No Sweeter Heaven: The Pascal Trilogy - Book 2 (40 page)

Lily had been so certain that Pascal would see her that the pain of rejection hit her twice as hard. She walked through the abbey arch, fighting back tears, her head bowed.

“Don’t upset yourself too much, Lily,” Father Chabot said gently, patting her arm. “The abbot did say that Pascal will come to him when he is ready.”

“But why wouldn’t he at least tell Pascal we were here?” Lily said miserably.

“Dom Benetard explained that this is Pascal’s way of dealing with his pain.”

“What about my pain?” Lily said furiously. “How is either of us supposed to feel better if we can’t even talk to each other and work the problem out? The abbot should have realized that and gone to Pascal.”

“When Pascal said that he would see no one, most especially not you?” Father Chabot pointed out.

“That was nearly three months ago. Pascal is so stubborn it’s ridiculous. There has to be some way of getting through to him.” Lily glared at the high wall that kept her from her husband. If she knew anything about it, Pascal was on the other side, working in the garden. He wasn’t the type to sit around and be idle, pain or no.

All that stone just to shut the world out—it was maddening.

Her step slowed. The wall! She had scaled it once before. Why not again? It was risky, perhaps—but Pascal was worth any risk. And she’d be very, very careful.

“Umm, Father?” she said, trying to think how to phrase what she needed to say without actually lying. “I—I think I need some time alone.”

“Yes, of course,” he said sympathetically.

“I thought I’d walk. I’ll stay near the wall.”

Father Chabot looked at her long and hard, then nodded. “Take your time. I’ll go to the church; I’ve heard the stonework is very beautiful.”

Lily waited until he had disappeared around the corner. She looked quickly around, then went straight over to the elm tree, hitched up her cloak and skirts, and reached for the first branch. She was far more careful on this ascent than she’d been the first time she’d scaled the tree. She hadn’t been carrying Pascal’s child inside her then. Her world hadn’t included Pascal at all. She’d had nothing more to think about than Jean-Jacques’s vines—a trivial mission in comparison to this one. Now her entire future and her child’s future depended on her success.

She ignored the scrapes on the palms of her hands, ignored the crushing fear that grabbed at the pit of her belly.

The only thing she could allow to be important was finding Pascal and somehow convincing him to come home. A few minutes later she’d managed to climb high enough to see over the wall. She gingerly shifted on the branch and peered down into the gardens.

They were empty.

She scanned the grounds, but not a soul stirred anywhere. Lily closed her eyes against a stab of disappointment so acute that it hurt. It was three o’clock. If he wasn’t outside by now, he wouldn’t be coming out at all. She leaned her forehead against the cold bark of the tree. This had been her last chance, and it had failed.

It finally began to sink in—Pascal had disappeared into the bowels of the monastery, and he had no intention of ever coming out. He’d made sure that she would never be able to see him or touch him—or hurt him—again. He had slipped through her hands like dust, and all she had left of him were memories and dreams.

Lily thought in that moment that she might die of grief.

And then her head snapped up at the sound of a nearby door opening and closing. Her gaze flew to the shed, only twenty yards away, and the man who had just come out of it.

She clutched at the branch for balance as a wave of infinite relief swept over her. Pascal. Not a mirage, not a dream, but really Pascal. She felt as overwhelmed as she had the first time, when he’d turned to look over his shoulder and she’d seen a fallen angel, not completely of this world. But his eyes now held something else, something far more earthly. Raw, savage pain.

Lily recognized it for her own and knew it was in her power to change it for both of them. He was there, so close, almost within reach. She closed her eyes and prayed, as she had never prayed before—with real hope that she would be heard.
Oh, God, please? Please help me? You gave him to me once. It’s not fair to take him back. I love him as much as You do, I swear it.

Pascal stopped suddenly and looked around, then shook his head as if he’d been dreaming and shrugged into his jacket.

She squeezed her eyes shut against the sudden burn of tears. He could still feel her presence, her love. He hadn’t gone that far away, not yet. She’d been given her chance back, and with a sudden and complete clarity, she knew what she had to do. Now she could only pray for the chance to do it. He walked toward her, and Lily held her breath, hoping he would stick to ritual.

