by Karen Ranney
They were out of the palace by only feet when the first of the explosions occurred. In her mind, she could still hear Arabella’s words, and the eerie cry she’d made as she lay dying. The demons are coming.
She closed her eyes and held on to Grant, an anchor in an uncertain and suddenly terrifying world.
“As the Earl of Straithern,” Grant said stiffly, “I am also empowered to act as magistrate. I feel that I should detain you for something.”
“Under what charge, Grant?”
Lorenzo, Count Paterno, frowned at Grant, who stared back, the look on his face carrying not one whit of friendliness or gratitude that his friend was alive.
Grant turned back to the doctor. “I’m speaking of Arabella, sir. Surely you knew.”
They were sitting in Lorenzo’s new room, a spacious chamber overlooking the west lawn. Lorenzo was sitting up in bed, looking wan but alive. Gillian was seated in an invalid chair beside his bed, her leg bandaged and elevated. The cuts Arabella had inflicted had been deep, but she would heal. As far as Lorenzo, he would heal as well.
Arabella was not so fortunate.
The palace was still burning, but there was no chance she might still be alive. The chamber that had been Grant’s laboratory had been an inferno since the blaze began six hours earlier.
Dawn was bright on the horizon, the morning promising to be a new and brilliant day. Everything was just as it had been the day before, except that it wasn’t. The secrets of Rosemoor had been revealed, and they were too raw and horrible to discuss. Gillian had not spoken of her confrontation with Arabella to anyone. Nor had she mentioned what kept her frozen inwardly. Not Arabella’s revelations, but another thought, one even more horrible to contemplate.
Had she always trapped her emotions behind silence? Had she always been adept at hiding what she felt, even from herself? Emotions seemed fiercer, and stronger than they ever had before, as if they were pulling at her to pay attention. Between Dr. Fenton and the countess she had not been left alone all night. It wasn’t difficult to determine that they were concerned for her. As for Grant, he was never far from her side, but they had not spoken as lovers, nor even as friends, but remained distant as they once had been, the earl and the companion.
Or had they ever truly been distant? From the very beginning he’d had the ability to open her heart.
She turned and looked at him sitting beside her, and he glanced at her. Slowly, he reached out and touched her sleeve, his eyes warm, his smile reassuring.
“I didn’t know,” the doctor said, removing his spectacles and cleaning them with the edge of his waistcoat. He replaced them, staring down at the floor. A moment later, he retrieved a book hidden between his body and the side of the chair.
“Arabella’s journal,” he said, handing it to Grant. “I’d no idea she was such a prolific writer. She wrote it all down.” He sighed. “All of it.” He looked up at Grant. “But you’re right, I should have seen it,” he said. “I should have known. I should have remembered that she treated Andrew for an inflammation of the lungs.”
“And James?” Grant asked.
Dr. Fenton shook his head. “I don’t remember. Perhaps he came to my surgery on a day I was not there. She could easily have prescribed him a medication filled with belladonna.”
“Belladonna?” Gillian turned to Lorenzo. “Bella. Not beautiful, after all. Or Arabella’s name. Did you know? Is that why you wrote it?”
Lorenzo looked confused for a moment and then began to smile. “She might as well have told me.” He looked at the book on the table beside him. “She was always carrying it with her. As if she wanted someone to know that she was poisoning people. Almost as if she taunted them to discover her secret.” He sighed. “She had the page marked, and I remembered it when I became ill.”
“Is that how you survived?” Grant asked. “Because you knew what the poison was?”
“I survived, my friend, because I had already treated Miss Cameron. I took the emetic as soon as I realized. If I had not treated her, it would not have been with me.” He shrugged. “Fate, perhaps.”
“Why did you let us think you were dead?” Gillian looked from Grant to Lorenzo. The two men still looked as if they were angry at each other.
“I was too weak to protect myself from her,” Lorenzo said. “I doubted, my friend, that anyone would believe me. She was a beautiful woman. A beautiful woman should not be a killer.”
None of them responded to that comment.
“It was the good doctor who understood,” Lorenzo said, looking at the older man. Dr. Fenton still sat slumped in the chair, his gaze on the floor. At Lorenzo’s words, he raised his head.
“I knew, God help me, the minute the footman summoned me to the count’s chamber.”
“So you told the countess that he’d died,” Gillian said. She wrapped her arms around her waist, but she could still not rid herself of coldness. Even her bones felt chilled.
Dr. Fenton nodded. “I didn’t wish to lie, but I agreed with the count that it would be safer. Until we found Arabella. But it was too late.” He looked away, as if his tears were shameful things.
“Did she kill more people than Andrew and James?” Gillian asked, directing her question to Grant.
Grant turned to her. “I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said, thumbing through Arabella’s journal. “She evidently considered herself a crusader. A righter of wrongs. Those who were deemed innocent were spared. Those who were evil were not.”
He looked at Dr. Fenton. “God knows she had enough grievances against my father, but why kill my brothers?”
“Because of their blood,” Gillian said, the words hard to speak. “Because of your father.” She folded her hands together tightly, and focused her gaze on them. “A bloodline. The innocent were not spared because they were offspring of evil. Wickedness.”
