The Matchmaker (9 page)

"So that is what's troubling you?"

"Wouldn't it trouble you? Noel, Tate was always
honest with me, and the fact that I'm a bastard never
meant anything to him. It didn't mean anything to me.
But now...
'Your father wanted you to have this' the note said. So who sent it to me?
My mother?
Is she still alive? Have I seen her across a street without knowing it? Why did she leave me on the doorstep of a stranger?
Why didn't my father marry her?"

"You can't be sure he didn't," Noel objected quietly.
"Perhaps he died before you were born, and your
mother just couldn't raise you alone."

Cyrus shrugged a bit jerkily.
"Perhaps.
But I can't be sure, that's the hell of it. Always in the past I considered
that my life began when Tate gave me his name.
Whatever came before didn't matter. Then I got the
package... and questions I've never asked myself
have begun to haunt me. How common are black eyes,
Noel?"

The question was abrupt, and Noel blinked. "Well,
not very. To be honest, yours are the only ones I've seen."

"They're the only ones I've seen too. I've seen dark eyes, particularly out west—Indians, Mexicans, a few Gypsies—but not black ones, not like mine. Doesn't that
strike you as odd, that in more than thirty years I've never seen eyes like mine in a single face?"

With a stab at humor, Noel said, "You've always struck
me as odd, Cy."

His friend didn't smile in return. "I suppose I have."

"Hey, I was joking."

"No, you weren't." Cyrus did smile then, faintly.

A little uncomfortably, Noel shrugged. "All right, but
what's that have to do with anything? We're all peculiar in our own ways."

"Yes, but most people can trace their peculiarities to a
definite source. They can point to their ancestry as the
reason they look and behave as they do; why they're tall
or short, dark or fair, calm or bad-tempered. You
yourself got those eyebrows from your grandfather."

"Family trait," Noel said automatically,
then
stopped
when he realized his was a response Cyrus had never
been able to make. "I'm sorry,
Cy
. I never thought."

"I never did either. Just as I never thought about the fact that the date I celebrate as my birthday is actually
the anniversary of the day Tate took me in. I was a few
weeks old then, apparently, so my actual birthday is sometime in October." He sighed. "The point is
,
none of
that ever troubled me until the package came."

"I wish there was something I could say—"

Cyrus waved a hand in dismissal. "There isn't. And
there's no one I can ask to find the answers I want, unless I somehow manage to find out who sent me the package.
That's the only glimmer of a clue I have to any part of my
heritage. Tate tried to find my mother in the weeks after
I was left on his doorstep, and if he couldn't find her
then, I'm not likely to have much luck almost thirty-two
years later."

"You have to try, for your own peace of mind."

"Yes, I know. And I will. But even the basic answers
I need aren't as important as.
..
What disturbs me
most of all is the cane itself."

Noel frowned. "What do you mean?"

Cyrus hesitated, but Noel was the closest friend he
had in the world and he needed to tell someone, if only
to check his grip on reality. "It's a feeling I've had since
the package came," he said slowly. "A feeling I can't
shake no matter how often I tell myself
it's
absurd."

"What feeling?"

"The feeling that there was a mistake made some
where along the way, something wrong I should know
about. I looked at the cane, and I realized there was something I should understand about it, some knowl
edge I'm supposed to have. I felt it. It's almost as if
something inside me knows the cane was supposed to be
the final piece of the puzzle. Only there are too many
other pieces missing, and I can't even guess what to do
with that one."

Noel's frown deepened. "Cy, what you're saying is
definitely strange."

"Strange isn't the word for it." Not even to Noel was
Cyrus willing to admit the cane seemed to have triggered other things as well, even stranger. His "whims
and notions" were more frequent now and far more troubling. Some were literally compulsions, like this
house he had to build.

He didn't know how or why, but he was certain
beyond any doubt that the house in which he'd grown up
would not be standing come winter. He knew. There was
nothing he could do to save the house. Whatever was
meant to happen to it was already... decided.
Events had been set in motion, a pattern woven, and the
destruction of the house was a part of it.

That was another thing, his peculiar recognition and
understanding of patterns. He looked at places and felt
the history of them, looked at people and sensed the ties that bound them and the emotions that drove them— sometimes even caught glimpses of what he believed
were their futures. It seemed instinctive, yet he'd never
been conscious of it before, not like this, not so strong and certain. He didn't like it.

He'd been changing since the first night he'd spoken
to Julia, beginning with his strange dreams of pain; since
he'd received the cane all the sensations and emotions
had been growing stronger every day.
Patterns.
He was
in the grip of one. He felt as if he were a pawn on a
chessboard, all the moves planned out in advance, and it was a decidedly unsettling sensation for a man who had
never believed anyone other than himself was the
master of his fate.

"Cy?"

He looked questioningly at Noel.

"Going to the Drummonds' party tonight?"

The distraction, it seemed, had been only temporary.
Cyrus had been trying not to think of Julia, but Noel was
obviously too curious—and perhaps concerned—to let
the subject drop.

"I was invited," Cyrus said briefly.

"That isn't an answer. Are you going?"

"Yes, Noel, I'm going."

"Is she a piece of the puzzle?" Noel asked softly.

The question surprised Cyrus, because Noel asked it and because the reply, spoken silently but emphatically
in his head, was,
Yes
, she is. He went very still,
consciously listening, but nothing else came to him. Julia
was a piece of the puzzle, his puzzle, he was certain of it.

