Whispers of Heaven (39 page)

"Lucas."
She went down on her knees before him, cradled his bowed head in her arms, her face buried in his hair. She could feel the pounding of his heart, the tremors shivering through him. A deep, violent love for him flooded through her, brought the sting of tears to her eyes. "Oh, Lucas."

His hands gripped her arms, his head coming up, his eyes narrowing as he searched her face. "I must be some kind of an animal, going at you like that," he said, his breath still so strained his voice was but a harsh tear. "You deserve better than to be taken up against a house wall in the open night."

She laid her palm against his cheek, rubbed her thumb across the fullness of his lips, felt her own mouth lift in a smile. "Actually, I rather liked it," she said, and caught his soft laugh with her kiss.

"And precisely how are you proposing to explain this to your family?" he asked dryly, reining his horse in behind hers as they took the narrow path up the hill, away from the cove.

Jessie swung her head to look back at him, but thin bands of clouds had appeared on the eastern horizon, obscuring the moon and many of the stars, so that he was only a dark shadow following her through the silence of the night. She still felt sticky and slightly sore between her legs, where he had been, and just the thought of it, now, was enough to send an echo of desire tripping through her again. It was a wondrous, powerful thing between them, she thought, this wanting. Powerful and perilous.

"I suppose my disheveled appearance and torn habit could be attributed to a tumble," she said, her voice shaking slightly with the wayward direction of her thoughts. "Riding in the dark can be dangerous."

She heard him grunt behind her. "Very dangerous indeed," he said, exaggerating his brogue, "especially for wayward young lasses." Over her soft laughter, he added "What were we supposed to be doing out here in the first place, then?"

"Ah, I've already thought of that. I left a message for my mother, telling her I wanted to observe the southern lights." She threw another glance at him over her shoulder. "Have you ever seen them?"

"Oh, aye. I've glimpsed them a time or two. Through small, barred windows."

It disturbed her, as it always did, to think of him locked away, night after night, like some crazed beast. And it occurred to her, now, that this was probably the first night of relative freedom he'd known for a long time.

"Then look at them now," she said softly, reining in her mare as they crested the top of the bluff and the southern sky opened up before them in flickering gold-green splendor.

He rode up beside her, his head falling back, his body held breathlessly still as he gazed at the great, luminous arcs of colored light that flared across the sky in undulating folds of brilliance.

"Dia,"
he whispered. "It's beautiful."

She watched him watching the magically lit sky. The wind ruffled the dark hair at his head, flared the hem of his coat out at his side. In the ghostly light, the beloved features of his face showed so strong and finely drawn, he stole her breath.

His horse moved restlessly beneath him, as if his hand had tightened suddenly on the rein. "I hear they're called the

Merry Dancers, in Scotland. Now I know why." He swung his head to look at her. "Have you any idea what causes this?"

She shook her head, fighting to swallow the lump of emotion in her throat. "It's some form of energy that seems to be attracted to the poles at this time of year, perhaps from the sun. I don't think it's entirely understood yet."

They sat side by side for another long moment of companionable silence, sharing the majesty of the fiery flow of air moving rapidly across the heavens, rippling like windblown silk. Then he reached out to take her hand in his, his gaze hard on her face, his eyes glittering in the darkness. "Thank you. For this ..." He drew his other arm out in an arc that took in the colored flares of the night sky. "And for the comfort and joy of your body." He brought her hand to his lips and kissed the palm of her glove, his eyes smiling at her. "And for rescuing me from the consequences of my own folly."

"I understand why you did it," she said, twisting her fingers to tighten on his hand. "I don't think I did before. But I do now."

He drew in a deep breath that lifted his chest, all traces of the smile fading from his features. "I will try to escape again, Jessie. I can't stay. Not for you. Not for the wonder of what's between us."

"I know, I know," she said. But knowing it, and accepting it, were two different things entirely.

The overseer's eyes glittered in silent anger when she delivered Gallagher to the small, octagonal guardhouse. But Dalton s anger was directed at her, not at the man she had kept out past hours, and as an employee, the overseer could do nothing except mutter under his breath when she turned away.

