On Wings of Fire

by Frances Patton Statham

  “Are you staying for the weekend?” she inquired, trying hard to engage in ordinary conversation.

  “Yes. Sir Dow has been kind enough to put me up at the hall. I’d rather stay here with you, though.”

  “That’s impossible, Ben Mark. You know that.”

  “But you went away on a honeymoon with the vice-marshal. Belline told me all about it.”

  She looked at Ben Mark, as his stubborn young face, so different from that of the man who had brought him here. She sighed.

  “We were well chaperoned. And you should know it was merely a cover for the mission. Ben Mark, let’s not get into a fuss after being apart so long.”

  “I can’t help being jealous. Having you pose as another man’s wife.”

  “Well, keep it to yourself, Ben Mark. I’d hate for it to become publicized.”

  “Does his fiancée know—about your Scottish honeymoon?”

  “Of course not. Just as no one knows I’ve been here in the dower house all week, either, while the shrapnel wound was healing.”

  “I just don’t like it, Alpharetta.”

  “It’s in the past, Ben Mark. It doesn’t concern us now.”

  He said no more, for he remembered the night spent with Belline. It was in the past, too, and he hoped it would never concern Alpharetta.

  It was growing cool as the sun left the garden, and Alpharetta, with a slight shiver, said, “Let’s go into the house.”

  Two hours later, when they had caught up on all the news from home and shared their own experiences, Ben Mark scowled as the car came to take him back to the hall. Reluctantly he ran his hand over his face and said, “I guess I’d better shave and shower before dinner.”

  “Yes. Everyone dresses,” Alpharetta agreed.

  “I’ll ride back with the chauffeur to pick you up later. Seven-thirty?”

  “Yes. I’ll be ready.” He leaned over to kiss her and she watched as he walked out the door and got into the car.

  A pensive Alpharetta climbed the stairs, to begin dressing for dinner.

  She had not been quite truthful when she told Ben Mark that no one knew she was hiding in the dower house. Sir Edward had known it and had visited with her each day, combining his own loneliness with hers, his own grief at the loss of his son, Gerald, with hers.

  In one week’s time, she had grown extremely fond of the old man, and because of her friendship with him she had agreed to wear the special white dress that night.

  Its lace-trimmed mutton-sleeves hid the bandage on her arm well. Carefully, she buttoned the tiny buttons and when she’d finished, she gazed into the mirror and smiled. Anna Clare would have loved the dress, an heirloom from the past, carefully preserved, exquisite in form. Alpharetta reached for the choker of pearls, fastened them about her throat, and with the matching pearl combs, swept up her red hair. Then she sat at the mirror, and her smile turned into a frown as she viewed the complete image.

  After a moment, she rose, took the wrap, and walked downstairs to wait for the car.

  With nothing else to do, she stood at the window and watched for the car. Soon it came and Ben Mark was at the door.

  Alpharetta rushed to open it. He stood in the doorway, his dark eyes showing amusement at the dress she wore.

  “You look as if you’ve been rummaging in Anna Clare’s trunk, Alpharetta. Don’t you have something more modern to wear for dinner?”

  She immediately became defensive. “It’s a beautiful dress, Ben Mark.”

  “But so old-fashioned. You might have lived a hundred years ago.”

  “Yes. I could easily be a ghost from the past, couldn’t I?”

  “Well, come on, my lady. Your carriage is waiting,” he said, sweeping into an exaggerated bow.

  “Let me get my purse,” she said and soon followed.

  So used to seeing Eckerd, Alpharetta was surprised when another man, dressed in the black uniform of a chauffeur, held open the car door. For a moment she felt regret, for she realized things were coming to an end. They would never be together again, like a family, the way they were at Lochendall—Birdie, Freddie, Reggie, Eckerd, and most of all, Dow.

  But hadn’t she assured Ben Mark all that was in the past? Just as the woman who’d once worn the heirloom dress was also in the past. Tonight, she was playing a part for the memory of the old man, just as she had played a part in the house in Lochendall—pretending to be the bride of Sir Dow Pomeroy, the man who already had a fiancée.

