The Gifted (49 page)

When he thought he could bear no more joy, he raised his head and whispered into her wet hair. “I love you, my beautiful Jessamine.”

She pulled away and stared at him. “But you love the princess.”

“Only if the princess is you.” He reached for her again.

She didn’t scoot away from him, but she resisted his embrace as she stared at him. “Nay, Laura is the princess.”

His promises to Laura and his mother came crashing down around him. “I don’t love her. I love you,” he said. But she must have heard the echo of sorrow in his voice.

“But you’re going to marry the princess.”

“I have made that promise,” he admitted.

“A person should keep his promises whether to man or God.”

Jessamine spoke in a voice so low he had to strain to hear her words even as they poked his conscience. He had made promises to God too. He couldn’t so soon slide back into living a life where his vows meant nothing.

The moon edged out from behind the clouds and shone down on the destruction around them with unmerciful light. Downed trees had been tossed willy-nilly like a game of pickup sticks. The same destruction lay within his heart. The destruction of his happiness. How could he turn her loose and return to his life as though nothing had happened?

“I can’t—”

“Shh.” She put her fingers over his lips. “Let’s give thanks to the Lord that we are still alive this night. That and nothing more. Tomorrow will be soon enough to think of what must or must not be done. The men are coming from the ballroom.”

She was right. People were streaming out of the hotel toward them. And he regretted that he wouldn’t be able to pull her to him for another kiss to celebrate breathing. He tried to stand but his legs wouldn’t hold him up. He tried again and this time Jessamine put her arm around his waist to lend him her strength. He leaned against her and wished with everything in his heart that he belonged there by her side forever instead of only until other hands could hold him up.

32

The next morning, the sun came up on the devastation on the far side of the lake in front of the hotel. The day before the trees reached leafy branches toward the sun and supplied shade for the couples strolling around the lake. Now they were nothing but firewood waiting for the crosscut saw.

Jessamine could not look out her window without tears spilling out of her eyes. She hated the tears, but she felt as scattered and broken as those trees. She’d already soaked two handkerchiefs. It had been years since she’d had the need to do more than brush aside a stray tear. Not since her granny died and the old preacher had taken her to the Shakers. Those first months in the Children’s House, everything had been so strange with so many rules she couldn’t keep in her head that she cried herself to sleep every night. She missed not only the love of her granny but the freedom of the woods.

But the sisters were kind, and one morning she’d risen from her Shaker bed determined to be one of them. To remember to step up on the stairs with the right foot every time. To follow the rules. To pray on her knees at assigned times instead of simply grabbing hold of the Lord’s hand in the morning and talking to him all through the day the way her granny had taught her to do.

At the Shaker village, she had to keep her mind on her lessons or her assigned duties. She had to ask forgiveness over and over again when she forgot one of the rules, but the forgiveness was always forthcoming. She was encouraged and admonished to continue down the Believers’ pathway with the goal to do better on the next day. So her tears dried up. She had no reason for tears. What had happened could not be changed. Her granny was in heaven and the woods the same as lost to her except in her memory.

She had no reason to cry now. Nobody had died. Not Tristan in the lake. Not any of the guests in the storm. The hotel had been spared by the tornado. Trees about the grounds had not fared as well, but as much as she regretted the beauty of the trees being ripped away by the wind, her tears weren’t for the trees.

Nor could she blame her sorrow on her narrow escape from the lake and the storm the night before. That wasn’t reason for tears. That was reason for rejoicing.

Exhaustion and lack of sleep. That’s what Abigail blamed the tears on as she fussed over her and the excuse she used to turn away the people who came to inquire after Jessamine.

They had both been questioned by the sheriff early that morning. Dr. Hargrove had sent for him after he heard hers and Tristan’s story. The two men by the lake were nowhere to be found and another guest had disappeared before the sheriff arrived. A man suspected of conspiring to hurt Tristan. Why he had wanted to do so wasn’t clear to Jessamine, but Abigail said Jimmy heard it had to do with Laura Cleveland. A jealous suitor.

After the sheriff asked his questions and left them alone, Abigail had gone to the kitchen for tea and come back full of information. A good number of the guests, unnerved by the storm, were packing to leave. Dr. Hargrove seemed to be everywhere at once as he confidently assured his guests of their complete safety in his hotel while announcing a new round of parties to encourage them to stay. He promised his workers would have the fallen trees cleared away in a couple of days and that such severe winds were a rarity.

“If anybody can get them to stay, Dr. Hargrove can,” Abigail said as she poured a cup of the tea for Jessamine. “He’s a wonder. The piazza is already cleared off and he’s got his band out there playing their cheeriest tunes to discourage the guests from stepping up into their carriages.”

She handed Jessamine the cup and then picked up one of the sodden handkerchiefs. “It appears we could use some of that cheering music in here.”

Jessamine took a sip of her tea and reminded herself again that she had no reason to cry. She swallowed hard before she asked, “Is it working? The cheerful music?”

“On some,” Abigail said with a glance out the window. “More carriages appear to be arriving than leaving. The dining tables will be full again tonight. My guess is that the storm and all will bring in more people. Curiosity seekers once the word goes around.”

Jessamine stared down at the notebook in her lap. The page was empty. Her father had encouraged her to write it all down. He had been nigh to distraught the night before as he helped her back to her room from the lake. She hadn’t cried then. She’d been so drained she could barely talk. Mrs. Cleveland had followed them to her room where Abigail was waiting.

After her father stepped out of the room to allow her to change, Mrs. Cleveland said, “Oh, my dear child, I should have followed you out of the ballroom.”