She raised her gaze to Dr. Fenton. A question had been torturing her for hours. A question that kept her from sleep. Now it sat on her tongue, just ready to be voiced if she could find the courage. “Did she kill my son? Because I had sinned, did he have to die?”
Dr. Fenton looked at her, shock contorting his features. For the longest moment they simply stared at each other, neither one speaking.
“I cannot say, Gillian,” he said, his voice breaking with emotion. “God help me, I don’t know. The symptoms would be similar for belladonna poisoning and a heart malady.”
Grant placed his arm across her shoulders. He had not been far from her during the last few hours, as if to assure himself that she was fine. She wasn’t fine. She would always wonder about the fate of her child and whether Arabella thought he should be punished for the sins of his mother. Nor could she forget Arabella’s story, a glimpse into a horror too terrible to remember.
Before she could summon up the words to reassure Grant that she was composed and calm, that she needed no comfort, he leaned close and whispered, “I’m here.”
Just that quickly, she knew. Any doubt, any reservation, any fear was simply swept away, and in its place the knowledge that she was captive in this emotion, bound to this man for all of her life. If he banished her from his side tomorrow, she would survive it as she had so many other circumstances, but she would not cease to love him.
Love was not a convenient emotion. There was nothing kind or gentle or sweet about it. Love violently jerked you from your moorings and washed you out to sea. Love was a vast and fierce wind, a spear to the heart, a thunderclap, a bolt of lightning.
She might not have wanted to fall in love, but she had. She might not have wanted to love an earl, but she did. The emotion was simply there, like the color of her eyes and her height—a fact of her being.
Dr. Fenton was saying something but she ignored him, choosing instead to stretch her hand out toward Grant. It wasn’t the proper time to acknowledge what she felt for him, but perhaps it showed in her eyes, in the soft smile she sent him.
His hand left her arm to link with hers, their fingers warm.
No one could take away her pain. No one could truly understand it. But Grant’s simple gesture made her wonder if it was possible to share the experience of living. Could you love someone enough that you could ease his hurt? Would the simple comfort of a touch be enough?
His grief clung to him like a cloak, just as she suspected hers did. But in that moment, Gillian suddenly experienced a soothing calm, a feeling that she wasn’t alone.
Perhaps love was a blessing after all.
Chapter 27
Grant heard someone come into the library, but he didn’t turn from the window. If it was Dr. Fenton, he didn’t want to talk about Arabella at the moment. The man was grieving, taking on too much guilt for his adopted daughter’s actions. Lorenzo? He could barely face Lorenzo, feeling his own guilt about the agony both his friend and Gillian endured.
But it was not, blessedly, either man.
“You have not summoned the fire brigade,” the Countess of Straithern said, speaking of the footmen who were regularly trained in putting out fires at Rosemoor. “In fact, I was told that you specifically ordered them not to extinguish the blaze. It’s been a day, Grant, and the building is still burning. Do you want the whole of the estate to go up in flames, then?”
She moved closer to him.
“Not the whole of the estate, Mother,” he said. “Just the palace.” As if to accentuate his remarks, another explosion occurred, this time smaller than the others. The fire had already reached the chemicals stored in one of the unused rooms. “I don’t think I could walk into that building again.”
“I know that I could not have,” she said softly. “But I’ve found, son, that my memories come with me.”
She drew closer, and he wished she would simply leave. He had not yet come to grips with the knowledge that she’d killed his father. One part of him understood completely, and knew that he probably would have done the same. Another was still a young boy made earl too soon.
His father was responsible for the deaths of his sons and for ruining dozens of lives. Arabella was only the means of performing that murder. His father’s actions had begun the series of events that had led to all the tragedy at Rosemoor.
“What are you going to do, Grant?”
He smiled. He’d been giving his future a great deal of thought in the last twenty-four hours. “Perhaps I should leave Rosemoor,” he said. “Go back to Italy, where life is much less complex.”
“There are going to be enough Robersons in Italy,” she said surprisingly.
He turned to look at her.
“Dr. Fenton and I have decided that we should escort Lorenzo home. It is, after all, the least we can do. Besides, another country sounds like a blessed idea. I have not stirred from Rosemoor for too long.” She glanced over at him. “We have wounds, both of us, Grant. Yours have time to heal. And you have a dynasty to begin. Sons and daughters, all proud of what their father has accomplished. Most of all, Grant, you have your happiness to find.”
She looked through the window to where the palace still burned. “Perhaps one day, you will build another structure there. A building to house your experiments. And you will make sure that only good memories are held within its walls.”
She patted his arm, and then turned to leave the room.
It was time for her to go.
It was time for her to leave.
It was time.
Perhaps she should be afraid. Perhaps she should be concerned about the future more than she was, but she couldn’t feel anything beyond the pain. It lingered there behind her eyes in the form of unshed tears, and was present in the heaviness of her heart.
How was she to do this?
How was she supposed to marshal her strength to leave him? Somehow. That was the only answer. Somehow, she was supposed to endure this, and somehow, one hour would pass and then another until a whole day had elapsed. One by one, the days would merge into weeks.
