Box Set: The ArringtonTrilogy (98 page)

Ayden’s brow lifted in question and he leaned
in toward me and asked, “Why on earth did she say such a terrible
thing to you?”

I swallowed hard and cradled my head in my
hands, muffling my shame-filled cries. Ayden took hold of my hands
and made me look at him. “You don’t believe what an obviously sick
woman would say, do you?”

“She had every right to say what she did,” I
sobbed. “I didn’t know, not for a long time. I was locked away,
treated worse than any slave. I was starved, and when I escaped,
found and beaten, whipped, and tortured.”

Ayden fell back into his seat and shook his
head disbelief. I thought about stopping there, for he had
certainly heard enough to make any man’s heart sink, but the flood
raged on, and I was unable stop myself from telling him
everything.

“Warren Stone was a man whom I had come to
trust and fall in love with. I was so young and foolish; I truly
didn’t know better. He promised to save me, to take me away and
marry me. When I was finally free from the claws of Sutton Hall and
moved in with Warren, I began to see there was something there,
something in him that frightened me. At first it was I who made the
advance.” As I said this to Ayden, my face flushed and I turned my
head to face the window. The sun was rising high above the house,
casting our solemn shadows, which appeared along the pine strips of
the floor. “Then I sensed I had made a terrible mistake, but it was
too late.”

I heard Ayden suck in his breath as he
learned what Warren had done to me. I left out the embarrassing,
ghastly details, but he gathered all too well the shame I carried
from the incident. Ayden now knew that I was tainted, and I cringed
at the thought.

“Lillian I…” I stopped him from commenting by
standing up and drifting over to the fireplace. On the mantel sat
one of Daddy’s pipes; it sat there in a timeless fashion, just
waiting to be relit. I took hold of it and kept it in my clutches
as I continued. “There is more, Ayden”

“I don’t need to know anymore. All that
matters now is you are here. Don’t you see…?” Ayden swung me around
and forced me to look up at him. “I have been waiting, taking every
breath just so I could see you again. The past is behind you now,”
he cried as he embraced me. Our heartbeats were fast, both of us
consumed with dismay and torment and the seemingly dire need to
escape it.

“I never imagined being so lonely. Stay with
me, Lillian; live with me here on the island and heal your
soul.”

“You don’t understand. Warren - he was my
father!” I groaned out of torment, so ashamed. “And Garrett was my
uncle, my mother’s older half-brother. Warren raped my mother and
Garrett saved her from the wrath of Eugenia Arrington. They fell in
love, and they lived as husband and wife, pretending, lying to
everyone, including themselves. So you see . . . you see! “

His reaction was like a slap in the face. His
cheeks turned red, his eyes blazed with anger. Stunned, he couldn’t
speak.

“I ran from Savannah with a man and his wife
after Warren was killed in a freak accident. I caused it; I pushed
him into an oncoming carriage. He was trampled to death. Richard
Parker said he would take me away, save me from a certain death
sentence, and then give me the money to return to Jasper Island. He
was an illustrator for a magazine. Ever since I agreed to go with
him, my life has been an endless trail of mistakes. I was thrown
into a burlesque company, hooked on drugs, had a tumultuous affair
with Richard, then with Ned Griffin, Richard’s enemy, just to get
back at Richard for all his lies and betrayals. I came to find out
all too late that there was no law after me. Richard had made it
all up! But I finally came to my senses, Ayden; I have left all of
that behind me now.”

I collapsed into his arms, weary and spent.
Ayden hushed me, rocked me, and whispered repeatedly that he didn’t
judge me, that I was just as beautiful and pure as the first day he
laid eyes on me. “I was too young to realize it then, but you stole
my heart from the time I was a young boy. Thank you for coming home
to me. I thought I would die a lonely man in endless, solitary
nights. None of what you told me matters, none of it. All I know is
we are here together, as it should be.”

Out of pure exhaustion, Ayden carried me up
to my room where he laid me on my bed and told me to rest. “I will
be sitting here in this chair for as long as you sleep. And when
you open your eyes, I will be the first thing you see. Then you
will know there is nothing more to fear, that the past is forever
gone, and the future is yours and mine alone.”