  “We’ll be in good company tonight, Alpharetta,” Ben Mark informed her on the way past the cornfields that reached to the manor house itself. “Lord Cranston is coming with his daughter, Lady Margaret.”

  “Did you know he’s the one who almost married Anna Clare?”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “But it’s true. He told me so himself. You see, when we stopped at Harrington Hall on the way to—on the way to Scotland, he recognized Anna Clare’s brooch that I was wearing. The old boy had given it to her himself.”

  Ben Mark laughed aloud. “I always thought Aunt Anna Clare made up over half the stuff she told us. Maybe she was telling the truth after all.”

  “Oh, how I wish she could be with us tonight.”

  “Uncle Reed probably wouldn’t like it.”

  “No, I suppose not—if Lord Cranston once loved her.”

  The car stopped in the courtyard and the butler swung open the heavy door as they approached.

  “Good evening, Andrew,” Alpharetta said.

  “Good evening, Miss; Captain,” he said taking Alpharetta’s wrap. “Sir Edward and Master Dow are already in the drawing room.”

  Feeling slightly self-conscious in the heirloom dress, Alpharetta behaved as she always did when she was a little unsure of herself. She lifted her chin a fraction higher, straightened her spine, and began to walk slowly down the hall.

  “I have a feeling you could get lost in a museum this big,” Ben Mark said in a low voice, “and not be found for several generations.”

  “It’s big, but there’s a warmth to it, too.”

  “But don’t you think it’s rather spooky, with the coat of armor greeting you in the hall, first thing?”

  “I like the house,” she defended.

  In the manor house where generation after generation of Pomeroys had lived and died, Sir Edward glanced up at his only remaining son, who at that moment stood by the window and held a glass of brandy in his hands.

  It was a special day, celebrated each year in June—Chatelaine Day—to honor all the women over the years brought to Harrington Hall as wives of the Pomeroys. Some said it was a pagan custom, almost like ancestor worship by the Chinese. Yet for the Pomeroy men, it was a time for reflection, for pausing to pay homage to the past chatelaines of the manor and the mothers of the succeeding generations.

  Some had brought with them great dowries; others, great beauty and kindness. Some meek, some outspoken, they carried the keys around their waists, as the symbol of their husband’s trust, until other symbols took their place and became more meaningful.

  Dow had never known his mother, who died when he was a baby. He had been brought up in a house of men—his father, his brother, Andrew the butler, and even the chef. The only women he had known as a boy were hanging in the portrait gallery—beautiful, cold to the touch, and out of reach, like the titan-haired woman who was supposed to escape her gilt frame at intervals, to haunt the green room where she had once lived and died.

  Dow, thinking about it, decided he should also include the assorted maids and his one governess, Miss Wilder. But even her face had faded from memory, for he had been sent away to school when he was seven.

  Sir Edward, watching his son, was tired. That afternoon, he had supervised the gardener as he cut the roses to place in the baskets before each family portrait in the gallery. He’d fought hard to keep the roses amid the vegetables, since the growing of food for the body in wartime was considered more important than food for the soul.

&nb
sp; But despite his exhaustion, he felt a sense of anticipation for the dinner ahead. Lady Margaret and Alpharetta had both promised to wear the dresses. He was particularly anxious to see Alpharetta in the special one he had selected for her.

  As if in answer to his thoughts, Alpharetta and Ben Mark paused in the doorway and then walked into the room. Sir Edward rose to greet them. At the same time Dow turned from the window.

  She stood, framed in the doorway, the military uniform worn by Ben Mark St. John, providing an olive-drab background for the gossamer white, high-necked lace dress with its wide sleeves.

  Anchored to his position at the window, Dow shook his head in anguish. The ghost of the titian-haired woman had invaded the drawing room in the form of Alpharetta Beaumont, the woman as unattainable as the one in the gallery. Promised to the man standing beside her, she stirred a primitive passion in Dow that he had never known he possessed. For one part of him declared war even as he walked toward Ben Mark St. John and extended his right hand in greeting.

  A delighted Sir Edward, unaware of the havoc he had played, said, “It’s amazing, isn’t it, how closely Alpharetta resembles the painting?”

  Chapter 25

  Dow took Alpharetta from the drawing room on a pretext of military importance, forcing Ben Mark to remain behind with Sir Edward.

