She arrived at Elmwood just before dinner, but instead of going straight into the house, Ambrosia went for a walk along a path through the woods, allowing her mind to turn over the same possibilities she had considered a thousand times before. There were never any answers. Only conjectures, foolish suppositions, endless mazes of questions that gave her no peace. In utter defeat, she fell to her knees and cried, just as she had cried so many months before. ‘’Oh, Lily, Lily, what am I going to do? I don’t think I can go on like this! I just can’t go on!”
For a long time she knelt there crying, unable to stop the tears. And then suddenly, as she rose to her feet and wiped the tears from her cheeks, she knew what she had to do. She would go to him.
Ambrosia hurriedly packed a single bag of clothing and informed Emily and Bessie that she would be going into the city for a few days. She ignored the inquisitive look they tossed at her when she added that she would be staying at Drayton’s house in Gramercy Park, that they were to get in touch with her immediately if anything happened to Mandy. Even as she spoke the words, Ambrosia considered taking her along for the hundredth time, then decided against it. The house in Gramercy Park was dark and gloomy and cluttered with statues and paintings and figurines that seemed to scream, “Don’t dare touch!’’ It was no fit place for an active, inquisitive child. And besides, Ambrosia had no idea what Drayton’s reaction to her arrival might be. He might be anxious to get rid of her, to return to Carolyn...She pushed the thought firmly from her mind. At least she would know. At least she would have said the things she needed to say.
“Mr. Rambert did not inform me that he was expecting guests,” Drayton’s manservant protested as Debbs carried Ambrosia’s bag into the front hall.
“But I am not a guest, Mr. Bryson,” Ambrosia returned softly. “I am Mr. Rambert’s wife.”
He eyed her uneasily, taking in the stylish cut of her lavender gown, the totally frivolous hat of net and bows that sat atop a mass of shiny black curls. He was a gentleman’s servant and he had very little time for pretty young women. Invariably they proved more trouble than they were worth. And Mr. Rambert had been very annoyed when he arrived home a few weeks back and found Mrs. Craig waiting for him in the parlor. From what Bryson had overheard, he’d had quite a time convincing the young woman to leave. And now this one arrives totally unannounced and carrying a bag of her clothing! Wife or not, Bryson thought, Mr. Rambert did not expect her and would not appreciate such a surprise. “I beg your pardon, madame,” he bowed. “But you are not a regular member of this household, and-’’
“I was not,” she interrupted him. “Until now.”
“Mrs. Rambert, I must protest,” he continued stiffly.
“Before you do so, Mr. Bryson,” she broke in again, holding up her hand, “I must tell you that I intend to stay here unless my husband personally orders me to leave. Nothing you say or do will convince me to go until after I have spoken with him.” She lowered her hand and her voice softened somewhat. “I understand that you are the only servant here, however, and I can assure you that my stay will not overburden you.” She drew a deep breath and met his eyes evenly. They understood each other, and a temporary truce had been called…until Drayton came home.
“Shall I carry your things upstairs, Mrs. Rambert?” he offered with begrudging politeness.
Ambrosia ate very little of the dinner Bryson prepared and served to her. When she questioned him as to when Drayton would be returning home, he responded with a cool, “Mr. Rambert comes and goes at all hours, madame. There are nights when he doesn’t come home at all.’’ Ambrosia noticed that a single brow was lifted in a taunting challenge, so she asked him nothing more.
She remained in the parlor until after ten, pacing nervously, flying again and again to the window at the noises of passing carriages and street traffic. The mantel clock seemed to mock her expectancy, chiming relentlessly hour after hour as Bryson’s voice echoed in her mind. There are nights when he doesn’t return home at all. She tried hard not to speculate on where he might spend those nights.
