Lily (50 page)

“Where?”

Instead of answering, he gathered her in his arms and lifted her. The tide foamed around his feet. He set his teeth against the wind and started off across the rough shale, moving east, staying as close to the cliff as he could. But sometimes the ground dipped and he was forced to wade through surging, thigh-high water. Lily hugged his neck with all her strength and prayed he wouldn’t stumble. They had gone about forty paces when a notion of his destination began to dawn on her.

“A cave—you’re taking me to a cave.”

“A nice big, airy—”

“Cave.”

“Yes. Clay and I used to—”

“Play pirate when you were little.”

“Yes. It’s the only—”

“I’m not having this baby in a cave!” She clutched him suddenly, gasping, “Oh no,” while her whole body tightened to meet a fresh pain. Devon sat down in the surf, Lily on his lap, and rocked her.

“That one was worse,” he noted unsteadily when it was over. She only nodded. “Darling, listen, there’s nowhere else. It’ll be dark and dirty, but at least dry and out of the wind. It’s right there. See it? Behind that tree in the crack.”

“But we’ll drown! The water—”

“Flows in for about twelve feet, and then there are stone steps, sort of, that go up into the cliff. Nice and dry.” He stood up, still holding her.

“Sort of?”

“Lily, don’t worry.”

“What does that mean, Devon?”

“It’s going to be all right.”

“That cave has bats, doesn’t it?”

“No bats.”

“And snakes.”

“No snakes.”

“Spiders, then.” When he said nothing to that, she cried, “It does, doesn’t it?” in miserable triumph. “Oh,
Judas.”

“I’ll step on them.” He set her on her feet at the cave entrance, a narrow, grim-looking aperture in the face of the rock. “Let me go first.”

“Go right ahead.”

“Keep hold of my hand.”

“If you insist.”

He put his hands on either side of her face and smiled down into her panicky eyes. “It’s going to be all right, sweetheart, I promise.”

“But, Dev, I’m going to have a baby in a cave!”

He kissed her forehead, her cheekbones. “We’re going to have it together. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Another spasm gripped her then; she leaned into him, and the taut, strong touch of his body helped her through it. “You won’t leave me?” she whimpered when it finally faded.

“I’ll never leave you. Come on, love, the water’s rising. Hold my hand.”

She noticed then that the waves were breaking above their knees. She had to duck to enter the cave, and almost immediately they were plunged into near-total darkness. “Oh, this is wonderful,” she grated. Desperate circumstances, she was learning, drove her to sarcasm.

“It’s not pitch black in the cave itself,” he said hastily; “there’s … a little light from the top.” Or there used to be, he amended silently. About twenty years ago. “Come on, this way.” He hoped.

The rock steps were high and jagged; he had to lift her up to each one. Resting on the fourth, she had another contraction. “They’re coming so
fast,”
she breathed, frightened again.

“That’s good, though,” he told her, surreptitiously wiping perspiration from his forehead; the realization that he was going to have to deliver the baby was just beginning to sink in. “It means it’ll be over soon.” He liked the bold, self-assured sound of his voice, and wondered if she was persuaded by it.

At the top of the last step he told her to stay put, hold on to the wall right there, and not to move. She assured him that she had no intention of wandering off. Would she be all right? Yes, of course. But when he let go of her hand and disappeared completely into the blackness, a blind, unreasoning panic swamped her. “Dev!”

He was beside her in seconds. “It’s all right,” he crooned, holding her. “Is it bad this time?”

“It’s not—I wasn’t—” For a moment she considered telling a tiny little fib. But then she couldn’t. “I was just scared,” she admitted. “Don’t leave me by myself. Can’t I go with you? You said it wouldn’t be dark!”

“It—takes a minute for the eyes to adjust.”

“What’s that funny smell?”

“I don’t know.”

“What’s the floor like? All covered with spiders, I don’t doubt. And snakes too, if the truth—”

“Lily, for the Lord’s sake—”

“This is all your fault, Devon.”

“My
fault?”

“Well, it’s your baby, isn’t it?”

His hand holding hers squeezed tighter, and she bit her tongue. “Yes, it’s mine,” he announced, victorious. “You’re cutting it pretty close, but I’m glad you finally admitted it before the child gets here.”

