Blackmoore by Julianne Donaldson
Chapter 18
I stole out of my room at ten minutes before midnight, using a candle to light my way down the back stairs to the bird room. It was dark and empty, the bird quiet in its cage. I sat on the bench in front of the pianoforte and nervously waited, straining to hear footsteps. Finally, when my heart had begun to race with nervousness that he was not coming, the door silently swung open and Henry walked into the room.
“You found it,” he said in a low voice, quiet for this quiet, dark night.
“Of course.” I could not keep the pride from my voice. I stood and looked up at Henry, taking in what I could see of him in the candlelight. It was enough to see his dark hair and the flash of his smile and a hint of excitement in his eyes.
He held up a shuttered lantern. “We won’t need the candle.” I followed him to the Icarus painting and watched as he slid his hand behind the frame and pressed the switch I had accidentally triggered earlier.
The wall swung open, revealing a dark emptiness. Henry lifted the lantern and moved a shutter so that a ray of light shone, and with another grin and a gleam of excitement in his eyes, he led the way into the darkness.
I had not explored the passageway at all earlier, afraid I would get dirty and have to explain my appearance to another guest or—heaven forbid—to Mrs. Delafield. Now, though, I followed Henry and the light he carried, ducking when he warned me to, easing around a tight corner, feeling the walls change from stone to earth as we climbed down a tight spiral staircase for what felt like a long time. I forgot to count the steps, but I thought it was not quite so far as the climb down to the beach had been.
The passageway had taken us through the house, and now we were in an underground tunnel that was shored up by wooden support beams, the walls and floor earthen, the walls occasionally holding a bracket for a torch. I touched a few of the torches, thinking of Alice and smuggling. But the torches all felt as cold as the walls around us. Unused, then, at least recently.
We must have walked half a mile underground when we came to another stairway. Henry took me up the stone stairs. I followed the light he carried low so that it illuminated the steps for me to see. The stairs carried us up and up. He turned his head and whispered, “We’re almost there.” I was panting, feeling the burn in my leg muscles from the climb. And then he paused, boots still on the steps before me, and I heard a dusty, protesting creak. A breeze chilled me, and then Henry’s boots moved again, until they disappeared into a square of starlight.
I paused, my head at the opening of what must have been a trapdoor. Above me stretched the night sky streaked with starlight. I grasped at the sides of the opening and was surprised to feel grass beneath my fingers. Surely we had climbed higher than mere ground level. Then Henry reached down to me. I put my hand in his, and he pulled me up the remaining steps. I emerged, wide-eyed. It was certainly grass beneath my feet. But we were encircled by a crumbling stone wall, and there was nothing but the sky to see beyond it. No trees. No ocean. No moors. I looked at Henry in confusion and saw the strangest expression on his face, which was half-lit by the lantern he held aloft. He seemed both excited and nervous. I had seldom seen Henry nervous. His lips were closed tight, and his eyes were too darkened by the flickering shadows of the lantern for me to see them clearly.
“What is this place?” I asked him, walking cautiously forward, not sure if the ground would hold me, for this place seemed to defy the rules of nature.
“Come see,” he said, walking toward the stone wall. I followed him. The wall came to a crumbling stop at my chest level. I peered down and quickly gripped the stones in front of me as my head swam. We were very high. I knew those trees. I knew how tall they grew. And now I could see their tops below us. I turned, looking to my right—a sea of trees swaying in the breeze below us. To my left—the crashing of distant waves, frothy white in the moonlight. The ocean.
I looked up and saw again the stretch of sky without a tree to block my view. And then, suddenly, there was a raucous cry and dark shadows fluttered, filling the air. The haunting cry of the rooks pierced the darkness. The birds were loud, and their cries scratched at my soul like an etching on glass.
“It’s the ruined abbey,” I breathed.
“It is the highest tower of the ruined abbey, to be exact.” I heard the smile in his voice. “Do you like it?”
“I do,” I whispered. “I like it very much.”
Now Henry’s smile broke free, and he rested his elbows on the wall and faced the ocean. “I have come here nearly every night of every visit, ever since I discovered the secret passageway when I was ten. When I was twelve I decided I wanted a comfortable place to sit and look at the stars. So I lugged up buckets full of dirt every night. It took an entire month to carry enough dirt up here to cover the floor. Then I begged some grass seed from the gardener, and I spread it the night before we were to leave. I had to wait an entire year to find out if the grass had grown.”
I bent down and ran my hand over the soft blades of grass. It was strange to think of twelve-year-old Henry planting something that I would see and feel all these years later.
