Chapter Four

I was not sure what shocked me more—the fact that I almost lost my life or that Lucas St. Claire showed me a great kindness.

It was an overcast morning, and dark, fast-moving clouds pushed one after another over the island. There were brief, intense showers all morning, and when the sun finally made an appearance, Mrs. Amber pulled me aside from my duties.

“Reyna, go to the stables and meet Alexander. There is a boat coming and we need to bring the cart down to the dock.” She paused for a moment. “You can drive a cart, can’t you?”

“Of course,”

“The men will unload and load, help if you can, but you’ll need to drive the cart up and down the road all afternoon, if the weather allows it.”

Alexander was waiting for me at the stable. He was an older man, with rough, tanned hands and white hair. He flashed a gap-toothed smile and led me to the cart. The cart was being pulled by a brown mare. The mare twitched her ears and stomped her feet.

“You’ll have to nudge her along, she’s stubborn, but she’ll get the job done. Knows the route so well, she could do it in her sleep, so it should be easy for you.”

He handed me the reins, gave the mare a pat on the rear and we were off. The cart left the open grass of the estate and ambled between the gates and onto the dark road that led down to the water. There was a sweet and damp smell to the road, and I could hear the water dripping from tree leaves in the overgrowth.

A switchback was just ahead, and as we passed by it, I peeked down the steep ravine below. The land had disappeared into a crevice of small trees and tumbling green vines that led into the shadows. A juvenile fear rose inside me, of falling into that deep and wild space, and I felt my heart beat faster. When another switchback appeared, I looked stoically ahead, refusing to entertain such a foolish thought. There were breaks in the trees and I saw the ocean here and there, and I focused on that instead.

When I reached the dock, the men were waiting for me. There was a large boat, with many boxes already unloaded, and men were carrying even more down the gangway. I had no idea what was in the boxes, but they were nailed tightly shut and handled with great care. My cart was loaded quickly, and I started back up the hill. The mare was considerably more irritable on the way back to Devlin Manor. More than once, I had to urge her along, clicking at her and rustling the reins. Once the first switchback was behind us, the horse settled into a rhythm and we finally reached the top.

It still had not rained, and I turned the cart around to head down again.

The mare was happy with an empty load, and her pace was quick. I am ashamed now to say that I encouraged her, and soon the cart was bouncing along the road. Even though it was summer, my speed was quick enough that the breeze gave me chills on my skin and whistled in my ears. Shadows and sunshine flickered over me until I was almost blind.

It happened so fast.

Just before the switchback, a cloud of mist appeared. The appearance of mists in the deep foliage on the mountainside was not unusual, but as my mare and cart passed through it, an uneasy feeling came over me, and just a second later the mare squealed in fear. Later, I would reflect on that experience, on that mist, and mull over the possible causes in my mind, but at that moment, things happened too fast to contemplate.

The horse panicked and turned sharply. I had only a moment to prepare before the cart slanted over the edge. It was just a minor tilt, and the mare pulled the cart free. But it was too late for me. I went sailing into the air and down into the void of the crevasse.

Down I went, until the ground exploded beneath me and the vines clamored over me, hungry and clinging, and they swallowed me whole. Everything was dark. Sound was muffled. I screamed like a person trapped alive in a tomb. Pushing, pulling and clawing with my hands, my only thought was to get out of the darkness. But there was nothing, no response, only the indifferent call of the birds to each other. It was too awful and I screamed and clawed at the earth, trying to get free.

Suddenly there was movement beside me. The vines were yanked away, pulled back to reveal Lucas St. Claire.

He was looking at me with shock. He was completely still, his chiseled face roving over my body and eyes, and when he finally spoke, his tone was flat and apologetic. “I…I thought …you sounded just like her.”

In the recess of my mind, fear registered, that my screams for help should remind him of her, but my fear of the damp earth and the clawing vines was simply overwhelming, and I reached for him.

An angry, almost sinister grimace settled on his features. But then, he composed himself and he took my hand. “Are you all right? Is anything broken?”

“Help me out of here.” I tried to take a step, but my foot twisted beneath my weight. I pitched forward on the steep slope and he caught me.

“Don’t take another step.” He scooped me up and into his arms, cradling me in one arm and steadying himself with the other.

He took a step, and wobbled—just slightly—and I remembered his limp.

“Don’t.” I pulled away from him, trying to climb down and stand. “I can make it.” My efforts once again unbalanced us. We slid down, before one of his arms shot out and grabbed hold of a small tree.

“Stop.” His voice was a growl. “Let me.”

