Blackmoore

by Julianne Donaldson

  Henry laughed, a full-throated, hearty laugh.

  “What is so funny?” I asked him.

  He shook his head.

  I frowned. “Tell me.”

  He looked down, a smile teasing his lips. “Not funny,” he murmured. “Just delightful. The way you take everything literally.”

  I frowned and watched him with misgiving, trusting neither his words nor the smile that did not fade from his mouth or his eyes.

  “And as for why Cora acts like this around me, I think you know the answer to that as well as I,” he said, his voice quieter now. He leaned closer, as if to whisper a secret. I saw that even now he still had a faint trail of freckles across the top of his tanned cheeks. I saw that his eyelashes were still black as coal. I saw that the grey in his eyes still had that ring of charcoal around the edge. My heart quickened at his nearness, as surely as it had every time he drew close like this. Ever since the day he rescued me from the river. My heart was predictable that way.

  “Why is that?”

  “Because Cora is your heart, and your heart loves me.”

  My face turned hot. Cora further embarrassed me by stepping on Henry’s chest and rubbing her head against his chin.

  “Look at this, Kate. Look at how your heart loves me. Your heart adores me. It worships me, even.”

  “It does not, Henry Delafield.” I threw a handful of leaves at his head.

  He ducked, came up grinning, and said, “Your heart would like to curl up next to mine and never leave—”

  “Hush! It’s not true! Someone will hear you!” I threw another handful of leaves, as he ducked and yelled out, “Kate’s heart loves—”

  Without a thought in my head I lunged at him and covered his mouth with my hands. He fell backward, laughing, and I grabbed more leaves and threw them at him and he was saying all sorts of nonsense about my heart, and the leaves were flying in the air between us, and one got stuck on my mouth, and I laughed and threw it at Henry’s head, and suddenly he grabbed my wrists, and I fell back, off balance. “Admit it,” he said. “Admit your heart adores me.”

  “I will never surrender,” I said, laughing, and wrenched my wrists free, pushing him over and finding the spot under his arms where he had been ticklish as a boy. I grabbed him around the ribs, tickling. He laughed, surprise in the sound, and squirmed. But I was relentless.

  “You rob me of my dignity, Kate,” he said, chuckling, and grabbing at my hands, pulling them away from his ribs, pulling me over, rolling over so that I was pinned beneath him.

  He had my wrists pinned to the ground, by my head, and he leaned over me, his eyes crinkled with smiles, his grin as bright as I had ever seen it. My cheeks ached from smiling. I felt his chest rise and fall against my own, felt the weight of his legs across mine. My heart picked up speed. The sun cast its golden glow over the clearing, over us.

  “I remember you saying you had outgrown being ticklish,” I said, breathless.

  “I thought I had outgrown it.” His cheeks were red, and leaves were caught in his hair. His dark grey eyes smiled into mine. “I suppose there are some things I will never outgrow.” His smile softened, lifting up higher on one corner than the other, his eyes full of something like regret and affection mixed together. “Like you.” His voice was nearly a whisper now, husky and threaded with remnants of his laugh. “I doubt I will ever outgrow you, Kate.”

  And in that moment I knew. I knew that he was right—my heart did adore him. I adored him. I loved him. My heart was pounding, my breath coming fast. Something was happening. Something was shifting, changing. We were approaching a line we would never be able to uncross. His gaze moved from my eyes to my mouth, and I saw, with a leap of my heart, a look of longing in his eyes.

  “Will you dance with me tonight?” he asked in a low voice. Tonight was the ball at Delafield Manor. I swallowed hard, my heart galloping so furiously I was sure he could feel it. Yes, I wanted to dance with him. Of course. I opened my mouth to answer, but before I could, a voice cried out in surprise.

  “Henry? Kate?”

  Henry jerked, and I did too, at the sound of Sylvia’s voice. He rolled away, and I sat up quickly, appalled at how we must have looked.

  “What ... what is ...” Sylvia stopped, her face shocked, as if she was too stunned to find a question for us. “What is going on?” she finally asked.

