He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life: but he that openeth wide his lips shall have destruction.
The verse I’d given him. How pitiful it looked, dwarfed in the rugged, oversized room so full of his overwhelming kindness. I walked over to it and ripped it down, cringing at the petty admonishment.
In that moment, I released my anger about the stolen fortune as my vision realigned to reality. He’d taken from a spoiled, wealthy girl who owed him for his work anyway to disperse among people who truly needed it. He’d also left me what I needed, for hadn’t he counted out the amount of the debt and placed it in the hiding spot he knew I’d check next?
My heart softened even more. Yet the selfish part of me still hoped he’d return with the portion he hadn’t earned and thus redeem himself fully.
34
If a branch wishes to survive a graft, it must become one with the vine, growing to resemble it so thoroughly that you cannot tell where the branch ends and the vine begins.
—Notebook of a viticulturist
I slept restlessly that night with the windows open, my limbs tangled in the sheets as much as my mind was tangled in facts concerning Donegan Vance.
By the time a pair of sparrows landed on my windowsill in the glow of sunrise, I recalled one more piece of Donegan in my grasp. His note still languished in the poor wardrobe drawer, utterly forgotten all this time and I hastened to retrieve it, wondering what his parting words to me would be.
You mustn’t trust Dr. Caine. I’ve been to Haywood and he isn’t known here. There’s only one doctor in this entire area, and it isn’t him. Yet he is somehow connected, because his name was in your father’s notebooks.
Shock jarred me and I reread the note several times. If this was true, everything else fit into place, for all the accusations against Donegan had come from Dr. Caine. But how could that be? Dr. Caine hadn’t asked a thing about the fortune, nor had I caught him snooping for it.
When I’d dressed in a simple linen dress and snatched a basket full of breakfast food from the sidebar of the morning room, I snuck out. I’d bring Father some food and ask him what to do about replacing Mr. Prescott’s money too. Passing the study, I stepped in and I tucked the foreign pound notes into a little sack. Taking them with me would keep them out of the hands of any lingering fortune hunters. I still couldn’t convince myself to place Dr. Caine in that category, but I must hold him at arm’s length until I knew for sure.
“Amos.” I touched the butler’s arm in the hall and forced a cheerful smile. “The day is simply too beautiful to shield myself from it, so I believe I will soak it in. Tell Mother I’ve decided to take breakfast on the water. I’ll return by the noonday meal.”
The man nodded with an indulgent smile and extended a plain pink parasol to me from the stand near the door. “Yes, miss. Bring us any extra sunshine when you return.”
Down on the windy beach, as the start of a storm rolled across the sky, I tied the little sack firmly to my belt to free my hands and gripped my parasol and basket. Settling myself neatly in the boat, I tucked the fabric of my skirt under me and took hold of the oars to push out into the water. The wind magnified as I left the shore, threatening to rip my hat from my head. I tied my hat firmly onto my head and knotted the ribbon under my chin to hold the wayward accessory in place.
Struggling against the breeze, I rowed with sure, purposeful strokes toward the little cave. No wonder I’d never discovered the island before. Maneuvering carefully through the cave, I steered the hull toward the narrow green line in the distance. Nearly a half hour it took to row through the wind to the shore that I had so recently discovered.
After anchoring my little craft in the sand, I looped the basket over my arm and ran down the mossy path where the massive trees blocked the wind. The magical setting of this place enchanted me. Oh how I wished I could paint my entire room with the scene before me, and lay the moss on the floor as my carpet, so that I may always live and walk among this beauty every day, rising to see it in the morning and falling asleep in the midst of it.
I reached the cottage and pushed the front door open. “Father?” Lumps of leftover dinner remained in the chilled fireplace and messy stacks of papers crowded the tabletop. When I’d searched the tiny cottage, reality struck me with confusion and then horror—Father was not here.
