Black Rose gt-2

by Nora Roberts

  She should be down there, of course, doing some bustling herself, babying her stock, calculating inventory. Having a manager—even an exceptional one like Stella—didn’t mean she shouldn’t have her finger on every pulse.

  But she’d wanted the air, the movement of it around her after hours in the denseness of the propagation house. And she wanted this view of what she’d built. What she’d worked for, gambled on.

  Today, under a sky so freshly blue it might have been painted on glass, it was beautiful. And every hour she’d spent over all these years sweating, worrying, calculating, struggling was worth it.

  It was solid and successful, and very much the sprawling garden she’d wanted to create. A business, yes, a business first and foremost, but a lovely one. One that reflected her style, her vision, her legacy.

  If some insisted on seeing it as her hobby, let them. If some, even most, thought of her as the woman who’d glided around the country club in a gold gown and diamonds, that was fine. She didn’t mind slipping on the glamour now and again. In fact, she could enjoy it.

  But the truth of her, the core of her, was standing here, wearing ancient jeans and a faded sweatshirt, a ballcap over her hair and scarred boots on her feet.

  The truth of her was a working woman with bills to pay, a business to run, and a home to maintain. It was that woman she was proud of when she took the time to be proud. The Rosalind Harper of the country club and society set was a duty to her name. This, all the rest, was life.

  She took a breath, braced herself, and deliberately pushed her mind in a specific direction. She would see what happened, and how both she and Amelia would deal with it.

  So she thought: If this was life, hers to live, why couldn’t she gamble yet again? Expand that life by taking into it, fully, the man who excited and comforted her, who intrigued and amused her?

  The man who had somehow strolled through the maze that grief and work and duty and pride had built around her heart.

  The man she loved.

  She could live her life alone if need be, but what did it prove? That she was self-sufficient, independent, strong, and able. She knew those things, had been those things—and would always be those things.

  And she could be courageous, too.

  Didn’t it take courage, wasn’t it harder to blend one life with another, to share and to cope, to compromise than to live that life alone? It was work to live with a man, to wake up every day prepared to deal with routine, and to be open to surprises.

  She’d never shied away from work.

  Marriage was a different kettle at this stage of life. There would be no babies made between them. But they could share grandchildren one day. They wouldn’t grow up together, but could grow old together.

  They could be happy.

  They always lie. They’re never true.

  Roz stood in the same spot, on a gentle rise at the edge of the woods. But In the Garden was gone. There were fields, stark with winter, barren trees, and the feel of ice on the air.

  “Not all men,” Roz said quietly. “Not always.”

  I’ve known more than you.

  She walked across the fields, insubstantial as the mist that began to spread, a shallow sea, over the bare, black ground. Her white gown was filthy, as were her naked feet. Her hair was a tangle of oily gold around a face bright with madness.

  Fear blew through Roz like a sudden, vicious storm. But she planted her feet. She’d ride it out.

  The light had gone out of the day. Heavy clouds rolled over the sky, smothering the blue with black, a black tinged with violent green.

  “I’ve lived longer than you,” Roz said, and though she couldn’t stop the shudder as Amelia approached, she stood her ground.

  And learned so little. You have all you need. A home, children, work that satisfies you. What do you need with a man?

  “Love matters.”

  There was a laugh, a wet chortle that screamed across Roz’s nerves.Love is the biggest lie. He will fuck you, and use you, and cheat and lie. He will give you pain until you are hollow and empty, until you are dried up and ugly. And dead.

  Pity stirred under the fear. “Who betrayed you? Who brought you to this?”

  All. They’re all the same. They’re the whores, though they label us so. Didn’t they come to me, ram their cocks into me, while their wives slept alone in their saintly beds?

  “Did they force you? Did—”

  Then they take what’s yours. What wasmine!

  She slammed both fists into her belly, and the force of the rage, the grief, and the fury knocked Roz back two full steps.

