Diamonds and Dreams

by Rebecca Paisley

  “As crystal.” Addison made a low bow and left the room.

  Saber stared after him. Addison’s eyes had been twinkling, and that familiar, telltale sparkle gave Saber two distinct thoughts: he’d either not made himself clear at all, or he’d made himself clearer than he’d meant to.

  His mind continued filling with a myriad of reflections. Delia. Hutchins and Doyle. Goldie. Ravenhurst, Hallensham. The diaries. Death and love and loss and pain and betrayal. So many thoughts writhed through him, he could concentrate on none of them. He felt suddenly stifled by them, and in only moments was outside. The cool night air ruffled his hair as he walked swiftly through the courtyard. He had no idea where he was going. He knew only that he had to get away.

  He began to run, soon seeing moonlight splashing upon the maze of hedgerows. The maze! He sped into it, twisting and turning around its complex course, not stopping until he was sure he’d reached its center.

  His chest heaving, he stared up at the sky. In his desperate loneliness and need, the stars looked to him like bright eyes. Millions of benevolent eyes peering down at him. “Gone,” he whispered up to them. “Dead. Because of me. My fault. Angelica—Now Delia. Ravenhurst. I tried to take care of you, Delia. But you never knew that. You died thinking I’d forgotten you. I’m so sorry.”

  He fell to his knees. Guilt more horrible than he ever imagined could exist fell over him. Profound sorrow and regret burned from the very core of his soul. He wanted to shout out his anguish. Wanted to hear his own scream. Hot tears burned his eyes, but refused to fall.

  Anger joined all the other emotions ravaging inside him. He raised a balled fist to the sky. “You! What else, dammit? What other tragedies do You have planned for me to bear? I can take no more!”

  A brisk wind blew past him.

  He thought he heard the sound of taunting laughter in it.

  * * *

  Goldie slipped into her patched nightgown and stepped out onto her balcony. She breathed deeply of the cool, fragrant night air. It picked up her hair, sending curls fluttering across her forehead and cheeks.

  “I wonder where Saber is?” she asked Itchie Bon. “He left the kitchen in such a rush tonight, that I didn’t—”

  She broke off when she saw a man fleeing across the courtyard. Squinting, she realized who it was. “Great day Miss Agnes, there he is!”

  With the aid of the moonlight, she watched him clear the yard and enter a thick grove of bushes. What in the world was he doing, running around at this time of night? she wondered. Staring at the distant shrubbery, she chewed her bottom lip, deliberating.

  “Itchie Bon, I can either leave him in the bushes by himself, or I can get in ’em with him.” She concentrated for many long moments, then turned to look down at the dog. “Do you think I should meet him down there?”

  Itchie Bon barked loudly. “That’s just what I was thinkin’!” Goldie exclaimed. Grinning, she raced out of her bedroom, through the hall, and down the staircase. Yanking the front door opened, she skipped down the steps and rushed across the yard, soon coming to the tall hedges. She entered hesitantly. The bushes were much bigger than she was, and she wasn’t certain of which way to go. “Saber?”

  When he didn’t answer, she turned right and kept walking. The wall of shrubs seemed endless. And was it only her imagination, or were they closing in on her? She felt the beginnings of panic. “Saber!” Spinning around, she hastened back toward the entrance, true terror coming to her when she couldn’t find it.

  Clouds drifted across the moon, shrouding its light. The maze grew darker. “Saber!” she yelled, running now. Branches scratched her arms. Pebbles bruised her bare feet. Something big flew close to her head. “Saber! A bat! Oh, Saber, please come find me!”

  Everything was dark and scary and unfamiliar to her. She increased her pace, racing as quickly as she was able. Her fear rose steadily, and with it came her tears. But she continued to run. Blindly she dashed onward until she ran into a solid mass.

  “Goldie.”

  She felt Saber’s arms go around her, easing her trembling. His scent of sandalwood floated into her, calming her fear. His strength wrapped around her, blanketing her with warm security. “Saber,” she whispered, watching the moonlight return. “I was lost.”

  She shivered in his arms. The action touched something inside him. Something that felt very much like his heart. “But you’re not now.”

