Chapter Fifteen

 

“No, that cannot be,” Serena said, looking in dismay at the many-armed brass contraption in Woding’s tower study. “God did not create the universe in such a manner. The earth is at the center. The stars and the sun revolve around it. Everyone knows that!”

Woding raised an eyebrow at her. “Do you want me to explain day and night again?”

“No. No!” She glared at the brass orbs, the one depicting the earth half-illuminated by the small lamp within the ball Woding said was the sun. “It makes more sense for the sun to rise and set around the earth,” she argued. “Who is there on the other planets that they should be treated the same? No one! The heavens revolve around us. ’Tis how they have such a great influence upon events.”

“Have you ever ridden a horse, Serena?” Woding asked.

“Yes, certainly.”

“When you rode the horse, did you move across a stationary field, or did the field move past you while you stood still?”

“ ’Tis a foolish question. How could the field move around me?”

He said nothing, apparently waiting for her to work it out for herself.

She looked back at the orbs. It was most unsettling, almost unbelievable, and yet... And yet, for a moment, she imagined she was on a horse, and for a moment held the illusion that she was the one stationary while the field moved past her.

It was ridiculous. And it was what he implied she had been thinking of the earth and heavens. She looked at the contraption that he called an orrery again, and visions of revolving circles within circles filled her head.

“If the earth spins,” she said, placing her finger on the orb and spinning it, “and if it and the other planets in turn circle the sun,” she continued, moving each in its orbit, “then does all of it together in turn circle something larger?”

He raised his eyebrows at her and gave an approving nod. “That is an excellent question, Serena. It is thought that the solar system does indeed move through space in an orbit, along with the stars.”

“If they do, then perhaps at the center of that circle is where God resides,” she said. “Mayhap ’tis indeed presumptuous of us to believe that the heavens would circle those who had come from dust.”

“There may be God or some other force, or nothing at all.”

“Or that circle may be inside circles larger still,” she said, ignoring him, her mind stretching into the concept of infinity for the first time. She looked at him. “I suddenly feel quite small.”

“Is that comforting or frightening?”

“I do not know.” She smiled with him, recognizing her stock answer, and for that moment felt not so alone in the vastness of the universe. “Does it frighten you?”

“It reminds me that my troubles are not so large as I might think. When I look out to the stars, it is as if I leave this planet and the petty details of life. I forget for a time who I am.”

She tilted her head, studying him. “Do you not like your life?”

He gave a quick smile, a flash of white gone as fast as it had come, like the tail of a deer bounding through the woods. “I have everything I need,” he said.

“You have no wife. Surely a man needs one of those. Why have you not married again?”

“That’s a rather personal question.”

She raised her eyebrows and gave him the same waiting look he had given her.

He sighed. “Marriage did not suit me; I’m not made for it.”

“How so?”

He flicked a wary glance at her, the corner of his mouth pulling in a bitter smile. “You want the truth, that I have told no one?”

She nodded.

“I did not love my wife.” The look in his eyes said he expected her censure, but she felt only puzzlement.

“Was she a loathsome creature?”

“Not at all. Everyone adored Frances.”

“Except you.”

He nodded once, his eyes sad. “She deserved a more loving husband.”

Serena made a moue and shrugged. “Eh.”

He scowled at her. “Eh? Your response to my deep, dark secret is ‘eh?’”

“These marriages without love, they are more the rule than the exception, yes? In my time it was so. And it does not mean that your next marriage will be unhappy.”

“I’ve promised myself there will not be a next time.”

She waved a hand. “Nonsense, Woding! You are too––” she was about to say handsome, but caught herself “––young and full of life to give up on having a family. Don’t you want one?”

“I’ve done well enough without. After Frances died, I let myself get caught up in expanding the mills, and forgot about building a family, telling myself that there would be plenty of time later for that if I changed my mind.”

“Is it later now?”

“Not yet.”

“Then when will later be?”

His smile this time was tinged with emptiness. “I expect I shall know the time if it comes.”

