*****
Whirling at the sound of the voice, Elyse froze, statue-like. A dozen yards from her was a tall, powerful man; looking at him, she almost gasped.
Although he wore a white shirt, it was open to the waist. The sun bounced from the rippling muscles of his bronzed torso. Forcing herself to lift her eyes, she stared into twin pools of bold amber specks afloat in a sea of blue. She could not hold his gaze, and her eyes roamed across his face, a handsomeness she had never seen equaled. His chin was strong, well shaped and taut; his cheekbones well defined, his mouth, large and sensuous.
The memory was like a lightning bolt striking a tree. “Brace?” she whispered. The image of an eleven-year-old boy, lanky and thin, paraded across her eyes. “Brace?” she asked again as her heart pounded and blood sped through her body. Her breathing became forced and she fought hard to control herself and her strange reaction.
“It is you, isn’t it?” he asked, his voice low, his hands wanting to reach out and touch her.
Although his voice sounded strained, she reacted to the depth and power within it. “It’s I, Elyse,” she whispered, the emotions of her heart sending her words to him.
Standing stiffly before him, she found herself in the grip of strange and conflicting emotions as his eyes raked her face, swept across her breasts, and roamed to her booted feet before returning to her face. “The heiress returns to claim her properties.”
It took her only a heartbeat to realize he spoke with unsheathed bitterness. It took another breath before she drew her shoulders straight and kept the hurt from showing on her face. “I’ve returned, Brace. I’ve come home.”
“Home? I thought England was home. Isn’t that where you live?”
“This is my home,” she replied, keeping her voice as level as possible, and wondering why he was welcoming her so cruelly.
“If this is your home, where have you been all these years? Why did it take you so long to return?”
She almost backed away under the onslaught of his heated words—almost. Not understanding his hostility, and in order to defend herself, Elyse reverted to her heritage.
“Who are you to ask these questions? What I do, or do not do, is my concern, not yours!” she snapped in a cold, harsh voice.
Brace, his mouth forming a tight line, nodded his head to her. “As you say, Mistress Louden.” Brace bowed formally and turned, his broad shoulders blocking everything from her view as he walked away.
Elyse watched him until he reached the bottom of the hill, mounted his horse, and rode off. An eternity later, fighting all the strange emotions rushing wildly through her mind, Elyse walked down from the hill.
As she descended, the full view of the sprawling house her father had built chased away the strange confrontation with Brace, and the unusual way in which she had reacted to him and his words.
Looking at the house in which she had been born, Elyse made herself relax. Devonairre was one of the island’s great houses, built from the sandstone carried as ballast in the ships that had brought sugar to England. The island estate was a hundred years younger than the Louden estate in Devon.
Yet the island house had a large, stately look all its own. The main house was of nice size—not overly huge. What made it so large were the two wings, which spread from it, and connected by covered walks. Both wings were equal in size to the main house, and built with the same sandstone blocks.
When she reached the front of the house, another wave of childhood memories assaulted her. With every step she’d taken, Elyse remembered another part of her past.
Devonairre stood proudly, its sandstone face awash with the glow of the sun, awaiting her entrance. Only then did the tears she had suppressed for so long spring forth to trace wet paths down her cheeks.
Reaching the steps leading to the main house, she swept her gaze across its face, drinking in every line, calling up memory after memory of the child she had been when she’d last seen her home. She stared up, lost in thought, and did not see the woman who stood on the front veranda, watching her come toward the house.
When the woman started down the stone stairs toward her, Elyse recognized her immediately. Her flaxen hair, veined with silver, was wrapped in braids upon her head. Her eyes, jovial and warm, were the same ones that little Elyse had watched many times.
By the time the woman reached her, Elyse was smiling widely. The woman stopped and stared at her; Elyse waited as the other’s eyes roamed over her face, taking in every feature.
“Elyse?” Ann Denham half-asked, half-stated.
“Hello, Ann,” she replied happily.
