But at last she had to look up at him, and the regret and disappointment in his face was worse, a thousand times worse, than his anger or sarcasm had been. ‘I never expected this of you, Dawn,’ he said quietly, and turned and left her.
After a long time, she found the strength in her legs to cross the corridor and go back to her room, where she got into bed without undressing and cried herself to sleep.
‘There are some things Byron simply can’t forgive...’ The words kept echoing in her mind. She knew it, she had always known it, yet why did she perversely insist upon hoping that this might not be one of them? As she came down the next morning her eyes caught upon the crest gleaming in the sunlight on the foyer wall, and with a sinking heart she knew the ultimate answer to her question. Five centuries of Boyds had built an empire based on trust; why should she expect that motto to be overlooked now simply for her?
‘Dawn!’
She turned at the unexpected sound of a familiar voice, and it was Vernon, as bright and cheerful as ever, coming towards her. ‘I heard you’d left. What a nice surprise!’
‘I did,’ she replied, returning his smile weakly. ‘I’m only back for—a little while.’ She gestured to the camera bag over her shoulder. ‘I really hadn’t finished here, and the weather looked so nice I thought I’d get my last few shots this morning.’
Vernon glanced through the window at the hazy blue sky. ‘Looks are deceiving,’ he told her. ‘There’s a mist moving in from the sea. You’d better hurry if you don’t want your lenses to get all fogged up.’
She smiled a little in acknowledgement, and for a moment they stood there in an uncomfortable silence. Then he lifted his briefcase and said, ‘I just came over to pick up some papers. I’ve really got to get going.’ He paused. ‘I guess we won’t see each other again.’
‘I guess not,’ she agreed, and there was a slight constriction in her throat. This time the goodbyes would be permanent, all around.
They both looked towards the tower staircase as the door opened and Byron came down. He hesitated, looking at them, and Vernon broke the tense silence with a cheerful, ‘On my way!’ And, over his shoulder to Dawn, casually, ‘Goodbye, then.’
Dawn responded, ‘Goodbye,’ and was left alone in the foyer with Byron. She had not expected to see him this morning, and she was unprepared for another encounter. Her heart was wrenched with pain as she looked at him, so very much like he had been that first day she had met him, dressed in tight, faded jeans, and a dark turtleneck sweater, aloof and in control. With a pang she realised he had not lost his physical attraction to her, and wondered if he ever would.
She spoke quickly, before he could, ‘As long as I was here, I thought I’d finish up the article. I’ll leave on the next ferry.’
He nodded, once. ‘Do you need the car?’
‘No ... I think I can walk.’
Byron moved past her to take his jacket from the rack near the door, then he paused. She waited for him to speak, and it seemed she waited a long time. At last he said, very quietly, and without turning, ‘I told you once that the only way to obtain loyalty from another was to first be able to give your trust. That’s—just too important to me. I can’t live without trust. I’m sorry, Dawn.’
She nodded, though he could not see, and swallowed hard against a new lump that was forming in her throat. ‘I understand,’ she whispered.
It only seemed to her that love would be able to make allowances for mistakes, to somehow find forgiveness where before there had been none.
He pulled on his jacket, opening the door, and was gone.
It was a longer walk to the construction site than she had imagined, but she did not mind. Putting one foot in front of the other gave her something to do, concentrating on reaching her destination kept her mind busy, so that she could not dwell upon grief. It was inevitable, after all. For a brief time she had belonged here, she had fallen in love here, and perhaps a part of her would always belong here. But she had a life on the other side of the world, and it was that to which she must return. Byron was right, of course. There must be more than what they had been able to offer one another. Too many unspoken promises lay between them.
True to Vernon’s prediction, the sky began to lower as she reached the construction site, and already the crews were beginning to break up in anticipation of a downpour. She snapped the shutter quickly from many angles, watched the men park their equipment and get into their jeeps, and then she had an idea for the perfect closing shot.
There was a rocky overhang a few hundred yards away, near the beach, which did not look too difficult to climb. The vantage point from its summit, overlooking the deserted building site and the stormy sea, would provide the ideal ending to her pictorial story. She was depicting five hundred years of history on Falkone’s Acres, and this would be the promise of the future ... arrested in progress, waiting for what tomorrow might bring.
The climb was somewhat more strenuous than she had anticipated. She scuffed her boots and scraped her hands once or twice, and was hot and out of breath by the time she reached the top. Already the mist was beginning to fall, making the loose shale under her feet slippery and treacherous, but she could retouch the photograph so that the scene would not look too desolate. She took several shots, and it was perfect. As a last sentimental gesture, she swung around and captured the misty mountains, the lofty trees, the moody sea with its single lone fisherman casting and reeling in the surf...
She stopped and lowered the camera, watching him as he moved slowly along the shoreline towards her, strong arms bent with the pull of the surf on the line, legs in thigh-high boots planted in a firm stance, shoulders squared, head thrown back against the wind. Slowly, she switched to a telescopic lens and focused on Byron’s face in profile. His hair was swept across his forehead, his eyes narrowed, his square jawline set in concentration. He was completely unaware of her. She snapped the shutter. This would be her only personal memory profile, tangible evidence in the long years ahead of a life come close to fulfilment, and he would never know.
He stepped back as a spray of surf splashed against his chest, and she followed his movements, keeping him in focus, snapping the shutter rapidly. Dragging the line through the water, Byron moved slowly closer to her, reeling in, and she kept stepping backwards, following him.
