The Opal Legacy Part 15

"I guessed something of the sort."

"Then the unexpected happened." When he paused, she glanced quickly at him. He was staring down at the backs of his hands.

"I fell in love with you," he said.

"Why didn't you tell me the truth? About Mary. About Charles Randall. Why didn't you, ever trust me enough to tell me?"

"I was confused, on the brink of a nervous breakdown, I suppose, feeling guilty about Mary's death, for one thing." He grimaced. "There had been JoAnn La.r.s.en, after all, and Mary found out about her. And after Mary killed herself, if that's what she did, I felt I was at least partly to blame and then we came back here, you and I, to Iron Ridge where I had lived with Mary, and the lake was a constant reminder of what had happened. I almost did tell you a couple of times, yet you seemed to hold me at arm's length when I needed you most. First you wrote to the inst.i.tute and then Craig Ritter came here to see you. In fact, toward the end, I thought you were beginning to hate me."

I'll never tell him I did, she thought. Yet she knew, despite everything, she had always loved him. Was that possible? To hate and love someone at the same time? Now the hate was gone; the love remained, a tested love, she thought, stronger than before. But how did Jon feel toward her?

"I'll have to sell," he was saying.

"Iron Ridge?" She was startled, remembering her dream that had come the day before when she stood in the falling snow in front of the house. She had been sure the room in the dream was this room, their room.

"Not all of the property, not the house, but a lot of the land."

"I'd hate to see the forest destroyed for the timber or to make room for hotels."

"You don't have to worry. I think the state is interested. The Conservation Department wants to buy the old mine and the quarry to preserve them as historical sites."

"Your book. Were you really writing a history of the mines and the Upper Peninsula?"

"I really was and I mean to finish it. Writing's a lot harder work than I thought, particularly rewriting, and especially when you're worried about money. If the state buys the land we won't have the money problem for years. They don't intend to buy just the mine; they want the bluff over the lake, too, and some of the highway frontage."

"I wouldn't mind giving up the bluff; I don't think I want to see it again for a long time. If ever. Did you know that what actually happened to me was different than in my dream? The snow. I hadn't dreamed of snow. There were other differences, some small, some large. In one dream I knew you were dead."

"You ought to find out more about your foreseeing and the influence of the opal. Couldn't the university test you here in Michigan?"

"They could, but you always said you thought the whole idea was foolish."

"I wouldn't mind now," he told her. He's reaching out to me, she realized, building a bridge. She remembered what her grandmother had told her-October's child must love and be loved in return before she can find happiness.

Jon said, "I have a gift for you."

"A gift? How could you have had time to buy something?"

He leaned over the side of the bed; his face tightening with pain, and when he sat up he held a package wrapped in newspapers. She unfolded the wrapping and held his present in front of her. Tears came to her eyes. "It's just what I wanted," she said, running her fingers over the carving of the little Mexican girl.

"Remember when I bought you that in Tijuana? I wish with all my heart we could wipe away what's happened since. Can we, Lesley? Can we start again?" His voice softened. "I love you, you know."

"Yes, oh yes," she said, dabbing at her eyes. She took one of his hands in hers and he reached up with the other to tousle her hair.

"Such beautiful blonde hair," he said.

"Will you still love me when it's gray?"

"What a strange question. Of course I will. But your hair isn't going to get gray, ever. Wait and see."

Lesley smiled to herself, remembering her dream. Jon pulled her down beside him and kissed her. Secure in his arms, she raised her head to look at him.

"We'll wait and see," she told him.

About the Author.

Fortune Kent, aka Jane Toombs, was the author of around a hundred books in all categories except men's action and erotica. She pa.s.sed away in early 2014.

Look for these t.i.tles by Fortune Kent

Now Available: Isle of the Seventh Sentry The House at Canterbury House of Masques Writing as Jane Toombs: Tule Witch Point of Lost Souls The Fog Maiden A Topaz for My Lady Fair Coming Soon: Writing as Jane Toombs: The Star-Fire Prophecy A dark secret hangs over her quest for justice...

House of Masques 2014 Fortune Kent Kathleen Donley steps off the train in Poughkeepsie, New York, with everything she has left in the world contained in a lone carpetbag, and one desire burning in her heart. To find Captain Charles Worthington, the man acquitted of murdering her brother during a pitched battle in Indian territory-and put him in a coffin.

Whispers of someone who could possibly aid her quest have lured her from her Ohio home, and indeed she finds herself in the lair of one Josiah Gorman. A man with a card file bursting with men and women who owe him their souls.

Trembling with fear and determination, Kathleen becomes one of them.