  “I was afraid, Saber.”

  “So it would seem.”

  “A bat was after me.”

  “A bat, you say? Didn’t anyone inform you that Leighwood is the home of England’s vampires? You probably disturbed one of them with all your shouting.”

  “You’re teasin’ me.”

  “Am I?”

  She looked up at him. “Aren’t you?”

  He saw the uncertainty in her eyes. “Yes.” He urged her head back to his chest, holding her more closely. She felt so good in his arms, and he needed to have her in them. He didn’t question his motive. His emotions were too raw, too complex for him to understand. All he knew was that he had to hold her tonight.

  Potent emotion seized Goldie. To be in his arms, to hear the rhythmic beat of his heart... Happiness caught her, holding her fast. Tentatively, she put her arms around him. Her own action sent a sweet ache spreading throughout her.

  But anxiety came, too. What if he didn’t want her to hold him like this? What if she was making him mad? Or worse, what if he laughed at her ignorant attempt at romance?

  She let her arms drop back to her side, and felt empty. “What are you doin’ out here, Saber?”

  “I might ask you the same question.”

  “You might?”

  Smiling, he amended himself. “All right, I’m asking.”

  She sniffled. “I was gettin’ chased by a bat, that’s what.”

  Saber withdrew a silk handkerchief from his pocket, pressing it into her hand. “You sound like a duke, what with all that wheezing and snorting you’re doing. Now, tell me what you’re really doing out here.”

  “I saw you from my balcony.”

  “And?”

  “And came out here to be with you.”

  He tried to resist the pleasure her answer brought him, but failed miserably. “Didn’t it cross your mind that I might have wanted to be alone?” he queried with a smile.

  “Do you?”

  He took the handkerchief from her, and dried a tear she’d missed. His arms curled around her again. “Whether or not I want to be alone doesn’t matter anymore, now does it? You’re here.”

  “But I can go back to the—”

  “Do you forget you were lost?”

  She pressed her cheek to his chest. “You could show me the way out.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know either.”

  She gasped. “Oh, Saber—”

  “I’m teasing you. You’re very gullible. Has anyone ever told you that?” He bent toward her hair. Her curls tickled his nose and smelled of air, pure and sweet. His need for her rose.

  “Big’s all the time tellin’ me I’m gullible,” she answered, a thrill shooting through her as she felt him nuzzling her hair. “But I’d rather try to believe in everything than never believe in anything. Sometimes it’s real hard to believe stuff, though,” she added very quietly.

  “And what,” he whispered, his hands sliding slowly down her back, “do you believe in, Goldie Mae?”

  “That’s the strangest thing anybody ever asked me,” she replied, thinking of how good his hands felt moving on her back. She wondered if he meant to do that to her, or if it was just one of those things people did without realizing it.

  “Have you no answer then?” Saber questioned her. His arms ached with the need to bring her even closer to him. To crush her to him. He still couldn’t understand his desire, but tonight it didn’t matter. The need was there, real, strong, and growing.

  “Well,” Goldie began, sensing a slight tremor running through his arms. “I belie
ve in God. Do you?”

  “Yes.” But I’ve yet to see any evidence of the mercy He’s so famous for, he added silently, bitterly.

  “I believe in good things,” Goldie continued.

  “Such as?”

  She had to think of the right words. “Like honesty. I believe in laughter. And growin’. I love to see things grow. Plants, animals, and people.”

  “Children.”

  “And big people too. Even hundred-year-old oak trees send out new branches.”

  He’d never thought of that. “And what else—besides honesty, laughter, and oak branches—do you believe in?” How odd, he mused. He’d begun this conversation on a light vein, but now yearned to know what she thought.

  “Um...Compassion. Understandin’. Sharin’. Fairness and imagination. Those things are real important.”

  “Why imagination?”

  Because, she thought, looking up into his beautiful green eyes, the very best things that have ever happened to me have happened in my imagination.

  “Goldie? Why imagination?” he repeated.

  “Because imaginin’ stuff is fun.”

  He tilted her chin up. “And what do you dream of?”