“You’re so…grown up,” she said, her eyes misted as she stepped closer to Elyse and reached for her hand.
Elyse ignored her hand and went to her, hugging her tightly. “I’m very glad to be home,” she cried as Ann drew her close.
When they parted, Ann Denham stepped back to look at Elyse again. “It’s been so many years, yet I would recognize you anywhere. You have your mother’s hair and beauty, and your father’s eyes!” She paused to look around, a puzzled look on her face. “But how did you get here? Why did you not send word that you were coming?” Concern shadowed her eyes. “Charles will have a fit! Nothing is ready…”
“Things happened so quickly, there was no chance to write,” Elyse said, knowing she could not bring herself to speak of what had happened in England. “And I walked here. I landed in Bluefish Bay.”
Ann Denham let Elyse’s words slip past her, for the moment, as she gazed at the woman who had grown from the child she had cared for so many years ago. “I’ve missed you,” Ann whispered, her eyes brimming with tears.
Elyse, her throat tight, bobbed her head. “I’ve missed you too, Annie, so much.” Just as she finished speaking, another figure appeared at the top of the steps.
“Annie, who’s there?” asked Charles Denham, the manager of Devonairre.
“Come down and see for yourself,” she told him in a light voice.
A moment later Charles stood in front of Elyse, his eyes widening slightly with recognition. “By all the…Elyse! You’ve come home at last.”
The warmth of his greeting wiped away the sting left by Brace’s cool greeting. Elyse stared at the older man, drinking in his lined, kindly face.
Smiling, Charles lifted Elyse’s bag and started toward the house. As he walked, he told her about the plantation and finances.
Ann Denham sighed, and then stepped in front of Elyse and her husband. “Do stop, Charles; let Elyse enjoy her homecoming. Business can wait.”
Charles stared at his wife for a moment. “Quite right, dear,” he said. “Tomorrow we’ll talk business. Tonight we shall celebrate! And I must send word to Brace; he’ll be so pleased,” he added as they started off again.
Elyse stopped walking at Charles’s mention of his son’s name. “I don’t think he’ll be pleased at all,” she said in a low voice.
Ann and Charles gazed at each other for a moment. “What happened?” Ann asked, knowing intuitively that her son had already met Elyse.
“I’m not exactly sure. All I know is that he was far from pleased to see me back.”
“Elyse,” Ann began, but Charles cut her off with a peremptory gesture.
“Don’t defend him anymore. Son or not, he’s going to learn some manners this day!”
Elyse turned to Charles, a concerned look on her face. “Please promise to say nothing about this to him.”
“I’ll do no such thing!” Charles swore.
“You will do exactly as Mistress Louden requests,” Ann Denham stated.
Charles looked from Ann to Elyse and shrugged his shoulders. “He must be talked to,” he said.
“Please, not a word. And,” Elyse added, turning her gaze from Charles to Ann, “I’ll not be called Mistress Louden by either of you, please!”
Ann’s face softened and she slowly nodded her head. “You are your father’s daughter,” she whispered as they reached the wide, mahogany double
doors. “Welcome home, Elyse.”
Chapter Five
Drums pounded loud in the night. A dozen dark muscular bodies spun within the flickering circle of firelight. Emotion-laden voices chanted around Brace as he watched the sacred voodoo ceremony of the Maroons, the runaway slaves who lived in the mountains of Jamaica.
If any other white man were to stumble upon this scene, he would be shocked to see a white skinned Brace seated familiarly among the black slaves, but Brace was comfortable; these people were his friends. He had helped them when they needed it, and had asked nothing in return.
Yet, he had received much in return. These people worked for him when he needed them, both on Devonairre and on his own small plantation, which very few people even knew existed.
Tonight, he had ridden into the mountains to escape the thoughts and desires haunting him since his surprise confrontation with Elyse Louden. He’d wanted to be alone under the large full moon, but as he rode, the sounds of drums reached out to him, and he’d veered his horse in their direction.
