A realist, Catherine understood the nature of this union. It was a trade of money for bloodlines and beauty. The current Lord Fairfax was only half a generation from the working class. His mother, a blacksmith’s daughter, had been fortunate enough to catch the roving eye of the eccentric fifth Lord Fairfax. In a union of lust, Fairfax had married the blacksmith’s daughter, and brought shame—and an astonishing amount of common red blood—to the union. As a consequence, the current Lord Fairfax desired true blue blood for his continuing dynasty, choosing his own wife from a noble family. His son, Edward, was to do the same, thus ensuring the future Fairfax lineage and their blacksmith ties would be diluted.
It was her blue, but rather aenemic, blood that would provide the future earls of Fairfax with a credible pedigree. Catherine knew that she was considered pretty and desirable, but her lack of fortune made it difficult to form alliances with suitable lordlings. But Lord Fairfax had “all the blunt in the world” or so her father had claimed, and he had all but purchased her years ago, to be the plaything for his spoiled, cold son.
Edward. How she reviled that she was to become his. She had always been able to spurn him, to be granted however small a pardon from his advances. But those reprieves were lost now. She was to marry Edward, and become the future Lady Fairfax. Her body would belong to him, and she would be forced to endure his attentions, or suffer the very real consequences—debtors prison for her parents.
It was no secret that Lord Fairfax had paid off all her father’s debts, both the legitimate ones incurred by the estate they lived in, and the debts of honor that her father had brought upon himself by his incessant gambling.
Catherine knew her role in this bargain. She had been sold to the Fairfax dynasty because she was an aristocrat whose family found themselves down on their luck. As a young girl, she had been told that her beauty and her body were her greatest assets, and that many a man would pay to possess her. She knew then that would be her fate. That some man would purchase her. Unfortunately, it had been Lord Fairfax whose purse opened the widest. And his son could not wait to paw his possession.
Edward had been trying for years to get his hands, and whatever else he desired, up her skirts. The fact had always revolted her. She hadn’t wanted Edward, despite the fact that he was handsome and athletic. Her heart belonged to the other male who resided at Fairfax House—Edward’s cousin. Joscelyn.
An image of a dark-haired, wild-eyed Joscelyn came to her, and she felt her skin heat and flush with desire. A yearning she tried to keep hidden from those at the table. But Edward, with his steady gaze lingering upon her, noticed immediately. The smile, and the gleam in his eye, told her that he believed her blush to be the product of his undivided attention upon her person—and her breasts, which would not be subdued in the low-cut gown her mother had insisted she wear.
She was not an innocent—not any longer. Once, she had been, but then one night in her bedroom, during those past springtime visits, Joscelyn had awakened her to the delights of being a woman. He had stripped her of her innocence. No woman could ever claim to be innocent after having her body thoroughly kissed and touched. No woman could declare inexperience after allowing a man to explore her sex with his lips and tongue—to have Joscelyn, thick and hard, moving inside her, claiming her body and soul.
Joscelyn had done that. And she had been ruined for anything else. Anyone else. It was only him she desired. That night three years ago, still lived on so vividly in her mind. It was the night before he’d left for the Crimean War. She had been in love—still was—and her virginity was the only thing of value she had to give her lover before he went off to war. It was her gift to give, and Catherine knew she did not want the selfish Edward to be bestowed it. So she had given her body and her maidenhead to Joscelyn, despite the fact that she knew Fairfax had purchased it for his son.
While Joscelyn might have awakened her to the delights of pleasure, Edward made those delights repugnant. His hands were not loving and teasing, but groping and pinching. His breath in her ear was not sweet and stimulating, but panting and sour. And his words…they were not the sensual words Joscelyn had used, but were coarse and guttural. She did not feel adored in Edward’s arms. She felt like a doxy he had bought. And when she sat down and truly thought it through, that was what she was.
“What a desolate little copse,” her mother exclaimed as she tracked Catherine’s gaze. “I’m quite certain my daughter will have it turned around in no time.”
The earl snorted in disbelief. “Cursed, that garden is.”
