Fallen Hearts (Casteel Series #3) Read online

  "How so?" I asked.

  "It's best you see for yourself," she said, almost in a whisper. "Mrs. Tatterton is at her vanity table, preparing for guests," she added, tilting her round face to the right and nodding sadly.

  "Guests?"

  "People she says she has invited to watch an old movie in her private little theater."

  "I see." I looked toward the bedroom door. "I'd better get this over with," I said and knocked gently on it. After a moment I heard Jillian's voice. She sounded softer, younger, happier.

  "Yes?"

  I looked at Martha Goodman, who closed her eyes gently and nodded before returning to her chair, and then I entered.

  Jillian sat at her marble-top vanity table, dressed in one of her loose-fitting ivory floats trimmed with peach lace. She looked like a circus clown. Her hair was dyed a bright yellow and stuck up in thin, stiff strands. Her face looked like cracked porcelain, her cheeks blotched with bright red rouge.

  Eyeliner was slashed across her lids, the line drooping at the crinkly corners of her eyes. Her lipstick was thick, vibrant, caked at the corners of her mouth.

  But when I looked past her, to her mirror, I saw to my horror a blank oval of bare wall. The gips in the mirror that had once hung over the vanity table had been removed Jillian sat before the empty frame staring into a memory of herself

  I looked to her bed and saw dress after dress laid over the quilt. Dozens of pairs of shoes were on the floor beside the bed. Dresser drawers were left open with undergarments and stockings dangling over the sides. All her jewelry boxes were open. Glittering necklaces, bejeweled earrings, diamond and emerald bracelets were scattered over the top of the dresser.

  The room looked as though it had been ransacked by a madwoman. I didn't know what to do. Jillian had deteriorated far more than even I could have imagined.

  Then Jillian spotted me and smiled widely, a demonic smile that made her clownish appearance even more frightening and pathetic.

  "Leigh," she said, with forced cheerfulness.

  "Thank goodness you're here. I'm going absolutely mad trying to decide what to wear today. You know who's coming, don't you?" she added in a loud whisper. She looked about the room as though there were other people within who could hear. "Everybody who's anyone. And they're all coming to see my theater."

  "Hello, Grandmother," I said, ignoring her mad ramblings. I thought that if I didn't go along with it, I might snap her out of it. Instead, she sat back and glared at me as though she had heard other words.

  "What do you mean, you don't want to attend? I purposely invite influential people to Farthinggale so they and their sons will meet you. You should be interested in boys your own age. It's not healthy for you to . . . to be around only Tony."

  "Grandmother, I'm not Leigh," I said. "It's Heaven; it's your granddaughter," I added, stepping farther into the room. "I have gotten married, Grandmother. His name is Logan, Logan Stonewall, and we've come back to Farthy because Tony's making us a gala reception."

  She shook her head, obviously not hearing a word I was saying.

  "I told you, time and time again, Leigh, not to come to my bedroom half dressed. You're not a child anymore. You can't parade about like that, especially in front of Tony. You should have more self-respect, be more discreet. A lady, a real lady, doesn't do this sort of thing. Now, go finish dressing."

  "Jillian." I thought if I used her Christian name, she might acknowledge me. I knew how much she hated being thought of as a grandmother. "Leigh's gone; Leigh's dead," I said softly. "I'm Heaven."

  She blinked heavily and pulled herself into a stiffer sitting position.

  "This is the last time I will put up with this,"

  she croaked. "You are turning everybody against me.

  But everybody knows the truth, Leigh, the truth about your vile seductive behavior. Jealous? Me?" she huffed. "Jealous of my own daughter? Ridiculous."

  She turned and looked into the imaginary mirror and smiled a serene self-confident smile. "You will never be able to compete with my beauty, Leigh, a mature woman's beauty. You're still a child."

  She studied herself in the imaginary mirror and then began brushing her hair again. "Yes, I know what you do, Leigh," she continued. "Tony's complained about it and I've seen you do it, so don't try to deny it.

  Your body's developing. I'm not going to deny that.

