“You must be patient, Amanda,” Aunt Jennifer gently chided. “Ashton isn’t getting any younger, true, but at four and thirty he’s not exactly past his prime.”
“He might as well be,” Amanda quipped. “His mind seems set more toward building an empire than a family.”
“Ladies, you are picking me apart like a pair of hens squabbling over a cricket,” Ashton protested with a chuckle. “Have mercy!”
“Mercy, he says!” His grandmother gave him a sidelong stare, which was softened by a smile. “I should be the one begging for it.”
Ashton secured the house after the last guest had departed, or at least gone to bed, and made his way to his own chambers. A glowing lamp aided his passage through his study and sitting room, and a warming fire greeted him in his bedchamber. Willis had anticipated his need and prepared a hot bath in the adjoining room, a small space that had been set aside specifically for his grooming needs. He doffed his clothes and, lowering himself into the steaming liquid, leaned back to soak and think. The ash of a long, black cheroot grew lengthy as he mulled over the happenings of the day, and absently he flicked the gray flakes into a porcelain dish that resided, alongside a crystal decanter and various jars, on a table near the tub. Leaning his head back against the high rim, he watched the smoke drift lazily toward the ceiling, while a train of long-suppressed impressions flitted through his mind. It seemed almost strange to savor and enjoy them without the tormenting feeling of loss.
He vividly remembered the morning when he first saw Lierin. She had been with an older woman on a street in New Orleans where shops for frilly, feminine things abounded. So completely did she take his eye, he had ignored a pressing appointment and followed them at a distance for six blocks or more. She had seemed unaware of him until she paused in front of a millinery shop and, from beneath a silk parasol, gave him stare for stare with a coquettishly raised brow of question. Much to his disappointment, a barouche had stopped alongside, giving him no time to press for an introduction, and the two women were whisked from sight, leaving him without even the tiniest prospect of ever seeing her again.
His hopes dashed, he had finally turned to the issue of his appointment and hailed a livery to convey him to the man’s address. It had not promised to be a cordial meeting, and he had prepared himself for a heated debate, determined to protest the seizure of his steamboat and the arrest of its crew until he achieved satisfactory results. A charge of piracy had been brought against them, and the action was purportedly substantiated by proof, although a short time later the evidence was found to be falsified.
Arriving at Judge Cassidy’s residence, he was shown into the man’s chambers and was in the process of giving the honorable magistrate a piece of his mind when, from an adjoining room, an enraged and decidedly feminine shriek had brought him to an abrupt halt. No one had forewarned him that the aging magistrate was entertaining his granddaughter from England and that she was the very same one he had eyed so closely that afternoon. His anger had dissipated when she stormed into the room, and he had marveled at his good fortune at finding the young lady again. As for Lierin, she had suffered a momentary twinge of surprise when she saw him, but having a proper credit of Irish blood from her mother’s side and being well fired with indignation, she had soundly berated him on his undisciplined conduct before an official of the law.
Ashton had been more than happy to accept the chastening. From the first moment he had found himself staring into the darkly lashed, blazing green eyes of Lierin Somerton, he had known that his life would be lacking a most important substance without her in it. With the opportunity to evaluate her at closer range, he had quickly concluded that she was an exceptionally beauteous young woman. The flashing eyes, the slim, pert nose, and the soft, expressive mouth had been structured with a delicate stroke of perfection that had captured his total interest. Thoroughly intrigued, he had stared so long that Lierin had finally become flustered beneath his openly admiring stare. She had later confided that she had never seen such a bold light come into a man’s eyes, for they had fairly gleamed with warmth.
In a more decorous manner Ashton had offered a polite apology to her grandfather and went on to explain in careful detail the reason for his visit. Judge Cassidy had been amused by his infatuation with Lierin and extended an invitation for dinner on the premise that he wanted to review the case in more detail. Actually he had had more devious motives in mind, which he admitted to later, and they were to see one of his granddaughters settle down in close proximity to him so he could enjoy the companionship of his kin more freely than if they were wed to one of those English foreigners such as their mother had married. With the judge’s favor bestowed upon him, Ashton had courted Lierin with a carefully controlled zeal.