Josiah sends her forth armed with a silken wardrobe, a new name, and accompanied by Edward Allen, a man who guards a secret as deadly as the debt he owes Josiah. But once she sets foot on Worthington Estate, nothing is as it seems. And Kathleen finds herself facing the prospect of killing a man she doesn't hate...and falling for another man who is forbidden to love.

Enjoy the following excerpt for House of Masques: Kathleen Donley, carpetbag clutched in her hand, climbed down the steps of the railway coach. She paused on the platform to read the black-lettered sign on the roof of the station. POUGHKEEPSIE. The word echoed in her mind, and she felt both resignation and fear. Like a prisoner, she thought, when he hears the long-awaited sentence of death.

"Where does he live?" she had asked Mrs. Horobin.

"I'm sorry you ever found out I knew," the old woman said. "The less you have to do with him, the better."

"If you don't tell me, I'll leave here and I'll search until I find him."

Mrs. Horobin sighed and gave in. "He lives in Poughkeepsie," she said. "Leastways he did when I last heard."

"Poughkeepsie?"

"In New York State on the Hudson River," Mrs. Horobin told her.

"Then that's where I'll go," Kathleen had said. "To Poughkeepsie."

She walked along the platform toward the waiting room, still stiff and sore from the long journey on the wooden benches of the coach. Pa.s.sengers jostled her and hurried on without a second glance at the girl in the gray crinoline dress. How beautiful she had thought when she first saw the dress a week ago in the general store in Ashtabula. Now, after seeing the elegant women on the train and in the hotels in Buffalo and Albany, she knew the dress was plain and hopelessly out of fashion.

Kathleen paused outside the door to the waiting room and looked doubtfully about. Beyond the station men and women climbed into carriages, and she heard the clip-clop of the horses' hooves on the cobblestones. To her right, the locomotive hissed and wheezed. A trainman strode past her, clambered up the side of the engine, and grasped a spout which swung toward him from the far side of the tracks.

"Your first train ride, miss?" The white-haired conductor turned from helping a city-bound pa.s.senger climb the coach steps and smiled down at Kathleen.

"Ye-yes," she stammered. She was startled. Is this how they behave in New York State? she wondered. Do strangers speak to you? I'm on my own in a strange land, she decided, and I must learn new ways. She drew in a deep breath and her words came in a rush. "I wondered what the man on the engine was doing," she said.

"He's adding water, miss," the conductor told her.

Steam swirled back from the locomotive and obscured the large 39 on the side of the cab. A breeze blew the smoke from the tall black stack toward them and the smoke mixed with the steam and eddied around her, damp and acrid, and for the first time in years she remembered the pictures in her father's vellum-bound book, a book she had pored over in secret, studying the pictures with fascination and horror until she could feel the heat of the flames spurting from fissures in the ground, smell the fumes drifting over the writhing, naked bodies.

In the warm July evening, Kathleen shivered. She pursed her lips. No matter, she thought, I'll go on. I've made my decision and I can't turn back. And I'm the only one left, now that Michael is dead.

Michael. They had grown up depending on each other, she and her older brother Michael, without a mother and with a father who... How should I describe father? she wondered. "He's not himself," someone had told her. "Hasn't been since your mother died." And, Kathleen thought, don't forget the War. He was so much worse after mustering out eight years ago, withdrawn, turned in on himself, leaving his two children, Kathleen and Michael, to face the world. And now Michael was gone and she was alone.

"Is someone meeting you?" the conductor asked. She shook her head, eyes on the wooden planking of the platform. What does he think of me? she wondered. Alone, with no luggage except my bag. Strange, he must be saying to himself. Unusual, even for 1871. And if he knew what I have hidden deep in my bag? What would he think then?

"I'm sorry," she said. She hadn't been listening.

"The stationmaster," he repeated, nodding toward the waiting room. "See the stationmaster." He walked away, stopped and glanced back, smiling. "And good luck to you," he said. He turned again. "All aboard, all aboard," he called.

The waterspout swung from sight and the man on the engine climbed to the ground, leaping clear as the train lurched forward. Kathleen watched the huge wheels strain, saw the black smoke billow skyward and the lamp atop the locomotive shine feebly in the early dusk. Orange flame spurted from the firebox and the coal car rumbled past her and then the first coach, yellow with black lettering, the couplings jangling as the train moved faster, a second and a third and final coach going by.

The conductor leaned from the steps and waved. At me? she wondered, surprised. The train rounded the curve south of Poughkeepsie, and she watched the red light fade and disappear.

