Into the Woods (35 page)

Raleigh wore a torn shirt and trousers that had been ripped at the seams as she'd reached impatiently inside them to arouse him. His hair had dried in long, stringy wisps that touched his narrow shoulders. He was oddly beautiful. All throughout the ceremony he seemed chilled, shivering without warning on occasion and leaning into her to steal her warmth.

Neither of them minded the wicked storm that shook the house, any more than they minded the impromptu wedding performed by a waterlogged minister while Warren Arrington glared at them with pure hatred in his eyes. Once the ceremony was over, Vanessa's father kicked her out of the house, ordering her never to return. She took none of her personal belongings with her, didn't even think to take what little was left of the elderberry wine Declan had provided. She didn't mind that she had left her home with nothing; she had Raleigh, and she loved him madly.

They spent their wedding night in the back of his wagon, a few miles down the road where the storm was not so fierce. The wagon leaked; their marriage bed consisted of wet, scratchy wool blankets. The only light was the occasional flash of lightning, creeping through the many cracks in the wagon.

With water dripping all around them, they sat on damp blankets, kissing and touching and whispering sweet words. A new and stronger surge of love shot through Vanessa as she held her husband.

Raleigh said he was too cold to undress completely, but he did free himself when she requested a proper marriage bedding of him. Whispering that he was ever mindful of her comfort, he was quick and to the point. Their first time together as man and wife was over too quickly—again. He fell asleep beside her, satisfied and exhausted, shivering with a chill he should not have on a night as warm as this one.

Vanessa curled against her husband and tried to be satisfied. Love would be enough, wouldn't it? She didn't need anything so common as physical pleasure, she didn't have to reach the heights of ecstasy Johnny had introduced her to in order to be truly happy.

Raleigh snored in her ear and twitched in his sleep, and no matter where Vanessa positioned herself rainwater dripped onto some part of her body. No she didn't need fulfillment to be happy, but her insides did quake so.

She would teach Raleigh how to pleasure her, she decided. She would tutor him until he was the consummate lover. Eventually she fell into a fitful sleep.

Just before dawn, she cried out her new husband's name in her sleep.

* * *

By midmorning of the day following the coming of the storm, the thunder and lightning ceased. By midafternoon the drenching turned into a steady rain that fell constantly but not with blinding force.

Matilda stared out her bedroom window, curtain lifted in her hand. From here she could see the stake, which had fallen in the night thanks to a softening of the ground and the stream of water that ran over the base. Most of the kindling had burned away, but a few charred logs had planted themselves firmly in the mud along the stream, reminders that last night had been real. Not a nightmare, but an indisputable fact.

"Come away from there," Declan muttered hoarsely.

She dropped the curtain and turned around. He slept on his stomach, still, but had his face turned toward her. "I thought you were asleep."

"I was." He grimaced.

"You're hurting," she whispered.

"A little." He shifted and tried to work himself into a sitting position.

"Don't move. I have a tea that will ease the pain." She placed her hand on his arm as she commanded him to stay.

He grabbed her wrist and held her there. "I don't want any damned tea that will numb my pain or my mind. We have too much to talk about."

"We have nothing to talk about," she whispered. When he looked at her this way she remembered why she loved him. The rain pattering on the roof reminded her why she couldn't love him, not anymore.

"Did you really make it rain?" he asked. "I remember last night, looking at you and being so sure you did, but now..."

"By the light of day it seems impossible, doesn't it?" she whispered. Declan was a no-nonsense man; he would convince himself, if it suited his purposes, that he'd imagined everything he'd seen last night.

This time when he tried to sit up, she helped him, adding her strength to his, holding on to him as he held on to her. When he was positioned against the headboard, his weight on his good shoulder and his legs stretched to the end of the bed, she left him there and returned to the window. She parted the curtains and looked out at the rain that fell straight and steady, soaking the ground and feeding the streams that crossed her yard, and doubtless the roads and the farms and the town of Tanglewood, as well.

