Somewhere My Love (43 page)

The grounds were pale white near the house and darker
in
among the
stands of trees swaying leafy
branches
between Foxl
ei
gh and the river.
The water ran
hard after all the rain.
Ophelia had thrown herself into just such a flow.

Damn
stupid
, he chided
himself
,
t
hinking such a thing. 

Julia wouldn’t drown herself.
She’d been ecstatica
lly happy the last he’d seen of
her only a few hours ago.
But he
instinctively
headed into the garden, not the house.

Hi
s gut told him where to
seek her
.
Dew wet the scented earth
as he cr
unched over the pebbled path, b
ut she wo
uldn’t have stuck to the trail.
She loved
to be
among the plants.

“Julia!
”

No answer. 

She must have gone
further in and the river
had
muffled his
call, or her reply
. 

He dove through
the
shrubs
and trees
flickering with lightning bugs
like
Fourth
of July fireworks
.
B
ran
ches slapped his
bare arms
beneath his short sleeves
as he pushed past
,
and snagged
his
hair and
shirt
.
But what did he care?
 

His heart pounded harder and not
only from breaking into a
run.
“Julia!”
 

Nothing. 

She had to be here somewhere.
Unless
––
a
desperate panic seized him. She was in the river.
God, no!
“Julia!”

“
Will!
”

H
er
shaken
cry came from the direction
of t
he old wall.
S
tars show
n through breaks in the trees and the faint glow from estate lights revealed
the
sinuous
o
utline
of bricks
.
L
ike snake coils
,
it wound through the overgrown garden, then stopped
where the ancient e
nclosure had fallen into ruin.
Clumps of lilies grew on
this side of the
wall
. The flowers!
That must be where she’d gone. 

Will
could barely see to follow the
path, let alone b
ound through
the darkened
garden, but he charged
toward her
.
Remembering the pen
light on his keychain,
he pulled it out of his jean
’s
pocket
and skimmed
the small beam
over the ground
as he ran.
Every rock and furrowed trunk took on an
unearthly
appearance, even age-old
herbs.
The flowering spikes of monkshood see
med especially sinister.
N
ormally the
blue-capped flowers
struck him as beautiful
.
Not tonight, p
erhaps because the plant was
deadly
poisonous
,
also known
ominously as
wolf
s
bane
.
 

Shaking
off the morb
id mood
that gripped him, he
bore down on Julia.
Sweet perfume scented
the night
shadows
, and
white bells
glistened in his miniature light
.
There! She’d
sunk down among the lilies.
 
 

“
Are you hurt?”

“No.”
S
he sounded small and frightened
.

He dodged the spires to reach her and passed the beam over the prostrate figure, lying on the ground chillingly as
she had in the play.
Unlike rehearsal,
though,
she blinked dazedly at him
in the narrow light
.
 

“Julia
?
What happened?
”

“Paul was here.”

Sur
ely, Paul wouldn’t attack her? He adored her.
But she looked so shaken.  Will knelt beside her, silently vowing to stran
gle the youth.
“What did he do
?”    

She raised clenched fingers
and opened them.
“G
ave me
this
.”

Will flooded her h
and with light.  A tiny
pearl lay in her palm
, luminous in the beam
.
It seemed vaguely
familiar
, as though it had been of
importance a very long time ago, but he co
uldn’t think why.
It wasn’t big
enough to be worth much
.
 

“It’s the
button Cole kept from my glove,
”
she said.

“Oh.”
The
significance rolled over Will.
“How did Paul come by it?”

“
He s
ays he took it, a
long with the glove I lost
.
T
wo hundred years ago
.”

A
crackling sensation
ch
arged d
own Will’s spine.
“No.
That can’t be.
There must be some logical explanation for
all of
this.”

“There is.” Urgency filled her voice and demeanor
.
She sat up.
“
We’ve found our worm.”

