Casteel - Dark Angel Part 11

After my lessons each morning, we'd go back to his cottage to have lunch, and then he'd send me back to the big house, saying he had to work. I could feel him resisting spending too much time with me, yet I could tell that he really wanted to. So I avoided seeing him in the evening, hoping that he'd miss me, and long for me, and indeed, each morning he seemed so happy to see me that I was certain that someday very, very soon, he would realize he loved me.

It was a full eight days after my riding lessons began that Troy felt I was ready for a really long ride into the woods surrounding Farthinggale Manor. Time and again he kept glancing at the sky. "The early morning news predicted violent electrical storms, so we shouldn't go too far."

With us we had a picnic hamper full of what Troy had put together himself, and some special treats that Rye Whiskey had sent over from the big house for us to enjoy.

Troy was the one who selected a sun-dappled little mound under one of the most beautiful beech trees I'd ever seen. Not so far away was a gurgling stream of water, and birds darted between the gently swaying branches above. The wonderful feel of the summer day put songs in my heart and joy in my every movement, as Troy knelt to spread the red-andwhite checkered tablecloth on the gra.s.s. Our two horses were tethered not far away and contentedly munched on whatever they could eat. I heard the hum of honey bees, smelled the scent of clover, brushed tiny gnats from my face as I busied myself emptying the picnic basket. The sweetness of the day, the prettiness of the setting, lit up my eyes whenever I glanced at Troy, who couldn't move his fascinated gaze from whatever trivial move I made. I felt selfconscious as I shifted plates and plastic flatware around, and three times I moved the potato salad, the fried chicken, the sandwiches.

When finally I had everything prettily arranged, I sat back on my heels and smiled his way. "There, doesn't it look pretty? But don't dig in until I say grace, just like my granny used to say whenever Pa wasn't at home." I felt so happy today that I just had to thank someone.

He seemed bewitched. Dazed-looking, he nodded, then inclined his head slightly while I said the familiar words.

"Dear Lord, we thank you for the food before us. We thank you for the caring hands that prepared our bounty. We thank you for our many blessings and all the joys this day and all our tomorrows will bring us. Amen."

I lowered my hands, raised my bowed head, looked up, and found Troy staring at me in the most quizzical way. "Your granny's grace?"

"Yes, we didn't have blessings or bounties, but Granny never seemed to know that. She was always expecting the best would show up one day. I guess when you're not used to anything, you don't expect too much. When she said grace, I used to silently pray that G.o.d would take away her aches and pains." He fell into silence after that, appearing thoughtful as we both ate our sumptuous picnic lunch.

And I myself had made the yellow cake with thick fudge frosting in Troy's own kitchen.

"This is the best cake I've ever eaten!" He licked the chocolate from his fingers. "Another slice, please."

"Wouldn't-it be nice if we could always be together like this? You and me. I could go to college, while we live in your cottage."

His dark eyes shadowed with so much pain, suddenly the sunny day went dark.

He didn't love me! He didn't need me! I was seducing him, or trying to, just as Cal Dennison had seduced me with his own needs and desires, disregarding mine. I handed him his second slice of cake, now too embarra.s.sed even to look at him. With my head lowered so he couldn't see my suffering, I quickly cleared the tablecloth, and without washing the used plates and flatware in the stream as I'd intended doing when first I saw the water, I threw everything back into the picnic hamper in a grand heap that wouldn't allow me to close the top. Fiercely angry I shoved the basket his way.

"Here's your basket!" I choked.

His stunned expression forced me to scramble to my feet, then I ran toward my horse. "I'm going home!" I cried out childishly. "I realize you don't need anybody like me stuck permanently in your life! All you need is work, and more work! Thank you for the last ten days, and forgive me for being impulsive. I promise not to waste your time again!"

"Heavenly!" he called, "Stop! Wait . . ." I didn't wait. Somehow I reached the saddle, not caring if I did it right or wrong. My heels dug into my mount's flanks, and she leaped forward while I was blinded by silly tears, more angry with myself than with him. I did everything wrong. My mare was made confused and uncertain. To correct my mistakes I yanked hard on the reins. Rearing upward almost vertically, the mare snorted, pawed at the air, then bolted forward, running wild and fast through the woods. Low branches came at me one after another, branches that could sweep me out of the saddle, break my neck, back, legs. With more luck than skill I managed to duck each branch. And the more I moved in the saddle, the more erratic my horse ran! My screams were like long, thin scarfs blowing behind me. Almost too late I remembered Troy's advice on how to cling to a runaway horse. I fell forward and clung to my mare's thick, brown mane. Over ravines and ditches, jumping dead trees felled by storms, my uncontrolled horse raced. Squeezing my eyes shut, I began to say her name over and over, trying to calm her.

