The Glass Castle Page 16

  ‘What?’ In an instant his face had a look of dark ferocity that sent a quick wave of fear right through Heron. ‘What the hell are you saying? Do you know what you’re saying?’

  ‘Of course I know! I’m not a child!’ She flung back her red hair and her eyes defied him despite the fear that was knocking at her heart. ‘I know all about you and what you’ve been. I should have guessed before that you have killed—’

  ‘So!’ The heavy lids seemed to come down in menace over his eyes. ‘You’ve heard something about me—something which you imagine is so terrible that it makes you behave like Desdemona with her Moor! My dear Heron—’

  ‘I’m not your dear anything,’ she flung back at him. ‘I’m just the wretched, silly fool who married you! Well, having done it, I’ll try to act the part. Does the perfume please you, my lord? Is my night robe fetching enough?’

  ‘Stop this, Heron, this instant!’ Suddenly he had lifted her into his arms and was carrying her to the bed ... which earlier on had seemed to her a fit setting for the suffocation of Desdemona. He dropped her down upon the silk coverlet and the next instant he was leaning over her, holding her a prisoner with his lean, hard body; looking down into her wild eyes with his quizzical gaze.

  ‘So I’ve killed,’ he murmured. ‘Many soldiers have to.’

  ‘Y-you were a mercenary. I-I found your photograph so pleased with yourself—so altogether the soldier of fortune.’ She stared up at him, at the sapphire eyes above the terrible scar.

  ‘I killed.’ He touched his cheek. ‘And nearly was killed.’

  ‘Y-you were paid to fight—’

  ‘Sure, I was a major in a mercenary army. Does such a commission make me a pariah?’

  ‘How could you—?’

  ‘Believe me, the cause was freedom for a repressed people, ruled over by a tyrant. Now I suppose you’re thinking yourself a victim of my tyranny?’

  ‘Why did you never tell me? Why did you keep it to yourself, as if it were something shameful?’

  ‘Heron, child, there seemed to be a reason for keeping several things to myself.’ There was a whimsical, half-sighing note in his voice.

  ‘W-what other things?’ He was very close to her, but she was no longer lashing about like an animal in distress. A curious languor seemed to be stealing over her, something never felt before and which she had not the faintest urge to fight. She couldn’t make out the feeling and could only suppose that her body felt his superior strength and didn’t wish to be hurt. No, she thought achingly, the idea of being hurt was unendurable ... and she quivered as his hand touched her shoulder, bared by the angle at which she lay, so the silk-chiffon was pulled to one side.

  ‘For instance,’ he murmured, ‘that even when I was a youth of sixteen I thought you adorable. You were such a proud and spirited little minx, who used to pull the heads off the flowers and paint crayon figures all over the white wall of the kitchen garden. You may not remember, for you were very young, but I’ve never forgotten a single detail of those far-off days at Memory, when I worked there as gardener’s boy.’

  Heron lay very still absorbing his words, and now she felt his arms close around her, and deep in his deep blue eyes there was a glowing, beckoning, fierce yet lambent fire, building up from a spark lit long ago, spreading in his eyes, until they seemed to burn with the power and passion of a great longing, a long time suppressed but now on the verge of engulfing her.

  ‘You,’ she whispered. ‘It was you!’

  ‘You fell in the lake grabbing at a water-lily.’ His face came closer to her and his lips were smiling only inches from her lips. ‘My lovely Heron, I’ve loved you ever since the moment I brought you out of the lake at Memory, howling like a little banshee, wet and bedraggled as a little goldfish. But I was a mere boy of sixteen and I had nothing—and I wanted everything so that I might give it all to you. I left Memory and went searching the world for my fortune—and it’s true, my wild, sweet Heron, I did become a soldier of fortune, and then later I worked for an Indonesian prince as a planter, then as a diplomat for his country, and I became a most respectable business man.’

  Suddenly, once again, his smile was whimsical, and just a little unsure. ‘Perhaps I could have won your sympathy if I had told you that it was I who saved you from the water, but a perverse demon in me wanted to win you without recourse to old memories involving your parents. You thought I was in love with your mother, eh? She was a graceful and lovely woman, but it was her wild bird of a daughter whom I—desired.’

  ‘Desired?’ Heron echoed after him, for now her body was letting her know why she didn’t wish to fight Edwin any more; why it felt so utterly delicious, and heavenly, to submit to his strength, to his touch, to all that he was, all that he had been ... unwanted son of an unknown mother ... gardener’s boy ... saviour ... devil... husband.

  ‘Loved,’ he said fiercely, and now his lips were only an inch from hers and she seemed to be drowning in his dark blue eyes, sapphire seas glowing around dense islands of passion. ‘In church today, when the organ music played and I knew you were coming along the aisle to my side, I didn’t dare to look at you in case it was all just a dream and you would melt away from me ... as you did in my delirium when I was slashed by a kris in jungle fighting and my face was made demonic by this scar—’

  ‘Edwin, I love your scar!’ Her hand came swiftly to his cheek and her fingers touched his scar. ‘A kris hurt you, and a kris cut our wedding cake. I wondered ... was it symbolic for you?’

  ‘A memory of pain... a longing for love,’ he said softly. ‘If, Heron, you want me to leave you alone, then I’ll do so. But if you want me to stay—?’

  ‘Stay!’ Her arms closed about his neck. ‘Oh yes, I want you to stay!’

  ‘Now,’ his lips brushed hers, a fleeting fire, a promise of rapture, ‘and always?’

  ‘Till death us do part.’ An echo of her words spoken in church for a reason she had not realized ... and was now overwhelmingly aware of. Desire and longing ached in her bones ... and her heart crushed close to Edwin’s was filled with him ... brimming with him. ‘Kiss me ... kiss me,’ she whispered.

  And when he did so heaven overwhelmed her.