True to his word, Ayden sat and stayed with
me until my sleepy eyes lifted to find him beside me, the slivery
glow of the moon shining onto his face through the open window.

“You cried out and I held your hand. I hope
you don’t mind?” he asked in just above a whisper. I looked down to
see my hand still kept in his. I nodded and sighed with great
relief. Of course, it was fine he sat and watched over me, held my
hand and protected me from my terrible dreams.

“Come with me to the tower, sit with me
tonight. I have waited for you to wake before I lit the lamp. I
just couldn’t leave you.” Ayden lifted my hand and pressed it
against his warm cheek. “Stay with me, be with me until I’m old and
gray,” he murmured.

Slowly I turned onto my side asked him with a
heavy heart, “What are you asking, Ayden?”

He knelt down beside the bed and with a
choked up voice and trembling hands asked, “Will you do me the
honor, Lillian Arrington, and become my partner for life, to be my
wife?”

There was no ring, no promises of great
success as man and wife, no talk of all the accomplishments we
would achieve in our years together. Ayden simply expressed his
devotion for me, the girl he fell in love with long ago and the
woman whom he now wanted to stand by his side, just the way Momma
had for Daddy. I was to be his companion, the love that kept his
eternal light shining when he was working the lighthouse and
shining the light for all others. Ayden wanted me to be the woman
who made him a hero to years of rescues, gave him the courage to go
out onto stormy seas and save men who would most surely drown.

Without hesitation, without thinking of
Warren, Richard, Ned, or Heath I answered, “Yes Ayden Dalton, I
will become your wife. To see you through weary nights, to be by
your side until you are old and gray.”

Ayden lifted me and for the first time,
placed his lips on mine and we kissed. The kiss didn’t steal my
breath or cause my heart to flutter, but gave me comfort and
consolation that I had made it safely home and no longer needed to
run from anyone or myself.

“Oh Lillian, I will make you proud. You have
filled my half empty life, I am now complete,” he said between
gentle kisses. Then we laughed, cried, and embraced one another.
Two kids who met long ago, playmates, friends, were now becoming
man and wife. It was written in the stars, it was meant to be, I
told myself. All the suffering I was meant to endure only made me
see how perfect Ayden was for me, how he was put on this earth to
see me through my days, comfort my nights and give me a purpose. I
was to be like Momma; my husband’s better half. I finally had a
purpose for living - to finally see the other side and find the joy
in a life that had always eluded me.

* * *

That night, Ayden and I stood together under
the star filled night, side by side working the light just the way
Momma and Daddy once had. Ayden told me stories of brutal storms,
dangerous rescues, sinking ships. “I’ve seen my life flash before
me more than once, and I swore if I died before seeing you again,
my soul would be lost and wandering for all eternity.” He stood
next to me as I gazed out at the dark sea, and no doubt both of us
thinking of the ghost of Jasper Island - Victor.

“Have you seen him?” I asked, shivering from
the thought of remaining a spirit adrift, unable to find the gates
of Heaven.

“Not since you left. When you disappeared, so
did the ghost.”

“Did Heath ever believe you?”

Ayden snickered bitterly. “Heath is too
intellectual to believe in anything not scientifically proven. I
don’t want to talk about him. I want to think only of you and me.
We should get married right away,” he said, taking me into his arms
and holding me tight. I did not disagree.

“Is tomorrow too soon?” I asked with a big
smile. I hadn’t smiled from an inner glow, probably not ever. Not
even when other men proclaimed their affections for me. They
weren’t sincere, as Ayden’s love was. He kissed me with a passion
that came from the deepest part of his soul, and I accepted nothing
less.

All night we held hands, two children grown
into adults, had miraculously found one another through the endless
storms that had kept us apart. When the sun rose to another dawn,
just before ten a.m. (the time required to have the light ready for
the upcoming evening), Ayden and I crawled into separate beds under
one roof. Ayden understood without explanation that I was wounded
and would need time to heal. He didn’t pursue me or pressure me
into sharing his bed to fulfill his obvious desire for me. I felt
him when he pressed against me while we embraced, and I was aware
of his yearnings. There was nothing left in me to appease a man’s
desire, especially Ayden’s. I wanted to claim back my innocence,
and he was the man who respected me enough to give me that
gift.

