The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway (mobi ebook reader .txt) 📗

“If my face is flushed, Cousin, it is because I am angry.”

Eamon leaned over the desk. “Are you so hardened that talk of mistresses—of the women with whom men lie for pleasure alone—falls on your ears as easily as talk of the weather? I wonder why that is? Perhaps you are already fallen, kitten. Tell me, was it that little footman who ran off with the prize? Or old Pringle?”

Julia was not to be tricked twice in the same way. She sneered down her nose, her temper perfectly in control. “If it amuses you to ride roughshod over my reputation, think again before dragging the servants into it. They are hardworking, honorable men.”

Eamon’s fishy eyes glimmered, and he leaned back. “Ah, self-righteousness. The spinster’s weapon. How well you wield it already, kitten.”

Julia went cold all over. Spinsters’ weapons were no weapons at all. She was defenseless. She and Grandfather had been living in a fools’ paradise. Julia could see that now. Grandfather thought they could always go on just the same, a little girl and her hearty grandfather, with no more need to think about tomorrow than a pair of pigeons. Teaching her to be a lady, finding her a husband . . . those were problems he had always put off. His life had been an endless stream of todays, until suddenly it was over.

“Poor little kitten.” Eamon’s voice sounded almost tender. “You were a pretty child, you know. Who ever would have thought you’d end up a spinster?” He put his hands behind his head and leaned the chair back onto its hind legs. “Nothing to play with but bits of old rock. Do you know I never once saw you with a doll?” He bumped the chair back down and picked up a rock from the desk. It had been the greatest prize in Grandfather’s collection. On one flat surface was the skeleton of a small bird, as if in flight, the faint impress of its wing feathers still to be seen. Grandfather had taken a magnifying glass and shown her the incredible detail in the impression, how each feather was composed of smaller feathers—and yet the beautiful, delicate things were gone, leaving only their perfect trace in the hard rock. Eamon held the stone up and looked from it to Julia and back again. “You had a queer childhood, Julia, and it’s made you into a strange woman. Unmarketable. But I am glad of it, for if you were married and gone, I would not be able to learn from you. I must know everything about your grandfather’s talent, and you will be the one to tell me.”

“I know nothing more.”

Eamon smirked and set the stone down. “It is ironic, these noble efforts you are making to protect him. Do you know how I first discovered that your grandfather could stop time, Julia? It was you. You were the one who revealed his secret.”

“I never would have!”

“Yet you did. When you were four years old. You were a stormy little thing, all curls and eyes. You ran everywhere, at top speed, and your nurse could hardly keep up with you. One day I was driving my team up the lane behind the stables, the narrow one with tall hedges on either side. I rounded a corner, and there you were in the lane, all alone, turning in a circle with your head up, playing at making yourself dizzy. I thought it would be good sport to drive you before my team. I drove the horses right up to you and you started to run. Your skirts caught up in your little fists, running for your life.” Eamon chuckled. “Oh, it amuses me even now.”

Julia searched her memory but found nothing. How could she forget being driven before a team of horses? Perhaps it was simply too awful to remember. But it must have been the origin of her lifelong hatred of Eamon. Now, watching him laugh, she realized with calm certitude that he was more than simply cruel and selfish; he was a madman, and must have been back then, to be so vicious to a four-year-old child.

Eamon sobered. “Then, suddenly, in an instant, everything was different. You turned your head as you ran. You caught my eye, and a split second later I was on the ground in the lane, some distance back, along the way that I had come. Your grandfather was standing over me with my whip in his hand. I’m telling you, one minute I was driving along having a bit of fun, and the very next second I was on the ground being whipped by your grandfather like some dog.” He pushed his cuff back and held out his wrist, white as a bone and sprinkled with black hairs. It was laced across with an ugly, ropy scar. “I bear this scar to show for that day, and he would have cut my face if I hadn’t buried it in the dust. He branded me, like a damned convict. And you, you stood beside him, and when it was all over you said, clear as a bell, ‘You be good, Cousin Eamon, or Grandfather will freeze you in time again.’ The old man tried to hush you but it was too late. The secret was out, and I could see in his face, even as I groveled there in the dust, that you had spoken an incredible truth.”

Julia closed her eyes. It was her fault. No wonder Grandfather had drilled her in secrecy after that. She sighed and opened her eyes again. “Be that as it may, Cousin, Grandfather is dead now. His talent died with him.”

Eamon traced his finger along the edge of the desk. “Ah, but did it?”

“Of course it did.”

Eamon traced his finger back. “I’m not so sure, kitten. After that interesting afternoon I demanded that he tell me how he stopped time. He must have felt shame at his treatment of me, I think, for he revealed it