Passion's Joy (54 page)

Ram didn't notice Sean's bewilderment as Sean stepped slowly to the portraits, for Ram was transfixed by her lovely still wild blue eyes. "Joy, my love—" She opened her mouth to speak but he silenced her. "Shhh, enough of this. Please don't speak about this. You're not making any sense and—"

She twisted her head from his hand. "No! No! Listen to me! Listen!" She felt the desperation of a mute trying to communicate. "Sammy knew; he guessed what it was. The Reverend, Cory, Joshua, why so many people know! At least in the southern states where business is made of breeding, everyone knows! But you didn't know, nor Sean or Bart, or they would have told you! I came all the way home to you, but then I thought I was imagining it. But it's right there! They have blue eyes and you have brown. This man cannot be your father!"

Ram searched her face frantically. "What?"

She tried to calm down, to explain what the Reverend said to her so very long ago, what it meant when the two blue-eyed parents had a brown-eyed baby, but suddenly it was Sean speaking. "Ram, my God Ram," he said, shocked with the discovery. "I've never seen your mother's portrait

—I've never been in this room. Would I have noticed the liberating fact had I been presented with this room? I don’t know. She's right; I know she's right! Two brown-eyed parents can have either a blue-eyed or a brown-eyed child; likewise, if one parent has blue eyes and the other brown. Anyone can have anything," he rushed on, at once consumed with her same excitement. "Except two blue- eyed parents—they can only have a blue-eyed child. If Lady Barrington is your mother, then Lord Barrington cannot be your father."

"Don't you see Ram?" Tears streamed from her eyes now and she said, "You are a Barrington in name only, not by blood."

Ram's grip on her shoulders tightened dramatically as his mind raced over this last.
You are a Barrington in name only, not by blood. Two blue-eyed parents cannot have a brown-eyed child.
He turned suddenly to the portraits, first his mother, then Lord Barrington. The words he would never forget echoed in his mind,
I will cut the sin of your mother from your face.
It felt as though the knife pierced that most sensitive flesh again; he felt an ugly throbbing there. His hand grasped his patch. The room spun and he grabbed the back of a chair to steady himself.

Silence hung over them all, broken at last as Ram removed his jeweled dagger. With unnerving precision, the dagger spun through the air to land point blank into the heart of Lord Ramsey Edward Barrington the Second. Ram turned and went through the door, where unmindful of his leg, he started running.

Joy started after him but Sean stopped her. "Give him time, Joy." She met his gaze with a question. "A merciful blow it is," he whispered, "but a blow nonetheless. It's a shock; the very premise of his life has just been pulled from under him, and though 'twas an ugly premise, he needs time to assimilate it."

Uncertain, Joy searched the handsome face. "But it shall be all right?"

Sean smiled then, and that one grin spoke louder than words; it was happy and joyful, filled with all the optimism the changed future promised. "Aye, Joy Claret," he said in a whisper. "All shall be well now."

Joy smiled the same smile. A swift surge of unbearable joy filled her, and she and Sean laughed with it. They became like two young children at a maypole; their shared excitement burst into wild laughter as Sean lifted her into the air and spun her round and round and round until they dropped to the floor, dizzy and breathlessly crying and laughing.

She was overwhelmed with all it meant. There would be nothing between them now, no hideous past to shadow their love. They would be free; their love would soar! Heaven could be the only limit, which they would reach for everyday of their life. Tonight, tonight she would lay in his arms, after so long, after thinking she never would again.

They could, God willing, have many children—

She sobered as she thought of the child she lost so unnecessarily. She would always mourn the life that never had a chance, a sadness from the loss. She thought of all they had been through, and this made her look at the portrait of the man responsible for the hell. Shadows played eerily there in the darkness; the shadow of the dagger hid his eyes. She stared for some time, trying to find hate, but at last with no success. Hate played no part in her heart on this day. Yet, there was a question there. "Sean, if he was not Ram's father, then who was?'

Sean lay on his side, filled with the same joyful emotions as she, relieved and glad and happy for the bright future exposed this day. He did not want to think about it. "Who knows?" He shrugged. "I've never known who my father was, and I don't think I've suffered overmuch. What can it matter?" he asked rhetorically. "So long as it's not a Barrington!"

