The Heartwood Box: A Fairy Tale (46 page)

“Excellent.”  He kissed her and then shifted her off his lap onto the chair
.
As he walked towards the dressing room, he said, “That leaves only the matter of your punishment for behaving so irresponsibly.”

“Damian!  No!” 

He returned holding the green leather cuffs
.
“I’m sorry, darling, but it would send exactly the wrong message for me to ignore your risking your neck by tumbling out of trees or riding a horse when you haven’t even healed up yet
.
Hold out your wrists, please.” 

“Fine!” she grumbled
.

He got a glint in his eye that made her want to hide under the bed
.
“Here is my decree: from now on, you will submit like a good girl to sleeping bound to the bed and you will not make any fuss.” 

“From now on!”
s
he said breathlessly
.

“When you sleep in this bed, you sleep bound
.
It will serve as a daily reminder of how I will react if I find you risking yourself like that.” 

Genevieve and Damian spent most of the next day in their bedroom
.
Damian argued that they were owed the rest of their honeymoon, and Genevieve was just as eager as he could be for time together
.

Fortunately her ankle was better, so Damian had no excuse to keep her locked up
.
He was as despotic as always, but he grudgingly agreed to visit Mist at the stables and even suggested that they eat a picnic lunch in the garden
.

Genevieve was more willing to spend most of the time in their bedroom when she made an unexpected discovery: she did not feel comfortable being intimate with Damian in the garden
.
Somehow, that space had become Donal’s, just as the bath was Damian’s
.

Surprisingly, she did not feel any awkwardness when Donal joined them for the picnic
.
Outside of their bedroom, Damian did not engage in the endless fondling that he did at other times
.
She realized it was his way of respecting the garden as her domain
.

Donal also didn’t try to touch her, even when Damian left them alone for a few minutes
.
It was only after the picnic was over that she grasped how relieved she was
.
Donal was showing his usual perceptiveness
.
It was tacitly understood that these days were Damian’s, and Donal would not put her in the position of having to choose between them or somehow be intimate with both of them at the same time, which was
frankly unimaginable to her.

She wished she could feel the same relief about Derek’s absence
.
But she was growing more and more uneasy about him though she tried her best not to let Damian see
.
She’d not seen Derek once since she fell out of the tree, and she got the decided impression he was avoiding her.

She knew Damian must resume a more regular schedule
with the garrison
in two days
.
Though she’d agreed to this unusual arrangement—happily agreed—she’d no idea how it would work in practice
.
At least as far as intimacy went, s
he knew what to expect with Donal and Damian, but Derek was a different matter.

When it came to the point, she’d spent very little time with Derek, and
the few hours they had
been
alone
together
had been among the most tumultuous and emotionally wrenching of her life
.

How on earth was she to share a bed with a man she’d yet to have a civil conversation with?

The next day
was Damian’s last
before he must leave for four days
.
He
suggested that they take advantage of the beautiful weather to have another picnic
, which Genevieve happily agreed to
.

He’d not mentioned whether Derek would attend, but Genevieve did check
his little room on their corridor and then
the dining room and study, hoping that they could at least speak for a few minutes
.
Of
course she saw no sign of him.

However her worry for Derek was quickly eclipsed by a more immediate concern
.
As she crossed the conservatory to get to the garden, she saw something that almost made her faint:
a
piano
forte now occupied the corner.

She silently cursed her meddling brother
—
and Peter
Crane
, who had undoubtedly informed Donal of everything
he
knew or suspected of her crisis four years ago
.
Her only question was how much Donal had told Damian
.
She hoped he’d said nothing and decided he’d probably said as little as possible.

It took her a minute to regain her composure enough to go closer
.
She could tell at a glance that the instrument was first-rate and must have cost an absolute fortune
—
it was much finer than the one her parents had scrimped to purchase all those years ago, which she’d so wantonly destroyed
.

She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when she saw the body was constructed of cherry
.
Who other than Donal would do this?

Her eyes began streaming
—
apparently
it would be
crying
not laughing
.
They should dub her
Genevieve the perpetual watering pot,
she thought crossly.

“Play the piece your father played at the wedding.” 

Donal was standing in the entrance
—
of course
.
As if she could hope to hide something from him
.
She gnawed her lip, wondering if she could actually bring herself to touch it
.

“You…
.
”
She swallowed, trying to find her voice
.
“You really don’t understand, Donal.” 

