by Beth Trissel
Lyle gave a low whistle at his bare chest. “You’ll give those women a thrill, Captain Marvel.”
“Maybe I’ll let you give the next talk and go for a dip in the river.”
“Fine by me. I’ll conjure up some shit about your buff twin. Tell those broads what a ladies’ man he was––you are. Should get you some action.”
“Or maybe you could shut your big mouth, Lyle, and I could be of help?” Julia suggested.
Will swiveled his head to find her behind him like a wood nymph taking form among them.
Lyle cracked a toothy grin. “In that white gown? Don’t dirty your wings, angel.”
Ron looked secretly pleased by her stealthy arrival. “It’s no work for a lady, Miss Morrow.”
“It’ll only take a moment.”
She pointed at the existing wall and then angled her hand, gesturing around the trees and undergrowth in an unexpected convolution. “This has all grown up over the years. You see? The wall curved that way to enclose this portion of the garden. It used to have masses of herbs, roses, and lilies. A few remain.” She gestured at the clumps of white trumpet bells protruding here and there. “Floods from the James must have wiped out the bulk of the flowers. These hardy trees and shrubs took over.”
Ron and Lyle stared at her, but a strange near memory tugged at Will like a current carrying him back to some distant place he’d left behind. He eyed Julia long and hard as colorful images of a fragrant bower took bloom deep in his mind. How beautiful, heavenly. He could almost smell the heady perfume. All the flowers at Foxleigh now were nothing in comparison to this sea of blossoms.
“Yes...” he said slowly, “Cole’s mother, Lady Pembrook, oversaw the planting. Seek there for your wall, gentlemen.”
Julia smiled at him as though a ray of sunshine had lit her soul. “You remember.”
Lyle shook his head. “You two are weirding me out.”
Will’s thoughts exactly. He was past wondering about Julia’s amazing perceptions, but how had he known?
Maybe Cole was communicating his memories through him, or good heavens above, he was actually recalling the past. It hardly bore thinking about. He could agree with Lyle, or her, or walk away and lose himself in the James. It was times like this he wished he drank heavily.
Will knew Julia thought she’d glimpsed his inner mind. Nay, his very soul. No more. He was pulling the shade. Withdrawal from this mire of confusion the only viable option.
“Not now, Julia. Go back to the house and tell Charlotte to take that next talk.” Retreating from the bewilderment in her face, he strode down the path toward the lapping water.
Wait––people ahead. And him without a shirt.
Altering his route, Will slipped through the undergrowth to a secret path that would take him further down river beyond the reach of visitors.
“Will! Hold up!” Julia called, hastening behind him.
Damnation. Couldn’t she ever do as he said?
Guests idling at water’s edge, enjoying the scenery, turned at her call. She must’ve forgotten the almost continual presence of outsiders. Onlookers peered at them through the shady cover. Older men and women hung back discreetly, but young women in particular converged on this far more interesting spectacle.
He was done for. A small crowd gathered around him in a circle like wolves for the kill.
“Where are you going, skinny dipping?” one teen giggled behind her braces.
“I’ll come too,” another freckle-faced girl offered.
Thankfully, their mothers had the good taste to look embarrassed and haul their daughters off by the arm. That still left him surrounded by three or four bolder women in their twenties and even thirties. They weren’t easily dissuaded. He felt like dinner beneath their less than casual examination.
“Is it true you’re gay?” asked a brassy blond with too much pink on her lips.
“What a waste of gorgeous,” said a mousy brunette.
“We could put him to the test,” purred the third, a fiery redhead spilling out of her skimpy halter top.
Here was trouble.
She sashayed up to him, hips swaying in her short shorts, and pressed her ample chest to his. “Still prefer men?” she asked, angling glossy lips for a kiss.
Then Julia was there, eyes sparking, flushed, sputtering, “Get away!”
Will dodged the redhead and reached through the sexy stalkers. Grabbing Julia’s wrist, he jerked her beside him. “Thanks for the tempting offer, ladies, but here’s what I prefer.”