“Nonsense,” her mother scoffed.
The earl straightened in his chair. “After all these years, my lady, have you not heard the story of that garden?”
“How could you have missed it?” Edward muttered. “He regales every guest with the morose tale.”
Her mother flushed and glanced her way. They knew of the curse, but conversation had lapsed, and there was now an uncomfortable silence, and her mother couldn’t bear it. So, to put an end to it, she said, “My lord, won’t you tell us the tale. The sunset is upon us and I can’t help but think it the saddest little coppice on earth.”
The earl turned in his chair and gazed out the window. Behind him, the sun was setting, washing the garden in a palette of brilliant oranges and fuschias—colors so warm, and so different from the cold bracken and tangled brown vines that littered the stone walls.
“Well,” he said, clearing his throat. “Fairfax House has been passed down through the family, and it’s been said that the garden was once a fine place to have, err, a tryst.”
Fairfax’s face and jowls immediately reddened. “Begging yer pardon, Lady Tate,” he murmured, when Catherine’s mother squealed in shock and covered her throat with a pale hand. Edward’s leer became more obvious as he picked up his wineglass and peered at Catherine over the rim of the crystal.
“Indeed, I’m quite certain it is,” he murmured. “A fine place, indeed.”
Balling her fist on her lap beneath the table, Catherine fought to show no outward signs that she was inwardly fuming. Edward always accosted her in her garden. It was there in her secret hideaway that he was particularly beastly. All hands and teeth—and not one concern for her good name, or maidenly pleas that he stop.
“I believe I’ve heard some talk in the village about it?” her father asked. She noticed how he was settling her mother’s nervous, and thoroughly offended, feathers. They may be poor as church mice, but Lady Tate was as proper as any duchess.
Served her right, Catherine thought peevishly, for tempting the earl into conversation.
“Oh, aye, the village story.” Fairfax nodded, and began to cut up his lamb. “It is said that this very copse was the scene of the May Queen’s fatal demise, and the war between the Winter King and the Green Man. ’Course, that’s just the villagers way of explaining the death of winter, and the life that comes with the spring.”
“You’ll have to excuse Father,” Edward drawled. “He is not the most scintillating storyteller.”
Fairfax frowned, but did not reprimand his son. For all intents, it was Edward who ran the house and the estate. He was the true earl; the man sitting at the head of the table was just an ornament. What her parents didn’t realize yet was that Fairfax was merely a puppet on his son’s string.
“The May Queen,” Edward began, “was beautiful, but then most May Queens are, are they not? Men, of course, were drawn to her and the bounty of her—” Edward paused, flicked his gaze over Catherine’s body, then wet his lips with the tip of his tongue “—overflowing basket, shall we say.”
Her mother’s face went florid, and Catherine watched as her father wrapped an arm around her shoulder. This was the sort of man her parents were tying her to. This crass, ignorant…
A movement in the shadows drew her gaze, making her forget about her fiancé and how she loathed him. There was no one there when she looked toward the curtains, but the gentle swinging of the tasseled tie told her someone had b
een there.
“She was to wed the Winter King,” Edward continued, “who as you know is the ruler of everything cold and dark. They say she felt some measure of affection for the king, as well as a good dose of desire.” Edward met his gaze. “She was a lovely spring maiden, waiting to be plucked by Winter’s cold hand.”
“And then?” her mother asked.
“Well, the Winter King was well known for his appetites. He was relentless in taking what he wanted to satisfy his needs. But he would not be put off. He had vowed to possess the queen, and nothing would stop him—not even the queen herself.”
Catherine knew that Edward was no longer speaking of the fabled Winter King, but himself. And she was the poor queen whose fate hung in the balance.
“Despite his vow, and ardent attentions, the queen remained—” Edward looked at her once more “—aloof, we shall say, afraid of her own passions, and desires for the king. But the king knew just how to unlock the queen’s maidenly protest and claim her virtue.”
Catherine snorted, and her mother shot her a look of warning.