“I do, better than you might imagine,” he said softly
.
“Derek is my brother.” 

She closed her eyes tightly
.
She would not start sobbing
.

“One song,” he added
.
“And then I promise, say the word, and I’ll have it removed by tomorrow.” 

She forced herself to brush her hands along the elegant curve of its rim
.
Was there any more perfect shape in the world than the curve of a pianoforte
?
It was so sensuous
.

How could she have forgotten how beautiful it was?

Enough
.

Donal was right
.
One song.

She sat down and immediately began to play
.

For the first minute, she played without thinking, allowing her fingers
to
flit lightly over the keys by rote
.
But Genevieve could never play anything by rote for long
.
Music had always seemed like a living thing to her, constantly evolving and adapting, becoming something different with each musician, each instrument, each performance
.

Inevitably, it was as if the song found its way into the muscles of her hands
.
Once there, it could no longer remain fixed
.
New dimensions began unfolding, new possibilities
.

And as she’d found since that fateful, cursed day, no matter how she fought it, those dimensions were dark
—
dissonant, strange, difficult
.

She couldn’t bear to appear cowardly before Donal, so she allowed the piece to develop fully, to go where it would
.
When it finally came to the end, she forced herself to look at him
.
His expression was the last thing she might have expected
.

He looked… angry
.
Furious
.
Donal, who never got angry.

“I take back my promise,” he said, his voice literally quaking with emotion
.
“I won’t get rid of it
.
If you give up playing again, I’ll throttle you.” 

He walked out into the garden, leaving Genevieve utterly stunned
.

Damian had only been back two days and he already wanted to kill Derek.

In almost every way, the past two days with Genevieve had been glorious
.
She was growing more confident with him, and their lovemaking was everything that was passionate and tender
.

But now their honeymoon was coming to an end
.
He had to leave the next
morning
, and he knew Genevieve was anxious though she tried to hide it from him
.
It was no puzzle that Derek was the cause: Derek who’d not shown his face once since their arrival home
.

He was all the more annoyed because he’d deliberately tried to come up with a way to ease Genevieve into her new life with the three of them
.
His wife adored picnics
.
What could be simpler than for the four of them to recreate that first extraordinary picnic they’d shared the day before the wedding
?

He’d invited Donal, who of course instantly agreed, and told him to pass the invitation on to Derek, never imagining that Derek would not appear
.
Donal smoothed over the awkwardness of Derek’s absence, but Damian could tell Genevieve was bothered by it
.

Damian
was relieved but not surprised that he and Donal instinctively settled into a mode that respected Genevieve’s needs
.
It helped immensely that Genevieve’s expressions were so easy to read
.
The moment they entered the garden he could sense her anxiety, and he quickly guessed the reason
.
She’d been intimate with Donal here, and now she considered it his domain
.
It was exactly the same as with the bath
.

He could tell that Donal was also careful to keep matters completely nonsexual
.
He must have sensed the same thing: Genevieve considered this Damian’s time, and she would not welcome advances from Derek or Donal.

Damian knew then that these boundaries would be very important to Genevieve, and though they might eventually be able to take a few liberties, the basic spi
rit of them must be respected.

Unwilling to give up on his brilliant plan, Damian ordered a second picnic basket from Thomas the next day
.
He found Donal just before noon
.
“Where is he?” Damian demanded.

Of course, Donal merely shrugged for an answer
.
Damian rolled his eyes at his younger brother’s unconquerable aversion to anything that smacked of squea
ling.

Damian was angry enough, he actually forced himself to enter the main house, which he always avoided at all costs, and wasted half an hour searching through every room, but there was no sign of Derek.

As he carried the picnic basket into the garden, Damian reminded himself that murder was not an option
.
It was for him to solve this problem, and he mus
t control his temper to do it.

His ruminations were diverted when he got closer to where Genevieve and Donal were sitting
.
Donal had taken her hand and was saying something
.
Even from
a
distance Damian could
tell
that Donal was deeply disturbed
.
He
’d
never seen
his brother like this
before
.

Genevieve was far easier to read: she was shaking her head the way she always did when she was denying the need for an apology
.

Damian knew without being told that it must be about the new pianoforte
.
Donal had been far too cryptic about its purchase
.
Clearly there was a story behind the instrument
—
a momentous one
.
But Donal hadn’t told him, and Damian suspected he might never know the full truth.