Without a bit of concern about getting her own party dress wet, she put her arms around Jessamine and held her close for a long moment before she gave her over to Abigail’s care. Abigail sniffled now and again as she helped Jessamine strip out of her sodden dress and petticoats, but neither she nor Mrs. Cleveland pushed her to talk.

Once she was dry and wrapped in a dressing gown, Dr. Hargrove came into the room to make sure she wasn’t injured. While Jessamine’s father hovered anxiously in the background, the doctor gently questioned her about how she was feeling and what had happened.

So she forced out the words to tell him about Abigail’s warning. She admitted her foolishness in chasing out of the ballroom after Tristan. She tried to describe the men she’d seen at the lake, but they had been little more than shadows in the night. When the doctor patted her hand and told her how brave she was to pull Tristan from the lake, her father came over to touch her hair with a tearful smile.

She hadn’t told them of her desperate prayers promising God whatever she had to offer if only he would lead her to Tristan in the water. She hadn’t spoken about Tristan kissing her or his words of love as they sat at the edge of the lake in the midst of nature’s destruction. She would never tell anyone that. Nor was there any reason to speak of the promises Tristan had given others that were the reason for the tears of the morning.

Promises. At the very thought of those promises now, new tears slid out of her eyes and down her cheeks.

Abigail kept talking as she straightened the coverlet on the bed. “They say Tristan is fine. A nasty bump on the head and the bandage on his arm had to be replaced. Jimmy says no one has seen him except Dr. Hargrove since the sheriff left. Tristan doesn’t have a manservant and that maid of his mother’s isn’t likely to carry any stories from their rooms down to the servants’ quarters. She’s a tight-lipped one.”

Abigail turned back to Jessamine, and noting her fresh tears, she fetched a dry handkerchief. “There, there, my sister, don’t spend all your tears. He is alive. There may yet be hope for the two of you.”

“Nay, he has made promises he must keep. The same as I must keep the promises I have made.” Jessamine pulled in a breath and wiped the tears off her face. The Lord had answered her prayers. The Lord had helped her pull Tristan out of the lake. The Lord had covered them with his hand as the storm passed over top them. The Lord had allowed them a treasured kiss. She had every reason to be thankful and none to be tearful.

She loved Tristan Cooper. He had claimed to love her. She had the gift of those words in her heart. And she would keep her promises to the Lord. Promises that had not had words but that had meant faithful obedience to his will for her life. Whether that was here with her father or not, she did not yet know, but she had assurance the Lord would reveal a path to her.

She would not let herself dissolve into tears again. She took a sip of the tea Abigail handed her and peered up at the girl. She looked ready to drop as she stood watching Jessamine with concern. “You must be as tired as I am, Abigail. You should rest.”

Abigail hesitated. “But you need someone with you.”

“Nay, I do not. I simply need time to think things through.” When Abigail continued to look doubtful, she added, “But if I do need someone, my father has promised to be close by.”

“True. He came to his door when I went to get your tea. He is very worried about you. It was hard for him to see you so upset this morning. Tears injure some men more than stones.”

“I know. I should have controlled my weeping, but I could not.”

“And have you now?” Abigail peered at her.

“I have.” Jessamine blew out a breath. “Go tell my father I am fine and then rest awhile. I will do the same. While it seems sinful to sleep in the afternoon when one is not sick, perhaps that is what we both need to do this day.” What was one more wayward sin to add to her growing number?

“I am so thankful you weren’t hurt last night.” Abigail leaned down to touch her cheek to Jessamine’s in a quick embrace. “You feel more like a sister to me now than you ever did while they were forcing sisterly love down on us at Harmony Hill.”

Harmony. After Abigail went out the door, the word circled in Jessamine’s thoughts. That was what she was lacking. Harmony. Perhaps such wasn’t possible in the world when the wrong kind of love sprouted in one’s heart.

She set her teacup down on the table beside the chair and picked up her pen. The nib had dried, but she didn’t dip it into the ink. Just as she had no more tears to cry, she had no words to write. She was still staring at the blank page when she heard a soft knock on the door.

Before she could rise from her chair, her father eased open the door and stepped inside. “Abigail said you might be up to having a visitor.”

“Yea, I mean yes. I have recovered,” Jessamine said.

Her father pulled the dressing table stool over in front of her and sat down. He looked at her for a long moment. “I promised you adventures, but I had no plans for any of them to be a danger to you.”

“I am not hurt.”

“Or cause you sadness.”

“I’m no longer tearful.” Jessamine looked away from her father’s face down at the notebook in her lap.

“No tears on the outside,” he said as he reached out to touch her cheek with his fingertips. “Floods of tears on the inside.”

She looked up without saying anything. How could she deny his words without adding to her sins?

“My dear child, you may think it was wrong of me to come find you at the Shaker village and bring you out into the world where there can be such pain. At the village, you might never have known these feelings since you would have stayed closed off to the love that can take you to the heights or drop you to the depths. But even in the depths, love is worth it. I know for I have been in both places.”

Jessamine studied his face, so concerned, so familiar even if she had only actually known him for a few days. He was familiar in her very being. “Granny called you the prince who loved my mother.”

“I wasn’t much of a prince.” He smiled a little but the echo of sorrow was in his voice. “But I did love your mother. With her I knew the heights and then when she died, the depths.”

“The elders and eldresses say such love is sinful. That those who marry will fight and know no peace.”

“There are many kinds of peace, Jessamine. Your elders and eldresses have found their peace by shutting away the temptations of the world. That is not wrong for them, but for you . . .” He paused and smiled into her eyes. “For you it would be as much a sin to deny the joy of love as to stomp on a beautiful butterfly.”