Surrender the Wind (41 page)

Long into the night, while the candles burned low, did the family sit together, listening to Juleah's story. It was overall a sad tale, but adventurous beyond the wildest of imaginations. Thomas sat on the floor enraptured, admiring his brave sister in stunned silence. Jane laid her head on Juleah's shoulder. Juleah's mother and Caroline clasped their hands tight against their hearts in amazement, and Sir Henry looked on proudly.

A late tea was brought in, and while the family partook, Bray pulled Seth aside and inquired what they were to do about Edward Darden's involvement, whether Latterbuck should be informed.

“Will you seek revenge?” Bray asked.

“Vengeance is not mine, Michael,” Seth answered. “I want justice.”

Bray leaned toward Seth after catching his wife's eye. “I believe the best course of action is not to provoke a confrontation. Wait until he crosses your path or informs the constable. You have witnesses.”

“I cannot be sure of ever meeting Darden by chance. As for Latterbuck, I doubt he’d listen, though he will be shocked to find us both living.”

“I’d like to see the look on his face. At least he has nothing now to accuse you of. Your name is clear in the eyes of the law, I have no doubt.”

“Well, perhaps Latterbuck will be pleased after all. As he says, there is no murder done in his district.”

“Yet he forgets the body found in the fire and one Hetty Shanks. It is due to her station in life, I’m sure.”

“I have not forgotten. I’ll ride to Crown Cove tomorrow.”

“We’ll ride together this time and make him confess. Then we’ll summon the constable.”

Juleah lay awake with the pillow next to her untouched. She sighed, and thought Seth and Michael had stayed up a long time talking and having their ale by the fireside with her father. Juleah did not mind. It was good for a man to sit with his fellows and talk of things he perhaps could not share with a woman. She glanced at the clock on the bedstand. He told her he’d be up in an hour, and the time drew near.

She lay her head back, ran her fingertips over his pillow, and soaked in the coolness of the room. Tomorrow they’d bring the family back with them to Ten Width, and for the next four days spend the hours picnicking on the green, walking in the garden, and playing with the children. The fire damage had been repaired, and Caroline described to her how well Ten Width looked amid the autumn colors.

She got up and drew the curtains back. Leaning against the sill, she gazed at the moon and admired how it spread its haze over the boxwoods. Beyond the house, she saw the pond she so loved gleaming in its light.

An idea sprung into her mind. She could leave Seth a note on the pillow and ask him to meet her there. He would be coming up to their room any moment. It delighted her senses. She donned a dress over her chemise and drew out paper and quill. After setting the note in place, she slipped out onto the moonlit balcony and down the staircase that went into the garden.

Through the grove, she weaved and walked down the grassy slope to the mossy bank.

She started at the whinny of a horse, glanced up, and saw on the road above a coach with a pair of bays harnessed to it.

“Juleah,” a voice called, and she whirled around. She could not see his face. He called again and a chill ran up her body. The mystery of it filled her with fear.

She turned back toward the house and ran. Arms grabbed her, pulled her against a man's body. She could feel the roughness of the cloak he wore against her arms. She cried out and he covered her mouth with a gloved hand and squeezed. She shrank in his grasp, twisted and turned, as terror seized her.

He dragged her to the road and to the coach. Thrown inside on velvet cushions she scrambled into the corner and watched him climb inside, his hat pulled down, hiding his face in the dark. With a crack of the whip, the horses bolted forward. Juleah's heart went cold within her breast. The world reeled, and she struggled to scream, to call for Seth, but it caught in her throat.

The face she beheld belonged to Edward Darden.

“L
et me out!”

Juleah balled her fists, struck Darden across his broad shoulders. He grabbed her wrists and held her back.

“I want to talk to you,” he said, with a pleading tone that sickened her. “You have nothing to fear from me, you know that. I’ve much to tell you, to convince you of. This was the only way.”

“We have nothing to say to each other. Have your driver turn around. Return me home.”

Darden set his mouth and looked away. “I cannot do that.”

“I will scream. He’ll know I’m in trouble and stop.”

“Habbinger obeys me. Don’t you see?”

“Where are you taking me?”

“For a ride, so we can sort this out. I’ll explain everything.”

His expression softened, like a lover's, and he skimmed his eyes over her beauty. Juleah pressed back against the cushions and looked away.

“I’m happy you have come back to England.”

“You shouldn’t be.”

“I worried about you while you were away.”

“I was away by your doing.”

“Mine?”

“I remember everything.”

Darden shifted closer. “I feared what had become of you. You can ask Habbinger, I was packed to leave, until I heard you were home.”

Tears slipped down Juleah's cheeks, yet she did not sob. Instead, she threw him an angry glance. “Judith Dirk drowned in the sea when the ship met with a storm.”

Darden's brows pinched. “That is unfortunate.” Then he turned away with his chin in his hand. “You need not tell me the details.”

“Indeed not, for you’d have no stomach for it.”

His jaw shifted. “You think me a weak man?”

“You may not care to hear it, but I too would have drowned if hadn’t been for the bravery of a seaman and the goodness of a fisherman.”

“I would have blamed myself if you had drowned.” He turned to her, attempted to lift her hand in his, but she jerked away.

“Why did you let everyone go on believing I had died at Ten Width when you knew it wasn’t true?” she said. “Why would let them go on hurting?”

