Wellington Cross (Wellington Cross Series) (16 page)

He squeezed me tighter against him.  “Oh Maddie, it makes
me so happy to hear you say those things.  I long for you, as well, for us
to be united as one again completely.  I have not longed for another woman
as I do for you, my sweet Maddie.”

At that moment, the wind picked up and blew around us.  I
had more visions, just glimpses – of me and Ethan riding horses while holding
hands; of being in the gazebo with him, saying our vows; of living with him in
this house, racing upstairs to those third floor rooms after supper to be
intimate.  I actually remembered what those rooms looked like.

“Ethan, I just remembered more things about us.”  I told
him my visions.

“I like those visions,” he said, pressing his forehead against
mine.  I felt his warm breath on my face.  “With time, my love, we
can be joined together again, never to be parted.”  He looked into my
eyes, held my face in his hands delicately, and gently pressed his lips to
mine.  My heart continued to flutter deep inside me.

He held me a moment longer, and then we started walking back up
to the house.  The sun had gone down and stars were coming out.

“I want you to know that I moved out of Elizabeth’s bedchamber
the first day you came back,” Ethan told me.  “Lillie, too.  When I
arise in the morning, I take her to Mother’s bedchamber.  Elizabeth has
never been comfortable around her, and Lillie has never been comfortable with
her either, so Mother has been helping take care of her.”  We kept walking
up the hill slowly, taking our time.  “I also want you to know that I have
only had relations with her one time, the night of our wedding.  Since you
were honest with me about Jeff, I want to be honest with you about
Elizabeth.”  I was somewhat embarrassed to hear about his relations with
another woman, not to mention being jealous, but it seemed to mean a lot to him
for me to know this.  He continued, “My heart has always been yours; I
never gave it to her.  Please understand that.”

Of course it hurt knowing that they’d had relations, even once,
but I was glad he was being open and honest with me, and I was very glad I had
also been honest with him.  I squeezed his hand, which I had been
holding.  “I do.  Thank you for being honest with me, Ethan.”

As we reached the river-front door of the manor, Ethan took a
look at Lillie, who had fallen asleep.  He let her stay in the carriage
for the moment and pushed her towards the sitting room, motioning for me to
follow.  Neither one of us were ready to say good-night just yet, it
seemed.  I sat down at the piano while Ethan opened a window for a cool breeze. 
The dogs, Jack and Sally, came into the room and lay down by the cool window.

Somehow the keys on the piano beckoned me.  I touched them
with my fingers, testing some of the sounds they made, just playing
around.  Suddenly my fingers took off on a course all their own, and I
began to play a classical piece.  I must have known it by heart.  I
didn’t need any sheet music to go by; it just came to me.  There were
brief moments of a missing note, as I couldn’t play the missing key, but other
than that, it was pretty nice despite not having played in a year.

Ethan turned and stared at me in amazement.  He stood
leaning against the open piano on the other side.  I looked at my fingers
occasionally and at Ethan the rest of the time.  He smiled and shook his
head.

“You’re playing Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata,” he said,
smiling.  “Did you know that?”

“Ah, yes.  That’s the name of it,” I said, seeing the
written musical notes in the foreground of my mind then.  I closed my eyes
and reveled in the music, and began to have another memory.  There were
guests at the house, in this very room.  I was playing this song, and
Ethan was watching a little girl playing with her doll on the floor.  A
lady named Catherine – Clarissa’s sister, I realized – had been sitting on the
sofa.  Actually, she was the blonde woman I’d seen at the New Year’s Eve
party.  So I had known her!  She got up and took the little girl by
the hand and led her out of the room.  My memory continued with Ethan, who
rose and walked over and sat down beside me on the piano bench.  We were
alone then.  He rubbed my back, slowly, and gently pushed back my loose
hair away from my neck where he could plant a soft kiss.  He planted
another kiss at my earlobe, and another at my jawline.