Right at that moment, I saw the dignity in him, the refusal to listen to my protest, even at his own peril. I knew instinctively that to continue to fight him was to insult his ability. There was something more, though. The resolute set of his jaw, the intensity in his eyes, even the way he held me—completely solid and unyielding—this was something he had to do.

He took one step, dug his foot into the steep earth, grabbed onto an exposed root and pulled, dragging his other leg behind him. Step after step he continued, grasping at roots and small trees, anything that would give him leverage. My arms were around his neck. I knew that he would bring us to the top, no matter what it took.

It started to rain. First a mist and then fat dollops battered us. All I could hear was the pounding of the rain on the forest around us and the calm, even breathing of Lucas. The water drenched us and our clothes clung together. I looked up and saw rivulets of water streaming down his face, and I wiped his brow with the sleeve of my shirt.

His eyes glanced to me for one second—only one second—and it was a surprised, almost defensive look. Life must have been cruel to him to harden him to a gentle touch. At last, he reached the road. As soon as he stepped out onto it, a sigh of relief escaped from him. His horse was grazing at the edge of the road, its reins looped on the saddle. The cart and mare were nowhere to be seen.

“I can walk,” I said. “Please, let me try. You can help me if needed.”

“No.” He went to his horse, his unusual gate causing me to sway in his arms with every step. When we reached the horse, he placed me sideways in the saddle and took the reins. He led us back to Devlin Manor, slowly, resolutely and without speaking.

When we reached the house, he kicked open the front door, and carried me inside. He stood in the foyer with me in his arms, each of us soaking wet and water streaming onto the floor. Mrs. Amber came running, but stopped in her tracks when she saw us. She stood with her mouth hanging open, and when she spoke, it was to me and her voice was full of anger.

“What have you done?” she asked.

“Call the doctor.” Lucas carried me to the sofa and placed me upon it.

“It was very strange,” I said. “Something spooked the horse.” But even as I said the words I doubted the truth of them. The shadow had made no sound and did not seem to have any substance. I could make no sense of it and I tried to ignore the nagging sensation that it was something that I wouldn’t want to understand.

Mrs. Amber and I went back and forth, and Mr. St. Claire watched me, listening to every word I spoke, although he said nothing in my defense. When Mrs. Amber went to the kitchen to get me a poultice, I tried to thank Mr. St. Claire.

“I am so happy you found me,” I said.

His face immediately turned twisted and angry, and I realized that I had said something very wrong. He turned and walked away, but I managed to tug at his trousers as he walked by.

“I’m trying to thank you. Please don’t just walk away.”

“Consider this a warning. I can just walk away, and I usually do.”

I thought of our previous night, and a sense of foreboding settled over me.

* * *

The doctor declared that my injury was minor, barely even a bruise. Mrs. Amber was relieved to hear that, and quickly put me to work again, although she made some accommodation and set me to polishing the silver.

I was stationed in the kitchen. The table in front of me was piled with platters and utensils that already seemed to gleam in the meager light, but I did as I was told, and polished them until they were so bright I could see my reflection in them. Just before dinner, Mrs. Amber came and helped me stack them away.

I felt Mrs. Amber’s eyes on me during dinner. I knew she was upset that I had drawn his attention to myself. If she only knew the extent of his attention, I thought to myself.

I remembered Maxie, the dog from the courtyard, and took pity on the animal. I hid some scraps of my meal in a napkin to feed her later that night. It wasn’t until I thought of Maxie and setting aside scraps that I realized my mind was already made up. Of course I would go.

The evening chore of kitchen cleanup went by quickly, and I felt like a child anticipating a new toy. When we were finished for the night, I bolted to my small room, seeing it not as the dismal chamber that I once had, but rather as a portal to the outside, to the house of glass.

Maxie arrived after midnight. I opened the window and called softly. She trotted over, her silver-white coat glowing in the darkness. I dropped the bits of meat, one by one, and she grabbed them from the air and wolfed them down in a most unladylike manner. She was what we called an island mutt, a mix of a hundred unknown breeds.

When she was finished, her tail thumped against the ground and she let out a small whine. “Shh,” I whispered to her, but my voice only excited her more. Her body burst into motion and she let out a yip. I realized that she was about to wake the entire household with her enthusiasm.

I quickly squirmed through the small window and dropped to the ground. The dog went crazy with happiness, licking my hands and face. Her stomach was stretched tight. I thought that it couldn’t be much longer. I coaxed her along the side of the house, along the path. When we reached the soft grass, I stopped and looked around. The whole world was in darkness and yet still bursting with life.

Far away, I could hear the sound of a buoy, clanging in time with the waves. The ocean was a dark and somber twin to the sky, which was a million points of light, cast in all directions, like a net. The palm trees rustled in the wind. I stepped onto the grass, which was cool and damp beneath my feet, and I felt a freedom of spirit that had been missing since my father died.

