Garden of the Moon (24 page)

They moved together in perfect time until their movements became faster, more frantic, more insistent. Suddenly, the world around her exploded. Sensation after sensation rushed through her. Jonathan cried out her name over and over. Not until her lungs seared with pain did she gasp for breath.

Jonathan collapsed on her and buried his face in her neck. Their labored breathing filled the silence in the room. Then, when he was able to speak again, he propped himself up on one elbow and smoothed the hair from her face.

“I love you. I have always and will always love you. We were meant to be together, and we shall. I promise.”

We were meant to be together
.

His words cut through the fog of spent passion blanketing her brain. Did he know? Was he aware of what they’d been cheated out of because of the lies perpetuated by the Graysons?

Sara opened her mouth to ask him, but the room began to spin. She closed her eyes. Her stomach heaved with the motion. Then it stopped.

Dazed, she looked around. She was lying in her bed wearing her nightdress, the bed linens neat and covering her to her chin. Outside the light from the morning sun was just peeping over the tree tops.

Had it all been a dream
?

Tentatively, she ran her fingertips over her mouth and found her lips tender from his kisses. Her thighs felt moist. Her body more alive than ever before. None of it the product of a dream.

Finally, she irrevocably belonged to Jonathan, body and soul.

Chapter 20

As they picked their way through the underbrush growing beneath the pomegranate trees, Julie threw a sidelong glance at Sara. “I missed you at breakfast, but Raina said you slept in this morning. I must say it did you good. You’re looking better than I’ve seen you look in days.”

Sara smiled, but refrained from commenting on what Julie had said. Instead she hugged her new secret close and steered the conversation to an entirely different subject. “Did you know that these trees were said to have come from ones that Thomas Jefferson grew at Monticello?” She pulled two ruby red pomegranates from a low hanging limb and added them to the picnic basket they carried between them. “Gran said my grandfather loved them made into syrup and then poured over fruit compote.”

Julie stopped and placed a hand on her hip. Squinting into the sun, she studied Sara. “Am I to gather from the change of subject that you’re not going to talk about whatever it is that has put that sappy smile on your face?”

Unable to contain her joy any longer, Sara let go of the basket’s handle and threw up her hands as though reaching to touch the clear blue sky and then danced in circles. Her dress billowed out around her like a colorful mushroom. “I’m in love, Julie. Gloriously and wonderfully in love.”

Julie didn’t speak or join in Sara’s happiness. Instead she frowned. Taking Sara’s arm, Julie guided her to a large grassy area shaded by the spreading limbs of an oak tree draped in silvery Spanish moss. “Let’s eat here.”

Julie spread the tablecloth Chloe had tucked around the basket’s contents and kneeled down on the edge of it. Sara set the basket on the tablecloth and began unpacking their lunch of fried chicken, sliced tomatoes, fresh baked biscuits, two glasses, and an old wine bottle Chloe had filled with lemonade and recorked. Along with the food, she’d added plates, napkins and silverware.

They filled their plates and ate in silence, enjoying the company and the balmy river breeze that cooled the afternoon heat. Neither of them spoke. Each lost in their own thoughts. When they’d finished, they stowed everything back in the basket.

Sara laid back and stared up at the azure sky and watched a hawk tracing slow circles above them in its quest for an unwary field mouse. It circled several times, each circle lower to the ground, and then it swooped down. Moments later, it rose with small, wriggling body in its beak. The hawk flew off into the sun, no doubt taking the mouse back to his nest to feed his family. Even recognizing it as the natural order of things, Sara mourned the fate of the poor tiny mouse.

“Sara?” Julie had reclined beside her and now she propped herself on one elbow and peered down into Sara’s face.

“Hmm.”

“I’m not going to tell you that I understand any of what’s been happening with you for the past few weeks. Because I can’t even begin to pretend that I do. But I do know that, even though at first I didn’t believe any of it, I have never seen you so driven about anything as you have been about Jonathan.” Julie laughed lightly and plucked nervously at the blades of grass overlapping the edge of the tablecloth. “Of course, that’s not counting your efforts to free yourself of your mother.” She raised herself to a sitting position. “Despite the fact that I can’t see him, nor do I think I ever will, in my heart, I truly believe that you do. Nothing else could bring the kind of happiness to your face that I saw a little while ago.” She touched Sara’s arm where it lay over her stomach. “If there is anything I can do to help, you have only to ask.”

