Beloved (65 page)

S
he lay on his breast, listening to the steady thump of his heart. After a while Mac said softly,
"
You called me
'
thee.
'

"
Thee has a problem with that?
"
Jane said lightly, tracing an aimless pattern on his chest. She remembered the
"
thee
"
very well; it came right after the I-do-love part.

He stroked her hair away from her face and said,
"
I wouldn
'
t have, if I were two hundred years old. Are you trying to revive an old tradition? Or are you just trying out for the lead in
Friendly Persuasion?
"

She hesitated, then said,
"
I guess I was feeling just so overwhe
lmed. I guess I was feeling ..
. Judith.
"

For another long moment he was quiet. Then:
"
Tell me about her. What else, since the chimney fire?
"

It didn
'
t seem possible that Mac could want to hear about Judith; but his voice was low and kind and intimate, so Jane threw open this deepest, most secret part of her life to him. She described Judith
'
s apparition on the night of Uncle Easy
'
s party. She told Mac about her discovery of the house on
Pine Street
. And she confessed that that
'
s where she
'
d found the Belle Amour rose.

At the end she said, not daring to look at him,
"
Couldn
'
t the Belle Amour be the rose from Ben Brightman
'
s grave? Ben
'
s rose
—
or its offshoots
—
could have been around forever; there
'
s a rose called the Tombstone Rose in
Arizona
that
'
s supposed to be four hundred years old. The Belle Amour could have been brought from Europe on a ship to
Nantucket
, just as so many trees and shrubs were. If the house really was Judith
'
s and Ben
'
s
—
"

"
If.
"

"
And if the rose really is from Ben
'
s grave
—
"

"
If.
"

"
If,
"
she conceded softly.
"
Something happened to us downstairs, Mac,
"
she said.
"
I added the Belle Amour roses to the pitcher with the rugosa roses, and the combined scents of the two
—
well, here we are,
"
she said, propping herself on one elbow and giving him a whimsical, helpless look.
"
Nothing else has been able to get us into bed.
"

He slid his hand around her back and began idly rubbing concentric circles into the base of her neck.
"
You don
'
t think we were headed here on our own?
"

She closed her eyes, relishing the sensation.
"
I think we got a little push.
"

"
So the
'
thee
'
—
that was Judith speaking? Judith was using you as a surrogate when we made love? And Ben was making the most of me?
"

"
I don
'
t know. It could be.
"

"
And the part before the
'
thee
'
?
"
he asked her softly.
"
That was Judith too?
"

She opened her eyes. He hadn
'
t missed a thing.
"
That part was me,
"
she admitted with a steady look.
"
Because I do.
"

He returned her look with a troubled one of his own.
"
This is moving along, isn
'
t it?
"

Jane colored and said,
"
No obligation, sir, none at
all. It was just something ..
. I needed to say.
"
She hunkered back down, with her cheek pressed against his heart. Wild horses wouldn
'
t drag another declaration of love out of her now; not until he got a little further along in analyzing his feelings for her. She sighed and wondered when that would be.

"I wish ...
.
"
She stopped, then began again.
"
By now you think I
'm completely mad, but ..
. what if there were some way to combine those two roses? Permanently, I mean. Isn
'
t there something horticulturalists do
—
stick one branch on the other or something to make a new hybrid? Grafting, isn
'
t it called? Could we do that with two such dissimilar roses?
"

He still seemed a little thrown for a loop by her admission that she loved him.
"
I
—
what? Graft them? I guess so. You could try budding the Belle Amour onto the roots of the rugosa. The new rose would flower next year. But why?
"

Jane really wasn
'
t sure why. She struggled with her reasons, then said,
"
You, of all the people I know, see firsthand how life
—
this is such a cliché, but it
'
s true
—
how life goes on. Trees, flowers
—
people
—
grow old; they reach the end of their lifespan; they die. They decay, and turn into another form of life. Some of us hate to admit it,
"
she said with a sigh.
"
But it
'
s like the song says. Soldiers eventually go to flowers; every one.
"

"
And our two lovers have gone to roses?
"
he asked, idly stroking her hair.
"
And the only way they can be together is if we do the job
for
them?
"

"
I truly believe it.
"

"
Isn
'
t that a little like playing God?
"

"
I don
'
t think God would mind. It
'
s spring. It
'
s His busy season,
"
Jane said, smiling. But she wouldn
'
t look at Mac
'
s face; she didn
'
t want to see the skepticism that she could hear creeping into his voice. Not now. Not after today.