The hours passed slowly, and Ambrosia dozed in a parlor chair, starting awake with each chime of the clock, at each strange sound that echoed from the street. Finally she left the parlor and slowly climbed the stairs to Drayton’s room. She opened the door and closed it again behind her, staring at the travel bag she had insisted Bryson place in this room, studying the room’s simple furnishings and realizing that Drayton must have cleared it of the clutter that filled every other before he moved into it. She noticed a half-filled bottle of whiskey on his night table and realized that he must have seen to that as well. She gnawed nervously at her bottom lip, then curled up in a high-backed chair and propped her chin on her knees. She would wait for him here.
It was after midnight when he entered the house and made his way up the stairs to his room. He extinguished two flickering gaslights that had been left to burn in the hall as well as a parlor lamp Bryson had forgotten to put out. He opened the door to his room and stopped short. At first he was certain his eyes deceived him. But no, she was there, curled up like a sleeping child in a highbacked chair, looking small and innocent and soft...He closed the door behind him with force enough to startle her. She jumped to her feet. He stared at her and she felt every muscle in her body tense with apprehension as his eyes slowly turned hard and cold. “What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded.
She opened her mouth to answer, but no words came forth. She felt the blood draining from her cheeks. But she saw that he wore a stained white cotton shirt, opened to the waist and rolled at the sleeves, a similarly stained pair of dark trousers that clung to the muscles of his thighs like a second skin. He probably hadn’t been with a woman, dressed like that. Relief flooded her at the realization.
“I asked you a question!” he growled impatiently.
She swallowed hard, the relief she had felt a moment before vanishing. She felt foolish standing here, and so very afraid of what he might do to her, of what he might say. It had been very bold of her to come here, but there would be no turning back now. It was too late to turn back. “I-I needed to-to talk with you,” she stammered.
“What about?”
“About-about us.”
He gave a short laugh. “We’ve never had anything to say to one another, Ambrosia.’’ He turned away to pour himself a glass of whiskey. “There’s never really been anything to say.”
She watched as he took a long swallow of bourbon, biting her lip hard against an urge to cry. “You-you’re wrong,’’ she forced out, her voice small and inadequate. ‘’Once...once, that first night…in Charleston...”
He turned to face her and their eyes met. But she quickly avoided the raw emotions she saw there, the anger, the resentment, the hurt. She wasn’t strong enough to confront those things in his eyes.
He was remembering too. Remembering how much he had wanted her then, remembering the cool, velvet feel of her skin against his fingers, the taste of brandy on her lips, the haunting look of despair in her eyes, the sound of her voice as she cried out another man’s name. He took another long sip of his drink, not wanting to remember any more. “Get out of here.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “No,” she whimpered, shaking her head with a resolve she didn’t feel. “No. I-I’m your wife-”
“My wife?” he repeated bitterly. His eyes were hard. “No. You’ve never been my wife. And I don’t believe you really want that now. I think you want to use me because Lily died and you need to forget your grief. You used me that night in Charleston, didn’t you? Because you wanted to forget Ledger.” He took a sip of his drink, his eyes still raking her. ‘’Or are you just tired of Elmwood? Perhaps you enjoyed the Desmonds’ party so much that you want to come live here in town, to play the part of Drayton Rambert’s perfect little wife, to dress up and socialize-’’
“I’ve never wanted that!”
“Haven’t you? Then what have you wanted, Ambrosia? Certainly nothing I ever offered you.”
She shook her head, the tears hot and stinging as they slid down her cheeks. “I-I cannot undo the past, but-”
“Neither of us can,” he cut her off harshly. “Nothing will ever change what’s already happened between us.” He was breathing hard, his nostrils flaring, his tone as cold as his words. ‘’Once I would have done almost anything to make you care for me. But everything I did only made you hate me more. And now it’s over, Ambrosia. Over, do you understand? Anything I felt for you died a long time ago.”
He saw the anguish in her eyes as he spoke, and he tried to tell himself he was glad. “Now get out of here. Leave me in peace.” He turned away from her to pour himself another drink, suddenly needing it to still the trembling in his hands. How often he had played out this very scene in his mind, throwing her words back in her face, making her feel the same kind of hurt she had made him feel so many times in the past. But where was the sweetness, the soaring sense of triumph that ought to have come with her defeat? Why instead did he feel a bitter heaviness, as if he had lost more than ever before?
