by Karen Ranney
“What could I say, Archer?”
He turned again, came closer. Her heart beat in tandem to his closeness. He’d always had that effect on her.
“‘Forgive me, Archer, I cannot stay. I do not like you, nor this way of life. I crave the boisterous noise of my lost companions, the cacophony that is London. I seek another man, who touches me with less haste and more grace, who smiles more, who laughs in immoderate measure.’” He reached out and fingered the tendrils of hair at her temple. “What do you say, Mary Kate? Such a letter would not be that difficult to pen.”
“It would not be the truth.”
“And what is the truth?”
How easily she had walked into his net of words. What would he say, this earl, to hear what he professed to want? Could she give him that, strip her soul that bare?
“Forgive me, Archer, I cannot stay. I could not live with you one more day and not feel the greatest pain when you severed our association. My habit of self-protection runs too deep, too strong. I love your way of life, I crave nothing more, but I do not belong here.”
There was silence for a moment, while he remained still. His gaze was fixed above her. There was nothing about Archer St. John’s face to indicate his thoughts. Nothing for her to be able to discern what he felt.
“And so you left me, to become a barmaid again.”
“No, not quite.” Her smile was soft, a little melancholic. “I own the Golden Eagle. Well, half of it now. Your mother owns the rest. It was she who gave me the money for it. But of course, she didn’t tell you, did she?”
“Why a tavern, Mary Kate? Why a place where men congregate? Where they can ogle you for the price of an ale?”
“What else do I know, Archer, other than service? I can offer a good meal for a fair price, serve ale and whiskey and a measure of comfort.”
“How far does that measure of comfort take you, Mary Kate?” His finger stroked the edge of her jaw. She flinched and drew away.
“Is that why you’ve come, Archer, to accuse me of whoring?”
“And what would you say if I had?”
“That it was none of your concern. That it was my life.”
“And that is all you would say?”
“That is all I would say. And that is all I am saying, Archer, so you can return to your hermitage, satisfied by my answer.” Please, do not go, Archer. Do not take my banishment so easily. It seemed as though he heard her words, if the smile on his face attested to it.
“And what do I tell the voice?”
“What voice?”
“The one that whispers incessantly in my ear. The one that sounds like my dead wife, who implores me to go to you, with such diligence and such demand that I cannot but obey. Do not stare at me so, Mary Kate Bennett. Do you think yourself the only one haunted?”
“You do not believe in such things.”
Archer smiled at her look. “Did you never wonder how I came to be with you that day at the curing shed? It was not my vaunted good sense. Not intellect, nor wisdom, but the voice of a ghost, the whisper of a spirit.”
“I’d never thought of it before.”
“I’ve had months, my dearest Mary Kate. Months to remember how many times I ridiculed you, and thought you cunning and manipulative. You’d confused me and enraged me. And all that time you were as innocent as you claimed. Coincidence? Strangely, yes. Fate? Maybe that is simply another word for timing so finite that it defies all man’s laws.
“Perhaps one day I will tell you of these long, lost months, of the answers I have sought and the questions I asked. Perhaps, if you are patient, I will even tell you that I have realized in these long and dreary months that there is more to life than I can understand. More than I can quantify and measure. There were secrets in the wind, and mysteries of the mind and miracles that only the soul can understand.”
“And is that why you’re here, because of Alice?”
“It would be enough for most women, wouldn’t it?” He took one step closer. “You know as well as I that it is not the full truth. Alice only repeats what my conscience knows full well. Perhaps what I hear is simply my soul given voice, in a sweet and delicate whisper.
“I have missed you, Mary Kate. I need you more than is wise. I want you more than is favorable to either of us. Come back to Sanderhurst with me.”
“I cannot, Archer.”
In a second he became the Archer St. John he showed the world, shuttered and still, a figure of a man holding incredible vitality inside, yet allowing only coldness and iced fury to be viewed. Here was the man who ran an empire.
“I have been a barmaid, Archer, but it is an honorable vocation. Most of us work hard for our pennies and do not soften the beds of our customers. We serve ale, Archer, not our bodies.”
Her words changed his expression again, seemed to twist something open in his mind.
