The Pleasure Garden: Sacred VowsPerfumed PleasuresRites of Passions

by Amanda McIntyre

  “I will need to meet this young man who thinks he is going to marry my daughter.”

  Cara jumped up from her chair and rounded the table, hugging her father’s neck.

  “All right then, we have not much time,” he said. “Conner, go fetch your cousin, tell him to ride up to his uncle’s place.” He took Cara by the hands. “You and the rest of the womenfolk will stay here in the village. I want you out of harm’s way.”

  “Nay, my place is at Edmund’s side,” Cara pulled her hands from his and fisted them on her hips, prepared if she must to go toe-to-toe with her da.

  Galen Ormond cast his wife a long-suffering look.

  “She is your daughter, to be sure,” she stated.

  Cara hugged her mother. “It will be well, you’ll see. Edmund can be quite determined.”

  Her da’s shaggy red brow lifted as he looked up at her. “Aye, and haven’t we been blessed with the proof of that, daughter? Come on then, we best be going if we’re to meet this lad at the bridge.”

  It took some time and effort to calm down the crowd they’d managed to bring together in a short time. On horseback and on foot they came, rallying as they always did in the name of the tribe.

  Cara listened as her da stood atop a tree stump and addressed the restless crowd. “Many of you know that my daughter was to be wed in a few days’ time to the son of the duke of Ireland. Unfortunately, we have received news that prevents such a union from occurring.”

  “She would be better with me anyway, Galen,” called a voice from the crowd. The villagers parted as the widower farmer, twice the size of her father, pushed his way through.

  “Aye, ’tis probably true, Theron.”

  “Da!” Cara cried up to him.

  Her father looked down at her and shrugged. “However, it is with happy tidings that I announce she will marry, to a man more suited in age. My apologies, Theron, but that is the way of it.” The crowd laughed.

  “Edmund, my future son-in-law that I’ve yet to meet, has asked us to gather at the bridge, where we will receive further instruction about his need for us this night.” Galen climbed down off his crude platform and grabbed his daughter’s hand as they made their way en masse to the bridge. “I do hope, daughter, you know what I am asking of these people.”

  Cara looked up at the moon, just two days before the full moon of Beltane. She thought of the night when they’d met, and the magic that was theirs in the secret garden. Where love took seed and blossomed, and was rekindled, surviving time and distance. If the gods and goddesses had guided them this far, they would see them through to completion.

  11

  “AH, I’D BEGUN TO WONDER IF YOU’D BECOME lost, as has my betrothed.” Gregory offered a glass of whiskey to Edmund as he entered the study of the castle. It was just where Edmund thought he would be, near a warm fire, his whiskey close by. “We searched every room in the castle and there was no sign of her. You’re sure you won’t change your mind? It will take the chill off.”

  Edmund shook his head and made sure that the door to the study was left partially open. “I apologize, milord, that my news isn’t more favorable.”

  Gregory raised his glass. “I commend you, milord. An entire day conversing with those Gaels takes great tenacity.”

  “There is some good news, however. Ormond indicated he would round up his kinsmen and join in the search.” Edmund watched for Gregory’s reaction.

  The glass paused at his old friend’s lips. “How many would you say that is?” he asked, not looking at Edmund.

  He shrugged, enjoying watching Gregory squirm at the idea of hundreds of Gaels intruding on Dublin Castle. Even as they spoke, his father led a party notifying several parliament leaders of the unsanctioned plans of Lord DeVerden. Edmund had met with Cara and her father at the bridge, where he’d explained the situation and the hope for an amiable resolution. “You know better than I the numbers. This is not my area of expertise.”

  Gregory cast him a look and tossed back his drink. “Roughly more than three hundred at last count,” he muttered, and poured himself another drink. Edmund waited, letting Gregory find his courage in the bottle.

  “That seems to be quite a crowd of Gales, milord. Of course, with that many, they should be able to find your bride in no time.” Edmund turned away to hide his smile. “Perhaps she’s gone to visit a sick aunt.”