Suddenly she felt the loose rock beneath her feet begin to shift. She flung out her arm for balance, lost her footing, and heard the camera crash against the rocks as she began to slide. She cried out, and the sound of the tumbling rocks was like an avalanche as she sought to catch herself, her fingers grasping only clumps of straw, her feet scraping across wet rocks and mud.
She came to rest at last against a clump of soft earth, dazed and bruised, and for a moment only trying to shake the roaring out of her ears over the amplified sound of her own gasping breaths. There were huge boulders piled up on either side of her, her feet were ploughed into a mound of rocks that completely immobilised them, and in horror she realised what a close call she had really had.
Then she heard a voice. ‘Dawn!’ It was hoarse and desperate, and weakly she managed to return, ‘I’m here!’
Moments later Byron appeared over the crest, his face white and taut, and he made his way with nimble agility over the broken rocks and rubble towards her, not pausing until he had scooped her into his arms, holding her with a crushing force against his chest. ‘Oh, my dear God!’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘Are you all right? I heard the scream, and I looked up and it was like a nightmare—it was you! It was like...’ He broke off abruptly, as though regretting the display of emotion and the impulsive words, and Dawn felt the warmth go out of his embrace and its replacement with a strange sort of tension as he released her, almost with a forceful effort.
He turned to the rocks which entrapped her, prying at them with a hostile savagery, hiding his face from her and his feelings beneath a harsh tone. ‘What in the name of reason were you thinking of—up here alone, in the rain—
’
She replied, fear and confusion turning abruptly into a more familiar anger, ‘I didn’t fall on purpose!’
Byron stopped, his shoulders sagging, his face still averted, his hand resting limply on a small, stubbornly wedged stone. For a long time there was no sound but his carefully regulated breathing over the whisper of falling mist, and in that moment all Dawn wanted was to reach out to him, to say with her heart what her lips could not, to share with him the truth they had both discovered. But she waited for him to speak.
He said at last, softly, ‘Forgive me, Dawn.’ And still he did not turn to face her. ‘I’m—inflexible sometimes. Too much so, too much of the time. And hot-tempered. It’s just that you frightened me in a way I never want to be frightened again ... when I saw you fall and I knew—I knew then I was going to lose you, and all I could think of was that my last words to you had been spoken out of pride, and not what I really felt ... That I’d never told you how much I loved you, and needed you. Never.’
He turned to look at her, his eyes open and streaked with pain, the rain congealing on his face and looking strangely like tears. And in Dawn there was pulsating joy mixed with uncertainty, for she would not move too quickly lest she be hurt again. She said, searching his face, ‘You knew this morning you would lose me—we said goodbye...’
Byron shook his head impatiently. ‘Pride. Stubbornness. I must have known even then that I couldn’t let you go. I’ve been here all morning, trying to rationalise it, trying to talk myself out of it, and knowing all along that if I came back to the castle and found you gone I would follow you—to Oban, to New York, to the ends of the earth if need be.’ He glanced over her shoulder at the turbulent sea for a moment, and then quickly back to her again, his expression intense and searching. ‘I’ve lived my life too long according to a set pattern ... established values, unquestioned tradition, unbendable rules. It was only when I saw how much those rules were about to cost me that I realised how worthless they really were. You made me see that in this business with Mann—but oh, how much clearer it became when I saw it was about to cost me the only thing that was ever likely to make my life worthwhile!’ He smiled at her tenderly. ‘You.’
Her eyes were shining, but still she moved cautiously. ‘Not all your values and traditions are worthless, Byron ... you simply carry a good thing too far, sometimes.’
He touched her cheek with a muddy hand, a teasing, affectionate gleam sparking in his eyes. ‘Then I’ll need you around to keep me in line, won’t I?’
Dawn’s heart was doing somersaults, her brain bursting with unspoken declarations of ecstasy and love, but she forced herself to say primly, tightening her lips on a smile of pure joy, ‘I want to make certain this time. Is that a proposal?’
Byron laughed, an exuberant, unrestrained sound, and tossed his head back to the wind. ‘Dawn, you wretched, impossible little vixen! You torment me, you set my senses on fire, you make me angry and you make me helpless in your power ... But I love you, and I can’t live without you!’ He controlled his tone into seriousness, and looked at her. ‘Dawn Morrison, my only love, will you marry me?’
The joy broke though. ‘Byron ...’
He caught the arms which might have gone about his neck, and his stern tone did not mask the softening smile that crept across his features. ‘No time for that now, or I’ll end up consummating our agreement here in the mud and rain...’ Lightly, his fingers brushed across her cheek to remove a strand of her hair, and then he purposefully bent to fling aside the remaining rocks which trapped her legs. ‘But,’ he continued, glancing up once over his. shoulder, ‘if you can wait another two weeks for a proper ceremony, I can promise you a much more comfortable arrangement ... You’re lucky, this boulder took most of the weight of the rock slide ... Do you think you can stand?’
He slipped his arm around her waist as he tossed aside the final rock, and she whispered, ‘Yes.’
He smiled. ‘Is that in answer to my first question, or the last?’
‘Both,’ she answered shyly, and took hold of his strong arms as he pulled her to her feet.
Then, as they began their slow and cautious descent, Dawn spied her camera lying crushed against the rocks, and she could not prevent a cry of dismay. ‘Oh, my camera!’
He laughed a little in tolerant exasperation.
‘Ever the professional, my little Rapunzel! Don’t worry,’ he promised, ‘I’ll buy you a new one.’ And, on the beach, his supporting arm tight about her, he turned to her, very serious, and once again brushed a strand of hair away from her face. ‘For ever,’ he said.
She smiled a little timorously and made no response, for everything she had ever needed was in his eyes.
The promise of love.
Falkone's Promise Page 16