Ashton rose from his bath and rubbed a towel over his matted chest and muscular ribs as his mind continued to flit through his memories of Lierin. He donned a long velvet robe, poured a drink, and, taking the cheroot, went out onto the balcony. The cool night air was laced with the fresh, pungent smell of a nearby pine, and he inhaled its fragrance as one of the pleasures of being home. He rested a thigh on the rail and leaned back against a post as he lost himself again in his memories.
Lierin had changed many things in his life. Once upon a time he had avoided marriage as if it were a deadly disease, but when he had to face the prospect of leaving New Orleans without her, he had been loath even to consider it. He could not name the exact moment when he started to think of her as a prospective wife, but it was a hope that had quickly risen to the forefront of his mind. Then, for all of his experience in entertaining women and potential customers, when it came to asking for her hand, he had done so rather haltingly, afraid she would insist upon a long and normal courtship and the questionable blessings of her father, but to his surprise she had been as eager as he. He had felt strangely humbled when he saw her eyes light up with joy, and quite unabashedly she had thrown her arms about his neck and cried in sheer happiness, “Oh, yes! Yes! Oh, yes!”
Despite their mutual eagerness, there were still problems to be faced. Her father’s absence meant the marriage could not be sanctioned by him, and it had seemed doubtful that Robert Somerton would give his permission even if he were there. Lierin had sweetly suggested that her grandfather might be approachable on the matter of her hand. The strong possibility they were all inviting the wrath of the father did not escape their attention. Ashton had laughingly threatened to seduce her and get her with child, just in case her sire had to be convinced that she needed a husband.
Ashton had seen his own character go through other alterations during the abbreviated time he had been with Lierin. He had never really noticed flowers before, but while on a walk through a park, when Lierin had pointed out the beauty of them, he had become appreciative of their delicacy and fragrance. Throughout his years he had watched many a sun lower in the west and casually admired the hues, but when the two of them had shared a sunset from the window of their hotel suite, the event had become a glorious ending to an almost idyllic day wherein her face, her laughter, her soft voice had filled his heart with bliss.
Ashton placed his glass on the rail, and though the cigar stayed firmly clenched in his teeth, the coal died slowly as he perused the dark night beyond the balcony.
After a week of unparalleled rapture, the newly wedded couple had boarded the River Witch with the intention of journeying to Natchez to make the necessary introductions to his kin and to apologize for the haste of their marriage. They were also making arrangements to return to New Orleans when those plans were concluded, hopefully in time to meet the sojourning parent and sister. Lierin had warned him about her father. Robert Somerton was an Englishman who held no great love for the brash Americans. His one concession to this had been her mother, Dierdre, whom he had deeply loved. Because of Dierdre’s reluctance to leave her father and her home, Robert had chosen to reside in New Orleans until her unexpected death, then he had taken his two small children and returned to Eng
land, where he had remained until his daughter Lenore became betrothed to a young aristocrat from the Caribbean. Since a voyage was to be made to visit the prospective groom in his island paradise, Robert had relented to Lierin’s pleas and escorted her to New Orleans, giving her permission to stay with her grandfather while her sister and he departed to arrange the nuptials.
Ashton had guessed from the outset of his courtship that the more difficult task lay in telling Robert Somerton that, while he was away planning the wedding of one daughter, the other had fallen in love with a total stranger and married him. The trip to Natchez, however, had ended in tragedy, and subsequently the meeting between Ashton and Lierin’s father never materialized. Word of her death had reached New Orleans before Ashton had recovered enough from his wound to make the voyage. By the time he could journey to the port city, the judge was ailing and on his deathbed. Ashton was informed that the Somertons, estranging themselves from the grandfather, had set sail for England without delay, not even bothering to inquire whether the husband had survived the pirate attack or not.