  After all, you're my daughter. You will be beautiful, vibrantly beautiful, and if you listen and work hard on your coiffure and your makeup, take care of yourself the way I do, why, you'll be as beautiful as I am someday." Suddenly she stopped brushing her hair and pounded her brush on the vanity. "What do you expect Tony to do? Of course he'll look at you, but that doesn't mean what you think it means. I've seen you brush your body up against his seductively, oh, yes, I have."

  "Jillian "I couldn't believe she was still blaming my mother for all that had happened. "You're mad, old woman, quite mad! My mother never did any of that! It was you! You who caused it all. My mother was pure and innocent! I know she was!" I was shaking with rage. I wouldn't believe my own mother had provoked Tony. Wouldn't, couldn't believe that!

  "It was your jealousy that killed my mother. Even your madness cannot change that."

  She stopped speaking and straightened up

  sharply.

  "Why are you looking at me like that? You never knew I had been following you, did you? You never knew I was there, just outside his door, in the shadows, watching. But I was . . I was. I couldn't bring myself to go in and put an end to it, but I was there. I was there," she whispered.

  I stared at her. Could what she was saying be true? Could my mother have seduced Tony? I refused to believe. And yet . . . yet . . . I had seduced Troy. I knew the passion that ran in my blood; was it my mother's passion I had inherited? Perhaps that was what the Reverend Wise had seen in me when he predicted I would destroy all that I love and all who love me.

  I rushed out to Martha Goodman, who sat

  calmly in the high-back chair, knitting.

  "You've got to stop her!" I exclaimed. "She's going mad in there, making herself up over and over with layers and layers of rouge and lipstick."

  "Oh, she'll get tired soon," Martha said smiling softly. "I'll talk her into her medication, convincing her it's a vitamin that will help keep her young forever, and then I'll scrub her face clean and clean up the mess and she'll take a long nap. Don't worry."

  "But doesn't Tony understand how bad she's gotten? Haven't there been doctors?"

  "Of course there have, my dear. The doctors recommend she be institutionalized, but Mr. Tatterton won't hear of it. There's no harm. Actually, she's happy most of the time."

  "She doesn't remember me, then, does she?" I turned back toward her bedroom.

  "Not now, no. She talks about your mother a great deal," Martha said and looked down at her knitting, and I understood that she had overheard much ugly truth in my grandmother's mad babbling.

  I left Jillian's suite quickly, actually fleeing from the images she had resurrected. When I returned to our suite, I searched for and found my mother's fat photo album. I studied her school pictures again, hoping to reaffirm my own belief that she was beautiful but innocent, wild but pure. If only for a moment, one moment, I could truly look into those blue eyes, I thought, I would know the truth. But did I want to know it?

  "Don't tell me you're still cloistered in these rooms." Logan startled me as he strode into the room.

  I hadn't realized how long I had been sitting there, thinking about the past. I closed the photo album quickly.

  "No," I mumbled. "I spent some time with my grandmother." Then I turned to my husband and put a bright smile on my face. "So, what has Tony shown you?"

  "All of it," Logan said, shaking his head with admiration. "All of this paradise called Farthinggale Manor. I can't believe there's an indoor pool! That maze, the lake, those stables, acres and acres of beautiful land, and a private beach."

  "Tony gave you th
e grand tour."

  "I'll say. Of course, he's very proud of it, proud of what it is, proud of what he has made of it, and proud of what it can continue to be," Logan added.

  "He's a fascinating man, shrewd, very clever about business and about politics. I never realized what Tatterton Toys really is until he explained it just now."

  "Is that so?" I sat back, a half smile on my face.

  Logan was acting like a bedazzled little boy.

  He smiled and I threw my arms around him and kissed him. It was a long, passionate kiss. His embrace tightened and I felt the tingling that made me press my body closer to his.

  "Every time I kiss you," I murmured into his ear, "I remember our first kiss. Remember?"

  "Yes. I do remember," he whispered, but I had been the forward one. He had walked me home and stood there on the trail. I was so thrilled with the way he had fought for me that day that I couldn't wait for him to get up enough nerve to take me into his arms.

