"Tony gave you the grand tour."
"I'll say. Of course, he's very proud of it, proud of what it is, proud of what he has made of it, and proud of what it can continue to be," Logan added. "He's a fascinating man, shrewd, very clever about business and about politics. I never realized what Tatterton Toys really is until he explained it just now."
"Is that so?" I sat back, a half smile on my face. Logan was acting like a bedazzled little boy.
He smiled and I threw my arms around him and kissed him. It was a long, passionate kiss. His embrace tightened and I felt the tingling that made me press my body closer to his.
"Every time I kiss you," I murmured into his ear, "I remember our first kiss. Remember?"
"Yes. I do remember," he whispered, but I had been the forward one. He had walked me home and stood there on the trail. I was so thrilled with the way he had fought for me that day that I couldn't wait for him to get up enough nerve to take me into his arms.
"You said, 'Logan, would it be all right and not too much like Fanny if I kissed you just once for being so exactly what I want?' And then you kissed me, but so passionately. . ."
I turned away from him.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing," I said. Then I gave him my most seductive smile.
"We have some time before dinner," I cooed flirtatiously.
"To start the honeymoon," he added, smiling widely, licentiously.
"Oh, Logan, I . . ."
He took me into his arms and kissed me. Then he began to undress me. I closed my eyes and let the s
ensuality of his touch erase all my thoughts. I let myself go completely to the will of our bodies together.
As Logan and I moved beside each other his kisses and caresses pulled me down into a sea of tenderness. And when he entered my body, the light of his love chased away all the shadows of my dark forbidden love. This was how it would be now, Logan and Heaven, Logan touching me, Logan kissing me, Logan caressing me, Logan making love to me with such tenderness. Not the wild forbidden passion I had known with Troy, not the sort of all-consuming love that made the world disappear and left you clinging only to love like a life raft in a turbulent sea, but the safe, gentle, lapping waves of love that were comfortable, soothing, like a warm pond in summer, like my life with Logan was meant to be.
Afterward, Logan fell asleep curled in my arms. In the dim haze of twilight I looked around me. Here I was, again at Farthy, having just made love to my husband. Years ago, within these walls, had my mother pressed her young body just as eagerly against her mother's husband to begin my maddening existence?
I closed my eyes. I understood how it was that ghosts lived on. They lived on in us, haunted us by making us thirst for the same things. My mother lived on in my desires. But my desires were pure, wholesome, for now I desired only my husband and would never desire anyone else. I nestled against Logan's warm, peaceful, sleeping body.
THREE Offerings
. WHEN I AWOKE THE NEXT MORNING LOGAN WAS GONE. THE sun through the window sheers awakened me, and I turned to my new husband for morning hugs and kisses, only to be greeted by an empty pillow. "Logan?" I called. I quickly leapt from the bed and ran to the bathroom, tapping gently on the door. "Logan?" No sound greeted me, no rushing shower, no sweet morning songs from a happy husband at his morning ablutions. When I was a little girl, I always dreamed of the happy morning scene of my husband shaving, while I sat on the tub watching his masculine rituals. And already that morning had been stolen from me--and on the first morning of my honeymoon! And I thought I knew who had stolen it--the one who seemed to want always to steal my love and keep it for himself alone--Tony.
I remembered at dinner last night, Tony had insisted on showing Logan around the Tatterton Toy Factory today. "Oh, and you must come along as well, Heaven. After all, someday it will all be yours and Logan's," he added with a wink to Logan. I wasn't going to let Tony lure me into his old plan of bringing me into his business again. "No," I had insisted, "Logan and I were planning to have breakfast in bed tomorrow and spend a leisurely day strolling the grounds of Farthy, weren't we, darling?" But Logan was already caught in Tony's web, intrigued by the promise of Tony's attention, hypnotized by the way Tony already treated him as a member of the family and heir.
I dressed in a bright floral-print voile dress that was part of my trousseau and started downstairs, figuring Logan might be breakfasting with Tony. Just as I rounded the head of the stairs, I heard the shrill, girlish voice of Jillian:
"Do I look especially beautiful today? This is such a special day. Tell me, am I the most beautiful of all? Am I? Am I?"
"You are, dear, the most beautiful of all," I heard Martha Goodman assure her.
I felt, with the disappearance of my husband, and the strange sounds emanating from Jillian's room, that the twist-ea world of Farthy was reaching out to trap me in its gnarled arms again. Almost against my will I was drawn to Jillian's suite. Oh, where was Logan, and why had I agreed to come here before our honeymoon? I should have known that nothing would have improved, that things would only have gotten worse.
"Martha?" I called. Martha Goodman appeared in the doorway. "Martha, what's going on?" I asked.
"Oh, nothing too unusual, Heaven," she replied, as if Jillian's voice always trembled the halls. "Mr. Tatterton was here late last night and he got Miss Jillian very excited about the reception. I didn't think she would remember him visiting her and telling her, but she's been preparing herself since daybreak."
"Then she realizes I am here and that I have gotten married," I said quickly.
"Oh, no." Martha shook her head sadly. "I'm afraid not."
"Well . . . how did Tony explain the reception?"