back against the pillow and closed her eyes. How long had it been since she’d left her island? Being away had given her a sense of freedom, like a child’s escape from lessons. And once tasted, she wondered if she could ever return again. Strange, fey thoughts from a woman who was not given to them. She had lived in a pragmatic world since the day she’d agreed to the bargain that still linked her to Robert Sinclair.

  Pain filtered up through her thoughts. There was no sense in attempting to push the memories back. They existed with a life of their own, strong and vibrant, filled with regret. An aching bittersweet longing. Not for the first time, but the hundredth or more, she wished she’d never met the laird of Dunniwerth. She’d been captivated by his charm, the sweet resonance of his voice. His smile.

  They’d met at a fair, this man of Scotland and she of England. They’d looked at each other once, the moment so tender that it seemed as if they’d known each other forever. Another fey thought, perhaps, but it had felt as if they’d loved before. Sweetly and passionately for years and eons.

  Bid me farewell, then, Hannah, if you must. But say it to my face. Do not give me your back. Words he’d said when she tried to leave him the first time.

  She had stared straight ahead, managing not to flinch when his hands gripped her sh
oulders. His touch was gentle, but it made her tremble. They had come so close to coupling but had not indulged in that final sin. Yet she wanted him to touch her as no other had. To feel him once, that was all she asked. To lie beneath him and hold him, then to let him go. It did not seem to be too horrible a thing to want. One touch of love, and then she would send him back to Scotland. Back to his heritage. Back to his wife.

  She turned and raised her head, lifted herself to meet his kiss. After that, there was no talking. She’d gotten her wish, and it was worse than wondering. She’d lain with him in a field, their bed the sweet grass, their ceiling a blue and sunlit sky. So many years ago, and she could remember every moment of it. Their farewell had been a torture. It had been, after all, too great a price to pay, that knowledge she’d sought. She’d known what she would forever miss.

  She’d paid a price for her yearning. She’d lived her life on an island, one of land and one of mind.

  She was a long way from her childhood prayers, but she remembered them now and said another one, that she might heal quickly so that she and Anne might be gone from this place. Before history repeated itself.

  Chapter 16

  Stephen didn’t bother greeting the royal messenger, simply walked back to Harrington Court as if the man were not following him. A momentary delay of the inevitable. The man didn’t look cowed by Stephen’s irritation. No doubt he was used to Prince Rupert’s infamous rages.

  Once inside, he slipped his finger beneath the seal of the letter, read the contents with little surprise. It was as he had expected. Charles was furious. He was being summoned to the king.

  He had no love for Oxford, and it had nothing to do with the town. It was the king’s base of operations, the place most occupied by sycophants and courtiers.

  He glanced over at Anne. A laird’s daughter, a Scottish lass with a luring smile and something hidden in her eyes. It was there as her attention turned to him. He felt himself smile. Not only outwardly but inside, where the warmth spread throughout his entire body.

  He was not a man given to lying to himself. Therefore, he faced the truth without flinching. He could have, perhaps, avoided the summons and the royal disfavor by leaving a few days earlier. According to Richard, his arm was healing faster than expected.

  Was there a look on his face, then, that warned her? There must have been, because her face changed as he watched. There was a look in her eyes that told him she knew what he was about to say.

  “I’ve been summoned to Oxford.”

  She said nothing, merely stood and waited for him to continue. He could imagine her then as the child she’d been, watching the world around her in silence.

  He almost smiled at the picture his mind furnished of her. Her hair would have curled the same and been restrained by the same shade of ribbon. Her cheeks would have been round, her lips a bow shape. Her eyes, those warm, brown eyes that looked at him levelly now, would have been large in her face. And utterly charming. Had she wheedled herself out of her chores and punishments? Or been the darling of Dunniwerth’s inhabitants?

  She finally spoke. “When?”

  “Tomorrow morning,” he said.

  She seemed too pale, but he could not be certain. The foyer was draped in shadow.

  “You must stay until your friend can travel,” he said. “I will leave instructions for Ned to provide enough men for an escort for you when you’re ready to leave.”

  She nodded.

  There were people around them. The messenger, Betty, the men of his regiment, who stood silent, waiting for their orders. It was not the time to bid her a more proper farewell or even to offer her an apology again if she wished one. For the second kiss. For his thoughts. For this moment when he had to leave.

  She had, in such a short time, become his friend. A companion of his mind. A partner to his thoughts. She would haunt him, he suspected, like the other ghosts of his regrets, with thoughts of what might have been.

  Knowing her had broken open something within him and exposed him to himself. As if he were a nutmeat and the shell he’d thought to be himself only needed easing aside to understand the true man beneath. She’d brought to him questions he could not answer and wishes that could not be fulfilled.

  Someone called to him, and he was trapped there, poised on the sword edge of time. He could not say a proper farewell to her, so he said nothing at all. They exchanged a look, but it was too short for all that he’d wished to convey.

