Return of the Rose (37 page)

She put a hand to her chest and breathed in.

“My sweet daughter,” he said. “How I have waited and yearned for this day.”

“Father,” she whispered, “is it really you?”

He held out his arms and she fell into them before he could answer because in her heart she already knew. She stayed wrapped in her father’s arms for a long time and when her mother entered the room and joined them in their embrace she wasn’t sure if she could take the multitude of emotions coursing through her, making her feel as if she’d literally burst from happiness.

Her vision was blurred, but out of the corner of her eye she saw Derek leave the room. She didn’t have the strength to stop him. He didn’t need her. He wasn’t ready to love.

~~~~

Derek walked out of the castle and past the outer gates of Silverwood. He made his way through the low misty fog until he could no longer see any signs of daily life. He took a seat upon the ground beneath a large oak and looked about. Had the trees always been so tall? he wondered. He couldn’t remember hearing the birds as he heard them now with their rhythmic singsong of notes and whistles. Beneath a layer of dirt he spotted a bit of color and easily pulled forth a tiny bloom. He put it to his nose, surprised that something so insignificant had any scent at all.

Had he truly lost her? he wondered, his heart twisting in a slow, tortuous anguish.

A loud screech caught his attention as a bird protected its nest. The high-pitched sounds drew forth his darkest moment, the present becoming intermingled with the past, until the noise was deafening. He covered his ears. When he squeezed his eyes shut he saw clearly his father’s bloodshot eyes as his father came at him with a raised iron poker and the combined wrath of a dozen wolves. At the time, Derek was eight years old at best, and he opened his mouth and screamed, bracing himself for what was to come.

Usually he opened his eyes or woke up and the horrible vision disappeared, but this time he kept his eyes shut. He felt strangely disembodied as he watched himself as a boy, peek through swollen eyes to see his mother enter the room. She placed herself between him and his father and in so doing received the blows meant for him. She shouted for Derek to run, pointing a bloodied hand toward the door, but all he could do was stand there and scream.

Derek opened his eyes, tried to breathe.

It could not be. But even as he denied it, he knew that it was true…the shrieks he’d heard so often, the cries that had awoken him most nights…were his own. Matti had told him many times that his father had been a troubled man, but Derek had refused to listen. Although he despised the man for the coldness he had lent upon his only son, ‘twas his mother he blamed all these years for leaving him. Nothing else had mattered after she left Braddock.

The crackling of brush caused Derek to drop his hands and look in that direction.

“Are you all right?” Morgan asked as she stepped into view.

“Aye.” He inhaled deeply of pine and moss, rolled a twig between his fingers. “You were right about my mother,” he said after a quiet moment. “When I was young I used to see a darkly cloaked woman watching me from afar. I never considered until now that the woman could have been my mother. It was her though; I am certain of it, for I saw her the day she left Braddock. She wore the same dark cape then as she did when I spotted her near the training fields, at the market, and then again on the day I turned nine…that was the last time I ever saw her.”

“Ohhh,” she said. “I’m sorry about your mother, and your father.”

“And I am sorry I stopped you from returning home.”

“You shouldn’t have interfered.”

“I know.” He came to his feet and brushed himself off. As she peered up at him he wondered how he ever let her leave Braddock. “You were right about many things,” he went on, “including my following in my father’s footsteps. I have been smothered by bitterness, ever so close to becoming the one man I never wanted to be.” It all seemed clear to him now, he thought. Judging by her blank expression and somberness he worried he might indeed lose the one thing he needed most. His throat went tight. He could hardly swallow. “I lied,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

“About what?” she asked, looking toward the bird’s nest of all things, instead of at him as she always had before.

“About my being sorry.”

Her brows knitted.

He began to throw his arms into a wide arc, and then thought better of it and lowered his hands back to his sides. Again he attempted to explain, his voice audibly strained. “I am not suited to this…this apologizing nonsense.”

She gave him a pitying look.

He swallowed a lump in his throat. “I did not mean ‘nonsense.’”

She sighed.

“What I meant to say is that I lied because I am not at all sorry I stopped you from leaving this world. Because you see I…I like you. I like you very much.” He waited for her to throw her arms about his neck in gleeful bliss as she always did. But she hardly moved. Perhaps she was too overjoyed to speak.

When she finally turned back toward him, he fully expected to see her eyes glistening with tears of happiness. Instead he saw dry eyes and a meager half smile.

“That’s nice,” was all she said. “I should go now.” She made a small gesture toward the castle.

Tell her the truth. Tell her you love her
. Derek’s pulse roared in his ears at the thought that he still could not summon the courage to say the words.
Damnation
, he thought as he watched her walk away.

“Morgan Hayes!” he said as he went after her.

She stopped, but still failed to turn fully around. She was a stubborn wench, he mused, and if she thought he was going to drop to his knees and beg…

“I love you,” he said, dropping to his knees the minute he saw her look at him with empty, non-expressive eyes. “Do not look at me like that.”

Her hands went to her hips. “Why?”

“Because as you told the maids so many times at Braddock, those frowns will cause lines about your eyes.”

She rolled her eyes. “I meant, why do you love me?”

“Ahhh,” he said, wondering why women made everything so complicated. “There must be a reason?”

She did not walk away or present him with a scowl, and thus he surmised his question to be a reasonable one. After pondering the question for less than a moment, she crossed her arms and simply said, “Yes.”

He scratched his chin and did his best to ignore the pain in his knee. His head throbbed, as did his shoulder, making it difficult to think. “I am not certain of the reason.”

Her shoulders drooped, and she appeared ready to turn away again so he reached out a hand to stop her. “I do know,” he quickly added, “that the birds are singing. Do you hear them?”

She listened for a moment and nodded, clearly puzzled.

“Do you not see?” he asked her. “Until I met you my world was quiet and dark. But your love has set me free. Because of you, Morgan Hayes, I can hear the soothing song of a single bird and take pleasure in the sweet smell of a single flower. I do love you,” he said as if he only now just realized it, “from the very core of my heart. I love you for all you have given me.”

A tear slid over her cheek and Derek mistook her crying as a sign of displeasure. “I told you I was no good at this. Only because I have not had enough experience courting the ladies. That is not to say I did not charm the ladies, but—”

“Derek,” she said, gazing down at him, placing a finger over his lips. “Stop. You were doing just fine.”

“Then you do love me again?”

“I never stopped loving you.”

“So this was all for naught?” he asked.

“Be quiet…just be quiet.”

“But I dare say I was not yet finished.”

She got down on her knees so that they were face to face. “Just kiss me,” she said. “That is an order, not a prayer.”

Derek quickly obeyed, relishing in the thought as their lips came together that his very life had only just begun.