“You think I want you for my mistress, don’t you? Oh, Mary Kate, you seem so wise sometimes that you shock me when you utter something so idiotic. I want you for my wife, my dear dairymaid. Vile temper and all.”
“As flattering as that proposal is,” she said, irritated, “I must decline. You are an earl, Archer. You cannot marry just anyone. There is your family to consider, your place in the world.”
“I am an earl, my dearest Mary Kate, because one of my ancestors had the uncanny luck to import sandalwood into the empire, not because of any great feat of my own. Besides, Mary Kate, the world will judge me as it will. I would much rather be happy while they’re doing it. And you’ve forgotten the most compelling reason of all, my love.”
She placed a hand between them, to forbid him to come closer. He only took it and placed a kiss upon the back of it, then rubbed her fingers against his chin, the edge of his smile.
His eyes had softened, become infused with warmth. Her skin seemed brushed with it, her heart seemed to stutter in her chest. Of all the dreams she’d dreamed and all the visions imagined, she’d never envisioned this. Archer St. John, stubborn, intractable, his mouth curved in a gentle smile, decrying society’s rules and opinions.
“And what is the most compelling reason, Archer?”
“We’ve both been taught, Mary Kate, that life is too short for pettiness, for living other than the most complete of existences. My mother would remind us both how fragile we are. And how can we ever forget Alice and James? Should we not grasp love where we find it? Take it and hold it close?
“I love you, Mary Kate. Is that a compelling enough argument?”
Her nod was bemused; her look encouraged his smile.
“Then come with me to Sanderhurst and the world will whisper tales of us, of St. John the Hermit and his fascinating wife, and the spirit which brought them together.”
When had he realized that? She had wondered about it ever since that day in the curing shed, all the myriad reasons and questions finally culminating in an odd sort of answer.
He raised her chin and looked down into her eyes, not appearing surprised to see the sheen of tears there.
Had Fate, in the guise of Alice, brought them together? Had it caused the accident, gifted Mary Kate with dreams, placed two lonely people in a situation in which they were forced to recognize their mutual attraction? Peer and commoner, wealthy and poor, they were disparate in all ways that mattered to the world. Yet they had both lacked the trust required to believe in love, both doubted it would ever come to them. And now they stood in wonder, recognizing in the other the degree of love they shared.
How could they not believe?
Epilogue
A melody cushioned her as she slept, a soft trickle of sound that expanded to the complexity of a symphony, with violins and horn, piano and harp. A mixture of glorious noise coming together to form music to stir the heart and soul. It accompanied her journey, this glorious sound, as she rushed alone through the darkness. She was not afraid. She sensed the presence of others, as their spirits reached to touch hers in gentle, encouraging strokes like the most delica
te fronds of floating seaweed.
Time was unimportant, a mere device created by man to measure his own fleeting existence. Years, decades, an aeon could pass, and it was only a heartbeat compared with this eternity.
Unguided, she traveled to a distant, unknown place, yet she sensed that the journey was not new, that it had been made before by hundreds, by thousands, by millions who preceded her.
She was spirit, floating and flying toward the radiance that illuminated the shadows. Peace filled her soul and she sensed, rather than felt, the streams of air pushing past her as she grew closer to the brilliance.
Gradually the inky darkness lightened and became brighter. The air was filled with creamy white circles as if a million fireflies banded together and glowed on the horizon. She was cushioned, gently rocked on waves of luminous light, supremely safe, serenely secure.
If she had arms, she would have stretched them outward, to enfold the peace around her. If she had eyes, they would have been filled with tears of joy. If she had lips, they would have widened in a smile so tremulous, so broad, so ecstatic, that it would have strained the muscles of her flesh.
Instead, she was a light herself, the translucent brilliance of a momentary spark, a flash of lightning that darts across a dark summer sky. She could feel her own power and freedom and delighted in being without substance, yet spirit-filled.
Perfect love reached out to her and wrapped around her cocoonlike, warm, comforting, peaceful. She was a channel of that love, the light, and it pulsed through and was reflected from her. She was part of the whole and it was part of her.
The quiet voice that guided her was deep, resonant, and androgynous. She was growing closer. The lights grew larger until she could see that instead of huge circles of brilliance, each circle was comprised of glowing dots. Tiny pinpricks joined together to create one glorious band, intersecting to produce a glittering, pulsating mass of creamy light.
