Dark Angel

  From the acrid scent of wood burning, smoke must be snaking upward. A gardener's cottage, that's what! An elderly man was inside with his wife, ready to sit down to a simple meal that would no doubt please my appetite more than gourmet dishes prepared in a kitchen Tony hadn't bothered to show me.

  The light from the windows didn't stream outside and fall on the path to brighten my way. It was smothered light, anxious to disappear. I headed for those squares of windows before they, too, vanished in the fog.

  At the cottage door I hesitated before I rapped.

  Three or four times I banged on the solid door that hurt my hands to rap on, and still no one answered! Someone was in there! I knew someone was there. Impatient because whoever it was was ignoring me, and confident now that I was more or less an important member of the Tatterton family, I turned the latch and stepped inside a dim, firelit room.

  It was very warm in the cottage. I stayed with my back toward the door and stared at the young man who sat with his back toward me. I could tell from the slender length of his legs, sheathed in tight black trousers, that he was tall. His shoulders were broad, his dark brown, unruly hair held hints of copper where it caught the glow from the fire. I stared at that hair, thinking it was the color of hair I'd always presumed Keith's would be when he was a man. Thick, wavy hair that reached the nape of his neck and curled upward, barely brushing the white collar of his thin blouse that resembled an artist's or poet's smock, with very full sleeves.

  He turned a bit, as if my prolonged stare made him aware of my presence. Now I could see his profile. I sucked in my breath. It wasn't just that he was good looking. Pa Was handsome in his strong, bestial, and brutal way, and Logan was classically handsome in his own stubborn way; this man was good looking in a different kind of way, a special way I'd not seen before, and behind my eyes an image of Logan rose to fill me with guilt. But Logan had run from me. He had left me alone in the cemetery, standing in the rain, not willing to understand that sometimes a girl of fifteen or sixteen didn't know how to handle a man who had befriended her. Except by giving in, so he'd continue to be her friend.

  But Logan was yesterday, and for all I knew I might never see him again. So I stared at this man, more than puzzled by the unexpected way my body responded just to the sight of him. Even without looking my way, he appealed to me immediately . . as if he sent out his need to me . . . that it was telling me it would be my need too! It also warned me to tread slowly, to be careful, and keep my distance. I didn't need or want a love affair at this stage of my life. I'd had enough of men forcing sex on me when I wasn't ready for it. Yet I stood there trembling, wondering what I'd do when he turned full-faced, when just his profile excited me so much. Cynically I told myself that he'd be flawed when I saw all of him, and maybe that's why he was taking such pains to keep most of his face hidden in shadows. On and on he sat, halfturned away. Even so, he radiated sensitivity, like an ideal romantic poet should--or did he seem more a wild antelope, posed and still, listening, alert, ready to flee if I moved too suddenly or too aggressively.

  That was it, I decided. He was afraid of me! He didn't want me here. A man like Tony would never have sat on and on. Tony would rise, smile, take over the situation. This had to be a servant, a gardener, a handyman.

  From his very posture, the way he tilted his head a bit to the side, I knew he was waiting, perhaps even seeing me with peripheral vision. One of his dark, thick eyebrows quirked upward quizzically, and still he didn't move. Well, just let him sit there and wonder, for it gave me a marvelous chance to study him.

  Again he turned a little, his hammer posed to strike another blow, and now I saw more of his face, and the fact that his nostrils were quivering, flaring wider, even as I sensed he was breathing just as hard and fast as I was. Why didn't he speak? What was wrong with him? Was he blind, deaf, what?

  His lips began to curve upward into a smile as he brought down that tiny hammer and delicately pounded on a thin sheet of bright, silver metal--as if to remove from its shining surface small indentations. Tap-tap-tap went his tiny hammer.

  I began to tremble, feeling threatened by his unwillingness even to say hello. Who was he to ignore me? What would Jillian do in my situation? Certainly she wouldn't let this man intimidate her! But I was just a hillbilly scumbag Casteel, and as yet I hadn't learned how to be arrogant. I managed a slight artificial cough. Even then he was in no hurry to turn around and make me feel welcome. I thought as I stood there that he was the most unusual looking and acting young man I'd ever seen.

