by Decca Price
He sank onto a mossy stone in the shadows, head in his hands. What could he have done differently? Lucy was wanton, a true daughter of Eve. It was his duty to discipline her, for the sake of her soul if not her chances at earthly happiness.
Like this woman of Josiah’s. Whether he had meant what he said to Rhys or not, he was obligated to see her, become acquainted if she was in the neighborhood long enough. Perhaps she was not yet hardened and he could awaken her conscience to salvation. She would need a strong hand then to keep her to the path, and that he could supply.
Rhys was still awake when he saw Latimer’s dark form cross the lawn and head into the park. The moon had drained the landscape of color and nuance. All was black, white or gray, the shapes flat and edges sharp. Latimer seemed more a wraith than a man as he flitted out of sight.
Rhys turned away from his bedroom window and moved to pour himself another glass of whiskey, then stopped. He should hate the sight of the stuff now, considering what he knew about predilections for strong drink.
Instead he lighted a lamp, opened the center drawer of the escritoire and rifled through its contents until his hand touched a velveteen case buried at the bottom. He opened it to reveal a photograph.
Two boys stood on either side of a pony, with a little girl in a white pinafore perched in the saddle. They were on the gravel drive before Oakley Court’s grand entrance, and Rhys could again feel the sun on his skin as they waited for the photographer to finish his work.
Lucy was so excited she could barely sit still. She had loved his pony so much Rhys had given it to her that day. She named him Caesar. Riding him, she said, made her feel like an empress. She was 8 years old.
Under Lucy’s doting care, Caesar had lived to a ripe old age, spending his days grazing and waiting for the apples Lucy brought him every morning and evening. Latimer had been forced to put the animal down not long after Lucy disappeared. Laminitis, he said.
Rhys peered at the photo as if he expected the immobile figures to begin speaking to him. In place of the sepia tints, he saw again the rich auburn color of the ringlets surrounding Lucy’s heart-shaped face. Her dark eyes looked straight at the photographer from under thick lashes. She adored the pony, but she worshipped Rhys’ older brother, George.
Joss, on Lucy’s left, had a protective arm wound around her waist. He was a reedy boy then, with a perpetual dreamy look on his face. He had aspired to be a great poet. When he came down from Oxford and found there was better money to be made by plundering the lives of his friends and acquaintances to churn out serial novels, he had spared only Lucy.
In three strides, Rhys cross the room and pulled a leather-bound volume from the shelf. Flipping it open, he began to read:
“The first time Julian Corwin laid eyes on Lily Latham, he immediately ached to put brush and color to canvas. He knew in his soul, however, that while his prodigious gifts could capture her physical beauty, her ethereal spirit would elude his art despite his most earnest efforts.
“She was arranging the flowers on the altar of the ancient village church, and the rays of the western sun shone softly through the great chancel window, where the beams cast a halo of heavenly light behind her slender form. In glowing emerald, sapphire and ruby, the craftsman had depicted the Garden of Eden as an apple orchard awaiting the harvest. In contrast to the brazen woman reaching to pluck that first forbidden fruit, Lily’s modest manner and grace of figure reminded him of the shy roe deer that grazed under the beeches in the park. Even the serpent that wound its gleaming scales around the trunk of the central tree seemed to turn its head away from her holy purity in shame.
“She spoke, and the angels sang. In that sacred moment, Julian bowed humbly to God and acknowledged that he could never be worthy of her. Only the man as pure as she, who won first her heart and then her hand, could have the right to taste those innocent lips and enter into paradise with her.”
The novel itself, “Love’s Labours Rewarded,” was the last Joss published, its final chapter appearing in “All the Year Round” not long after he set off for America. It was claptrap like all the others, Rhys reckoned, but his treatment of Lucy had been the one true thing Joss ever put down on paper. The language was florid and the plot over the top, to be sure, but Joss had distilled Lucy’s goodness and quiet gravity into the saintly Lily.