A million thoughs clouded her brain. “I’m not talking to you about this now.”

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“You’re right, there isn’t. This is
my
child, not yours.”

She thought he muttered something vulgar as he shuffled along in the dark, she holding on to his coat. Suddenly he shouted a real oath when his foot struck something metallic, and she couldn’t repress a scream of fright. “What? What is it?”

“How the hell do I know? Stand still and don’t move.” She obeyed while he leaned over to investigate. “God almighty.”

“What?”

“It’s—I think it’s—it is.”

“What?”

“A lantern. Glory be to God, it’s even got oil in it. And, Lily.” His voice became soft, reverent. “Next to it is a tinder box.”

“Are you joking, Devon? Because if you are—”

“I’m not joking. Sit down here, right here, while I light the lantern.”

She did, and presently she heard the scratch of flint and steel. Seconds later the lantern wick sputtered, ignited, and glowed. Lily wrinkled her nose. Pilchard oil. The first thing she noticed was that there were no spiders on the ground, at least not in her vicinity. The second thing she noticed made her breath catch and her eyes go wide with astonishment. “Dev, look.”

He was looking. They were not kneeling on the floor of an empty, damp, dirty, spider- and snake-infested boyhood cave. They were in a warehouse. Stacks of boxes and barrels and bales surrounded them on all sides. Scarcely an arm’s length away was a gaudy wall of rolled fabrics, silks and satins; brocades and velvets, printed muslins. Abutting it were barrels and ankers of wine and rum and brandy. Another wall was stacked with what looked like Turkish carpets, brighdy colored and musky-smelling. There were furs in huge piles, beaver and fox and raccoon, next to a mountain of scroll-like rolls that appeared to be painted Chinese wallpaper. They couldn’t see the coffee or the tea, but they could smell them—the pungent aroma they’d noticed before but couldn’t identify because it was so incongruous. A long metal box nearby was printed with a neat sign that said “Muskets.” But the most amazing thing of all was a plain, unadorned wooden chest in the middle of the cave floor less than six feet away. The heavy lid gaped open on its hinges, and inside gleamed a shiny, slippery fortune of gold and silver coins.

“God save us,” Lily whispered. “Where are we, Dev?”

He laughed softly, gazing around. “It’s Clay’s cache. It must be. He couldn’t remember where he’d put it.”

“Cobb knew. Dev—what he told me! He was your brother—your half-brother. Your father’s son.”

He turned to her slowly. “What? Lily, what are you saying?”

“Cobb was your father’s bastard! He always knew it, and hated it because he was your servant, yours and Clay’s. He said he had a right to steal from you.”

Devon’s face was stiff with shock; he couldn’t speak. She wanted to touch him, but another pain seized her then, and this one seemed to go on and on. She meant to keep quiet, and was dismayed to hear herself cry out before it was over. “Damn it, damn it,” she panted. “I wanted to be brave, but oh, this
hurts.”

“Scream all you want. Scream your head off,” he advised, and hoped his reassuring smile looked less sickly than it felt. “But first let’s get you out of that wet dress. You’re having this baby on a nice warm pile of furs, covered with silk. How many women are so lucky?”

She was not cheered. “God, I hate this,” she grumbled, and kept it up the whole time he gently stripped off her soggy clothes and wrapped her in a roll of burgundy velvet, soft as butter. He left her sitting on the floor near the chest of treasure, still griping, while he made her a thick bed of rabbit and fox fur. “Use the muslin,” she suggested practically when he started to spread pale yellow silk on top of the furs for a cover; “it washes better.”

He helped her into her new bed and covered her carefully, even though her laboring body was already warm. She felt better sitting up, she told him, so he fashioned her a thick pillow of beaver pelts, wrapped in satin. He stood back, hands on his hips, and grinned at her.

“What’s funny?”

“You look like a pregnant bear. On her way to a ball.”

Lily’s sense of humor wasn’t highly refined at that moment. “Thanks very much,” she said stiffly—which only made him laugh. “Do you have any more entertaining observations? If so, let’s get them all out at once.”

Still chuckling, he sat down beside her and took her hand. “Tell me your life story. Tell me all about Lily Trehearne. What did you look like when you were a little girl?”

