by Susan Wiggs
“I’m ready for something,” Eliza announced from the top of the stairs. “Though I’m not certain what.”
In a decidedly feminine rustle of skirts, she descended. Hunter stared at her as if she were a stranger. Her hair was pulled sleekly back and plaited, the plaits pinned in a neat cluster at the nape of her neck. She wore a dark blue dress that was quite plain—exactly what you would expect a proper governess or nanny to wear.
As she descended the stairs, the toes of her shiny black tap boots peeked out from the hem of the skirts. It felt eerie, seeing Lacey’s dress again. He could not recall the last time he had seen Lacey wearing this particular gown, but he could picture her so clearly—that smooth, almost haughty carriage, that upright posture bred into her at Miss Porter’s School in the north.
“I’ve decided I’m not angry with you anymore,” Eliza said, grinning at him. “Willa explained that you’re being kind and helping me fit in.”
“I’ve seldom been accused of kindness,” he said.
What Eliza lacked in finesse she made up for in enthusiasm. She nearly slipped a couple of times on the stairs, but she clung to the rail and laughed at her blunders.
“These shoes will take some getting used to. They pinch terribly.”
He held out a hand to steady her. “I think they’re supposed to.”
“And what would you know of ladies’ shoes?” she asked.
“I’ve heard enough complaints.”
“Here,” Willa called, hurrying down the stairs. “You’ll be needing a hat.” The straw hat had a wide brim, and it made Eliza’s face look like the middle of a flower. Hunter felt a hitch of emotion as she gazed up at him with a radiant smile. “I had no idea a picnic was such a grand affair,” she confessed.
“Around here, a picnic’s never just a picnic.” He held the front door for her, catching a whiff of gardenia fragrance as she walked past.
“Your wife had beautiful things,” she said to him. “Thank you.”
He didn’t reply. Nor did he make a comment when she nearly fell backward trying to get into the buggy. He caught her against him, and immediately started to feel the way he had yesterday morning in front of the mirror. Damn the woman.
Laughing at herself, she landed in the seat beside Belinda.
“We’ve been waiting and waiting,” Belinda said. “So we made friends with the mare, just like you showed us.”
“The horse is mean,” Hunter warned her. “She bites.”
“Not anymore,” Belinda said. She and her brother exchanged a conspiratorial look.
“You’re all turning strange on me,” Hunter grumbled. He sat on the driver’s banquette and flicked the reins. The Morgan started forward.
“Blue,” said Eliza, “maybe you would like to sit up beside your father.”
“It’s not safe,” Hunter said, his objection swift and automatic.
“Nonsense.” She helped Blue climb up. “He’s probably old enough to take the reins.”
Hunter studied the small silent boy beside him. “Ask me,” he said softly. “Ask me for the reins, son.” As soon as the words were out, Hunter wanted to reel them back in. Why did he do this, time and time again? Why did he keep hoping, when it was clear there was no hope?
Blue stared up at him, his face blank. His eyes, as clear and as deep as the sea, begged for a turn at the reins. But he said nothing.
“One word,” Hunter said, because he couldn’t help himself. “Just say ‘please,’ and I’ll let you drive.”
Blue looked away and faced straight ahead at the worn dirt road.
“You look real nice,” Belinda said to Eliza. “Your hair is so curly and pretty.”
Hunter’s stomach twisted. Ever the peacemaker, Belinda was always quick to change the subject or turn the attention away from Blue’s affliction. Belinda would do anything to stave off a confrontation. She was protective of Blue, as fierce in her own way as Hunter was in his. Who were these children?
He felt unworthy, undeserving of them. Perhaps, he thought wildly, they weren’t his at all, but two enchanted creatures. Each time he looked at them, he felt a strange sensation that they could not possibly belong to him. They were too beautiful. They were something left by the fairies one night; perhaps they weren’t real children at all, but changelings come to make mischief on his life, and one day they would leave.
Then he studied Blue and saw the pain locked in the boy’s eyes. It was like looking into a mirror. Blue was his son, and the boy bore the wounds of that.
