Diamonds and Dreams (20 page)

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 believe 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.

The ground vanished beneath her feet. She no
longer saw the moon. The hedgerows disappeared. The night breeze
ceased to exist. She forgot to breathe.

All that mattered was Saber’s kiss. Upon her
wrist. His lips. Smoothing across her skin, touching every nerve
she possessed. “Saber,” she whispered. “Oh...”

Saber felt her fingers quiver upon his
throat; his lips spread into a smile. “Is a kiss on your wrist what
you thought it would be, Goldie?”

His deep voice vibrated upon her skin. It
tickled. And caressed. And make her feel dizzy with pleasure.
“Yes,” she whispered.

“And what about a kiss here?” Slowly, he
pushed up the sleeve of her nightgown, his lips inching up her arm,
and stopping at the crook of her elbow. There, his kisses
resumed.

“Saber,” she told him, her body afire with a
need she had no idea how to satisfy.

“Goldie,” he answered her, knowing exactly
what she meant by calling his name.

Her entire arm trembled. Like hot liquid,
exquisite sensation flowed through her. It burned, and yet it felt
strangely wonderful. She couldn’t understand how that could be.
“Oh, Saber,” she whispered when his kisses began the slow journey
to her upper arm. That odd, but demanding longing was growing.
Sensing that fulfillment would come from Saber, she took a step
closer to him, daring this dreamy experience to last for just a
little while longer.