Box Set: The ArringtonTrilogy (68 page)

Grandmother hated that I could see out, but
only grumbled that her inheritance was taking longer than expected,
and she couldn’t afford to replace the shutter. She only entered my
room on rare occasions—to inspect my cell and make certain I wasn’t
up to no good or planning another escape. When she strolled around
the room, I wondered how she had forgotten to look in the armoire.
She had gone as far as looking up into the chimney, only to have
soot fall and cover her face. I contained my amusement, afraid of
her wrath, and she stormed out, screaming for Abigail to get up to
the room and sweep up the mess.

Abigail had been an infrequent visitor in the
many months after Grandfather returned. She was busy tending his
needs, she told me once. He was wheelchair-bound, sick, and frail,
and Grandmother had endless tasks for her outside of her everyday
household duties.

The last time Abigail had been up to my room
was to give me more rags for my monthly curse. This time, she was
much more rushed, and I didn’t expect her to have a moment to stop
and look at me after she had swept, let alone hand me a piece of
paper before she flew back out. With great curiosity, I opened the
folded piece of paper, and as I read the letter, fell onto the bed
and began to sob, not out of sadness, but out of pure happiness. It
was from Warren! It was brief and rushed, but it told me everything
I needed to know. He was alive and well, and he was working on
finding Daddy. I brought the letter to my heart and smiled and
breathed a heavy sigh of relief. For the first time in my whole
life, I actually felt lucky. I would have never guessed Warren’s
life could be spared, that Grandmother, the devil herself, didn’t
have the power to destroy the man who, once again, was coming to my
rescue. Only this time we were going to be careful not to get
caught. Warren had found a way to get correspondence to me through
Abigail. I didn’t know how or why and didn’t need an explanation. I
was happy to know I had Warren on my side, along with Abigail and
Hamilton. A first step had been made to contact Daddy and fill him
in on the details of my imprisonment.

Once he found out, Daddy would not waste
another minute; he would board the first train he could. I began to
imagine possibilities for why Daddy hadn’t come for me. He must
have been hurt or sick, and Warren would track him down, contact
every hospital to see if he was in their care.

I hid the letter in one of the books, and
stood and gazed out the hazy window of my room. Warren was near,
maybe even watching me from somewhere in the woods. I tried to see
if there was any sign of him, but it was difficult to make out
anything with great clarity.

I wasn’t able to sleep a wink that night. All
I thought about was that I had a key to leave my room any time I
thought it safe, and there was a man who would lay down his own
life for me. I recalled our last moments together. I thought about
how we laughed and how close we sat on his bed. Since he last saw
me; I had officially become a woman. And with that burden I hated,
came the ability for me to win any man’s heart. I was as curvy and
voluptuous as Momma had been, though I knew that could also be
dangerous. I still feared what Grandmother said, and worried that
if and when Warren and I met again, something terrible would happen
if he touched me. I would keep my distance from him; he could not
touch me again, even if it was a moment of innocence.

Letters from Warren came at least one a week.
Mostly they were delivered under my door sometime during the night,
when Abigail had a moment to steal up to my room—a total of eight
letters, all of them telling me he thought of me every waking
minute and missed my lovely face. He vaguely described his search
for Daddy’s whereabouts, but he was having no luck. He wrote for me
not to worry, that he was not giving up. I was anxious to meet him
face to face and wrote that I had a key to escape my room and asked
him to meet me by the river at the first light of the moon, exactly
two days from receipt of my response. I used the chalk to write
back. When I knew Hamilton was to empty my chamber pot, I left the
note near it. I watched him come in, see it, then put it in his
pocket without looking my way. When he returned after a short
while, he signed Abigail’s name with his fingers, then left.

I finally had a reason to wake each morning.
Not only was I happy inside, I was outside, as well. My hair had
grown back to reach just past my bosom and the dull sunlight that
penetrated my prison was just enough to bring back the color to my
once-pale face. Though I was severely underweight, I was the
healthiest I had been in almost a year.