Will stared at her in the dim light.
“Not Paul.
He’s an oddball and has sticky fingers, b
ut he’s not capable of murder.
Apart from that, you’re asking me to believe he was here when Cole was killed, in 1806.” 

“
He was.
So were you
.
W
hat do you remember of that
last
night?”

C
ompletely taken aback
by her question
, Will didn’t know how to reply.
He reached out, smoothing bits of earth and leaves from her
tumbled
hair, and hedged,
“Not a lot.”

“
You must remember something?
I do.”

“You’re
better at recall
than I am
.
My money’s on that Cameron fellow.
”

“
Maybe they were in this together.”

“What, Paul and s
ome Scottish guy you say reminded
you of Lyle?
Those two despise each other.”

“Now.
Maybe they didn’t
back
then.
”

“Julia, you
sou
nd like Dorothy in
T
he Wizard of Oz
when she says,
“
‘And you, and you, and you were there.’”

“
But they were.
Will, you have to think back.
Who came to your
––
Cole’s
––
room after your mother and I left?”

He was losing her again to this ghostly madness.

“Sweetheart,” he said
gently.
“I can’t really remember
those days.
I wasn’t born yet.”

Her voice
trembled.
S
he trembled.
“You were.
You’re Cole
somehow
.”

He pulled her shaking
against him.
“
I have a str
ong association with him, sort of
like memories at times, but that’s all.”

“No
.
I
t’s more.
You said
so yourself
,” she insisted as though he were going back on his word.

“To soothe you.”

“Or make love to me?” 
She jerked away from him
, quivering with the hurt in her raw voice
. 

Will
wrapped his arms around her, pull
ing her back into his embrace.
“I never told you
anything just to take advantage of you.
You have to know this, Julia.
”

“How can I?”
Her wounded query was
muffled against
h
is chest.
“You said one thing
then.
N
ow another.”

He
pressed his lips to her hair.
“All I want is to love you.”

She was rigid in his arms.
“All I’ve ever wa
nted
is Cole.
If you’re not that man
,
then I’ve betrayed him
.”

Will
sucked in his breath
as though Julia had
driven a blade through his gut. 
S
he might as well have.
The
pounding
hurt
rang in his ears and raged into
his very marrow.
Surely, it engulfed
them both.

Hardly aware of what he did, h
e
let her go, and
got
stiffly
to his feet.
Through the blinding pain, he gruffly said,
“Come on.
You’re n
ot staying the night out here.
I’ll see you to your apartment
.
”
 

After that, Will
didn’t a whole lot care
––
at least, he was battling like forty strong men not to
.
Let Cole comfort her.
Will
had
had enough of Julia Maury, Morrow,
he vowed, knowing full well he’d never wanted a woman so much in his life
and that without her it was over
.
He overflowed with a burning caldron of want
––
enough for two lifetimes
––
and it nearly choked him.

He shone th
e light among the fragrant lilies
, searching for the path.
Julia fo
llowed, sniffling, behind him.
Her utter wretchedness goaded his conscience, but not enough to turn and
try again.
She’d clawed him on
ce after his tender declaration
.
  He
wasn’t risking another attack.
Her next blow might well be lethal.

“Will, I’m sorry,” she said in a strangled voice.

Not enough.
Not nearly enough.
He kept on walking.

****

Will
sensed
a
familiarity
about
the scen
e unfolding
around him as
if
he
were
in a play he’d enacted
a great many years ago
. A
s if he were himself, but
different.
  E
verything seemed
indisputably
real
, and yet...

H
e
ran
his eyes over
the great hall
illuminated
in the radiance of
the chandelier.
The faceted light from hundreds of prisms shone over the sumptuously gowned ladies and elegant gentlemen pi
rouetting in graceful squares.
Music soared through the scented air from the musicians seated overhead on the stair landing. 
Vases of fragrant roses and
white
lilies were everywhere, and the dancers wafted fine Fren
ch perfume as they passed by
.