Obsession (19 page)

Sunday morning dawned bright, glistening from the snow and ice. Maria gazed wearily out on the blanketed landscape as Clayton and Miracle donned their heavy capes and prepared to set off for the church, whose steeple shone like Heaven’s beacon on the distant horizon.

“We have a great deal to give thanks for this morning,” Miracle said.

“Edwina, are you certain you don’t care to join us?” Clayton asked.

Maria turned her head and regarded Edwina’s reflection in the mirror on the wall. The woman’s pale face appeared as fatigued as her own. And something else. Sadness and despair lined her brow. Her shoulders rose and fell as she took a deep breath to respond.

“I’m certain that should I step upon the threshold, the roof would fall in. I think not, Clayton.”

“Suit yourself.”

Clayton moved up behind Maria and put a gentle hand on her shoulder. “We shan’t be long, lass. Will you be all right?”

She nodded, her gaze fixed again on the distant spire.

I will show you miracles yet.

“Good. We’ll see you in a spell. And…thank you again, Maria.”

“ ’Tis God you should be thanking,” she replied.

“Of course.”

Clayton and Miracle quit the room, and silence filled it up.

Maria watched the coach, drawn by high-prancing white horses, depart the manor to be soon swallowed by the moor.

She opened the window, allowing the brisk air to kiss her cheeks as she turned her face into the sun and closed her eyes.

Now the faint sound of church bells touched upon her ears, as did the cawing of rooks that lined the sunken stone walls surrounding the house. Their glossy black wings sparkled under the sunlight.

“I’m freezing,” Edwina snapped.

Maria closed the window, turned away from the picturesque vision, and moved once again to Salterdon’s bed.

She stretched one hand out to touch his forehead.

Nay, she would not touch him. Her emotions were too keen and disturbing. The blind hatred that had gnawed at her the last years had vanished, replaced by the unwelcome emotion of remembered fondness.

Fickle heart!

Cursed sanity!

“You love him again, don’t you?” Edwina asked.

Maria’s gaze shifted to Edwina’s eyes—so full of despair—then to her rounded belly. A fresh and sharp pain stroked her heart.

“Of course you do.” Edwina approached. Her lips quivered. “He’s not an easy man to love in some respects. But love him we do. Yes. Love him and hate him, as well. He’s an…addiction. Precious poison. There’s something about men such as Salterdon, who beg us to tame the beast. We crave the unattainable.”

Edwina paused momentarily and placed a hand upon her belly.

“The child moves?” Maria asked.

“Yes.”

Edwina joined her at the bedside. Before she could stop herself, Maria placed her palm upon the woman’s rounded womb and, as if in response, the tiny being moved against her fingers.

Edwina gasped and a shiver ran through her, causing her body to jerk.

“ ’Tis a boy,” Maria whispered.

“How do you know?”

“I feel his heart beat. ’Tis strong and fierce. What month—”

“April.”

Maria returned to the window. Emotion closed off her throat momentarily.

“April. Sarah was born in April. ’Tis a fine month for a child to be born.”

Silence. Then…

“I know about Sarah.”

Slowly, Maria turned to face her.

“I know all about her. I’ve known all along.”

Maria stared into Edwina’s eyes, her breath trapped within her lungs.

Edwina drew in a deep breath, then slowly released it, her shoulders slumping as she averted her gaze. “The child is dead, Maria.”

Wretched pain roused within her—she clutched her bosom; the room spun.

Suddenly Edwina’s arms were around her, helping her to a chair. She sank upon it and covered her face with her hands.

“Trey knew, of course. We all knew. We didn’t dare tell you. You were too fragile. He feared the news would completely destroy you.”

Edwina sank to her knees beside the chair and took Maria’s hand between hers. Tears ran from her eyes as she continued, every word rending Maria’s existence. Sarah, dead. Dear Merciful God—

“The child died a few weeks after birth. Despite what you think, she was well taken care of until the end.”

“No,” Maria sobbed. “Not my precious Sarah.”

“I’m sorry. Dreadfully sorry.”

Maria jumped from the chair and fled to the window, shoved it open, and took great gulps of cold air.

“We were at the altar when the nurse arrived with the news of your whereabouts—and that Trey’s grandmother had known all along that you were in Menson. The dowager duchess had little choice but to confess all. That she had interred you there. That there had been a child conceived, and that she had died.”

