Shadows of Ladenbrooke Manor (19 page)

Libby’s arms were clutched around her knees, her entire body shaking as she rocked. When he sat beside her, she scooted away from him.

“It was an accident,” he tried to explain, devastated that he’d lost control when she needed him to be strong.

He put his hand on her shoulder, to comfort her as much as himself, but she moved away again.

Dejected, he sat down on the rock beside her and watched the current flow by.

Perhaps Maggie was right. They needed to protect Libby from harm instead of forcing her to confront her fears.

AUGUST 1968, LADENBROOKE MANOR

T
he scent of lilac and lavender drifted inside through the open windows, beckoning Libby to come play. She tiptoed through the dark hallway, pausing only to listen at her parents’ door. Through the crack, she heard Walter’s steady breathing.

She hadn’t been back to the gardens in a week, ever since he’d dropped her in the water.

She shivered at the memory.

Mummy said Walter loved her, but it didn’t matter what she said. He was always wanting her to do things she didn’t want to do. Things that scared her. He wanted her to play with children who teased her. Read books instead of draw. Go to school when she didn’t learn a ruddy thing except that she was different from everyone else.

Walter said he loved her, but he didn’t much like who she was.

And sometimes she didn’t much like who she was either.

Soft moonlight enveloped her path, guiding her toward the gate like creamy white petals leading a bride to the altar. Walter didn’t understand—she needed to be in these gardens. The beauty of it breathed life into her. Filled her very soul.

She pushed down the latch, testing it slowly to see if it was locked on the opposite side. Her heart leapt when it opened.

The lady left her gardens every autumn now when the flowers began to die, and Mummy didn’t seem to care if she visited the gardens when the lady was gone. But in the summer, when the flowers were blooming, when the air smelled sweet and the butterflies danced in the breeze, Mummy and Walter didn’t want her to explore.

Yet this was her sustenance. Her magic. She needed to be here as much as the butterflies needed their nectar to fly.

Quietly she closed the gate and hurried across the brick path until she reached the circular rose garden. In the center of the roses was the most lush carpet of grass. She tossed her shoes into the air, the soft grass tickling her toes. Then she stretched out her arms and twirled in the moonlight.

Some people thought the rays of the moon were cool, like the rays of the sun were warm, but they were wrong. The light from the moon was as warm as the sun, a lovely, golden warmth that electrified her from the inside.

“Libby,” someone whispered from the other side of the rosebushes.

She stopped her dance, her hands falling to her side. It was him again. Interrupting her. As if he couldn’t stand the thought of her being alone.

Some nights she liked seeing him, but nights like this when the moon was full, when the light and flowers were luring her outside, she just wanted to dance.

Sighing, she moved toward the trees. “Oliver?”

He stepped out from behind the trunk of an elm, into the moonlight. His hands were in his pockets, and he grinned at her in that sheepish way that made the girls in Bibury act all weird.

Last week she’d been trying to sketch in the park, and he’d walked right over to her with an ice cream cone in each hand. He didn’t even ask. Just handed her one and then sat right down on her blanket like she needed company.

Edith and her friends had walked by, laughing like they always did. They tried to get Oliver to come walk with them, but he refused. Edith glared at her when they left, as if she’d tethered Oliver to the blanket.

For some reason, Edith and her friends didn’t like her at all.

“Can I dance with you?” he asked.

She hiked up her nose a notch, crossed her arms over her chest. “I only dance by myself.”

When he laughed, her chin fell again. She loved to study the colors on a flower, the patterns on a butterfly wing, but she’d never really studied a face before.

Was Oliver teasing her like the girls in the village? She stared at his eyes, but couldn’t tell. “It’s not funny.”

“It seems to me that you are always dancing with something, Libby. The butterflies or the breeze or the starlight.”

Something shifted inside her with his words. He’d never mocked her like some of the other children did. In fact it seemed as if he might understand a small part of her.

She never danced alone, but it was a secret. And it scared her that Oliver knew her so well.

She turned away. “I have to go home.”

“I want to be your friend,” he said.

“I already have friends.”

“But I want to be your friend forever.”

She considered his words.

“Come with me,” he said, pointing back to the trees.

“Where would we go?”

He reached for her hand. “To the river.”

Her skin bristled as she stared down at their hands knotted together like the vines over the lady’s arbor. No boy had ever touched her, but as he held her fingers gently in his, a strange feeling coursed through her. Not disgust or worry. Something closer to happiness, like the feeling of the grass under her toes.

Oliver used to annoy her when they were kids, always wanting her to play with him, but he didn’t bother her as much anymore.

“Come with me,” he whispered again.

She shivered. “Not to the river.”

“We’ll go someplace else then.” He clicked on his torch and light spread across their feet, erasing the warmth from the moon. “Have you been up in the tower?”

She turned toward the path of light and then looked back at him, confused. There were three towers in the manor, but the lady wouldn’t let her inside any of them.

“I’m not allowed in your house.”

“Not that tower.” He grinned. “The old folly in the maze.”

