James set the package down in Katie’s lap. Louisa looked down at the baby sleeping contentedly beside her mother in the bed. She saw her perfect, tiny face and turned away.
Katie unfastened the string and reached inside the box. She pulled out a beautifully carved, wooden statue and set the piece on the bed. She read the card in a soft voice:
Congratulations on the birth of your daughter.
Sincerely,
Luc Almquist
Katie held up the figure and turned it in her hand.
Luc had hand-carved a sleeping dragon, coiled into a perfect circle with a tiny infant nested safe within the center.
“The benevolent dragon,” Louisa said softly.
“Wow,” James remarked. “That’s quite a piece.”
“He’s protecting her,” Katie said. “Look at the way his body is wrapped around her and she’s sleeping so peacefully and safe. This is magnificent.” Katie let her breath out slowly. “I haven’t seen Luc in a long time. How thoughtful of him.”
Louisa looked at the figure and felt her throat tighten. The dragon he had carved was not a villain, not an evil monster bent on destruction. He cradled the babe within his scales, like a suit of armor, and they both slept peacefully.
Louisa held her emotions in check and kissed Katie goodbye and gave James a hug and quickly stepped outside. “Congratulations, I wish you the best of happiness.”
Louisa stepped into Romeo’s stirrup and looked out over the yard. The gift may have been for Fiona but it spoke clearly to her. She saw the symbolism. Stavewood was the dragon and she was all wrapped up inside, protected from the rest of the world. But she might as well have been locked up in the tower. What good was that? The only way she could experience real life was to make her own way.
Thirty-Three
Louisa rode Romeo along the back road towards home. This was the road her parents had taken that fateful day when Diana Weintraub and her daughter Octavia had met their ends. Louisa chose it because it was rarely traveled these days and she did not want to encounter any of the local folks setting out to start their day or the lumber mill workers or especially any of her family. Louisa wanted to be alone.
As she rode she thought about Diana Weintraub, obsessed with marrying her only daughter to Timothy Elgerson. In the end it had cost not only her life but her daughter’s as well. That’s what became of those who did not venture outside the circle of the dragon. If Octavia had gone off and found someone else then she’d have known what life was really about. If one never took to the road to find their own destiny how could they ever expect to find it?
Louisa reined in her horse and sat astride gentle Romeo looking up the trail. What was her destiny, she asked herself. If she never left Stavewood how could she know if she was genuinely happy? She cursed under her breath. It was up to her to go and find happiness and not let her family decide her life for her, like Diana Weintraub had tried to do for her daughter.
“Now what are you looking for, Sherlock?”
Louisa turned and saw Luc Almquist and Avalanche coming up behind her on the trail. She groaned.
He slid from the saddle and walked up to Romeo, putting his large hand onto the horse’s rein. “Good morning!” He rubbed Romeo’s nose in a friendly manner.
Luc’s engaging smile and warm expression only aggravated Louisa.
“Having a tough morning?”
Louisa dismounted, took Romeo’s reins from him and started up the road.
“Whoa there.” Luc followed her with Avalanche trailing. “Let me figure it out then. I know it’s not because you aren’t a morning person. It seems to me you do fine in the morning if you are, say, fishing. So that’s not it.”
“I just don’t feel like talking to anyone,” Louisa grumbled back.
“Oh, alright,” he replied. “Have you seen the new baby?”
“I have.” Louisa stopped and turned to face him. “And your gift as well. A sleeping dragon? Really?”
“Good idea, eh? I got it from you, but I’m sure you figured that out. I mean with your talent for deduction and all.” He tossed his hair casually.
“I figured it out alright. Thanks for enlightening me. Now I know exactly what to do.”
“You do?” He stepped up closer.
“I’m going to go back to New York City and never come back. I’m going to escape the dragon and make my own life.”
It was clear from Luc’s expression he was confused and disappointed. “Escape? Louisa, what are you talking about?”