I felt a jolt when I realized my vision had become reality, and
Ethan really was sitting next to me on the piano, had really moved my hair and
was really kissing my neck.  I turned my head towards him and closed my
eyes again, as he kissed me on the lips to the rhythm of my playing.  I
continued to play even as we kissed.  I knew it all by heart without even
looking at the keys, even though I missed a note here and there, distracted as
I was by the kissing.  I stopped playing at the end of the movement, and
we wrapped our arms around each other, still kissing, the melody still playing
in my head.

I heard something fall in the floor in a nearby room, which
startled both of us out of our reverie.

“Oh my,” I whispered.  “That was wonderful.”  I hoped
he knew I was referring both the piano playing as well as the kissing.  It
was so sensual, kissing while playing the slow romantic piece on the
piano. 

He squeezed my hand.  “Did you get another memory?” he
asked.

“Yes, how did you know?”

“I could tell by the way you were smiling with your eyes
closed.  Tell me about it.” 

“There was a blonde lady named Catherine and a little girl who
had been playing in here, and they left the room, and then you sat down right
where you are now and began kissing me, the way you did just now.  You
knew what I was remembering, didn't you?”

“I had a guess, yes.  We spent many evenings like
this.  I could never resist you when you were playing the piano.  You
move me so.  I’m so glad you remember how to play, and that you’re
remembering more of our past together.”

“Catherine is your aunt?” I asked, running my fingers through
his hair.  I couldn’t seem to keep my hands off of him.

He closed his eyes briefly before answering, enjoying what my
hands were doing.  “Yes.  She’s the one who lives in Bellwood, whom Mother
was visiting when she found you.  The little girl is her daughter, and her
name is-”

“Virginia,” I finished for him.

“Yes, Virginia,” he smiled again and kissed my cheek. 
Another noise in a room close by interrupted us again.  I figured it had
to be Elizabeth, spying on us. 

I took my hands out of Ethan’s hair, and he got off the piano
bench, taking Lillie gently in his arms, and we walked arm in arm down the
hall, through the dining room and up the staircase to my bedchamber door, where
we kissed once more, carefully, while he still held Lillie.

“I’ll be upstairs on the third floor if you need me – in our
bedchambers.”

“Oh,” I said quietly.  So he had moved to the same rooms
where we had consummated our love, after we were married.  His eyes were
burning with passion.  I knew I had better get away while I could, or I
might be tempted to let him into my room, even if he did have Lillie with
him.  Or better yet, I might follow him upstairs to those
bedchambers.  He kissed my hand and reluctantly said goodnight as I went
inside his old room and slowly closed the door.

I awoke early the next morning and couldn’t sleep, and since no
one else was awake yet, including Ethan, I decided to take a ride up to my
brother’s plantation.  I wondered if seeing my childhood home might
trigger more memories, and I also hoped to find my brother at home.  I
intended to be back before anyone missed me.

I made my way quietly through the silent house so as not to
awaken anyone.  I went downstairs to the study and found a quill and
parchment paper and scribbled out a letter for Ethan, letting him where I was
going, and put it on the piano by our wedding photo.

Outside, I could hear the hens cackling and the birds in the
trees calling to each other.  I headed out to the stables, saddled up
Cinnabar, and took off side-saddle down to the main drive at a slow trot. 
Once I reached the main road, I headed up the road in the opposite direction
from where we went to Williamsburg.  Jack and Sally followed along behind
me, running excitedly, barking occasionally at squirrels and chipmunks.

I thought about all the memories I had come to remember since
being here.  It really had helped, being close to the ones I loved,
especially Ethan.  I had new feelings for him, in addition to remembering
the old ones that kept coming back.  It was so wonderful.  I had hope
that soon I would remember everything.

Hopefully, visiting my brother would bring back even more
memories, if he had returned from his trip yet.  I still couldn’t believe
Jefferson told me my brother was dead.  If I ever saw him again, I’d wring
his neck. 