“Thank you for that compliment,” Eliza said to Belinda. “This dress belonged to your mother.”
“Really? I don’t remember it. Mama had lots and lots of dresses.”
“Which ones do you remember? Tell me about them.”
Hunter bit his lip to keep from telling her to shut up. She had been doing this since the moment she’d met Belinda, encouraging the child to dredge up memories of her dead mother. It was morbid, yet Belinda seemed to relish her recollections of small details, everything from the way the light struck her mama’s hair when she sat on the veranda to the design of her favorite cameo necklace.
“And she used to sing us a song, a special song in the nursery at night,” Belinda mused. “But I can’t remember it. Something about a blanket of stars.”
The back of Hunter’s throat itched for a slug of whiskey. He flicked the reins to urge the horse faster. Mamie Beaumont would surely have a nice big vat of her planter’s punch made up for the guests. He salivated just thinking of the sugary liquor. But as hard as he tried, he couldn’t keep out the memories. Belinda had been just five years old when Lacey had died so horribly, yet the little girl had an uncanny memory for details. She recalled colors and smells and sounds with razor-sharp accuracy. And she had a way of phrasing things that made Hunter remember too.
“…a blanket of stars and a wagon hitched to…”
“The moon?” Eliza guessed.
“Maybe.”
Blue shifted in agitation and drummed his fingers on the rail of the cart.
“Do you remember the tune?” Eliza prompted. “You could sing the tune and the words would come back to you.”
Belinda heaved a sigh and slumped back against the seat. “Can’t.”
“Maybe your father or brother remembers the song,” Eliza said.
Hunter shouldn’t have been surprised by her suggestion. He shouldn’t have been surprised that once she asked it, he recalled every word and every note of the lullaby. Come away and fly with me, to the top of the highest tree, in a wagon hitched to the moon, a blanket of stars to keep us warm. Past the clouds and past the sun, all the way to heaven, here I come.
Blue fidgeted restively on the seat beside him. The boy remembered the song too. But neither of them would speak up, Hunter knew. They would both keep the memories and the words and even the music buried deep.
“I know a song,” Eliza said brightly. “Would you like to hear it?”
Belinda clapped her hands and bounced in the seat. “Yes! Yes, please!”
Eliza launched into a strange song set to a vaguely Celtic melody. “‘Come unto these yellow sands, And then take hands: courtsied when you have and kiss’d the wild waves whist, Foot it featly here and there; And, sweet sprites, the burthen bear.”’
She had an untrained and curiously appealing voice. Not sweet, but a slightly husky croon that intrigued him. Hunter caught Blue glancing back over his shoulder at Eliza. The boy had never taken this much interest in someone.
“That’s one of Ariel’s songs from The Tempest,” she explained.
“Who is Ariel?”
“A sprite.”
“What’s a sprite?”
“A forest spirit. He lives under an enchantment. In the end of the play, the old wizard sets him free.”
“Will you tell us the story of The Tempest?”
Eliza laughed. “I can recite it from memory. And yes, I’ll tell you both, a little each night at bedtime. Would that be all righ
t?”
“Yes!” More bouncing on the bench. The Morgan flattened her ears peevishly at the motion.
Hunter scowled at the road unfolding in front of the horse. Things were spinning out of control. He had no idea what might happen from one moment to the next. He didn’t like this, didn’t like it at all. He didn’t like what Eliza was doing to this family. To him.
She was making him feel again.
His sanity depended on holding himself at a distance, and she kept drawing him back. Closer to her, to home, to his children. Closer to the secrets in his own heart. He would have to resist her harder, because if he gave in to her, he’d be lost. Then she would leave—he had promised her California—and for the second time, he would lose the woman he loved.
He nearly choked on the thought. He didn’t love Eliza Flyte. He barely knew her. The magical, strange, compelling night he had spent making love to her was supposed to be expunged from his memory. He wasn’t supposed to think about it. She was a stranger with no knowledge of the world he lived in. Loving her could only lead to disaster.
