Mountain Laurel Read online

  They evaded the bees, but they were soaking wet with icy water. When Maddie started to scold him, he grinned and held up a fistful of honeycomb. Unfortunately, it was honeycomb that was covered with angry bees.

  In seconds they were swatting at bees, Maddie trying to keep her balance as she danced at the end of the chain linking her to ’Ring. But, no matter how many bees attacked them, ’Ring still hung on to that comb.

  Now they sat together by the big fire that ’Ring had built, huddled in their wet clothes. There was nothing else to wear, nothing to cover themselves with if they should remove their clothes. And there were no hot drinks to warm their insides.

  “I’m sorry that I got you into this,” ’Ring said. “If I’d been more alert last night, that man wouldn’t have been able to—”

  “It’s all right. Even my—” She had been going to say that even her father had been ambushed a few times, but she refrained herself. “It’s not so bad. I’ve had a good time today. It’s taken my mind off my problems.”

  “Laurel,” he said softly.

  Maddie drew in her breath sharply. She wasn’t going to ask him how much he knew, because he obviously knew more than he should. “I’m tired and I’m cold. I think I’ll go to bed.” She started to stand up but then the chain rattled. She’d almost forgotten it.

  He stood with her. “You’d be safe in your tent now under half a dozen blankets if it weren’t for me.” He looked down at her. “You want to go back in the morning? We can be there by this time tomorrow and we can get these cuffs off.”

  “I…I don’t know,” she said, and she really didn’t know what she wanted to do. He was the most confusing man. “Why couldn’t you have stayed that man I first met? I really hated that man. The way you put your foot on the stool! And that horse of yours trying to eat my coach! Oh, damn you, why did you have to change?”

  He smiled at her. “I didn’t change. You thought you knew me and you didn’t, that’s all.”

  She moved as far away from him as she could get. “I can’t figure out who you are. Are you the man Toby talks about or are you that dreadful man I first met?”

  “A little of both, I guess, and maybe a few more besides that.” His voice lowered. “What does it matter what kind of man I am? In a few more days you’ll go back east and you’ll probably never see me again.”

  She looked away from him. “Yes, that’s true.” She imagined going to John and telling him the truth as to why she’d had to go west and sing and hoping that John would forgive her and be her manager again. She looked back up at ’Ring and thought of pearls in soup bowls and silk dresses created by that new man, Worth, and somehow it didn’t seem like a very fulfilling life.

  Suddenly, Madame Branchini’s words echoed in her head: “You can have your music or you can have a man. One or the other, not both.” So far it had been easy to choose.

  She shivered at the first drops of rain and clasped her arms about her chest, dragging ’Ring’s arm with her.

  “Come on,” he said, and swept her into his arms and carried her to the overhanging rock ledge. She sat to one side while he used the steel and flint to start a fire on the dried grasses that he’d earlier brought to the ledge, and within minutes he had a fire going. She sat and watched him as he fed deadfall to the fire and soon had a blaze.

  At last he sat back, then opened his arms to her. I shouldn’t, she thought, I really shouldn’t, but she went to him just the same and he held her tightly. “We do fit together,” she murmured.

  “What were you thinking about just now?” he asked, snuggling his chin onto the top of her head.

  “You,” she said sincerely.

  “I’m glad. I’m glad that you’re at least able to see me.”

  “How ridiculous. I’ve always seen you. From the first moment that I saw—”

  “No, you haven’t. You decided what I was that first moment, and you haven’t changed your mind yet. You thought I was, let’s see if I get this right, a pompous, overbearing know-it-all.”

  “You are, you know.”

  “No more so than you are.”

  “Ha!”

  On the far side of the ledge the rain came down in cold, heavy sheets, but inside there was a fire and her clothes were beginning to dry, and even the wet parts that were next to him were beginning to feel much warmer.

  “It’s odd to think that I’ve known you only a short time,” she said. “Sometimes I think I’ve known you forever. I remember the first time I sang at La Scala. It seems to me you were there, telling me that I’d do a good job, and then you kissed me on the forehead before I went onstage.”

  She snuggled against him. “Why do you think I feel this way? No one else has ever made me feel this way. Even as long as I spent with John, as much time as I spent with him, I always distinctly remembered a time when I didn’t know him.”

  “Do you really not know how much alike we are?”

  “I can’t see that we’re alike at all. You can’t sing, we’ve proven that, and there doesn’t seem to be much else to my life except singing.”

  “That’s exactly what makes us alike. You said that my childhood must have been spent outside in the sunshine, and in a way it was, but not in the way you mean. I started working in my family’s business when I was twelve. I was making major decisions by the time I was fourteen.”

  “Oh,” she said sadly. “Were you very poor? Did you have to quit school?”

  He smiled. “Just the opposite. Have you ever heard of Warbrooke Shipping?”

  “I think so. I think I may have traveled on some of their ships.” She turned to look at him. “Warbrooke? Isn’t that the name of the town where you grew up? Do you work for them?”

  “My family owns Warbrooke Shipping.”

  She turned back around. “Oh, then I guess that makes you wealthy.”

  “Very. Does it make any difference to you?”

  “It explains your horse and your perfectly cut uniform and your education and having a servant like Toby.”

  He didn’t tell her how pleased he was that his wealth didn’t matter to her. Sometimes, where women were concerned, having money was a hindrance. Sometimes they saw the money and not the man. “Some servant he is.”

  “Tell me about Toby and why you think we’re alike.”

  ’Ring took a deep breath before he spoke. “You and I have been alone. I sensed it a few days after we met, but after you told me about your childhood, I knew you were as alone as I have been.”

  “But I have never been alone. I have always been surrounded by my family, and later I had John and a hundred social engagements. I have had far too little time alone.”

  “No, that’s not what I mean. Perhaps alone isn’t the right word. Different. You and I have always been different.”

  “I have been different, but I can’t see that you are.”

  “My father is a good man, a very good man. He has a heart of gold. He would give the shirt off his back to any man who needed it. He would give up his own life before he’d see one of his children harmed. But—”

  “But what?”

  “To be honest, the man has no head for business. He can’t sit still long enough to do the paperwork required to run a company the size of Warbrooke Shipping, and a sunny day is to him an opportunity to go fishing or go on a picnic with my mother.”

  “That doesn’t sound too bad. Sometimes I wish I had more time to devote to pleasure.”

  “You can’t devote all your life to pleasure when there is a company like ours to manage. There are thousands of employees depending on us. What we pay them feeds their families.”

  “And your father forgot that?”

  “I guess so. Forgot or never realized.”

  “So that’s why you were involved in the company since you were a child?”

  “Yes, I don’t know how it happened. I was curious, and my father praised me whenever I did anything that helped him. It all seemed to have evolved rather gradually.”

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