Kathleen, alone on the platform, felt tired and empty. She tightened the kerchief about her black hair, picked up the carpetbag, and pushed open the door to the station. The waiting room was small, with a stove in the center and benches along three sides. The office was on the fourth side and on a high stool behind the ticket window a black-suited man sat writing. Kathleen waited in front of the counter, hesitant and unsure, and after a time he noticed her and looked up.

"Yes?" he asked, his voice impatient. "Where do you want to go?"

"Gleneden," Mrs. Horobin had said. "Go to Gleneden."

"Is Gleneden a village?" Kathleen asked her.

"No, not a village, a house. Just tell them Gleneden. They'll know."

"Gleneden," she said to the stationmaster. He looked at her and she saw the surprise in his eyes. "Are you sure?" he asked. She nodded. One thing at a time. First-Poughkeepsie. Now-Gleneden. And tomorrow? She closed her mind to the future. Think only of today, she told herself, let tomorrow take care of itself.

The stationmaster closed his book and placed his pen in the rack on the top of the desk, rose and opened the door beside the counter. He was a tall, thin man who walked with a stoop. "Come with me," he said, taking her bag and leading her outside to the carriage shed where he looked along the row of stalls. "No," he said. "Sunday-no one to drive you. You could wait, there should be someone here to meet the 8:43."

"Is Gleneden far?"

He pointed down the street leading away from town along the river. She noticed the red-white-and-blue bunting on the lampposts and remembered that the day after tomorrow was the Fourth. "A mile, more or less," he said. "You could walk there before dark, or you could get a room at the inn a few blocks into town. Our inn is respectable. Why not stay there?"

"No, I'm going to Gleneden. I'll walk," she said, and took the bag from him and stepped from the walkway to the street. After she had gone some ten paces she heard him behind her. "Wait," he said and she looked into his gaunt face. He backed away and she sensed his uneasiness.

"Can't you wait, even till tomorrow?" he asked. "I'm sorry," he went on, "you don't seem the kind that usually comes to Gleneden. You're so, so," he groped for the right word, "so young. Eighteen?"

"Nineteen."

"We get lots of travelers going through here to Gleneden," he said. "Men sometimes, women mostly. Older they are, in their forties and fifties. All kinds. And they travel alone. Always alone." He paused. "Are you sure you want to go?" Don't go, don't go, the tone of his voice seemed to plead.

"Yes," she said, "I'm positive."

He shook his head. "Positive, that's what they all are. Every last one of them." He touched her sleeve and she pulled back. "Take the left fork just past the big barn," he told her. "And good luck to you." First the conductor, and now the stationmaster. I'll need all the luck I can get, Kathleen thought.

"Thank you," she said. She walked on and when she came to the first turn in the road she looked back and found him still standing where she had left him, hands on hips, staring after her.

In a few minutes she had left the rooming houses and the shops behind and the cobblestones were replaced by hard-packed dirt. Weeks without rain had left a soft layer of dust covering the road. Fields stretched away on both sides, with here and there small houses with gardens in which roses and hollyhocks competed with weeds. Several carriages and wagons clattered by and Kathleen breathed the heavy odor of the horses, smelled the sweet tang of cut gra.s.s from the fields and sighed, thinking of Ashtabula and home. Would she ever see Ohio again?

She followed the road as it angled upward and away from the railroad and the river. Near the crest of a long wooded hill she felt a pain in her side, and her hand ached from carrying the carpetbag. She sat on the gra.s.s with her back against a stone wall. Her breathing was quick and labored and she wanted nothing more than to lie on the cool gra.s.s, but the sun was already low in the west, so she rose to her feet and trudged on.

That's the barn, she told herself when she saw an old and deserted structure with a chewing tobacco sign on its side. She turned off onto the narrow track to her left. There were no houses here, only the enclosing woods, and no sounds except the muted evening cries of the birds. The road narrowed until it was little more than a path, and the branches entwined over her head to form a dark tunnel. A creek churned down the hill to splash noisily beside the path; Kathleen knelt on a flat rock, scooped water into her hand and drank.

How many times had she and Michael cupped water with their hands from the creek beyond the barn? "Always drink where the water runs fast," Michael told her. And they drank and lay on their backs, hands behind their heads, watching the clouds float from horizon to horizon. Michael, Michael. Never again would he taste the cold water of the creek, never again see the clouds white against the blue sky.

Kathleen shook the vision from her mind. She went down a steep hill and smelled the river and saw daylight through the trees ahead. The ground leveled and she came from darkness into twilight and crossed a stone bridge, the creek rushing beneath her and away to the left.

The house waited a hundred feet ahead.

end.