Always (25 page)

I stood up to face him, catching my hands behind my back. “Watching the rain.”

“
Mmm.” He raised his eyebrows slightly. “Not a very pleasant way to spend the afternoon.”

“
No,” I agreed.

“
You want some tea? I can call some up for you.”

“
No.”

We both looked away awkwardly. Hopefully he would just be gone again soon and leave me to my own misery. Would it be rude to turn away from him and go back to the window? I stayed where I was.

“
You’ll come down for supper, right?”

“
Are you staying?”

“
No.”

“
I’ll go down and eat with Sylvia.”

“
Good, I don’t want you to be staying in here alone all day.”

“
Alright,” I nodded softly.

“
I’ll walk you down.” I nodded again.

Marcus waited patiently while I sat at the vanity to fix my hair and dab perfume under my ears. He even helped me fasten my bracelet and choose which necklace I should wear.

At the door, he turned back to me and put his hands on my arms. “I love you,” he said softly. He brought his lips down to gently touch my own. It was nothing earth shattering, but it was a start.

We parted ways at the entrance to the parlor. “I’ll be right back,” he promised. I only nodded; I had heard that before. He kissed me gently again and went quickly back down the hall.

As I watched him walk away from me, my heart swelled with an unfamiliar possessiveness. Marcus was my husband and we belonged together. I wasn’t going to give up that easily. But first I needed to find out more about Silango.

Who better to ask than Sylvia.

When I entered the parlor, Sylvia was the first one I saw. “Claudia,” she exclaimed happily. Her face split into a wide grin. “I was worried about you.”

“
I was just tired.” I returned her embrace readily.

“
You look better now.” She led me to sit beside her on the long couch.

I had never had a sister before, but I imagined she would have been a lot like Sylvia. “I have to ask you something, Sylvia.”

“
Okay.” She poured tea carefully into two cups.

“
I want to know about Silango.”

She was fidgeting with the sugar, but I heard her small gasp. She handed me one of the cups before she said anything at all. “What do you want to know?”

“
Why is he so…strange?” I finished on a small shrug.

“
Silango is…very old,” she said with a tilt of her head.

“
He doesn’t look very old.” He looked older than Marcus, perhaps, but not incredibly old.

Her tongue darted out to quickly glide across her bottom lip. I couldn’t understand why talking about Silango made her so nervous. But it wasn’t only Sylvia, I realized. David and Marcus also didn’t like the topic; and yet it was clear that they respected him. Was it fear? Were they afraid of him?

“
He goes back a long ways with the Letrell family.”

“
Is he a friend?”

“
Well,” she shifted uncomfortably, looking away from me to stare into the fire, “not a friend, exactly.”

“
Then, what is he…exactly?”

Her eyes came up to meet mine with an intensity I hadn’t expected. My breath caught and I couldn’t help it when I moved back away from her. I couldn’t understand the things I saw in her expression.

Fear–yes; but there was so much more to it. There was the ancientness that I had sometimes glimpsed when Marcus looked at me; a sadness that seeped all the way down to the hidden parts of her heart. Looking into her eyes made me feel small, just like that night Marcus and I had looked at the stars.

She laughed the expression away in the next moment, though. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had seen something I shouldn’t have.

“
I can’t tell you what he is exactly,” she answered my question that I had forgotten I’d asked, “because I don’t even really know myself.”

“
But…”

“
But,” she continued forcefully, “all I can say is that he is sort of like their father.”

“
Their father?” I was more confused than ever. “But Marcus said that none of them were actually related.” Only him and Paris were truly brothers.

“
I said sort of like their father.” She glanced quickly to the doorway as if someone had called her name. “They aren’t close, but all of them…” she paused to take a quick breath, “they all listen to him.”

“
Listen to him?” I shook my head, still confused. “Like he is wise?”

“
Not that kind of listen.” She inched closer to me, which made me lean into her. “They obey him.”

“
Like you would obey a father?” I was starting to see what she meant. I hadn’t had a father in a very long time, but I would still obey Uncle Philip as if he were my true blood father.

“
A mean father,” Sylvia grumbled.

David strode purposefully into the room then, glaring daggers Sylvia’s way. I was surprised by his uncharacteristic anger. He was always so tolerant of his wife.

He sat with exaggerated force and crossed his elegant leg. “What are the two of you talking about?” He moved his eyes once to include me, but then turned back to Sylvia.

“
Just girl talk,” she shrugged without looking up at him.

“
It didn’t sound like girl talk.”

I didn’t dare say a single word. I was used to seeing Marcus angry by now, but seeing David like this left me speechless. What was it about Silango that made these two men behave like this?

“
It was nothing,” Sylvia insisted. “Claudia was just curious.”

“
You are not to talk about… these things.”

“
What things?”

“
She has a right to know,” Sylvia continued as if I hadn’t said anything at all.