She eyed him suspiciously. “I’m not telling you anything. Why do you want to know? You should have asked me such questions a long time ago if you were interested.” She winced and drew herself up as the pain struck again, harsh and punishing, and seemingly with no end. In its aftermath she lay panting and perspiring, stunned by the intensity this time, and more afraid than ever. “I don’t see how this can be natural,” she whispered weakly, “this is just—this is too—” She stopped, seeing his face. Immediately he assumed a mask of calm, but it was too late—she’d already caught a glimpse of his torment. It wrung her heart. “But everything’s going to be all right,” she said as she reached for his hand and gripped it hard, “I’m sure it is. Meraud said I would have a quick and easy time, and she could tell the future.”

“Who is Meraud?”

“She was my friend. I lived with her in her house on the moor. You put the magic stones on her grave after you found me that night. I never thanked you for that. Lie beside me, Dev; it helps if I can feel you.”

It helped him too. He stretched out next to her on the fur bed and rubbed her stomach softly while she told him all about Meraud and the moor, the sculptures and the glass wall. As she spoke, the image of her old friend became clearer in her mind; she fancied she could almost feel Meraud’s presence with them in the cave. It was a comforting fancy.

Devon talked about Cobb. He remembered that his steward’s mother had died in childbirth four years before Devon’s birth. Mary Cobb was her name. His father’s mistress. “It’s not so surprising. My mother wouldn’t, or couldn’t, share a life with my father, although I never really understood why. He must have needed someone while she was off in Devonshire.” His father’s will had stipulated that Cobb sons could remain stewards at Darkstone Manor forever, generation after generation—Edward’s way of assuaging his guilt, no doubt, for never acknowledging his bastard.

“I wonder if losing his hand to save Clay when they were little made him even angrier as the years went by,” said Lily, thinking out loud. She remembered the day she had come upon Cobb drunk in his cottage. “A Darkwell bain’t a man for a young girl to rely on,” he’d warned her. She realized now that he must have been thinking of his mother. “Why did he leave all this, do you think?” She gestured to the stores of treasure all around them. “Why not take it and escape? He could have gone somewhere far away and lived like a king. For that matter, why didn’t he kill Clay? Finish the job, I mean. He must have known that Clay might get his memory back someday.”

Devon was silent for a long time, brooding. “Maybe he didn’t really want to kill anyone. Maybe he stayed because he had nowhere else to go. After all, Clay and I were the only family he had.” He couldn’t forget the look of remorse on Cobb’s black-bearded face when he’d crawled over the lip of the cliff.

Lily had a different memory—of the cruel, bruising strength of his hands when he’d dragged her, pleading for pity, into the surf and tied her to the drowning rock. She had a compassionate heart, but she could not fèel sorry that Cobb was gone.

Time passed. The harrowing pains racked her with increasing frequency; in the diminishing periods of rest between them she told Devon about her father, and what she could remember of her mother, and what her childhood had been like. For his sake, she never cried out again. He listened while he massaged her back and shoulders, her feet, asking questions or talking about himself through the pains to distract her. Neither had forgotten the worst of their shared past, and Lily had not forgiven, but they were embarked on something together that deflated the magnitude of all that, made that terrible time, at least for now, seem far away and trivial.

“Go ahead and yell,” he urged when the pains began to come in long, racking waves, but still she kept silent. It seemed more helpful to pant. How many hours had this been going on? She couldn’t make her legs stop shaking, and it was almost impossible to concentrate. Between contractions she felt miserable and irritable and frustrated; when he told her how well she was doing, she snapped at him—then apologized, tearfully and profusely, until the next pain hit and he coaxed her through it again.

Just when she was sure she could bear it no longer, when she was fully prepared to get up and leave, with or without him, and forget all about this horrible, unnatural business of childbirth, something changed. “Dev,” she breathed as a different kind of pressure seemed to build slowly inside her. “I mink it’s coming.”

“Easy, love,” he cautioned, crouched between her legs, gauging her progress. “Go easy now. I can’t see anything yet.”

The next contractions were almost as satisfying as they were painful, and the intervals between them were nearly peaceful. She went limp, conserving the last of her strength, while Devon massaged her calves and offered endless encouragement.

“Oh, Lord,” he said a little later, “I think I can see it. I can see the head! Can you push, sweetheart?”