  Here was the storm, spewing out of the sky, bursting out of the ground, swirling though the fog and into the filthy air. It clogged Roz’s lungs as if she were breathing mud.

  She heard the crazed screams through it.

  Kill them all! Kill them all in their sleep. Hack them to bits, bathe in their blood. Take back what’s mine. Damn them, damn them all to hell!

  “They’re gone. They’re dust.” Roz tried to shout, but could barely choke out the words. “Am I what’s left?”

  The storm stopped as abruptly as it began, and the Amelia who stood in the calm was one who sang lullabies to children. Sad and pale in her gray dress.

  You’re mine. My blood. She held out a hand, and red welled in the palm.My bone. Out of my womb, out of my heart. Stolen, ripped away. Find me. I’m so lost.

  Then Roz was alone, standing on the springy grass at the edge of the woods with what she’d built spread out below her.

  SHE WENT BACKto work because work steadied her. The only way she could wrap her mind around what happened at the edge of the woods was to do something familiar, something that kept her hands occupied while her brain sorted through the wonder of it.

  She kept to herself because solitude soothed her.

  Through the afternoon she divided more stock plants, rooted cuttings. Watered, fed, labeled.

  When she was done, she walked home through the woods and raided her personal greenhouse. She planted cannas in a spot she wanted to dramatize, larkspur and primroses where she wanted more charm. In the shade, she added some ladybells and cranesbill for serenity.

  Her serenity, she thought, could always be found here, in the gardens, in the soil, in the shadow of Harper House. Under that fresh blue sky she knelt on the ground, and studied what was hers.

  So lovely with its soft yellow stone, its sparkling glass, its bridal white trim.

  What secrets were trapped in those rooms, in those walls? What was buried in this soil she worked, season after season, with her own hands?

  She had grown up here, as her father had, and his father, and those who’d come before. Generation after generation of shared blood and history. She had raised her children here, and had worked to preserve this legacy so that the children of her children would call this home.

  Whatever had been done to pass all of this to her, she would have to know. And then accept.

  Settled again, she replaced her tools, then went into the house to shower off the day.

  She found Mitch working in the library.

  “Sorry to interrupt. There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

  “Good, I need to talk to you, too.” He swiveled away from his laptop, found a file in the piles on the desk.

  “You go first,” she told him.

  “Hmm? Oh, fine.” He scooped a hand through his hair, took off his glasses. Gestures she knew now meant he was organizing his thoughts.

  “I’ve done just about all I can do here,” he began. “I could spend months more on your family history, filling in details, moving back generations. In fact, I plan to do just that. But regarding the purpose for which you hired me, I’m at an impasse. She wasn’t family, Roz. Not a Harper,” he amended. “Not by birth, not through marriage. Absolutely none of the data—names, dates, births, marriages, deaths—nothing I have places a woman named Amelia in this house, or in the Harper family. No woman of her appro
ximate age died in this house during the time period we’ve pinpointed.”

  “I see.” She sat, wishing vaguely she’d thought to get coffee.

  “Now, if Stella is mistaken regarding the name—”

  “She isn’t.” Roz shook her head. “It’s Amelia.”

  “I agree. But there’s no Amelia Harper, by birth, by marriage, in any record. Oddly enough, considering the length of time this house has stood here, there’s no record of any female in her twenties or thirties who died here. In the house. Older or younger, yes, a few.”

  He set the file on top of a pile. “Ah, one of the most entertaining deaths to occur here was back in 1859, one of your male ancestors, a Beauregard Harper, who broke his neck, and several other bones, falling off the second floor terrace. From the letters I’ve read describing the event, Beau was up there with a woman not his wife engaged in a sexual romp that got a little overenthusiastic. He went over the rail, taking his date with him. He was dead when members of the household reached him, but being a portly fellow, he broke the fall of the female houseguest, who landed on top of him and only suffered a broken leg.”

  “And terminal embarrassment, I imagine.”

