Her Immortal Love (20 page)

“Elaine, have you been talking to Saffron?”

Elaine only smiled then shrugged.

“Thank you for the gift.” She was grateful for it. It was beautifully sculpted, but she couldn’t help feeling sad as she looked at it.

“It has something to do with Tristan, doesn’t it? Your being sad. He looked sad too.”

Lydia’s heart skipped a beat. “You saw him? When?”

“A few days ago. He was in here looking for another book on alchemy. He looked as miserable as you do. I kinda got the feeling he was looking for you but he didn’t say much. He just asked about the book. I told him we didn’t have it in stock but we could order it for him. Then he left.”

“Did he place the order?”

“For the book?” Elaine shook her head. “He said he couldn’t wait that long.”

Lydia looked down at Elaine’s gift. Aphrodite and Adonis were locked in a heated embrace, but the sculptor had fashioned them in such a way that one could also see the tender love they had for each other.

A customer, who was waiting at the counter, impatiently cleared her throat.

“Oh, sorry. Be right there,” Elaine said. “Merry Christmas, Lydia.” She quickly squeezed Lydia’s arm then hurried over to the customer.

Lydia put the statuette back into the box and the box in her handbag. She left the store, the bell tinkling behind her. As she moved down the street, unthinkingly avoiding the streams of shoppers, she thought about the dream she'd had the other night.

It had been about Tristan. He'd been standing alone in a cemetery. The sky was dark with only a hint of sunlight on the eastern horizon. His tall, shadowed form was the only living thing in that graveyard. Lydia had not been able to see his face but she knew it was him. The thick dark hair, the wide set of his broad shoulders.

She had called out to him. And he, as if hearing her voice from a distance, had lifted his head. Then, after a moment, he had lowered it as he continued to stand in front of a grave. Judging from the look of it whoever was buried there had been recently laid to rest.

He squatted down and carefully laid a bouquet of flowers on the grave.

Calla lilies.

He fell to his knees, his head bowed, his shoulders shaking as if he were weeping.

It was at that moment, when she had felt the grief rolling off him like waves that she woke up, her face wet with tears.

She stopped walking. She was in front of the parking ramp where her car waited to take her home. Home to her empty house. Saffron was in Oklahoma visiting her folks. As for Carlotta, she was down in Florida with the
girls
. She had invited Lydia to come along, but she had not wanted to become one of
The Golden Girls
. At least not yet.

She looked to her right. If she went down a few blocks and turned the corner, she would be at the building where Tristan's condo was located. She reached into her handbag and pulled out her cell phone. With shaking fingers she pushed the speed dial for Tristan's number. She hadn't had the heart to erase it.

It rang and rang and rang. She was about to hang up when it was picked up.

“Tristan?” she said before he could answer.

“Lydia. Is it you?”

She closed her eyes as his warm, low voice caressed her ear. But he sounded so sad. “Yes, it is. Tristan, I…how are you?”

Great, Lydia. Was that all she could think to say?

“Where are you?”

“Downtown. I'm…I'm only a few blocks away.”

There was silence for a long moment. “I’m here.”

“I'll…I'll be there…shortly.”

She waited but he said nothing more. She stuffed the cell phone back into her bag.

The cold December wind, now peppered with bits of ice-crystals, strafed her face. What was she doing? He hadn't sounded happy to hear from her. But then, why should he be? Hadn't she told him she never wanted to see him again?

But she had to see him.

Why? She didn’t know. The dream? Maybe. Perhaps. Did it matter?

She turned right and made her way through the bustling crowds towards his apartment.

Chapter Thirteen

Lydia knocked on the door to Tristan’s apartment. George, the security guard, had allowed her to go up without even ringing through. He told her that Tristan had already alerted him to her arrival.

After what seemed an eternity, the door finally opened. Her eyes widened.

A dark stubble shadowed Tristan’s jaw and purplish smudges bruised the skin beneath his eyes. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in days.

A chill swept through her. She could not read anything in his eyes. No emotion whatsoever. It was like looking into a midnight sky void of stars.