~~~~

Ten days later, Morgan was the epitome of elegance. She wore her newly found mother’s silk dress, trimmed with lace and embroidered with gold thread. She smiled at her father and as he came to stand between her and Amanda, she took hold of the crook of his arm.

“I missed you all those many years we were apart, every day…every moment,” her father whispered close to her ear, repeating the same words he had told her almost every day since she arrived at Silverwood.

“I missed you, too,” she said. “And yet I saw you so often in my dreams. You brought me flowers and prayed for me. I always hoped we would meet some day.”

His fatherly pride filled her with joy.

She turned to watch Derek move through the crowd until he came to stand before the king. Seeing him in all the layers of refinement, his eyes burning fire into hers when their gazes met, caused a warm ribbon of tingles within.

Derek wore a rich, emerald green cloak over a dark tunic with a leather belt that was gilded and jeweled. As he stood with both legs firm and steady, his dark stockings melded to his muscular thighs. She was going to marry the Earl of Kensington. If only her mother could be with her now. She wondered how she’d ever stop missing her.

Amanda leaned close and said, “I am so glad to have you as my sister. We will have a lifetime to catch up.”

They embraced. Upon looking up again they saw Robert grinning at them both as he passed by, taking brisk jaunty steps toward the king.

Their father urged them forward, escorting both daughters toward the wedding platform where King Henry sat upon a temporary throne. The king dipped his head in acknowledgement.

