“But the woman he painted is different from you, isn't she? Just a little different.”
Gayle sank to the couch in anguish. It had been awful, so awful to watch! She could still recall perfectly the way that he had screamed and jerked and twitched in terrible agony, feeling again the bullets that had torn through him.
“I don't understand,” she wailed. “Did he stop because—because he died then? Because he could not go on? And if so, why does he hate me so much? Or Katrina? She must have loved him very much; she followed him into war. Why?”
Marsha sighed softly. “I don't think that Percy died then. I think that maybe whatever went wrong started then. You and Percy both refuse to go any farther. You were willing and talkative until we came to the point of the marriage. Then you insisted that you were happy, but you would go no further. Brent...he seems to have the same blocks. Whatever came next is so disturbing that, even under hypnosis, neither of you will speak about it.” She rolled up the vellum sheets. “May I take one of these? I'll return it to you soon, I promise.” Dr. Clark took the first of the vellum war sketches; she set the others by her feet.
“Yes, yes, of course,” Gayle said absently. She looked at the doctor. “So what do we do now?” she whispered desperately.
“I'll tell you what we'll do,” Brent said suddenly from the doorway. “We'll just get out of this house.”
“What?” Startled, Gayle glanced at him. He was leaning there with a drink in his hand. He looked ravaged and haggard.
He lifted his glass to her. “Drink? Dr. Clark?”
“No, thank you.” Marsha murmured.
“Brent—”
“Gayle, I've had it. I've had it with all this.”
“Don't you even want to listen?” Gayle demanded.
“No!” He came into the room, and it seemed that he was barely leashing his anger. “No, I want to be done with all this nonsense! Maybe it's the damn house, at this point. Who the hell knows, who the hell cares! Let's get out of here.”
“Brent! You came back, I swear it. We were married and we were happy—”
“So tell me why the hell are we so damned miserable now?”
Marsha Clark smiled and repeated her explanation. “You are blocking me. Both of you. Whatever lies there is very painful—I can't make you go back to it. If I could...”
“If you could?”
She shrugged. “It could help you understand what happened in the past that's still bothering you now, and it could make you both feel a lot better. But it could be dangerous. It's frightening to play with the past. It's possible to become lost within it.”
Brent let out a sound of utter skepticism. Gayle longed to hit him.
Dr. Clark cleared her throat. “Maybe it would be best to stop. Maybe the two of you should get away, take a little vacation.”
“Thanks, doc,” Brent said crudely. “Thanks a lot. Maybe we'll just do that.”
“Brent!” Gayle said with amazement, “Would you please quit being so damned rude!”
Dr. Clark stood up, smiling at Gayle, as serene and unruffled as ever. “It's quite all right; he's not feeling well. Please feel free to call me any time if you should need me.”
“Dr. Clark, please—”
“Call me,” Marsha Clark assured Gayle.
Gayle walked her to the door. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. He's a wonderful man, I've never seen him so rude—”
“Please, don't apologize. I'm sure that the regression experience hurt him terribly.” She tapped the sheets she was carrying. “Take care now and call me. Or I'll call you if I come up with anything.”
Gayle nodded and waved at Marsha as she drove away. She saw David Gareth, one of the gardeners, out in the field, and she waved and smiled. Then she walked wearily back into the house.
Brent was still in the parlor, stretched out with his drink in his hand, his feet on the coffee table. She had never seen him so morose. He closed his eyes, wincing, then rubbed his temples. She bit her lip; he was obviously in so much physical pain beyond the torment of confusion.
“Brent?” she whispered.
His eyes opened. He reached out a hand to her. “Come here.”
“We need to talk.”
“Just sit with me for a few minutes, please.”
She couldn't refuse him. She curled up beside him and she stroked his nape, pushing hard against the muscles. Then she lay against him and they just sat together in silence while time ticked away and the morning wore on. Gayle felt so tired.
Finally she rose and she still didn't speak. She walked over to the window and she stared out at the beauty of the veranda and the colors of the day.