  “Must have. I have the names of the women, the Harper women, who died here listed for you. I have some records on female servants who died here, but none fit the parameters. I got some information from the Chicago lawyer I told you about.”

  He began to dig for another file. “The descendant of the housekeeper during Reginald Harper’s time. She actually discovered she had three ancestors who worked here—the housekeeper, the housekeeper’s uncle who was a groundsman, and a young cousin who served as a kitchen maid. From this, I’ve been able to get you a detailed history of that family as well. While none of it applies, I thought you’d like to have it.”

  “Yes, I would.”

  “The lawyer’s still looking for data when she has time, she’s entrenched now. We could get lucky.”

  “You’ve done considerable work.”

  “You’ll be able to look at the charts and locate your great-great-uncle’s second cousin on his mother’s side, and get a good sense of his life. But that doesn’t help you.”

  “You’re wrong.” She studied the mountain of files, and the board, crowded with papers and photos and handwritten charts behind Mitch. “It does help me. It’s something I should have seen to a long time ago. I should have known about the unfortunate and adulterous Beau, and the saloon-owning Lucybelle, and all the others you’ve brought to life for me.”

  She rose to go to the board and study the faces, the names. Some were as familiar as her own, and others had been virtual strangers to her.

  “My father, I see now, was more interested in the present than the past. And my grandfather died while I was so young, I don’t remember having him tell me family stories. Most of what I got was from my grandmother, who wasn’t a Harper by birth, or from older cousins. I’d go through the old papers now and again, always meaning to make time to do more, read more. But I didn’t.”

  She stepped back from the board. “Family history, everyone who came before matters, and until recently I haven’t given them enough respect.”

  “I agree with the first part, but not the second. This house shows the great respect you have for your family. Essentially, what I’m telling you is I can’t find her for you. I believe, from what I’ve observed, what I feel, Amelia is your ancestor. But she’s not your family. I won’t find her name in family documents. And I don’t believe she was a servant here.”

  “You don’t.”

  “Consider the time, the era, the societal mores. As a servant, it’s certainly possible that she was impregnated by a member of the family, but it’s doubtful she would have been permitted to remain on staff, to remain in the house during her pregnancy. She would’ve been sent away, given monetary compensation—maybe. But it doesn’t hold for me.”

  After one last glance at the board, she walked back to her chair and sat. “Why not?”

  “Reginald was head of the house. All the information I have on him indicates he was excessively proud, very aware of what we could say was his lofty standing in this area. Politics, business, society. To be frank, Roz, I don’t see him banging the parlor maid. He’d have been more selective. Certainly, said banging could have been done by a relative, an uncle, a brother-in-law, a cousin. But my gut tells me the connection with Amelia’s tighter than that.”

  “Which leaves?”

  “A lover. A woman not his wife, but who suited his needs. A mistress.”

  She was silent for a long moment. “You know what I find interesting, Mitchell? That we’ve come, from different directions, to the same point. You’ve gone through so many reams of documents that it gives me a headache just to think of them. Phone calls, computer searches, courthouse searches. Graphs and charts and Christ only knows. And by doing all that you’ve not only given me a picture of my family I’ve never looked at, people whose names I didn’t know, but who are, in a very real sense, responsible for my life. But you’ve eliminated dozens of possibilities, dozens of perhapses as to who this poor woman was, so that we can whittle it down to the right answer. Do you think, when we do, she’ll have peace?”

  “I don’t know the answer to that. Why are you so sad? It rips me to see you so sad.”

  “I’m not entirely sure. This is what happened today,” she said, and told him.

  “I was so afraid.” She took a long breath. “I was afraid the night she locked us out of the children’s room, and when you and I came in from the terrace and she had that fit of temper, tossing things around. I was afraid that night in the tub, when she held me under. I thought I wouldn’t be that afraid again. But today, today when I stood there watching her walk toward me over the field, through the fog, I was petrified. I saw her face, the madness in it, a kind of insane purpose. The sort, I think now, that overcomes even death.”