Pascal obliged her. He sat down on the stone bench, pulling his legs up, his back to her. Lily knew he’d closed his eyes, because his breathing had slowed.

She very carefully lowered herself onto the wall and slowly crept along it until she was directly behind him. Then it was only a matter of arranging herself in a sitting position and tucking her legs up. She closed her eyes and slowed her breathing as he’d taught her, drifting … searching for the link between them to form a perfect circle. And then with every bit of love she had, she reached for him.

Pascal tried hard to clear his mind. It had become an obstacle course, trying to get to a peaceful place without running into thoughts of Lily. He had thought the pain would ease after a time, but it only grew worse. He’d begun to wonder how many more pieces of himself he’d have to amputate before he stopped feeling. His heart? His soul? Neither was a sensible solution, but both were attractive ones. It was either that or break apart.

He shook the thought away and concentrated on the light. Clear. Pure. Holy.
Heal me. Please, God, heal me. I can’t take much more of this.

A rush of love answered him, enfolded him, bright and reassuring, unique in its timbre, nothing remotely resembling the peace of his Heavenly Father. His eyes shot open and he leapt to his feet, turning to stare at the wall. A hum ran through him that was unmistakable, that resonance of Lily’s that set off a corresponding resonance in him, a vibration that happens only when harmony is perfectly achieved. His gaze slowly traveled up the stone and he froze in shock.

“Lily,” he whispered. “Oh, God. Lily.”

Her eyes opened and she looked down at him, a little smile lifting the corners of her mouth.

“Hello, gardener,” she said casually. “Nice day, isn’t it?”

“Nice …
nice day
?” he croaked, his voice rusty from lack of use—except for the time that he called out for her in his sleep, his agony unbearable. Now the reason for that agony was blithely sitting on the abbey wall as if she had every right to be there.

Fury erupted in him. “Are you out of your mind? What in the name of God do you think you’re doing?”

Lily leaned slightly forward. “It was the only way I could think of to see you.”

“Can you not spare me anything? I told you not to come after me!”

“I had to see you,” she said softly.

“Why? Do you plan to fling yourself at my feet again and cry attempted rape? It won’t work—I’m already married to you. What could they possibly do to me now?”

“Throw you out?” she said hopefully.

“The bastard son you came to fetch the first time around has already brought your blasted land back,” he replied savagely. “What more do you want of me? The damned duchy?”

Lily looked at him in puzzlement. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the lies you told. I’m talking about the way you manipulated me to get what you wanted.”

Her smoky eyes flashed in sudden fury. “
That’s
what you think? You think I originally came to find you because I knew you were Serge’s bastard? You’re insane!”

“Ah, God!” he cried in frustration. “Don’t try to change your story now—I heard you confessing to your mother, every last miserable word.”

“You may have heard every last miserable word, but you got it all wrong. What’s the matter with you? I thought you knew me—inside out. Literally!”

“I thought I did too,” he said, fiercely pushing the pain away. “Until I heard you say that you felt guilty about everything you’d done, that it had all been deliberate.”

“Aargh!” She slammed her fists down on the wall. “Do you think I would be so stupid as to throw myself off a fifteen-foot wall and hope I survived on the slim chance that you might be foolish enough to assault me?”

“No, you threw yourself off the wall because you knew I’d be forced to see if you were hurt, and
then
you could cry assault,” he said bitingly. “It’s no wonder you took my medical training for granted later on.”

“You’ve truly lost your mind!”

“Have I, Lily? I don’t think so. You knew that the abbot would feel responsible toward your father—and you knew what your father would do.”

Lily shook her head in disbelief. “You think that I deliberately plotted to marry you, just to bring back Jean-Jacques’s vines, all on the basis of a mere
superstition
? How stupid do you think I am? How can you even think me so wicked? You insult me, Pascal!”

“What other explanation is there? You can’t deny it. We both know exactly how it happened.”

“I didn’t throw myself at your feet, I fell,” she said, incensed. “And I didn’t come to fetch someone’s bastard. How could I? I didn’t even know your name!”