She followed him across the paths of the lady’s gardens. And then into something like a tunnel between the yew bushes. She didn’t like the branches and leaves scratching her face, didn’t like the canopy above them that blocked the moon and stars.

She tugged on his hand. “I want to go back.”

“The tower’s right there,” Oliver said, pointing up to the tip of a structure between the bushes.

She hesitated again. “I don’t know—”

“We won’t stay long,” he promised, placing his other hand over hers, cradling her fingers.

She’d spent most of her life trying to ignore Oliver, wishing he would leave her alone, but in that moment, her heart seemed to break free. She wanted nothing more than to be with Oliver in his folly.

As she clung to his hand, he guided her through the bushes, through the corners and crevices and winding turns of the maze. When they reached the tower, he stepped inside first and the light from his torch flooded the ground floor. Cobwebs hung from the low ceiling, and she shivered again. She liked creatures that flew among the flowers, not ones that liked to hide.

He urged her toward the circular stairs, but she refused to move.

“Are you afraid?” he asked.

She didn’t want to be afraid of anything—not the river or other people or spiders—but still the fears pressed against her.

He squeezed her hand again. “You don’t have to be afraid with me.”

She nodded and warily began to walk toward the stairs with him. He tested the first step and then the second one. When he deemed each step safe, she climbed up after him.

“My great, great-grandfather built this tower,” Oliver said. “The village thought it was only a folly, but it wasn’t.”

Intrigued, she glanced up the steps. “What was it?”

“His secret place.” Oliver reached for her hand. “He used to bring his mistress up here.”

The way Oliver said it was like the other kids who shared secrets near her, laughing together over a common bond. As she grew older, she realized they were often laughing at her. Oliver wasn’t teasing her though. She was missing something, but couldn’t figure out what it was.

“Why didn’t he take her to the house?” she asked.

“Because his wife didn’t want her there.” He said the words in a low voice, so serious, as if she would understand his secret. Something seemed to click in her mind, a few pieces falling into place.

“Like the lady doesn’t want me in your house.”

His eyes looked sad, and she wished she could bring the light back into them. “Something like that.”

“Why does it make you sad?” she asked quietly.

“Instead of marrying the woman he loved, my grandfather had to hide her in a maze.”

Her ignorance frustrated her. Why was Oliver upset over something that happened so long ago?

“He wanted to be alone with her,” he said as they neared the last step. “Even in a big house, it’s hard to hide when so many people are watching you.”

“Perhaps they shouldn’t have tried to hide.”

He glanced back at her. “Perhaps.”

They emerged onto the top floor, a circular room that was just as musty as the entrance below. She released his hand and hurried to look out one of the windows along the stone walls. He turned off the torch, and beyond the maze, she could see the moonlight playing on the flowers.

His hand touched her shoulder, and she jumped. He removed his hand, moments passing between them in silence, and then he placed his arm around her. This time she only shivered at his touch.

“Libby.” He turned her slowly toward him. “Please dance with me.”

She couldn’t see his eyes in the shadows, but she could hear the intensity in his voice.

“I don’t know how to dance with a person.”

“I will teach you.”

She wasn’t certain she wanted to learn, but he took her right hand into one of his and curled the fingers of his other hand around her waist. In the darkness, he stepped right. She didn’t know what to do at first, but he guided her toward him before taking another step.

“My family is leaving for London in the morning,” he whispered as if he were telling her another secret.

Usually the thought of the Croft family’s migration pleased her, knowing she could roam free in their garden without anyone to stop her, but tonight she didn’t want Oliver to go.

She slowly followed him around the perimeter of the room. “They have my life planned out,” he said.

“Why do you let them plan it?”

“I don’t have a choice.” He stopped dancing, but he didn’t let go of her waist or her hand. “But you can choose, Libby. You are just like the butterflies.”

Her legs stopped moving, but her heart danced at his words.

“No one can contain you.”

She smiled up at him, her long hair falling over both of her shoulders.

“If someone trapped you, I’m afraid you might—” His voice trailed off.

She stepped back. “What are you afraid of, Oliver?”

“I wish I could be more like you.” He gently folded her hair behind her ears. “I’ll be back next summer.”

She nodded in the silence, and again she thought he wanted something more from her, but didn’t know what it was.

He leaned down, whispering in her ear. “Will you wait?”

“For what?”

He hesitated before speaking again, as if he were afraid to answer her question. “For me.”

She’d waited for the flowers to bloom each year, for the cocoons to birth new butterflies, and for her other butterfly friends to find their way home. But she’d never waited for a person.

People were much less predictable. Except Oliver perhaps. He came back every summer with the flowers and butterflies.

“I’ll try,” she said.

This time, when he pulled her close to him, she didn’t flinch.

“LIBBY?” MAGGIE CALLED SOFTLY AS
she stepped onto the back patio. She scanned the gardens behind her house even though she knew Libby wasn’t there. No matter how hard she worked to convince her daughter to stay on this side of the wall, she couldn’t keep Libby out of the gardens next door.

It was long past midnight, and she considered waking Walter to tell him Libby was gone. But he’d felt so guilty after dropping her in the water, and in his fear for her, he’d be furious to know she’d left again.