When I lay in my bed, growing peacefully
tired, it began to sink in that the next day I was going to be a
bride. It was my wedding day. A real marriage, with a man who put
me on a pedestal and worshiped everything about me. Not only was it
my beauty that stole his heart, I believed, but he cherished the
girl with the unpretentious dreams of being forever adored.

Another night manning the light and stealing
kisses and warm affection in between the tedious hours of work, we
were like two schoolchildren in some kind of love spell. Like what
Heath and Clara had for one another. Ayden’s eyes didn’t leave me
for one minute; his hands lingered near me and often touched my
hand, and brushed against the wispy strands of my long hair. I
blushed and smiled back with sheepish eyes, still shy when drawn
into such genuine fondness.

And the first time he whispered into my ear
that he loved me, tingles shot through me. It sounded real, those
words, for the first time ever. I threw my arms around Ayden’s neck
and gave him a long kiss, which ignited a passion in him I quickly
had to extinguish. Awkwardly, I nudged him away, and he took no
offence. “I’m sorry. I got lost in the kiss. I promise to be a
gentleman.”

“You understand, don’t you?” I implored,
almost begging him to say yes.

“I do,” he murmured. “In time, right? In
time, I can love you as a man would a woman?”

“In time, Ayden. I promise I will learn to
love that way again.”

Ayden brought me back into his arms and kept
his desires at bay. The night seemed to go on so slowly and when
the sun finally rose over the horizon, Ayden smiled to me and said,
“It’s our wedding day. A day only in dreams could I have ever
imagined. Now it’s real, you are my bride. I am the happiest man
alive.”

It was near noon on a warm, sunny May day
when Ayden Alexander Dalton and I exchanged our wedding vows in a
small, simple ceremony performed by the village Justice of the
Peace. We had no flowers, no rings, and no witnesses. Only our
verbal promise to take one another, to love and obey, for better,
for worse, richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, till
death do us part, and sealed with a tender, sweet kiss, that
proclaimed we were forever man and wife.

That afternoon, Ayden and I turned back the
hands of time and became the children we used to be. Excitement and
exhilaration won out over exhaustion and fatigue from the long
night up in the lighthouse. We ran along the beach, our feet
freezing in the cold ocean tide. Ayden ran to catch me while I
laughed and splashed him. Seals peeked playfully out from the
swells and spied us as we ran, teased, and taunted one another.
Ayden’s smile lit up the shore, lit up my heart and sent me alive
again. I couldn’t help but be thrilled, I saw nothing but his
dazzling eyes chasing me, and felt his protective hands as he kept
me from falling into the water as I stumbled with laughter. “I will
always hold you up, for as long as I live,” he spoke while tenderly
holding me.

Together we watched ships sail by, the sun
glistening against the waves, and the seagulls taking flight. I
didn’t want the day to end - it was magical, and charmed, just the
way I used to dream my life could be. Ayden felt as I did; I sensed
his joy through the tips of his fingers that traced my lips, then
my nose.

“You’re so perfect, more stunning than when
you were a girl. You have grown into a beautiful woman,” Ayden
wistfully said to me.

I had been complimented before, so many
times, and now only Ayden’s judgment mattered. If he thought I was
beautiful, then no one would ever have to tell me again.

“Can I tell you how handsome you are, Ayden
Dalton, or do you already know? I bet all the women in town pine
for your affections,” I said, though hoping it wasn’t true.

“I wouldn’t know,” he answered with a blush
onto his fair complexion. “I never paid much attention. I go to
town to pick up the mail and supplies, then come straight back to
the lighthouse.”

I realized I brought up something he and I
didn’t have in common. I had been with different men, been on stage
for wealthy audiences, traveled. I quickly changed the subject.
“Can we write to your parents, tell them of the news?”