  That softness was in his eyes again, she saw, and quivered. “If I told you, you’d laugh.”

  “Try me.”

  She didn’t want to, but recalled she’d just told him her feelings about honesty. “Well...sometimes I imagine a man kissin’ my wrist. Nobody ever kissed my wrist before, but I saw a man do that to a woman one time. I wondered what it felt like, so I kissed my own wrist. It felt all right, but I reckon it’d feel nicer if someone else did it.”

  “And sometimes,” she added, “I dream that I live in a big house that belongs to me, and no one has the right to tell me I have to move. There’s a white picket fence surroundin’ it, and inside, all the windows have ruffled curtains made of pink and white gingham. And the windows all have window boxes under ’em with flowers growin’ in ’em. I have pink sofas in the house, and the little arm pillows on ‘em are white with red strawberries stitched on ’em. And I have a rockin’ chair with my name carved on the back of it. And kittens. I have lots of kittens who sleep all over the furniture, and I don’t ever get mad at ’em for gettin’ cat hair on everything. And I have twelve children. Twelve’s a nice, even number, and I always wanted to have lots of family around me.”

  “What about a husband?” Saber asked, smiling at the delight dancing in her eyes. “Do you have one of those too?”

  “I—Um...” A dismal feeling overcame her. She looked at the ground, digging her toes into the earth and struggling to find her happy feeling again. “And think of how many grandchildren I’d get after havin’ twelve children! If each one of my kids had three children, I’d have...thirty-six grandchildren!”

  “But think of how expensive it would be for you to buy them all gifts at Christmas.”

  She frowned. “Oh. I never thought of that. Well, some things don’t cost much. I could paint ’em all a picture.”

  “Can you paint?”

  “Well, no. But I’d learn if I had that many grandchildren to paint for. Or...I could ’em make little cotton stuffers for when it thunders. They could stick ’em in their ears when storms come. Kids are afraid of thunder. I used to hide under the covers when it thundered. I don’t anymore though.”

  Saber closed his eyes, dwelling on a memory. “Once when I was little, I jumped into bed with my mother and father because of thunder. It was so loud, I remember the walls shaking. But as soon as I was lying between my parents, all my fear went away. After that first time, I was allowed to sleep with them during every storm. I so loved being with them, that I actually began praying for thunder.”

  “You’re so lucky. Uncle Asa never let me in bed with him when it thundered. Mama and Daddy used to, but when they died...my thunder nights with ’em died too.”

  Lucky, Saber mused. He’d lost everything that meant something to him, and Goldie said he was lucky. No, there was nothing at all lucky about his life.

  “Where are your mama and daddy, Saber?”

  He tensed. “With your Aunt Delia.”

  “Oh,” she murmured, and felt his pain. “I’m sorry. Have they been in heaven long?”

  “Many years,” he said softly. He stepped away from her and took her hand. “Come. Let’s walk.”

  She looked down at her hand, seeing nothing at all of it. His covered hers completely. The sight sent pleasure shimmering through her. “So you were little too when your parents died. Just like me. Who raised you?”

  Saber smiled, remembering Aunt Clara and Aunt Lucy. “My aunts.”

  “And were they good to you?”

  “They were. And it wasn’t easy for them. I missed my parents terribly for many, many years. I...I’m afraid I wasn’t the most well-behaved child during that time.”

  “Well, I reckon that’s all right, Saber. Kids don’t know any better. ‘Course, sometimes grown-ups don’t either. My parents have been dead a long time too, but I still cry and carry on sometimes. It’s real hard to stop doin’ that for good. Do you ever do it?”

  “I don’t cry, but I do...uh, carry on at times.” As the words left his lips, he couldn’t believe he’d spoken them. He’d never admitted his weakness to anyone. On the contrary, he denied it vehemently. “Rarely ever though,” he added hastily.

  “I cried in front of Jane Gluck once. That was down in Dix-Wix, South Carolina. She said I was a crybaby. I was the only one in Dix-Wix who called her ‘Jane.’ She had everybody else callin’ her ‘Juanita’ because she thought it sounded fancier than Jane. I called her Jane right to her face just to aggravate her. I don’t usually set out to aggravate people, but she was the most hateful thing walkin’ this earth.”

