"The door was unlocked and a light was on downstairs," he said with a shrug. Then he glanced over his shoulder. "Not disturbing the lord of the manor, I trust? Quite a slugabed, is he?"
"We've had a rather eventful twenty-four hours."
"You, I know, are always up at the crack of dawn," he said, ignoring her last remark, "so I assume I shan't have upset your routine too much by just popping by." When she didn't immediately reply, he added with impatience, "I need to have your answer about the forest, Blythe. Time is running out."
Behind them footsteps were descending the grand staircase.
"If you'd like to discuss anything in the language of the agreement," Christopher continued, "let's do it at dinner tonight, as I have proposed, and sort it all out?"
Blythe felt Luke's presence directly behind her.
"Good morning," said the owner of Barton Hall to Christopher Stowe, who remained standing on the flagstone step. "Would you two like to discuss this matter in the sitting room so we might close the front door? It's rather chilly, and we appear to be heating the great outdoors."
"Hold on a sec," Blythe said emphatically over her shoulder. "Let's get this over with. I'll meet you tonight. What time?" she added, hoping to be rid of Christopher as quickly as possible.
"I'll pick you up at seven-thirty, shall I?" Chris replied enthusiastically.
"At the cottage. And it's just the two of us, understood? No more surprises?" she added cryptically.
Chris nodded. "Absolutely."
Did he know about Ellie's visit to her cottage the day before? Had her sister's frontal assault been part of Chris's overall strategy to wear her down?
"Where shall we have this little get-together?" she asked coolly.
"Do you know Boscundle Manor near St. Austell?" Chris inquired. "Lovely food, I'm told. I've made a reservation for eight o'clock. Is that all right?"
"Fine," Blythe replied grimly. "I'll try to reach my attorney today."
"I must know either way, Blythe," he insisted.
"Good-bye, Chris," Blythe cut in pointedly. "You'll have your answer tonight."
Christopher smiled with genuine warmth. "Good girl! I've checked on the wine list at the inn and am delighted to inform you that they stock our Lafite Rothschild, '89. I've also learned that they are masters of your favorite dessert, my darling, so I've ordered us a chocolate soufflé to finish."
"Fine," Blythe said shortly, and closed the front door.
"Why in heaven's name did you allow him to bully you—" Luke began.
"He didn't," Blythe interrupted tersely. "I want to get all this behind me. I want to get everything that doesn't make me happy behind me."
She turned and marched through the foyer, past the portraits of Kit Trevelyan and the first Blythe Barton. Luke followed closely in her wake. When they passed the sittingroom door, he grabbed hold of her arm.
"Please, Blythe… come in here for a moment. I must talk to you."
She carefully pulled her arm from his grasp. Before she had any more discussions with Lucas Teague about the state of their relationship, or the future of the business they were supposedly engaged in, she needed to know all the facts.
"Look… I feel like a thousand head of steer have just stampeded over my body," she announced. "The only thing I'm good for right now is a morning nap. See ya," she added with as much flippancy as she could muster.
However, instead of heading down Hall Walk toward the cottage, she set out on the mile-long road to Gorran Haven. When she arrived at the doctors' offices on Rattle Alley, Valerie Kent's door was closed, with an "In Session" sign hung over the latch.
"Dr. Vickery is on a domiciliary," explained a woman of about forty who apparently served both as nurse and receptionist for the general practitioner.
"A house call?" Blythe queried, her heart sinking.
"That's right," the nurse replied. Then she peered more closely at Blythe. "Aren't you Lucas Teague's summer let?" She smiled. "Valerie's mentioned how lovely for young Richard it's been with your leasing Painter's Cottage and starting a big nursery business and all. The lad's a keen gardener, just like his father." She laughed. "That's where Doctor is right now! At Barton Hall, checking on that young scamp after his high adventure last night. Must have given you all a bit of a turn, didn't it?"
"Yes," Blythe agreed weakly. The only car that had passed her on the Gorran Haven road must have been Vickery's.