An arm around Julia’s waist, he tipped her back and bent low, covering her startled mouth with his. She never made a sound, but gave him exactly what he wanted, a meltingly sweet kiss that sent their audience back paddling.
“Guess that’s his girlfriend,” the blond muttered as she left.
“Figures,” the redhead agreed. “She’s pretty enough. And just asking for it.”
“You are, you know,” Will whispered against Julia’s lips. He drew back slightly. “As anyone can see.”
She swallowed, her cheeks flushing. “I never meant to look like some kind of slut––like they do.”
Will never meant for her to either, or to hurt her feelings. He straightened and released her, an acutely painful act, but right now he wanted some space between them to regroup and figure out what the hell was happening.
“Don’t you think you’d better go to the house now and speak to Charlotte?” he suggested.
Julia nodded mutely. Lips pursed, head held high, she walked away. Only the swipe at her eyes told how deeply it had cost her.
Will quelled a nearly overwhelming urge to go after her and crush her against him. Instead, he headed for the water. Perhaps he could sort himself out in there, the ancient womb.
****
For one shining moment Julia had seen that Will remembered what she had about the old wall, that in some inexplicable way they’d been here before, or at least were deeply attuned to Cole and Julia Maury. Then, he’d cut her off. Just like that. And she’d been foolish enough to pursue him when clearly he’d wanted to be left alone.
She brushed furiously at tears. Why couldn’t she have taken the hint? He’d flat out told her to give him some room. When would she learn to be more of a woman and less of a girl? Jerking up her long skirts, she fled along the path, all but shoving the curious visitors aside, especially the redhead.
“Bitch,” the woman hissed, gloating, as Julia flew by in evident distress.
Let the she-devil rejoice over the supposed falling out between the sizzling William Wentworth and his British brat. Julia wasn’t sticking around to see it.
Lyle turned his head and she came under his taunting eye.
“What’s up, Ophe?” he asked, abbreviating Ophelia. “Hamlet gone walk about?”
“Sort of,” she blurted, and kept on going.
“You’re getting balmier all the time, the pair of you.”
“And you’re a––” she faltered, wishing she could blister him with a colorful torrent of choice words. “Pig!”
“Oooooh! That hurts, Jules!” he shouted after her, breaking into laughter.
“Don’t call me that! Never call me that!” How dare he? And how had he known Cole’s special name for her?
“Hey, Julia! I didn’t mean it!”
He actually sounded penitent, but his attempt at conciliation didn’t alter her tumultuous emotions in the slightest. Too teary to see straight, she tracked blindly back to the house––colliding with an unsavory figure outside the hedge.
The sudden jolt sent her reeling to the side.
The youth stumbled back. “MMM––Miss!”
“Paul––I’m sorry!”
More nimble than she, he quickly regained his balance, and reached out a grubby paw to steady her. Yellowish eyes roamed her appreciatively.
“NNN––No harm done.”
She could almost sense him sniffing her like a fox, his nose in the wind, although it was his gamey odor
that permeated the air. Not hers.
“WWW––Why you ccc––crying? Did that LLL––lyle hurt you?”
“Only his big mouth.”
A smoldering anger colored Paul’s intent gaze. “KKK––Keep away from him.”
“I can’t avoid Lyle altogether. We’re both in the play and we have practice this evening. Besides, he’s not always a problem.”
Paul was adamant. “He is.”
“Julia?” Charlotte called.
She lifted her face toward the elaborate portico above her. Charlotte had poked her head out the front door.
“Where’s William?” she asked.
“Delayed. He said for you to give his talk.”
“Oh, that’ll go over real well with the young ladies hungering after our celebrity,” Charlotte grumbled. She surveyed Julia. “What on earth happened to you?”
“Nothing. I’ll be fine.”
“You don’t look fine. Take a breather. Now,” Charlotte ordered, and withdrew into the house.