In the final chapter, Lily’s love redeems the wayward Julian. Rhys considered Latimer’s supposition about Joss’s papers. Lucy had taken all her problems to George as a child. Was it possible, after George died, that she had turned to Joss to share the secrets of her heart?
Rhys returned the volume to its place and picked up the photograph again. He himself stood at Lucy’s right, griping the pony’s bridle lest Caesar lunge when George triggered the photographic apparatus. He looked like most second sons, he judged, a little too stiff, not quite important enough to take center stage even if his father were a viscount.
And what had he wanted at that age? He could scarcely remember. Only a short span of time had passed, yet he felt he had lived a lifetime, and not well.
Lucy remained the enigma. He had expected her to want what all girls wanted—a comfortable home, a husband to look up to, a secure place in society. When he offered, she rejected him outright. When he tried to embrace her, she pushed him away and ran. If that weren’t humiliating enough, she sent Latimer to say she never wanted to see him again instead of telling him herself.
He snapped the case shut and flung it across the room. It hit the wall with a soft thud and disappeared into the shadows.
With an oath, he seized the decanter and poured himself a full measure. His dearly departed wife, Isabel, had found refuge from him in drink. Perhaps he could as well.
The night brought a melancholy joy to Claire. As the day softened into twilight she saw her father and brother settled in the smoking room of Oak Grove with port, cigars and account books, gave a hasty peck on the cheek to Simmie, who was reading in the drawing room, and threw a warm India shawl around her shoulders before heading outdoors.
With a soft, “Come, Kip!” she left the house and retreated to a sheltered bench on the far edge of the garden behind the house. The red-and-white Welsh Springer trotting at her heels had followed her everywhere since the Burton party arrived at Oak Grove that afternoon.
They had been inside the house long enough to exchange introductions with the principal staff and begin discussing the arrangements for their stay when Kip dashed into view and with a sharp bark leapt onto the front of Claire’s burgundy paletot.
“I’m sorry, Miss Burton,” Mrs. White, the housekeeper, gasped as Noonan, the butler, hastened to capture the bounding dog. “Mr. Josiah, he spoiled that dog like a baby and so we’ve always kept him in the house. These dogs can pine so when they’re not kennel-raised.”
“Think nothing of it,” Claire said. “Kip and I are old friends—for this is Kip, who traveled all the way to London and back?” At Mrs. White’s nod, Claire sank onto the marble tiles and, putting her hands on either side of the waggling dog’s head, she looked into its eyes. “How splendid that Kip remembers me.”
“He must have picked out your voice among the others,” Mr. Carey, the steward, commented. “These springers are uncommonly savvy animals.”
“That dog’s seen more of the world than I’m ever like to,” Mrs. White commented as she watched the kneeling girl and happy dog with a frown. “Mr. Joss even took him all the way to America and back.”
Much to Papa’s displeasure, Claire let Kip stay close to her, except when they dined that evening and she handed him over to Mrs. White’s care.
Now, as the breeze sighed through the trees, Kip settled at her feet with a grunt, and Claire leaned over to caress his silky ears.
All through the long day she had yearned for solitude. Now she let her thoughts drift as she drank in the perfumed air and caught the far-off shouts of men and the lowing of beasts bringing the work day to a close. The disk of the setting sun flamed
above the mountains to the west, and golden light poured around her and through the orchard trees beyond the shrubbery, setting them aglow from within like so many paper lanterns.
The house and everything around her seemed unreal as the sensation stole over her that Josiah was here, watching over her, bringing her strength to continue in her resolve to remain true.
She felt his presence close around her, as enveloping and tangible as the soft cashmere around her shoulders. She shivered inwardly. How she yearned to hear him speak her name once more and feel the touch of his hand on hers!
She twisted the heavy amethyst ring round her finger absently and yielded further to the languor, thinking of the man whose love drew her to this place and now enfolded her.