She made her way through the still, dark garden to let herself in the side door of the house. As she passed the closed door to the music room, she heard the sweet strains of Beethoven's
Apassionata
being played with such heartbreaking emotion that she knew it had to be Warrick and not her mother at the piano; Beatrice might be technically flawless, but only Warrick possessed the ability to move a listener to tears with the power of his music. Dinner must be long over by now, she thought, and hurried up the servants' stairs, to her room.

Once there, she quickly stripped off her riding habit and shrugged into her dressing gown. She was just reaching for the pitcher of water when the door behind her flew open with enough force to crash into the wall. She whirled about, one hand flying up to hold together the neckline of her gown, the other braced unconsciously against the washstand behind her.

Beatrice stood on the threshold, a band of angry color staining her cheeks, her body rigid with fury. "So you're home, are you?"

"Mother," said Jessie, her hand clenching in the fine silk of her gown. "You startled me."

"I know what you've been doing," said Beatrice, and closed the door behind her with a snap.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

"Have you lost all sense of what you owe your family?" Beatrice demanded, the black silk skirts of her mourning gown swirling about her ankles as she stalked over to realign the candlesticks and vase on Jessie's mantelpiece with swift, jerky movements. "First this ridiculous nonsense concerning your betrothal, and now... this."

Jessie felt her heart begin to race sickeningly in her chest. "Mother—" she began.

"I want to know how long this has been going on," Beatrice interrupted, whirling to face her. "Since the afternoon of the storm, or before?"

How long had it been going on, Jessie wondered, staring at her mother. When had it begun? That afternoon in the rainforest, when they'd shared a first, magical kiss? Or hadn't it really begun that first day, when she looked up and saw him standing in the quarry. For, surely, nothing in her life had been quite the same since.

"I can't believe you would do such a thing," Beatrice was saying, her hand coming up to press against her forehead in a distracted gesture. Jessie saw the glitter of unshed tears in her mother's eyes, and knew a moment of profound shock. Beatrice never wept. "How could you do this? How could you do this to
me,
when you know how I feel about that woman?"

That woman.
It took a moment for the sense of her mother's words to penetrate the numbing chill of Jessie's fear.
She doesn't know,
Jessie realized, sucking in a dizzying gasp of relief.
She doesn't know about Gallagher.
She pushed away from the washstand, her heart beating with unsteady lurches, as if it had stopped and was only now starting again. "Mother, what are you talking about?"

Beatrice's hand fell, her nostrils flaring with anger, and it occurred to Jessie that if there were tears in her mother's eyes, they were tears of rage. "Don't play the fool with me, Jesmond. I am talking about your visits to Last Chance Point."

Jessie stared at her mother. "Genevieve?"

Beatrice's entire body seemed to draw up in fury. "Don't you even think of lying to me."

Jessie walked over to sink down on the stool before her dressing table. "I have no intention of lying to you." She clenched her hands tightly in her lap, her gaze on her mother's flushed face. "Genevieve and I have been friends for eight years. I didn't tell you when I was younger because I knew you would have prevented me from seeing her, but I should have told you upon my return from England. For that I am sorry."

"Eight years? You have been consorting with that shameless hussy for eight years?" They stared at each other, the lace of Beatrice's fichu rising and falling with her agitated breathing, her eyes wide, almost wild. "You are not to visit that woman again. Do you hear me?"

"She is my friend," Jessie said quietly.

"She is not at all a proper person for you to associate with. You know that. You have always known that."

"Why?" Jessie demanded, her head falling back as her mother stalked up to her. "Because she dared to snatch her own happiness from out of the living hell her parents envisioned for her? Is that why you hate her so much? Because she had the courage to do what you did not?"

Without warning, Beatrice drew back her hand and slapped her daughter across the face, the force of the blow strong enough to rock Jessie back on her seat. "You're just like her," Beatrice hissed, her jaw clenched so tightly, only her lips and throat moved with the words. "Always roaming about the countryside, doing odd things that might be precisely calculated to draw undue attention to yourself. You even look like her, at times, when you're being willful and opinionated."