His shoulders grew taut with tension as he drove nearer to Bonterre. The neighboring plantation was not quite as beautiful as Albion had been in its prime, but it was impressive nonetheless. The brick mansion crowned a green knoll, and the lawns and yards swarmed with guests and servants rushing here and there in pinwheels of color. The sun rode high in a clear sky that held the burning promise of summer.
This was the world he had been born to, the world his children were born to. When he had tried to leave it and make his own way, everything had fallen apart. That had been his mistake—trying to leave. He had to get back to where he belonged. He had delayed long enough.
As he surveyed the elegant company, Hunter wondered if it was cruelty or something else that had prompted him to bring Eliza today. They’ll eat her alive and suck the marrow out of her bones, Nancy had promised, and she had been right. He had only to look at his sister-in-law Delaney or Lacey’s cousin Francine in their ruffles and lace, to see what Nancy meant.
He knew of nothing quite so charming, nor quite so lethal, as the well-born women of Virginia. Their bite was more poisonous than the sting of an adder, a lingering sweet venom that could kill a person slowly, with unimaginable pain.
He got down from the buggy and lifted Belinda from the passenger bench. Before he could help Eliza, she had hopped out of the cart, and Blue had jumped to the ground.
“There’s Sarah Jane,” Belinda yelled, running off to play with her second cousin. Blue trotted after her. Hunter found himself alone with Eliza. “Well,” he said. “Welcome to Bonterre. I’ll try to introduce you to everyone.”
“As the governess?”
“I reckon so.”
“Fine.” Head held high, she walked toward their hosts.
Hunter waited by the buggy for a groom, then caught up with Eliza. He introduced her to Lacey’s parents, Hugh and Mamie, and then to the extended clan that made up the Beaumont dynasty: Trey, the eldest son, possessed his father’s relentless drive and ambition. Ernest, the younger brother, was a charming, laconic ne’er-do-well. Ernest’s wife, Delaney, had a sharp-eyed awareness of the least little slight. An array of cousins rounded out the family, all deeply concerned about the current state of fox hunting and the price of tobacco in Richmond.
Delaney took Eliza by the arm. “You’re just a perfect gem,” she said. “Where in heaven’s name did Hunter find you?”
“I lived all my life on Flyte Island,” said Eliza. She didn’t seem intimidated by Delaney’s keen looks and probing questions.
“The children are quite a handful, aren’t they?” Delaney prompted. “Tell me, my dear, how are you getting along with young Theodore?”
Hunter pivoted away to the punch table. Lacey’s family was scandalized by the way he was raising his children at Albion, a place that had turned its back on tobacco to embrace a questionable enterprise. Yet his in-laws weren’t too proud to buy his horses or bet on them, he noticed.
Ever since his first yearling sale, a number of belles had begun to primp for him, from Josephine Jefferson herself to Tabby and Cilla Lee Parks of Norfolk. Women with money, social standing, looks. He had best stop delaying and choose a wife. His kids needed a mother. Their reaction to Eliza was proof of that.
He caught his gaze wandering to Eliza. A bevy of inquisitive neighbors and cousins clustered around her, their voluminous white party gowns enclosing her like a blossom in a hornets’ nest. He had to stifle the impulse to rescue her from being sucked into their midst.
But Eliza was strong in ways he was just beginning to discover, so he walked away—to get something to drink.
Twenty
As a hired governess, Eliza knew she was not supposed to be enjoying herself, but she couldn’t help it. Was this the oddest gathering in Virginia, or were all picnics like this? Was there really a game called croquet, or had this strange group invented it specially for the occasion? She had no idea, but hitting a wooden ball through hoops struck her as the height of weirdness.
She loved it. She loved whacking the silly ball, and later on she loved the game of blindman’s buff even though she wound up tangled in an azalea bush while the other guests laughed uproariously. She loved mumblety-peg too, having no idea that ladies weren’t supposed to play games with knives. As it turned out, she threw Ernest Beaumont’s hunting knife better than anyone else, and doubled over with mirth to see him, hands tied behind his back, trying to extract it from the ground with his teeth.
