Song of the Spirits (15 page)

She is a child, William mused, and in his heart, he realized that sounded like an excuse for her having just rebuffed him… and for his being in love with Kura.

When Elaine left shortly thereafter, he accompanied her outside. That went without saying; he was a gentleman, after all. His good-bye kiss was barely a peck, though Elaine seemed not to notice. So close to her grandmother’s watchful eye, she did not dare make any affectionate gestures either, as Helen would know all too well what was going on if Callie started barking. The little dog still did not like it when William embraced her.

With something close to a sense of relief, William followed Elaine with his eyes as Banshee began to trot away. She would let the horse go at a warm-up pace until she had passed Main Street, and then ride briskly home, followed by that crazy little dog. She would probably even enjoy herself. William shook his head. So much of Elaine’s behavior would always be incomprehensible to him. In complete contrast to Kura.

Kura-maro-tini crept out of the house. The light in Helen’s salon had just gone out. She had been sent to her room, but she was staying on the ground floor. From her window, she had watched as William said good-bye to Elaine.

William was happy that he had not seriously kissed Elaine. It would not have felt right to him if Kura, who was now leaning as if by chance against the wall to the right of the front door, had caught him in the arms of someone else. No one could see Kura from a window. She had thrown on her fur coat but had not closed it, and he could see the dress she was wearing underneath. The top three buttons had
already been undone. Kura wore her hair down, and as it flowed over the pale fox fur, the moon made it glow silver.

“I needed some fresh air because it’s so hot inside,” she said, playing with the fourth button on her dress.

William stepped closer to her. “You look beautiful,” he said, awestruck, and then wanted to hit himself for that. Why could he not think of a wittier compliment? Normally he did not find it the least bit difficult to come up with the right words.

Kura smiled. “Thank you,” she said quietly, drawing the word out into a tune that promised heaven.

William could not think of a reply. Slowly, almost timidly, he touched her hair. It was smooth as silk.

Kura trembled. Though she seemed to be shivering, had she not just said that she was hot?

“Strange to think that it’s summer elsewhere,” her voice crooned. “Do you celebrate these festivals in Ireland as well?”

“On the first of May rather than the end of June,” William replied, suddenly sounding hoarse. “People used to call it Beltane. A spring festival.”

“A fertility festival,” Kura said alluringly. She started to sing. “When the summer comes and the trees bloom lovely…”

As Kura sang, Queenstown’s icy Main Street seemed to sink away, and William found himself in Ireland again, kissing Bridget, the daughter of his father’s tenant, feeling her warmth and desire.

And then he took Kura in his arms. It just happened. He had not really wanted to. She was so young, and there was Elaine, in spite of everything, and his job here in Queenstown, but more importantly just then, there was Kura. Her scent, her soft body. Kura was the beginning and the end. He could have lost himself in her kiss. Kura was the earth and the moonlight. She was the silver gleaming lake and the eternal sea. At first, William kissed her slowly and tentatively, but she pulled him closer and returned his tender advances wildly and—evidently—knowledgeably. This was nothing wary or timid like Elaine. Kura was not delicate and fragile, not coy like the girl in the Salley Gardens, but as open and alluring as the blossoms that people
heaped on the altar of the goddess at Beltane. As William tugged her dress down a bit to caress the smooth, soft skin of her shoulder, Kura rubbed against him, mussing his hair and placing little kisses, then little bites, on his throat. Both had long since forgotten the need to stay hidden within the cover of the house. It was as though they were dancing with one another on the hotel’s terrace.

Elaine had just left Main Street behind and directed Banshee toward the river when she remembered something. The flowers! She had left the flowers that Inger had worked so hard to gather next to Helen’s fireplace. Would it still work if she put them under her pillow the following night? Probably not, as it would no longer be Saint John’s eve. And Inger might ask her about it. Elaine hoped so anyway. Inger might have been a woman of easy virtue, but she was almost like a friend, and Elaine desperately wanted to whisper and giggle with her about their dreams. If she wanted to know what her future husband would look like, she would have to ride back. If she galloped, she would lose no more than five minutes.

Banshee turned back unwillingly. Elaine had wanted to get home as quickly as possible and had ridden at a correspondingly energetic gallop. And now back to Main Street? That did not suit the mare one bit, but she was an obedient horse and let herself be turned around.

“Come on, Banshee, when I go in, I’ll grab you a cookie,” Elaine whispered to her.