The next thing I knew she stumbled; I was thrown from her back straight into a shallow ditch half-full of slimy green rainwater. Scrambling to her feet, my mare whinnied, shook herself, threw me a disgusted look, and wheeled about to head for home, leaving me stunned and shaken and hurting. I was also missing my left boot. I felt a total fool as I lay sprawled on my back in the fetid water, staring up through the canopy of leaves to find the sun full in my face.

G.o.d's punishment, I sourly thought, for presuming too much! I should have known better than to fall for the first man who made my blood run fast and hot, especially after Cal, and Logan's rejection. No Casteel had ever won any prize! Why should I think I was any better!

Other stupid thoughts filled my head before I had sense enough to sit up and shake the filthy water from my hair, then used the sleeve of my shirt to clean my face of mud. Wild honey bees were attracted, perhaps by my perfume, or by the bright yellow of a once pretty blouse.

"Heaven, where are you?" I heard Troy calling from a distance.

You're too late, Troy Tatterton! I don't want you now! Still I began to tremble from the effort it took not to respond. I didn't want him to find me, not now. Somehow I'd make my way back to that huge, lonely house, and never again would I disobey Tony and steal over to his cottage.

So, sitting in the water, I stayed very quiet, slapping at the insects who idiotically found me attractive. Endless time pa.s.sed before he stopped calling and thrashing about in the woods. The wind picked up and began to rustle the leaves above. Dark, stringy clouds converged as they always seemed to do whenever I was on the verge of finding something valuable. My rotten luck!

Oh, you bet, I felt so d.a.m.ned sorry for myself, even before the drizzle of rain began, I couldn't stifle my sobs.

Then a small noise came from behind me, and an amused voice. "I always wanted to save a maiden in distress."

My head swiveled around to see Troy about ten feet away. How long he'd been watching me I couldn't guess. His riding clothes were snagged in several places, and a long tear had ripped one sleeve from shoulder seam to elbow. "Why do you keep sitting there? Are you hurt?"

"Go away!" I yelled, flipping my head so he couldn't see my mud-smeared face. "No, I am not hurt! I don't need to be rescued! I don't need you! I don't need anybody!"

Without replying he stepped into the wet ditch and tried to feel my legs for broken bones. I tried to slap him away, and yet he managed to pick me up after three attempts. "Now, be serious, Heaven. Tell me if you hurt anywhere."

"No! Just put me down!"

"You're lucky you are still alive. If it had been hard ground instead of water and a soft muddy stream bottom, you might very well be seriously injured." "I can walk. Please put me on my feet." "All right, if that's what you want," and obeying my command, he tentatively stood me up. I cried out from the hot pain that shot through my left ankle.

Instantly he seized me up in his arms again. "We've got to hurry. No time to play games. I had to dismount to follow the trail you made. No doubt trom the looks of that swelling ankle, you have sprained it." "That doesn't make me crippled! I can still walk. Many a time I've walked seven miles to Winnerrow with something hurting more than that ankle!"

Another amused grin quirked his lips. "Sure you have, a hurting stomach, not a sprained ankle." "What do you know about it?"

"Only what you've told me. Now stop struggling and behave yourself. If I don't find my horse in short order, both of us are going to be caught in the storm that's coming."

Patiently his tethered mount waited while Troy lifted me up and sat me before him on the saddle. I felt mean and spiteful as he swung up to sit behind me, guiding his mount skillfully, even as he put his free arm about my waist protectively.

"It's already raining."

"I know that."

"We'll never make it back to the house before the storm strikes in full force."

"I suspect we won't. That's why I'm heading for an old abandoned barn that used to store the grains earlier Tattertons grew."

"You mean your ancestors knew how to do something besides make toys?"

"I suspect everyone's ancestors had more than one skill,"

"Yours, I'm sure, had servants to do all the farming."

