Authors: Briar Rose
"But you survived, Lion. You escaped the labyrinth, and were so brave and strong that you even managed to free yourself from all the traps he set in your own mind."
"I'll always believe that was your doing, my love. That, or the fairy magic you've spoken of. But now this—it's all so strange."
He crossed to an exquisite globe balanced on the shoulders of a wood-carved Atlas. "The monster is dead."
"He has no power over you. He never really did. Perhaps that is why that pride in the picture turned to something poisonous."
"Master Lionel?"
The voice made him start, turn to see the housekeeper. The woman's face was rounder, more lined with age than when he'd marched away to join the army. Yet there was something different in her eyes— fear—that had always been there. Yet an almost pleading light, an anxiousness, a sorrow. "I hope you've found everything in order."
Lion grimaced. This was Paxton Redmayne's household. Everything had always been agonizingly in order, with a painful precision that left no hint of humanity, not so much as a flicker of warmth. Even the servants who had lined up to greet their new master had seemed as lifeless as the lions carved into the gray stone. Only their eyes betrayed them. Dread, confusion, uncertainty.
Most of them had spent their lives in service to Paxton Redmayne. Now their livelihoods teetered on the whim of the tall young officer who stood before them, a man grown from the boy they had seen tormented so mercilessly.
Despite his own confusion, Lion felt a sharp sting of pity. Did they fear he would take vengeance on them now for failing to help him?
"Mrs. Smith, you needn't hover, nor should you be afraid," he said with that new gentleness in his voice that never failed to surprise him. "Tell the rest of the servants their positions are secure. I realized long ago that all of you were as much his prisoners as I was."
Tears welled up in the woman's eyes. "I always knew you were far too bright for 'im. Too strong. Aye, and too good. That was what he could never forgive you for."
"If there are any people who need to be taken care of—servants too old to do their work, crofters in need of tools or cottage repairs, please let me know. Grandfather had a way of neglecting such things, as I recall. I wish to see that they are taken care of before I go."
"Yes, sir. That's good of you." She hesitated, fretting a bit of braid trim on one of her cuffs. "There is one matter." Her voice tripped with nervousness. "I didn't set it before you earlier because... well, there were nothing legal drawn up, and I had to see for myself what kind of man you'd grown into before I... I could trust you with it."
Lion winced, thinking how different Mrs. Smith's reaction might have been if he'd strode into Raw-marsh two months ago—a cold, hard man, more dead inside than alive. It was impudent of her to hold some- thing back, but how could he blame her for her caution? "What is it?"
She still looked a trifle uneasy, as if she wasn't certain she'd made the right decision. But then she glanced at Rhiannon and seemed to take comfort. "I knew that Mr. Paxton was up to some devilment. When I heard he'd tried to kill you, I knew the real reason."
Lion swallowed hard, fear stirring in his gut. A reason to kill the man you'd raised as a grandson. One you'd watched grow from a boy... Perhaps he didn't ever want to know. Yet Lion hadn't been of Paxton Redmayne's blood. Their relationship had been an illusion, hadn't it? And wouldn't understanding the hate that had finally pushed Paxton Redmayne over the edge help Lion put this to rest?
Mrs. Smith sucked in a steadying breath. "If you and your lady will follow me, I'll show you."
Lion nodded, and with Rhiannon on his arm, went after Mrs. Smith. But as she left the gallery and made her way to the rear of the house, his muscles tightened, his own steps slowed. Winding stairs spiraled up, dark stairs he'd climbed many times. He wished to God he could tell her to stop, turn, and run back out into the sunlight where he could breathe again. But Rhiannon's hand on his arm, the love radiating from her touch, sent her strength flowing through him, her complete faith in him, her healing of both body and heart.
"These were my chambers when I was a boy," he explained, fighting to keep his voice steady.
"Yes." She looked up at him, sorrow and complete understanding in her eyes.
At the top step, Mrs. Smith fetched a heavy key from her vast ring, slipped it into the lock. "Sir, I did what I thought was best, hiding what I did."
What the devil was it? Some information about his family? Some shard of his past?
"Open the door, Mrs. Smith," Lion said, wishing he could bar the portal forever.