“You don’t understand,” she said, looking down at her feet. She took a deep breath and looked up into his eyes. His expression was genuine and concerned and his warm brown eyes searched hers.
“Then explain it to me,” he said.
Louisa clenched her teeth and struggled to contain her frustration. “As long as I’m here, at home, I’ll never be my own person. I’ll always be little Loo Elgerson, the daughter of the lumber mill tycoon who lives up in the big castle on the hill. I want to be somebody. I want to be my own person. Life is passing me by. I’m nearly twenty-five years old and I’m practically a spinster. Nothing is going the way everyone promised me it would. There are no handsome princes and the fairy tales are all illusions. All this time, since I was a little kid, I’ve been expecting something completely unrealistic. So I left. I went someplace as far from everything here as I could get. And I went looking for a man that was not from Minnesota.”
“Hey,” Luc said. “I resent that. What’s wrong with the men of Minnesota?”
“You don’t get it, do you?” she said, tears welling up in her eyes. “That’s what’s wrong. You’re just like all the rest of them. Like my father and my brother and Mr. Vancouver. Like my brothers will be, like all of them. You’re all simple minded loggers who live in this utopia of ignorance thinking you are all handsome princes when you are nothing more than, well, loggers!” She was growing more exasperated with him by the second. He kept looking at her with his soft, brown eyes and his expression was gentle and wounded.
“That’s a terrible generalization, Louisa Elgerson. And hurtful as well, I might add. Besides, I’m not a logger anyway.”
“Oh, excuse me,” she corrected herself. “You are a cartographer. Sure, I suppose you went off to school for that. So what? You learned nothing apparently, since every time I see you you’re traipsing around in the woods in your big leather boots sweating in the sun. I swore a long time ago I would never fall in love with a logger, or a cartographer who is really just a big logger!”
“You know what, Louisa Elgerson?” He stepped closer and faced her squarely. “You deserve to be a spinster because you are the one without a clue. Who would want to fall in love with you anyway, some dandy fellow like that guy you brought home from New York City? Well then, good luck to you. You’ll get exactly what you deserve. I’ll give you a suggestion, though. Don’t ever say what you just said to me to any of those men you just mentioned. Your father. Your brother. And Roland Vancouver. They love you, Louisa, and every one of them would lay down his life for you. I’d hate to imagine how hurt any of them would be to hear you talk this way. Your father is a fine man who’s spent his whole life working to provide you with this beautiful home you seem to hate so much. Your brother Mark? I would consider myself lucky to be half the man he is and I have always felt that way. You think we all live perfect lives here? You think we’re all safe and protected? Mark came home with his throat torn open by a bullet and his best friend, Sam Evans in a casket. Emma Vancouver was attacked right in her own home. Get your facts straight, Louisa Elgerson, before you insult everyone who cares about you. If there is a utopia here then it has been hard won and paid for with blood and sweat.”
Louisa pursed her lips and fought back tears of anger and frustration. She turned away from him and started up the trail.
“Oh, are you out of insults now, Sherlock?” Luc said.
“Stop calling me that!” She spun around, stepped up to him and pu
t her face up to his.
“Don’t you get too close, Louisa Elgerson,” he growled. “I might kiss you or something and you might fall in love with me and then where would you be?”
“Don’t you flatter yourself, Luc Almquist! Don’t even imagine that if you kissed me I would be anything but…” Louisa stopped mid-sentence and pursed her lips. He smelled of the pines and he was so strong and determined facing her that she wanted to slap his face for being so blunt… and so right. Instead, she leaned over and kissed him hard, right on the lips. She stepped back and set her jaw.
“There, see? Nothing,” she said stubbornly.
Luc wrapped his arms around her. She squirmed and pressed her hands against his chest.
“Don’t,” she protested, as he hugged her firmly.
“You started this,” he said and he kissed her hard.
His grip was like an iron vise. She could taste his lips and his manly scent filled her head. He pressed up against her and her heart raced.