Not too far up the road, I looked to my left and saw a sign that
read, “Magnolia Grove”, and so I guided Cinnabar there.  On my right, I
passed rows and rows of corn, blowing softly in the breeze, which reached from
the main road to almost as far as my eyes could see, till it reached woods way
in the distance.  On the left were empty fields and scattered trees. 
After passing through a cool overhang of oaks, pines, and magnolias with big
white blossoms, I could see the house that was my childhood home, standing tall
and proud.  Immediately, it was all familiar.  The main house was a
3-story brick with once-white trim and a dark grey roof, with a big long porch
across the front of the house and another one just above it, on the second
floor.  There were two chimneys rising up out of the roof, and a white
pineapple in the middle, a sign of welcome, I remembered my mother saying.

There were a lot more dependencies here which had survived the
war.  They were arranged in a Queen Anne style with the dependencies
sitting perpendicular to the manor.  I first passed a dovecote, where we
used to hang fowl before we ate them.  I passed two dependencies, which I
remembered to be the storage house on one side, and the ice house on the
other.  I passed through an open gate with brick columns, flanked by tall
bushes and then two more dependencies as I got closer to the main house. 
These were the kitchen house to my right and the laundry house to my left.
 There was one more dependency on the left side of the manor.  This
was the bachelor’s quarters.  I remembered that the dependency on the
other side had caught fire after lightning struck it during a storm.

The manor looked huge yet forlorn and in need of repairs. 
The front porch was missing rocking chairs; I remembered that.  I also
remembered that mother used to call it the Great House.  I dismounted
Cinnabar and walked around.  The house was much closer to the water than
Wellington was.  Looking across the corn field to my right, behind the
kitchen house, I remembered that before the war, there were slave quarters way
over on the other side of the corn field next to the woods.  I also
remembered the epidemic of cholera that wiped out a good bunch of them when I
was a little girl.  My mother cared for them and taught them how to read,
which was illegal.  She was kind to them and hated to see them kept as
slaves.  She died of pneumonia before she ever got to see them gain their
freedom.

I walked up the steps to the big wide sun-drenched porch. 
Before I reached the carriage-front door, a blonde-haired young man came
running out and threw his arms around me.  His hair was parted on the
side, covering half of his forehead, and he had a little bit of chin
whiskers.  His eyes were green like mine.

“Madeline!  It’s so good to see you,” he said.  He
gave me a bear hug, lifting my feet off the ground.  “Where on earth have
you been?” 

I was a bit surprised, but I actually recognized my
brother.  “Jonesy?” I remembered everything about him, more of our
childhood than what I had dreamed about, such as playing with him on this porch
as a kid, following him when he went hunting in the woods, and of course,
following him down to Ethan’s and playing by the river.  We used to have a
bird call that we would use for each other when he would wait for me outside my
window to go sneak out to the boat and head down the river to Ethan’s. 
Sometimes it was Ethan who did the bird call, as he had been the one to sneak
out and come to see us.  He’d always bring a slave boy with him so he
wouldn’t be alone.

“Of course it’s me, silly.  Have you lost your head?” He
pulled me out at arm’s length and just looked at me.

“As a matter of fact, I did lose my memory.” 

“You did?  But you remembered my nickname.  You
haven’t called me that in years.  Come inside and tell me all about
it.  I see the “wolfies” followed you,” he said, looking at the two dogs,
which jumped excitedly onto the porch to greet Jonas. I had forgotten that we
used to call them “wolfies”, short for Irish wolfhounds. 

All of a sudden I remembered where the dogs came from. 
Ethan had brought them home with him from the war.  They’d belonged to his
captain, who’d died in one of the last battles in Petersburg.  He’d asked
Ethan to take care of them if anything happened to him.  And then I
remembered what Ethan looked like when he’d come home from the war.  I
stood there on the porch of my childhood and turned around looking down the
long drive, and I could see him, what he looked like then.  His hair and
beard had been long, his skin was tan, his uniform tattered and dirty, and I
remember running down the drive to greet him as he came walking through the
trees.  Once I reached him, I threw my arms around his neck, and he picked
me up in the air and twirled me around and around.  We both laughed and
cried and kissed.  I was so happy to remember that.  It’d happened
right here in this very spot.