  "Excuse me," I said in a low voice that tried to emulate Milan's whispery way. "I heard you hammering when I was lost in the maze. I'm not sure I can find the right path back to the main house, it's so dark and foggy outside."

  "I know you are not Jillian," he said without looking at me, "or you would be chattering on and on, telling me a thousand things I don't need to know. And since you aren't Jillian, you don't belong here. I'm sorry, but I am busy, and have no time to entertain uninvited guests."

  It stunned me that he would so willingly drive me away--even before he checked to see who it was. What kind of man was he? Look at me! I wanted to scream. I'm not ugly, even if I am not Jillian! Turn your head and speak, for in a moment run and not care if we ever meet again! It was Logan I loved, not this stranger with his indifferent attitude! Logan who would one day forgive me for something I couldn't have prevented from happening.

  A frown put furrows in his forehead. "Please go. Just turn around and don't say a word."

  "No, I'm not going until you tell me who you are!" "Who are you to ask?"

  "First you tell me who you are."

  "Please, you are wasting my time. Go away now and let me finish what I'm doing. These are private quarters, my quarters. Off limits to the servants of Farthinggale Manor. Now scat!" He threw me a quick, surveying glance that didn't linger on any feature or point of my figure that other men stared at, before again I was presented with his back.

  He took my breath away! It hurt to be scanned over, then tossed aside as if unworthy of simple good manners. Stupid me and my hillybilly pride! I'd always had too much pride. Pride that had made me suffer unnecessarily many a time, when it would have been so much easier just to let go of something that had no real value. And still that pride rose high and indignant as it always did when someone like him looked down on someone like me! I made myself dislike him. Nothing but a servant, that's what. A hired hand put in a gardener's cottage to repair ancient silverplate! And with the rush of that unlikely conclusion, I spat out in a totally un-Jillian way: "Are you a servant?" I stepped closer to force him to face me and really see me. "The gardener or one of his hired hands?"

  His head was bowed to his work. "Please, you are in my home, I am not in yours. I don't have to answer your questions. Who I am is not important to you. Just get out and leave me alone. You are not the first woman to say she's lost her way in the maze, and they all end up here. There is a path that follows outside the maze that will lead you back to where the maze begins. A child could follow it--even in a fog."

  "You saw me coming!"

  "I heard you coming."

  I don't know what made me yell. "I'm not a servant here!" I flared in Pa's and Fanny's loud country way, startling even myself. "Farthinggale Manor is the home of my grand . . . my aunt and uncle, who asked me to come and stay." And all the fears crouching in my mind told me to run, and run fast.

  This time when he faced me it was fully, so I saw and felt the full impact of his masculinity as I'd never felt it radiate from any man before. His dark eyes were hidden in shadows as they looked me over, this time slowly taking in my face, my throat, my heaving bosom, waist; hips, legs, then back up again, slowly, slowly. And when his eyes had again reached my face, they paused to gaze at my lips before they looked long and deeply into my eyes. I felt drained before he moved his eyes, which had gone slightly unfocused. Oh! I was affecting him, I could tell; something he'd seen made his lips tighten, his hands clenc
h. Turning from me, he picked up that damned little hammer again, as if to continue on and let nothing interfere with what he was doing! I cried out a second time, my voice Casteel loud, Casteel angry: "Stop! Why can't you be civil to me? This is my first day here and my host and hostess have gone to a dinner party and left me alone with servants to entertain myself, and I don't know what to do with myself. I need someone to talk to--and they didn't tell me that anyone like you lived on the grounds."

  "Like me? What do you mean by that?"

  "Young like you are. Who are you?"

  "I know who you are," he said, as if reluctant to speak at all. "I wish you hadn't come. I didn't plan for us to meet. But it's not too late. Just walk out the door with both hands stretched forward, and in fifty steps you will collide with the hedge. Once you feel it before you, keep your right hand on the hedge, let it trail along as you walk to the left, and in no time at all you will be back at the big house. The library has a nice selection of books, if you like to read. And there's a TV there if you don't. And in the closet there are photograph albums on the third shelf from the bottom. They should amuse you. And if all else fails, the chef in the kitchen is very friendly and loves to talk. His name is Ryse Williams, but we all call him Rye Whiskey."

