A small smile curved Olwyn’s lips. Talfryn had indeed been a formidable woman. “It was she who taught me how to handle a pistol and a dagger.”
“We’ll find her,” Aidan said firmly.
And in that moment, Olwyn felt the thrill of possibility all around her, and pure happiness filled her in a way that it never had before. Daylight poured in through windows, and her Lóchrann of the darkness was with her.
No more nightmares. No more fears.
His broad chest was bare, the scar from her father’s scalpel faded to a pale pink, a thin line that told the tale of the day she’d watched him bleed, and knew he lived.
She’d saved his life, and in return it seemed, he’d saved hers right back. He gave to her until she was full, and the only thing left to do was to simply be grateful.
“Thank you, Lóchrann.”
He grinned. “You’re so serious.”
She had to smile back. If this was marriage, the laughing, the sharing, the honesty, and the sensual delights found in bed, Olwyn understood why people vowed to do it until death. “Seriously in love.”
“And seriously beautiful.”
Olwyn reached for him, and he readily took her in his arms, wrapping her once again in the safety and shelter of his embrace.
The thing about fairy tales, she thought with an inward sigh of joy, was that happily-ever-after was how they ended. The story was the part written for anyone to read.
His naked body was warm and hard against hers, his skin soft and scented with incense. Her hands stroked over his back, and she felt the play of his muscles as he stroked her in turn.
She was wise enough now to know that the endings of the stories were just the beginning of the very best part, and the reason the rest wasn’t told was simple. It was private.
Epilogue
Beauport, England, 1807
Bees droned and cicadas sang during the hottest part of the day, and Olwyn fanned herself as she sat in the shade just outside the cottage, waiting for Aidan to return from the distillery. The sun streamed through the overhead canopy of leaves, casting the meadow in gilded greenish light. The roses were in full bloom, climbing over the cottage in thick, heavy abundance.
The babe kicked hard, stealing Olwyn’s breath with its force, and she pressed against the dome of her belly. Lad or lass, she had no way of knowing, but the doctor assured her the child would be born in the fall.
Rising from her chair, she made her way into the cool interior of the cottage and returned to work. The quill lay bleeding beside the papers that had consumed her attention the past six months. Her fable, The Dragon of Cymru, was complete, and she was putting the final touches on the illustrations.
She never would have guessed that the time she’d spent drawing her father’s corpses would have served her well. Her pictures vibrated with life, rich with detail and symmetrical musculature.
Lifting her quill, she immersed herself in the fictional world of angry dragons, misunderstood witches, and lost, trapped princesses who kissed their princes awake.
Her child stirred in her belly, her mind whirled with fresh ideas, and the afternoon droned by outside the cottage, warm and sundrenched and lazy until Aidan appeared in the doorway.
“A moment more, Lóchrann,” she bade, holding a hand in the air. She put the final touches on the dragon’s wings, and then set the quill aside. “I’m ready.”
Olwyn slid from her stool as Aidan came to look at her work. His hand smoothed across her belly as she showed him her latest drawing.
She suddenly swiveled in his arms and kissed him deeply. He pulled back, laughing.
“I know what you’re up to.”
“Mmm, whiskey,” Olwyn murmured. “Kiss me again.”
He obliged her, kissing her until her head spun in a way that had nothing to do with the spirits that pleasantly flavored his tongue. Her head fell back. “I’m drunk on love and fumes.”
“That’s all the whiskey you’ll get until the babe comes. As to the kisses, you can have as many as you want.”
“’Tis the worst part of pregnancy.” Olwyn pouted a little bit, feeling quite in the mood for a drink, a book, and an ottoman on which to rest her feet.
“Worse than the vomiting?”
Olwyn wrinkled her nose. The early stage of her pregnancy had been a rough few months she’d not yet forgotten. “No. Not worse than that.”
“Right, so stop complaining. I’ve a great bottle saved, and when the laddie comes we’ll crack it open to celebrate.”
With her arm in his, they strolled from the cottage and climbed into the sporty little curricle. Aidan chirped to the horses, and the conveyance bounced into motion as they rode along the newly cut path Aidan had had made so that Olwyn could get to the cottage without trouble.
“Can we go by the gardens?”
Aidan glanced over to her and smiled. He drove to the gardens without a word, and as they approached, Olwyn’s heart swelled with happiness. There in the enormous field were two huge gardens that ran side by side, one brilliant and heavy with roses, the other burgeoning with vegetables. The air was ripe with scents of fecund earth, sun-ripened tomatoes, and sweet, seductive blooms.
Talfryn worked side by side with the other gardeners, chatting as they pruned.
“Mama,” Olwyn cried out.
Talfryn turned to greet them. She wore a floppy hat and a cotton gown, making for a pretty, slim figure in the field of multicolored blooms, and her smile brightened the very sunlight itself. “Olwyn, I’ve fresh flowers for you,” she called.
They’d found Talfryn in London. She’d found work for a wealthy family who owned a large solarium, and had spent the years tending to their gardens.
Just as Talfryn’s letter had admonished Olwyn to find the clues in the stories she’d told her long ago, Olwyn had followed the trail of flowers and growing things to find her mother.
Now, reunited with her daughter and getting ready to welcome her first grandchild, not a day went by that Talfryn couldn’t be heard laughing.
It was, quite simply, music to Olwyn’s ears.