  She ran her free hand along the hedgerow beside her. “I didn’t have to put up with Jane for long, though. Uncle Asa got thrown out of Dix-Wix about a month after we moved there. He threw away a lighted cigar and set Myron Horton’s hair on fire. Even though Uncle Asa was drunk, it was only an accident, and Myron got the fire out before it burned his scalp. But folks in Dix-Wix weren’t the forgivin’ kind, Saber.”

  Though she spoke with a note of lightheadedness in her voice, Saber was not amused by her story. She often mentioned being tossed out of towns, and he was beginning to sense an underlying sorrow in her tales. “Do you cry often?”

  “Yeah, I’m a real weepy person. I cry over everything. I know I’m too old for that, but the tears just come, and I can’t stop ’em. Uncle Asa—Well...he doesn’t like it much, so I try not to cry for long. Usually only for a few seconds. Well, maybe sometimes for a full minute. Then I’m better. I think it’s good to go on and cry when you’re sad. Why would God have given us tears if it wasn’t all right to cry? I think that if He didn’t want us to cry, He’d dry up our tears about the same time as He does our baby fat. So I let the tears come, get ’em over with, and then go on with other things. It’s like that dandelion story I told you. It doesn’t do any good to stay smashed down forever.”

  Saber pulled a leaf from the hedgerow, then flicked it away. “But what of things that are so terrible, you simply cannot stop dwelling on them? Things that bring you fury and anguish every time you think of them?” He strained to hear her answer.

  She stopped walking and looked at the ground again. “Why—Why are you askin’ me that?”

  He lifted her chin again, and saw suspicion in her eyes. “Goldie—”

  “I—Nothin’ that bad has ever happened to me.”

  Nothing that terrible had ever happened to her? he repeated silently. Many terrible things had and were happening to her. Try as he might, he couldn’t understand.

  She saw his confusion. “Saber—I—You—” she stammered, trying desperately to think of a nonchalant way to answer him. “Well—All right, if somethin’ really awful happened to me, I reckon I’d cry and carry on like I always do, then I’d try to find somethin’ good about the terrible thing.
Once I’d found it, I’d hang onto it for all I was worth. Then, if I ever started gettin’ sad or angry, I’d remember the good thing and probably feel better.”

  Saber stared down at her. She was talking fast, and he had the distinct feeling she was very uncomfortable with the subject of the conversation. “What good thing have you found about the deaths of your parents?” he asked gently. “About having had to move from town to town for so many years? About the very real possibility of losing your home in Hallensham? I realize I’m to be the duke, Goldie, but what if something goes wrong with your scheme? Have you given any thought to that?”

  She wound a curl around her finger. “Well, I—The good that came from my mama and daddy dyin’, is that Uncle Asa got me. He—He was real lonesome. Now he has me. The good that came from movin’ around from place to place is that I got to know a lot of people. And I got to travel and see lots of things I wouldn’t have seen if I’d had a permanent home. I saw a famous rock one time. It’s the rock folks say George Washin’ton sat on. And the good thing about maybe losin’ my cottage in Hallensham is...”

  “You see?” Saber asked when her voice trailed off. “You can find no silver lining to that cloud.”

  He was so wrong, she mused. “The silver linin’ is that I got to meet you. If I hadn’t had the problem of needin’ to bring back Duke Marion, I never would have known you.”

  Her answer took him completely off-guard. She had no idea who he was. Knew nothing of his title or his wealth. She was simply glad to know him, the common man beneath the nobleman. A surge of happiness swept through him. “And I,” he began very softly, “got to meet you, too.”

  A warning bell sounded in his head, but he ignored it.

  Just as he knew dawn would break tomorrow, he knew he was going to kiss her. “Come here, Goldie.”

  The gentleness in his velvet voice made her knees weak. She took a step forward, laying her hand in his palm when he reached out his arm. Mesmerized, she watched him bring her hand to his mouth. Her emotions spun when he turned it over and touched his lips to her inner wrist.