  “Oh, that?” Henry said. He was lounging back on one elbow, looking as if nothing could disturb him. “Kate was just stripping me.”

  I nearly choked. “I was not!” I cried, throwing him a furious look.

  “Stripping me of my dignity, I mean.” His expression was all merriment and mischief. “She was tickling me. Quite an undignified moment for a strong young man like myself, to be bested by a little girl.” He levered himself to his feet, stood, and held out a hand to me. I slapped it away and lurched to my feet.

  “I am not a little girl,” I muttered, and looked ashamedly at Sylvia, my face on fire. “Your brother is an atrocious tease, and I was simply trying to hold my own. Which is practically impossible.”

  Sylvia’s gaze moved from me to Henry and back. She did not look anywhere near as amused as Henry. My heart fell. This was not good. I could tell it by the closed, distant expression on her face.

  “I was just coming to find Henry because Mama is looking for him. Ball preparations, I assume.” She bit her lip.

  “Yes!” I pushed my hair back. “Yes, I am sure you both need to get back. I will ... see you there. At the ball.” Henry was watching me with that mischievous look and something else too—something that made me blush and made my heart pound. It made me wonder if he knew the truth—if he knew that I did love him. Sylvia looked stern and uncomfortable. I wondered if she knew the truth as well. I wondered what she thought about it if she did know.

  It was too awkward for words. I backed away, gesturing over my shoulder. “I should ... go.”

  I ran home with fear and hope battling for dominance within my pounding heart.

  Chapter 31

  Present Day

  I had debated whether or not I had the strength to endure dinner at Blackmoore with Mama and Maria. As it turned out, I had barely enough self-control left to me. Mrs. Delafield had placed them as far away from her as she could without displacing Miss St.Claire in the place of honor on Henry’s right hand. They were both too loud, and I cringed every time one of them spoke. In my embarrassment I avoided looking at Henry or Sylvia. I caught Mr. Brandon’s eye once—the younger Mr. Brandon—and it continued to hold that pity I had seen in him earlier. After that I kept my eyes on my plate and thought of the ocean and India and a long voyage away from my shameful family.

  Herr and Frau Spohr performed for the company again, which I was quietly relieved about, as that made it difficult for Mama or Maria to make a spectacle of themselves. As soon as the recital concluded, Mrs. Delafield approached Mama and said, with a cold smile, “You have had a long day of traveling and must surely want to retire early. Come. I will show you to your room.”

  Mama looked around, as if searching for someone to rescue her. “But I have not yet been introduced to all of your friends.”

  Mrs. Delafield gestured toward the door. “There will be plenty of time for introductions tomorrow.” The two women stared at one another, both wearing their cruel, cold smiles. I could not guess who would win. Mrs. Delafield had the advantage of standing in her ancestral home; Mama had the advantage of not caring one whit if she made a scene.

  I did not wait to see what would happen next. I grabbed Maria by the arm and pulled her toward Mama, saying, “It is time for all of us to retire. Come, Mama. I will show you the west wing.” I touched my mother’s elbow, begging her with a look to come quietly. After a long moment of staring at Mrs. Delafield, Mama finally drew a deep breath, lifted her chin, and said, “I would like nothing better, Kitty.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief as I dragged a protesting Maria and an audaciously offended Mama from the drawing ro
om and up the stairs. I stopped at my bedroom door and surveyed the two additional trunks in the room. It seemed Mama and Maria were not to be given their own rooms. I looked at the bed and sighed again, this time with nothing short of misery. Perhaps I would find somewhere else to sleep. Anywhere would be better than here, with these two.

  It was almost midnight when Mama and Maria finally stopped talking, which consisted mainly of complaining about their reception from Mrs. Delafield, and fell asleep. I had let them take the bed, insisting I would be comfortable on the chair in front of the fire. Alice had helped them undress, had watched and listened to us with wide eyes, but had said nothing. Finally, after all their talking and moving about and complaining about every little thing, the two of them were asleep. I quietly stole out of the room, then practically ran to the bird room, afraid I would be too late and that Henry would leave. But when I burst into the room, there he stood with the lantern and a smile meant just for me.