  Gregory paced the floor, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. “It occurs to me,” he stated with some agitation in his voice, “that perhaps I should call off this wedding until the girl decides to show up.”

  “Or until she is found,” Edmund interjected.

  “All of our efforts should be focused on finding her.” He slammed his glass on a table, picked it up again and refilled it, dismissing Edmund’s comment.

  “That would be the noble thing to do.” He watched Gregory put away his third glass of whiskey.

  “What we sure as hell do not need is a pack of unruly Gaels sneaking around Dublin Castle. Bloody sneaky bastards. They’ve caused more problems for England than I can count.”

  The corner of Edmund’s mouth lifted in a smile. “Tell me something, Gregory. Do you have feelings for Cara? What I mean to say is, do you love her?”

  He whirled on Edmund, surprise registered on his face. “Love?” He snorted. “Affection, perhaps, but I’m sure nothing like what you felt for her.” He pointed his finger at Edmund, still clutching his glass.

  “I guess that was my error, was it not?” Edmund said, baiting him.

  Gregory’s laugh was caustic. “Your problem, what has always been your problem, is that you are too naive. You see, Edmund, if you wish to succeed in any position of true value, the first rule is the realization that what is important in any relationship is not emotion, but power. Not how it benefits others, but how it benefits you.”

  He slapped him on the shoulder, and Edmund had to force himself not to swing his fist into his face.

  “You see, that’s always been the difference between you and me. Your father’s like that, too, always looking for the greater good, what is best for all.” Gregory tossed him a smirk.

  Edmund’s jaw ticked as he forced a smile, playing into his former friend’s pompous, drunken rant. “Well, it’s true you have me there, Gregory. I simply do not understand a word you’ve said. In fact, I think it’s gone over this naive head of mine. Maybe you could put it in terms I will understand?” He held up the whiskey decanter and Gregory eyed him, but held out his glass, anyway.

  “Take, for example, this wedding. It was not for love that I had planned to marry your lovely Cara.”

  “My lovely Cara?” Edmund asked quietly. He glanced toward the door, hoping that by now a contingency of witnesses were listening to this conversation. “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t you see it was a ruse, my dear Edmund? A political game of chess, meant to place the DeVerden dynasty and those who would support it in a better position to gain favor from the crown. Parliament cannot seem to agree on anything without first gnawing the life out of it. I found a way around that, and determined a much quicker means of ridding us of our Gaelic enemies was to first bed them. By marriage, I obtain Cara’s dowry—a generous offering of her father’s land to begin with, and the rest at his passing. It places us in a position of power. Under their own noses, they have let the enemy in, where it is far easier to find ways to dissolve villages, one by one, until they are no longer a meddlesome burden to England. And do not think that the English king would not reward handsomely whoever accomplished that feat.”

  “Get rid of those Gaelic pains in the ass to the English crown, eh?” Edmund stated quietly.

  “Indeed. There, you do see. I underestimated you.” Gregory raised his again-empty glass in salute.

  “It is true, my old friend, that I am not as cunning as you are when it comes to politics, nor do we share the same view on relationships. And frankly, I am very proud to be just like my father in that respect.” Edmund walked ov
er to the study door and eased it open, inviting Cara, her father and his brother, several parliament members and Edmund’s father and mother into the room. All eyes were on Gregory. “You were right about one thing, however. You did underestimate me.”

  Gregory’s eyes darted from one face to another. “Where is my father? Where is Lord DeVerden?”

  Edmund’s father spoke. “He is being detained in his chambers after being shown mercy, until he can be tried by a just court of his peers.”

  “You cannot do that. He is the lord deputy of Ireland, appointed by the king.”

  “Yes, well, he chose to forfeit his title and rights when offered the option of a quick trial by the Ormond tribe waiting just beyond that door.” William Collier glanced at Edmund with a smile. “Which leaves me as acting lord deputy until another can be appointed.”