"You are probably right. However, it takes some talent to make the money to pay tenant farmers." "It takes more than talent to survive in the wilderness."

"Touche. Now keep quiet and let me get my bearings." He brushed his wet hair from his forehead, looked around, then turned his horse eastward. Black thunderclouds blew in from the southwest, soon followed by sizzling bolts of lightning, and despite my will to escape him, it felt good to have his arm about me, holding me secure as the barn came finally into sight.

It smelled old and sour in the dilapidated building half-full of rotting hay. In the dimness rain leaked through in a hundred places to splatter down on the dirt floor and create puddles. The roof holes allowed me to see the darkened sky now full of terrifying lightning bolts that seemed to converge directly overhead. I sank down to my knees as Troy took care of the horse, unsaddling him, rubbing him dry with the saddle blanket; then he came my way to rake with his hands at the hay until he found some that was dry and not so smelly, and on that we both sat in the damp and miserable barn.

As if there hadn't been any interruption at all, I continued in my angry way: "It's a wonder rich people like the Tattertons didn't have this barn torn down long ago."

He ignored my remark, leaned back on the mound of hay he'd created, and spoke softly. "I used to play in this barn when I was a boy. I had a makebelieve friend I called Stu Johnson, and with him I'd jump from that loft over there." He pointed to show me where. "I would jump down to this haystack we are sitting on."

:Wahat a silly and dangerous thing to do! I stared with disbelief at the attic loft, and its great height. "You could have been killed."

"Oh, I didn't think about that. I was five at the time, and very needing of a friend, even my imaginary one. Your mother had run away and left me lonely. Jillian was crying and calling Tony long distance all the time, begging him to come home, and when he did, they fought day after day."

Breathless now that he was remembering a little about my mother, I turned toward him. "Why did my mother run away?"

Instead of replying, he sat up, took a handkerchief from his pocket, dipped it in a nearby puddle of rainwater, then began to wipe smeared mud from my face. "I don't know," he said, leaning to touch the tip of my nose with his lips. "I was too young to realize what was going on." He kissed my right cheek, then my left one, his breath warm and exciting on my face and neck as he kissed and talked.

"I only knew that when your mother left, she promised to write me. She said she'd come back one day when I was grown up."

"She told you that?"

His soft kiss found my lips. A number of times Logan had kissed me, and not once had I felt as aroused by his clumsy, boyish approaches as I did by a man who obviously knew exactly what to do to make my skin tingle. When I should have known better, I responded much too quickly, then jerked away. "You don't have to take pity on me and make up lies."

"I would never lie to you about something so important." Both his hands cupped my head so he could tip it at an angle that suited him, and his next kiss on my lips was more intense. I could hardly breathe. "The more I think back, the more I remember how much I loved your mother."

Gently he eased me back on the hill of hay, holding me close to his chest, as my arms rose automatically to encircle him. "Go on. Tell me more." "Not now, Heaven, not now. Just let me hold you until the storm is over. Let me think more about what's happening between us. I have held back from loving you. I don't want to be just another man who hurts you."

"I'm not afraid."

"You're only eighteen. I'm twenty-three." I couldn't believe what I said next. "Jessie Shackle-ton was seventy-five when he married Lettie Joyner who lived ten miles outside the w.i.l.l.i.e.s, and she gave him three sons and two daughters before he died at age ninety."

He groaned and buried his face in my wet hair. "Don't tell me anything more. We both need to think before it's too late to stop what's already begun." Wonder filled me. He did love me! It was in his voice, in the way he held me and tried to warn me. With the pounding of the rain overhead, with streams of water slipping through the holes in the roof, while the thunder crashed and the lightning crackled, we lay wrapped in each other's arms without speaking, our hands caressing, our lips meeting from time to time, and it was sweeter than anything I'd known before.

He could have claimed me then and there, and I wouldn't have resisted, but he held back, making my love for him grow even more.

The rain lasted for an hour. Then he put me on his horse, and slowly we rode toward that huge house whose chimneys and towers we could see over the treetops. On the steps before the side door, he drew me into his arms again. "Isn't it odd, Heavenly, how you came into my life when I didn't need or want you, and now I can't imagine life without you."

