Silver Moon (4 page)

Elyse stood in the center of the small balcony overlooking the garden. She wore a loose-fitting nightdress that had once been her mother’s, and had been carefully stored in the cellar since her death. The cool breezes blowing in from the mountains to the shore tugged at the edges of the nightdress, making it billow around her.

It was well after midnight, and the ghostly silver moon of the Jamaican night rode low in the sky, its light lending a faint illumination to the mountains in the south. It was a peaceful scene, and helped calm her after waking from a troubling dream.

As tired as Elyse had been, she had found sleep an impossible feat. After a wonderful dinner shared with Ann and Charles, she had retired to the bedroom she had chosen for her own. In bed, she stared up at the ceiling, wondering if she were here, or if it was a delusion born of her desperate needs while the scents of salty air and tropical trees told her she was in Jamaica.

Closing her eyes, Elyse tried to ease her mind and let sleep claim her, but her thoughts would not set her free. She could not stop the feeling of being a stranger in the house in which she had been born. She was the sole occupant of Devonairre at this moment; the house was silent, except for her own breathing—a feeling she had never once imagined in the sixteen years she’d dreamed of her return.
I’m not a stranger,
she told herself.
I belong here!

When sleep finally came, it stole upon her slowly. When at last she succumbed to its call, it was only to find herself dreaming of being in an unfamiliar place, populated by shadowy people. It was nighttime. She was walking in the moonlight along a sandy beach, surrounded by all sorts of people. Frightened, she began to run, her bare feet digging into the warm sand as outstretched hands grasped at her.

Then her dream changed. She was above it all and staring down at the beach. She saw herself running, her nightdress tossed about eerily as she raced for the sanctuary of the trees. The people behind her were coming closer. Turning her head as she ran, Elyse saw her Uncle Carl running after her. His mouth twisted into an ugly, horrible leer. Behind him, her mouth open, came Aunt Elizabeth.

Elyse saw herself race to the line of trees. Before she reached them, a shadowed figure emerged from their darkened depths. Elyse saw herself stop, frozen to the spot. Then she recognized the lean, powerful torso and saw the smile with which Brace Denham favored her.

The amber flecks within his blue eyes glowed, while the handsome, chiseled angles of his face held her captive. He reached out to her, his hand open, his palm inviting.

“Come to me,” he said in a low voice. “Come to my arms.”

Then she saw that all he wore were pants. His chest rose and fell seductively, desire written across his features; her blood raced madly, heated by her own hidden needs.

“Help me, Brace,” she pleaded.

“Come to me,” he said again, this time his voice more demanding.

“I…I can’t,” she said, the bursting desire commanding her to go to him, to find safety within his arms.

His sensuous lips twisted into a sneer. “Go back to England. Go back to where you belong!”

“Damn you!” Elyse screamed when Uncle Carl grabbed her and pulled her away. The last thing she saw was Brace mocking her helplessness, looking even more handsome than before.

An instant later Elyse awoke from the dream. She fought to calm her breathing, and when she succeeded, realized sleep was gone for the moment. Rising slowly, Elyse left the bed, walked across the hallway and stepped out onto the balcony.

She
breathed deeply of the night air.
Why did I have that strange dream?

Perhaps because of today.
It had been a long day, the morning spent in anxious waiting as the Brittania sailed to Bluefish Bay. The walk to the house had not been tiring in itself, but the strain on her nerves as she’d neared her home had been tremendous.

The encounter with Brace had left her shocked and surprised, but the warmth of Ann and Charles’s reception had chased away the bitter aftertaste of their son’s hard words.

She and Ann had spent the remainder of the afternoon exploring the house she had not seen in sixteen years, bringing up hazy memories that gave evidence that she did in fact remember her home.

What a home it was! On the main floor were five rooms, not counting the huge, entry hall. The second floor consisted of five bedrooms and a nursery.

Elyse had been astonished to see that although her father had been dead ten years, the Denhams had kept the house in such perfect condition no one could ever tell it had been empty for a decade.

After entering the house, she’d found herself fighting the constant feelings of dèjá vu, until she’d willed herself to relax enough to see what was around her.

The entry hall was larger than she had remembered, and there was not one, but two curved staircases leading to the second floor.

To the right of the entry hall was the study and office, which was not overly large, but pleasant and simple. Two large windows dominated the study, directing the light onto the mahogany desk at the center of the room.

Elyse remembered that as a child, she’d never been able to see above the desktop—she had been too small. A painting hung on one wall, a portrait of her mother, in the background, the Chatsworth house in Devon.

Going through the pocket door at the end of the office, Elyse had found herself in the library. It was equal in size to the office; its walls lined with dark wood shelves. Hundreds of volumes rested on the shelves, and Elyse had known she would have many pleasant hours of reading.

Instead of going back through the office, Ann had led her through another set of pocket doors that opened into the breakfast room, where the sideboard, filled with pewter cups, had drawn her eyes. The small stool at its base was the same one she had stood on as a child, when she had reached for her cup. The long teak table was oiled and glowing with the iridescence of daylight. Eight chairs of matching teak surrounded the informal table. the breakfast room, they had gone into the formal dining room.

The dining room was enormous; the crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling was magnificent—French crystal, connected by golden fillets, supported by gold candleholders.

“It’s strange,” she’d said to Ann, “but I don’t remember this at all.”

“You shouldn’t. The salty air does not allow fixtures or materials a long life. This room and the salon must be redecorated every five years.”

Elyse had looked more closely at the walls, covered with fine hand-painted silk. Scenes of birds in flight and birds at rest decorated a background of soft cream shades.

”Come.”