  Cara moved to Edmund’s side, putting her arm around his waist. Confused and angry, Gregory threw his glass at Edmund, who caught it in his hand. Their eyes met as Gregory was ushered from the room by two of the castle guards, now under the new lord deputy. “I fear you will be busy answering too many questions before parliament to attend our wedding, Gregory, but rest assured, we will be thinking of you.”

  Gregory left, screaming obscenities at the top of his lungs.

  Edmund looked down at Cara and kissed her soundly, causing a rousing cheer from the villagers in the outer hall.

  Edmund’s mother walked over to Cara and took her hands. “As it happens, the abbot is due in tomorrow, and he thinks he is here to marry the lord deputy’s son.” She glanced at Edmund and raised a brow.

  He smiled at his mother and pulled Cara into his embrace. “What say you, milady? It’s rather whirlwind, and on the eve of Beltane, true, but would you consent to becoming my wife?”

  “Whirlwind, Edmund Collier? I’ve waited three long years for that proposal. Yes, I will marry ye.”

  12

  One month later

  “LOOK AT THE FLOWERS!” MOYRAN CLAPPED her hands with glee.

  Cara stepped from the tower stairs into the bright light of midday. She and Moyran had been on a walk, learning the names of flowers. As though by magic, bits of spring had come to the garden. Hidden beneath the brambles and brush, evidence of life had begun to blossom. She smiled, watching her daughter discovering tiny flowers in the grass.

  “Time to go, Moyran.” Cara felt a quickening inside and covered her stomach with her palm. She smiled, knowing that by winter Moyran would have a playmate. Cara reached up, plucking one of the perfect pink roses from above the gate, and took a last look at the garden where she’d found new life. A soft breeze lifted her hair, as though gently kissing her cheek, and in the wind a voice whispered.

  “Thank you, my queen, for your heart that is true. You were my first, which now leaves two.”

  Cara ushered her daughter through the gate and looked up to see Edmund waving from across the field, where the labyrinth lay beneath the tall grass. The red-haired little girl ran to her father, squealing as he lifted her in his strong arms and twirled her around.

  Cara quietly shut the gate, looked over her shoulder and smiled at the Green Man mask, with his laughing hollow eyes and secret smile.

  PERFUMED PLEASURES

  by Charlotte Featherstone

  PROLOGUE

  England, 1856

  HE WAS SWEATING, THE CRISP SHEETS CLINGING to his body as he tossed and turned. Agony rifled through him, tore at his mind as he thrashed, trying to free himself from the black web of sleep and nightmares.

  With a groan, he fisted the sheets, anchoring himself for what was to come, vignettes from the war, the terrifying months spent in the trenches. The death that had surrounded him. He smelled it: war, disease and those who lay dying. He smelled his own skin, burning from smoke and heat, mixed with the metallic tang of blood. He felt the pain as if it were happening all over again, in real time, and not just in a nightmare.

  When would he wake up? When would the visions and memories end? Or would they? Was he to endure this nightly—the war? The horrors? The pain of what he had done to others, and what they had done to him—all in the name of God, queen and country?

  “Give him something, damn you.”

  The gruff voice called to him from the deep recess of his mind. He was awake now—but not really, for the memories continued to bombard him like the artillery fire that had once held him hostage in a trench. Mentally, he tried to reach out, to grasp for the owner of that voice, but he was sucked back into the war, with the sound of artillery fire whistling above his head, and the gurgling, rasping breaths of his best friend, who lay dying beside him. Goddamn it, no! He didn’t want to relive that memory, or the sound of his friend’s last breath, or the way his sightless eyes stared up at him.

  Thrashing his head from side to side, he tried to shake away the thoughts, pleading with his mind to purge the memory and spit out another, less painful, recollection of the hell he had endured otherwise known as the Crimean War.

  He felt the eyes of the two men standing beside the bed watching him. One detached and clinical, studying the lunatic. One horrified, realizing what his coin had purchased—a ruined body and broken mind.

  “If you do not relieve him of this…this pain, then by God, I will.”

