Rosalyn joined her daughter on the wide brick patio next to her garden and watched as Fifi played havoc with the big hounds and the collies.
“She isn’t afraid, is she?” Rosalyn put the tea tray down on the table and took a seat beside Lily.
“She’s fearless,” Lily answered.
“Of course you realize that the men in this household have a bet going to see how quickly one of the big hounds has her for lunch.”
Lily continued to watch her pup. “I think I overheard that. They’d just as well try to eat a rabid ferret.”
Rosalyn watched the animals cavort on the lawn. “She does appear to have the upper hand for some reason. Someone new for the dogs to play with besides the sickie sheep.” She put her hand on the girl’s arm. “Something troubling you?”
Lily turned to her and looked straight into her eyes; there was a coolness there that concerned Rosalyn. “I think you know.”
Some of the spirit went out of Rosalyn. “Why do you have to learn about this?”
“Because it involves me. Whatever it is, it’s part of who I am.”
“It’s not pleasant.”
“I guessed that, otherwise it wouldn’t be so hard to tell me about it.”
It was time, Rosalyn knew, especially as long as Lily wouldn’t let it go. “It has to do with your father.”
“I rather guessed that, too. There is never a mention of him.”
“Before I say any more, I will tell you that he charmed me. He had a way of making me believe everything he said. He was a manipulator.”
“And,” Rosalyn added, “he did things to children that hopefully sent him straight to hell.” She nearly choked on the words.
Lily’s hand flew to her mouth and her eyes were wide. “You mean, he—”
“I discovered this after I became pregnant with you. He’d been touching the young girls whose mothers worked for us; one of them was brave enough to tell me.”
Lily sat quietly, one hand in her lap, the other still over her mouth, as she gazed into the distance.
“Naturally I divorced him,” Rosalyn went on. “I took you and came here, to Hedabarr, where my friend Fenella was practicing nursing. I felt safe here; your father didn’t have any knowledge of my friendship with Fenella, so I wasn’t concerned that he would show up here. We stayed with Fenella for over two years before he found us.”
Lily turned to her, her eyes still wide, her voice a whisper. “He found us here, on Hedabarr?”
Rosalyn nodded. “Somehow he tracked me down. He was relentless. A normal man would have gotten the hint that what we had was over, but not him. He didn’t like to lose. He had seen so little of you because I left him as soon as both of us were strong enough. He was a very possessive man as well. What was his was his for all eternity.” She shuddered and rubbed her arms with her hands. “So even though he had rarely seen you, you were his. And so was I.”
“What happened when he found us?”
Rosalyn rolled her head around to loosen her stiff neck. “He must have been watching the place for a while, because he waited until Fenella and Reggie, her handyman, left in the buggy to get supplies in Sheiling.
“There was a short knock on the door, and at first I thought Fen must have forgotten something, so I opened it, expecting to see her standing there. Much to my surprise and dismay, it was your father.” Rosalyn swallowed hard, remembering how she’d felt the moment she saw him.
“Where was I?” Lily asked.
“You were napping. You’d had a bit of a cold and Fen had given you some syrup so you wouldn’t cough; it made you sleepy.” She took Lily’s hand in hers and squeezed it.
“He walked right in as if he belonged there. He even brought a bottle of champagne and some chocolates, believing that if he gave me gifts I’d soften and forgive him.” She shuddered again. “He really didn’t know me very well.” Rosalyn stood and paced in front of Lily.
“He got down on his knees and begged for my forgiveness.” A grim smile appeared on her lips. “He even cried. I wondered how long he’d been practicing that. But I’d lived two happy years without him and I wasn’t taken in by his drama. He pleaded with me, saying he couldn’t live without his little family.”
Rosalyn paused in front of a trellis, where a climbing rose bush blossomed. “I didn’t fall for any of it. He was so full of himself I doubt he thought I’d refuse. When I told him to get out and leave us alone, he appeared contrite, although I knew it was just another act.
“He slumped into a chair, pretending to give in. I remember him looking up at me with his soulful eyes, asking if we couldn’t at least drink a glass of champagne together before he left. I thought only to get rid of him, so I agreed.” She sat again, her eyes filling with unshed tears. “But he didn’t just give me champagne; he put something else in it and I fell asleep. When I awoke, you were gone. He had kidnapped you.” Rosalyn wiped away her tears with the back of her hand.
“And then what happened?” Lily’s voice was almost a whisper.
Rosalyn sniffled. “There was a search, and on the other side of the water, near Ayr, they found a small capsized boat with your father’s body floating nearby. But you were nowhere to be found. They combed the river and the area around it, but nothing. You were gone.” Her voice squeaked as she finished the sentence.
Rosalyn sat, feeling spent and anxious.
Lily rose from her chair, knelt on the bricks, and put her head in her mother’s lap. “And you were unhappy.”