Maxie bolted toward the gardens. I followed her. I could smell the blooms. Already their perfumes were waning. They were past their nightly peak and would soon close their buds, like they did every day, and drop to the ground. I followed her to the fountain, past the magnolia trees and moonflowers and through the low hedges, until finally we had reached the heart of the garden. The fountain glowed white from the light of the moon.

When I stepped into the clearing, I saw a figure already there. It was Lucas St. Claire and he was sitting on the bench next to the fountain. He was hunched over, with his head between his hands.

He was a ravaged man. I saw that so clearly, and mourned for the man I saw only once, all those years ago. Since I had been employed here I had never seen joy in the man, only anguish. He must have had a love so deep for his wife in order to feel such despair. I watched him for only a few brief seconds, and when I heard a distant rumble of the storm, I knew that I must go.

Maxie had disappeared and came bounding out again from somewhere in the bushes. She saw him and growled, her hackles raised and tail stiff.

He shot up and hesitated, staring at me for a moment. In my white nightgown I must have looked like quite a fright.

“Mr. St. Claire,” I said.

It was an awkward predicament and I felt ashamed of my behavior, not just for going to the glass house, but now for crawling around the grounds at night, and I began to blabber. “I’m very sorry. Being out here, I mean. See, I try to feed the dog at night—”

He came rushing over to me. His height blotted out the moon and he held up a hand to stop me from speaking.

Maxie growled again, but I shushed her.

He looked away. “It doesn’t matter.” He grabbed my arm and seemed almost surprised that it was solid. “Why have you become the ghost in my gardens? Why do you visit the house at night, roam the grounds at night?”

The knowledge that he knew my curious habits made me flush. “I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t help it.”

The sound of thunder filled the air. It was a booming, vibrating sound.

“Where did that dog come from?” he asked.

“She’s a stray, and I guess that I’ve adopted her in a way. I feed her scraps at night. She comes to my window after everyone is asleep.”

“So, you roam the grounds at night? Have you thought that you might be tempting danger?”

“Not danger,” I said.

“What then, if not a thrill?”

I looked around. A gust of air blasted us with the cool air of the coming storm. “Beauty,” I said. “Life.” All around me the flowers danced in the wind. “What are you doing here?”

A few cold drops of rain pelted against us.

He gave a cynical sound. “I have a dark nature. It’s at peace here.”

The skies opened up and rain drenched over us. Lucas St. Claire grabbed my arm. “You’re coming with me,” he said. He shooed the dog away, and Maxie disappeared into the bushes once more.

He pulled me along in his halting gait. I was acutely aware that I wore only the thinnest barrier, a mere gown. When we arrived at the manor he threw open the door to the house and led me up the stairs to the second floor and to a back bedroom. He pulled open another door, and led me up another flight of stairs. We were in an attic.

I could smell the dust. All around us, white sheets floated, covering the bulky, forgotten items of the house. There was an enormous arced window, wide enough to feature the whole sky, which was alight with the thunderstorm.

Lucas dragged an old chair across the floor and placed it just beneath the window.

“Sit.”

I sat.

“Stay here.” He disappeared.

I was alone. Maxie was outside somewhere. I watched the storm, with its great veins of white heat that shattered the heavens into a thousand pieces. Strangely, I was not afraid, only breathless, waiting to see how the night would unfold.

Mr. St. Claire returned carrying a handful of candles. He lit one and placed it on the floor beside me. Then, he went to a table and lit two more. A soft, warm light filled the attic. I saw much better and I could even discern the shapes beneath some of the covered items. A piano, draped over and piled high with boxes filled an entire corner. There were silver candelabras on top. Furniture was everywhere. I saw a dining table and chairs, their wooden legs visible beneath the skirt of linen. A spiral staircase that led straight to the roof, covered by a door. There was so much that my eyes couldn’t take it all in.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

He was pulling huge papers out of a box and when he was done, he dragged another chair close to mine, and then he sat down. He held a pencil in his hand.

“I am going to draw you.”

A strange feeling of pleasure overcame me. “Me? Why?”

“Don’t you know the answer to that? I believe you just gave it a while back in the garden. What was that you said? Beauty? Life?”

He stood and came over to me. “I’m going to pose you.”

His fingers grazed my chin, moving it ever so slightly toward the window. Everything slowed down for me, the sound of him moving, the storm outside. My breathing came faster and I couldn’t help but open my eyes and look at him.

I could hear the quick inhalation of his breath. “No,” he said, “don’t look at me like that.” There was an anger in him that I had not heard before. “Never like that when I draw you,” he said, and he brushed his fingers over my eyelids, closing my eyes, and my vision went dark, though my world was drenched in sounds and smells.