Sara covered Julie’s hand with her own. “You just did.” Tears burned her eyes. “You are the best friend anyone ever had. How many people would blindly accept that their friend was in love with a ghost and offer to help?” She sat up and pulled Julie to her in a tight hug. “Thank you, my friend.”

Julie sighed, drew away, and righted herself. “Just allow me the right to worry about you.”

“There’s nothing to worry about. Katherine wants to scare me, not hurt me. If she wanted to hurt me, she would have done it by now.”

Julie looked at her with skepticism written all over her face. “Hmm. Let’s see…pushing you into the river, almost crushing you with a dresser, setting your bedroom on fire…all done because she didn’t want to
hurt you
, right?”

Sara turned away, unwilling to allow Julie to see the fear Sara knew was plainly visible in her eyes. Not for a moment did she believe her own words. If Katherine could prevent her from having Jonathan by hurting her, Sara had not a doubt that she would.

***

With memories of what she’d shared with Jonathan the night before running through her mind, and dreams of it happening again during the hours of darkness to come, Sara strolled along the upper gallery of Harrogate and stared off into the beauty of the impending sunset. The sky above the oak trees lining the drive to the house glowed with streaks of orange, purple and gold. Fluffy clouds gilded in the colors of the setting sun hovering over the horizon to the west. A mocking bird sang out its monotonous call somewhere down the drive. The early evening twilight hung heavy with the perfume of the flowers in the garden. In every respect, a perfect ending to a lovely day and perhaps an even lovelier night yet to come.

Sara grinned. She ran her hands down her arms, recalling the feel of Jonathan’s skin next to hers, the gentleness of his touch, the tenderness of his exquisite lovemaking. She’d heard the girls at boarding school whisper about
doing it
with a man, but from their crude descriptions of the pain and humiliation they expected to experience, they had no idea what a beautiful, spiritual thing that giving yourself to someone you love could be. They’d probably been indoctrinated by women like her own mother who believed it was something a woman did out of the necessity to produce an heir and not something that any self-respecting woman would actually enjoy.

Despite enjoyment of the act of making love being heavily frowned on by the society in which she lived, but Sara didn’t care. She would not exchange that one night with Jonathan for immortality.

Her smile deepened. How could she feel so content when so much of her life was in turmoil? But she did, and she had a good idea why, Jonathan was forever hers in every way possible, and Katherine would never have him no matter what nefarious scheme she came up with to stop them.

Almost as satisfying was the knowledge that Julie finally believed her. That one fact meant more to Sara than she could express. Julie had been her dearest friend for…forever, and to have her doubt her and be at odds with her was something Sara had hated. But no more. Even though there were still many unanswered questions for both of them, that Julie believed Sara and would help her made the burden seem much lighter.

Turning her body into the breeze, she rested her palms on the railing, and raised her face skyward to inhale the aromas of the waning day. Because of the work of the field hands her father had sent to her, Harrogate had come into its own, a home she could be proud to own, the showplace Sara remembered from her childhood visits to her grandmother.

That tangle of kudzu vines that had choked out the shrubs and flowers had been removed, leaving them free to bloom, to spread their branches unhampered, and to cast their perfume into the humid air. The drive, once cluttered with fallen twigs, dried leaves, and small limbs was now cleared, opened to welcome all visitors. The Garden of the Moon had been weeded and trimmed and the gazebo painted and repaired. Both temple dogs had been scrubbed free of the lichen and moss that had coated them and they now stood as proud sentinels guarding against evil outside the moongate.

Harrogate itself had been whitewashed and gleamed snowy white in the sunlight like a virgin bride on her wedding day and golden like an old matron under the setting sun. To anyone coming down the drive, Harrogate greeted them in all her finery, as stately, serene and welcoming as Jonathan had meant her to be.