“I do not think so, Woding. I think you are hiding from your heart up here in your tower, staring at your heavens. Your heart cannot see the time to have a wife and children if it is out beyond the moon, chasing stars.”

“Did you follow your own heart when you married le Gayne?” he asked.

She walked over to the window, looking out over the night-cast valley. Although she could not see it, she knew exactly where the ruins of Clerenbold Keep stood, and imagined the last of the foundation stones standing strong against the grasses and vines.

“No. I followed my head, treating my heart as if it knew nothing of what was best for me. You can see what a success that was.” She turned her back to the window and gazed across the room at him. His hair was tousled, bits of it standing up. He had run his hands through it several times while explaining the workings of the heavens to her. “You waste the treasure you have, Woding.”

“Which treasure is that?”

“Your life. You live, yet you do not. There are only traces left in you of what I saw when you were a boy. Sometimes, when I watch you, I think I am the one more alive. I do not understand why you shut yourself up in this castle and try to surround yourself with men. I do not understand why you choose to live with cold stars instead of a warm wife and your family.”

“Tell me about le Gayne. Tell me why you married him,” he countered. “Do not expect me to bare myself to you and your criticism while you remain silent, holding your secrets close.”

“I was not criticizing. I married le Gayne because he was rich and I was afraid Thomas and I would starve. I wanted children, and le Gayne could give me those, no matter if I loved him or no. Thomas and he struck a deal, Thomas signing over several acres of land to le Gayne as my dowry. In return, le Gayne outfitted Thomas for fighting under the Black Prince.”

“That sounds a story too common to end in murder.”

“Christ’s curse, you did not know le Gayne!” she said, the old hatred coming up in a flood. “He wanted only the land. Neither Thomas nor I could read, and did not know that the deed le Gayne wrote up for the land gave him not only the acres Thomas had promised, but all of the Clerenbold lands. ’Twas why he was so happy to send Thomas to war: chances were that he would die by another’s hand before discovering the trickery.”

“But why kill you? There was nothing you could have done against him, once the deed was signed and you were married. You might never have even known, if Thomas had died in battle. The land would have gone to you anyway.”

“He did not want me for his wife.”

“There must be more to it than that. Certainly more to explain why the man could not wait past his wedding night to kill you, if that was his plan.”

“He could not bear me,” she said slowly, the words a mix of pain and anger. Even now it was humiliating to recall the insults he had cast at her. “He told me he could not stand the sight of me. He said I was a great lummox of a woman, an ox, fit only for pulling a plow. He said my face could frighten children, and give them nightmares.”

“The man had no taste. You have a beautiful face.”

“What?” she said, startled out of her remembrance. “What do you know of my face? You said you could not see it clearly.”

A twitch of guilt played across his face, telling her the truth before he himself could. “You have become more and more clear as we have talked. In the dark, especially, you look almost like a living person to me, and are equally as clear.”

“What do you mean, in the dark?”

He shrugged, a child trying to minimize his crime. “In daylight you are transparent, but in the dark you are opaque, and illuminated as if from within. I can see you even when I can see nothing else.”

“Ohhhh,” she moaned. How could this be? God’s heart, what manner of fool had she been making of herself while he could see her expressions so well? All this time she had thought she’d been somewhat protected, yet she had been completely exposed to his scrutiny.

“I’ve guessed that it is the scar you did not want me to see.”

“Devil take you, Woding!”

“Serena,” he said, coming toward her, his hands out and open, as if asking her to put hers in his. “You are beautiful. Le Gayne was wrong in what he said.”

She backed away from him, her eyes wide, her head shaking from side to side in denial. He cornered her against the wall, and although she could have sunk back through it, she did not, watching him come closer and closer. He stopped when he was only a foot from her.

A strange, unknown sensation ran through her, a quivering tingle that could have been fear or dread, but was neither. It made her heart thump, and her breath come heavy in her chest.