But that couldn’t be. Dropping the basket on the floor, I sprinted out the door and through the woods. At the beach I saw only crushed reeds where the second boat had been the night I’d found Father. The sky had turned an ominous shade of green and the air pulsed with the sense of an impending storm. Rain fell in torrents as the wind picked up. Panic clawed at my mind as I shoved my boat back into the water and clambered over the side, swaying it precariously in the powerful wind now sweeping over the choppy water.
Bracing myself inside, I grabbed the oars and stabbed them into the water, rowing myself forward with powerful strokes. After fighting the wind for a while, pain stretched across my chest and down my upper arms, anxiety driving me to a faster speed than I’d ever gone in a boat. I’d passed through the cave but could not yet see Trevelyan through the storm. With another searing pain, I lost my grip and the oars jerked from my hands with the pull of the water. I fumbled to grasp them in the twisting boat, but the left oar struck a rock and it wrenched away with a snap of metal and screws. As I cried out and lunged for it, I heard my name tangled in the wind on a masculine voice. I spun, hair whipping over my face, and saw Dr. Caine coming toward me in a large boat with a pointed metal hull and sails unfurled like dragon’s wings.
Uncertainty clutched me at the sight of him, but he steered his vessel closer, determination hardening his features. He leaned over his steering wheel and waved me over, yelling over the waves. “Bring your boat closer.”
“What are you doing out here? There’s a storm coming.”
“Looking for you.”
Panic chilled my wet skin.
“Have you forgotten already?” He steered his boat closer to mine, navigating it through the choppy waters. “I needed to show you something. It’s what you’ve been searching for.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Now it’s time to show you.”
“Show me what?”
As his boat skimmed up behind mine, he leaned down, cupping his hands to his mouth to yell, “How your father died.” Then he spun his steering wheel with a hard jerk and angled toward me. I paddled with my single oar, but I struck rocks with a jarring thud.
Fear spiked through me like shards of ice. I shoved away from the rocks and paddled again, my little vessel sloshing violently about. “Stop!”
He spun the steering wheel again and I leaped overboard as he rammed my little boat with his metal hull. Cold and pain battered my body as I tumbled over rocks and waves, trying to catch at something. I pawed desperately at the remains of my upturned vessel when I found it, but with a groan and a slap it flailed, the hull tipping down into the water, and the waves began to swallow it.
In that moment, hovering alone in the vast channel and left for dead, the water’s chill snaked into my bones. Fear squeezed with a constant pressure like the water that surrounded me. Dr. Caine’s boat swayed and tossed in the distance as he sailed toward Trevelyan’s shore. Despairing of survival, yet clinging to hope as I had for weeks, I dove under the frothy water and stroked with every ounce of strength, forcing myself forward by sheer willpower. Everything seemed to conspire to hinder me, from the skirt tangling my legs to seaweed that grabbed at my surging body.
When I broke the surface for air, I refused to look around. I merely ordered my body to sink back into the water after a few painful breaths and swim hard. I repeated the effort time and again, hoping I was close but afraid to look.
Then it happened. I reached the end of my endurance and it overwhelmed me at once. Pain pierced my side after the absence of regular oxygen and my right leg cramped to the point of torture. Reaching the surface again, I cried out.
This time Trevelyan loomed within my blurry sight, the nearby trees bending toward me in the wind, as if reaching hands out to urge me on. The tide jerked my agonized body back and forth as I forced myself to stroke forward, angling to ease the stitch in my side.
As I swam toward the shore, glimpsing the detail of the craggy rock faces that held up my castle, a powerful, unnameable force tugged on me, growing stronger as I progressed and lighting panic in me. I’d reached the mudflats. I fought it desperately, dipping and rising again for more air and crying out in anguish, but it pulled me about effortlessly, as if I was mere seaweed. In a flash, an image of Father exploded through my mind. Dear, damaged Father, who had for a moment reached out to me. Oh, how desperately I wanted to survive so I could find him.
God! cried my desperate heart. God, save me. You are bigger than all of this. Bigger than the channel, bigger than death.