"You of all men should know it does matter. I know Ram will want to know, for I remember what he said about it at your mother's grave the day I learned your sea captain father was a lie."

"My dear girl." Sean chuckled affectionately. "That was naught but a child's play. It is easier to claim a dead sea captain as a father than to confess a bastard's status and ignorance."

"But Ram said you always wanted to know."

"Of course, but wanting to know and finding out are two different things. He existed; I am proof. Someone was supporting us all those years, so he must have been around ..." He seemed thoughtful. "Yet my dear mother died without telling, the knowledge is buried with her. There's only one reason I can think of that a woman wouldn't tell, and that's unpleasant indeed. If I did know my father and the circumstances, I can only imagine I'd be cursing him."

Joy considered his unsatisfying words. She looked to Lady Barrington's portrait. "Perhaps you're right Sean, but surely the circumstances would be different for Ram? And I just know he will want to know... after all we've been through—"

"Joy," Sean interrupted, sitting up and exasperated, "it was over thirty years ago now! He might want to know, but who's alive that can tell?"

"Nanny Collins!" Joy quite suddenly realized.

"Nanny Collins?" he questioned incredulously. "What? She can't still be alive! Why she was an old woman when I was a lad!"

"But she is! Don't you know? Ram still keeps her. She has rooms on the third floor, right above." Joy pointed, already rising. "Come Sean, let's go ask her!"

"I don't know w'at ye could be wanting with that ole woman," Bertha said as she led Joy and Sean through the narrow passageway, leading to the back stairs. Like the rest of the household, Bertha decided it best to pretend nothing was amiss with the queer way her mistress was dressed.

La! Boys' breeches! She could not, however, resist sideways glances to confirm the unbelievable. Who could believe it! Wasn't there a law about that? Church law perhaps—

"Is she well enough?" Joy asked as they started up the stairs.

"Well enough I suppose, at least in body. The ole woman's mind, well, that be another matter entirely."

"Is she coherent?" Sean asked, looking for an excuse not to go, feeling both foolish and vaguely apprehensive, though he couldn't say why. Unless it was the possibility of discovering something unpleasant that would ruin what was already too wonderful to believe.

"Oh aye, she's coherent, but she talks to spirits, ye know, the dead Lady Barrington." "Oh my," Joy said.

"Losin' her mind all these last years. I try to tell 'er that 'tisn't right to speak to the netherworld, but she don't seem to listen to the likes of me, she don't. 'Ere we are."

At the top of the stairs, they came to a long hallway, and Bertha stopped and bent over to catch her breath. The only light came from the lanterns Sean and Bertha held, enough though, for Joy to examine their surroundings. The hallway was not empty, quite the contrary. Shelves lined both walls, filled with a clutter that could only be accumulated over a long lifetime. There were

dolls and toys, stacks and stacks of books, vases, statues, knickknacks, a pile of unframed paintings leaning beneath a window and boxes piled on boxes.

"Oh milady," Bertha said. "Please don't mind all the dust. The old woman throws a fit every time we try to clean up 'ere, she does, and since no one ever ventures up 'ere—"

"Bertha!" Joy scolded, "I would never complain about such things, you know that."

Bertha sighed and smiled. "No ye wouldn't, I suppose." She led them down the hall to the old woman's rooms. She knocked first and opened the door. "Nanny Collins," she said quietly. “I’ve brought you some company."

Joy and Sean followed Bertha inside the small apartment. Their two lanterns spread bright light into the low ceiling room. Nanny Collins sat in a rocking chair, fast asleep. She looked old beyond belief, every year of eighty etched into the thin bony face. A knitted cap of dark blue fitted over the thin white hair, pulled to a neat bun at the nape of her neck. A loose gray matron's gown hung on her frail frame and her hands wore mittens against an old person’s ever present chill. A colorful afghan covered her lap, and a small fire played in the tiny hearth.

The neatly kept room held little furniture: a small cot, table, and, the rocking chair, that was all. Shelves lined one whole wall and the collection of clutter in the hallway spilled onto these.

Every small and large cubbyhole held books, various statutes, china, a child’s dolls and toys, thing no doubt precious to the old woman, who now had little left except memories and the accompanying memorabilia.

After his own inspection and increasingly uncomfortable in the room that could barely accommodate his height, Sean motioned to Bertha. She stepped forward and gently nudged the old woman awake. "Nanny Collins, I've brought you company."