The rooks rose from the stone wall in a great black cloud of popping wings. The church bells no longer knelled.

“Of course he was obliged to free you from that horrible madhouse. He had loved you very much, once. But eventually, he moved on. We fell in love. I fully understand how you must feel.”

“No. No, you could never understand how I feel.”

“Of course I do. Am I not now in the same situation? Bearing the child of the man I love? Unmarried? Lost for want of his affections? Your presence here has confused him. He feels responsible for your hysteria.”

Edwina moved up behind her. “I beg you. Be gone from Thorn Rose, Maria. Let him go and allow him to love again. I ask it for our child. Our…son. You’re yet a young woman, while I—”

“Stop!”

Maria turned on her, her fists clenched and shaking.

Her desperate eyes overflowing with tears, Edwina wept, “I’m sorry. So sorry.”

“Where is she buried? Tell me! Where is my daughter buried?”

“I—I don’t know. What does it matter? She’s with God now. With Paul.”

“Paul?” Maria narrowed her eyes, and Edwina backed away.

As suddenly as the despair had risen in her heart, an odd numbness filled her. She no longer cared to look into Edwina’s beseeching eyes. No longer cared to look upon the countenance of her old friend, lover, father of her sweet, departed Sarah.

Maria quit the room, barely feeling the coldness of the long hallway as she moved woodenly to her own chamber, shoulders squared and chin level. The drapes in her room were closed. The hearth, black and empty.

Shivering with cold, she stood in the center of the room and clutched herself, the monster of delirium and delusion once again yawning in her mind, beckoning with skeletal finger.

Come with me, Maria. ’Tis safe here. Warm. Dark. No more pain. No more memories.

Have faith, Maria!

“Paul, Paul, why didn’t you tell me?”

Maria, come. No more heartbreak. No more lies.

I will show you miracles yet.

“Hateful miracles!” She wept as she fell onto the bed and closed her eyes.

“M
ISS?
M
ISS
A
SHTON?”

Maria opened her eyes; blinked sleepily. No darkness. No warmth. She rolled to her back and looked into Iris’s wide eyes.

The round little maid wrung her hands as she stood near a window, the drapes now open, and regarded Maria from a distance. “I hate to disturb ye, lass. But someone ’as come for ye.”

Maria frowned and sat up. Her head throbbed and her eyes felt abraded. How long had she slept? Not long. The morning sun still spilled with golden radiance through the east windowpanes.

“Someone to see me?”

The servant nodded. “Aye. Says it’s right important.”

“Who is it?”

“Wouldn’t say, miss. Just that it be a matter of life and death.”

Who would come for her here?

Why?

Suspicion roused as Maria slid from the bed.

“ ’Ere now.” Iris reached for the woolen shawl tossed over a chair back. “Best ye bundle in this. ’Tis dreadful cold. Let me put this round yer shoulders, miss; yer shiverin’ somethin’ terrible. Can’t have ye gettin’ ill again. ’Is Grace would skin me alive for allowin’ it.”

The shawl felt heavy and warm and welcome as Iris wrapped it around her. “How is His Grace?”

“Sleepin’ deeply, still. Lady Edwina be with ’im, o’course.”

With some reluctance, Maria followed the maid from the room, down the long corridor, descending the staircase, her gaze locking on the man bundled in cloak and hat, shuffling his muddy boots on the marble foyer floor.

Iris made a quick exit as Maria hesitated on the bottom step.

The man peered at her from the shadow of his hat.

“Who are you?” Maria asked.

“I be here to speak to Miss Ashton. Maria Ashton.”

“What do you want with her?”

He moved closer. “I’ll speak with Miss Ashton if ye don’t mind.”

Maria drew her shoulders back and stepped from the stair. “I am Maria Ashton.”

She felt the discomfiting impact of his perusal as he regarded her at length.

“Nay, ye ain’t Maria Ashton of Huddersfield,” he finally said. “I know the lass. Ye ain’t her.”

Maria moved closer, eyes narrowing as she attempted to regard his face, lined and weathered like old leather. “I am Maria Ashton. From Huddersfield.”

“Daughter of the vicar?”

“Aye.” She nodded.

He stepped nearer still, until she could clearly see the stubble of his gray beard and smell his aroma of ale and tobacco.