William and Kura really should have heard the hoofbeats, but the two of them were making their own music that night, and could hear nothing but the other’s breath and heartbeat as they felt the pulse of the earth.

Elaine might not even have noticed the couple if they had remained in the house’s shadows. She had expected the hotel to be locked and meant to enter through the stables. But Kura and William were standing in the moonlight, captured by a beam of light as though on a stage. Banshee shied back when she saw the two of them, and
stamped her hooves into the ground. Elaine’s breath caught. She could not comprehend it. It had to be her imagination. If she closed and then reopened her eyes, surely she would not see William and Kura together.

She tried to catch her breath and blink, but when she looked again, they were still kissing. Oblivious, they formed a single silhouette in the moonlight that lit up the street. Suddenly a light went on in the house, and the front door opened.

“Kura! For heaven’s sake, what are you doing out there?” It was her grandmother Helen! So it was not her imagination. Her grandmother had seen it too.

Not even Helen could say what had compelled her to go downstairs one last time before going to bed—perhaps it was the flowers that Elaine had forgotten. She had spoken of them with such high expectation, and she knew she would almost certainly come back when she noticed that she had forgotten them. And there were these shadows in front of the house, or maybe one shadow.

And hoofbeats.

Helen saw how Kura and William were fondling each other—and looked for the length of a heartbeat into Elaine’s horrified, wide-open eyes before Banshee reared up on her hind legs and galloped down Main Street as if the devil were on her heels.

“You’ll come inside this instant, Kura! And you, Mr. Martyn, please seek new lodging immediately. You will not spend another night under the same roof as this child. Go to your room, Kura. We’ll speak in the morning!” Helen’s lips formed a thin line, and a deep wrinkle furrowed her brow. William suddenly understood why the gold miners had such immense respect for her.

“But…” the word stuck in his throat as Helen looked at him.

“No ‘buts,’ Mr. Martyn. I do not want to see you here anymore.”

B
elieve me, Fleur, I didn’t fire him!”

Ruben O’Keefe was growing tired of his wife’s inquisitions. He hated that his wife was taking her anger out on him, when he was entirely innocent of the family catastrophe involving Elaine, William, and Kura.

“He quit. Wants to go to the Canterbury Plains, he said. His future requires him to be around sheep.”

“I can believe that,” Fleurette spat out furiously. “He probably has his eye on ten thousand sheep in particular! I never trusted that boy. We should have told him straightaway to get lost.”

Fleurette could tell that she was getting on Ruben’s nerves, but she needed a lightning rod. She had heard Elaine come home the night before, but she hadn’t said anything. The next morning, the girl didn’t come down to breakfast, and Fleur discovered that Banshee had been only sloppily tended to in her stall. Elaine had fed her and thrown a blanket over her, but she hadn’t washed or even brushed the mare. The dried-on sweat in her coat spoke of a hard ride, and it was not like Elaine to neglect her horse. When she finally went upstairs to see what was wrong, she found her daughter crying inconsolably in bed, her puppy pressed against her. Fleurette could get nothing out of her. Helen first reported what had happened that afternoon.

That alone was difficult enough to believe. Helen drove out to Nugget Manor alone in a borrowed dogcart pulled by Leonard’s horse. She avoided driving or even riding whenever she could. She’d had a mule in the Canterbury Plains, but after Nepumuk died, she had never acquired a new animal to ride. And she had not asked for Gwyneira’s assistance that day.

“Your mother’s packing,” she explained through pursed lips when Fleurette alluded to this. “She’s very sorry about all of this, and she understands that it’s better if Elaine is spared having to see Kura for a while. Otherwise, she was rather reticent about punishment. There is no longer any question of boarding school in England, or in Wellington, for that matter. Even though that would be the only solution when it comes to that spoiled brat. She has to learn that she cannot have everything she wants.”

“You mean she seduced William?” Fleurette asked. She was not disposed to grant the young man extenuating circumstances.

Helen shrugged. “She certainly did not discourage him. He didn’t drag her out of the house. She must have followed him and Elaine outside. Besides, there wasn’t much seducing to be done. Or as Daphne put it, men fall to that girl’s feet like ripe plums.”

Fleurette almost had to laugh. She was not used to that kind of expression coming from Helen.

“And now he’s going to follow her to the Canterbury Plains. What does my mother say to that?” she asked.

Helen shrugged again. “I don’t think she knows about that yet. But I have a rather hateful suspicion. I am afraid your mother may see William as the answer to her prayers.”