"
Well, you should know,
"
Mac said at last.
"
You
'
re a closer relation to Sylvia than I am.
"

"
Sylvia? What does my Aunt Sylvia
—
a
closer
relation! Are you telling me that you
'
re
any
relation to her?
"
she asked in a scandalized voice, bolting up.

He laughed and pulled her back down to him.
"
She
'
s probably my twentieth cousin six times removed. On
Nantucket
everyone
'
s related to everyone else. Don
'
t worry,
"
he said, kissing her forehead,
"
we haven
'
t violated any civil laws this afternoon. My point is that everyone around here knew Sylvia was empathic. You must have inherited some of her sensitivity to the paranormal.
"

"
Excuse
me? Why didn
'
t you tell me this on the night of the chimney fire?
"

He grimaced.
"
You really wanted to be told you were psychic?
"

"
No,
"
she said, giving his hair a yank.
"
I
'
d much rather go on thinking I was insane.
"
She sat up and reached for the robe that was lying over the footboard.
"
Is that why everyone on the island avoided my aunt?
"
she asked as she got out of bed and slipped the robe around her.
"
Because she was psychic?
"

"
Not at all. Sylvia was born off-island and out of wedlock. Her mother was an islander, but she hated
Nantucket
; people here remember stuff like that. Sylvia grew up, moved here, and married a local boy, but by then people
'
s minds were set against her. By then it was a tradition.
"

"
You people sure are hell on outsiders,
"
Jane said, tying her robe and looking down at him with a rueful smile.

"
Yeah, it
's our one edge over you: w
e were here first.
"
He caught one end of her bathrobe tie. There was a stirring in him, a glimmer of lazy interest.
"
Leaving?
"

Jane slid the tie out of his hand with a knowing smile.
"
I
'
m starved. I thought I
'
d go downstairs and bring back some milk and Oreos on a tray. And, what the heck, maybe the pitcher of roses. I think we ought to test my theory again.
"

"
I
'
ve always been a believer in the scientific method,
"
Mac said, folding his arms contentedly behind his head.
"
Want any help down there?
"

She shook her head and said,
"
Stay right where you are.
"
He was so relaxed, so completely at home. It filled her with immense joy to think that finally, at last, after months of touch-and-go, Mac McKenzie was settling in. Maybe.

She was on her way out of the bedroom when she turned, irresistibly drawn by the certainty that he was staring at her.

"
What,
"
she said, mimicking his earlier challenge.

He let out a moody sigh.
"
I just hope your Judith moonlights as a guardian angel.
"

Jane knew exactly what he meant.
"
Phillip truly isn
'
t a danger to me, Mac,
"
she said, plunging her hands into the pocket of her robe and looking down at her toes.
"
I, ah, wanted to tell you something concerning him earlier, but couldn
'
t. Anyway, it
'
s academic now, because I
'
ve changed my mind.
"

She lifted her head and said calmly,
"
The fact is, Phillip —
his relations, actually
—
made me an exce
llent offer on the house. I ..
. I got as far as signing a sales agreement; it
'
s downstairs on the front table.
"

Mac said absolutely nothing. She saw one eyebrow twitch slightly; but that was all.

So she told him the amount.
"
You can see how tempting it was,
"
she said with an uneasy smile.
"
I wanted to stay on
Nantucket
, but you weren
'
t giving me any encouragement at all. But now all that
'
s changed. It was such a close call. If I hadn
'
t been out of s
tamps to mail the agreement ..
. if you hadn
't come here today ..
. if I hadn
't knocked over the vase ...
.
"