“Remember that moment when I found you? When you had fallen into the jungle?” he asked.

“Yes.” I was whispering.

“Think of that moment.” He removed his hands, and I felt a cold rush of air and knew that he had left my side. “Open your eyes.”

As soon as I opened my eyes, I was no longer in the dusty attic. I was back there, in that awful place, and it was only he and I in a tumbling world of vines and earth that threatened to overtake us.

“Yes,” he said. “That.” There was a charcoal pencil in his hand and it was darting furiously, angrily over the paper. His dark brows were furrowed and his eyes were greedy and came to my face again and again. There was brusqueness to his movements, almost as if his hand couldn’t move fast enough.

He stared at me, and I in turn stared at him. The candles painted him in shadows and then small flickers of light chased them away. He looked eerie and beautiful.

I wondered about him, about that dark nature he referred to, because it seemed more intense than dark to me at that moment. To see him in front of me, he was an artist, not an heir, or a criminal, or a scandal. The set of his eyes, the way he gripped the charcoal and his muscles flexed with a determined grace, I knew that he was a man who would coax what he wanted from the world and if it didn’t comply, he would force it.

“You are staring, Reyna.” The sound of his voice, deep and resonating, surprised me.

“I was. But you are, as well.”

An enormous bolt of lightning exploded just outside the window and we were illuminated in a brilliant whiteness. Goose bumps rose on my skin, drawing my nipples to tight points, and I felt exposed with just a thin cotton gown covering me. His eyes roved over me, and I was suddenly aware that only a thin layer of cotton lay between my skin and his eyes. My thoughts returned to the other night, when I was so wild. I wished that same woman would leap out of me right then and there, but I only turned my head away slightly, flushing in the darkness.

He laughed quietly. “I can’t figure you out, Reyna. How is it that you are innocent one moment, and a wanton the next?”

There was no explanation that I could put into words. How could I explain the effect of the glass house? The fact that it gave me a confidence, a relentlessness? What could I even attribute it to? “I think that I am one and the same,” I offered hesitantly, “but my bravery comes and goes, and sometimes I have a hesitation, almost as if I don’t know how to go about getting what I want most.”

“What is it that you want most?”

I took a deep breath. There were two answers to his question, one that I could reveal inside the glass house, and one that I was too tentative to say. “I don’t know,” I whispered. “Lots of things. What everyone wants, I suppose.”

He reflected on my words for a moment. “What? Love?” He laughed cynically. “Tell me, have you ever had a broken heart? Have you ever known despair?”

“I’ve known despair.” I spoke the words simply, quietly.

“Really?” Something had changed in him; I could feel the anger. “Have you known the pain of losing someone? To go day in and day out and not know if they are alive or dead? Or suffering?” He snorted. “You don’t know a damned thing about that.”

“Yes, I do know.” My voice was small and faraway and my throat was tight to even have to say those words. I swallowed. Once. Twice. “My father was lost at sea. So I know the kind of loss you speak of. I know the pain of a loss that never resolves itself.” I peeked at him and found him standing still, holding a pencil in the air, listening to me. “No one can understand that pain, only someone who has been through it. Only we know the pain of never knowing the end. Of that loose end hanging.”

He put the pencil down and looked at me. For the first time I saw a flicker of something—what was it? Hope? Understanding? Attraction perhaps? “I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought—I didn’t know—”

“You couldn’t have known.”

“What happened?”

“My father was a fisherman and one evening he didn’t return home. There wasn’t a storm or anything. I stayed awake for three days waiting for him. The other fishermen took me in their boats and we roamed the waters for any sign of him or his boat. When they couldn’t look me in the eye anymore, I knew it was hopeless.”

“That’s a terrible thing.” He looked at me, briefly, a glance above the paper, and again I saw that flicker of emotion in his eyes.

“It is a terrible thing,” I agreed. “I sat and wondered if his boat was floating in the ocean, broken, and that he was alive, clinging to life, waiting for help that never came. It is the worst thing to wonder about.”

He sighed and his body shrank away from me, just slightly, but I noticed it. He rubbed his eyes and his face. I could see how tired he was. “I’ve been trying for so damned long. I know she’s dead, of course, but the guilt, all these years the guilt has plagued me. Sometimes I think if I move fast enough and wild enough, it can’t keep up. That’s enough for tonight.”

“Fine, Mr. St. Claire,” I said, remembering how things would be in the morning.

“Don’t be foolish after all that has passed between us,” he said. “Call me Lucas.”

“Okay. Lucas.” His name was heaven to say out loud.