EXCERPT Spring 1991 Later on, after the fear had fled and the hurting stopped, she would realize it was the house that she had fallen in love with first. But for now Kacey Mallory could only stare, speechless and dreamy, at the towering walls of weathered stone before her. Lichen-covered, with climbing roses spilling color over its ancient gray towers, Draycott Abbey was a vision of heart-stopping beauty. Even more jarring, it was somehow familiar. In some strange way, she felt as if she were coming home. But that was impossible, of course. Home was three thousand miles away, in western Connecticut. Kacey felt her breath catch. The sun was going down behind her, pouring golden light over the valley, painting the Abbey's mullioned windows a fiery crimson. To be here at last. To feel so strangely at home, as if she were returning from years of wandering. What in the name of heaven was wrong with her? This massive granite structure was no more hers than was Balmoral Castle! And yet the dark feeling of familiarity persisted. Along with something else--a hunger so tangible that it hurt. Abruptly she dropped her canvas bag and rubbed a slim hand across her eyes. The blurring was only to be expected after twenty-two hours of traveling. Yes, that must be the source of this strange disorientation. She closed her smoky-green eyes, then warily reopened them. Nothing had changed. Just as before, the abbey gleamed back at her. Like a jewel, Kacey thought, set within an emerald ocean of manicured lawns. And flowers everywhere, a scattering of pinks, sweet alyssum and madonna lilies. Something had told here there would be lilies. A shiver ran down her spine. "Next thing, you'll be following a white rabbit right down its little hole, Katherine Chelsea." Still muttering, she tossed her bag over her shoulder and crossed the last feet of lawn onto a narrow graveled path that wound up to the house. So this was Draycott Abbey--or what was left of the medieval structure. Built in 1255. Nearly burned to the ground in 1645 during the "troubles" with Cromwell. Partially restored a year later, and entirely refurbished in 1793, after the eight Viscount Draycott made a number of clever investments in the Orient. Kacey could have gone on forever about this house, quoting chapter and verse of its long, rich history--right down to the ghost of an ancient ancestor who was said to pace the battlements on moonless nights, sad-eyed and travel-weary, a rose crushed between his long fingers. Yes, she knew the gray granite structure by heart, from its Jacobean long gallery on the fourth floor to the stained-glass windows on the north front facing the quiet moat. It was an imposing house. A magical house. A house of many secrets, she suspected. Once again, a shiver worked its way down her spine. Gripping her bag, she started toward the gatehouse perched just outside the silver moat. As she walked, she flung back a handful of honey-gold hair, entirely unaware of the way the sun gilded her fragile cheekbones to a glowing porcelain. Entirely unaware of the way her hair flashed like gold upon her shoulders. Had she known what was waiting for her just beyond the ancient stone gatehouse, Kacey Mallory might never have taken another step…. |
