“But it’s barely noon, Dominic. We still have three more rows to finish up here.”
“To hell with the vines,” he said thickly. “I want to undress you slowly, and kiss you until you moan my name. I want to hear that soft cry you make when I take you over the edge. And then I want to start all over again.” Suddenly his eyes narrowed. “Unless—maybe you shouldn’t. Now, I mean.”
Cathlin laughed huskily. “I can’t imagine why not.”
“You’re sure? God, I wouldn’t want to hurt…”
“We’ve got months yet, my love.”
“We do?” He gave her a wolfish grin. “Then what are we waiting for? Come to think of it, why go all the way back down to the château?”
“But, what if one of the staff comes by? Besides, today is the day the mayor is going to—”
“To hell with the staff. To hell with the mayor, too.”
The tablecloth from Cathlin’s hamper hit the ground with a whoosh. Dominic spread it carefully, then worked Cathlin back beneath the leafy shade of the trellised green vines.
“What about that Château d’Yquem I’ve got cooling on ice?”
“Forget it, Irish. I’ve got something with greater complexity and far more staying power in mind.”
“I hope you’re prepared to demonstrate the proof of that statement, Lord Ashton.”
“You can damned well bet I am, Lady Ashton.”
The green leaves shuddered. A single cloud marched across the crystal sky. Down the hill cicadas droned from the darkness of the woods.
Husky laughter spilled from the high vines. “Sorcery, Lord Ashton? Is this primitive ritual how you manage to keep producing those amazing vintages?”
“Be quiet and kiss me, wife of my heart, mother of my child.”
She did, and the love they made between them was fine and sweet and unforgettable.
Tempered in pain, anchored in joy, it was stronger than any wine that would come from even La Trouvaille’s hardy vines.
THEY SPILLED OUT OF THE sunset an hour later like a ragged circus parade, two Citroëns lurching along at the fore followed by an old farm truck. Behind that, tethered with a stout rope, trotted a donkey in a straw hat with holes cut for his ears. The backfiring motors roused the two figures half-asleep beneath a row of grape vines.
“Dominic, did you hear that?”
“I bloody well did.” Dominic sat up and squinted into the sun, watching a cloud of dust swirl over the gravel drive and across the mellow golden walls and blue shutters of the beautiful old château at the foot of the forest. As the lead car lurched to a halt, he held his hand to his eye and frowned. “But that’s—”
“Nicholas and Kacey,” his wife finished breathlessly. “And there’s Marston. Did you know about this?” she demanded. “Really, Dominic you should have told me.” She sat up quickly, brushing twigs from her hair. “We’ll have to hurry down.”
“I’m totally in the dark.” His eyes lovingly ran over her body, slender and shadow dappled. “But maybe you should put something on before you go running down to greet our guests.”
“Maybe you should too.”
They wriggled into their clothes clumsily, shielded by the low vines, then went down to welcome the visitors spilling over the lavender-edged lawns of the château.
Nicholas was leaning at ease against a dusty Citroën, elegant in a sherry-colored tweed jacket and deep brown trousers. “So the recluses of La Trouvaille emerge from their vines at last.” Nicholas’s sharp eyes ran from Dominic’s dusty shirt to the bits of grass and leaves caught in Cathlin’s hair. “I trust we haven’t interrupted anything,” he said blandly.
His wife was frowning. “I told you we should have phoned ahead, Nicholas. If it’s a dreadful nuisance, we can always go back to the last town. But the farmer insisted on showing us the way personally. Then the mayor had to come along, too.” The official in question was already hailing Dominic in a torrent of voluble French, detailing the arrival of his English friends, who had clearly been lost. Meanwhile, the farmer, after untying his donkey, launched into his own account of the story, shrugging expressively as he talked.
In the midst of this cheerful chaos of explanations and hugs and kisses from a sleepy-eyed Genevieve, Marston moved off to make the acquaintance of the housekeeper, who was just emerging from the château.
Dominic would permit no talk until all were settled at the old stone tables under a pair of poplar trees at one side of the house. Cathlin’s Château Climens was opened and a first glass lovingly savored.
“Celebrating something special, were you?” Nicholas asked.
Dominic looked at Cathlin. “We were, actually.” He took his wife’s hand. “I’ve just found out—” He stopped and cleared his throat. “Lord, Nicky, I’m to be a father.”
