Dark Angel (Casteel 2)

Doomed? I shivered and clung to him, suddenly washed over with the stunning realization of just what his poetry was all about. Mortality! Insecurity! Wishing for an early death because life was disappointing!

But I was here now!

Never again would he feel needing, or lonely, or disappointed, and with desperate passion I began to unbutton his jacket, as my lips pressed down on his, until both of us were naked and wet, and sensuality ruled, and even if it had been snow falling outside rather than merely a light drizzle of rain, surely our burning need to possess one another time and time again would lead him onward into the future, until we were both so old death would be welcomed.

That night, even though Tony and Jillian were back, I stayed with Troy. I was not going to let him sink into his morbid fantasies. Tony or no Tony, I would stay with Troy and convince him to marry me, and Tony would have to accept it. I awoke late the next morning, knowing that Troy had at last decided to trust me, to marry me. I could hear him rattling around in the kitchen. The aroma of fresh, homemade bread wafted to my quivering nostrils. I had never felt so alive before, so beautiful and feminine and perfect. I lay with my arms crossed over my breasts, listening to the sound of the kitchen cabinets ope

ning and closing as if I were hearing Schubert's Serenade. The slam of the refrigerator was a cymbal crashing at exactly the right time. Music that wasn't there moved the hairs on my head and on my skin. All my life I'd been searching for what I felt now, and then I was crying from the relief of knowing the search was over.

He was going to marry me! He was giving me the chance to color all the rest of his life with rainbows instead of gray. Languid and sleepy-eyed, full of almost delirious happiness, I drifted toward the kitchen. Troy turned from the stove to smile at me. "We'll have to tell Tony we plan to marry, and soon."

A flutter of panic made my heart skip, but I didn't need Tony's support now. Once Troy and I were husband and wife, everything would work out fine-for him, and for me.

That very afternoon, we went hands clasped, through the maze toward Farthinggale Manor, and into the library where Tony was seated behind his desk. The late afternoon sun beamed through his windows and fell in bright patches on his colorful rug. Troy had called to tell him we were on our way, and perhaps it was wary cunning I saw on his face, and not a genuine smile of pleasure. "Well," he said on seeing our hand-holding, "you have both disregarded me, and now you come to me looking like two people very much in love."

Tony took the wind from my sails, if not Troy's, and nervously I tugged my hand free from Troy's. "It just happened," I whispered weakly.

"We're going to be married on my birthday," said Troy defiantly. "September ninth."

"Now wait a minute!" roared Tony, rising to his feet and putting both palms flat on his desk. "You have told me all your adult life, Troy, that you would never marry! And never wanted children!"

Troy reached for my hand and pulled me close to his side. "I didn't anticipate meeting anyone like Heaven. She's given me hope and inspiration to go on, despite what I believe."

As I pressed against Troy's side, Tony smiled in the oddest kind of way. "I suppose I'll just be wasting my breath if I object, and say Heaven is too young, and her background too different to make you a suitable wife."

"That's correct," said Troy staunchly. "Before the leaves of autumn fall to the ground, Heavenly and I will be on our way to Greece."

Again my heart skipped. Troy and I had only talked vaguely about a honeymoon. I had thought of some local resort where we could spend a few days, and then on to Radcliffe, where I would study English. And soon, much to my amazement, all three of us were seated on a long leather couch, making plans for the wedding. Not for one minute did I believe he was going to let that marriage occur, especially when he smiled at me time and again.

"By the way, my dear," Tony said to me pleasantly, "Winterhaven has forwarded to you a few letters without return addresses."

The only person who wrote me was Tom.

"Now we must send for Jillian and give her your good news." Was that sarcasm behind his smile? I couldn't tell, for Tony was not someone I could read.

"Thank you for accepting this so well, Tony. Especially after your reports of how I behaved when you told me about your upcoming marriage to Jillian."

At that moment Jillian sauntered into the room and fell gracefully into a chair. "What's this I hear . . . someone getting married?"

"Troy and Heaven," explained Tony, turning hard eyes on his wife, as if ordering her to say nothing to alarm either one of us, "Isn't this wonderful news to hear at the end of a perfect summer day?"

She said nothing, nothing at all. She turned those cornflower blue eyes on me, and they were blank, totally, alarmingly blank.

The wedding plans and guest lists were made that very evening, leaving me speechless with the swiftness of Tony's and Jillian's acceptance of a situation I had believed neither would allow to happen. By the time Troy and I kissed good night in the front foyer, we were both overwhelmed by the pace of Tony's plans. "Isn't Tony wonderful?" he asked. "I truly believed he'd have all sorts of objections, and he had none. All my life he's tried to give me everything I wanted."

I undressed in a daze before I remembered the two letters that Tony had put on my small desk. Both letters were from Tom, who had heard from Fanny.

"She's living in some cheap rooming house in Nashville, and wants me to write to you for money. You can bet she'd call you herself, but it seems she lost her address book, and she's never had the kind of memory to retain numbers, you know that. Besides, she keeps in touch with Pa, begging him to send money. I didn't want to give Fanny your address again without your permission. She could ruin everything for you, Heavenly, I know she could. She wants part of what you've got, and will do anything to get it, for it seems she went through that ten thousand the Wises gave her in short order." It was just what I'd feared most; Fanny didn't know one thing about handling money.

His next letter gave even more disturbing news. "I don't think be going on to college, Heavenly. Without you beside me urging me on, I just don't have the will or the desire to keep on studying. Pa's doing pretty good financially, and he never even finished grade school, so I've been thinking I'd go into his business and get married one day when I meet the right girl. It was just a joke to please you, that talk of being president of our country. Nobody would ever vote for a guy like me, with a hillbilly accent." And not one word to even hint at just what business Pa was involved in!

Three times I read over Tom's two letters. Everything wonderful was happening to me, and Tom was stuck down there in some hick town in south Georgia, giving up his dreams of becoming someone important . . . it wasn't right or fair. I couldn't believe Pa could ever be successful in any really important way. Why, I'd heard Pa say he'd never read a book through to the end, and adding a string of figures had taken him hours. What kind of work could he do that would pay well? Tom was sacrificing himself in order to help Pa! That's the conclusion I reached.

Again I raced through the moonlit, crooked paths of the maze, startling Troy out of sleep when I called his name.

He came out of dreams looking boyishly confused before he smiled. "How nice that you've come," he said sleepily.

"I'm sorry to wake you up, but I couldn't wait for morning." Switching on his bedside lamp, I handed him Tom-s two letters. please read these, then tell me what you think."