"What can I do for you… Mrs. Stowe, isn't it?" The nurse smiled cheerfully.
"What I'm here about is highly confidential," she said, feeling flushed and embarrassed to be speaking of such an intimate matter with an utter stranger.
"Of course," the nurse replied, sobering immediately. "I am a nurse practitioner. Perhaps there's something I can help you with until the doctor returns?"
"Can you administer a pregnancy test?" Blythe asked in a subdued tone.
"The easy part, yes," the nurse replied with a searching look. "Could you roll up your sleeve? We'll need a blood sample. Then I'll ask you to void into a paper cup."
Blythe remained silent as the nurse competently went about the business of drawing blood. Then Dr. Vickery's assistant pointed to a door marked "WC."
"Step right in there," she said kindly. "Please fill one of the cups you'll find in there to at least a quarter full."
As Blythe headed for the rest room, she considered how foolish she probably was not to dash up to London for a gynecological exam and avoid the risk of her private life becoming a subject of tittle-tattle in this small, gossip-ridden village.
However, the simple truth was she couldn't stand to wait another minute to find out if she was pregnant. Within minutes she had emerged from the bathroom holding her urine sample in her hand just as Valerie's door opened and the psychologist bade farewell to a pimple-faced teenager.
"Why, Blythe!" she exclaimed as her client trod heavily down the wooden stairs outside. "Are you ill after last night, you poor dear?" Then the older woman's glance fell on the paper cup Blythe had been in the process of handing Dr. Vickery's nurse. She arched an eyebrow. "Just a routine checkup, I hope?"
Blythe stood in the middle of the doctors' reception room and stared wordlessly at Dr. Kent. Her vision was suddenly blurred by the tears that had welled up despite her best efforts to maintain her composure.
"I'll just take that," the nurse said quietly, relieving Blythe of the paper cup. "Pop around tomorrow, after nine o'clock, and we'll have the test results. You can see the doctor for a complete examination then."
Valerie put a gentle arm around Blythe's shoulder and drew her into her office across the hall.
"Sit down, dear," she said. "You've had quite a time, haven't you?"
And then Blythe proceeded to tell Valerie everything.
"I feel like some reckless teenager!" she finished. "I picked the most unlikely guy in the world to be the father of the child I've wanted so desperately."
"Why do you say that?" Valerie asked quietly.
Blythe stared at her in amazement. For a psychologist, and Luke's cousin to boot, the woman would have to be blind not to have observed Luke's cool, distant treatment of his son.
"He sent a grieving eight-year-old away to boarding school!" she exclaimed. "Doesn't that tell a lot about his attitude toward children?"
"Have you ever asked him why?" Valerie inquired.
Blythe paused and then she said, "Isn't it obvious? The man is uncomfortable around kids. He's preoccupied with keeping Barton Hall out of the hands of the Inland Revenue. I don't know, Valerie!" she said with exasperation. Then she studied the woman who sat across the desk from her more closely. "Do you know?"
"Perhaps you should talk to Luke about these matters—and soon," was all she would say.
"Well… there's another problem," Blythe mumbled.
"What?" Valerie asked.
"Chloe Acton-Scott."
Valerie erupted in laughter.
"She's only a problem if Luke can't run fast enough! That woman has tried for twenty years to persuade my cousin to marry her."
"Well, apparently she's approaching the finish line," Blythe retorted. "She brought us morning tea today… only I wasn't supposed to be at the tea party."
"You'd better ask Luke about that as well," Valerie replied, sobering.
"Oh, God… it's too stupid for words. And another thing," Blythe said as a sense of futility took hold. "I could never come clean with Luke about the visions—or whatever they are—that I've been having," she continued moodily. "Yet I can't keep such a thing from him forever. And if I told him, he'd either mock me or have me committed to the nearest loony bin. Would he believe you, do you suppose?" she asked expectantly.
