The Secret of Stavewood (Stavewood Saga Book 4) (16 page)

      
Thirty-Four

     
R
omeo snorted as Louisa pulled the saddle from his back and heaved it onto the rack inside the stable. She looked into the yard and saw Talbot on the back doorstep, fashionably dressed in an expensive suit, looking around the yard as if he were lost.

      She stopped and watched him and wanted to run. She wanted to leap onto Romeo’s bare back and ride up the trail to find Luc. She would admit that she had been wrong and tell him that, no matter what she had said, she needed him to forgive her. She would scream out that she was in love with him and that she’d do anything to make things right. But it was too late and now everything was a mess. She’d said hateful things to him and he had turned away. He was a kind man and she was an evil shrew. She was completely in love with him but she had ruined it all.

      Even if she did run back to him it wouldn’t change anything. He wasn’t in love with her. Why should he be? Louisa was miserable. As she watched, Talbot went back inside. She stepped out into the yard and looked up at the house.

      Now there was Talbot. He had told her just the night before how much he was in love with her. He treated her like a queen and she had led him on like a fraud. She was not in love with Talbot Sunderland. She never had been. Louisa rubbed her temples.

      “Now what?” she asked herself. “Luc doesn’t want me and I don’t blame him at all. I have to go back to New York and finish this book. I’ve made a promise to Talbot and he has made a huge investment in me. That’s the right thing to do.”

      Louisa squared her shoulders. She didn’t know how she would deal with Talbot but she would at least meet her commitment to him to finish her book. The rest she would figure out as she went along. She looked up at the trail where she had been with Luc.

     “I’m such a fool,” she said and walked to the house. “I don’t deserve the dragon watching over me.”

      “Ah, there you are!” Talbot took her hand and kissed it softly. “You are always off somewhere. Did you gather more information?”

      “I went to see my niece,” she replied, forcing a smile. “Let’s take a walk. I’ll get my notebook and we can go over some details. I’m nearly done, I think, and then we can go back to the city.”

      “Oh, really?” He seemed surprised. “By all means then, we should get your notes and you can tell me all about it.”

      Louisa climbed the stairs to her room and collected the notes she had taken during her conversation with Birget. As she crossed the room she caught her reflection in the sewing room mirror and stopped. The woman looking back at her was not stylish, self-confident and in control of her life and her emotions. No, this woman in a cotton dress and long sweater appeared lonely and plain. She looked like a spinster. She was not special at all.

      Luc was right about her family. They would have been devastated if they ever heard her talk the way she had. There was only one person who made her feel unhappy and trapped in a fairytale world and that was herself. She looked down at the leather bound notebook in her hand.

     “Mama deserves the best story I can possibly write and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. She endured so much so that I could be born in a safe and loving home and I owe her that much. And Talbot too. I owe him as well,” she said. “I’m sorry, Luc. You deserve so much better.”

      She ran a brush through her hair and put on a bright shade of lipstick. It looked artificial, she thought, and she wiped it away with her handkerchief.

     Louisa Elgerson had found the love she had always wanted and now it was something she would never have. Everything had changed in her heart but nothing would change in her life. Louisa choked back her tears, took a deep breath and descended the stairs to the foyer.

      “Let’s go,” she said brusquely to Talbot.

Thirty-Five

     
T
he water in the creek behind Stavewood gurgled as Louisa led Talbot along the banks. He stopped several times and tried to hear her over the sound of the water.

      “You can see the clearing over here from the turret,” she said.

      “I don’t see what this has to do with anything.” Talbot stepped along the creek carefully in his two-toned oxfords trying to keep up with her.

      “There,” she said. “Let’s go out into the meadow. This is where I keep seeing the ghost.” They emerged from the trees into the open field.

      “You’re sure you saw someone?” Talbot asked again. “You said yourself you may have had too much to drink that night.”

      “I’m sure. I’ve seen him twice,” Louisa snapped. “When Corissa was seeing Jude Thomas she signaled him from the turret, and I’m pretty sure this is where he was waiting. But, why would someone be out here now? It doesn’t make sense.”