“You promised me,” she said softly at last. “Brent—you were going to try.”
He sighed. “I did try, Gayle.”
“But you didn't hear yourself. You still don't understand, you don't know—”
“I know that I came out of that thing—whatever it was that she did to me—wanting to die. I can't do it again. And I won't let you do it again.”
“Brent—”
His feet fell to the floor and he rose, coming over to her. He took her hands in his. “We can't play around with it anymore. We can't. We're going to have a baby.”
“That's precisely why—”
“Marsha Clark said herself that it was dangerous to play with the past.”
“Brent! We have to keep trying to work out this problem.”
He shook his head, bringing her close to him. “I think that we need to get out of here. I think that we should just go. We should take a trip to the airport and grab the first plane to anywhere that strikes our fancy.”
“Can we really run away, do you think?” she whispered.
“Yes.” He pulled her more tightly against him. “Do you remember the night that Uncle Hick died? He was crazy about you, Gayle; he didn't tell me not to bring you to this house because he wanted to hurt you. He was afraid. He knew that we shouldn't be here.”
“You really think that it's the house?”
“God, I don't know what I really think. But I do think that I want to get away for a while.”
She nodded, searching out his eyes. “I'm going to go up and start packing. Are you coming?”
Absently, he nodded. He rubbed the back of his neck and picked up his drink and slumped back to the couch.
“Brent?”
“I just need a minute.” He gave her a smile. “I'm trying to get rid of this headache. Go ahead, I'll be right along. Maybe we'll fly down to Paradise. There's nothing—absolutely nothing—old on that island.”
She smiled with him, then left him in the dim coolness of the room to head up the passage stairs. Her spirits were lifting already with the idea of leaving, forgetting it all, and just spending time together. Maybe it was the house. Maybe they were all insane, she, Marsha, and Brent.
In their bedroom, though, she paused, sinking down weakly to the bed. No. She hadn't understood what had happened when she'd undergone the hypnosis herself, but she had seen and heard Brent. It might be impossible; it might be against all rhyme and reason, but she believed that it was true. She had lived before, in a life long ago, and she had been a young woman from Kent named Katrina who had fallen in love with a Virginian named Percy.
She smiled a little sadly. Maybe there was a little rhyme and reason to it. She had always felt, from the very beginning, that she had known Brent so well. That she had waited and waited a lifetime for him. She had fallen into his arms so quickly, so ready to love him, so intensely, desperately passionate. Maybe she was destined to love him forever, into eternity; it was a love so deep.
With a little sigh she rose and dragged her suitcase from the closet and began to pack.
An hour later as she threw the last few items in her suitcase, the phone started ringing. She wondered for a moment if Brent would get it downstairs; then she thought that the machine would get it; and then she decided to pick up the bedroom extension on the side of the bed herself.
>
“Hello?” She caught it on the third ring.
“Gayle? This is Marsha. Dr. Clark.”
“Oh! Hello!” Gayle heard the excitement in the woman's voice.
“Gayle, I've got some interesting news for you.”
“Yes?”
“Well, I checked into the sketches, and I checked into your property. The sketch is worth a mint, by the way. I had it authenticated. It's an Ainsworth.”
Gayle frowned. “An Ainsworth?”
“Yes, yes! I'm at the library now! Ainsworth! Percy and Katrina were Ainsworths, Gayle. He built the house. He wasn't just a revolutionary—he was a very popular artist in his time.”
Gayle's fingers tightened around the phone cord. “Then—then, Percy and Katrina were real people, and they did fall in love and get married?”
“Yes! I'm coming back as soon as I can with copies of the documents I've managed to find. I don't have the whole story, but I understand a great deal of it.”
“Did he die in Pennsylvania?”
“No. They died on the same day.” She hesitated just a moment. “In your house.”
Gayle gasped. “Then...why, why did he hate her so much?”
“There were a few things that happened over the years. But in the end, he thought that she betrayed him.”