“There was a man, however, who claimed to be able to coax forth the May Queen’s passion. This man who was ruler of all that is warm and light. He took pity on the queen’s plight. It was rumored that this man watched her night after night in the secret garden, spying upon the queen and her ardent suitor. Soon, any pity he had turned to lust and jealousy. One night, he gathered the nerve to visit her in her secret hideaway.”
“Oh, my,” her mother murmured in a breathless whisper. Edward raised his goblet of wine and sipped from it, prolonging the tension, and drawing her mother into the sensual world he was attempting to weave.
“The Green Man, herald of the spring, claimed the king’s woman. The queen spurned her king, but the king learned of their affair and cursed their love and the garden where their sin was committed. In a duel, the Winter King imprisoned the Green Man in the garden, forever cursed to watch over the empty, dying place where his betrayal had taken place.”
“And the queen?” Catherine could not help but ask. “What of her?”
True to Edward’s form, he smiled, showing all his teeth, a predator in a immaculately cut coat and snow-white cravat. “Despondent and ruined, the queen, unable to touch her beloved, ended her life in the garden, taking with her all its beauty and vibrancy. Then the king’s retribution was complete, for the Green Man was forced to forever see the death and destruction his wanton passion had wrought.”
“You have forgotten the ending.”
The voice was deep and velvety, disembodied as it came from the shadows. Catherine’s pulse raced, her palms sweating. It was Joscelyn’s voice. He was here. Hidden. She’d known he had arrived home from the war that past fall, but she had not seen him, despite the fact that she had been at Fairfax House for the past two weeks.
“Ah, my cousin, the resident ghost here at Fairfax House. Will you not come out and take dinner with us?”
The silence was deafening, the air tainted with menace. There was an underlying tension between Edward and his cousin, made all the more pronounced by the gloating expression on her fiancé’s face.
Why would Joscelyn not come out? Especially after how they had left off? Perhaps he had forgotten their forbidden night of pleasure? Mayhap his affections were engaged elsewhere. The thought made Catherine’s heart plummet. If anything, her affections had only grown. She loved him more than ever before, and the thought that he had forgotten her and moved on tore at her. The memories of their shared past and that night of passion were what kept her going in the face of becoming Edward’s wife.
“You will forgive my nephew,” Lord Fairfax grumbled. “He is recently returned from the Crimean, a—”
“Monster,” Edward supplied, at the same time his father provided “wounded soldier.” Despite her resolve not to, Catherine gasped, garnering a pointed look from Edward. Joscelyn had been wounded?
“My cousin has failed to tell you the most interesting part of the villagers’ tale,” Joscelyn continued from his hiding spot. “It is said that though darkness prevails in the garden, the Green Man knows that with the awakening of passion, the fires of love can prevail, burning through the cold darkness at least for a time. It is the Green Man’s belief that if he can summon three lovers into his garden—lovers who possess the same passionate intensity that he and his queen once shared—the curse will be broken, and the garden again will flourish, and he and his lover will be reunited in another realm for all eternity. It’s said, and believed, that the Green Man will fight his way back, and take his lady love from the vile king.”
And then she heard it, as if he had whispered it in her ear, the tale she’d been told as a child about the Green Man and the May Queen. And each spring on the eve of Beltane, it is said that you can hear his voice on the wind over the garden, singing his song of woe. “I am the wind, softly caressing her hair, the breath near her ear whispering words of passion she yearns to hear…”
The curtains swished once more, and she saw the back of him—broad and tall—as he moved away. Once more she heard a verse from the Green Man’s poem.
“I am the sigh as she offers me all
and with no reservation I answer her call.”
“Joscelyn,” she whispered to herself, “call me into the garden, and I will follow you. I will give you all. Anything you ask.”
“The Green Man will not win her,” Edward said through clenched teeth. When his gaze fixed on her, there was a warning in his blue eyes. “All this talk of the May Queen is rather fitting, is it not? The Eve of Beltane is a week away.” Edward glared at her. “’Tis a perfect time for our nuptials, and perhaps an evening spent toiling in the garden.”