As the light faded into a dreamy twilight, she drew from her pocket the letter she had read daily since receiving it from Mr. Chambers two weeks ago. She pressed a kiss to the words “To my beloved,” written in Josiah’s sweeping script on the obverse of the single sheet, then carefully turned it over. It was too dark now to make out the words, but she could have recited it from memory.
The letter was dated March 12, 1873. Mere days before he sailed, Chambers had explained when she asked.
My dearest one,
I write with a full heart as I set out for unknown lands and allow the vast Atlantic to divide us, perhaps forever. While I know not what awaits me in my journey—the perils of a savage sea, hunger and thirst in a wild and untamed land, bloodthirsty natives or, more horrific, the hardened hearts of outlaw men—I sail knowing that your devotion will remain as steady as the North Star I will rely on to guide me home to England.
That you are reading this, however, can mean only that my prudent preparations for the worst have proved necessary. None of my earthly hopes, pinned on seeing you again, shall ever be realized.
Now that you have had some little time to recovered from the first shock of learning my sad fate, I ask you to draw on the love you bear me for the courage to sustain this blow. Dwell not on my loss but turn your thoughts toward the future.
Such is my trust in your devotion that I vouchsafe all that is most precious to me into your hands. I leave in your keeping not just lands or money but the progeny of my mind and talent. I adjure you to love them, protect them, cherish them as you would our own babes, never now to be. Turn that maternal solicitude which is chief among your many virtues toward this task for my sake.
My darling, we will never meet again on this earth, but know that I died with your name in my heart and on my lips. Sad I was, indeed, to leave behind this life, and you, but know I am comforted by the knowledge that our spirits will someday be joined forever in perfect union.
Never have two hearts been so in harmony as ours, and never will there be such again. The angels decreed our love too sacred to be consummated on this side of heaven, but you will always in God’s eyes be my dearest wife. I die happy knowing you will be faithful until we are reunited in Heaven.
Until then, I remain
Your most eternally loving,
Josiah Carter
Claire dropped the letter into her lap and gazed into the distance. The mountains on the horizon stood out in black relief as the setting sun limned them in streaks of red, orange and gold.
Dear Josiah. He expected so much of her, believed her more than capable of fulfilling his sacred trust! “I will,” she whispered as she clasped the letter to her heart and stood to return to the house. “I will do all that you ask and more, my love. Stay by me and guide me, and I will not disappoint.”
She pulled her shawl closer and summoned the dog. Halfway down the path, she paused to survey this place already forming the center of her world. A flicker of movement on the low ridge beyond the orchard caught her eye. In the twilight she glimpsed a dark mounted figure overlooking the valley. With a thrill, she fancied it was Josiah, but the impression evaporated as quickly as it had come.
She turned and went into the house. It was time. Mrs. White had reluctantly yielded the keys to Oak Grove that afternoon, but Claire cared only about one. Gripping it tightly as the others dangled from the large ring, she turned left after crossing the entrance hall and walked determinedly toward the tower that dominated the south front of the house. Josiah’s study. The place he wryly called his “theatre of the mind.”
She turned the key in the lock and stepped into darkness. At either end of the room, heavy velvet draperies shrouded the large windows. Opposite her, moonlight shone weakly through a round window in the long wall, casting sickly patches of green, purple and red onto the floor and the dim shapes of furniture.
She sensed the room more than saw it. Josiah had described it to her vividly. Here he would pace through long nights working out dialogue, he explained, and act out thrilling scenes, such as the climactic duel in her favorite novel, “Lady Jacinta.”
The tower reached above the attics of the three-story house. The wall before her comprised the principal part of his library, she knew. Handsomely bound books in tooled morocco and gilded calfskin marched in ranks up to the ceiling, filling it entirely except for the leaded-glass window he had commissioned for the room. In the far corner, a narrow iron stair coiled from the floor to a gallery halfway up.