  She gave herself a little shake. “I know how that sounds, but I think that’s what she’s done, somehow. She’s overcome death with madness, and she can’t break free.”

  “She didn’t touch you this time. She didn’t hurt you?”

  Roz shook her head. “Not even at the peak of her rage. I couldn’t breathe—felt like I was drawing in dirt, but part of that might’ve been sheer panic on my part. She spoke of killing, bathing in blood. There’s never been any talk of murder in this house, but I wonder—oh, God, could they have killed her? One of my family?”

  “She was the one talking of doing murder,” he reminded her, “not of being murdered.”

  “True, but you can’t trust a crazy woman to have all the facts straight. She said I was her blood. Whether it’s true or not, she believes it.” She took a deep breath. “So do you.”

  He got up from the desk to come around to her. Taking her hands, he drew her out of the chair and into his arms. “What do you believe?”

  Comfort, she thought as she rested her head on his shoulder. There could be such comfort in a man if you allowed yourself to take it. “She has my father’s eyes. I saw it at the end today. I’ve never seen it before, maybe never let myself. Did he take her child, Mitch, my great-grandfather? Could he have been so cold?”

  “If all this is fact, she could have given the baby up. They might have had an arrangement, and she came to regret it. There are still a lot of possibilities.”

  “I want to know the truth now. Have to know it, whatever it takes.”

  She drew back, managed a smile. “Just how the hell do we go about finding a woman who may have been my great-grandfather’s lover?”

  “We have a first name, an approximate age, and we assume she lived in the Memphis area. We start with that.”

  “Is that natural optimism, or are you trying to smooth my feathers?”

  “Some of both.”

  “All right, then. I’m going to go pour myself a glass of wine. Do you want anything?”

  “I could use about a gallon of water to offset
the five gallons of coffee I’d downed today. I’ll come with you.” He draped an arm around her shoulders as they walked to the kitchen.

  “I might have to put this aside until after Stella and Logan’s wedding. It’s snuck right up on me. Seems to me, however demanding the dead may be, the living ought to have priority.” She got out a bottle of water and a fresh lemon. “I can’t believe those boys aren’t going to be part of the household in a few more days.”

  She poured and sliced, then offered him the glass.

  “Thanks. I think they’ll be around enough you’ll feel like they are.”

  “I like to think.” She poured her wine, but the phone rang before she took the first sip. “Where is David anyway?” she asked, and answered herself.

  She listened for a moment, then smiled slowly at Mitch. “Hello, Jane,” she said and lifted her wine in a toast.

  “THIS IS SOexciting. It’s like a spy thriller or something.” Hayley bounced on her toes as she, Roz, and Stella rode the elevator up to Clarise Harper’s apartment. “I mean, we spend the morning getting manicures and pedicures, and the afternoon sneaking around to hunt up secret documents. It’s totally glamorous.”

  “Say that later if we’re arrested and spending the night in jail with Big Bertha,” Stella suggested. “If Logan has to marry me through jailhouse bars tomorrow, I’m going to be royally pissed.”

  “I told you not to come,” Roz reminded her.

  “And miss this?” After a bracing breath, Stella stepped off the elevator. “I may be fussy, but I’m no coward. Besides, Hayley has a point. It is exciting.”

  “Going into a crabby old woman’s overfurnished apartment and taking away what’s rightfully mine—along with a scared little rabbit—doesn’t strike me as exciting. Jane could have gotten them out herself, saved us the trip. There’s enough to do with the wedding tomorrow.”

  “I know, and I appreciate, so much, you giving us the day off so we could primp.” On impulse, Stella kissed Roz’s cheek. “We’ll work twice as hard after the wedding to make up for it.”

  “You might just have to. Now just pray the old ghoul is out getting her hair permed, as advertised, or this will be ugly.”