He was almost at home with these castaways because he, too, was different from most people on Jamaica. He was the son of a convict—a debtor, but had been educated at an American university, and was well versed in Business and Law. Physically and intellectually, Brace knew he was the equal of any man on the island. Still, the British people who ruled Jamaica looked down upon him, labeling him beneath them.
He had revolted six years ago, when he returned from New York to take on the overseeing of Devonairre. He did not want to come back to a life of disdain at the hands of others. He wanted to stay in America, where he was an equal among his peers, until his father reminded him of his obligations to Harlan Louden, and of his duty to return and take on the overseeing of Devonairre until Elyse came of age to take charge of her inheritance.
When he returned to the island, the past returned with him. Once again, the stares of distain from the good people of Jamaica rained down upon him and his family because of their origins.
Upon his return, his inner rage and resentment built up, day after day, year after year, until his entire being became a vessel of anger and hate, waiting only for the day he would become free.
It was almost here. Today she has come home, he told himself, remembering the burning beauty of her face, the haunting depth of her eyes, and the music of her voice.
He had thought of Elyse often as the small child he had always protected and watched after. He remembered her high-pitched laugh and the sparkle in her eyes whenever they found something new to investigate.
She had been his only friend other than the children of the slaves. No one else would play with him; he was a debtor’s son.
Sixteen years ago, when Elyse boarded the ship in Montego Bay, he had watched her sail out of his life. A sadness he had not thought possible, struck him with its fullest force. She had been his friend, his sister, his world. At eleven, wise beyond his years, Brace knew that when she returned she would be a different person. She, too, would look down at him, for he would still be a debtor’s son and she would be a lady of the realm.
Never once had she written to them. Never once had she inquired about her property, Brace reminded himself. Why? Did she think herself too important?
The frantic beat of the drum stopped, tearing Brace’s attention from within to what was happening around him. The dancers, one by one, stiffened. Some fell to the ground. Others stood in strange, trance-like positions. Then Brace saw the Obeah—the voodoo witch—rise. She shook her rattle and looked from face to face. When her gaze reached Brace, she stopped and fixed him with a deep stare.
Her eyes, glazed with a faraway look, made him stiffen. He did not believe in their superstitions and religions, but respected them just the same. He had witnessed too many strange things on Jamaica.
“You! Brace Man! White Man who lives between two worlds, but is not part of either! It is you I see in the bones!” She pointed to the small pile of bleached chicken bones at her feet.
Brace tried to shake his head, but couldn’t. All he could do was look at her strained face.
“I see you tonight! Look up!” Brace, along with every other person looked at the full moon. “The moon above foretells much of your future. Today a change comes to your world from across the sea. No... It comes from afar yet it came into existence here.” The Obeah woman’s eyes grew more distant. She stared at the full moon and her body stiffened. Her eyes returned to Brace.
“Today you have met your future. Black and green I see in the bones. It is a time of testing—a time of becoming. You are entering a battle— your own battle. You fight yourself. You fight your heart. Be careful you do not destroy all that surrounds you!”
As suddenly as she’d begun to speak, the Obeah woman stopped. Her eyes cleared and she took several deep breaths while she looked directly at Brace.
“It was strong, my spell,” she said to him. “Almost as strong as your soul.”
Brace stood, his muscles tense, his nerves humming. “I am not one of your people. You cannot see into my soul.”
“I am but a messenger of the spirits. I speak of what the spirits tell me. Perhaps,” she said, her teeth sparkling white against the darkness of her skin, “perhaps it is a gift to you for your friendship to our people.”
“Perhaps,” Brace said with his own grin.
“Or perhaps,” the Obeah woman added, her smile disappearing, “It is nothing at all. Do black and green have any meaning to you? I saw, in my trance, two circles of green. Pure green they were, eyes I think. I saw, too, the blackness, but it was not of the night or of evil powers. It was a shimmering black, wavy yet smooth.”
“Hair,” Brace said without moving his lips.