Paul unzipped a stained blue backpack and pulled out two cans of orange soda. He extended one to her. “Here.”
Hating to decline his offer when his eyes were so animated, she reached out her hand. His excitement over sharing the soda made him appear less devoid of intelligence. It wasn’t her favorite drink, but she closed her fingers around the cold can. “Thanks.”
He motioned her to the stone bench beneath a towering magnolia. The enormous white blossoms exuded sweetness and helped mask his sour smell. She sat where he indicated, trying to maintain a discreet distance upwind of him.
Oblivious of personal space, he settled closely beside her, radiating satisfaction. He popped the tab on his can and took a swig. “GGG––Good. Right?”
She did the same and took a swallow of the carbonated beverage. “Just what I needed,” she lied, preferring tea.
He gulped his drink, belched, then kept an eye on her as if he feared she’d run.
She would have taken off, only she didn’t want to wound this pungent youth whose too rapt gaze made her squirm. So she sipped, fighting to control the upheaval inside her. When she’d finished at least half the can, she set it down. “That was very kind, Paul. Now, I really must go.”
“TTT––Take a breather,” he said, quoting Charlotte.
“I will. In my room.”
He stayed her arm with his soiled hand. “WWW––Wait. You www––want to see his jjj––jacket?”
She slanted her eyes at Paul in surprise. “Whose?”
“TTT––That man in the ppp––painting you like.”
She drew in her breath. “You mean Cole Wentworth?”
Paul nodded. “I sss––see things. SSS––Seen that coat.”
Julia could hardly move. “Where?”
“The attic,” he said, lowering his voice.
“But it can’t be. I saw all there was.”
“NNN––Not all. TTT––There’s hiding places.”
Sagging against the back of the bench, she said, “You mean his coat is some sort of secret?”
“YYY––Yes.” Paul got to his scuffed work boots and motioned for her to follow.
It was beyond Julia to resist the chance to get nearer to Cole, especially with Will being so obstinately remote and hurtful––like sea urchin spines when she wanted tenderness. Still, she ought to caution Paul.
“Charlotte might not want us poking our noses into family secrets. Or Mr. Wentworth, now that I think of it,” she said softly, adopting Paul’s stealth.
“They www––won’t know. CCC––Come with me.”
Hesitant, but intrigued, she followed at his side as he led her around the house.
He stopped before a little used side door, an old servants’ entrance. “Locked,” he whispered.
She was at a loss to know how to enter.
Undeterred, Paul pulled a small pocket knife out of his pants pocket and worked the narrow blade in between the door lock and the jam. It opened.
“You’ve done this before,” Julia said.
He shrugged. “DDD––Did time in Juvie.”
“You shouldn’t pick locks.”
“YYY––You want in?”
“Very much,” she admitted, and stole behind him as he crept up the hall.
Stopping at the chatter of visitors, he flattened himself against the wall and motioned for her to do the same. She pressed against the paneled wood as Charlotte and the tour group rounded a corner and disappeared into the parlor. Paul crept forward again. Julia tailed his silent figure, like trailing after a stealthy fox but she couldn’t help herself.
He detoured up the curved staircase with her at his heels, guarding every creak. Then he glided up the hall of Will’s apartment to the end of the passage. Paul was first to ascend the close stairs. Julia stepped at his heels, heart pounding with anticipation and claustrophobia. It was gaggingly confined with Paul. He pushed open the obstinate door at the top of the deathly narrow steps and entered the hushed attic, then beckoned to her. And Julia was back in the turret, like a forbidden secret. How different from when she’d come here with Will.
She looked guardedly around as if expecting a challenge from someone or a ghostly apparition. In a way, she did. Especially after the disquieting sensation she’d had during the storm down in the murky hall. And that mist, whatever it was, on the stairs. Maybe she’d missed something up here. After all, this spacious attic might be filled with potential. More than she knew, no doubt.