“Did she?”
“I don't think so. But what matters is what he believed, isn't it?”
“I—I suppose.”
“Listen, I'm on my way over. I hope your husband won't mind. I hope he'll at least hear me out. It's terribly important that he understands.”
“He—he'll listen. I'll make him,” Gayle promised. “Hurry!”
“I will.”
Gayle hung up the phone and sank back to the bed in a daze. It was frightening. It was terrifying. She had lived before and loved before and she had died, right here, in this house.
She jumped up, anxious to tell Brent. She ran down the stairs and hurried to the parlor.
It wasn't until she opened the door that she realized that he should have been upstairs long ago himself.
He was sitting on the floor, looking at the rest of the vellum sketches which she had so carelessly left by the chair. His dark head was bent over them, and his fingers were trembling as he held them.
She should have told him, she thought with a pang of deep regret. She should have told him long ago that they existed.
She cleared her throat, trying to think of something to say now. He heard her and, standing, instantly dropped the pictures.
“Where did you get these?”
“I—found them at a barn sale.”
She didn't want to stay there. Suddenly she was frightened, more frightened than she had ever been of him. She backed out of the room murmuring to him, wondering if he understood her or not. “Marsha is on her way back here. She found out—”
“Where the hell do you think you're going now?” He strode across the room and he caught her arm, wrenching it hard. She landed on the floor and struggled to sit up, meeting his eyes as he towered over her.
“What did I do?” she asked desperately.
“What did you do?” he whispered the words. He squatted on the balls of his feet again, and he reached out to touch her cheeks. “I didn't want to believe it. All those years...and the rumor had been about so long, but had I heard it? Nay, my wife! For love is deaf as well as blind, is it not? You went to him. You went to him! Not only in Philadelphia, but again when the ship entered into the river. And now. Even now.”
He came to his feet, grasping her by her hair, pulling her along with him to the window. “They are out there, aren't they?”
“Who? Brent, who?” He didn't answer her. He stared out the window, his eyes alert and wary. “Percy!” she whispered and he turned to her, dark eyes afire. “Who is out there, Percy, please tell me who?”
“Who! The British, Katrina.” He pulled her to him; he pressed his lips against her forehead, and then he laughed. “All these years I have loved you. And all these years you have been betraying me again and again.” He gripped her shoulders and he started to shake her. She struggled against him, crying out, trying to force his arms from hers. Then his hands settled against her throat and she went dead still, afraid that any motion would instigate him further. Tears stung her eyes as he stroked her throat and stared down at her, barely seeing her, if he saw her at all.
“They will hang me, you know. You've known it all along. They let me escape before so that you could keep them apprised of my movements. I always said that I loved you so much that I would die for you. And I will do just that, won't I? They are out there, aren't they? When I run, they will take me and they will hang me by the neck until I am dead.”
“No!” Gayle whispered, shaking.
“My God!” he exploded. “I would die and die gladly, were it just a part of war.” He shoved her from him with a fury, then slapped her so that she fell to the floor again.
“Whore! My God, how could you have done such a thing?”
“Stop it! Stop it!” Tears streamed down her cheeks. She tossed back her hair and hugged her knees to her chest, shaking then in a fit of chills. “There's no one there. I swear to you, there's no one there—”
He came beside her, jerking her back up into his arms again, and he smiled with all the haunted, bitter sadness she could imagine, winding his fingers into her hair. “I'll not let you go tonight, love. If it is to be our last, so be it. We will be together, and you will hold me through the night. Come!”
He jerked her along with him, going from window to window, cautiously peering outside. “Stop!” she pleaded with him again and again. She tried to assure herself that he had never really hurt her, never seriously hurt...
He had never tried to kill her and surely, please God, he would not do so now. But he was brutally rough, dragging her along with him, checking every window. In the ballroom he pulled her down. He cast a leg over hers and pinned her wrists and held her there, listening.