Olwyn held her hands on her belly. The kicking had stopped with the motion of the curricle.
Aidan put his arm around her and pulled her closer to him. She looked up to him, her Adonis by sunlight, her Lóchrann of the darkness.
“I’ve been thinking,” Aidan said.
“About?”
“The child.”
“What of him?”
“I was thinking he’ll need a dog of his own.”
Olwyn laughed. “So you want a dog, Lóchrann?”
“Aye, well, I suppose it’s not just for the child.” Aidan leaned back against the seat, and looked around the property as if he were seeing it for the first time. His demeanor grew solemn. “I’ve been thinking quite a bit about becoming a father. It’s not all giving the babe a dog and riding lessons. I’ll have to instill values and morals, and see to it he grows up to be a man of honor. And Lord help me if the babe’s born a lass; I’ll have to lock her in a tower to keep the boys away.” A slight frown troubled his brow. “It’s a lot consider, this becoming a da. I’d never really thought about it until the seed was planted, aye?”
“I’m scared, too,” Olwyn admitted. “And I’m terrified at the thought of the birth.”
“Ah, love, I wish I could do it for you.”
“No, you don’t.”
He laughed. “Aye, well, maybe not as much, but if I could, I would.” Aidan touched her face, a quick, gentle stroke of his hard fingers over her soft skin. “I hate the idea of you being in pain.”
Reaching up, she caught his fingers in her own and held them tight. “You’ll be a great da.”
His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Do you think?”
“I know.”
Aidan sighed and leaned his forehead against hers. “Well, I guess we’re in too deep to back out now, aye?”
“It seems so.” Olwyn breathed in his scent, his skin warm from the
sun. He was her heart, her soul, her world.
“Well, there’s one thing for certain,” he said softly, his deep voice as smooth as the mellow whiskey that scented his breath. “We’re in it together.”
Author’s Note
While doing research for this novel, I encountered two true stories that galvanized my imagination, so much so that I was compelled to use the information in the writing of this novel. I share them with you in an effort to show that fact is, indeed, stranger than fiction.
Before the stories, some facts:
The study of anatomy on human corpses was only legal if performed on the bodies of executed criminals. However, England only executed about fifty to sixty persons a year, making the picking very slim. Hence, the body snatchers, also known as the resurrection men.
A fresh corpse was valued at about six month’s wages, and therefore, worth the risk of being caught stealing one. The penalty for stealing a corpse was rather light, a slap on the wrist you might say, by English court standards. The reason for this was simple: the courts in England knew the anatomists were doing important work, and therefore didn’t inflict harsh punishments for the crime. However, the English courts did NOT take the same stance on the matter of theft. Theft was a crime punishable by death, and so the resurrection men were sure to strip the bodies of their garments before taking them, leaving the pile of discarded clothes behind in the crypt or the grave. Moral: in possession of Uncle Joe’s body = not that big a deal. In possession of Uncle Joe’s shirt = the triple tree at Tyburn, and a chance to make your own contribution to science.
It’s estimated that about eight percent of England’s population was buried alive. This alarming discovery was made when old bodies were exhumed to make room for the freshly dead, and upon opening caskets, scratch marks were found on the insides of the coffins. This fact was so widely known that many people went to the trouble of telling their loved ones that they wished to be buried with poison or a pistol when they died, so that in the event of being buried alive they could dispatch themselves. It’s also why wakes were held. Quite literally, the practice was to lay the body out and see if the dearly departed was dead, or if they would wake. Remember, this was before stethoscopes and brain scans. The absence of a discernable pulse or breath usually meant the person had perished, but not always.
On to my stories: the first was of an anatomist who got the locally executed criminals delivered to his doorstep, like a newspaper or the milk. And so, each morning, he’d check out back on the stoop and see what the day held in store. One early morning, however, he found a naked man holding a burlap sack. The man had obviously been tried, convicted, and executed for a crime, but the noose hadn’t quite finished the job.
The anatomist took pity on him and thought that maybe, for some reason, God had spared this man. He helped him escape, and sent him into a new life with clothes on his back and a few coins in his pocket. Many years later, the anatomist ran into the man on a busy London street. The man had a wife, a few children, and had become a prosperous merchant.
The second story was of a family that journeyed from England to Virginia to visit relatives. The ship they traveled on was struck by an outbreak of smallpox, and many dead (or were they?) were thrown into the seas to prevent the spread of contagion. By the time the ship arrived in America, the family’s youngest daughter was gravely ill, and when they reached their plantation, she was dead. They immediately buried her in the family’s crypt so as to avoid further contamination.
About seven years later, a young soldier of the same family was killed in the Civil War. They brought his body home for burial, and when they opened the crypt they found the tiny skeleton of the little girl by the door.
Dear Readers, if you bothered to read all of this, I hope you enjoyed this glimpse into this author’s brain, for the question I’m most often asked is, “Where do you get your ideas?” I found myself absolutely riveted by the idea of a person being so far gone as to be thought dead, buried alive in a way that would absolutely guarantee death, and then finding their life had been saved by the most improbable of all means: resurrection men.
I also hope you took pleasure in the novel itself, for while the collision of facts and imagination breeds works of fiction, it’s always the stories of people, and those who read them, that make them real.
My very best regards,
Tracy MacNish
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Copyright © 2009 by Tracy MacNish Willouer
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