"Then don't. I love you, Troy. Don't try to put me out of your life just because you think I'm too young. I'm not too young. n.o.body my age in the hills is considered young."

"Those hills of yours are awe-inspiring, but I can't marry, not you, not anyone."

What he said made my heart hurt.

"Then you don't love me?"

"I didn't say that."

"You don't have to marry me if you don't want to. Just love me long enough to make me feel good about myself." Quickly I rose on my toes to press my lips on his, as my fingers curled into his damp hair. His arms tightened about me while I thought of all the women who must have filled his arms before.

Rich, wild, beautiful, sophisticated women! Women of charm, brains, culture. Bejeweled, fashionable, witty, self-a.s.sured--what chance did a hillbilly Casteel have of capturing such a man as Troy, when they had failed?

"I'll see you tomorrow," he said, breaking away, and backing off down the steps. "That is, if Jillian and Tony don't return. I don't know what's keeping them away for so long."

I didn't know either, but it was good not to have to be so furtive about meeting Troy. And the more I thought about that, after I was in bed, the more restless I became. I wanted to be with Troy now. I didn't want to wait any longer. Silently I willed him to come to me, come to me now.

For endless hours I dwelled fitfully on the rim of sleep, never finding the peaceful oblivion I desperately sought. From one side to another I flipped, trying my back, my stomach. Then, suddenly I heard my name called. I bolted wide awake to stare at the electric clock on my nightstand. Two o'clock-- that's all the time that had pa.s.sed? I got up to pull on a frail, green peignoir that matched my nightgown, then went down the upstairs hall to the stairs, and without design, I found myself in the maze, barefooted. The gra.s.s was damp and cool. What I was doing here I didn't want to a.n.a.lyze.

The electrical storm had washed the atmosphere to such clarity moonlight lit up the darkness. The tall hedges with their millions of leaves snagged tiny bits of starlight so they sparkled. Then I was there, hesitating before his closed blue door, wishing I had the nerve to knock, or to open the door and go in. Or the will to turn around and go back where I belonged.

I bowed my head until my forehead pressed against the wood, then closed my eyes, beginning to softly cry as all the strength went out of my body and I sagged limply. At that moment the door opened, causing me to fall forward. Directly into Troy's arms.

He didn't say a word as he caught me, then swung me up into his arms and carried me into his bedroom.

Light from the moon fell across his face as he lowered his head to mine, and this time his lips were more demanding. His kisses, his hands put me on fire, so it happened between us so naturally and beautifully, I didn't feel any of the guilt and shame that Cal Dennison's lovemaking had caused. We came together as if we had to, or die, and when it was over, I lay in the circle of his arms quivering with the fading spasms of the first o.r.g.a.s.m of my life.

When we wakened it was dawn, and through his open windows the morning wind blew damp and cold. The sweet morning chirpings of the sleepy birds brought tears to my eyes, before I sat up to reach for the blanket folded on the foot of the bed. Quickly Troy's arms pulled me back. Tenderly he plied small kisses over my face as his free hand stroked my hair before he cradled me against him. "Last night I lay here on my bed thinking about you."

"I had a hard time falling asleep . . ."

"So did 1."

"Just when I was about to sleep, I bolted wide awake and I thought I heard you calling me." He made a noise deep in his throat, holding me tighter against his warm body. "I was on my way to you when you fell through the door, just like a prayer answered, and yet, I shouldn't have allowed this to happen. I'm so afraid you're going to be sorry. I never want to hurt you."

"You could never hurt me, not ever! I have never met a man so gentle and kind."

His chuckle was low. "How many men have you known at the tender age of eighteen?"

"Only the one I told you about," I whispered, hiding my face when he wanted to gaze into my eyes.

"Will you tell me more about him?"

He listened without asking questions, his slender hands caressing me all the while, and when my words died, he kissed my lips, each one of my fingertips. "Have you heard from this Cal Dennison since you came to live in Farthy?"

"I never want to hear from him, not ever!" How vehemently I cried that!

We were silly during our first meal of the day, acting like two adolescent kids just finding each other.