  "Who are you?" I shouted, furious with him.

  "I really don't see what difference it makes to you; however, since you keep insisting, my name is Troy Langdon Tatterton. Your 'uncle' is my older brother."

  "You have to be lying!" I cried. "They would have told me you were here, if you are who you say you are!"

  "I don't find it necessary to lie over trifles such as who I am. Perhaps they don't even know I am here. After all, I am over twenty-one. I don't send them advance notice when I come to my own cottage and workshop. Nor do I tell them when I go."

  I floundered. "But . . . but, why don't you live in the big house?"

  His smile shone briefly. "I have my reasons for liking it better here. Do I have to explain them to you?"

  "But there are so many rooms in that house, and this place is so small," I murmured, quite embarrassed now, so much so I hung my head and felt totally miserable. He was right, of course. I had made a jackass of myself. What right did I have to pry into his reasons?

  This time he put his small hammer into a special niche on the wall where other tools were placed in neat order. His deep-set, serious eyes were sad, full of something I didn't understand when they met mine. "What do you know about me?"

  My knees folded and I sat automatically on a small sofa before the fire. He sighed when he saw me do this, as if he would have liked for me to walk out his door, but I didn't want to believe he really wanted that. "I know only what your brother has told me. And that's not too much. He said you are brilliant, and graduate from Harvard when you were eighteen."

  He got up from the table and came to sprawl in a chair across from mine and waved all that I'd said away as if it were annoying smoke that ruined the atmosphere. "I have done nothing important with my so-called brilliance, so I might as well have been born with an IQ of fifty."

  My lips gaped open to hear him say something so totally opposed to what I believed. When you had an education, you had the world by its tail! "But you graduated from one of the world's best universities!"

  At last I'd made him smile. "I see that you are impressed. I'm glad. Now my education has gained some value, at least seen through your eyes."

  He made me feel young, naive--a fool. "What do you do with your education except hammer on metal like any two-year-old?"

  "Touche," he said with a grin that made him twice as appealing, and God knows he already appealed to me enough.

  I was ashamed to see how easily my physical side could vanquish my intelligence. My anger flared against him. "Is that all you've got to say?" I stormed. "In my own crude way I just tried to insult you."

  He didn't even appear offended as he stood up and went back to the table and picked up that irresistible little hammer again. "Why don't you tell me who I am?" I urged. "Give me my name, if you know so much."

  "In a moment, please," he said politely. "I've got many tiny suits of armor to make for a very special collector who prizes this sort of thing." He held up a bit of the silver shaped like an S. "These tiny bits will have holes at either end eventually, and when they are fitted one to the other with little bolts, the chain-link mail will move freely, allowing the wearer to be very active, unlike the suits of armor that came later."

  "But aren't you a Tatterton? Don't you own that company? Why should you waste your efforts on something others can do?"

  "You want to know so much! But satisfy this question, because so many others have asked the same thing. I like working with my hands, and I have nothing better to do."

  Why was I being so hateful to him? He was like some fantasy figure I'd created long ago, here in the flesh, waiting for me to discover him, and now that I had, I was making him dislike me.

  Unlike Logan, who seemed strong and confident as the Rock of Gibraltar, Troy seemed very vulnerable, like I was. He hadn't said one word to chastise my ugly behavior, and yet I sensed he was hurt. He seemed a violin strung too tightly, ready to twang at the least careless touch.

  Then, when I didn't even try to interrupt what he was doing, he put away his hammer and turned to smile at me winningly. "I'm hungry. Would you accept my apology for being so rude and stay to have a snack with me, Heaven Leigh Casteel?"

  "You know my name!"

  "Of course I know your name. I have my eyes and ears, too."

  "Did . . . did Jillian tell you about me?"

  "No."

  "Then who?"