This was a mistake. She shouldn’t have come. She was about to turn and leave, but Tristan took hold of her arm. He pulled her into the apartment, closed the door behind them and drew her into his arms. Before she could say a word, he lowered his head and kissed her. His mouth on hers wasn’t just sweet and warm as it always was when he kissed her; it was also hungry, possessive, demanding.

She responded in kind. She hadn’t known until this moment how much she’d missed him. How much he was a part of her. God help her, she hadn’t even known how empty she was until she was once again filled with him.

He held her tight, his mouth moving feverishly over hers. She pushed her hands up his back, her nails digging into his skin, her pussy throbbing with need. He groaned against her mouth, his kiss becoming more insistent. Only after a long, breathless moment did he finally break it and pull away from her.

She gazed up at him, her breath short, her heart pounding. How could she have thought she never wanted to see him again? How could she have imagined she could live without him?

“Missed me?” he asked, a smile curling about his lips.

She smiled back. “No, not at all.”

He slipped his arm about her waist and escorted her into the front room. Boxes were scattered all about. The bookshelves were almost empty and all of the pictures, objects d’art and ancient weaponry that had been on the wall were gone. He moved some boxes off the couch and gestured for her to sit down. He sat next to her and took her hand in his. He held her hand as if he were afraid she was going to leave.

She looked around. “Are you moving?”

He nodded. “I’m going home.”

She frowned. “Home? But I thought this was home?”

“I was living here only temporarily. I live in New York.” He glanced down at the
Y Ddraig Goch
ring on his hand. “But I’m going home. To Wales.”

“Wales?”

“I was born there. Lydia, why are you here?”

She jumped at the abruptness of the question. But it was a fair one. She had told him she never wanted to see him again. She took a breath and released it. “I missed you.”

He looked deeply into her eyes. “And?”

“And I wanted to…to hear the truth regarding…”

“Rosemary Pryor.”

She nodded.

He stared at her for a long moment. “Why now?”

“What do you mean?”

He leaned closer to her and his scent—that intoxicating fragrance of his own masculine musk and his cologne—enveloped her.

“You told me you didn’t want to see me again. You told me to stay away. As much as it hurt me to do so, I did as you asked. I stayed away.”

His eyes bored into hers until all she could see was her reflection mirrored in their dark-blue depths.

“Now I ask you,” he went on. “What’s different now?”

She listened carefully to the tone of his voice. There was no anger in it. Only curiosity. And what sounded like hope.

She drew her hand away from his and knitted her fingers together. “I…I had a dream. About you.”

“A dream? What kind of dream?”

She suddenly felt uncertain. It had been, after all, only a dream.

“Tell me,” he said softly. “Don’t be afraid.”

She gave him a small but grateful smile. He returned her smile but his eyes were guarded, as if he wanted to hear what she had to say but was also afraid to hear it.

“It was dark. You were alone. In a....cemetery.”

She paused. He nodded for her to continue.

“You were standing in front of a grave. You were holding a bouquet of flowers.” She slanted a glance at him. “Calla lilies.”

He said nothing but pain flashed briefly across his face.

“You placed the flowers on the grave. Then you fell to your knees before the headstone. You were facing away from me and I couldn’t hear anything but I knew that…that you were crying.” She squeezed her fingers together. “I could feel it. Your pain and your grief. I wanted so much to go to you and hold you. But I couldn’t.” She shrugged, embarrassed. “It was only a dream.”

“Is that what you think?”

“I don’t know. It felt so real. Although I couldn’t hear anything, I could smell the freshly-turned earth and the lilies, and I felt the coldness of the wind against my face. If it was a dream it was the most realistic dream I’ve ever had.”

“It wasn’t a dream, Lydia.”

“What do you mean?”

“The grave? It was Rosemary’s.”

“She died?”

He nodded, pain shadowing his eyes. “I went to her grave and I laid the calla lilies there. They were her favorite flower.” His throat worked. “That night you heard me on the phone I was talking to her. She was dying. I’d been so afraid I wouldn’t be there when she passed. That she would die alone. As she always feared she would. But I made it in time and I held her hand until the last breath left her body.”