“You're hurting me!” she told him. His leg was heavy and tense and his weight was hard against her. “Please, Brent, the baby—”
He eased up and stared down at her. He seemed shocked. “Where is the boy?”
“What—what boy?”
“My son! Where is he?”
“He's fine,” she lied quickly. “He's fine. I sent him into Richmond for safety.”
He touched her cheek. “Have you turned him into a little Redcoat too, my love?”
She shook her head, trying to ease from him. Marsha was due back any second now. What would he do? How would he behave toward Marsha? Was he capable of being really dangerous? No! her heart cried out, this was Brent.
She was wrong, a part of her insisted. It was Percy she was dealing with now, and he was from a different age. He was still fighting a war in which he had been betrayed.
“Percy!” she whispered, and she flung her arms around him and kissed him. “I swear it,” she whispered against his lips. “I swear that I have not betrayed you. Hold me. I love you. I love you, for all time. Believe in me, hold me...”
His eyes met hers and he kissed her back. She set her arms around him and she rolled with him, until she came atop him. She had to get him to hold on, to wait.
“My love, give me a moment,” she pleaded and, playfully, she pushed away from him. “Wait for me Wait...”
She brought a finger to her lips, and offered him a secret smile, then rose. He rolled upon an elbow to watch her. She kept smiling at him as she strode slowly toward the door.
But the doorbell rang then, followed by a pounding on the door. He was on his feet in an instant. “Bitch! Whore!” he shouted. She screamed and ran and he caught her, slamming her up against the wall. “You will not go to him! So they are here now!” He pressed against her, glaring into her face. “You'll not go to him now!”
“Percy, please—”
He pushed away, and when she tried to catch his arm he shook her off with vehemence. “Percy!”
she screamed again, scrambling up to her feet, chasing after him again. He was already in the passage, reaching for the front door. “Brent, Percy, please!”
He threw it open just as she came pounding against his back. It was Marsha, but she wasn't alone. Geoff was with her. Standing and staring open-mouthed at Brent.
“You!”
Brent reached out and caught Geoff by the lapels, dragging him inside.
Geoff tried to break away from him. “What the hell is the matter with you, McCauley?”
“You Tory son of a bitch!” he swore, swinging his fist into Geoff's jaw. Gayle screamed as she heard the sickening sound of the impact. Geoff stared at them both in astonishment, then slithered to the floor.
“Geoff!” Gayle cried, falling down beside him. She screamed when she was instantly dragged back to her feet by her hair and pressed hard against Brent's chest. His eyes were nearly black now; his brow was knit with fury. “Even now! Even now you would fall at your lover's feet. Whore! Whore!” He drew his arm back as if he would hit her, yet this time he did not. A glistening of tears suddenly glazed his eyes, and one trickled down his cheek. “Whore,” he repeated in a soft whisper. “Beloved, beloved whore.”
Then his eyes closed and he fell against her. She gasped, trying to catch him lest he hurt himself. She hadn't the strength. She fell, with him atop her.
“Here, here, let me help you,” Marsha said quickly, stepping into the passage. She eased Brent's weight from Gayle's body and lifted one of his eyelids. “Dead out,” she muttered. “Let's see to this one, shall we?”
Gayle swallowed and nodded and tapped Geoff's cheek, then noticed the swelling of his jaw. “I'll get some ice,” she muttered. She ran into the kitchen and in her haste knocked cubes from the tray all over the floor. She wrapped ice into a towel, then she searched beneath the sink for a bottle of brandy and hurried back out to the passage.
Thankfully, Geoff was already coming around. Gayle whispered his name woefully and offered him both the ice and the brandy. Geoff gingerly placed the ice against his jaw.
“What the hell did he do before he went into art? Box?”
Gayle shook her head, and then she burst into tears. Marsha took the brandy from Geoff and gave it to Gayle and told her to take a long swallow. She did so. “Of course, we could just get some glasses, couldn't we?” she offered with a wry smile.
Every Time I Love You Page 27