“Then why
did
you bloody well come? It seems one hell of a coincidence to me.”

“Oh, stuff your coincidences. Hold God responsible, not me. I didn’t even realize I’d found the right person until months later. I thought I was looking for a blasted monk!”

“Then explain why you went to such lengths to get my attention. Do I look like a monk to you?” he demanded.

“No, you don’t look like a monk,” she shot back, “and that’s exactly the point. I thought since you weren’t a monk, you might be willing to talk to me, to tell me who the botanist was, since the porter wouldn’t help.”

“How had you come to hear about this botanist, then? Don’t tell me Michel knew about that, too?”

“He
did
know that,” Lily said with exasperation. “He didn’t know your name, but he’d heard about you and your talents. He put them down to God. I put them down to science.”

Pascal knew that much to be true, but he wasn’t about to give Lily an edge, not if it meant being sucked into false hope. “You’re telling me Michel had no idea I had any connection to Serge de Saint-Simon? How do you expect me to believe that?”

She looked down at him with pure disgust. “Some friend of Father Chabot’s wrote him a letter about you,” she said. “He told me about it, and I thought you might be useful, since nothing else was working for the vines.”

“So you’re telling me that everything else was coincidence?” he asked, a treacherous, seductive thread of uncertainty creeping into his mind.

“Yes, it was coincidence—how could it have been anything but? If you know anything about me, you know I would never scheme in such a way and then lie to you.” The anger left her face, leaving stark unhappiness. “For all my faults, if I’ve been anything, at least I’ve always been honest,” she said simply. “I thought you understood that.”

It hit him like a blow. Lily was honest to her very core, and it had often been to her detriment, especially in the early days. She never had been any good at pretending, most especially not in the midst of a full-blown rage.

She couldn’t know about his parentage. Guilt would be written all over her face, not the desolate pain that marked it now. She couldn’t have heard the original rumor, either; he would have seen that too, the night Michel had first mentioned it to them. And surely he would have felt the lie in her from the moment of their first communion?

“Oh, God, Lily,” he said, when he finally found his voice, “that’s the truth, isn’t it?” He felt as if his knees might give out. The black, hopeless, endless hell he’d been living in had been blasted wide open, and light and love flowed into him in a great, life-giving stream. He drank of it as a man starved for oxygen might gulp at air.

“I can’t believe you ever thought anything else,” Lily said tightly. “That really hurts me, Pascal, and it’s hard to forgive.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, wishing he could take back the three interminable months of agony they’d both been forced to live through. “I truly am sorry, but I do wish you’d told me all of this long before. You would have spared us both a great deal of pain.” He looked at her, puzzled. Her crime was so small a transgression, it translated into none at all. “Why didn’t you, Lily? I probably would have laughed my head off. It is a little ridiculous, isn’t it?”

“Yes … but I wasn’t sure you’d understand,” she said, biting her lip, in that sweet gesture of confusion he’d missed so deeply.

“Why?” he asked quietly.

She released a quick breath. “In the beginning I didn’t want my father to know why I’d really been at St. Christophe, because of Jean-Jacques. Later, I was embarrassed that I’d been so stupid. I planned to tell you, but I never found the right moment.”

“All right,” he said. “I can understand that. But you have to understand that what I overheard you say to your mother was damning. There was only one way I had to interpret it.” He rubbed the back of his aching neck.

“You haven’t much faith in me, have you?” she said bitterly. “I know I’ve made some mistakes, but so have you. You might have stayed around to ask me about what you’d heard, instead of disappearing, leaving nothing more than a note. Do you have any idea what a shock that was? And you went after telling me you wouldn’t ever leave me. How am I supposed to forgive you that?”

“It was finished as far as I was concerned.”

“Then the least you could have done was to read my letters!”

“I—I couldn’t,” he said hoarsely. “I honestly couldn’t. It was hard enough trying to survive.”

“I know how that feels. I thought I’d never see you again, ever in my life, and I couldn’t bear it.” Her voice began to tremble, and she wiped her hand across her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his heart hurting for her, for both of them. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I do know.”