Box Set: The ArringtonTrilogy (97 page)

As I was tenderly held in the arms of a hero,
saved from another assault, I suddenly came to my senses. As if I
were coming out from a thick, misty fog that clouded my mind, I
realized I couldn’t be saved from my malevolent self. As a broken,
battered, nearly destroyed woman, I decided it was time to
relinquish all ties to the precarious life I had chosen, forsake my
wicked visions of manipulation and revenge, and finally find the
light through the endless storms - the good, loving light that
would take me home. I just wanted to go home.

As quickly as I could, while Frederick stood
guard over my attacker, I hurried to my room, changed, gathered all
the money Ned had paid me to be a part of his stock company, and
sat down before the small desk to write Ned a goodbye letter.

My hands were trembling so much so that I
knocked over the inkwell and was fortunate to have just enough ink
left to write all I needed to say.

Dearest Ned,

When you wake in the morning, you will find
me gone and your father wounded from the night’s ordeal. It pains
me to confess that he attacked me during the night, but that is not
the only reason for my leaving.

You were a safe haven against a storm, a
storm that had me swept away into the darkest, most austere place
in my mind. I regret to inform you that I have taken advantage of
your harbor of love. It was my intention to stay with you until I
succeeded with my revenge against Richard for hurting me with his
lies and betrayals. I succumbed to my own dark side, and for that,
I am terribly sorry.

I wish you all the best with the company,
your hopes, and your dreams. Unfortunately, I cannot be a part of
any of them.

Lillian

I stole quietly into Ned’s room and placed
the letter on the end of the bed. I took a brief moment and stared
down at him as he slept peacefully, so unaware of the storm all
around. His breathing was slow and steady, his arms curled
comfortably around the pillow that supported his head. Tears of
regret and guilt streamed down my cheeks as I leaned over and
placed the engagement ring beside him. Then before I left, I gave
him a quick kiss on his warm cheek and whispered, “Goodbye
Ned.”

* * *

Dawn gave way to brilliant skies of orange
and pink against the backdrop of pale powder blue as the row boat
pulled up to the rocky, familiar beach of Jasper Island. The light
in the tower had been extinguished, and the day gave rest and
relief to the keeper who had stood stalwartly working it throughout
the night.

An elderly fisherman had been benevolent
enough to see me to the island that sat not too far out in the
harbor of the small fishing village I had known so well. He kindly
answered my one and only question. “What, may I ask, is the name of
the primary keeper?”

After he assisted me ashore, I bade him
farewell and began my climb up the steep, rocky embankment. So many
times I had climbed those rocks as a child. Now they didn’t seem as
high or treacherous.

The tower was just as tall and impressive as
I remembered. I noticed the boathouse had been completed and was
well cared for. There were three rowboats docked inside. To my
surprise, there was another small house built not too far from the
others that had been home to my family and the Daltons.

As I anxiously walked up to the house, I took
in the sights and smells that had been shut off ever since I was
taken away as a young girl. I inhaled the salty sea air and allowed
my hair to blow free in the fresh ocean breeze. I listened to the
surf pound into the cape of the island and smiled when I heard the
first whale’s song after so many years.

Returning to Jasper Island, I was no longer a
little, naïve girl. I had seen and done things I could have never
imagined. I had lost my innocence in more than just a physical
manner. Life had thrown me into stormy sea swells where I had
barely kept my head above water. There was no light to guide me and
help me through times of peril. I was lost in a thick fog,
struggling to make my way, for the sun to burn off the dense haze
and make life worth living again. I had seen madness, anguish,
pain, torture, greed, desperation, and failure. Now, I no longer
wanted any of those things in my life and was ready to bury the
past into the furthest depths of my mind.

