“What are you thinking?”
Lierin turned with a laugh as the masculine voice intruded into her musings, and shook her head. “Spooks! They haunt me when I look at the place.” She slipped her arm through his. “My grandfather must have loved this old place dearly. I can see where once a lot of care went into keeping the house and yard.”
Ashton squeezed the slender hand that rested on his arm. “He’d have given it all away just to have you near him.”
She sighed rather sadly. “It seems a shame to let it go to ruin.”
“We can open it up and hire a few servants to maintain it if you wish, and on future visits, we can come here and stay.”
“That would be nice.”
“Who knows? Perhaps one of our children would like to make a home of it someday.”
Lierin slipped her arms about his lean waist and smiled up into his sparkling eyes. “We’ll have to make a baby first.”
“I’m at your complete disposal, madam,” he offered with gallant zeal.
“Perhaps we should talk about this for a while…say, in bed at the hotel?”
Green lights danced in his eyes as he stared down at her. “I was about to make that very suggestion.”
“Shall we get started?” she inquired with a coy smile. “You’ve often mentioned how much fun we had together, you’ve made me inquisitive about our suite at the hotel.”
Ashton grinned as he handed her into the waiting barouche, and as they leaned back into the cushioned seat, the driver roused the horses and clucked them into a brisk trot. The carriage flitted through the sun-dappled shade of the lane, and Lierin blinked as the flickering light evoked disjointed memories of another such ride, when she had sat beside a tall, darkly garbed man who had patted her hand…consolingly? She canted her head as she tried to grasp the mood of that moment. The haunting ride seemed somehow associated with another’s death, but she could not be sure, for the feelings were as illusive as the identity of her companion. The shape of him was strangely familiar, but from some inner source she perceived that the man was not Ashton. The figure was slightly bulkier…and was there a mustache?
The images disturbed her, and she tried to push them from her mind, wanting nothing to mar her happiness, but they were like ghosts from the past playing a teasing game with her memory. They flitted through her mind, leaving impressions of a shadowy shape here and the low murmur of a voice there, but all the while resisting her efforts to draw them into the full light of her consciousness.
She heaved a sigh in frustration, and when Ashton glanced down at her with a questioning brow raised, she smiled and laid her arm along the length of his thigh. “I wish I could remember being here with you. I fear I’ve forgotten too many wonderful adventures.”
“Aye, madam, you have, but we’ll make new ones for you to take home.”
The afternoon light filtered through the bed hangings and set the draperies aglow with a shimmering whiteness. Now and then an airy rush billowed the translucent silks and caressed the naked bodies that lay entwined. The breezes blended with murmured questions and softly spoken vows of love, while kisses and whispering sighs fell on willing lips. Manly fingertips brushed bare ribs and stroked pliant peaks and creamy breasts. Others, more dainty, traced down a lightly corded neck and the rugged swell of muscles in a brown arm, then ventured on to a flat, hard belly. Pale thighs yielded to dark as love welled up with a surging rush of emotions. It was a leisured feast of sensual pleasures, a blissful interlude that took place in the confines of a silken tent. It was a coming together of man and wife, and a renewing of all that had been and would be again.
The night was black and rather coolish with low clouds pressing a misty haze down upon the city. Ashton left his sleeping wife and, donning a robe over his naked body, stepped out onto the balcony. A lantern glowed with a halo of pale yellow light, like a lone beacon in the darkness, showing the streets devoid of life at this approaching midnight hour. From the distance drifted the elusive sounds of music and accompanying revelry which attested to the fact that there were those who clung to the moment and resisted the passing of time. So it would be with him if he could accomplish that magical feat. He luxuriated in this present, enchanting period so well, he became almost fearful of it being swept away from him again.
Drawn to the warmth of the one he cherished, Ashton returned to the room and paused at the foot of the bed to gaze down upon his beloved. Lierin lay curled on her side, lost in the deep slumber of the innocent. To his knowledge, nothing yet had prompted a recall, and the fact that she had forgotten every pleasure they had once shared rasped like a dull saw at the back of his mind. As for himself, he had the whole three years etched firmly in his recollection, even though there were quite a few events he would have chosen to forget. The night of horror on the river was one he would have banished to oblivion, and then, there were the long, agonizing days when he had lain in bed unable to move, and in every waking moment his yearning for her had savaged his mind. Even when the strain had overtaken him and he had fallen into exhausted slumber, he had awakened with the same word on his parched lips: “Lierin?” And the answer always came, “No sign of her. Not even a trace. Nothing. The river has swallowed her up.” Then he went through weeks of healing, and when he could walk again, he had paced the floor in restless misery. The ravaging thoughts allowed him no more than a few hours of sleep at a time, and the long nights crept past with uncaring slowness until he had cried out and begged for the dawn to come. It came…and was worse than the dark, for he could see the empty chair at his table, the bed where only he slept, the place at his side that no other woman could fill…and in the cold light of day he finally had to face the tormenting reality that his love was gone forever.
The trip to her grandfather’s had been a pain he had forced himself to bear after his convalescence. He had found the old man ill and bedridden. The news that Lierin would never return to brighten his day had been too much for the judge, and though they were bitter in his mouth, Ashton had affirmed the words, “Lierin is dead,” then had shared the elder’s grief, and a short time later the news had come to him that the old judge had slipped away.
Seeking a haven from his anguish, he had fled to the east and then further still, to Europe. He had avoided that part of the universe where Robert Somerton nurtured his hatred; not that he was afraid of the man, but because he had a need to put all the memories of Lierin behind him…if he could. Travel had failed to ease the hurt, and he had buried himself in work. The family businesses fared well under his forced attention. He had bent himself to the firm establishment of the steamer trade that plied the same river which had taken his most precious possession. Then, when the aches were just beginning to ebb, Lierin had by some miracle come back to him like a wraith out of the night, and here she lay in gentle repose where he could feast his eyes upon her. Yet he was plagued by the lost years, for he could find no plausible explanation for her extended absence. Why had she not come back to him?