Rosalyn stroked her daughter’s hair. It was so very much like hers, thick and easy to care for. Even the color was similar. Rosalyn often wondered if she would ever have recognized her darling girl under any other circumstances. “Unhappy hardly describes the pain and heartache that stayed with me until the day I found you again.”
Lily hugged her mother’s knees, and neither spoke or moved until the dogs alerted them of the arrival of company.
Lily’s gaze went to the road. A man on horseback trotted toward the castle. On a swift intake of breath, she stood up. “Stefan?”
Rosalyn stood as well. “You know him?”
Lily nodded. “It’s Stefan. He a friend of my brother’s. How in the world did he find me here?”
Rosalyn noticed the pulse at her daughter’s throat throbbing hard beneath the fragile skin. Lily walked swiftly toward him when he dismounted. He smiled and held out his arms, an invitation for an embrace.
“Stefan.” Her voice was filled with disbelief. “What…how…”
Stefan swept Lily into his arms and hugged her. She couldn’t believe it. She thought she might never see him again.
They both laughed, the sound joyful, excited. He put her on the ground but kept his arm around her.
“I have disturbing news,” he began, his voice suddenly somber. “It’s Mum. She’s very ill and she wants to see you before she…gets worse.”
Surprised, Lily asked, “She wants to see me? Why?”
Stefan ran his fingers along Lily’s cheek and she put her hand over his. “Ever since you left she has felt guilty about how little she showed her affection for you.”
Comfortable warmth cloaked Lily as she heard the words. “Oh, I never wanted her to feel any guilt.”
“I know, I know,” Stefan answered. “But I’ve come to take you to her, just for a while, perhaps until…she passes on. It would mean a lot to her, Lily.”
The two spoke softly to one another, the young man obviously carrying some sort of message to Rosalyn’s daughter. Rosalyn felt a bite of jealousy toward the intrusion into her now nearly perfect life.
Rosalyn, who had been watching them with apprehension, pasted a smile on her face when Lily brought him over and introduced him; Rosalyn was grateful she was introduced as Lily’s mother. God, would she ever get used to calling her a name that another woman gave her, clever as it was?
“I’ll take you and your mount to the stable so he can be fed and watered,” Lily offered. “We can talk there.” She gave her mother’s arm a squeeze and left with a very tall, dark, and handsome gypsy. Rosalyn raised her eyebrows and glanced toward the path she often took to see Fen and was grateful to find her friend hiking over the grass toward her.
Fen frowned. “What’s wrong?”
Rosalyn felt rattled and nervous. “Would you believe my daughter, Lily, Fiona, whatever you wish to call her, is in the stable with a very handsome young gypsy?”
Fen raised her eyebrows. “Ooo la la. But how do you know he’s a gypsy?”
Rosalyn frowned at her. “He came looking for her, found her, embraced her, laughed with her, and now he’s in my stable with her, talking about God knows what.”
“Well, at least they’re just talking…”
“Fenella! This is serious. I never envisioned her old life would come back to haunt me, but it has.” She rubbed her hands nervously over her arms and stared at the stable.
“You kind of wished there was simply a big gap there, between her kidnapping and her latest rescue?”
“I don’t know. It’s foolish, I realize that, but I knew all I had to know, to be honest. I knew she was saved, she was cared for, she was fed, and she wasn’t abused. I just didn’t think about the entire life she led when she was taken from me.”
“And here it is, in the guise of a handsome young gypsy.” Fen tucked her arm through Rosalyn’s. “Any inkling at all why he’s here?”
Rosalyn didn’t take her eyes off the stable entry. “I imagine we’ll find out soon enough.” She felt Fen studying her.
“You want an excuse to go to the stable, don’t you?”
“Of course I want to go to the stable. And the nosy woman inside me wants to listen to their conversation without being seen.”
Neither noticed Delilah until they heard her wheezing behind them. She stopped, and when she’d gotten her breath, said, “Anyone going to stop me from washing all them windows? I can hardly see outside, they’re so dirty.”
Rosalyn gave her a look of gratitude. “If you want to wash windows, Delilah, who am I to stop you? But ask Mattie and one of the girls to help. It’s a big job for just one person.”
They both watched as she trudged off toward the castle.
“Does she seem all right to you?” Rosalyn had noted how breathless the woman was when she reached them.
“Something’s going on. I wish she’d come to see me; I don’t know how I’d approach her otherwise. Do you think Isobel has noticed the change?”
“I don’t know. But that’s the last thing she needs when she gets back from her little wedding trip. She’s always waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, Isobel can’t believe she could finally be happy. So, if Delilah is ill, it would prove that Isobel is right. Again.”
Shoes crunching on gravel alerted them to Lily and her guest’s approach.
Rosalyn’s gaze immediately went to her daughter’s face, and she knew something was wrong.
“Stefan is staying the night, Mother.”
Rosalyn simply nodded. “He can use the room to the left of the stairs. Ask one of the girls to get it ready.”