As I drew near to the tower, I gazed up and
thought I saw a promise of a future that I desperately hoped
belonged to me. Just then, a man stepped outside from the deck of
the observation tower. He placed his hand over his eyes to shield
them from the intense glare of the early morning sun as he
struggled to see me. I saw him straining to place who I was, as if
struggling with a faint memory. I stood motionless while he studied
me with his spyglass and watched as he peered through it. It was as
if time stopped as he gradually removed the apparatus from his eyes
and froze for a moment. He seemed uncertain it was I, although I
believed he knew in his heart. And to make him believe I was no
apparition, I called out, yelled with all the strength I could
muster so my voice would reach him so high up, “It’s me . . .
Lillian!”

As fast as he could fly down the dozens and
dozens of circular iron stairs, Ayden flew, and when the door to
the tower bolted open, he ran to me and gathered me up into his
arms. At that moment, it felt like the whole weight of the wretched
years had begun to lift off my shoulders and the locked door to the
past had finally let me in.

“Is it really you?” he whispered breathlessly
into my hair. Ayden clung so tight I could hardly breathe.

“Yes, Ayden, it’s me.”

“I thought I was dreaming. The long, dark,
lonely nights cause me to see things that in the light of day I
quickly realize aren’t really there.”

“I’m here. You’re not having a dream,” I said
through my tears of happiness. Oh, how good it felt to be home and
in the arms of someone who knew me for who I was and not what I had
become.

Ayden broke away and scanned me with
disbelieving eyes. “Oh, Lillian, I’ve waited so many years to see
you again. I have truly missed you.”

Ayden resembled nothing of the young boy I
knew years and years ago. He was near six feet tall, his hair just
as dark but not as unkempt. He had acquired broad shoulders, and
muscular arms, and he filled out his distinguished uniform with a
man’s physique. He was as handsome as Heath, though boyishly so,
instead of austerely sophisticated like his older brother. Ayden’s
sapphire eyes shone brightly when he looked at me, and it was at
that moment I knew I was home.

In some kind of frenzy to make up for lost
time, Ayden hurried me along, getting me reacquainted with the
island. “The small house next to the assistant keeper’s house - you
know the house I lived in when you were here - is the third
keeper’s house,” he explained while we walked through it. “I built
the entire house myself. A gentleman will be arriving late fall to
fill the position I’m told. The assistant keeper has orders to be
here at the end of the summer. Supposedly he comes with a wife . .
. and several children.”

Ayden was full of energy and kept a quick
pace as he led me to the barn, where I was shocked to see the same
cow we‘d had when I was a child. In addition, he had a dozen
chickens, a rooster, and several hens. The oil house was repaired,
the fog house in excellent shape. We ended the whirlwind tour by
climbing the tower to the top of the lighthouse, a place that meant
more than just coming home, for it was my Daddy’s lighthouse. Tears
instantly came to my eyes and burned to escape as I tried to blink
them back. I gazed all around, remembering the simple clockworks,
the Fresnel lens that Daddy regularly polished so it sat shiny and
clean. It wasn’t hard to see my beautiful young momma standing
beside him during the endless, stormy nights as he scrutinized the
sea for ships in peril. As a little girl, I saw my Daddy as a hero,
the light of my life, as well as the light for all those helpless
seamen out on the treacherous waters.

Ayden’s smile faded when he saw my sadness.
When he spoke, his voice was compassionate. “Let’s go to the house
and talk for a while.” He reached for my hand. The boy who once was
one of my best friends had turned into a fine man, a more robust,
confident version of the boy I had befriended. And unlike his
brother, Ayden knew me - he’d said he missed me, and longed for the
day he would see me again. I trusted him as if he were my very own
brother and readily followed him out of the tower and into the
house I had lived in with Momma and Daddy.

Astonishingly, the house was left just as it
had been on the night I was taken without explanation from the
lighthouse station. Slowly, I walked through the house in
amazement. It was like a museum!. Even my room was the same - the
delicate dollhouse still sitting atop the dresser, just where it
was left. My books, though covered with layers of dust, remained in
their opened boxes, untouched for all these years. And, what
humbled me most, bringing a tear to my eye, was seeing my beautiful
porcelain doll, the one Daddy had given me for my birthday, the one
I’d named Jane. I had unknowingly left it behind the night Daddy
took me away. My astounded expression spoke for itself, and it was
then that Ayden whisked me downstairs and offered me an
explanation.