"I think it best if you tell him about it yourself, when the time is right," Valerie declared gently. "I'm afraid I'm not a wizard. I can't wave a magic wand."
Blythe gazed at Luke's cousin thoughtfully. "You are, too, a kind of wizard, and you know it! Look what happened when you pulled out your crystal ball!"
"You're the one with the visions, not I," she said mildly.
"But the baby!" Blythe exclaimed. "I saw that baby in your glass before Luke and I ever—" She halted mid-sentence and flushed with embarrassment. "And here I am," she continued weakly, "probably pregnant as a sow in early spring."
"Who knows what that baby signifies?" Valerie cautioned. "You never explored the vision, remember? You got frightened and brought yourself out of the trance on your own."
The image of that baby, floating in the infinity of Valerie's crystal ball, had continued to haunt Blythe. Had it foretold of her own child? Was it a vision of Ellie's? She supposed it could even be a conjuring of the two children that the first Blythe Barton had borne in such pain and misery.
She thought, suddenly, of the dedication that had been scratched in charcoal on the back of Ennis's paintings hanging in the cottage. Now, there was another enigma!
Who was William?
If only she could discover the identity of the person behind that name, she might at least be able to see where he fit into the eighteenth-century family puzzle. For reasons she couldn't explain, even to Valerie, she felt compelled to get to the bottom of the role that the mysterious William had played in the tortuous saga of the Barton-Trevelyan-Teagues. There was no way to predict the future between Luke and her. However, she could at least attempt to determine whether the unrelenting anger and resentment she harbored toward Christopher and Ellie—and they toward her—were somehow rooted in the past.
She had searched Luke's genealogy chart top to bottom seeking William's name—but an entry for him was nowhere to be found. Perhaps Valerie's crystal ball could help her solve that part of the conundrum?
"Okay, Valerie," she said at length. "I'm willing to explore what I saw that day at the village fète."
"You're a courageous woman, Blythe," Valerie replied. "And I'll be right here, whatever happens." She smiled reassuringly.
After securing the office door, Valerie lit a candle, placed it ceremoniously on top of her desk, and dimmed the lights. With infinite care she brought the crystal sphere out of its velvet pouch and set it gently in the brass holder that was decorated with curved metal sea horses.
"Now, breathe deeply, and focus your eyes on the depths of the crystal… breathe in and out… in and out… that's a good girl," Valerie said soothingly. "I want you to relax… just let your mind float free… free as the baby you saw drifting in space. Breathe in… exhale… That's good!" she whispered. "Now I am going to count from one to three and snap my fingers. When I do, I want you to create a spiral staircase in your thoughts that is completely translucent. One… two… three." Valerie snapped her fingers and then scrutinized Blythe. "Do you see it?"
Blythe nodded. Valerie continued to speak in a low, rhythmic voice.
"You are standing at the top step of that staircase. It is constructed of a clear material that radiates soft, crystalline light. You shall now descend the steps, one by one, as I begin to count… and when you reach the bottom, you'll see…"
At this point Blythe heard nothing but the sound of her own rhythmic breathing as she concentrated her thoughts on one name.
"William…" she murmured. "Who is William…?"
CHAPTER 16
FEBRUARY 6, 1793
L
oud piercing wails rent the air in Painter's Cottage. Blythe observed Kit shifting his attention from the dueling pistol she held pointed at his heart, to her newborn infant squalling on the bed.
The baby, swaddled in a length of cloth that Garrett Teague had found among Ennis's cleanest paint rags, was pathetically small but made up for his size in lung power.
Blythe's arm ached from the weight of the heavy gun as she held it steady, fully prepared to shoot her husband in the chest. As the child's outraged shrieks intensified, Kit slowly began to shake his head from side to side in defeat. Then he turned his back on the weapon's threatening barrel and slumped into the settle near the hearth. Oddly, the baby ceased its protests immediately and began sucking on an edge of the cloth with its rosebud mouth.