“Have you ever brought anyone else here?” I asked, thinking of Sylvia and trying not to think of Miss St.Claire.
Henry drew in a breath and leaned back against the wall, looking at me quietly for a moment. “No.” The word rested in the silence between us for a long moment, filling me with such gladness I could not keep myself from smiling. “I must confess something, Kate.”
He had my full attention. A confession from Henry was a rare and highly valuable thing.
“What?” I breathed, moving closer.
“I didn’t love Blackmoore when I was young. Not for years.”
I looked at him with surprise. “I don’t remember that.”
“No. I didn’t tell anyone. I was supposed to love this place, you know. I was meant to inherit it. But it seemed so strange and so far away from what was home to me. I didn’t love it. Once I found the secret passageway, I used it to escape the house every night. But when you were so intrigued by the idea of Blackmoore, when I saw how much you wanted to come here, and how you peppered me with questions upon my return, I began to feel differently about it. I began to treasure it, because you did.” He moved closer, and I could see the faint smile in his grey eyes. “I always knew I would bring you here some day and tell you that. To thank you.”
I was so surprised I did not know how to respond but only stood there as something soft and sweet grew within me. Somebody appreciated me. Not just somebody—Henry. I smiled and whispered, “You’re welcome.”
“I thought this would be a good place for fulfilling our bargain,” he went on. “The three proposals. And what you will pay me.”
My smile slipped. I had momentarily forgotten about the question of payment.
“Yes, the payment. Have you decided what you want?”
“I have.”
He leaned down, resting his hand on the wall behind my back. I had to tilt my head back to look at him. My heart quickened with nervousness. “Your heart’s desire is to leave all of us and fly away to India. And my heart’s desire is to unravel the mystery of Kate Worthington.”
I laughed nervously, trying to find room to back away from him. But the stones at my back offered no escape, and I felt much too vulnerable so close to Henry in this dark night with the stars like jewels overhead and the dark rooks our only chaperones. “I am no mystery, Henry. How you exaggerate.”
He leaned down so that I could see the intent look in his eyes in the moonlight. And when he spoke, his voice was low and strong and unwavering. “Two years ago something happened to you. The Kitty I knew suddenly became Kate.” There was no trace of amusement in him. “The Kate who refused to dance with me. The Kate who declared to all the world that she would never marry. The Kate who gave her heart to her cat and no one else.” He paused, and I felt the weight of his words as if they were a confession. “I lost something then. And for two years I have wanted it back. Or at least to understand why I lost it.”
My thoughts were reeling, and I gripped the stones behind me as if the world was turning and they alone could keep me from falling off the edge.
“So that is what I will trade you, Kate. Three proposals for three of your secrets. The answers to the mystery that you became two years ago.”
I could not believe he had just said those things. I could not believe he would ask this of me. We had gone so long without talking of these things—so long that I had been confident my secrets would remain mine forever. I tried to draw a steady breath, to process what he was saying, to wrap my mind around the idea of Henry in the moonlight.
But he was too close. I could do none of those things with him standing so close to me, leaning into me so that I felt his warmth. I could easily picture exactly where I would touch him, and how I would pull him to me, and I could count the breaths I would steal from him if I could kiss him.
My breath came quicker and quicker, and the tension between us became a palpable thing that quivered and stretched and made my skin burn with wanting. And finally, I could take it no more. I twisted out of the corner he had backed me into, ducking under his arm and slipping away quickly. Then, several steps away from him, I turned back and said, “I will agree to your terms. Three secrets in exchange for three proposals. So let’s have it. Say ‘Will you marry me?’ three times, and I will answer no three times, and then you may ask your questions, and we’ll be done.”
He shook his head. “No. Not in a hurry. Not to get it done. I will give you one proposal a night.”
I was panicking with the vulnerability I felt. “Why not just do it all at once?”
“Because,” he said, his voice tinged with sadness, “I am in no hurry to throw you to the wind and watch you fly away.”
It was the sadness in his voice that took me off guard. I swallowed my surprise and then said, faintly, “Fine. I agree to your terms.”
Henry stepped close to me, reached out, and gently took one of my hands in his. My heart was pounding with nervousness, and I felt on the verge of either laughter or tears—I couldn’t tell which. I was afraid my hand was sweating. I bit my lip and shifted from one foot to another. My sweaty hand was limp in his. There was so much that was wrong about this scene.
“Katherine Worthington.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Katherine?”
“Shush. I am being formal. It’s fitting.”
He knelt on one knee before me.
“Oh, no,” I muttered. “Please don’t. Get up. Please.”