  Leading her upstairs toward the portrait gallery, Dow casually said, “I want to show you something, Alpharetta.”

  The painting had been restored, hung once more in its proper place. The woman in the lace dress, with pearls around her neck, gazed down from her gilt frame.

  “Do you recognize yourself?” he inquired.

  She looked up at the portrait and down at the dress she was wearing. “It’s the same dress,” she exclaimed.

  “Yes. And your coloring, too, is almost the same.”

  “Who is she, Dow?”

  “She was supposed to have been the most beautiful bride who ever came to Harrington Hall. But also the saddest.”

  “Why?”

  “Even though it was an arranged marriage, it was also a love match. But when she arrived at Harrington Hall from France, she discovered the man she was to marry was dead—killed in a hunting accident. My great-grandfather was the second son who suddenly became heir.”

  “And she married him, instead?”

  “Yes. Because it was already arranged between the families.”

  “And the green room was hers,” Alpharetta stated.

  “How did you know?”

  “I can’t explain it. There was a feeling in the room, as if I weren’t alone.” She looked at him and suddenly asked, “Why did Sir Edward ask me to wear her dress tonight?”

  “We’re a pagan lot, Alpharetta. We worship beauty, as well as godliness. And as is the case with many men, some Pomeroys never told their women how much they revered them in life.

  “Perhaps it’s an assuaging of collective guilt—to set aside a day in the year to be reminded of them. It’s been done every year for the past several hundred years. You’ll hear the toasts at dinner tonight. And it’s the custom to place baskets of roses before the portraits and at their gravestones. That’s why my father was adamant about keeping a portion of his rose garden.”

  “The roses are beautiful.”

  Dow nodded in agreement. “Do you grow roses in Atlanta?”

  “Yes. But our dogwoods and azaleas are the showstoppers.” As she spoke, Alpharetta unconsciously rubbed her arm.

  And Dow, seeing it, asked, “Alpharetta, how is your arm?”

  “It’s healing quite well, thank you.”

  “I’m glad. I suppose you know that Sir Nelson has given permission for you to come out of hiding?”

  “Was that what you wanted to see me about?” Alpharetta was still, her green eyes drawn to Dow’s face, and her heart remembering the kiss on the beach. Not like the kiss that she had shared with Ben Mark several hours earlier.

  “Alpharetta.” Dow took one step closer to her, his eyes tracing the shape of her mouth, as he, too, remembered Lochendall.

  Voices in the hall caused him to drop his arms at his sides and halt where he was.

  “That must be Meg and her father,” he said.

  “Then we’d better go back downstairs,” Alpharetta suggested, vaguely disturbed at their conversation.

  “Yes, of course.”

  Lady Margaret was also in white. Alpharetta recognized the dress she was wearing, for it too was captured in a portrait in the gallery.

  “Oh, there you are, Dow,” Meg smiled and self-consciously ran her hand along the seam of the dress where the dressmaker had attempted to hide the fact that the seams had been let out. But the dress, long stored, showed a difference in color where the seams had been disturbed.

  “I see you have on Agatha’s dress,” Dow said.

  “Yes. And I don’t dare breathe,” she admitted with a laugh.

  As the six sat at the table that night with the scent of wax candles combining with the perfume of the roses, there was a solemn formality broken only occasionally by conversation. A feeling of anticipation pervaded the dining hall where priceless goblets of the finest Venetian glass and porcelain plates with gold matched by the gold vermeil of tableware had been brought from storage for their annual use. The five-branched silver candelabra had been replaced with the gold ones, in the shape of blackamoors holding torches high

  Alpharetta sat at the table like a small jewel, her dress of mellowed lace renewed in the glow of tapering flame, bringing to the heart of Dow Pomeroy, a knowledge of the past, a renascence of family history that had nothing to do with Lady Margaret Cranston, seated to his right.

  Sir Edward cleared his throat and stood, holding a goblet of wine—deep red—and began the ages-old ritual, naming each chatelaine, from Madelaine, the first, to his own wife, Katerine.