  “This is awful,” I declared as soon as I saw him.

  “I know.” He stepped toward me, held out a hand, and said, “Come. Let’s escape together.”

  I slipped my hand into his and felt his fingers curl around mine. My heart thumped hard in my chest. I would hold onto him for tonight. When he tugged on my hand, I followed him into the darkness of the secret passageway.

  The sky was dark with clouds, only an occasional cluster of stars stealing through to light the night. Henry set the lantern on the grass of the tower and lifted all of its shutters to illuminate the space. The dark sky and the birds cawing in the towers made this place feel like another world. And I felt almost as if I had stolen back in time. As if Henry and I had found a secret passageway to the way we were two years ago, before the ball at Delafield Manor that had changed everything.

  We sat on the grass and I leaned back on my hands, content to stay up here for a very long time. Content to sleep up here, if need be, just to forget about Mama and Maria and Mrs. Delafield all waiting for me in the house with their anger.

  Henry leaned closer, nudging me with his shoulder. “Kate.”

  “Hmm?”

  “What are you most afraid of?”

  I glanced at him, but his head was tipped back, like mine, and his gaze was focused on the dark night sky.

  “Is this for our bargain?”

  He sent me a sharp look, his brow furrowed. “Does everything between us have to be about that bargain?”

  “No,” I said, smiling at his response, glad that he cared still.

  I thought about his question, and then I stood and walked around the tower, listening to the haunting cries of the rooks, feeling the wind, and smelling the ocean. This was a wild place. All of my careful constraints had come undone here in just a matter of days. I felt untethered and unraveled and wild as the gale blowing my hair into dark tangles. This night signaled the end of our bargain, and therefore the beginning of my escape, and in this moment of things coming undone, I wanted to confide in Henry. I wanted to confide everything.

  “I am afraid of India,” I finally confessed.

  Henry stood and came toward me. He looked confused. “I thought India was your dream. Your ideal.”

  “Yes. I have thought that. But what if it’s not? What if I feel just as ... restless ... and—and caged and unhappy there as I do here? What if it doesn’t fix anything? What if I have gone to all of this trouble for something awful?” I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to stop the trembling that had overtaken me. Hearing myself speak this truth shook me. “Truly, it frightens me to think that all of my dreaming will end in disappointment. And the thought of being disappointed in India makes me feel completely helpless. As if I am incapable of truly being happy. As if my ambition will be my curse. My dreams will turn into my condemnation.”

  I ran my fingers through my loose hair. And more words tumbled out, as if once I started talking about my fears, I could not stop myself. “And what will I do after I have seen India? I am not yet twenty years old, Henry! What will I live for? What if life does not hold anything significant for me, and I waste my days with this restlessness plaguing me, and it’s all for ... nothing?”

  Henry’s gaze on me was dark and troubled, and he thought about my words for a long moment before sighing and saying, “Truthfully, I would spend all my breath trying to convince you that you have made the wrong choice, if I could. I hate the thought of that journey—the danger of the voyage, the unknown threats of that country. But I would not rob you of your dreams.” He shrugged. “So, if India is not your heart’s desire, at least you will know. At least you will never have the regret, the wonder of what would have happened had you simply dared ...” His gaze locked on mine.

  Dared. The word snagged on my thoughts. I remembered what Henry had told me the other night, about why he had gone swimming in the ocean. That he wanted to do something daring. And suddenly, I very much wanted to do something daring. I wanted to face something truly fearsome and walk away from it alive. The dark birds rose from the tower next to ours. I tipped my head back and watched them soar. And then I knew what I wanted to do.

  I reached for the wall with one hand and held the other one out to Henry. “Give me your hand.”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “I am in earnest. Give me your hand.”

  He held it out to me, as if it were a gift. I grasped it and tried to climb up on top of the stone wall while holding onto him. He tugged me back to the ground. “Wait. What are you doing?”

  “Something daring. Like you. Only I am going to fly.”