He glared at me. “No complaining allowed.” He took a breath and looked at my hand in his and said, “Katherine, you have stolen my heart.”
A strange urge to laugh took hold of me.
“I cannot bear the thought of living without you.”
My hand was so sweaty it slipped in his. Another urge to laugh bubbled up. But I should not laugh. My lips twitched; my shoulders started to shake. I clapped my free hand over my mouth to cover my smile.
“And I beg you to—”
I choked back a giggle.
Henry frowned up at me. “Are you laughing?”
I shook my head, biting back another laugh.
“Yes, you are.” He stood, dropping the hand he had been holding. “Let me see your mouth.”
Another almost-laugh burst from me. I covered my mouth with both hands, shaking my head.
“Kate,” he said in a warning voice, stepping closer. He grasped my wrists and pulled my hands away from my mouth. I bit my lip, but I could not bite back the giggle that erupted. Henry dropped my wrists with a look of disgust and backed away.
“This was a mistake. You will never grow up, will you, Kitty?”
I gasped. “Kitty? How could you?”
“You laughed at me!”
“You were acting ridiculous!”
He threw a hand out. “I was trying to be serious!”
“Well, I wish you wouldn’t.”
“And why should I not? It was my first proposal. I wanted it to be good.”
I stared at him as realization dawned on me. “Your first proposal.” I reached out and put a hand on his arm. “Oh, Henry. Are you ... do you feel ... compromised?”
His head jerked back, and then he laughed a short and mirthless laugh. “Yes,” he said in a sardonic voice. “I feel compromised, Kitty.” I could tell he was rolling his eyes. “No! I don’t feel compromised! What do you think of me? That I’m some sort of pansy?”
I pulled my hand off his arm. “Don’t bark at me, Henry Delafield. I was trying to be sensitive.”
“Well, don’t. It doesn’t suit you at all.”
I lifted my chin. “Then I won’t.”
“Good.”
We looked at each other for a long moment, the air charged with hurt and anger and misunderstandings. After a moment, I turned away and walked back to the stone wall. I rested my folded arms on the top of the wall, my chin on top of them. “What a disaster this was,” I muttered. “We have not fought like this in years.”
After a long moment I felt Henry come to stand behind me. “True. We have not.” His voice was quieter now.
“And now you are back to calling me Kitty.” A sigh broke from me, and I felt inexpressibly forlorn and dejected and so hopeless I wanted to cry. Henry had been my last hope. Without his help, I would not realize my dream of going to India. But I would not accept help from him at the cost of our friendship. If only I had not wanted to laugh! My nose stung and I rubbed it, thinking it was only fitting that now I should cry, rather than earlier, when it might have helped my case.
Henry sighed. “Don’t go rubbing your nose. Please. I have such a weakness for that.”
“I can’t help it.” I rubbed it again, blinking back tears.
He sighed again. “I am sorry. Kate.” Well, at least that was back to the way it should be. “I find myself very ... out of sorts lately.”
I sniffed and blinked hard and cursed my wayward emotions. “I am sorry too. I don’t know what came over me.”
“Shall we try again?” he asked in a quiet voice.
I rubbed my nose one last time, wiped my eyes, and turned back toward him. “If it’s going to be like this, Henry, then it’s not worth it. I’ll find another way to India. I don’t want us to fight with each other.”
“Just ... give me another chance,” he said, smiling.
I nodded.
This time he did not take my hand or kneel down or call me Katherine. He just stood in front of me and said, “Kate, you are stubborn and silly and horribly unromantic, except when you are dreaming of foreign lands. For these and many other reasons, I would love to marry you.”
I chuckled, wiped my nose on my sleeve, and said, “That is more like it. No, thank you, Henry.”
He looked at me for a long moment before drawing a breath and saying, “Now for my payment.”
My heart thumped hard.
“Do you remember the day I gave you your heart’s desire?”
I shook my head. “You did not give her to me.”
“I still want to hear you call me that, by the way.”
I laughed softly. “Never.”
“Perhaps we should change the terms of our agreement. You share with me three secrets and you call me The Giver of My Heart’s Desire.”
Smiling, I shook my head. “It will never happen, Henry.”
I knew he was smiling too. He leaned on the stone wall, resting his elbows there and looking out across the trees. “The day I gave you your cat was the day you asked me not to call you Kitty.”
I nodded, solemn now.
“What happened that day?”
Taking a deep breath, I leaned on the wall next to him and let the realization of what he was asking sink into me. How did he know the questions that would pierce me so dearly? How did he guess what I most wanted to hide? I had to ask myself again whether this was worth the price.