Paul didn’t pause at any of the chests or costume racks. Darting over the floor like a mouse who knew where the cheese was kept, he went right past all of these. His certain steps took him to where the massive brick chimney jutted through the stout beams at one corner of the wide room on its way through the roof.
Creeping behind him, she peered around his back. The angle of the ceiling narrowed here. He bent down to crawl into the farthest corner between the ceiling and the floor. Then she saw it, a cubby hole lost in blackness and cobwebs at the side of the chimney between the rough logs that made up the wall.
A quiver shot through her. “Is that it?”
By way of reply, he drew out a small leather-bound trunk, then scooted back to set it on the floor.
“Oh, Paul. How did you find it?”
He ducked his dank cap guiltily.
“You were casing the house to steal from Mr. Wentworth, after all he’s done for you?”
“NNN––No more.”
“I should hope not.”
Paul wiped away some of the dust to reveal a tarnished brass plate above the lock on the side of the trunk. The initials read C. W. W.
“Cole William Wentworth,” she murmured in disbelief. Reaching out to the rough wall, she steadied herself.
Paul fell to work again with his pen knife. The lock gave way and he lifted the lid. “LLL––Look.” He waved a grimy paw at the dim contents.
A more potent charge ran through her as she stared into the trunk. Her throat caught. “Cole––”
She knelt shakily. Reaching inside, she lifted out the folded red coat that she’d seen, even felt, in her dreams, a sacred object connecting her to him. She held it up with trembling fingers, smoothing the fine silk and turning the jacket to view it from every side. The cloth in the front was sliced and stained deeper crimson. A smaller slash had cut through the sleeve.
“Oh, God. He was stabbed. Twice.”
Paul looked on with interest as if he hadn’t noticed these details, but she no longer paid any attention to him. He faded into nothingness as she clutched the precious garment to her heart. “Why was the box hidden?”
“TTT––To kkk––keep you from finding it.”
“Me? Why?”
He fell silent, seemingly not inclined to say more.
What could she possibly know that was a threat to anyone? Not only that, the jacket alone couldn’t prove she had been with Cole in some mystical way, nor validate her visions or whatever they were.
A glimmer of hope returned from her memory of the first time she’d been with Cole in that dream state. She slipped her fingers into the right pocket––nothing. She felt around in the left pocket with increasing urgency. Also empty.
“But he put the pearl button from my glove in here. I saw him.” She had no verifiable link, only this treasured cloth that had once been warm with the vital heat from his living, breathing self. In her grief, she sat hugging the coat. “Cole. Dearest, Cole.”
A thought came to her. “Paul, did you take the pearl?”
The little thief made no answer.
Winking at tears, she lifted her head and ran her eyes over the attic. Paul was gone. She detected the faint creak of the door closing and the turn of a lock.
“Paul!” Still holding Cole’s coat, Julia bolted to her feet. She raced across the boards to the door and banged her fist on the solid wood. It never occurred to her the attic locked from the outside, even though she’d seen the black fitting.
“Let me out! Let me out!” she shouted over and over, bruising her knuckles on the obstinate barrier. But no one heard her in this vast house. At least, no one who came.
Like a caged bird at the top of a tower, she tore from window to window, struggling to shove the heavy weight up even an inch, but the lead casings were stuck, likely had been time out of mind. The uneven cracks beneath a few of the windows were the utmost rise they grudgingly yielded to her frantic efforts.
Sore and weary, she curled on the hard floor. Clutching Cole’s coat, she tried not to think about being stuck in here. She wouldn’t suffocate, she assured herself. Air floated to her from the slivers beneath the windows, crevices in the joists, and chinks of plaster loosened between the logs inside the brick walls.
“You can breathe,” she said, fighting to slow her pants.
Surely Will would search for her when he returned from wherever he was off to, though that mightn’t be for hours given his dark mood. If he were standing below her in the hall of his apartment and she yelled loudly, he ought to at least hear a muffled cry. But how would she know when to try again? Her throat was already raw from futile shouting. She couldn’t keep it up indefinitely.