The old woman's eyes opened. Trying to focus for several long seconds, she realize that the person standing there was not a vision. "Who's this now?" a cagey, sexless voice asked. "Good Lord, 'tisn't... are ye ... Mary's boy!"

Joy had been about to introduce herself and Sean and gently approach the subject of their visit, but stopped as unmasked alarm, even horror crossed the old woman's weathered face. The old woman came to her feet with a speed that defied her age. She ignored Joy and stared instead at Sean as she backed up against the shelves. She inched slowly along the wall, staring with plain fear at Sean.

"I won't give ye the letter!" she cried. "I won't... ye can't make me! He don't deserve to see it, he don't."

"My dear woman—" Sean stopped abruptly as Joy's arm nudged him hard.

Joy did not know how she knew, only that she did. "It's his letter," she said. "It belongs to him. You must give it over."

The old woman finally noticed her. "Give it to him, give it to him, that's all milady ever says to me now. She even tried to make me give the letter to you," she told Joy. "Over and over milady says, look in her eyes Nanny! Look at her love for my son there! It's the love I never had! Can't you see it? Huh! I see it." The old woman's tone filled with vengeance suddenly, "He don't deserve it, he doesn't! That boy cost milady her life! He—"

The old woman stopped, staring meanly at them.

Sean silently swore he'd make Ram promise to shoot him before he ever got this senile. Embarrassed by by the turn of the old woman’s mind, Bertha wondered if she should take the initiative to lead her mistress and the good captain out. Joy knew, however. Her gaze searched the shelves behind the place where the old woman stopped. There was a vase, a jeweled box, books and an arrangement of silk flowers, dusty with neglect. It must be in the box. "You gave me Lady Barrington's cross, did you not?" she asked calmly, trying to distract her. "I've been meaning to thank you—"

"She made me! When I wouldn't give you the letter, she made me give you the cross. She thought you'd run back to her portrait to see if it matched..."

Ram quietly entered the room, just as the old woman turned away crying.

He had been sitting in the darkness outside Barrington Hall, lost and confused. He could not believe it, let alone accept it. She said it was a fact; Sean said it was a fact, a simple fact that everyone knew. The Reverend, Sammy, Cory, Sean and Joy all knew two blue-eyed parents could not have a brown-eyed child. The simple fact had the power to change the entire course of his life and yet, somehow, some way he had never known it.

Like pickles, she had ...

Indeed, like not knowing pickles were cucumbers, it was an absurdly banal fact, but unlike pickles, the simple fact changed all things: Lord Barrington was not his father and there was no madness within him. The madness had died with that man's death. He was free to love Joy.... He could love her, wholly and completely, he could love her!

Emotion surged within him, bringing him swiftly to his feet and finally here into this room.

He knew he should be overjoyed, ecstatic, celebrating, yet these fine emotions lay buried in an overwhelming feeling of grief and regret. All they had been through! The child, God he had made her lose a child! For nothing? All her suffering, all he had put her through was for nothing. Why? My God, why?

Why had this happened? How had this happened? He suddenly had to know the whole bloody story, and there was only one person left alive who could tell him.

Joy, Sean and Bertha were held transfixed and unmoving, less by the incoherent rambling and more by the sudden release of a life's emotion.

"Ye know, she always knew, milady did, always ..." The old woman nodded vigorously, yet in the next instant her voice changed again and her unseen eyes became dreamy and sad. "Alisha was so pretty, ye see—oh, like a spring blossom, delicate and lovely. I remember her first season. She was such a success. She had dozens of offers, dozens. She was so good ... goodness shined through her heart, and though she was a quick witted girl, her goodness made her simple. She never had an unkind word for anyone or anything, until—

"Until her father agreed to the best, Lord Barrington. The day we were to meet him, Alisha picked her new blue silk, and oh, we fussed and primmed all morning. We were so excited, nervous.... We watched the carriage arrive from the upper balcony, and when Lord Barrington stepped out, he looked handsome, young and distinguished to me. I was so pleased until I saw Alisha's face. You see, she knew, knew before he said a word to her, and she looked confused and frightened, suddenly whispering a nursery rhyme that I taught her when she was but knee high to the ground."