Love Remembered by Fisher Ellen

Author:Fisher, Ellen [Fisher, Ellen]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2010-06-23T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

The flames leaped and danced around Gwaltney, the billowing smoke choking him, the unbearable heat burning his throat and eyes. He huddled in the corner, knowing with agonizing certainty that he was going to die. And then the flames parted, and a figure, draped in a patchwork quilt, appeared.

Gwaltney stared through the flames, hope springing to life in him for the first time. He had not been abandoned in the conflagration. Someone had come to save him. Someone had cared enough for him to save his life.

And then the apparition threw back the quilt, and for the first time he could see its face, lit by the eerie orange light. He stared in horror.

The empty eye sockets of a skull looked back at him.

Gwaltney awakened with a violent start in his bedchamber. He lay still for a few moments, aware of his own terrified gasping, of the sweat that soaked the linen sheets. These nightmares, these horrifying distorted memories, were what sent him racing from his bedchamber every now and then. Despite the fact that he had carefully designed the bedchamber so that he could usually sleep in it, he could not stay here with the memory of smoke filling his mind. He could still smell the smoke, feel the savage heat on his face, and the thought of being indoors, of being trapped inside, was utterly unbearable. Panic seared through him, driving away his customary calm and replacing it with terror.

Hastily he scrambled from the bed, threw on clothing, and fled from the house, into the safety of the dark night.

*****

In the morning Cordelia sat by her window, peering through the Venetian blinds, until she saw Gwaltney leave the house. He was dressed in laborer’s clothes--coarse homespun breeches, a plain, unruffled shirt, and an uncocked, wide-brimmed straw hat. Clearly he was going to the fields to work.

Once he had disappeared, she rose to her feet, caught up a piece of paper, and made her way purposefully out of her chamber and across the central hall, knocking on a door. There was no answer, but of course she had not expected one. She pushed the heavy door open.

“Mary? It’s me, Cordelia.”

As she had expected, the little girl was sitting on the rag rug in her chamber in a pool of sunlight, playing with a Jacob’s ladder, a popular toy, and next to her was the faithful Django. The little girl looked up and grinned widely, and at the same time the dog’s tail thumped out a welcome on the floor. Cordelia entered the chamber, trying to maintain her dignity and conceal how delighted she was by this enthusiastic welcome. With a great deal of effort she managed to repress her wide smile.

She sat down on the floor next to the little girl. Django wiggled over next to her and thrust his head into her lap, and she patted him absently, totally uncaring of the quantity of white hairs that were adhering to her dark green silk riding habit. She had lived too many years caring nothing for her gowns to begin worrying about them now.

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