  “He must be awake to take the laudanum, my lord.”

  “I will not see him this way, goddamn it. Do something!”

  His uncle, and the only avenging angel he had known since before he had gone off to war. He was here now, in his room, witnessing his weakness. He would see the extent of his wounds. His once fit body withered on the left side. He would know that inside that wasted body was a spirit and mind just as shattered.

  He had always admired his uncle. Always sought his approval—his respect and admiration. To be like this now, weak and mewling, and succumbing to a nightmare, was more than humiliating. It was degrading. Impossible. Not for the first time, he cursed the army surgeon who had dragged him from the burning trench.

  “Let me die,” he had begged the surgeon and his fellow soldiers as they lifted him onto a litter. It had been the pain talking, the pride. He knew the extent of his injuries, felt the agony burning beneath his skin. He hadn’t wanted to return to his uncle and Fairfax House a failure.

  They hadn’t listened, of course, and in the end, he had lived, a fright. A beast, like something out of Mary Shelley’s book. A living piece of meat no more alive than a corpse.

  “Give him something, Doctor,” his uncle growled. “For God’s sake, man, have a heart.”

  If he could weep, he would. But his one good eye no longer would—or could—produce tears. He was no longer in pain—not the physical kind, at least. Laudanum served only to numb his mind and thoughts and subdue the sinister nightmares that always came to him.

  Beside him, he was aware of the doctor rummaging through his leather satchel, while outside, the wind howled through the leafless branches, echoing what he himself longed to do. Cry to the sky and God and curse his own injustice.

  The winters had been unbearable in the trench, and the sweat on his body immediately cooled, making him shiver, taking him back to those cold, miserable days when his fingers were nearly frostbitten, and his toes utterly numb inside his snow-and-mud-caked boots.

  Mercifully, the doctor’s thick finger was thrust into his mouth and the bitter taste of opium paste was put under his tongue. It was not long before the images of war—the dead soldiers, the wounded friends, the cries for help—receded. In his nightmare, he stood whole, unmarked, on the field of Balaklava, a disembodied voyeur, as he watched the last few scenes play out.

  And then he saw her, his saving grace. The image that had kept him alive while in the trench. Catherine. The lovely girl who had grown up to be everything he desired in a woman. The woman he had loved for years. The woman who was not meant for the nephew of an earl, but for the heir—his cousin.

  The February winds gusted once more, rattling the double glazed window
s. Spring would be here soon, and so would Catherine Tate. He only prayed that when she arrived, he would be dead, and her memories of Joscelyn Mallory would be the stuff of dreams, not the nightmare he had become.

  1

  LAMB WAS BEING SERVED FOR DINNER, AND Catherine could not help but think how symbolic it was, for she felt rather like a sacrificial animal. But then, the springs spent with her parents at Fairfax House usually made her feel that way. But never more so than tonight, with Edward’s lascivious leer focused on the mounds of her breasts.

  Every spring it was much the same. She and her parents spent every May at the estate. Her parents and the earl had picked that month because Edward was home from school then, and they thought it a delightful thing for the two of them to become better acquainted during their month-long sojourn to Fairfax House.

  How she loathed these visits. Edward was always hovering by, watching her. This year, they had arrived a fortnight early, and for the past weeks she had been forced to endure her intended’s brazen glances and whispered innuendos. After two weeks she was utterly repulsed by him. What it would be like after years of marriage to the man?

  Glancing away from Edward and shoving aside her morose thoughts, Catherine gazed out of the window to the garden, which had once thrived with life, but now sat dormant and fallow. She would be mistress of this manor soon. In a week, to be precise. It was her solemn vow to restore the beauty of the garden—and hide in it, far away from her lecherous husband.

  “To a long and happy union,” Lord Fairfax called, raising his goblet of wine. “We have waited a long time for this year, have we not?”

  Catherine’s parents—poor, but of noble blood—nodded enthusiastically. Indeed, they had waited for what seemed like forever for their only daughter to grow up and rescue them from genteel poverty.