Susan Speers Read Free Page B

Thank God he was alive.
    “Here,” he offered the muddy bundle to me. I shook my head. What good were maps if Belle was lost?
    “Clarry,” his voice was weak. “Take her”
    I couldn’t believe I held Belle’s dear form in my hands, covered in the slimy wreck of her costume. My beloved friend, my last memory of my mother. In that moment, my love for Jeremy filled my heart. That rich, sweet love for him has never left me. When he saw my love for him bloom, his face relaxed, weary, but filled with love for me.
    I could not stop weeping that I nearly lost him, with sorrow for his loss, that he saved Belle, that he lost the precious maps. He held me close and patted my back.
    “Why Belle?” I asked him, when I could speak.
    “I saved what mattered.” I held him tighter and dropped my head on his shoulder. In his arms, I felt cherished and protected. I saw my happy future. Jeremy would keep me safe forever, and our children would inherit Hethering.
    “You know now, don’t you, Clarry.” Jeremy’s voice was deep and true.
    “I know.” I closed my eyes when he kissed me.
    I opened them to see my father stare at us from a short distance away. Two high spots of color blazed on his face and the expression in his cold eyes frightened me. He turned on his heel and stalked back to Hethering without a word.

Chapter Three
     
    The blow fell swift and final. The morning after Belle’s accident, Jem and Mr. Pickety did not appear for lessons. Miss Prinn sent a note to Leighton House and its reply left her pale with shock.
    “Jemmy —Jeremy,” she corrected herself, “leaves for the Darby School tomorrow morning.”
    In an instant I was as pale as she, then my face stung with heat as if slapped. “My father did this.”
    “We knew this day would come,” Miss Prinn began.
    “Not like this. This is wrong, this is punishment. I want to see Jeremy, I have to.”
    She hesitated. “He damaged a valuable document?”
    “That was my fault. He musn’t be punished for it, for the sake of some old maps. He’ll be lost without Hethering.” I’d be lost without him.
    I ran from the schoolroom, down countless flights of stairs, through endless miles of corridor, my footsteps muted by thick carpet, my progress witnessed by a series of fish eyed portraits. I beat my fists on Father’s heavy study door.
    His secretary admitted me, taken aback by my angry, disheveled appearance. Father dismissed him, then came to the other side of his desk to fix me with a gimlet stare, but I stood my ground and glared up at him,
    “I’m the one to blame.” My voice rang in my ears. “I knocked the maps into the water. Jem tried to rescue them.”
    “Tried and failed. Chose to fail.” So Father knew it all.
    “Punish me instead.” His slight smile told me he would punish us both.
    “Jeremy has been granted the freedom of this estate for too long. I indulged him because he is heir, but my trust was abused.”
    “It was an accident.”
    “One I’ll not allow a second time.”
    “I want to see him.” I would beg if necessary.
    “Christmas holidays will come.” They were months away and I had not lived one day of my life without Jem. I opened my mouth to protest, but Father’s words stopped mine.
    “Your good behavior will earn Jeremy’s holidays at Hethering. Otherwise he’ll remain at school.”
    Father’s secretary escorted me back to Miss Prinn’s care. I put my head down on my folded arms and remained so for the rest of the day.
    I didn’t sleep that night. The moon hid behind rolling black clouds. The hall clock chimed two, then I heard a scrabbling sound against my windowpane. It came again. I raised the sash, then ducked to avoid a third shower of pebbles. Jem stood below.
    “The Tower,” he said. The folly on the hill.
    I dressed quickly and ran through the night to meet him.
    He stood, stiff with misery, waiting in the darkest shadows of the tower.
    “Jemmy.” I wept, panting from exertion.
    “Don’t cry,