Oddly content, Sara let her mind drift to the night to come and Jonathan’s possible return. Before she could fully form the thoughts, hands pushed at her back. Shock, panic and absolute terror ravaged her body and her mind. In terror, she seized the railing. She tried to turn to see who it was, but the hands against her back kept her from moving anywhere but toward the long drop to the ground below.

To prevent herself from tumbling over the side, she clutched the railing ever tighter. The insistent hands continued to shove at her back. Splinters dug painfully into her palms. Pushing the pain to the back of her mind, she strengthened her grip. But sweat coated her palms and her grip slipped.

Her upper body began to pitch forward. Her feet started to slide out from under her. She fought to keep them securely on the floor, knowing if she lost her balance, she would go over the railing. But the hands at her back were stronger and more insistent.

Sara looked down through fear widened eyes. The ground, though covered in grass, seemed miles away. If she fell, she’d surely die or, at the very least, end up with a variety of broken bones. Terror gripped her with icy fingers. The tips of her fingers began to tingle from the pressure being exerted on them. Then slowly, they began to go numb. She had to concentrate on keeping them bent to maintain her hold on the railing.

The pressure at her shoulder blades increased. She felt herself leaning out over the ground below.

A cold, maniacal voice filtered into her thoughts.

You think you have him, but you don’t. He’s mine, and he’ll always be mine. Even though you spread your legs for him like some Bourbon Street whore, he’s still mine, bitch. You should have stayed in New Orleans. Now, you will die
.

The voice was terrifyingly familiar. There was no mistaking the derogatory sarcasm that imbued each phrase. It was the same voice that had berated Floree for being late.

Katherine
.

Cold horror such as she’d never known seeped through Sara’s body. She opened her mouth to scream for help, but no sound emerged. It was as though the same cold hand at her back had grasped her vocal cords, freezing them and rendering her incapable of communication.

On her own, she could do nothing but fight for her survival. But the hands at her back were relentless and pushed harder. Terrorized, she gazed over the railing, knowing she was powerless to stop the inevitable.

Then her feet lost their traction and slipped from beneath her. Her hands ripped loose from the railing. Suddenly, she catapulted over the side and plummeted in slow motion toward the ground. Her scream echoed through the humid afternoon. A sharp pain cut through her head and then there was no more.

***

“My love. Are you all right?”

Jonathan’s voice came to Sara from a distance. She tried to move, but her entire body ached. Forcing her eyes open, she stared up at his dear face hovering above her. Gasping to reclaim the air that the force of her landing had pushed from her lungs, she attempted to sit up, but he stopped her with a gentle hand to her arm.

“Don’t move. You don’t want to do more damage than has already been done.”

She strained against the restraint. “I…I’m fine. I ache…a bit, but I…don’t think anything is broken.” Finally, he relented and she eased herself to a sitting position. Painful needles attacked every part of her body.

Experimentally, she flexed her arms and legs and although the pain shooting through them told her that tomorrow she would have bruises aplenty, they all worked as they should. Something warm ran down her cheek. She wiped at it, and then looked at her fingers to find them smeared with blood.

“You struck your head when you went over the railing. I believe it knocked you out. There’s a rather nasty looking cut on your forehead.” Jonathan wiped at it with his handkerchief.

She glanced at the railing high above them. That she hadn’t broken her neck, which was probably the intended end to this event, could be nothing but a miracle.

“It was Katherine, wasn’t it?”

He nodded. “She’s gone now.”

“Why would she do something like that? She’s never actually hurt me before.”

“She can see that you’re not going to give up, and she’s desperate to stop us from being together before…” Though he’d left the rest unsaid, Sara knew he was thinking about his and Maddy’s plan to run away and get married. His beautiful brown eyes grew sad. “I’m worried about you and what she’ll do next. Perhaps you should give up.”

“No!” Terrified more than she had been gazing over the balcony railing, she clutched at his jacket lapels. A sharp pain shot through her arm. She cried out and let go. “I will…not give up. Let her do her best to stop me, but I will not give you to her.” She gazed up at him. “I love you, Jonathan. Katherine cannot change that, not after last night. I am yours. Forever.”