Modean Moon - Forgotten Vows

Lambert had brought him back to the outskirts of Avalon to this converted private hunting lodge last night too late for anyone with any decent manners to go banging on the vicar’s door. The problem was, Edward wasn’t feeling particularly decent, mannerly or even civilized by that time. What did keep him from rebelling against Lambert’s edicts was the knowledge that Jennie was probably asleep and that she’d need all the rest and strength she could stockpile against the time he finally told her all he knew about her disappearance. If he told her the whole story.

What Edward didn’t understand was why he had also acquiesced in the matter of not contacting his office until the next day. Postponing telling anyone until after he had talked with Jennie, until after he’d had time to absorb at least partially all that he had learned that day, until he’d had time to understand at least partially all the conflicting facts and emotions that had battered him that day, had seemed reasonable, natural even.

But that had been while he and Lambert were seated in front of a still-necessary fire in the huge stone fireplace downstairs, eating the thick roast beef sandwiches the sheriff had, with no apparent effort, convinced the innkeeper to produce long after the dining room had been cleared. Edward had leaned back in a heavy leather chair, poised between exhaustion and jittery nervous energy, and accepted a welcome brandy and not so welcome advice.

He had, reluctantly, accepted the sheriff’s advice, knowing that all hell could have broken loose in his corporate offices in the twenty-four hours since he’d left San Francisco without telling anyone where he was going.

Now, in the gray light of early morning, all that kept him from calling Madeline was his promise to the sheriff, a promise he was eager to be released from but that he would honor.

At last, faint noises rose from the rooms on the ground floor. He stopped near the window, listening, until he recognized the sounds of the lodge coming to life. At last. It seemed hours since he had given up on sleep. He rolled his neck and shoulders in a vain attempt to ease the tension there, then headed for the shower in order to prepare himself for the day’s events. There was no more time for delay. Jennie was waiting for him.

He stopped as he reached the bathroom door.

She was waiting for him, and she had no idea who he was.

Once before, he’d thought that. Once before, he’d convinced himself that none of the curse of the Carlton past could intrude on the magical time he spent with her.

Well, this time she didn’t know him. Yesterday had convinced him of that much at least. But his past, with all of its suspicion and betrayal and pain, was as alive as an actual, physical person standing firmly by his side.

Laughter as soft and delicate as the melody of a distant wind chime whispered through the vicarage garden, calling to Edward and leading him deeper into the comforting, slightly shaggy maze of spring flowers and ancient trees with their tender new leaves. Leading him deeper into the maze of conflicting emotions which battered him mercilessly. Pain, anger, frustration, but most of all, weariness. Unrelenting, soul-draining weariness.

God, he was tired. Tired of being alone. Tired of always having to protect his companies, his privacy, his emotions, and even his life, from the greed that his father, and now he, seemed to attract like a powerful magnet.

For a few weeks, the woman somewhere ahead of him in the garden had made him believe in happiness and love and the goodness of others. He’d thought he wouldn’t be able to survive her betrayal. And now, wounded as she was, she tempted him once again to believe, to hope that there would be someone to take away the emptiness of his life. An emptiness that before Jennie he had so completely denied, not even he had known it existed.

No!

For a moment, he thought he had moaned the word aloud, so abruptly had the denial overcome him. He stopped, slowed his breathing and listened for any outward sign that he had been heard. “No,” he whispered when he at last accepted that the cry had been entirely in his mind.

But he didn’t know what he was saying no to—the memories of his sorrow, or the memories of those first unreal weeks with Jennie.

Not again, he promised himself. He would see to her needs and he would help her recover if that was at all possible, but he wouldn’t, couldn’t open himself to the kind of pain that she had so easily, so senselessly inflicted on him. Not again.

He heard her laughter, closer now, mocking him, beckoning to him, and now it was joined by another voice, also feminine, but deeper, and, he knew, somehow, younger. The words were indistinguishable but spoken in a pleasant, bantering tone which called from Jennie another gurgle of laughter.

Edward tensed, remembering that laughter all too well. Then, forcing himself to relax, he centered his attention on the direction from which the sounds were coming and not on the bitter memories they evoked, and continued walking.

He wanted to see her once more without the presence, well-meaning or otherwise, of the vicar or the sheriff. That was why he hadn’t waited for Lambert to arrive at the lodge but had requested a ride into town from the innkeeper. Requested in a calm, civil manner, but in a tone all of his employees would have recognized as a demand.

He hadn’t known Jennie was in the garden. That was an unexpected bonus. When he had arrived at the vicarage, he had thought merely to take a few moments in the pleasant surroundings to collect himself and his vagrant thoughts before beginning the confrontations that were sure to mark the day.

As he walked deeper into the garden, he heard Jennie’s voice join the other, and as he drew closer he began to discern words. Words, but not meaning.

“Watch out,” the younger voice said breathlessly. “To the right. Higher. Quick. Up, up. Oh, drat.”

“Ouch.”

“Got you, did he? Darn, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Jennie said softly. “Here, let me have him. No, no, no,” she crooned. “Easy. It’s time to be soft now. Easy. Easy. That’s a good boy.”

What the hell? Edward thought, even as he felt himself succumbing to the hypnotic temptation of Jennie’s soothing voice. A lie, he reminded himself. It had all been a lie. That was all he needed to remember. And someday, some way, he would learn the reason for that he.

He rounded a lilac bush and found her there, wearing another of those soft, flowing dresses and sitting on another stone bench. She was holding a half-grown yellow tiger-striped kitten that had stretched out in her lap and was purring loudly enough to be heard across the several feet that still separated Edward from the two women.

No, not both of them were women, he amended. The girl sitting cross-legged at Jennie’s feet had several years to wait before she reached that status. All arms and long legs and huge eyes in a too-thin face, she seemed, somehow, comfortable with the spurt of growth her body had given her, comfortable with the awkward age she was passing through. Comfortable with sitting and talking sad playing with a blind woman.

The girl saw him first and rose to her feet with awkward grace. “Jennie,” she said in a hushed, protective voice. “We have company.”

Jennie half rose and looked around, surely an instinctive gesture, because she looked right through him with her sightless eyes, then sighed and gave a little frown. “Who?”

“Don’t know,” the girl muttered. She lifted her chin and challenged him. “You’d better tell us who you are and why you’re here before my dad gets here, mister.”

Lambert. Edward identified who her father must be before she finished speaking. The girl’s coloring was lighter and her features finer, but her mannerisms were completely and distinctly the sheriff’s.