She could not tear her eyes from the spot where Joscelyn had disappeared. If she were an innocent maiden, given to fantasy and fairy tales, she might have admitted that the story of the queen and the Winter King and Green Man was a startling parallel to her relationship with Edward and Joscelyn.
But she was not a silly young girl, given to fantasy. She was a realist, and the reality was the Winter King was going to be her husband. But in her dreams, which were hers alone, Joscelyn would be her Green Man. And in the garden, he would awaken her to passion.
2
FROM HIS HIDING SPOT AMONG THE SHADOWS, Joscelyn watched Catherine at the dining table. She smiled at something his uncle said, and she blinded Joscelyn with her radiance and beauty. It was not the first time he had been rendered to such a state by her. No, she had dazzled him before, blinding him to everything but her.
He had thought of her every day and every night. It was memories of her that had kept him alive. After their night together, he had known that he would love her forever, regardless of the fact that she was intended for his cousin. Not the bastard of Fairfax House.
Joscelyn had wondered, during many long sleepless nights, if things would have been different if his mother, the earl’s sister, had not run off with a stable hand and gotten herself pregnant. Would it have mattered if his father had married her, or would the stain of his birth not be removed because he was born of a working-class man? Joscelyn didn’t think so. Breeding was everything in their world, and he lacked it.
When he had arrived at Fairfax House—an orphan, filthy and starving—he had been but a boy. His uncle, bless his soul, had known that. Had taken him in despite how his mother had disgraced her brother and her family.
The earl of Fairfax had not seen a bastard with hungry gray eyes, but a child. A human being who suffered.
Unfortunately, the earl’s humanity was not bequeathed to the son and heir. The man who would possess the woman that Joscelyn wanted above all others was a soulless bastard. Perhaps not in truth, but most definitely in action.
The clanging of silver pulled him from his memories, and he saw an army of servants exit the kitchen, their arms laden with silver dishes and tureens. He ignored the startled glances from the staff who carried in supper. He was used to their stares
, their hidden curiosity. When would they become used to his habits of hiding among the shadows? he wondered. Or was he so monstrous that none would find themselves inured to his face?
Turning, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. His right side was cast in blackness, leaving his wounded left side glimmering in the mirror’s reflection. Studying the mottled skin, Joscelyn traced the web of melted flesh that ran down his cheek and jaw to his neck. There was little feeling left. Most of the skin was thickened and numb, except for one area on his neck, which was about the size of his thumbprint. That spot was highly sensitive. Strange how his burned flesh had healed that way.
Looking up from the burns, he focused on the eye patch. He half expected to see his dark eyes staring back at him, but he had only one eye now, and it was awash in shadow. Only the black eye patch could be seen. He didn’t have the nerve to peel it back and study what lay beneath it. He already knew. His eyelid had been fused shut after the flame had exploded in the trench. His skin had literally melted, blinding him permanently. The flesh around the eye was as puckered and webbed as that on his throat. No, he was a hideous monster, skulking in the darkness.
It had taken him months to accept what he was now. Even longer to come to terms with the fact that he was going to live—with this face and body. Would Catherine accept him, the new Joscelyn Mallory, or would she run screaming from him? Would he see revulsion in her pretty blue eyes, replacing the passion and desire he had once seen shining in them?
As he stared at himself, his mind drifted back to another time, when he had not looked like this. A time when he’d been young and carefree. Wild. Reckless. He could almost see her staring at him, and suddenly, the mirror became a portal to the past.
Pale blue eyes, the color of crystals, flashed innocently at him from behind a crimson silk curtain that billowed in the summer breeze. He remembered that day, the first time he had seen her, sitting on the window bench in the conservatory of his uncle’s home. He’d been an inexperienced lad then, yet he’d recognized the charged sexual tension coiling in his body the instant his gaze found hers peeking at him from behind the crimson silk. With a glance she had given him life. A reason for existing.
The Pleasure Garden: Sacred VowsPerfumed PleasuresRites of Passions Page 11