He reached out his hand toward her face, and she closed her eyes, allowing herself to become solid enough to touch. His fingertips lightly grazed her skin, at the start of her scar, and then traced it across her face, gliding tenderly over her cheek.

“It is as unique and beautiful as you are,” he said. “It sets you apart.”

She opened her eyes, feeling his fingertips still on the edge of her cheek. “I have always been apart,” she said. “Even before this marked me.”

His eyes were dark, looking at his own hand upon her face, and he seemed not to hear her. “Your skin is soft,” he said, and moved the back of his fingers along the edge of her jaw. “And warm.”

The strange sensation tightened in her gut, sending a flutter to her loins, and making her half close her eyes in this unknown pleasure. “What are you doing to me?” she asked softly. His hand moved down her neck, lightly tracing the curve to her shoulder. “Woding? What is happening?”

“I have seen nothing like you in all my life,” he said, and bent his head down and laid his lips against the curve of her neck.

Her knees went weak, and she lost her ability to think. Time stopped, and all awareness left her except of those lips against her skin, pressing softly, damply, moving up toward her ear.

A knock at the door startled them both apart, and Serena went insubstantial, falling into the wall. She emerged confused and befuddled in the night air outside the tower, and drifted around to the window, watching from outside as Underhill brought in a tray with coffee and a late supper for Woding.

Woding himself looked as disoriented as she herself, distractedly ordering Underhill where to set the tray. Otto came in the room, sniffing around as if aware of her recent presence, and after going to Woding for an absentminded scratch on the head, went to go settle his large frame in the corner as Underhill left.

Half of her wanted to rejoin Woding, and feel him again touch her, kiss her, stroke her. It was like the lure to drink too much wine and become intoxicated. The other half of her sought separation, to make sense of what had just gone between them. She could not believe it had happened, and could not believe that he had meant anything he said.

He looked toward the window and saw her. Even through the glass, she heard him say her name, calling softly to her, “Serena.”

It could have been the devil calling, the temptation to go back was so strong. A fear of the unknown possessed her, and although she knew it was the cowardly choice, she left him there.

Alex went to the window, searching for one last sight of Serena. She had pulled him to her with a magnetic force, his body acting of its own will to approach her, to touch her, to kiss her. It was as if some silent part of him had grown frustrated with the erotic dreams and sought to make them real. He desired her.

Whether that was for good or ill, he could not say. He went and sat behind his desk, staring blankly at the tray of food and coffee, the objects making no sense to his mind. All he could think of was the feel of her skin beneath his lips, and the sweet scent of hay that came from her.

Lust was something he had not felt for a long time. Too long. That a dead woman with violent tendencies should arouse it in him was almost beyond comprehension. Perhaps Serena had hit on a truth when she said that she was more alive than he was, except when looking at the stars. It was as if his body sought her out to return it to life.

He poured himself a cup of coffee, and let it steam in the cup in front of him, untouched.

Untouched.

That was what Serena claimed to be. Did the rules of honor apply here as with a living woman? Common decency demanded that he not toy with her emotions by indulging his desires. For all her strength, he sensed she was fragile when it came to relating to men. She said she had been murdered by a man—one who had claimed she was undesirable. She would be slow to trust one again.

It would be unfair to continue any form of dalliance with her, for surely, at some point, it would have to end. What future was there to be had with a ghost? He couldn’t very well introduce her to friends, or have her acting as hostess at dinner parties. She couldn’t go anywhere with him. He couldn’t marry her. They couldn’t have children.

He had a sudden image of ghost babies winking in and out of sight, and shuddered.

Beyond the practicalities, wasn’t there something wicked and perverted about sleeping with a ghost? For all that he usually spared few thoughts for his immortal soul, a small part of him wondered if it wouldn’t somehow be damaging to it to have sex with a dead woman.

Obviously it could never work out with Serena. He would eventually move on to someone living, and she would be left here, alone again with the stones of the castle and the shadow of her dead husband, le Gayne.