Grief was so familiar to her, such a friend. Perhaps it was the only emotion she would have in the future, stronger than love or hate.
She’d known all along that it would be this way. She’d considered it, dispassionately, reasoning that if she were fortunate enough to find love, then she would pay any price for it.
What makes a woman so foolish that she will brave anything for love? The look in a man’s eyes? The promise of his smile? The memory of passion or the longing for it? Was it simply loneliness? Or had she gone against every caution in her heart because she’d loved Grant from the first, in a way she couldn’t understand, with a strength that humbled her?
Somehow, she would have to go on, and somehow, she would endure, and somehow, perhaps, someday, she would remember this time as an odyssey. Remember when you lived at Rosemoor? Remember when you loved a man by the name of Grant Roberson? Remember love?
If she were lucky, perhaps she’d lose her memory. Would nature ever provide that release?
Dear God, help her.
Help her be strong, resolute.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
She turned to find the countess standing there, glaring at her imperiously. Gillian smiled; she was no longer afraid of the woman, had not been since the night they shared chocolate.
“I am leaving.”
“I can see that,” the countess said. “Where are you going?”
Gillian didn’t respond.
The countess stared at her for several long and uncomfortable moments.
If the woman wanted embarrassment, she would get none from her. True, what she had done was wrong as the world saw it. If her own daughter had engaged in such behavior, Gillian would have been appalled and shocked. But there had been too much sorrow and too much tragedy at Rosemoor to worry about a few bent and broken rules. If she and Grant had stolen some happiness, then they should be congratulated, not castigated.
The countess stared down at the valise in her hand. “You cannot leave,” she finally announced, almost as if it were a command.
“Yes, Your Ladyship,” Gillian said tiredly. “I can.” She turned and continued walking down the corridor. She’d already said her farewells to Lorenzo, and Dr. Fenton was to meet her at the carriage.
She would stay at the doctor’s home only until her leg was healed, and then she had other plans. She missed her father. He was a good man, if a bit strict. But his love for her had always been strong. Perhaps he would welcome her return. If he did not, she would find employment somewhere. She had her wages, enough money for lodgings for a time, and determination. She’d take small steps, and one by one, she’d carve a life for herself.
How odd that she was no longer afraid.
“Are you going to say goodbye to Grant? Or are you simply going to disappear? I would have thought him deserving of a little more decency from you.”
Gillian stopped but didn’t turn.
She couldn’t say goodbye to Grant. She could not look into his beautiful gray eyes once more. She simply couldn’t. But before she could articulate her reluctance to the countess, the older woman marched up to her, grabbed her arm, and propelled her down the hall.
“Your Ladyship!”
“No,” the Countess of Straithern said firmly. “You have acted in a daring manner for the whole of your stay at Rosemoor. I will not have you retreat into a shell of decorum now.”
“I beg your pardon?’
“Oh pish,” the countess surprisingly said. “Simply put, don’t be an idiot, Gillian.” With that rather surprising announcement, the older woman opened a door and nearly tossed Gillian into the room.
Grant was standing at the window. At her entrance, he turned.
“I am to tell you, according to the countess,” Gillian said, frowning at him, “that I am leaving.”
He didn’t respond to that news, simply turned and faced the window again. “Have you ever wondered why you cannot see the stars during the day? Yet they are there.”
“No,” she said, “I confess I have not. I was always more interested in what was ar
ound me than in something so very far away.”
“The stars offer us a respite from what is very close. A way of looking at things differently, a different perspective.”
She didn’t know what to say. She’d never before heard him sound so philosophical.
“Change goes on around us constantly. We’re unaware of it because we’re locked into our own little worlds. We’re the center of it, and it’s only until some event knocks us off that axis that we look beyond ourselves to find that all this time, things have been changing and we never knew. We think life is solid and formed, but it’s actually a molten mass, forever moving. Forever changing.
“You’re my change,” he said, turning to face her. “You’ve managed to alter my entire world. I could never begin another experiment without wondering where you are, or go to my bed without wishing you were beside me. Even sitting down to dinner is different, because I expect you to be there. And all this time, I never knew. I never realized.”
“I did,” she said softly.
“I was going to offer you Italy, but it seems as if my mother and Dr. Fenton have plans to escape there.”
“I know,” she said, having been apprised of his plans by the doctor. “I think it’s beyond time.”
He looked at her.
“They were forever stealing glances at each other. Didn’t you see?”
He shook his head.
“You shouldn’t be walking on that leg.”
She didn’t answer him.
“You should be sitting.”
She ignored the admonition, but when he pulled a chair to her side, she sank down gratefully into it.
“Sometimes, we don’t see what’s in front of us,” he said, his tone one of annoyance.
“Or we do, and we’re willfully blind to it,” she countered.
For a few moments, they were silent. But then, they’d always shared silences with great companionship, as if the absence of speech merely facilitated the transmission of their thoughts.
“This could be a happy place,” he finally said. “Rosemoor could be known as a heaven on earth with the right people living here.”