Abigail came to see me just before I stole
out to the river.

“You need to be careful. Mrs. Arrington is
still awake. I don’t like this,” she whispered, helping me button
up my skirt.

“I will be fine,” I said, giving her a quick
peck on the cheek, and placing my hand in my pocket to confirm the
key was there. I crept along the shadows of the wall until I made
my way to the back stairway. It wasn’t long before I was outside,
under the light of the early summer moon, making my way to the
river to meet Warren. I hurried with soft steps through the woods,
past the slave cemetery, and to the edge of the river, where I
spotted him peering out around a thick, mature willow tree.

I hurried to him and wanted more than
anything to throw my arms around him, but I was still afraid of
what Grandmother had instilled in me. Instead, I stayed a step back
as he appeared before me.

“Lillian, is that really you?” he said,
staring closely at me.

“Of course it is,” I said.

He reached out to touch my cheek, but I
pulled back. “You look different,” he said. “You have grown so
much.”

I blushed, though I knew he couldn’t see.
“Thank you for coming to see me,” I said as he led me to a spot
under the tree where we could sit and talk.

“Nothing could keep me away. Tell me,
Lillian. Tell me all that has happened since you were taken from
me.”

His eyes were troubled, and again, he reached
out to me. My mind told me to resist his touch, but my heart told
me to allow it. I didn’t pull away when he reached for my hand and
placed it in his. I began my story from the moment I looked back
and saw him lying in a pool of blood and believed him dead, to the
day I found the key in Momma’s armoire. He was fascinated and
distressed—his eyes full of tears.

“But I am all right now,” I said, reassuring
him.

Warren had already written in his letters
that a friend had come by to see him and found him half-dead from a
stab wound to his stomach. He had been taken to the hospital in
Savannah, and it took him months to recover.

Then, when he was well enough to make his way
to Sutton Hall, he had confronted Grandmother. She told him I was
long gone, that Daddy had come for me, and I was far away. She
warned him never to step foot on her plantation again. That’s all
he revealed in his letters, and it was under the moon and stars
that he explained how he learned I was still locked away.

“I was crushed when I learned you had gone
back to Maine. It wasn’t because you were happy and where you
belonged, but because I knew I would never see you again. You kept
me from dying, Lillian,” he confessed, then he took a long breath,
looked out onto the river that glistened with brilliant moonbeams,
and continued. “I was in Savannah when Hamilton spotted me. He was
waiting for your grandmother beside the carriage, and as I walked
past, he grabbed hold of me. I thought he was going to strike me,
and I went to defend myself, but something in his eyes told me to
hold my punch. He released me, brought his hands up, and began to
move them. I was perplexed until I remembered you telling me about
Elizabeth and teaching her sign language. Hamilton was trying to
spell something.”

I was mesmerized by his story. He told it
with such fervor, it was as if I were really there when it
happened. Warren brought his hand up and repeated the hand signs.
It spelled “Lillian.”

“I asked if you were still here, in the
mansion, and he nodded. I was grateful, as selfish as it was, to
know I had a chance to see you again. I arranged to have a letter
delivered, and Abigail met me in the woods.”

It was all so fortunate in many ways. Out of
so much despair, torture, and pain, we were brought together.
Neither of us had known the other was alive and longing to be
reunited. I had believed Warren killed, and he was convinced that
Daddy had come and taken me home. Neither was true. I asked him if
he had word about Daddy, if he had found what lighthouse station he
was keeping.

“No word yet, but I am trying. Please be
patient,” he said, squeezing my hand. His eyes were earnest. He was
trying his hardest.

“I will be. I suppose there is nothing but
time,” I sighed, looking down to hide my disappointment.

There was a long silence between us. We had
divulged most everything that had occurred over the bitter, long
year, and now we were emotionally exhausted.

Warren gave me his hand and helped me up; it
was time to part ways. I had to return to my room before it was
discovered that I was gone.

“Will you keep writing?” I asked before I
turned to go.