His eyes were so very tired, his lids weighed
down from the long night up in the tower, his face smothered with
exhaustion under the shadow of a night’s beard growth. I sat before
him thinking to myself how much of a dream it seemed, and how many
times I envisioned this day. Here I was, back in my home on my
beloved island on the sea, with the remnants of a boy I once knew
who cared for me very much.

Ayden made us each a cup of tea and we sipped
it and stared at one another with disbelief and relief at the same
time. I sensed he had a hundred questions for me, but instead of my
asking him what burned in his mind, he told me about the day he
learned I was gone.

“I have kept everything in its place, waiting
for you to come and wipe the dust off. Time has stood still until
you returned, Lillian.” Ayden’s voice was deep and mature, his
hands, which he laid on his lap, were those of a hardworking man;
they were my Daddy’s hands.

“When I woke up that morning and heard my
parents talking, I just couldn’t believe it was true. They said you
and your father were gone, just a note left behind with his
resignation. I ran here and looked for myself. I called for you.
Heath was right behind, stunned and speechless. It was as if you
vanished into a thick fog during the night and were never to be
seen again.

Father immediately took over as primary
keeper; but we continued to live in our quarters. When he retired
as lighthouse keeper to take Mother and Elizabeth to the school for
the deaf, and Heath went off to university to become a doctor, I
fulfilled my dream and took my father’s place. I have been primary
keeper for over two years now. I wondered about you every day. I
kept the house just as it was, never touched a thing. I only laid
my head to rest in your parent’s room. I prayed for a letter,
something, anything to know where you were and what happened to
you. And as the years passed by, I never gave up hope of receiving
that letter. Or better yet, that your vision in the dawn of each
new day would become real and not again a product of my foolish
imagination.”

Ayden paused, and I immediately recognized
the yearning in his eyes. Oh, it was so familiar. I uncomfortably
shifted my eyes away.

“Tell me what happened that night? Where did
your father take you?”

Should the truth be told, or the version that
would save Ayden obvious pain from knowing all the suffering I had
endured? Then again, he was there as a shoulder to cry on, a true,
unconditional friend. Who was there, if Ayden Dalton hadn’t come
running to me, welcoming me right back into his life?

The questions he asked came from the mystery
of my sudden disappearance and not a cruel assessment of my
failures. That was the way Heath had treated me. However, I saw the
despondency in Ayden’s deep blue eyes as my tale came flooding out
like an uncontrollable river that ravaged everything in its
wake.

Ayden sat across from me and carefully
listened to every word, with his fingers intertwined, hands
clasped, holding up his rough, square chin. As I began, the tears
came so fast and frequent and my throat choked up so often that I
was barely able to tell my story.

“The night Daddy took me away, he told me
Momma had died and we were going to bury her. I didn’t realize we
weren’t going to the asylum, where Momma was taken years before,
until we boarded the train. It was then I learned we were traveling
to Georgia, the place where Momma was born and rested in peace. It
was a long trip, and I was hot and tired and grateful when we
finally reached Savannah. From the station, we went straight to the
cemetery where I said goodbye to Momma. I believed Daddy was going
to take us home then, after our time with her, but there was a
woman waiting to take me with her.”

Ayden sat motionless, his fiery eyes locked
onto me, waiting on edge for every word to come out between my
sobs. Ayden must have sensed what I was about to reveal wasn’t
pleasant; I noticed his jaw clench as I described the events that
soon unfolded after I arrived at Sutton Hall.

“Daddy left me without reason, no
explanation, with a stranger, in a once grandiose mansion whose
walls were too afraid to reveal the dark, terrible truth about my
own mother’s family. My grandmother’s name was Eugenia Arrington,
only I later learned she was my step-grandmother. She hated Momma
and hated me more. She believed I was the spawn of the devil.”