Another interval of chaos ensued. Soon the two friends were perched on the old table while the farmer and mayor wandered off to argue over the best choice of name for the coming child. Kacey and Cathlin, meanwhile, moved off to the bank of the brook that wound along the foot of the forest.
The viscountess touched Cathlin’s arm. “You look positively radiant, my dear.”
“I can’t think why. I’ve been eating like a pig,” Cathlin confessed. “I think that’s how I first realized.”
“Lucky you. I couldn’t eat for weeks. Besides, your husband doesn’t seem to mind in the slightest. In fact, he looks utterly exhilarated with the news.”
“Do you think so?” Cathlin studied Dominic tenderly as he sat shoulder to shoulder beside Nicholas.
“Without a doubt. Men have a habit of getting that way about this time. Just wait until the first dirty diaper appears,” Kacey added sagely.
Insects droned from the rows of lavender and banked rosemary. The mayor and the farmer had dispensed with female names and now were moving through a weighty selection of boys’ names. Didier and Alexandre had emerged as the front contenders when Marston returned bearing a tray of watercress sandwiches and a bottle of La Trouvaille.
“Marston, you are impossible. Do sit down and be waited on like everyone else,” Cathlin scolded good-naturedly.
“I’m afraid I can’t, my lady. Some deficiency in my character, I fear. Would you care for more wine?” he asked in the same breath, the sun glinting off his purple running shoes.
Cathlin sighed and let Kacey take a turn at trying to bully the butler into taking the vacation he richly deserved.
The viscountess was no more successful than Cathlin.
Only when Genevieve tugged at his trousers and demanded that he pour her some of that “sparkly stuff all the grown-ups were drinking” did he put down his tray. Smiling faintly, he took her off to the kitchen in search of something “much better than that nasty sparkly stuff that was making the grown-ups laugh so much.”
Nicholas bent closer to Dominic. “And now for my news. We’ve found the man who pushed Cathlin’s mother. He and quite a few other members of Joanna Harcliffe’s nasty little group are going to spend a long time behind bars.”
Dominic looked at Cathlin, who was laughing at something that Kacey had said. “I don’t think she needs to know, do you? Not yet at least. So much of her memory is returning. It’s as if she’s rediscovered her mother now that the mental logjam Joanna Harcliffe engineered has been broken. Thank God for it. And thank you, Nicky, for all you’ve done.”
“I’ve got even better news. I’ve been sifting through the offers for your wine, as you asked.”
“I hope it hasn’t been a bloody bother. With my being away, it’s been madness here.”
Nicholas waved a hand. “It’s been quite exciting. If Marston becomes any more impassive when he announces that the palace is on the phone, I think his face will freeze in a perpetual mask. I don’t think he’s ever had quite as much fun. Do you know that he got to argue with a member of Parliament and two U.S. senators yesterday?”
“Marston, argue?”
Nicholas chuckled. “He’s determined that th
e wine should go to the Queen Mother and no one else.” His eyes narrowed on the silver line of the stream. “There’s no doubt that your estimate will be met, Dominic, and probably a great deal more. You see, we took apart the wooden slats of the case last week. Do you know what we found? Two pieces of paper—one from Thomas Jefferson, specifying an order of Château d’Yquem for himself and his friends. He listed a number of American patriots by name in the request, including George Washington. If that kind of written provenance doesn’t drive the buyers to a bidding frenzy, I don’t know what will.”
Dominic’s eyes played over the distant hills, wreathed in golden light. “He seemed a thoroughly decent fellow. Once again I owe him my thanks.”
“Seemed? Have you been reading up on Jefferson? You speak as if you know him personally.”
Dominic smiled. “You might be surprised, Nicky. Now what was that other letter you mentioned?”
Nicholas reached into his jacket and drew out a small sheet of yellowed vellum protected in plastic. “I thought you’d want to read it yourself.”
Dominic took the sheet with quiet reverence, thinking of blood and loss and shadows that had finally been overcome. His eyes watered as he stared at the bold words scrawled across the old paper and he knew without a doubt that he was looking at the work of his own hand, mere minutes before his death.