Louisa looked up at him and the hunger in his eyes told her he knew what she was feeling. Luc Almquist was exactly the man she had told herself she did not want and now somehow she was completely in love with him.
“Louisa,” he said, his voice husky.
She stood on tiptoe and wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him with abandon. He pulled her closer to him and Louisa wanted him as she had never wanted a man before.
Luc Almquist surrendered to all the feelings he had tried to deny from the moment he had seen her stepping from the platform at the mill station. She was perfect and feminine and carefree and independent. From the time he had first set eyes on her he knew that falling in love with her would be a huge mistake. And just a moment ago she stood there telling him how wrong he was for her. But now she was in his arms, warm and sensual, pressing against him eagerly. She was exciting and delicious and Luc was losing all control.
“Louisa.” He said her name out loud, as if it would somehow break the spell. Her soft breasts were warm against his chest and her thigh pressed provocatively between his own. She slipped her hand inside his shirt and he closed his eyes and moaned.
Suddenly he took her by the shoulders and held her away from him. “Louisa, no,” he said.
Louisa looked up into his eyes.
“Why not? I’m the one who’s supposed to be saying no. I’m the angry one.” Her voice wavered and her breath caught in her throat.
Luc swallowed hard.
“I was wrong,” she said. “Everything I said was wrong. I’m so sorry…” her voice trailed off and Louisa put her hand on his cheek.
Luc shook his head, and took her hand, kissing her palm. “You’re so beautiful. The moment I saw you I wanted you but I can’t do this.”
“I don’t know what to do,” she said softly.
“What do you want, Louisa? What do you really want?”
“You.”
Luc sighed and turned away.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve made a terrible mess of things.” She turned and took Romeo’s reins. “I’m sorry,” she said, looking back into his eyes. “You’re right about what I said before. I don’t blame you, really. It’s me. I’ve been trying for so long to convince myself of how I should feel that I almost talked myself out of what I really feel. I was wrong, Luc.” She turned and led Romeo up the trail.
Luc Almquist watched her walk away.
Thirty-Four
Romeo snorted as Louisa pulled the saddle from his back and heaved it onto the rack inside the stable. She looked into the yard and saw Talbot on the back doorstep, fashionably dressed in an expensive suit, looking around the yard as if he were lost.
She stopped and watched him and wanted to run. She wanted to leap onto Romeo’s bare back and ride up the trail to find Luc. She would admit that she had been wrong and tell him that, no matter what she had said, she needed him to forgive her. She would scream out that she was in love with him and that she’d do anything to make things right. But it was too late and now everything was a mess. She’d said hateful things to him and he had turned away. He was a kind man and she was an evil shrew. She was completely in love with him but she had ruined it all.
Even if she did run back to him it wouldn’t change anything. He wasn’t in love with her. Why should he be? Louisa was miserable. As she watched, Talbot went back inside. She stepped out into the yard and looked up at the house.
Now there was Talbot. He had told her just the night before how much he was in love with her. He treated her like a queen and she had led him on like a fraud. She was not in love with Talbot Sunderland. She never had been. Louisa rubbed her temples.
“Now what?” she asked herself. “Luc doesn’t want me and I don’t blame him at all. I have to go back to New York and finish this book. I’ve made a promise to Talbot and he has made a huge investment in me. That’s the right thing to do.”
Louisa squared her shoulders. She didn’t know how she would deal with Talbot but she would at least meet her commitment to him to finish her book. The rest she would figure out as she went along. She looked up at the trail where she had been with Luc.
“I’m such a fool,” she said and walked to the house. “I don’t deserve the dragon watching over me.”
“Ah, there you are!” Talbot took her hand and kissed it softly. “You are always off somewhere. Did you gather more information?”
“I went to see my niece,” she replied, forcing a smile. “Let’s take a walk. I’ll get my notebook and we can go over some details. I’m nearly done, I think, and then we can go back to the city.”