"Why did you put it that way?" he asked slowly.

Noel shook his head.
"Because you're different.
Be
cause a few minutes ago, when I suggested you might be different because of her, I could see it in your face. You
are. She matters to you, doesn't she?"

That was something Cyrus wasn't willing to think
about, to question. There were so many damned questions already. Looking back down at the plans for his house, he said dryly, "Rejection matters to me. God or the devil must be trying to teach me a lesson after all.
She doesn't want me."

"And you're accepting her refusal?"

Cyrus looked up quickly, his eyes fierce. "Dammit,
Noel, does everyone believe I'm a lecher? That I'd
seduce a woman no matter how unwilling she was, and not care how much it hurt her?"

Noel whistled softly under his breath. "You are cer
tainly touchy these days. No one's called you a lecher as far as I'm aware,
Cy
. I certainly haven't, and I don't think
it of you. It's simply that I've never seen you give up,
much less this quickly."

"Let's drop the subject, shall we?" Cyrus's tone was testy.

Noel decided he'd better do as he was asked. It
seemed as though Julia Drummond's refusal, combined
with an enigmatic clue to Cyrus's beginnings, had
pushed his friend well past the limits of his usual
tolerance. Noel was more than a little worried about him. As odd as he sometimes was, during his entire life the one thing all of Cyrus's friends had been able to
count on was the complete absence of a temper. No
matter what was said to him or about him, Cyrus had always reacted with calm, sometimes with mockery, and often with amusement, but never anger.

And there was more to it, Noel thought. There was
something Cyrus hadn't chosen to tell him. He knew his friend too well to push, but it bothered him.

"Take a look at the plans and see what you think," Cyrus invited Noel now, his voice normal again.

Noel joined him in bending over the blueprints and
made a couple of idle suggestions to improve the design,
neither of which Cyrus agreed with. But the discussion helped to ease the remaining tension between the two
men, and seemed to restore Cyrus to his usual calm
temper. It wasn't until a few minutes later, when he was rolling up the plans, that Noel noticed something he'd
forgotten about since long-ago childhood days of games
and swimming in the river.

"I see you still have that birthmark. I'd forgotten it was
so dark."

"Age changes everything, I suppose." Cyrus glanced
down at the inside of his left forearm and felt an odd little chill feather up his spine. The mark he'd been born with was hardly bigger than a gold piece, a perfect crescent
shape a shade darker than the surrounding flesh and
hardly noticeable. Or at least, it had always been only a
shade darker. Now it was deeper in color, almost
bloodred, and it was very visible.

"We'd better start back if you don't want to be late for the Drummond party," Noel said casually, obviously not noticing anything unusual in his friend's expression.

Cyrus rolled his sleeves back down. He heard himself ask, "Are you going?" and his voice sounded normal to
him.

"Felice says we are, so I suppose I will. It'll be stifling,
too, with a house full of people. I swear if this heat doesn't end, I'm heading north until winter."

"You hate winter."

"I've learned to hate summer."

The conversation remained casual all the way back
into town, and it wasn't until he was dressing later that Cyrus allowed himself to consider the question of his
birthmark. He paused before putting his shirt on to
study it, frowning. No soreness, no heat, no reason at all to suppose he'd done anything to injure that part of his
arm and change the mark. But it was definitely different
from last year, last week.
Different from yesterday.

He went to his wardrobe and reached into the back to
get the cane, then carried it to a chair near his bed and
sat studying it. Though the carving of the gold looked merely ornate at first glance, a closer look revealed a number of symbols nearly hidden within meaningless decorative contours. Cyrus had found them the night the
cane had been left for him, but they hadn't meant
anything to him. Now he wondered if they should.

Stars,
some connected with faint lines.
Planets.
The sun.
And the moon.
The quarter moon.

The crescent shape was carved into the gold on the top
of the cane, where a hand would normally rest when it
was in use, and it was more deeply carved than any of
the other symbols. Cyrus looked at it for a long moment,
then held the cane in one hand and pressed that golden
quarter moon against the mark on his arm.

It was a perfect match in size and shape.

In the silence of his bedroom, Cyrus asked, "But what
the hell does it mean?" And there was no answer.

The timing, he had decided, had to be perfect, and so he
had been forced to curb impatience... and wait. He
felt an odd fascination for the other, a strong curiosity.
What interested him most of all was, the other had no
awareness of him.
A blind spot, perhaps.
He had cer
tainly recognized his womb-mate the first time he'd seen him.

It had been very difficult to contain his rage then, the
first time. But it had gotten easier. Especially when he'd
understood the other sensed no threat from him. In
deed, his womb-mate seemed not to know of his exist
ence, of their connection. It was odd. He'd been given the knowledge, so why hadn't the other? He had finally
come to the conclusion it was because he was the true son. He had, after all, meddled in the other's life with
impunity, arranging several events so skillfully, his shap
ing touch had never been detected. It was clear evidence of his superiority.

He found it amusing to interfere with the destinies of people and course of events, to snip a thread here or there so the pattern became disturbed. He wanted to go
on doing that, but a sense of urgency had come over him
in recent days. Something new had entered the pattern. He didn't know what it was, but he felt it. The other was changing too quickly. Was it because of the woman? She annoyed him; he couldn't seem to affect her life entirely the way he'd meant to. He had known she was intended
for his womb-mate, and he'd made certain she was out of
reach, but she hadn't broken as he'd been sure she
would.