As the trumpets blared Morgan gazed proudly at the people flocking about Braddock. Her eyes widened when she spotted an old woman half hidden behind a tree. The Witch of Devonshire had come after all. She’d paid the witch a visit a few days ago, to thank her for all she’d done and to invite her to the wedding. The old woman had obviously been a hermit for most of her life and thus had balked at the idea of coming. But here she was. Morgan smiled broadly and blew her a kiss that prompted the witch to hide behind the width of the tree.

At the front of the crowd Morgan saw Hugo and Matti. Emmon winked fondly at her as he held Shayna’s hand tightly in his. Odelia stood between the Chippendales and wiped her nose with a hanky. Little Joseph saluted Morgan with his slingshot and Eleanor Forrester stood close by basking in her daughters’ bliss.

For the first time in her life Morgan knew what it felt like to truly belong. She felt at peace. Something told her that her mother, Cathy Hayes, felt it, too. Destiny had proven stronger than all of them.

Epilogue

California, 1985

“What happened? Where am I?” Cathy Hayes cried out. Her eyes were swollen and her head throbbed beneath the thick bandages. A nurse walked in and Cathy blinked, trying to remember how she came to be here. The walls were bleached white and unadorned. The smell of antiseptics overwhelmed her. Frowning, she hesitated in asking the nurse why she was here, fearing the worst.

The last thing she could remember was her five-year old daughter, Ashley, singing “Old McDonald” in the back seat of their car and her husband’s hand flying across her chest as if he meant to shield her from…from something terrible.

Anguish filled her as she recalled being in a crash. The three of them had been in a terrible accident. Something flew in front of the car and landed on the windshield, blocking her husband’s view of the road. He slammed on the brakes and there was an explosion. Her husband, her daughter…they were dead. She was sure of it. It was written all over the nurse’s face.

“Are they—”

The door to her room came flying open, interrupting her question.

“Daddy! Come quick! Mommy’s awake,” Ashley yelled, running to the bed and into Cathy’s arms. “I knew you would be okay; I just knew it.”

Cathy looked to the door where a shadow appeared. She squinted her eyes, hoping for a clearer image, sure that the man standing there was an apparition. Her husband, Eric, looked just as she’d remembered him all those years ago.

All those years ago
?

She frowned, tried to brush the strange thoughts from her head as she touched Ashley’s hair and face, kissing the tip of her daughter’s pug nose. She could hardly breathe. She held both chubby cheeks between her palms and looked deep into her daughter’s eyes. “You’re real, aren’t you?”

Ashley gave her father a perplexed look as he came forward. Then Ashley looked back at her mother and giggled. “Of course I’m real. And daddy’s real, too…see?” Ashley placed her father’s hand within Cathy’s hand.

His hand felt strong, his fingers vibrating with life.

“Your husband’s a hero,” the nurse said. “The hospital is filled with reporters. They all want to interview the man who risked his life to save the driver of a burning truck. And only minutes before it exploded.”

Cathy felt her heart hammering against her chest. What was wrong with her? “What stopped us from going up in flames?” she asked, remembering too vividly a completely different scenario.

Her husband spoke next, the soothing richness of his voice causing Cathy to take a deep breath. “It was the strangest thing,” he said as he went to a closet and withdrew an old blanket.

Chills crawled up Cathy’s spine at the sight of the coverlet. Even from here she knew she’d seen it before.

“This very blanket fell from the sky like an angel with wings. It landed on my windshield, blocking my view completely. Since I couldn’t see, I slammed on the brakes.” He gave Cathy a sorrowful look, obviously blaming himself for the injury to her head. “At that same moment, a truck came barreling out of nowhere, barely missing us as it flew across our path and slammed into a tree. I didn’t try to be the hero…I only knew I had to get that man out before it was too late. Minutes after I dragged his body from the truck it exploded.”

Eric came to her side and slid his warm hand back over hers. “If this blanket hadn’t appeared when it did—” He shook his head. “I hate to think what would have happened.”