Following Ann, who had kept smiling at Elyse’s darting glances, she entered the salon. This room, almost square in shape, was light and airy. Three sets of chairs set off its atmosphere, and the velvet swayback couch added much. The salon’s walls, Elyse had noticed, were covered with white wallpaper, scenes of flowers painted on it. Two portraits hung on the salon walls. She had recognized the first, her mother and father in formal dress. She was unable to remember the second portrait.

“Who is that?” she asked.

“Your great-grandfather, the third Earl of Chatsworth.”

Elyse stared at the portrait for several seconds, studying the hard lines of her ancestor’s face, and saw that only one feature was the same as her father’s and her own: his eyes. They were jade green.

“You must choose a bedroom.”

She followed Ann up the curved stairs. At the top, when Ann started leading her toward one doorway, Elyse stopped her. Standing in the center of the long hallway, she looked around at the silk-covered walls. Five doorways faced her, one on each end of the hallway, and three along its length.

Elyse turned and walked to the small balcony overlooking the back of Devonairre. She stepped onto it, and in doing so, saw the magnificence of the courtyard below and the multitude of flowers lining the walks. The courtyard was centered, equidistant between the main house and the east and west wings. The two wings were only half the height of the main house, but each was as large. Set further back, in order to prevent any possibility of fire, was the kitchen.

When she turned back to Ann, they finished her tour. She had already seen her parents’ large bedroom and the attached nursery where she had spent all her young years at Devonairre. Dolls she’d played with, made by the plantation’s slaves, looked up at her with sad, longing eyes. The crib and cradle looked new, although the quilt in its center was discolored with age.

“Will you take over your parents’ room?” Ann asked.

Elyse shook her head. “Another room.”

Ann nodded, leading Elyse to the next largest bedroom in the house, which consisted of two separate rooms, a sitting room and a bedroom. A large hand-carved four-poster bed, surrounded by white netting, stood against one wall. Soft, blue curtains covered the two windows, and an open-arm settee rested beneath one window.

An armoire of the same wood as the bed was against the far wall, the same wall leading to the pleasantly appointed sitting room, complete with a writing table. From the windows of both rooms, Elyse saw the blue-green water and sparkling white sand beach of Bluefish Bay.

“This room is lovely,” she said to Ann.

Ann smiled in her knowing way. “This was not intended to be a guest room. Your parents designed it for you, for when you left the nursery. I shall have it ready by tonight.”

After leaving her new bedroom, Ann showed Elyse the remaining three guest bedrooms. When the tour ended, Ann turned to Elyse. “Will your trunks be arriving tomorrow?”

Elyse shook her head. “I arrived here with only what I carried. My belongings were lost.” Although it was not fully the truth, she had not lied. Her personal belongings were lost to her as if they’d gone overboard at sea.

Ann looked stricken for a moment, but another bright smile chased the lines of worry from her face. “Then tomorrow I shall have a seamstress begin a new wardrobe. In the meantime, I’ll rescue some of your mother’s things from the cellar storage.”

When the tour was finished, Elyse turned to Ann, a myriad of emotions filling her eyes. “I... I don’t know how to thank you for all you’ve done, for caring for Devonairre all these years.”

“We knew you would be coming back,” she said simply. “I know this will sound funny to you, but for the last ten years, I’ve never felt the house to be empty, it was just…waiting for you.”

Ann called a servant and ordered a bath drawn. , which Elyse took eagerly. Dinner was at eight, and she, Ann, and Charles ate in the formal dining room.

During dinner, she learned a great deal of what had been going on in Jamaica during her long absence. So much had happened that she could not possibly have taken it all in, but what she found most interesting was the fact that her father had freed all the slaves on the plantation a half year before he died.

“How could we have made such profits after he’d done that?” she asked Charles, unable to hide the shock in her voice.

“Your father was a man who had a sense of the future. He knew what would eventually happen here, and acted on it before it happened. Most of his peers thought him foolish, if not outrightly insane, but he proved them wrong. He sensed the turmoil in the hearts of the slaves. He sensed what would happen not long after his death.”

Charles told her about the slave uprising of 1831; and of the death of the White Witch of Rose Hall, killed by the slave who had helped her murder two of her three husbands.

“There was not much news in England about the uprising,” Elyse mentioned. “But when I heard of it, I was worried that something terrible might have happened at Devonairre.”

“Your father insured that nothing would happen to Devonairre,” Charles stated simply. “He was a wise man, not only in business, but in his feelings toward others. Shortly before his death, Harlan Louden read the atmosphere of the island and the people. He saw how slavery was in a moribund state, and its death throes would cost many lives. On the day he made his decision, he called all the slaves together; mind you, that was two thousand men and women. Standing before them, he spoke out, offering them freedom. He told them they could leave the plantation and claim land for themselves, or they could stay and work for him. He would pay them a fair wage for a fair job.”

Elyse stared at Charles, almost able to hear her father’s voice issuing from his lips.

“More than half stayed. The rest left, but they all returned to work during harvesting season. And,” Charles said with a smile, “it seems that even with paying wages to the former slaves, we were making more profits, for they worked harder than before. When the slaves revolted, our people surrounded the plantation, stopping any slave who came for destruction. Devonairre survived and prospered because of your father’s foresight.”

Moved by Charles’s story, Elyse stayed silent for several minutes. “Thank you for sharing your memories with me,” she finally whispered to him.

“Your father was a great man, Elyse. What he did, he did for himself, for you, and for all the people for whom he was responsible.”

“I know,” she whispered.

It was true
, Elyse thought as she stared out toward the mountains, still illuminated by the low glow of the moon. A sweeping, sharp breeze tugged at her and she shivered.