Her hand trembled as she shoved the door open. It was the same, Lion thought numbly. All the same, as if he'd just left the schoolroom for a lesson in swordsmanship with Signor Tidei. Lion stepped into the chamber where he'd spent countless hours, the walls lined with books, maps pinned on every empty surface. His heart wrenched in pity for the boy he had been.
"I see nothing different," he said. "Where is this great revelation, Mrs. Smith?"
"Hidden away, sir, where you tried to hide when you were a wee lad."
The tiny cubbyhole under the eaves; he'd folded himself up tighter and tighter inside the place, trying to disappear. But it was futile to attempt to hide from Paxton Redmayne. Lion had always been found.
Slowly he crossed to the hidden nook, leaned down to peer into it. His heart stopped, his breath caught in his throat. "Christ's blood!"
A small, pale face peered up at him, round-eyed with fear.
"A child!" Rhiannon gasped, disbelieving.
"The master brought him here two months ago, poor mite. Vowed he'd not make the same mistakes he made with you, sir. That this time, he'd not be so soft."
"No. God, no." Lion couldn't bear the pain of it, the hideous wrenching of staring into that small face that reflected all his terror, all his confusion, the pain of the boy he had been. The thought that someone else had suffered at Paxton Redmayne's hands made
Lion's knees buckle. He knelt down before the shadowy nook.
I should have killed the old man years ago, so he could never hurt anyone again,
his own guilt screamed in his head.
I
should have killed him.
"Sir, the lad is that terrified, he is, of gentlemen. They hadn't many but fearsome cruel ones in the poorhouse where the master found him."
A poorhouse. So the child had exchanged one kind of hell for another. Lion wished to God he had Rhiannon's gift for healing, for soothing pain. He should step away, let her reach out to the child with that incredible gift she possessed. But his own understanding of the child, terrifyingly complete, held him there, gentled his voice.
"What is your name, boy?"
"T-Tommy, sir." His whole little body shook.
"Tommy. Don't be afraid, lad. No one is going to hurt you ever again."
Big eyes stared in disbelief.
"I know how frightened you've been," Lion said. "There was a time when I was frightened, too."
The lad pointed a stubby finger at Lion's uniform. "You're a soldier. Soldiers are never afraid."
"That's not true. I've been afraid many times as a soldier. And even more times as a lad. You see, this was my room when I was a boy."
Tommy's mouth dropped open displaying two missing teeth. "You—you're
him?
The other boy that used to belong to Mr. Redmayne?"
"Yes." Lion glanced up at Rhiannon, drew strength from the love in her gaze. She stood a little apart, trusting him with the boy. She had complete faith in his power to help Tommy, Lion realized, even if he had none.
"You killed Mr. Redmayne," Tommy said. "Mrs. Smith told me."
"He tried to kill me, Tommy. And my wife."
"Because he knew if you found out 'bout me, you'd come an'— an' you wouldn't let him keep me. He told me all 'bout you."
So that was the reason for the hired assassins, the clumsy plots. Yes, the old man had known that Lion would come.
Lion winced, wondering what the old man had said to Tommy—lies, the most loathsome kind, no doubt, to twist the boy, terrify him. "Why don't you get to know me yourself, Tom, and then decide what you think about me?"
"I already know. I heard the servants whisperin' how brave you were. How hard you fought 'im. It made me think... well, he couldn't take everything in my head unless I let him."
"That's right, boy. You were right."
"But it got terrible hard. He locked me up in this room, all red, and I was so scared an' hungry."
A hot ball of rage shoved at Lion's ribs, seared his throat.
"But then... then I found something, an' I wasn't so scared anymore. Mrs. Smith said it b'longed to you."
Tommy scooted out; he was so thin, his face pale, his eyes old. He stood in front of Lion, the image of everything Lion had been. Tommy dug one hand into his pocket.
Ever so slowly, he unfolded his fingers from bits of gold, tiny gears, the bent hands of a watch. Lion's father's pocket watch.
He reeled, staring down at it, remembering the hideous sound as he had crushed it beneath his own boot heel, the devastation as the last link with his family shattered. In the middle of the night he'd crept out of his bedchamber and found the pieces of the watch in the rubbish heap, hidden them away. Years later he'd meant to go back to Rawmarsh for them, but it had hurt too much whenever he thought of it, and his guilt and shame had kept him away. In the end he'd folded up the memory so tight, buried it so deep, he'd all but forgotten it. He wanted to forget it.