The Obeah woman laughed. The deep rolling sound reached up toward the heavens. “Hair and eyes. Black and green. She will be your woman!”
“That can never be.”
“I see that you love her. It is written in the sky.”
Brace stood, his muscles rippling in the firelight, his eyes narrow and dangerous. “Foolishness! Your words mean nothing.”
“Brace,” the woman called, her voice suddenly soft and gentle. Even with the garishness of her face paint, Brace saw warmth within her eyes. He had known Lucea all his life. She had been a slave on Devonairre until ten years ago. She was a rare person, more gifted than most slaves were. She could speak perfect English, not the island dialect of most. She had been a house worker at Devonairre until her emancipation; she only worked there now during harvesting season. Lucea, despite her being an Obeah woman, was a gentle person.
“I have known you long and watched you grow. What I see in the bones is only that which I know must happen. There is a time in a man’s life when he must decide. Your time is upon you. Think well before you act hastily. Do not anger the spirits who give you strength and power. Who is she, this woman with black hair and green eyes?”
Brace’s laugh was tight, but it helped him vent some of his frustration. “Didn’t your spirit tell you who she was? You know her well, Lucea; you delivered her from her mother’s womb.”
A puzzled expression flashed across Lucea’s face. She had delivered many children into the world, but she did not remember any with green eyes. She thought back, closing her eyes for a moment. Then her eyes snapped open. “The child is back?” she asked, surprise in her voice.
“Elyse has returned.”
Lucea smiled again at Brace, but then her face went stiff. Her eyes glazed over and her body quivered. When she spoke, her voice trembled and changed. The words issuing from her mouth were unintelligible.
As quickly as the trance came, it fled. Lucea shook her head and stared at Brace. “She has returned for you. She needs you.”
Brace shook his head. “I am the son of a debtor. No matter what she needs, it is not I.” With that, Brace went to his horse. With the light of the moon illuminating the hidden pathways in the mountains, Brace started back to Devonairre.
Behind him,
Lucea, still feeling the last vestiges of her trance, shivered. “She needs you, Brace, she is in danger. Heed your destiny; do not turn from its call.”
Chapter Six
Elyse stood in the center of the small balcony overlooking the garden. She wore a loose-fitting nightdress that had once been her mother’s, and had been carefully stored in the cellar since her death. The cool breezes blowing in from the mountains to the shore tugged at the edges of the nightdress, making it billow around her.
It was well after midnight, and the ghostly silver moon of the Jamaican night rode low in the sky, its light lending a faint illumination to the mountains in the south. It was a peaceful scene, and helped calm her after waking from a troubling dream.
As tired as Elyse had been, she had found sleep an impossible feat. After a wonderful dinner shared with Ann and Charles, she had retired to the bedroom she had chosen for her own. In bed, she stared up at the ceiling, wondering if she were here, or if it was a delusion born of her desperate needs while the scents of salty air and tropical trees told her she was in Jamaica.
Closing her eyes, Elyse tried to ease her mind and let sleep claim her, but her thoughts would not set her free. She could not stop the feeling of being a stranger in the house in which she had been born. She was the sole occupant of Devonairre at this moment; the house was silent, except for her own breathing—a feeling she had never once imagined in the sixteen years she’d dreamed of her return. I’m not a stranger, she told herself. I belong here!
When sleep finally came, it stole upon her slowly. When at last she succumbed to its call, it was only to find herself dreaming of being in an unfamiliar place, populated by shadowy people. It was nighttime. She was walking in the moonlight along a sandy beach, surrounded by all sorts of people. Frightened, she began to run, her bare feet digging into the warm sand as outstretched hands grasped at her.
Then her dream changed. She was above it all and staring down at the beach. She saw herself running, her nightdress tossed about eerily as she raced for the sanctuary of the trees. The people behind her were coming closer. Turning her head as she ran, Elyse saw her Uncle Carl running after her. His mouth twisted into an ugly, horrible leer. Behind him, her mouth open, came Aunt Elizabeth.
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