"Look like her? Why would I—" Jessie broke off, her thoughts whirling away. It all made sense, suddenly. The cottage that had once belonged to Jessie's grandmother, but was now Genevieve's home. Genevieve's interest, all through the years, in the well-being of Jessie's mother and brothers. The easy camaraderie that had always existed between Jessie and the older woman—an affinity so unlike what Jessie had known with her own mother, but which she believed could sometimes exist between mother and daughter. Or aunt and niece.

"Oh, God," Jessie whispered, staring at her mother. "Genevieve is your sister."

Beatrice took a step back, the pulse point in her neck throbbing wildly. "You didn't know?"

Jessie shook her head. "No. She never told me. She said she'd made you a promise, but I didn't know what about." She blew out her breath in a long sigh, one hand coming up to hold back a lock of hair knocked loose by her mother's hand. "Why? Why did you cut off all contact with her? How could you? Your own sister? You told me she died."

"She disgraced herself and her family. She brought disgrace on
me.
You have no idea of the humiliation I endured, the sly looks, the whispers. The pity." Beatrice stopped abruptly, drawing herself up, visibly putting her memories of the past behind her. "As far as I am concerned, I no longer have a sister. She died years ago."

Jessie searched her mother's face, but found only coldness and anger. "Grandmama obviously forgave her. She left Genevieve the cottage."

Beatrice wheeled away. "My father never would have left my mother the property in the first place, had he known she intended to do such a thing. I thought of disputing it, but our solicitors were not particularly encouraging and I finally dropped my objections in exchange for her promise. She said she would never seek out my children, never tell them of the relationship between us. I should have known better than to trust her."

"She didn't seek me out. We met by chance. I doubt she promised to turn me away." Jessie rose to her feet, one hand clutching the opening of her gown tight against her neck. "Who told you of my visits to Genevieve?"

Beatrice turned her head to look over her shoulder, her face composed, unrevealing, silent.

Then Jessie remembered sitting with Genevieve on the rocks and watching the wind fill the sun-struck white sails of the
Repulse
as it cut through the sea. "Captain Boyd," she said suddenly. "It was Captain Boyd, wasn't it? He came out here to tell Warrick they'd recaptured the men, and he took the opportunity to carry tales about me to you."

Beatrice's hand fluttered up to touch her widow's brooch, then dropped, her chin lifting, her jaw tightening in a way that emphasized the puckered lines around her tight mouth. "You should have been here. I don't know what you were thinking, sending me a message by a stableboy, of all things. As if it weren't enough that you've been consorting with That Woman, now I have you riding out at night accompanied only by a groom, simply to look at lights in the sky? This is not acceptable, Jesmond. What would Harrison say if he knew?"

"Mother," Jessie said wearily, "I am not marrying Harrison."

Beatrice turned toward the door, her movements and voice brisk, dismissive. "Such prewedding nerves are quite common. I'm more than convinced you'll come to your senses before Harrison returns. And then," she added tartly, opening the door, "your behavior will be his problem, not mine."

Jessie sank back onto the stool of her dressing table and watched the door close behind her mother. She stared at the panel a long moment, then hunched over, her arms wrapped around her waist, a fine trembling going on and on inside her.

Warrick let his fingers drift over the keys of the piano, his eyes closed, his soul lost in the melancholy of the music. It occurred to him that this was one of the things Faine didn't know about him—this intense and entirely uncharacteristic love of music. But then, there was much that Faine didn't know about him. Much that he didn't know about her.

They'd made love a second time that afternoon, after she'd told him about the black man, about Parker Jones. It had been intensely erotic and undeniably satisfying, an almost savage coming together. Yet he'd known—they'd both known—that the magic had gone out of their lovemaking, and they'd both known, too, that he would not lie with her again.

It was humbling to realize that she'd been right, that he hadn't loved her, after all. He had loved only the idea of her, or maybe what he'd loved had been the way she'd made him feel. When he was with her, he'd been drawn outside of himself, he'd been able to forget the raging fire that he sometimes thought would consume him from within. And then he thought about Philippa, and the things she'd said to him that day of the picnic, and the way the laughter had sparkled in her brown eyes, and his fingers faltered.