Ambrosia’s tear-filled eyes followed him, staring after him in helpless silence. Silence. It always seemed to come between them. The angry words, and then the silence. She closed her eyes, feeling a part of herself dying, feeling the last remnants of childish hope slipping away...It’s over, Ambrosia. Over, do you understand? The harsh finality of his words smote her again and again. Over. Finally over. A clean break with the past. She tried to feel relief. An ending, she recalled Lily saying once, was only a chance at a new beginning. But deep in her heart she knew that she could never begin again, feeling what she felt for him. Perhaps, if it hadn’t been for Mandy...
She stared at the floor, feeling numb and tired. “For me,’’ she mouthed finally, in a whisper, “it will never be over.’’ She swallowed hard and struggled for the composure to say the rest of what she had come to say. “I-I think I’ll always love you,” was all she could manage before she turned away, her hands brushing roughly at the dampness on her cheeks.
She moved slowly, leadenly toward the door, pathetically clinging to the hope that he might call her back, that he might take her into his arms. She lifted her hand to open the door, her eyes blinking fast against new tears as she glanced one last time over her shoulder. He was facing away.
The door swung open and she took a half-step toward the unlit hallway, then froze. The smoke there was so strong and thick that it struck her like a fist to her chest. She stood motionless, horrified, her senses reeling with disbelief.
The smell touched Drayton’s nostrils a moment later. He whirled and pushed passed her, making his way halfway down the hall before he returned and pushed her back inside the room. “The stairs are impassable,” he told her curtly, already pulling her by the arm toward the window. He threw open the sash, and at his order, Ambrosia obediently climbed outside and dropped onto the porch roof, just a few feet below. An eerie orange glow lit up the ground below and the hungry cackle of flames broke the stillness of the night. Ambrosia stared at the flames licking all along one side of the porch roof, remembering the horror and heartache of watching Heritage burn. She pushed the memory aside as Drayton took her arm again and guided her along the roof s edge furthest away from the flames. “We’ll have to jump.”
Her breath was coming hard and fast, but she obeyed without thinking, crouching at the roof’s edge and drop ping over the side as Drayton instructed her to do. Drayton lay flat on his stomach, holding fast to her arms, then her hands as she slipped lower and lower, as close as possible to the ground. When he released his hold on her, she fell freely, tumbling into the soft grass below.
The fall knocked the breath from her body with a painful thud, but her pain was forgotten as she felt Drayton drop beside her, felt him reach for her hand. “Ambrosia? Are you all right?”
Still struggling to catch her breath, she raised herself to her knees and gave him a nod. He lifted her into his arms and moved quickly away from the house, since the porch was surrounded by flames and the supporting columns about to give way. Ambrosia could not pull her eyes from the sight, even as Drayton carried her a safe distance away. He let her feet slip to the ground, and when her legs seemed unsteady, he took hold of her shoulders to shake her hard. “I don’t see Bryson. I’m going back to make sure he’s out. You stay back, away, understand? Don’t go near the house.”
Before she could answer he whirled about and darted away. “Drayton!” She found her voice as she saw him shoulder open a side door and force his way inside. She started to run after him, then screamed and stumbled backward as one of the columns supporting the back porch splintered and collapsed. Flames swooped in a huge, hypnotic wave, bright and orange against the velvet black of night. Two windows burst in unison, like loud, grating bells that sent splinters of glass exploding across the lawn. The smoke rolled thick and black through the shattered remnants of the panes.
Ambrosia stifled another scream as she ran again to ward the door, but before she could reach it, someone held her back. A pair of masculine arms restrained her easily though she twisted and thrashed like a demon trying to free herself. She was unaware at first of the great commotion all about her, of the people gathering about the lawn, of the horse drawn fire wagon racing toward the house, of the men who jumped from the wagon and ran to fight the flames. A hiss of steam filled the air and a cloud of white smoke rose with the darker, billowing clouds of gray as water met flame.