I had never eaten a fried egg and bacon sandwich before, or known that strawberry jam enhanced the flavor of both egg and bacon. "It was pure serendipity how I discovered this gourmet treat," he went on to explain. "I was about seven years old and recovering from another of those childhood diseases that used to plague me, and Jillian was scolding me for being messy at the table, when I dropped my toast with strawberry jam face down into my plate. 'You eat it anyway!' she yelled, and when I did, I found out for the first time that I liked eggs and bacon . . ." "Jillian used to yell at you?" Astonishment filled me. I had believed a great deal of her grouchiness with me was because she was resentful of having a younger female around.

"Jillian has never liked me . . listen . . . its thundering again. The weatherman predicted a week of storms, remember?"

I heard the faint pitter-patter of rain on the roof.

Soon Troy was building a fire to chase away the morning chill and damp, and I was sprawled on the floor watching him. It amused me the way he even stacked kindling with such precision. However, it delighted me to watch him when he was relaxed. How wonderful that the weather would enclose us in his cottage.

The fire burned hot, bright. The stretch of silence between us began to palpitate with sensuality. The play of the orange firelight on the hard planes of his face sent tingles through my body. I saw him watching me as I watched him, studying my face when I was staring at his hands . . and then he moved to prop himself up on his elbow, and his face was very close. He was going to make love to me again. My pulse quickened.

Instead of kisses he gave me words.

Instead of his arms wrapping about me, he fell back to tuck his hands behind his head again, his favorite position. "Do you know what I think about when it's summer? I think soon it will be autumn, and all the brightest, prettiest summer birds will fly away, leaving the darkest and drabbest ones to stay. I hate the days when they grow short. I don't sleep well during the long winter nights; somehow the cold seems to creep through the walls and into my bones and I toss and turn and flit in and out of bad dreams. I dream too much in the winter. Summer is the time for sweet dreams. Even with you here beside me, I feel you are a dream."

"Troy . . ." I protested, turning toward him. "No, please allow me to talk. I seldom have anyone who listens as attentively as you do, and I want you to know more about me. Will you listen?" I nodded, somehow scared by his serious tone of voice.

"Winter nights for me are too long. Giving time for too many dreams to be born. I try and hold back sleep until just before dawn, sometimes I succeed. If I don't, I grow so restless I have to get up and dress.

Then I walk outside and let the fresh cold air wash my dreary thoughts away. I walk the trails between the pines, and when my brain is cleared, only then do I come back here. And in work I can forget the coming night and the nightmares that haunt me."

I could only stare at him. "No wonder you kept shadows beneath your eyes last winter," I said, distressed that he could now be so melancholy. He had me now. "I used to think you were a workaholic." Troy rolled on his side, facing the fire, reaching a long arm for a bottle of champagne he'd put in a silver bucket to chill. He poured the bubbling vintage into two crystal goblets. "The last bottle of the best of the wine," he said, turning again toward me, and lifting his gla.s.s so it brushed lightly against mine. I had grown used to champagne during the past winter, since it appeared so often on Jillian's party tables, but I was still child enough to feel giddy after one gla.s.s. Uneasily I sipped my champagne, wondering why his eyes kept avoiding mine, "What do you mean, the last of the wine? You've got a wine cellar beneath this house with enough champagne for the next half-century."

"So literal," he said. "I spoke poetically. Trying to tell you that winter and cold bring out the morbid side I try to hide most of the time. I care too much about you to let you become too entangled in our relationship, without understanding just who and what I am."

"I know who and what you are!"

"No you don't. You know only what I've permitted you to see." His dark eyes swung my way, commanding me not to question. "Listen, Heaven, I'm trying to warn you while you can still pull away." My lips parted to speak and object, but he reached to hush me with his fingers put over my lips. "Why do you think Tony ordered you to stay away from me. I find it very difficult to hang on to the cheerful, optimistic side of me that blossoms only when the days grow long, and the warmth returns." "We can always move south!" I cried, hating his seriousness, the shadowed look in his eyes. "I've tried that. I've spent winters in Florida, in Naples, Italy, all over the world I've traveled trying to find what others find so easily, but I take my winter thoughts with me." He smiled, but I wasn't comforted. He wasn't joking, though his tone tried to be light. There was a darkness deep as a bottomless pit behind each of his pupils.

"But the spring always returns, followed by the summer," I said quickly, "that's what I used to keep telling myself when we were cold and hungry and the snow was six feet high and it was seven miles to Winnerrow."