“Demn me, ’tis you,” he said. “I wouldna known ye, lass. Wot the divil have ye come to?”

“Who are you? And why are you here?”

“Name is Ralf. Ralf Joiner, lass. D’ya not recognize me?”

“No.”

“I keep the church grounds fer yer da. The Vicar of Huddersfield.”

Her father.

Nay, she did not recognize the man. His name tickled no familiarity in her mind. Suspicion roused within her and she cast a look toward the door through which Iris had disappeared.

He clamped one hard, scarred hand upon her wrist, and she gasped, attempted to back away, yet he held her with desperation.

“I’ve a message from yer father,” he said in little more than a whisper.

She attempted to yank her arm away and fear made her heart beat fast. “I don’t believe you. Let me go.”

“Miss, he’s askin’ fer ya. Yer father—”

“Let me go or I’ll scream!”

“He’s dyin’, lass.”

Maria stilled.

“Aye, lass. He’s bad ill. The entire village be ill, it seems.”

He looked past Maria, up the stairs.

She turned and saw Edwina there, her fingers clutching her velvet skirt and her face wan.

“This is some trick, isn’t it?” Maria demanded.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Edwina replied.

“ ’Tis true, lass.”

She looked again at the man, and he removed his hat. “Don’t ya recognize me, Miss Ashton? I tend the church’s gardens, and me and me sons dig the graves at cemetery. Ralf, lass. Yer brother Paul called me Digger.”

A sense of desperation rising in her, Maria searched his old face. Yes. Yes, it was coming back to her now. How he had aged, the last years! Once strong of body, he now appeared almost frail, his shoulders bent.

“How did my father know that I’m here?” she asked.

“Don’t know, lass. He just called me to his bedside and cried to make haste to Haworth, and Thorn Rose. Said ya would be here. Said he must see ya afore he passes.”

He shuffled his feet and twisted the hat in his hands. “I’ve brought his conveyance, Miss. If we hurry, we might make it afore nightfall.”

Her father dying. How strangely the words affected her. She had despised him, cursed him. Blamed him for her pitiful mother’s suffering. Yet…some odd emotion gripped her heart as she thought of him failing.

Slowly, she turned to look at Edwina.

What of Salterdon?

Pray, what did it matter?

All they had once shared, was dead.

Dead!

Sarah. Her blessed, beautiful Sarah, gone. Everything was gone. Before her, dressed in emerald velvet, her belly swollen with Salterdon’s child, stood a woman whose eyes showed the suffering of circumstance.

She turned to the old man. “Very well. Let’s be off.”

M
ARIA’S GRIEF AT HER MOTHER’S PASSING HAD
been eased by ghostly Paul, who assured her that the dear lady had taken her place among the sainted souls of Heaven. Indeed, she must have found great relief and peace there—away from her husband’s tyrannical behavior.

Mary Ashton had not been a happy woman. Few times had Maria and her brother witnessed a smile upon her lips. Yet her stern mien had not so much frightened them, as saddened them. She had been as much a prisoner of the vicar’s fire and brimstone rants as her children. She had deserved so much more.

These thoughts drifted through Maria’s mind as the coach in which she and Ralf rode bumped along the well-traveled road.

The canals curved through the Southern Pennines like the black, slick back of a serpent. Along the deep rich hillocks, the sheep grazed contentedly, snuffing through the snow for bits of coarse weed and gorse for nourishment. Come spring, their lush wool would be shorn to be spun in the mills of Huddersfield, and sold throughout all England as the finest wool money could purchase.

Why had she returned here? She had fled Huddersfield to rid her life of her father’s constant torment. She should care little if he lived or died.

How had he known that she resided at Thorn Rose?

Had he known, all the years of her confinement at Menson, that she languished there with criminal lunatics?

Why appease him now on his deathbed, when he had caused her family nothing but grief and fear? Why now should she forgive him his trespasses?

Darkness fell heavily upon them, as did the teeth-chattering cold. At long last, the conveyance stopped at the gate of what once had been Maria’s meager home, little more than a cottage, roof covered over by ivy and the barren, twisted arms of trees. Its bleak, blackening facade and dark windows reflected the metal welkin, and upon the weathered door had been painted a yellow cross.

She knew the symbol; the same cross had been branded upon their door during the illness that had swept through Huddersfield those many years ago—taking the life of her precious, suffering Paul.