  In the end, however, it would have to be enough.

  His farewell was so easily done that she could only stare after him.

  His boots echoed loudly beneath the dome of Harrington Court. She looked up. A frieze was carved below the frosted glass. Women in diaphanous garments stood next to cherubs, extended arms and hands for the ribbons borne to them in the beaks of birds. A scene of heaven? Were angels so scantily garbed? They wore no wings.

  The sound of voices traveled through the corri dors and hallways. Shouts turned to whispers and whispers became audible.

  “Send word to the rest of the regiment in Lange on Terne, James,” Stephen said. He gave orders easily, this commander of men. The leader of a regiment.

  “We need enough provisions to see us to Oxford.”

  “Ned, give Faeren an extra measure tonight. He’ll earn it tomorrow.”

  The day had turned gloomy, the sky dark. The first rain came in heavy drops that struck the windows and could be heard tapping on the domed roof. A giant wept. If so, he stole her tears.

  She turned her head, and Betty stood there. Her smile was tentative, as if she bore bad news but was ever conscious of her comportment.

  “Hannah is asking for you,” she said. The smile flickered on Betty’s face, solidified and fixed there. “She seems a bit upset,” she said. “Rang her bell something fierce.”

  Anne sighed. A summons, then. One that she did not relish. But she straightened her shoulders and climbed the stairs.

  She hesitated on the threshold a moment before entering the room.

  Hannah was sitting up in bed, her gaze on her hands. It was a pose of reflection, of inward thought. Silence could be a weapon, one that Hannah used effectively. It would not be the first time she’d done so.

  Anne entered the room, sat on the end of Hannah’s bed, waiting patiently. She’d learned that the loser in this battle of wills between them was the one who spoke first.

  Hannah had not hesitated to chastise her as a child. The first occasion had been when she was nine years old. She couldn’t recall the exact circumstances. Either she hadn’t wanted to leave when Hannah suggested it, or had wished another treat when Hannah had declined. Some childish wish not fulfilled to her specifications.

  “My father is laird, and I don’t have to do anything I truly don’t wish to do.”

  “Do you really believe that?” Hannah had looked surprised.

  She’d nodded her head exuberantly, certain that the older woman would be cowed by her consequence. Instead, Hannah had only laughed and held open the door of her cottage so that Anne might leave it.

  “There are those who would spoil you, young Anne of the mighty Sinclairs. I would make you wise. But you, of course, have already achieved wisdom and are far beyond what I might teach you.”

  She’d stopped half in and half out of the doorway, looked up at Hannah’s face.

  “You won’t let me come back if I leave now, will you?”

  Hannah smiled. “There are signs of your wisdom even now.”

  “I don’t want to go.”

  “Then you must apologize for your words, Anne. And you must learn from those who would teach you. The first lesson is to never make another per son feel diminished by what you have or who you are.”

  A lesson she’d learned, like all of them. But she was no longer a child. Perhaps Hannah recognized that fact, and it was the source of her sharp look now.

  “Were you going to tell me?”

  “About Stephen?”

  “Would t
here be another secret that you have kept from me?”

  “Perhaps.”

  It evidently wasn’t the answer Hannah was expecting. Her look of surprise quickly vanished, however, beneath her look of irritation.

  “I did not tell you because I wished to postpone this moment, Hannah. When you would ask me what I planned to do. When I would have to tell you I don’t know.”

  “Have you told him about your visions?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  A thousand answers. In the end, they all coalesced into one.

  “Ever since I came to you, you were determined to protect me, Hannah. Sometimes I wondered if you did so in order to spare me the truth. I’d long since believed I was not evil. You taught me that. But what if my visions were worse? What if all this time it was only my mind playing tricks on me?”

  “You didn’t believe he was real?”

  “I believed it,” Anne said. “But…what if I were mad?”

  At the look on her face, Hannah smiled softly.

  “I often wondered if I had wished for him to be real so much that I’d invented him for my playmate. I was lonely enough to do so. I love to draw and do so well, I think. But what if the same talent that lets me see a flower and place its image upon a page also allows me to dream and flesh it out until it becomes something that seems real?”

  “Why did you never tell me of your fears before, Anne?”

  “There are some things not easily said, Hannah.”

  “Do you think he will believe you mad?”

  Anne smiled. “He might well think so.” She sighed. “My visions have always ruled my life, Hannah. For a while I didn’t want them to rule his as well.”

  “Do you think he will fall in love with you, Anne?” Hannah’s tone had a bite to it. A bit of anger, perhaps even a touch of fear.

  “It no longer matters what I wish,” she said. A truth issued in a voice that almost trembled at it.

  “Because you are already in love with him.” An announcement, not a question.

  “Am I?” Her words hung in the air between them.

  “Are you not?” Hannah’s voice softened. “I would not have you hurt, Anne.”