Lily took Stefan’s arm and they walked toward the house.
Fen let out a whoosh of air. “Now, that’s some handsome gypsy. Did you see those eyes? A girl could fall into them and never be the same ever again.”
“You’re not helping, Fen.” Rosalyn continued to watch the couple as they walked toward the castle. One was slender and fair and pretty, the other tall, dark, and unabashedly handsome.
“Oh, come now,” Fen cooed. “She’s a grown woman, remember?”
“Am I going to lose her now, just when I’ve found her?”
“You’re overreacting, Roz. Don’t create trouble where there isn’t any.”
“I know, I know.” She shoved her fists into the pockets of her apron. “I wish I could simply take things as they come; but with her, I want to cushion every possible thing that could hurt her.”
“You just have to remember that she lived an entire life without you, and she survived very well. Don’t smother her, Roz.”
• • •
Over dinner, Stefan appeared completely at ease with the family. He told stories about Lily when she was growing, telling his table mates that her nickname had been “Worm” because she always had her nose in a book. Lily blushed prettily, and swatted his arm when he exposed some of her secrets.
All of which made Rosalyn hope her dinner stayed down. They obviously cared for one another. Had this been something brewing before she left the family? Had they been in touch over the few years she’d been alone?
Later, while Evan was showing Stefan around the grounds, Lily took Rosalyn’s hand and led her into the library. Rosalyn was nervous as a cat with its tail on fire.
“I won’t beat around the bush,” Lily began. “Stefan brought me news of my…the woman who raised me.”
Suddenly Rosalyn’s selfishness made her feel a terrible guilt. She clasped Lily’s hands in hers. “Dearest, did you call her ‘Mother’?”
“She was ‘Mum.’”
“Then call her what makes you feel comfortable. It won’t bother me. I’m your mother. She was your mum for all the years I mourned you. Nothing can erase any of it.”
Lily drew in a breath, releasing it slowly. “Dika—that’s her name—has fallen very ill.” Lily chewed on her lower lip. “She has asked for me.”
A cold wash of dread spread through Rosalyn. She held her tongue.
Lily pressed nervous fingers to her cheeks. “It seems she feels she must atone for how she treated me, not giving me the love and gentleness she gave my sister Kizzy and my brother, Pali.”
Rosalyn spoke. “Why didn’t one of your siblings come instead? Why send someone outside the family?”
“Pali is in Germany and Kizzy is married and expecting another baby. That will be her third, Stefan tells me. So that just leaves Papa to care for Mum and he’s not good with sick ones, even when they are his own.” She gave Rosalyn a weak smile. “Stefan is, well, sort of like me in a way, but he wasn’t wanted by his mother. She was raped by some titled nobleman when she tried to sell him vegetables. So, Stefan lived with us.”
“Did your Stefan need atonement from Dika, too?”
Lily shook her head. “Mum adored Stefan. She preferred Pali to Kizzy too.” With a shrug she added, “She liked boys better than girls. It wasn’t a secret; we just accepted it.”
“And now she wants to make up for all of those years she treated you badly?”
“I wasn’t treated badly, I just wasn’t loved,” Lily corrected her gently.
Rosalyn wanted desperately to urge her not to go, to stay here with her and all of those who had come to love her. She never wanted to be separated from her daughter ever again, and though she knew she was being foolish, her heart had been battered for too many years to listen to her head. She put her face in her hands and shook her head.
“You don’t know how badly I want to tell you not to go,” she finally said as she looked at her beautiful daughter and smoothed back a curl from her forehead. “But I can’t do that, can I? As much as I still think of you as my baby, you’re a grown woman. These people were your family for most of your life, and of course I’m grateful, but I have to admit I’m a little jealous too. After all, they had all those years with you and I…well, I won’t say I had nothing, but the void in my life was deep.”
“So, you think I should go?” Lily’s expression was cautious.
“I would have to be very, very selfish to stop you. And then I’d feel guilty. No, my darling, you must go.” She swallowed a sob. “Just please know that we all want you back as swiftly as you feel you can return. Tell your mum, Dika, that I didn’t accept your decision easily.” There was so much more she wanted to say, to remind her daughter that she was loved and would be missed, even if she was to be gone only for a short while.
They sat quietly, shoulder to shoulder, heads touching, hands clasped together. Rosalyn broke the silence. “When will you go?”
“Stefan believes it should be as soon as tomorrow; he only hopes Mum hangs on long enough for me to see her. And we have to take the boat to Ayr, then down the coast a bit. It will take us two or three days, at least. I promise to let you know when I’ll be back.”
“Remember when you wanted to give Isobel your inheritance? Maybe there’s something you can do for your family, for Dika’s care, something.”
Lily broke into a wide smile. “I can tell you’re my mother; we think alike.” They embraced. “I will miss you and I promise to come back.” Lily pulled away and looked into Rosalyn’s eyes. “Remember, I never forgot you, either.”