“As long as each full moon, you come out to
see me,” he said, in a voice just above a whisper.

I smiled, and said, “Of course, Mr.
Stone.”

“Warren. Call me Warren, from this moment
on.”

I practically floated back to the mansion; it
was almost as if it were all a dream. He was dashing and kind and
he had lived for the day he would again see me. He had noticed I
had matured, and he couldn’t help but to reach out and touch me. In
his eyes, I saw his adoration, and I felt the same way. Warren gave
me everything I had always wanted and longed for from Heath. Warren
didn’t hold back his feelings and confessed that he spent every day
with me in his thoughts.

I didn’t want to fall asleep that night. I
returned to my room and locked myself in. I was afraid I would wake
to the light of a new day and realize it was all a wonderful dream,
none of it real. I would be devastated. I tried to keep my heavy
lids from closing; I fought sleep as long as I could, but finally,
my tiredness won out and I drifted off.

The morning didn’t bring the cruel reality to
which I had come accustomed. Instead, I sat up and stretched and
didn’t notice the barren walls and stale smell of my room. I didn’t
care that I had the same breakfast every day and no one to wish me
a good morning. I had my freedom back, and I’d had love fix my
broken and battered heart. I woke that morning madly in love with
Warren Stone, and I couldn’t wait to receive his next letter.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait long.
Hamilton managed to bring one to me by early afternoon.

“Thank you,” I said, and he returned my
thankfulness with a smile.

I jumped on the bed, anxious to read his
letter.

My Dearest Lillian,

What has become of me I can barely describe
in words, but I will try. The moment I saw you last evening made me
realize how much I adore you. You are the reason that my heart
beats; you are the reason I live. I live for only you, Lillian
Arrington.

Until we meet again under the light of the
moon,

Warren

I had received my very first love letter! It
was mine to treasure, and I quickly put it away in the book where I
kept all of his letters to me. I was so happy I couldn’t contain my
smiles. All day I stayed locked away, but I wasn’t bored or
miserable. I spent my waking hours thinking of him, seeing his
handsome face before me. I fantasized about someday being his wife.
We would run away together and live on a lighthouse station, the
way Momma and Daddy had.

With a renewed passion for life, that night,
when all was settled, I found the courage to venture out of my
room, to wander the long, shadowy halls. The love Warren gave me,
just knowing he was near to help protect me, made me strong. I was
willing to take more chances; I wanted to find all the secrets that
lay behind the dozens of closed doors, down hidden passageways, and
around dark corners.

I silently stole out of my room into the
dimly-lit corridor and made my way along the walls until I came to
the first door across and checked the knob; it was locked. I went
on, from one door to the next; all of them were locked. I
enthusiastically continued, into another wing of the house. My
steps were light, though the floor still creaked beneath me. I
stopped, held my breath, and turned to look around. Still, I was
safe, undetected. I wandered on, checking every door I passed;
they, too, were all locked. I tried my key in each of them; it
didn’t work.

Then I found myself in the last wing, and as
I walked in, a cold shiver went through me. I instinctively knew it
was where Grandmother resided. I sensed her evil; it was all
around. I didn’t want to be there. I became tense and afraid, so I
slowly backed up, eased my way out of the corridor, and then I
bumped into something—or someone. I gasped and held my breath, and
slowly pivoted around, my mind scrambled with visions of the
torture I would endure because of my escape. I was terrified until
my eyes lifted to stare directly into Grandfather’s face.

He wasn’t angry or filled with hatred. His
blue eyes were old and tired; his expression soft and gentle. He
wasn’t as frail as he looked when I occasionally caught a glimpse
of him from my cloudy window. And he was walking, not in his
wheelchair, though he did hold the side of the wall for
support.

“Why, Amelia, you should be in bed. What’s
the matter? Did you have a bad dream?” he asked, placing his bony,
ancient hand on my head. I had been holding in my breath and let it
slowly out as he smiled down at me. He thought I was Momma! I went
along with his confused state of mind. It came natural to me, as I
had done it so many times with Momma.