      “Are you feeling alright, Louisa? You clearly are not at all yourself. Explain to me what you are talking about and perhaps we can figure this out. You are the best mystery writer alive today. You simply need to focus.”

      “Sure,” she said scowling. “I’m really great at figuring everything out. Hardly.”

      “I don’t understand,” he insisted.

      “Did you mean what you said?” She stepped up to him in the soft grass. “Last night in the turret?”

      “Last night? Ah yes, when I told you how I feel about you. Of course. Is that what’s upsetting you?”

      “No,” she said. She looked up into his face and he looked at her patiently with his piercing, blue eyes. “Yes. Tell me again.”

      “I have. Do you want me to pour my heart out to you yet again? To what purpose, Louisa? We came here so that you could write your book, but I don’t see you doing that. Instead you’ve been running around the countryside with some lumberjack, and don’t you deny it. I’ve seen you together and I’ve seen the look in your eye when you’re with him. You’ve been with him now, it’s all over your face. You have tried to wipe away your lipstick but I can see it. Is he helping you finish your novel? I think not. Is he the real reason you have come back here?”

      “Of course not,” she said, turning away to stare off along the edge of the field.

      “Then I don’t know what’s wrong. Of course I can tell you again and again how I feel about you. Perhaps I ought to carry out what I had planned when I first arrived.”

      “What do you mean?” Louisa turned back to him.

      “I hadn’t expected to do it here, in the grass, but, well…” He looked at the ground around him and dropped to one knee.

      Louisa took a step back.

      “Marry me, Louisa. Finish all of this and marry me. We’ll have the finest wedding the city has ever seen. We’ll become giants in the literary field and publish worldwide, a great partnership in every sense of the word.” He held his hands up to her, offering her a ring with an extremely large, sparkling diamond.

      Louisa put her fingertips to her lips and held her breath. “Oh, Talbot,” she said.

       The sound of the creek echoed in the air as he waited for her response.

      “You’re overcome. Understandably,” he said at last. He stood up and took her hands. She was trembling uncontrollably. He took a deep breath.

     “Let’s go out,” he said, smiling. “You can put on something pretty and we’ll find the finest bottle of champagne that can be had and we’ll share it somewhere elegant. Don’t say a word. You’re clearly not yourself today.”

      Louisa felt numb. Nothing made any sense. How could she possibly respond to his proposal? Everything was wrong and the world was spinning out of control.

      Talbot watched the color drain from her face. He took her hand gently and led her back to the house and to her room where he sat her on the bed.

      “Was my proposal that much of a surprise?” he asked, clearly confused.

      “No,” she said. “It’s as you say, I’m not feeling myself right now. I suppose I am simply exhausted.”

      “Very well,” he said. “Why don’t you retire? I’ll go into town to get a bite to eat and we can talk later.”

      “Yes,” she said. “That would be fine. Thank you, Talbot.”

      He kissed her forehead and closed the door quietly behind him.

      Louisa sat on the bed stunned, and then ran to the bath to splash cold water on her face.

      She knew where he was going. He’d head to the speakeasy and have a few drinks. She didn’t blame him. He was confined and restless at Stavewood and she had just rejected him. He would want to be off alone, of course. Louisa needed time to clear her own head as well.

      She fell exhausted onto the cool sheets and let her shoes drop to the floor. She lay there, staring up at the paneled ceiling in the quiet room imagining Luc’s face in front of her. She thought about the ghost in the black poncho out on the meadow and of Talbot in the grass proposing on one knee. Louisa pulled the woolen sweater snug around her and found the wooden carp in the pocket. She held it in her hand reverently.

      True love and everything she ever wanted had been right here at home, under her very nose. Now she had made a mess of things. She had broken Luc’s heart, and then Talbot’s, and now her own. Louisa rolled over, clutching the carp in her hand, buried her face in the thick down pillow and cried herself to sleep.