  "You said, 'Logan, would it be all right and not too much like Fanny if I kissed you just once for being so exactly what I want?' And then you kissed me, but so passionately. . ."

  I turned away from him.

  "What's wrong?"

  "Nothing," I said. Then I gave him my most seductive smile.

  "We have some time before dinner," I cooed flirtatiously.

  "To start the honeymoon," he added, smiling widely, licentiously.

  "Oh, Logan, I . . ."

  He took me into his arms and kissed me. Then he began to undress me. I closed my eyes and let the sensuality of his touch erase all my thoughts. I let myself go completely to the will of our bodies together.

  As Logan and I moved beside each other his kisses and caresses pulled me down into a sea of tenderness. And when he entered my body, the light of his love chased away all the shadows of my dark forbidden love. This was how it would be now, Logan and Heaven, Logan touching me, Logan kissing me, Logan caressing me, Logan making love to me with such tenderness. Not the wild forbidden passion I had known with Troy, not the sort of all-consuming love that made the world disappear and left you clinging only to love like a life raft in a turbulent sea, but the safe, gentle, lapping waves of love that were comfortable, soothing, like a warm pond in summer, like my life with Logan was meant to be.

  Afterward, Logan fell asleep curled in my arms.

  In the dim haze of twilight I looked around me. Here I was, again at Farthy, having just made love to my husband. Years ago, within these walls, had my mother pressed her young body just as eagerly against her mother's husband to begin my maddening existence?

  I closed my eyes. I understood how it was that ghosts lived on. They lived on in us, haunted us by making us thirst for the same things. My mother lived on in my desires. But my desires were pure, wholesome, for now I desired only my husband and would never desire anyone else. I nestled against Logan's warm, peaceful, sleeping body.

  THREE

  Offerings

  .

  WHEN I AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING

  LOGAN WAS GONE. THE sun through the window sheers awakened me, and I turned to my new husband for morning hugs and kisses, only to be greeted by an empty pillow. "Logan?" I called. I quickly leapt from the bed and ran to the bathroom, tapping gently on the door. "Logan?" No sound greeted me, no rushing shower, no sweet morning songs from a happy husband at his morning ablutions. When I was a little girl, I always dreamed of the happy morning scene of my husband shaving, while I sat on the tub watching his masculine rituals. And already that morning had been stolen from me—and on the first morning of my honeymoon! And I thought I knew who had stolen it—the one who seemed to want always to steal my love and keep it for himself alone—Tony.

  I remembered at dinner last night, Tony had insisted on showing Logan around the Tatterton Toy Factory today. "Oh, and you must come along as well, Heaven. After all, someday it will all be yours and Logan's," he added with a wink to Logan. I wasn't going to let Tony lure me into his old plan of bringing me into his business again. "No," I had insisted,

  "Logan and I were planning to have breakfast in bed tomorrow and spend a leisurely day strolling the grounds of Farthy, weren't we, darling?" But Logan was already caught in Tony's web, intrigued by the promise of Tony's attention, hypnotized by the way Tony already treated him as a member of the family and heir.

  I dressed in a bright floral-print voile dress that was part of my trousseau and started downstairs, figuring Logan might be breakfasting with Tony. Just as I rounded the head of the stairs, I heard the shrill, girlish voice of Jillian:

  "Do I look especially beautiful today? This is such a special day. Tell me, am I the most beautiful of all? Am I? Am I?"

  "You are, dear, the most beautiful of all," I heard Martha Goodman assure her.

  I felt, with the disappearance of my husband, and the strange sounds emanating from Jillian's room, that the twist-ea world of Farthy was reaching out to trap me in its gnarled arms again. Almost against my will I was drawn to Jillian's suite. Oh, where was Logan, and why had I agreed to come here before our honeymoon? I should have known that nothing would have improved, that things would only have gotten worse.

  "Martha?" I called. Martha Goodman appeared in the doorway. "Martha, what's going on?" I asked.

  "Oh, nothing too unusual, Heaven," she replied, as if Jillian's voice always trembled the halls. "Mr.

  Tatterton was here late last night and he got Miss Jillian very excited about the reception. I didn't think she would remember him visiting her and telling her, but she's been preparing herself since daybreak."