A cool breeze stirred in the night, drawing Ashton’s mind back to the present. He turned his face into the fitful breeze and could feel the tingle of misty droplets on his face. A frigid puff of air billowed his robe and touched his naked body. The freshness of it brought back the memory of a similar night on the river, when the last moment of happiness in his life, up until now, had turned into one of pain. Though his own boat and many others had scoured the river for miles upstream and down, more than a week had passed before he finally conceded the inevitable. The moldering bodies of several pirates had been found, but there was no trace of Lierin, not even a shred of cloth or a muddied rag. He had finally had to face the tragic fact that the river had taken another victim to its bosom as it had so many times before and swept his love from the face of the earth while it continued to meander along in its lazy, unfeeling arrogance. The loss of his wife had haunted him for three long years. Now there was hope. Come the morrow, life would begin anew. Lierin was home.
Chapter Two
SHE became conscious of herself as one slowly stirring to life from a total void, knowing of no previous existence beyond the present indeterminate moment. Reason and memory played no part in the timeless vacuum. She was an embryo floating in darkness, living and breathing but somehow set apart from the world by a distant hazy film that existed beyond the sphere of her being. There, an aura of light glowed, tempting her to draw near. With a natural buoyancy her mind rose slowly upward to the surface of awareness, but as she neared the indistinct border where the first weak rays of reality penetrated, twin talons of pain began to pierce her temples. She recoiled from the harrowing torment and hovered just below the elusive level, not willing to break her bonds to an uncaring, painless oblivion and accept in its stead the sharp pangs of full consciousness.
A voice drifted to her as if through a long tunnel, reaching her with words that were blurred and muted, entreating her to make an effort to respond. “Can you hear me?” The murmured inquiry increased in volume as it was repeated. “Madam, can you hear me?”
Her distress mounted as she was drawn upward against her will into the realm of acute discomfort, and she moaned softly in feeble protest. A rack of torture might have produced a comparable agony, for her whole body ached as if it had been cruelly pummeled and abused. A great weariness weighed down her limbs, and when she tried to move, she had to fight against an almost unsurmountable rigidity. She opened her eyes, but quickly cried out and shaded them with a hand as she turned away from the windows where the rays of the dawning sun streamed in.
“Someone close the drapes.” The request came from the man who sat at her bedside. “The light hurts her eyes.”
The painful shards of brightness were shut off, and the room was comfortably shaded. Sinking back into the pillows, she dragged a shaking hand across her brow, but winced as her fingers touched a tender spot on her forehead. The bruise was perplexing, for she could not remember what had caused it. She blinked her eyes until the indistinct shadow that hovered near gradually resolved into the form of an older man with a grizzled beard. The winged whiskers were heavily frosted with white and his face was wrinkled with age. The passage of years, however, had not dulled the lively sparkle in his gray eyes. They twinkled at her through wire-rimmed spectacles.
“I was beginning to think you disliked our company, young lady. If you have any misgivings about me, I’m Dr. Page. I was summoned here to attend you.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but a hoarse croak was all that issued forth. She ran a dry tongue over parched lips, and the doctor, recognizing her need, reached behind him to receive a glass of water from the black woman. He slipped an arm beneath his patient’s shoulders and, lifting her up, pressed the rim of the glass to her lips. When her thirst had been quenched, he lowered her to the pillow again and placed a cool, wet cloth across her brow. The pulsing waves of pain ebbed slightly, and she managed to hold her eyes open without squinting.
“How do you feel?” he asked kindly.
A frown served as a reply before her gaze moved searchingly about the room. She lay in a large tester bed with a wealth of pillows at her back. Above her head a pleated sunburst of pale pink silk radiated from an oval tapestry of stitched roses, filling the dimensions of the canopy frame. The walls of the room were covered in a fresh floral pattern that combined the colors of pink, pale yellow, and fresh green with light wisps of brown. The overdrapes were of pale pink silk, trimmed with tassels and braided cords of pink and green. Several chairs had been placed about the huge room and were covered in complementary shades of the various colors.