“
It isn’t your place to tell her.”

“
She is going to find out sooner or later.”

“
He shouldn’t even have married her.”

“
It’s better that we just tell her.”

Were they talking about me? Why were they talking like I wasn’t even in the room? And what were they worried about me finding out? What secrets were they hiding?

“
What is going on?” I asked loudly. “Just tell me!”

Sylvia and David both turned to look at me with guilty expressions. They really had forgotten I was in the room with them.

“
We can’t tell you,” Sylvia said before David could stop her.

“
Why can’t you tell me?”

“
It’s not our…secret to tell.”

My breath hitched up along with my heart. She was starting to scare me. Whatever they were hiding must have been really bad.

“
Is it about Silango?”

“
No,” David answered immediately.

“
Sort of,” Sylvia said at the same time.

I wasn’t getting very far in solving the mystery surrounding Marcus. If anything, I had only managed to become even more confused.

Now, they had confirmed that there was a secret that no one was telling me. The next problem I faced was how I was going to get the two of them to tell me what it was.

“
Sylvia’s right, I deserve to know.” I did my best to glare at David.

“
She said you would find out eventually.”

“
So you might as well just tell me.”

“
Tell you what?”

All three of us sat a little straighter at the sound of Marcus’s voice. It was as if we were small children who had just been caught doing something naughty.

“
Marcus,” I exclaimed nervously.

“
Claudia.” His earlier good mood seemed to be holding for the moment. He leaned down to hug me awkwardly and then joined David on the seat across from us.

Distracted, he picked up a pencil from the desk next to him and began tapping it on his leg. No words were spoken for several tense minutes. I watched as Marcus brought his leg up to cross it over his knees.

“
So,” he tapped out a nervous rhythm on the side of his boot.

“
So,” Sylvia’s eyebrows rose uncomfortably.

“
Did you ladies have plans for today?”

“
We thought we’d take a walk through the park,” she answered while I just sat there holding my hands tightly together.

“
The weather is lovely,” David added helpfully.

When I finally managed to look up, Marcus was glaring directly at me. “Claudia is not to leave the house,” he barked.

“
You’re being unreasonable!” Sylvia’s milky white complexion flushed red with irritation.

“
Am I?” His lips snapped tight together on his angry words. I was alarmed when the pencil he held in his hand snapped in half.

I silently pleaded with Sylvia just to let the matter drop. I didn’t really want to go for a walk anyways. I was perfectly content to sit inside the house day after day. I shot her a pleading look from across the room, but she pretended not to see it.

“
You could come with us, you know,” she fired at him.

He looked as if the very thought repulsed him. “I’m busy,” he said shortly.

“
Doing what?”

“
Silango has asked me to do him a favor.”

His words made her fall silent. I was surprised; I had expected her to keep arguing with him until she got her way. He usually caved in to her.

“
Anyways,” he stood up abruptly, “I couldn’t go today even if I wanted to.”

“
Why?” I wanted to bite back the question when he turned his scowl in my direction.

“
I’ll be leaving within the hour. I won’t be back for a few days.” He left the room before I could ask where he was going.

I glanced immediately to where Sylvia sat. She didn’t say anything, only shook her head in my direction. I pursed my lips, not sure what I felt about Marcus leaving.

I should have been sad or even angry that Marcus was leaving me alone again. I should have demanded that he stay home with me, but I couldn’t’ bring myself to feel anything but relief.

The past few days had been uncomfortably tense. Marcus spent most of his time by himself sulking in the corner of the room or glaring at me. I had asked him to send me back to Hamel ahead of him, but he wouldn’t hear of it.

Since he had forbidden me to go out with Sylvia anymore, I was left inside the house with him, and it was making me feel jumpy. If he came into a room, I found myself making every excuse I could think of to leave it.

I tried my best to hold onto the times when we first met–when I had first fallen in love with him. When I thought of those times, I remembered why we had gotten married.

He did love me; I was sure of it. He had asked me to marry him and to spend the rest of my life with him. My nose crinkled when I also remembered he had amended his promise to me.

He had said he would love me for as long as I lived–but not as long as he lived. It was childish to get stuck on such a simple twist of words. They meant the same thing, right?

Marcus would be back in a few days and then we’d return to Hamel. I was sure that once we were away from Silango, Marcus would return to his happy self–the one that I loved and who loved me in return.

Chapter
Twenty-Seven

In my dream, I was once again in Hamel with my aunt and uncle. We were all three standing in a field of long grass. The sun was casting its warm rays upon the ground. The wind was strong enough to make my long curls dance, but it wasn’t cold at all.

“
Are you happy, dear?” Aunt Dora asked in her whispery dream voice.

“
I am,” I whispered back in a voice that zipped through the air and enveloped us in happiness.

“
I’ve heard strange things about that young man.”