As though a voice had spoken to her, she was led to a smaller circle of glowing luminescence. One of them was Mrs. Tonkett. And then someone else. Mary Kate blinked back tears as she felt her father’s soul brush hers in passing, as delicately but as wholly as Alice’s did, moments later. Then she felt James, peaceful, serene.
There was no reason to worry or to grieve for any of them anymore. She could not say how she knew this, or why she’d felt it, but it was the most important truth she’d ever experienced.
The sound of a baby’s cry summoned her to another world, another existence. Transitory, but so blessed.
She blinked her way from sleep and smiled up at Archer. In his arms he held their daughter, bright red tufts of hair sprouting from the top of her otherwise bald little head. Her hair was the same color as her face, mouth open in a fierce cry. She was hungry, poor mite, and not at all shy about showing it.
“It would have been easier on you had we selected a wet nurse.”
“I suppose,” she said, opening her bodice and reaching for her daughter. “But I cannot help but think we would be missing something if we had.”
“Not sleep.” Archer smiled and settled down beside them, watched as his wife suckled their firstborn. A feeling too filled with emotion to call peace always crept over him at moments like this. Gratitude? Of course. Love, certainly. Joy. The purest and most wonderful type of joy.
“You are a greedy little thing, Alicia.” Her father’s voice held a note of wonderment, his look one of the most tender love. “Your mother is tired. Could you not sleep just this one night through?”
Mary Kate smiled at him, reached out a free hand and cupped his bristly cheek.
“I am never that tired, Archer. And it is you who acted the part of host all day. I am so grateful for your opening up Sanderhurst for my family reunion.”
“Well, it was the only way we could show off our daughter, was it not? Too, it proved to my meddling mother that I’ve seen the error of my ways.”
He had been, much to his mother’s delight, enraptured by the thought of a child. And despite his rank and the duty to his earldom, he would not have cared if Mary Kate had borne him a son or a daughter. He had been determined, from the first, that a child of his would not know such agony of loneliness as he had experienced, had planned on filling his nursery with children. He’d interviewed potential wet nurses, renovated the nursery quarters, even chose a gentle pony for their child to ride. He had a set of silver cups sent from the jeweler’s, scoured the family Bible for names of worthy ancestors, made himself the talk of the Sanderhurst servants for all his involvement in every hour of Mary Kate’s day.
Nor did he show any signs of being less than besotted with his new baby daughter.
“I truly thought Bernie was going to become ill from laughing so hard.”
There was a disgruntled look on his face, one that had a great deal to do with his mother, and her reception of his news. “All I said was that it was time the St. Johns had their own family gathering.”
He slanted her a look. “Do not start giggling, Mary Kate. Such levity ill becomes a countess.”
She chuckled, which set Alicia to whimpering. With tiny fists, she beat upon her mother as if to command her to cease.
“Look, Archer, she has your habit of autocracy even now.”
“Nonsense, my love, she’s simply hungry.”
“Archer?”
He straightened from kissing his daughter on the cheek, a sign of affection she ignored, being so concerned, instead, with her nourishment.
“Yes, love?”
“I want to tell you about my dream. You may find it difficult to believe.”
Her look was so serious that he masked his smile, only reached out one finger and touched her cheek.
“Tell me, darling,” he said softly. “I will believe every word of it.”
About the Author
KAREN RANNEY has spent her life having adventures in some of the most romantic places in the world: Paris, Venice, the Orient Express, the Mediterranean. But her greatest adventure was raising two young boys while writing romance novels on the side. She now lives in San Antonio, Texas, and is working on her next novel for Avon Books. You can visit her website at www.kranney.com.
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Avon Books by
Karen Ranney
SO IN LOVE
TO LOVE A SCOTTISH LORD
THE IRRESISTIBLE MACRAE
WHEN THE LAIRD RETURNS
ONE MAN’S LOVE
AFTER THE KISS
MY TRUE LOVE
MY BELOVED
UPON A WICKED TIME
MY WICKED FANTASY
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
MY WICKED FANTASY. Copyright © 1998 by Karen Ranney. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub © Edition FEBRUARY 2009 ISBN: 9780061860867
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