It was a fresh and beautifully furnished room, but a growing sense of disorientation began to undermine her brief comfort as she found herself in a totally foreign world. Nothing she saw was familiar to her. No piece of furniture. No tiniest bit of glassware. No frame or painting. Not even the warm flannel nightgown that she wore or the people who stood watching her from different parts of the room. Two elderly women had moved to a place in front of the richly draped windows, while a large black woman in starched white apron and neatly tied head kerchief waited just behind the doctor’s chair. Beyond them, another man stood facing the fireplace. Unless she chanced a movement that might strain her painfully stiff muscles, he remained recognizable only by the back of his dark head, the white silk shirt, and muted-gray-striped trousers that he wore. A mild curiosity grew in her about this one who, in the face of the others’ curiosity, kept his back to her, as if he wished to hold himself detached from her and her audience.
A young black girl entered the room carrying a tray laden with a cup of broth and a china tea service. Receiving the soup, Dr. Page offered it to his patient. “Drink this if you can,” he cajoled. “It will give you strength.”
The pillows were fluffed around her until they braced her in a half sitting position, and as she sipped the hot brew, her gaze lifted above the edge of the cup to peruse the room again. “Why am I here?”
“There was an accident with the carriage,” Dr. Page replied, “and you were brought here after you were knocked from your horse.”
“My horse?”
Again the doctor supplied the information, but taking care as he watched her face: “I’m sorry, madam. He had to be destroyed.”
“Destroyed?” She searched her mind for some recollection of the event, but the probing inquiry only abetted the throbbing in her head until it became impossible to think. She pressed trembling fingers to her aching temples. “I can’t seem to remember.”
“You had a nasty fall, young lady. Just relax and rest. It will come to you.”
Her gaze flew about the room again in a desperate pursuit of something familiar. “Where am I?”
“This is Belle Chêne….” Dr. Page studied her closely as he continued. “Ashton Wingate’s plantation home.”
“Ashton Wingate?” She stared at him, her eyes wide and searching. She sensed the alert attent
ion given her by those in the room, as if they were awaiting her reaction.
The man in the gray trousers slid the fireplace poker into the stand, gaining her full attention. Inexplicably, a sharp pang of anxiety ran through her even before she saw his face. Disconcerted, she pressed back against the pillows and eyed him warily as he crossed the room. Though she probed her memory, she could not fathom the cause of this sudden dismay. The crisp, handsome profile should have stirred feelings of warmth and admiration in her woman’s breast. Yet there was something about the moment that made her heart lurch and grow cold within her chest. When he halted at the foot of the bed, the strength of his gaze held hers immobile, and staring into those smoky eyes, she put aside the broth as one dazed.
A strange smile played upon his lips. “I don’t quite understand the miracle that has brought you back to me, my love, but I am extremely grateful.”
She stared at him in a panic, wondering which one of them was mad. She rejected the idea of placing the blame on strong drink, for he seemed sober enough and his appearance was not that of a slovenly sot. Indeed, he carried himself with a proud, erect bearing that hinted of a man well in control of his faculties. So why was he speaking to her as if he knew her?
If the tiniest doubt had nibbled at the edges of Ashton’s mind, the uncertainty dissipated abruptly when he looked into the dark green eyes. He knew those eyes, and they belonged to his wife. “I suffered quite a shock when I saw you last night. I thought you were dead, and now, after three long years, you have suddenly appeared, and I find to my joy that I’m not a widower after all.”
It was she who was mad! It had to be! Why would the others tolerate his ravings if he were voicing only insanities? A sudden quickening of trepidation seized her, and she withdrew into her own mind to seek some secure haven wherein she could find succor from her distress. Disquieted by the fear that some insanity had seized her, she began to shake uncontrollably. The pressure at her temples increased until the pain became excruciating, and she writhed on the bed, holding her head and keeping her eyes tightly shut to bar the alien world from her sight.