Then there was the talk, which was far less enchanting than the party games. The picnic guests spoke endlessly of nothing at all. It was uncanny, the way a pair of grown women could yammer on about the quality of a fabric or the merits of a curling iron for thirty minutes without ceasing. Even more uncanny was the way the men spoke to each other, swaggering about and describing their fox hunting exploits or tobacco crop, each trying to outboast the previous one.
So this was the world she had missed by living on the island.
“Miss Eliza, you must be exhausted from all the games,” a young lady said, linking arms with her. “Come and get a drink of lemonade with my sister and me.” It was Miss Tabitha Parks of Norfolk. She and her sister Priscilla had taken a special interest in Eliza. They insisted on being called Tabby and Cilla.
“The men are about to start jumping their horses,” Cilla said. “It’s entirely too tedious.”
Eliza thought she might like to see the jumping, but the sisters were being kind, so she allowed herself to be swept along with them.
“Tell us what it’s like, being a governess,” Tabby said.
Eliza took a cup of lemonade from a servant. She smiled her thanks, but the serving girl kept her eyes downcast, and didn’t see.
“Yes, tell us,” Cilla prompted.
“I’ve only just started,” Eliza confessed. “It’s quite different from Jane Eyre, though.”
The sisters exchanged a blank look. “Jane who?”
“Never mind.” Cilla leaned in conspiratorially. “Is it entirely too grotesque, looking after a boy who won’t speak?”
A flash of maternal protectiveness, the likes of which Eliza had never felt before, momentarily blinded her. “I beg your pardon?”
“Well, you know. The boy, Theodore. Do you suppose he’s simple, or touched in the head—”
“He’s a beautiful, lovable boy,” Eliza broke in, “and I’ll thank you to remember that.”
“There, there,” Tabby said placatingly. “Cilla didn’t mean any insult. What we really want to know is this—What is he like?”
“Blue?”
“No, Hunter Calhoun, of course!”
Eliza smiled, knowing her heart was in her eyes, but not caring that they saw. “He is wonderful, and annoying, and funny, and sad, and…wonderful.”
Tabby fanned herself vigorously. Cilla nearly choked on her lemonade. “Heavens to Betsy,” they exclaimed in unison. “You’re in love with him!”
/> Eliza’s face heated. She wasn’t quite sure what she was embarrassed about, but these women seemed far too interested in her feelings for Hunter. “I never said—”
A flurry of excitement erupted on the lawn where the jumping course had been set up. Trey Beaumont came charging in on a lathered and clearly distressed roan hunter. The horse was prancing and tossing its head as Trey hauled hard on the reins. A froth of spittle formed at the corners of the horse’s mouth.
Eliza set down her cup of mint lemonade. She picked her skirts up to the knees and raced across the lawn. “Slacken the reins,” she called to the rider. “Do it now.”
He must have been so surprised by the command coming from a woman that he obeyed. Eliza positioned herself in front of the horse and made a soothing sound in her throat. The horse shook his head violently, nearly cracking his skull against hers. “There now, easy,” she said, and took the reins. The roan momentarily settled. “Sir, dismount quickly.”
The bewildered man got off the horse, and it sidled in agitation. “I don’t know what came over him.”
Tabby and Cilla Parks arrived, breathless with excitement. “Miss Eliza,” Tabby said. “You ran right out in front of that horse. You could have been killed.”
“I’m fine.” Eliza held fast to the reins and ran her hand up the length of the roan’s skull, absorbed in watching the ears.
“But we didn’t finish our conversation,” Cilla said. “And it was just getting interesting.”
Eliza ignored them as she coaxed the horse to lower his head.
“He’s my best jumper,” Trey Beaumont said, “but he’s not been himself.”
Eliza handed him the reins. “Hold him still, and I’ll show you why.” She took a lace-edged handkerchief from the sash of her gown. Carefully, she probed into the horse’s ear. The Parks sisters looked as though they might faint. Even Eliza grimaced when she extracted a small hornet.