  As he lifted his glass, the others did the same. And when he had finished, Sir Edward sat down his goblet. “In the old days,” he explained with a twinkle in his eye, “the Pomeroys broke their glasses against the fireplace, after the toasts. But in modern days, we became more frugal.”

  He looked at Dow and said, “Are you ready, son?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  Dow stood, while Andrew, nearby, brought the vermeil tray. On it were the heavy keys—to the wine cellar, to the food pantries and cupboards—all attached to a white satin waistcord.

  “Alpharetta, would you please come and stand by me?”

  Surprised, she stood and walked toward Dow, her eyes questioning his action.

  “It is fitting for Alpharetta to be wearing the dress of Desirée Pomeroy. One hundred years ago, she came to this house as a bride. Chosen by the one she loved, she married another, yet her sorrow was kept to herself. Honor and duty clothed her well. As the heir, I offer you the symbol of our trust and devotion, Desirée Pomeroy, née Beaumont. Wear it in peace.”

  Dow took the satin rope with the keys and handed it to Alpharetta. And as Ben Mark frowned, his fiancée, her eyes unable to break their strong bond with Dow’s eyes, slowly tied the rope around her waist.

  Sir Edward then stood att he other end of the table and waited for Andrew to bring the second tray.

  “Agatha Pomeroy, née Edmundton, will you please stand?”

  Lady Margaret, on cue, with a self-conscious brushing back of her brown hair from her forehead, stood and walked toward him.

  On the tray lay a jewelry case—ancient dubonnet velvet. Sir Edward opened it, removed a necklace of rubies and diamonds from it, and turned to Margaret. With hands tremulous with age, he placed the family jewels around Meg’s neck and closed the clasp.

  “Agatha, to you belongs the betrothal necklace, binding you forever to the house of Pomeroy. Wear it with grace, until that day when the ring upon your finger replaces it, as a matron replaces a maid.”

  Meg glared quickly toward Dow. Unlike the chatelaine’s keys that Alpharetta wore about her waist and would give up at the end of the evening, the nec
klace was Meg’s, to seal her betrothal to Dow. Meg’s face concealed her displeasure at Dow’s lack of attention to the actions of his father. He was far too absorbed in the other woman at the end of the table.

  Alpharetta was also unaware of Meg, for the impact of Dow’s revelation had hit her hard— her own family name upon his lips—Beaumont, Desirée Beaumont.

  Could it be that the same coloring, the same facial structure, like the Hapsburg chin, had been passed on by some common ancestor from generation to generation, branch to branch, until the blood could no longer acknowledge kin, except in the Beaumont name and the titian hair, evident in the portrait gallery, and in her own mirror as well?”

  And was her close resemblance to Desirée, of whom she had no prior knowledge, the cause of Dow’s first, hostile scrutiny on the train from Prestwick?

  Whatever it was, Alpharetta felt a kinship to the woman whose dress she was wearing. But much more devastating, she felt the strong magnetic pull toward Dow Pomeroy.

  After a final toast, Sir Edward suggested, “Shall we adjourn to the drawing room?”

  Ben Mark, relieved that the ceremony was over, rose and claimed Alpharetta. If he’d had a choice, he knew exactly what he would do, remove the satin cord from Alpharetta’s waist immediately. He had let his jealousy get the better of him as he watched Dow and Alpharetta together, even though Lady Margaret had been given the betrothal necklace. For Dow had acted as if were binding Alpharetta to his side, instead of Lady Margaret. But that was ridiculous. Still there was something between them he couldn’t quite put a finger on. He knew, for his own sake, that he should remove Alpharetta from Dow Pomeroy’s influence, and the sooner the better.

  Cornering Dow in the drawing room, Ben Mark scarcely disguised his impatience. “Sir Dow,” he said, “I want to marry Alpharetta immediately and send her back to the States. She—”

  “No, Ben Mark,” Alpharetta interrupted, her voice strangely distant, as if his words had drawn her from another world. “We’ve already discussed it.”

  With Lady Margaret at his side, Dow glanced impersonally from Ben Mark to Alpharetta. In a low, cold voice, he replied. “I’m afraid your request is impossible, Captain. Miss Beaumont is still on my personal staff. I cannot give permission at the present time.”