“I’m sorry for causing your parents pain, but it could not be avoided.”

“Oh, what a cruel thing to believe.”

“I wanted to hurt Braxton more.”

“You have hated him from the start.”

“Yes.”

“Because he inherited what you wanted?”

“He won you, Juleah, and if it hadn’t been for Braxton, you would have been my wife. I saw my chance to get you away from
him and took it. Do not hate me for it. I acted as any man deep in love would.”

“And what did you,
a man deep in love
, intend to do with me by sending me off against my will?”

“Judith Dirk was to take you to Carolina and care for you until time passed and people forgot. I was going provide for you,” he said.

Juleah shouted at him. “As your mistress, in a country you think low of?”

“No one would have known you were not my wife.”

“I would have.” She shook her head, kicked at the coach walls, and pounded him with her fists.

He grabbed her wrists and wrenched her down. “In time, you would not have cared about that.”

She glared into his eyes. “And live an adulterous life? How little you know me.”

“A comfortable life you would have accepted, eventually.”

“Under lock and key?” She struggled beneath his hold.

He stared at her and pressed his lips together hard. “It may have stayed that way for some time, until you forgot
him.”

“I could never forget Seth.”

“You would have if I had told you he had leapt into the harbor and drowned. That's what everyone believed happened.”

She shrank back. “I once thought I knew you, but now I know what kind of man you are—cruel, selfish.”

He released her and relaxed back against the seat. Juleah could not see how stern his eyes had become, but his breath hurried.

“I suppose by now you learned they buried someone in your place.” His tone went cold. “If you knew who it was, you’d never call me cruel or selfish again. I am surprised you have not asked me about that night at Ten Width.”

She gripped her arms together and spat at him. “You’d only tell me lies.”

“Listen to me.” He took her by the shoulders. “A candle tumbled over and caught the carpet afire. Do you remember how I carried you out, how my mother fell?”

Juleah's eyes widened and a heavy breath slipped between her parted lips. “It was she that died?”

“Yes, and I’m glad. She was a wicked woman, and I despised her.”

Stunned at Darden's lack of remorse, Juleah pressed herself closer to the window. “She was your mother.”

His eyes narrowed. “In name and body—never in her heart.”

Juleah frowned at his confession. How could any man loathe the woman who had borne him into the world? If she had been the evil woman he claimed her to be, she had masked her intentions well those times Juleah had seen her. Yet, she remembered she never smiled, nor did she speak to anyone unless necessary. Juleah had mistaken her demeanor for shyness, when it was aloofness. She had thought her a reserved woman, when in truth she had always worn a proud expression and scrutinized people with her wintry eyes.

Juleah ventured deeper. “What about Hetty? What about the night Seth was attacked? Had you anything to do with that?”

Darden let Juleah go. “I know nothing about Braxton being attacked. But it was my mother who paid Hetty to take Nathaniel away. She wanted me to have Ten Width and was convinced he was a bastard child. When she discovered the woman had softened and taken him to Sir Charles instead, she—”

“Killed her?” Juleah murmured.

Darden laughed. “Yes. She hired some ruffian to do it. Hetty's man, so she said. I was against it.”

This twist, that an English gentlewoman would stoop so low, was more than Juleah could comprehend. She shook her head in unbelief, incredulous of his mother's malevolence.

Her eyes pooled with tears, and she spoke with haste. “Take me back, Edward. You are in no danger of anyone knowing what has happened, for we are going back to Virginia. You’ll not see either of us again.”

His face turned pale in the darkness, his eyes glazed with sadness. “I cannot have it, Juleah. I cannot bear to be without you. I’m taking you to Crown Cove with me, and if you want to, we can go anywhere you wish—to America or France. I’d even tolerate Ireland if it meant being with you.”

“You haven’t any right. Let me go, or I’ll throw myself out.” Frantic she grabbed the latch and tried to open it.

Darden yanked her back, took her in his arms, and pulled her near. “Don’t be foolish. What is done is done. Now you must listen. I promise to make you happy, to care for you, to give you anything and everything you want.”

“It is my husband's place, not yours.”

“If he hadn’t come here, none of this would have happened. We’d be together. It is his fault!”

A fierce yearning and hopelessness possessed his voice and the contorted features of his face. Though her strength was no match to his brute force, Juleah would not release herself to him.

She clenched her fists at his vehemence. “I will not listen!”

His eyes ablaze, he yanked her wrists forward. She twisted away to keep him from seeing fear in her eyes and failed when he rallied his strength against hers and pulled her to him. Juleah cried out to the driver for help. The whip cracked and

the horses galloped on over the high road. The coach swayed, her heart pounded, and her breath rose up in ragged pants.

“I will not let you go,” Darden twisted his mouth. His eyes blazed that she rejected him yet again. “Do you hear? I’ll not let you go!”

Seth found the coverlet turned down. The sheets were tumbled and Juleah's nightgown hung over the chair. He picked up the note, smiled, and went into the garden down to the pond. He called to her, but she did not answer. Twice more he called and heard only the lapping of the water among the rushes.

Orbs of moonlight sparkled atop the pond. A gentle breeze rippled the cattails. He stopped short. His eyes searched for her, while his heart thumped in his chest, and he hoped that any moment his wife would appear. Wind whispered in low, forlorn tones through the willows and he called to her again.