Water poured through my nose and mouth as I sucked for air and went under again. Blackness pushed against my consciousness. Father!
“Tressa!”
Deep, confident, strong—the sound of my name above the water.
“Grab on to me.” The muffled voice commanded, but I couldn’t comply. I hadn’t the strength. Confusion and darkness swirled over me, overtaking my reasoning.
When you feel you’re dying in the heat of summer, all a branch needs to do is to hold on. That’s all, simply hold on. Those words spoken in some remote part of the woods poured through me with dreamlike beauty as I floated underwater.
“Grab on to me.” The voice called again through the muddle of water. God?
Summoning every ounce of strength in my worn-out body, I surged mightily up out of the water and grabbed. My body crashed into something solid and wet and I wrapped my arms around it, crying as I realized it was a person who then caught me up when I could do no more. Powerful movements underneath jerked us forward through the water as I coughed, spewing salty water out of my burning lungs. I clung harder to the unknown figure and trembled, forcing myself to believe I was alive.
Soon the mighty beast under us found traction and fought through the mud flats with snorts and grunts that identified the creature as a horse, and all at once my foggy mind knew who had rescued me, to whom I now held.
“Don’t let go, Tressa.” Donegan’s voice vibrated through his chest as I clung to him.
I forced my eyes open as the fight returned to my body and looked up at him. The rain had stopped, leaving only a chilling wind in its wake. I tried to speak, but directly behind us, I saw Dr. Caine’s boat skimming toward us, the man himself bent over the steering wheel with determination. I inhaled to cry out, but fits of coughing wracked my body. When he was bearing down on us, a mighty yell came from the shore, carried on the wind, and terror ripped across Dr. Caine’s features as he looked up, jerking the wheel in his shock. I followed his gaze to see what calamity awaited us, and there on the rocks overlooking the channel stood my father, big and burly like a bear, yelling a warning at us.
There was a splintering crunch behind us. I twisted around and saw Dr. Caine’s boat had struck rocks covered by the choppy waves. The vessel tipped and bobbed, tossing its driver onto the floor as it rocked like a toy in the water. He rose as another wave slapped the side and knocked the unsteady man overboard with a cry, dumping him into the frothy waves. Panic and disbelief wracked my body, leaving it trembling and weak. My hold on Donegan loosened.
“Don’t look. Keep your eyes on the shore.” Donegan’s hard voice cut through the wind and drew me to obey.
The shore—oh, the blessed shore that was almost within reach. I focused on it, and on the dark figure on its rocks who was now climbing down from his great height on the cliffs.
The stallion huffed against the power of the water as his hooves pawed at the rocky shore and pulled us onto the beach. Finally he leaped onto the sand and danced about, water pouring off his body. Donegan slid from his horse and lifted me down with him, cradling me in his great arms and placing me gently on the cool sand. For a moment I did nothing but experience the sensation of wind on my wet skin and bask in the realization that I had survived.
My body curled into ungraceful fits of coughing as more water poured out of my mouth and nose, raining down my neck. With a trembling hand I pounded my chest, willing the water to leave my lungs. Donegan held me up. When I forced my gritty eyes open and looked into his dear, dear face, the hard lines of worry melted into the most brilliant glow of joy I’d ever seen.
When I’d gained weak control of myself again, I blinked and looked up into his eyes that studied me with the familiar penetrating gaze. “You’re here. After I told you to leave.” My voice was a pathetic croak.
He thumbed wet hair off my face and gave me a bewitching smile. “I don’t listen well.”
I laughed, but it was overtaken by coughs. I forced myself to sit upright and he looped his arm around my back until the coughing receded. He was always like this, seeing me at my absolute worst and tenderly helping me anyway. How had I been so blind? I, who prided myself in my ability to see through the façade of half of London’s elite, was blinder than the simplest socialite.
“Have you been hiding here all this time? Where did you stay?”
“I was summoned back, and I’m sworn to secrecy to protect my innocent accomplice.”
“Lucy.”
He shrugged and smiled. “I never break a promise.”