She closed her eyes and reached inside herself and found that place she'd discovered last night, in her anger and desperation. It was a dark place, and she was afraid to go there. But she did, because she knew Declan too well. There was no other way.

She thought cold until she felt it to her bones. She pictured ice until she shivered with the chill. The cold was a part of her, the way the storm was a part of her. She whispered snow and opened her eyes to see the rain outside her window turn to soft white flakes.

And then she stepped aside, the curtain held back to offer Declan a wide view. "You cannot argue with this," she whispered.

From his reclining position on the bed, he stared at the July snow. She waited for the fear that would surely come to his handsome face, the tension that told her he was afraid of her, as they all surely would be. But he only lifted his eyebrows in surprise and leaned slightly forward, narrowing his eyes.

"I'll be damned," he muttered.

It took concentration to maintain the abnormal snow, and as Matilda watched Declan, the snow turned to rain again.

He laid his eyes on her as she let the curtain fall closed. "Your gift," he whispered. "It appears your grandmother was right."

"A gift," she said softly. "How can you call this a gift? Making potions and salves and teas is one thing, but controlling the weather? I don't want to be a freak, Declan."

"You're not a freak," he insisted angrily.

He might say that now, but she knew that if she tried to pretend nothing had changed, one day she'd wake up and find him looking at her the way Henry had last night, when he'd realized what she could do. What a mistake he'd made in loving her.

"I'll get you that tea," she said, turning to leave the room.

Declan stopped her at the door. "Speaking of teas and potions," he said, not quite casually. "I'm afraid I ran out of the Arrington house last night and left your love potion sitting on an end table in the parlor. I didn't even think to grab it."

"I doubt anyone in the Arrington household would lower themselves to drink elderberry wine by choice," she said softly. "I'm sure it's too common. Odds are it's still sitting there, untouched."

"And if it's not?"

"Do you think I care what happens to Vanessa Arrington?" Matilda snapped. Her heart lurched, in spite of her protests. "When the rain stops, I'll go there and see if I can get it back."

"When will the rain stop, Matilda?" Declan asked.

Her eyes filled with tears as she answered. "I don't know."

* * *

He couldn't have asked for a better doctor. A mild fever came and went, Matilda forced tea and broth on him, changed his bandage frequently, and he grew stronger every day.

This afternoon he sat with her at the long table, eating a more substantial soup than she'd allowed him to have in the past three days.

The rain continued, but it had lessened to a drizzle. Still, three days of a steady drizzle brought a substantial amount of rain. Puddles filled the land around Matilda's cottage, rivulets ran through her garden; the sun never peeked through.

Matilda was determined to leave this place as soon as Declan was recovered. She wanted to go on her own before she was run out of town, before someone else showed up with a stake and a box of matches.

She started when someone knocked on the door, her head snapping up and her eyes widening.

"I'll get it," he said, standing slowly.

"No." She laid a hand on his shoulder and forced him gently back into his seat. "I'm not going to be afraid forever, I'm not going to panic every time someone knocks on my door." She looked down at him with big, vulnerable, strangely beautiful eyes. "I can't, can I?"

He shook his head. "I'm here, remember," he said softly. Matilda actually smiled. It was a weak attempt, but the first he'd seen in quite a while.

Stella Hazelrig blew into the room as soon as Matilda opened the door, drops flying off her yellow oilskin as she pushed back the hood.

"Are you all right?" Stella asked, laying a hand on Matilda's arm. "Good heavens." She removed her wet oilskin and hung it on the coat hook by the door. "I would have been here sooner, but Seth refused to let me leave the house until the rain stopped. I finally convinced him it had slowed enough to be safe. I took the children's path through the woods. Mercy, I couldn't wait another minute to talk to you."

Stella's mood had been nothing but friendly, but Declan could see that Matilda expected the worst to come.

"I'm so sorry I didn't believe the children when they came to me and told me what was happening." The always-sensible Stella teared up. "I just couldn't believe anyone would..." She turned to Declan. "I'm so glad they found you in time."