  He glanced at his watch and seemed surprised by the time. "Amazing. I thought only a few minutes had passed since--I started work this morning." His tone was apologetic. "Time slips by so quickly, I'm always surprised at how the minutes race by, how soon the day is over." His eyes glazed reflectively. "Of course you're right. I am frittering away my life playing with what amounts to silver Tinkertoys." His hands plowed through his hair and mussed the waves that had arranged themselves neatly. "Do you ever think that life is too short? That before you've half finished what you have, in mind, you're old and feeble and the grim reaper is knocking at your door?"

  He couldn't be older than twenty-two or three. "No! I never feel like that."

  "I envy you. I have always felt I was in a mad race with time, and with Tony." He smiled at me then, quite taking my breath away. "All right, stay. Don't go. Waste my time."

  Now I didn't know what to do. I longed to stay, yet I felt embarrassed and frightened.

  "Oh, come now," he prodded, "you've got what you wanted, haven't you? And I'm harmless. I like to fool around in the kitchen, though I can't take the time to do more than throw together sandwiches. I don't have a set schedule to eat. I eat when I'm hungry. Unfortunately, I burn up calories as fast as I put them in, so I'm always hungry. So, Heaven, in short order we will have our first meal together."

  A meal was due to be served me this very moment in Farthinggale Manor, and I forgot all about that in the excitement of following this man into his kitchen, which resembled the kind of galley they put on yachts, everything close and efficient. He set about opening doors to whisk bread and butter on the table, lettuce, tomatoes, ham, and cheese. Once he had what he wanted from the cupboards, he butted doors closed with his forehead, since both of his hands were full, but not before I had a chance to glimpse the contents. Every shelf was packed neatly, and very full. He had enough food here to last five Casteel children a year-- eaten stingily. As he worked putting the sandwiches together, not wanting my help and insisting I be his guest, sit, and do nothing but talk to entertain him, he appeared both tentatively glad to have me and, at the same time, ill-at-ease and self-conscious. I found it difficult to talk, so he suggested I set the table. I did so quickly, then took the opportunity to have a better look at the cottage. It was not so small, seen from the inside, as it had appeared to be from the outside. It
had wings jutting out, leading to other rooms. A man's home, sparsely furnished.

  Setting the table put me at ease, as keeping busy had always done, so I could turn and watch him without embarrassment. How odd to be here with him like this, in an isolated cottage with darkness and fog shutting us in, as if we were alone in the world. The fire behind me crackled and spat, and sparks sizzled up the chimney. A flush heated my face. I felt too hot and too vulnerable now that making sandwiches had given him something to do. The busy person always seemed more in control than the one watching. I gazed too long at his face, watching the play of the fluorescent lights on his hair, stared too long at his body, astounded at how responsive my body was just to the sight of him. I filled with guilt and shame. How could I feel this way about any man after what Cal had done to me?

  I closed off my emotions, clamped down hard on them. I didn't need any man in my life, not now!

  "Dinner is served, milady," he called shyly, grinning at me. He pulled a chair for me and I sat before he whipped off a white napkin to expose six sandwiches on the silver platter. Six! Parsley, and radishes made to look like roses, garnished the tray; nestled in parsley beds were deviled eggs, and circling around were wedges of various cheeses, an assortment of different crackers, and a silver bowl of shiny, red apples. Polished apples. All this when he had planned to eat alone?

  Why, back in the Willies we could have lived a week on all this food, Granny, Grandpa, Tom, Fanny, Keith, Our Jane. . . all of us!

  Then he brought out two bottles of wine, one red, one white. Wine! What Cal had ordered for me in fancy restaurants when I lived with him and Kitty in Candlewick. And wine had fuzzed my brain and made me accept what otherwise might have been avoided.

  No! I couldn't afford to make another mistake! I jumped to my feet and snatched up my coat! "I'm sorry, but I can't stay," I said. "You didn't want me to know you were here anyway . . . so I'll pretend that you aren't!"

  In a flash I was out the door and racing toward the hedge in a night so black it was frightening. The damp ground fog swirled about my legs, and far behind me I heard him calling my name.