  I smiled at him, my heart quick with nervousness, and he looked as if he would refuse me. But finally he said, shaking his head, “This is madness.”

  He released my hand and moved closer. His hands slid around my waist. I gripped the folds of his jacket. His grip tightened, and then I was in the air, with Henry lifting me high, and suddenly there was stone beneath my feet. I wavered in the air, bent over, trying to hold onto his jacket.

  “Let go, Kate,” he said, a laugh and a warning in his voice. “You have to let go of me.”

  I did as he said and stood upright, and he moved his hands, one at a time, from my waist to my left arm. My right arm was outstretched, over the open air. I stood upon the wall of the tower, the stones beneath my feet, Henry’s hand wrapped tightly around my wrist, while I gripped his wrist.

  “Are you ready?”

  I nodded. The rooks called in the tower next to ours.

  “Don’t let go of me,” he warned.

  “I won’t.” My heart pumped with fear.

  “Watch your skirts and look straight ahead. Not down at your feet.”

  I gripped Henry’s wrist even tighter.

  He took a step forward.

  I stepped forward too, and then Henry took another step, and another step, until I was walking on the wall, high above the trees and the ocean and right next to the starlight.

  A laugh burst from me. I felt light-headed with both exhilaration and fear.

  “Faster?” Henry asked.

  “Yes.” He walked faster, never lessening his grip, and we went around the circular tower once, twice, faster and faster, until he was running, and so was I, and it was the most frightening and the most exhilarating thing I could imagine, running like that, around and around, with the wind in my hair and the birds all around and Henry—strong, secure Henry—holding me tight. Then he yelled, “Now jump!”

  And I did not pause. I did not hesitate. Not even a second. I leapt, with my eyes closed, and felt nothing but wind and freedom and Henry’s grip on my arm, and then he pulled me hard, to the side, and his arm caught me around the waist, and my arms stretched wide and I flew. I flew in the night like the blackbirds and the rooks and the woodlarks. I turned and turned, and I laughed, and the birds cried. And then we slowed, and I dropped my arms and opened my eyes and looked down into Henry’s grinning face. My arms fell around his shoulders as he stopped turning and slowly let me slip down, until my toes touched the
grass.

  I was dizzy. I leaned against him, closing my eyes as I buried my face in his chest, feeling his quickened breath and his arms around my waist, holding me, keeping me close. Finally, feeling the world settle in its proper order again, I tipped my head back and smiled up at him.

  He was shaking his head, smiling at me as if he couldn’t believe I was real.

  “I think,” he said, his voice just a husky whisper, “that you have nothing to fear in life, Kate. I think the world needs to watch out for you, not the other way around.”

  I felt breathless and buoyant and torn up inside, as if everything within me had been rattled around by my brief flight, and now I could not remember how to stand still on the earth beneath me. I wanted to keep flying, or I wanted to find an excuse to stay this close to Henry for a long time. Both were dangerous desires.

  So I stepped away from him and bit back the sigh that would have betrayed my disappointment when his hands fell away from me and we stood separate and alone. I shivered in the sudden chill, turning to look up at the dark shadows of the birds crying out in the tower above us. Awkwardness filled the spaces where we no longer touched. I had to say something.

  “Now it is your turn,” I said, forcing myself to smile.

  “To do something daring?”

  “No. It is your turn to confess. What are you most afraid of, Henry Delafield?”

  He looked at me for a long moment, and I felt sure he would deny my request. But after several heartbeats of waiting, he said, “All my life I have known what my future holds. I knew where I would live, how I would live. I have even known, for years, who my parents would make me marry.”

  He drew in a breath, and his voice sounded hoarse and vulnerable and soft when he said, “You were the only surprise in my life, Kate. And I am afraid—I am very afraid—that once you leave, I will never be surprised again.”

  I did not expect the tears that stung my eyes. These were words of parting that Henry had just uttered. I felt like my heart had been cleft in two. Blinking back the tears, I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to keep myself from shaking, and took in a steadying breath. I had not asked him for something about me. I had not expected a confession that would tear at my resolve like this. I moved farther away from him, needing distance and clarity.