In truncated medieval style, the window depicted Lady Jacinta leaning from the castle tower to greet her lover on the ground below. Golden tresses cascaded over her figure and down the battlements. The first time they met, Josiah said she reminded him of the woman in the window.
She touched her hair now with regret and imagined him caressing it. Alone with her (except for the servants, of course) in the London house Papa had taken for the season, Josiah once had boldly asked her to loose it for him, but she had been too shy. Before she could protest, he claimed a kiss as a forfeit.
Her fingers moved to her tingling lips as she remembered the pressure of his mouth on hers. She knew instinctively that he was more experienced than she in relations between men and women. That was to be expected. Too late, she wished there had been more kisses. She had no idea what happened on a girl’s wedding night but she was sure it started with kisses. She shivered.
A cloud passed over the moon and blotted out what little Claire could see. Even Josiah’s most vivid descriptions weren’t going to help her find a lamp in this blackness, so she stepped back into the bright gaslit hall and locked the door behind her.
After Simmie had helped her prepare for bed, she lay in the dark trying to recapture the sensations she felt in the garden. Her breast ached as she tossed in the big double bed, and the moon set before she fell into uneasy slumber, hoping to dream of Josiah in the place he had loved best.
Instead, she dreamed of the watcher on the hill.
Chapter 4
Miss Simms was buttering her second slice of toast when the tranquility of the morning was interrupted by the Burton men.
“... the cellar alone would fetch a good price,” Sir Henry was saying as he strode into the breakfast room. His son followed close behind, carrying a pocket notebook and a pencil. “The man knew his claret. We’ll need to get someone out here to assess the stables, though. I had no idea Carter was such a connoisseur of horseflesh. There’s more than one there, I’ve no doubt, we’ll be shipping back to Surrey. That little bay mare would be capital for Catherine. I am astonished at how lucrative authorship could be!”
“Begging your pardon, Father, but Mr. Chambers did explain that Carter put a considerable sum into American railways after the war between the states,” Cameron said. “He undertook a number of shrewd investments in that line.”
“Hmm, yes. If she’s not lumbered by the actual property, and with a sharp man to manage the portfolio, Claire may escape censure yet. A peer’s not so particular about the source of his income if he merely has to confront his bank balance once a quarter.”
He took the cup of tea Miss Simms handed him and waved away the dish of kippers she proffered. “Where is my daughter? Still abed? The journey yesterday was rather tiri
ng, so I won’t begrudge her the indulgence this once. We don’t require her for our business.”
“No, Sir Henry,” Miss Simms said, trying to keep her voice matter of fact. “Claire has been out riding the estate with Mr. Carey these two hours.”
“She’s out alone with the steward?” He turned an alarming shade of red.
“Father, it’s not so bad,” Cameron said, tucking into a plate full of eggs and country bacon. “Carey will be more likely to let something slip in front of her than to us.”
“Too right, my boy, too right. I just hope she remembers Carey is to meet with us in an hour. I don’t want to spend more time here than we have to. We have a schedule to keep.”
Miss Simms, meanwhile, had been listening to them with dismay as she kept an eye on the French doors that opened onto the long terrace at the back of the house. She soon heard the light tap of boots crossing the stone flags and picked up another delicate Wedgewood cup.
Claire stepped briskly into the room, clad in a close-fitting dark blue riding habit, the springer close behind.
“Sit, Kip,” she said firmly, and pointed toward a spot by her feet. The dog flopped down under her chair with a contented sigh.
Sir Henry harrumphed.
Claire removed her hat, set it aside with her crop and gloves and accepted the fragrant tea. Her cheeks were becomingly flushed from the vigorous exercise and she was positively bursting with energy.
“Pardon me for not changing immediately, Papa, but I don’t want to waste a moment. There is so much to see, and each thing is more amazing than the last. I had no idea a place could be so enchanting! Did you know Oak Grove has some of the best trout waters in the West running right in front of the house? Mr. Carey says the hunting here also is fine, though the shooting is a bit wanting.”