She reached out and gave Matilda a hug, a move that so startled Matilda, she jumped and stiffened before placing her arms around Stella and squeezing back. They didn't part quickly, but stayed there for a long moment. Finally Matilda let out a sob and allowed herself to cry.

Declan was a little jealous that Matilda let her friend comfort her in a way she wouldn't allow him to. It was as if she didn't completely trust him anymore, as if there was something between them that kept them apart. He wanted to be everything to her—friend, lover, husband. If only she'd let him.

Matilda and Stella both cried, bawling openly as they held on to each other. Declan looked down at his soup, feeling like an intruder in a private moment. The tears did not last long, and when they were done the girls parted and amazingly enough they both smiled. Matilda fetched a couple of handkerchiefs from a drawer and handed one to her friend.

Stella sat in the rocking chair and wiped her eyes. "Matilda, the most outrageous stories are circulating. They're saying you made it rain." She shook out her handkerchief. "Isn't that ridiculous?"

"No," Matilda answered without hesitation. "It's the truth."

Stella lifted her face, giving Matilda an expression of sheer disbelief. "How is that possible?"

Matilda shrugged her shoulders and turned around so she would not have to face her friend. "I'm a witch, like my grandmother before me and all the other female ancestors in that branch of my family tree. I just didn't know what my particular gift was until... until I needed it. And now I have to leave. It was bad enough when a few vague suspicions surrounded me, but this ... this is different."

Stella opened her mouth to argue, then snapped it shut and pursed her lips thoughtfully. She looked at Declan, and at Matilda, and at the floor. Finally she said, "Who will believe such a thing is possible? Who will listen to those tales? Declan is the only one who was here that night who's still around."

"Where are they?" Matilda asked, her voice low.

"Reggie Brewster and Wendell Trent left town that night," Stella scoffed. "And good riddance, I say. Two good-for-nothings, that's what they are. Henry Langford was struck by lightning," she said matter-of-factly. "I consider that to be justice, myself," she said without sympathy for the dead man.

Matilda went pale. "I killed him."

"You did not!" Stella and Declan said at the same time.

"I did," she insisted. "Not on purpose, but I certainly did kill him. I brought the storm, and he was struck by lightning." She laid her eyes on Declan. "He shot you, and I was so angry. Maybe deep inside I wished him dead," she whispered, "and my storm killed him."

"Nonsense," Stella said. "I cast my vote for the Lord's justice, and will not be swayed."

"What about the rainmaker?" Declan asked, anxious to change the subject. "He was here, too."

Stella, wide eyed, leaned forward in her chair. "This is the most delicious part of the story," she said in a lowered voice. "Warren Arrington got home during the storm to find his daughter, that uppity Vanessa, in a..." she blushed, "Shall we say a compromising position? With the rainmaker. That ugly man! Can you believe it? Arrington sent a servant to fetch the preacher in the rain, and made sure Vanessa and the rainmaker were married then and there." She leaned back in some kind of triumph. "And then he kicked them out."

Matilda caught and held Declan's gaze. They both knew what had happened. The love potion.

"So you see, you have nothing to worry about. The tales Reggie and Wendell told before they left town were dismissed as hogwash as soon as everyone found out what they'd been a part of. They're all so sorry, Matilda."

"But it's true," Matilda whispered. "I brought the rain. I made it snow."

No-nonsense Stella laid her eyes on Matilda. "I don't believe you'd lie, so I must accept what you tell me. You really made it rain?"

Matilda nodded.

"Can you make it stop? The town's not flooded yet, but the roads are all but impassable and a few farms are about ready to start floating."

Matilda sat in the wing chair. He saw the energy leave her, as if a gust of wind had blown it away. "I don't know how," she whispered. "I don't know if I can make it stop or not."

"Have you tried?" Stella asked.

Matilda laid her eyes on Declan, apologizing, grieving, scared. "For the past two days," she whispered.

Chapter 25