If you have found this, unknown friend, then you must also know the rest. Geneva Russell was murdered before my eyes by a madman named Henry Devere as she stepped before a bullet meant for me. Now I am to die, too, and no doubt Devere will name me her killer. See that history knows the truth, my unmet friend, so that our souls may finally lie at rest. You will find the Ashton necklace pressed into a recess I made in the wet plaster at the bottom of the north rim of this wall. See that it goes to Geneva’s descendant and to none other, on pain of my curse. And when that is done, friend whom I shall never meet from a time that I shall never see, then drink deep—to life, to us, and to the truth that cannot stay hidden despite all of the work of evil hearts. Know then that Geneva and I are finally at peace in that place where souls meet and dance forever in the light. I have seen it briefly, just now. It is beautiful beyond describing. Already my heart sings with an eagerness to go, for I know Geneva is there, waiting for me.
We send you our joy, unknown friend, and with it the assurance that forever is far more than just a word.
Farewell
Dominic held the page tightly, unashamed of the tears that covered his cheeks. He drew a deep breath, feeling peace steal over him, knowing that Gabriel had gone joyfully to meet his death.
He looked up to find Cathlin at his side, her eyes full of concern.
“Dominic?”
“It’s nothing, love. Just an end—and a beginning, the way life always is.” He brushed a black strand from her cheek. “I’ll tell you later. Now I want to offer a toast to two lovers who have finally found their peace.” He refilled the glasses, then raised his own. “To Gabriel and Geneva. May all their good live on.”
Cathlin offered him an answering smile full of silent understanding. Even the old farmer and the mayor stopped arguing long enough to join in the toast, for love is something that any Frenchman treats with greatest seriousness. Both knew love when they saw it, of course. And they saw it now, shining in Cathlin’s and Dominic’s eyes as their fingers intertwined.
FAR AWAY A PLAYFUL WIND danced over the quiet pools and reeds along the English coast, where twilight was just beginning to gather in the hollows below Seacliffe.
Suddenly a shimmer that was not quite sun and not quite water’s reflection slid along a row of roses bordering the long gravel drive.
And then a man stood staring over the sweep of hills and sea, looking far to the southeast as if he could see all the way to France.
Which, of course, Adrian Draycott could, thanks to his special awareness of anything that concerned the abbey and its owner.
“So it is finally done. The lies are broken and the past is brought full circle. It pleases me well.”
Behind him the roses whispered and a great gray cat emerged into the last rays of the blazing red sun.
Adrian Draycott smiled faintly. “I expect two boys.”
The cat’s tail arched.
“Girls? Nonsense, my friend.”
The cat sat back and studied his black-clad master with unblinking eyes.
“Three of them? And they’ll grow up to do what?”
The cat’s whiskers quivered slightly in the wind and if ever a cat could be said to smile, then this one did.
“Amazing,” Adrian murmured. He fingered the fine lace at his wrist, looking at two newly carved headstones. Where Gabriel and Geneva lay side by side, a pair of roses had begun to cast up their first, tentative buds. “But now perhaps it’s time for a little of my own magic, such as is left to me so far from my abbey.”
Adrian’s eyes narrowed as he raised his hands over the low boughs. A cloud passed across the sun and somewhere a thrush called out a persistent tune.
When the cloud moved away, there were dozens of new leaves and tight buds clustered against the pair of roses. And now a row of lilacs spilled their white blooms along the foot of a nearby wall of warm granite.
Maybe the flowers had been there before, or maybe they hadn’t. Afterward no one could remember clearly.
But Adrian knew. He smiled faintly and studied his handiwork, while the gray cat pressed against his polished boots. “Rather nice, I think. And now, Gideon, it is time that we were on our way home.”
Beyond the witch’s pool, beyond the hill and the moat, a dying sun gilded the weathered granite walls of Draycott Abbey and light seemed to shimmer along the silent, darkened corridor that led to the long gallery. The radiance gathered slowly, settling over the hard-faced portrait of a man in black damask and white lace.
Only a sharp eye would have seen the gray cat that ghosted through the day’s last beam.
Only a sharp eye would have noticed the single petal of white lilac that fell dreamlike and pale upon the old carpet beneath the painting.
And only the very keenest observer would have seen the way Adrian Draycott’s mouth lifted in a smile as the great cat curled up on the carpet beneath his feet.
A carpet that now carried a rain of crimson rose petals.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-3708-1
ENCHANTMENT & BRIDGE OF DREAMS
Copyright © 2007 by Harlequin Books S.A.
The publisher acknowledges the copyright holder of the individual works as follows:
ENCHANTMENT
Copyright © 1991 by Roberta Helmer
First Published by Avon Books in 1991
BRIDGE OF DREAMS
Copyright © 1995 by Roberta Helmer
First Published by Avon Books in 1995
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario M3B 3K9, Canada.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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