“Oh, really?” He seemed surprised. “By all means then, we should get your notes and you can tell me all about it.”
Louisa climbed the stairs to her room and collected the notes she had taken during her conversation with Birget. As she crossed the room she caught her reflection in the sewing room mirror and stopped. The woman looking back at her was not stylish, self-confident and in control of her life and her emotions. No, this woman in a cotton dress and long sweater appeared lonely and plain. She looked like a spinster. She was not special at all.
Luc was right about her family. They would have been devastated if they ever heard her talk the way she had. There was only one person who made her feel unhappy and trapped in a fairytale world and that was herself. She looked down at the leather bound notebook in her hand.
“Mama deserves the best story I can possibly write and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. She endured so much so that I could be born in a safe and loving home and I owe her that much. And Talbot too. I owe him as well,” she said. “I’m sorry, Luc. You deserve so much better.”
She ran a brush through her hair and put on a bright shade of lipstick. It looked artificial, she thought, and she wiped it away with her handkerchief.
Louisa Elgerson had found the love she had always wanted and now it was something she would never have. Everything had changed in her heart but nothing would change in her life. Louisa choked back her tears, took a deep breath and descended the stairs to the foyer.
“Let’s go,” she said brusquely to Talbot.
Thirty-Five
The water in the creek behind Stavewood gurgled as Louisa led Talbot along the banks. He stopped several times and tried to hear her over the sound of the water.
“You can see the clearing over here from the turret,” she said.
“I don’t see what this has to do with anything.” Talbot stepped along the creek carefully in his two-toned oxfords trying to keep up with her.
“There,” she said. “Let’s go out into the meadow. This is where I keep seeing the ghost.” They emerged from the trees into the open field.
“You’re sure you saw someone?” Talbot asked again. “You said yourself you may have had too much to drink that night.”
“I’m sure. I’ve seen him twice,” Louisa snapped. “When Corissa was seeing Jude Thomas she signaled him from the turret, and I’m pretty sure this is where he was
waiting. But, why would someone be out here now? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Are you feeling alright, Louisa? You clearly are not at all yourself. Explain to me what you are talking about and perhaps we can figure this out. You are the best mystery writer alive today. You simply need to focus.”
“Sure,” she said scowling. “I’m really great at figuring everything out. Hardly.”
“I don’t understand,” he insisted.
“Did you mean what you said?” She stepped up to him in the soft grass. “Last night in the turret?”
“Last night? Ah yes, when I told you how I feel about you. Of course. Is that what’s upsetting you?”
“No,” she said. She looked up into his face and he looked at her patiently with his piercing, blue eyes. “Yes. Tell me again.”
“I have. Do you want me to pour my heart out to you yet again? To what purpose, Louisa? We came here so that you could write your book, but I don’t see you doing that. Instead you’ve been running around the countryside with some lumberjack, and don’t you deny it. I’ve seen you together and I’ve seen the look in your eye when you’re with him. You’ve been with him now, it’s all over your face. You have tried to wipe away your lipstick but I can see it. Is he helping you finish your novel? I think not. Is he the real reason you have come back here?”
“Of course not,” she said, turning away to stare off along the edge of the field.
“Then I don’t know what’s wrong. Of course I can tell you again and again how I feel about you. Perhaps I ought to carry out what I had planned when I first arrived.”
“What do you mean?” Louisa turned back to him.
“I hadn’t expected to do it here, in the grass, but, well…” He looked at the ground around him and dropped to one knee.
Louisa took a step back.
“Marry me, Louisa. Finish all of this and marry me. We’ll have the finest wedding the city has ever seen. We’ll become giants in the literary field and publish worldwide, a great partnership in every sense of the word.” He held his hands up to her, offering her a ring with an extremely large, sparkling diamond.
The Secret of Stavewood (Stavewood Saga Book 4) Page 12