Thirty-Six

     
L
ouisa awoke in the dark of night and changed into her nightgown. She ventured up the stairs to Talbot’s room and tapped on the door quietly. He was still out. She tiptoed down to the kitchen and made herself something to eat. She recalled her mother asking her if she would be joining them for dinner and she had declined. But that had to have been part of a dream. Her parents were at the cottage helping James and Katie.

      She poured herself a tall glass of fresh milk and tried to remember the nightmare that seemed to begin with her mother’s knock on the door.

      In the dream Jude Thomas was there, just the way he had been described to her, touching and twisting his moustache conceitedly. Corissa was there too, dressed in a black, chiffon gown crying pitifully as she stood in the garden with Jude alongside her laughing. She sobbed into her hands and when she looked up her face was blank. Not because of her expression but because in the dream she had no features. It occurred to Louisa that she had no idea what Corissa looked like at all. She tried to remember if she had ever seen a photograph of her.

     Back in her room she paced restlessly, the eerie dream still vivid in her mind. On the table was a picture of her mother holding her youngest brother, Jake, as an infant. Louisa remembered that it used to be a picture of little Phillip and before that it was her being held by her mother and before that… Louisa sucked in her breath.

      She hurried down the stairs to her father’s study and lit the lamp, turning the wick up brightly. There on the desk was the old torn picture of her mother. She picked up the frame, turned it over and opened the velvet casing. The contents dropped out, falling in a neat stack with the simple black and white image of her mother on top. Louisa pushed it aside. Underneath was another photograph of a different woman standing next to a chestnut mare with a gleaming coat and a distinctive, white marking on its nose. Louisa recognized the horse immediately from the stories Mark had told her over the years. It was Corissa’s horse, Love, the one she had been riding the night she died.

      Next to the mare stood a young Corissa Elgerson. Her face was beautiful, her countenance stalwart, as if she was posing but would rather have not. Pale hair fell over her shoulders and down her back. She was tall, Louisa noticed, like herself, a strong looking woman. She stood the way Mark did in every photograph Louisa had ever seen of him, holding his head upright self-consciously. The resemblance was very clear.

      “Corissa,” she said softly, as she sat down in the big leather chair. Her father had slid the plain picture of a mail-order-bride he did not know in front of this one of his lost wife. Louisa sat back in the chair and her chest tightened. It was as though she was looking at yet another ghost.

    Under the photograph was a folded sheet of letter paper. She opened it, held it up in the dim light and began to read. A lump rose in her throat.

      Louisa’s hand with the letter fell to the desk in disbelief. Tears spilled over her cheeks and ran in cold runnels down her chest. Her father must have forgotten about the photograph of Corissa and no one else had ever known about it at all. Had anyone known they would have found this handwritten letter years ago and so many things would have been different. She wept quietly, alone in the big chair. Her heart broke for the woman in the picture and for all of those around her, especially her son.

      Louisa folded the letter and slipped it into her notebook. She wiped her eyes and picked up the photograph of Corissa to put it back into the frame when she noticed there was something written on the back. She held it up to the light and read:

      Red paint can.

      3
rd
shelf.

      Clockwise to 9.

      Counter to 6.

      Clockwise to 12.

      Though she wasn’t sure of the purpose, these were obviously instructions. Part of it certainly was a lock combination. She copied it into a page in her notebook and slid the photograph back into the frame.

    
She turned down the lamp and set everything back onto the desk exactly as she had found it. She stood in the doorway looking back at it in the well-ordered room and imagined her father sitting there with his business forms and mill notes. She could see him as a young man opening an envelope from across the sea that contained a plain and damaged photograph of a woman it barely resembled. He had sat there once, his heart breaking, as he slid the picture of a stranger in front of the one of his lost love.

      Louisa cried for him and for what she now knew was revealed in the one page of a simply written letter. Louisa Elgerson was realizing that all of the love in her home was hard won and that she was foolish to have cast it all away. The tragedy of it overwhelmed her. She climbed the stairs silently.