"It's broken," Tommy admitted, abashed. "I didn't break it. I swear."
"No," Lion said, aching. "I did. Crushed it beneath the heel of my boot. I still have nightmares, remembering." He glanced up at Rhiannon, remembering his humiliation the first night she'd heard him crying out as he relived the watch's destruction. "Grandfather wouldn't let me out of the Red Room until I destroyed the watch."
Lion heard Rhiannon's soft gasp of horror, sorrow, felt the brush of her fingertips against his shoulder.
Tommy looked up at him, so sad, so knowing. "Why did he make you do that?"
"The watch belonged to my father. I loved him, you see." Lion reached out with a finger to touch a tiny gear. "Father gave it to me to play with. That night someone set our house afire. My father, my mother, and my sister all died. This was the only thing I had left to remind me of them."
"He
wouldn't like that," Tommy said with a shudder.
"No."
"Mr. Paxton, he kept askin' an' askin' 'bout my father an' such before he took me from the poorhouse. But I never had a father. Never had a mama, either. If I did, it would hurt terrible bad to break something they gave me. Now your papa's watch is ruined," Tommy said, stirring the pieces with his finger.
"No. You that's what I didn't understand then. We can take all these pieces, Tommy, and put them back together again. We can fix it."
"Will it be just the same?"
"No." Lion admitted. "It will never be just the same. But in a way, it will be even better."
"That's impossible."
Lion studied little Tommy's face, seeing the intelligence his grandfather must have seen, and the promise. But even more clearly Lion saw the sensitivity that not even the brutal denizens of the poorhouse had stolen from his baby-pink lips, the desperate need to trust, to believe. Thank God that in the two months his grandfather had kept the boy, he hadn't managed to crush him.
"You see, Tommy, the watch will be even stronger because it survived in spite of everything it went through. My wife taught me that." He glanced up at Rhiannon, saw tears shining in her eyes. "You are just like this watch, Tommy. You'll be even stronger, even braver, when we fix what grandfather tried to do to you."
The boy caught his lower lip between his teeth. "Maybe I'm too bad to fix. The man at the workhouse said my mama threw me away, just like my papa did. Mr. Redmayne was the only one who ever wanted me."
The boy's words clawed at Lion's heart. He glanced up at Rhiannon, a desperate plea in his eyes. She understood him, answered him without a word. Only a tearful nod that offered everything, not only to Lion but to the little boy standing before them, so alone.
Lion turned back to Tommy. "I want you." His voice broke. He reached out, touched the boy's cheek.
Hope flared in Tommy's eyes; then wariness shadowed it. "But what about her?" He pointed at Rhiannon.
Lion laughed, gathering Tommy into his arms. "I'm certain she wants you. She's always finding things nobody else wants to love. She has a horse no one can ride, and a dog who runs into trees. And she found me, Tommy, when I was broken and alone."
Rhiannon stepped forward, knelt down. "You see, Lion and I just got married, and there's only one dream left that I have that hasn't come true: to have a little boy of my own."
Joy blushed the boy's cheeks, squeezing Rhiannon's heart. All her life creatures in pain had come to her, sought her healing, that warmth something she had always cherished, always known.
But it was Lion whom Tommy turned to. He flung his arms about Lion's neck, so tight, so trusting, as Lion carried him away from the dark room and out into the light.
It was near midnight when Lion came to bed, weary, yet miraculously at peace. "The watch is all but mended. It needs only a piece of glass to cover the face. Tommy helped. He's as smart as a whip, that boy."
"He is."
"Rhiannon, you don't mind— Perhaps it wasn't fair of me to ask you to decide about the boy so swiftly."
"I knew I wanted Tommy from the beginning. The instant I saw your face as you looked into his eyes."
"You've taught me so much, lady. How to open my heart. I was so certain I didn't deserve love. Even when you cared for me, I thought it was because of your generosity, your goodness, not because of anything worthy in me. But Tommy—I think he's beginning to love me, too. So there is a chance that I might be someone worth loving after all."
Rhiannon slipped her arms around him, held him tight. "I knew that all along, from the first moment I looked into your heart."