“Ambrosia, are you all right?”
Still not comprehending what was happening, Ambrosia lifted her eyes and saw that the man who restrained her, and still held her tightly was Matt Desmond. “He-he went back,’’ she cried hysterically, tears streaming down her cheeks. “He went back for Bryson!” She pulled away from Matt as a huge flame shot from the door Drayton had entered moments before. But she was unsteady as she stumbled toward the house, and Matt quickly moved to restrain her again. With a cry of helplessness she gave up struggling and turned away from the sight. A moment later she was sobbing into his chest.
Drayton groped his way quickly down the hall toward Bryson’s room, having little trouble until he reached the back stairs, which were entirely engulfed in flames. The house was an inferno beyond that point, the smoke like dark, murky swamp water, the fire like a thousand blistering suns. Coughing and gasping for breath, Drayton stumbled on past the back stairs, his nostrils stinging, his lungs almost bursting from the noxious fumes that filled them. He felt light-headed as he groped his way along, searching for the door to Bryson’s room. He fumbled with the door latch, forcing the door open. The room was so thickly packed with smoke that Drayton had to feel his way to the bed. He shook the old man roughly, but there was no response.
Without waiting, Drayton snatched the unconscious man from his bed and dragged him across the floor toward the hallway. But the added burden of dead weight sapped his strength, and the need for oxygen clamped his lungs in a viselike grip. He gasped in the foul, acrid gas and half collapsed to his knees. The smoke was not quite so thick near the floor, and Drayton began to crawl, dragging Bryson along as he inched his way through the hall. Suddenly a loud snap rose above the hiss and crackle of the flames. Overhead a huge section of mahogany banister broke free and fell in a brilliant flash like a shooting star. Drayton lurched forward and rolled instinctively in an attempt to avoid the falling debris, but as the flaming banister crashed to the floor, a section caught his leg just below the knee.
A cry of anguish tore from his aching chest as his head began to swim, as his eyes lost their ability to make out shapes and shadows in the ever-thickening smoke. Only bright tongues of orange and yellow flashed before him now, hot and angry, as they had been that night so many years before.
Kathryn...Oh, God, no! No!
He felt his fingers loosening their hold on Bryson’s lifel
ess body, but he was no longer aware of where he was. He only knew he had to get Kathryn out of here, that he had to save her, even while a part of him knew it was already too late. He struggled to his feet, gasping for air when there was nothing but smoke and ash and heat and pain. And then he fell again, his leg buckling beneath his weight, his hold on Kathryn loosening, his face striking the floor. In the next moment the flames shot wildly over him as a great current of air swept through the house.
Ambrosia stood still now, though Matt’s hold on her did not loosen as she watched the firemen rushing into the house. She mouthed the same prayer over and over again, a monotonous recitation though her words were fervent. ‘’Please, God, don’t let him die...please, God, don’t let him die...”
Her breath caught as the building heaved a terrible, loud groan, as if anguishing in the flames, as if crying out its readiness to succumb to the inevitable. Men were suddenly scrambling out of windows, diving out of doors, hurrying to safety. In the final moments before the entire roof collapsed upon them, a pair of firemen appeared dragging two lifeless bodies out of the building. In that instant, Ambrosia broke free of Matt’s hold and ran to them.
She was on her knees at Drayton’s side a moment later, tears of panic flowing down her cheeks. He wasn’t breathing! She grasped his broad shoulders and jerked him from the ground, shaking him with every ounce of her strength, screaming his name. “I won’t let you die! I won’t let you!”
He remained limp and lifeless, his head falling back as if his neck were a limp blade of grass. Sapped of her strength, she slowly let his torso slip to the ground, her eyes darkening as the defiant disbelief became an all encompassing fear. With a sob she buried her face in his chest, whimpering helplessly. “I won’t let you die,” she repeated raggedly. “I won’t let you die!”
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