  "Then she realizes I am here and that I have gotten married," I said quickly.

  "Oh, no." Martha shook her head sadly. "I'm afraid not."

  "Well . . . how did Tony explain the reception?"

  "He explained it," Martha replied. She smiled and shook her head again. "But Jillian heard different words."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I'm afraid she thinks it's her own wedding reception."

  "What?" I crossed my arms about my chest, hugging myself as if I were a child that I, myself, was protecting from the terrible truth of Jillian's madness and jealousy. "I don't understand. Her own?"

  "Meaning the reception that was given for her the day she married Tony and came to live at Farthinggale Manor," Martha said.

  "Oh . . . oh, I see."

  "Don't worry. It will be all right. Most everyone who has been invited knows how she is now," Martha assured me.

  "Of course. If there's anything I can do to help, let me know," I mumbled and ran downstairs, looking for Logan, longing for his reassuring arms, longing to know my life was with him, more than ever.

  The breakfast table was already being cleared by the servants. I went into the kitchen looking for Logan. Surely he wouldn't have left without even saying good-bye on our honeymoon morning But in the kitchen I found only my old friend, Rye Whiskey.

  "Miss Heaven!" he exclaimed. The stout black chef was happy to see me, but I could also see fear in his eyes when I stepped through the door. He went right to a salt shaker and tossed some grains over his shoulder. I didn't laugh. Rye was a superstitious man, inheriting a legacy of omens and rituals from his slave ancestors.

  "Glad to see you, Miss Heaven," he said, "but for a moment there I thought I seen another ghost."

  He had always told me how much I looked like my mother. Now, with my hair her color, he, too, was amazed by how much I looked like her.

  "Don't tell me you're still seeing ghosts around Farthy, Rye," I teased. He didn't crack a smile. "Have you seen my husband, Rye, or Tony? Surely they haven't turned into ghosts overnight "

  "Well, Miss Heaven, now, they left an hour ago, all puffed up with excitement because Master Tony was showing Mr. Logan his factory. That husband of yore's shore does know how to bring Master Tony alive, don't he, Heaven?"

  "I'm afraid he does," I said quietly, thinking to myself I was more afraid than anyone could guess.

  B
ut I didn't want-Rye Whiskey to see my distress, so I went back to his favorite subject. "And just what ghosts have you been seeing lately? Tony's great-great grandfather or great-great grandmother?"

  "Don't talk about the dead and gone, Miss Heaven. If you dig up their troubled past, you'll disturb their sleep and they'll haunt ya. I got enough hauntin' me these days," he added.

  I had no doubt that Rye knew where the ghosts and skeletons were in Farthy, but like all old and dedicated family servants, he kept the secrets to himself. He was as discreet as an ancestral portrait—seeing and hearing all, but telling nothing.

  "You don't look so bad for it, Rye," I said.

  Except for a little weight he had gained, and the further retreat of his graying hairline, he didn't look much different than he had the day I left. He was already in his late fifties, but he looked no older than a man in his mid-forties.

  "Well, thank you, Miss Heaven. 'Course," he said with a twinkle in his eye, "I keep myself embalmed."

  "Still taking a nip here and there, are you, Rye?"

  "Just to prevent snake bite, Miss Heaven. And you know what?"

  "I haven't been bitten yet," I recited along with him and we laughed.

  "Going to be one big party tomorrow for you and your husband, and I'm glad of it. Farthy needs some happiness, needs people and music once again.

  I'm glad you're here, Miss Heaven. Really am."

  "Thank you, Rye." We talked a little more about the preparations and then I left him.

  Eating alone at the table with Curtis standing nearby to serve my every need brought back memories. Even when Milan was well, I had eaten breakfast by myself. And here I was, now a married woman, so different from the frightened, vulnerable girl who first came to Farthy, who was afraid of Curtis, who didn't even know how to eat in front of a servant. Oh, I had learned the ways of the wealthy, but the frightened girl lived on inside me, still intimidated by Farthy and its power.

  But it was a magnificent summer day with not a cloud in the turquoise sky and I intended to enjoy it.