“You were telling me the truth. About her being your wife.”

“Yes. But it wasn’t the way you thought. Or your mother,” he added ruefully.

He took in then released a deep breath. “Rosemary was my wife. But I married her when she was nineteen years old.”

Before Lydia could say anything in response to that, he quickly rose from the couch and went over to a box that sat on one of the empty bookshelves. He reached inside it and took out something that had been carefully wrapped in tissue paper. He brought it over to her. She unwrapped it.

It was the silver-framed photo she’d seen that first day she had visited his apartment. The photo of the man and woman she’d assumed were his grandparents.

She stared at the beautiful young woman in the sundress. “Rosemary Pryor.”

Tristan nodded. “Except her last name wasn’t Pryor then. That was the name of her second husband. The one she married after I…” He stopped then continued. “She was Rosemary Drake in that photo. My wife. It was taken on our honeymoon in Tuscany. Neville Chamberlain was Prime Minister of England. Margaret Mitchell had won the Pulitzer for
Gone with the Wind
. Japan had invaded China. It was 1937. And I was in love.”

Lydia stared at the young man in the photo. The man who looked so much like Tristan she had assumed there was just a strong resemblance between him and his grandfather. But the man in the photo wasn’t his grandfather, if she were to believe what Tristan was telling her.

It was him.

“How old were you in 1937?”

She was surprised at how rational she sounded in spite of the fact that this conversation was anything but.

Tristan stared at her for a long moment and, as he did, it felt as if her question was a pebble that had been thrown into a pool of water and from it waves of time were rippling out from him.

“I was 364 years old,” he finally said. “I’m over 400 now.”

She could only stare at him. He had to be lying. And if he wasn’t lying—and how could she allow herself to think otherwise—then he was insane.

He gently placed the photo on a nearby table. “I was born in Wales, just as I told you. But it was the year 1573. My mother was Welsh and my father English. He was a man of means in that he owned some land. He even had a title, although a very minor one. Elizabeth the I was on the throne.”

He stopped and looked over at her. She could only stare back at him. She’d come here hoping to hear some reasons for his behavior but she’d certainly not expected this....this fantasy.

“Do you want to hear this?” he asked. “I know you don’t believe me. How could you? But you asked for the truth. I’m trusting you to hear me out.”

She nodded silently, numbly. She’d come here and, therefore, she would hear him out. And then, when he was done, she would leave and she would not come back.

“My mother was not a fertile woman and this displeased my father. I was their only child. He took to finding comfort in the arms of other women. I loved my mother. She was gentle and kind and my father’s wild ways hurt her. As a result she was often ill and took to her bed, staying in her chambers for weeks on end. I tried to be a good son to her, but I was young and the heat was in my blood.”

Raw hurt glittered in his eyes. “What young man wouldn’t rather be out hunting or wenching than spending his days in a dark, foul-smelling room with a sick woman? No matter how much he loved her.”

Lydia didn’t know if Tristan was delusional or just pulling her leg. But she heard real pain in his voice and she could not turn a blind eye to it. She reached over and took his hand. “Tristan—”

He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed the back of it. “I want you to hear this. I want you to hear everything.” He lowered her hand but kept hold of it. “My mother died when I was seventeen. The doctor said it was from a fever but I knew the truth. It was grief. My mother loved my father with all her heart but his coldness and cruelty finally killed her.”

He looked over at her, his eyes shadowed. “It was then that I swore never to love. To not allow a living soul to have that kind of power over me. Soon after my mother died my father took me to London. To Elizabeth’s court.”

A boyish smile broke across his face and his eyes took on a faraway look. “If only I could show you what I see as I look back down the long centuries. For a young man from the wilds of Wales, London was like something from out of a dream. My father spent all his time trying to curry favor at court, but I didn’t care about any of that. There was so much else to do in London, I drank, I dueled, I wenched. Whenever and wherever I could. Even my father grew disgusted with me. Looking back at it now, I know I did it to fill a hole inside me. A hole that was as deep as my mother’s grave.”