I thought of his promise to Father to protect me. “So it would seem.” I smiled up at him as he lifted me and strode across the beach.
“I hope you have no objections to being carried.”
“I’m afraid I haven’t the strength to walk. Or the desire.” I offered up a timid smile that was something between a gentle invitation and an apology.
He smiled down at me as he moved with powerful leaps up the rocks toward Father. “It seems you do not hate me any longer. Have you forgotten all my sins already?”
“All I can seem to remember right now is that you risked your life to rescue me.”
“Purely selfish on my part.” Donegan huffed up the rocky shoreline toward Father where the rocks shielded us from the wind. I gazed at Father’s beloved form in tattered clothing whipped about by the wind, the white hair like froth on his craggy face, and my daughter-heart thudded with hope again as he moved toward us with purpose, his face anxious.
Donegan set me on my feet on a plateau as Father reached us and he caught me up in his great arms, anchoring me to him with a low groan shuddering through him. Casting aside all protocol, everything of the past, I slipped my arms about his great form and embraced him with my entire heart. I held onto him thus for several moments of blissful relief, smelling the familiar leathery scent of him and delighting in his presence. I buried my face in his chest and sighed. “You’re here. I’m so glad you’re here.”
“I had to come see how my little Tressa fared since she sent away her protector.” He tightened his hold on me and kissed my head with great tenderness. “I couldn’t leave you alone.”
I smiled into his shirt and silently thanked God for everything that had happened, even the bad, for it had brought me to life. “I don’t believe I ever was.”
He pulled me back, massive hands framing my face as he frowned at me. “Such strength you have.” The words were wrested from him like rusted metal forced into operation again, so rare were these praises. I relished them all the more for their scarcity. In that moment, I determined I’d never lose him again.
“You must have had a reason for killing Cassius, Father. I just know it. I know you were poor once and you wanted to be rid of that curse, but there has to be more to the story. Please, won’t you tell me what it is? I wish to help you.”
He slid his heavy hands down to my shoulders and moved me back to stare down at me with a solemn face. With a great sigh, he dropped his hands to his side and closed his eyes. “It seems I must finally tell you what I’ve done. But you must promise not to tell a soul.”
&nbs
p; 35
Healthy branches aren’t required when it comes to grafting—just a healthy vine. For it is from the vine that the life and strength flows, and a healthy vine can heal the weakest branch.
—Notebook of a viticulturist
Father led me to an alcove in the rocks that protected us from the dying storm as the breeze blew over my tired body. I dried myself as best I could with the cloak he handed me, then I waited, pulse thumping to the rhythm of the waves below. What could he possibly say that would explain everything?
Donegan cleared his throat, shattering the tension. “I should take care of my horse.”
When he left, I turned to Father, looking up into his long-beloved face so worn and troubled. I couldn’t imagine any scenario in which I could accept his violence against poor, forgotten Cassius, but I so desperately wished for it. I clung to his hand impulsively and begged. “Please, Father. Please tell me there is some reason for what you did. I cannot bear to think of you as a murderer. This has all been too unbearable, and I cannot—”
“Tressa.” He stilled my avalanche of anxious words with a gentle squeeze of his hand. “Listen to me. You must understand that Cassius was a weak branch barely clinging to life, who was dying a slow death. What is it we do with weak branches, Tressa girl?”
Dropping his hand, I closed my eyes against the memory of Father lifting a branch with one finger and drawing out his knife. “Prune them off. Throw them on the fire.”
“For some. But for others?”
Wind rustled the sand at my feet as my heart pounded harder, my mind then flooded with images of Cassius, his cold, silent eyes staring at me from the painting.
Father’s voice cut through. “I regraft it. I attach it to a different vine.”
I frowned. “What do you mean? What did you do to him?”
His blue eyes shone with intensity. “I gave him a chance at life. Cassius Malvern was pruned off and regrafted to become a new creation—Josiah Harlowe.”
A Rumored Fortune Page 30