by Lora Leigh
She was barely aware of the whimper that left her throat but there was no mistaking the strength, the need in his body as he jerked her against him, holding her tight to his chest, sheltering her with his big body as one hand held her head to him.
“Listen to me,” he growled fiercely. “You don’t have to say anything, Kimber. You don’t have to do anything. Come back when you need to. Know I’ll be here. That’s all.
Damn you, this isn’t forever. I won’t let it be.” He pulled her head back, his fingers tangling in her hair, destroying the perfection of the intricate braid she had painstakingly worked the strands into. But she didn’t care.
He was holding her, his lips were on hers, his tongue taking possession of her mouth, wiping away the destructive agony piercing her soul. It wasn’t goodbye. Not yet.
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One hand gripped her hip, rocking her against his erection as his mouth ate at hers, his groan vibrating against her lips as the hunger that raged between them began to gnaw at her resolve.
“Damn, you’re going to send me up in flames right here in my driveway, woman. Is that any example for me to set for my work hands?” He dragged his lips from hers, a weary, entirely false spurt of laughter leaving his lips as he stared down at her. “I’m too old for this, baby. Now get out of here, so I can get some work done.” He stepped back from her, ripping her heart from her chest when he did so.
“Go on,” his voice softened as he nodded at the jeep. “I’ll see you soon.” She backed away. She couldn’t turn away from him.
“Soon?” She heard the desperate plea in her own voice.
“Very soon, baby,” he promised. “Anytime you need me.”
“What about when you need me?” she wondered aloud.
His expression flinched. A subtle expression of pain that had her stilling the cry in her throat.
“I’ll always need you, Kimber,” he said softly, roughly. “Always.”
* * * * *
She had turned away from him. Walked away. With every step she felt the regret grow, felt the knowledge weighing on her soul. She was making the same choice five generations of women before her had made. She was choosing the past over the future.
The further she drove away from him, the more that knowledge was driven home.
In the space of a year, he had steadily weakened her resolve, shown her laughter, patience, and a hunger she hadn’t known could exist. He had filled her dreams, waking and asleep, and he had reshaped her views of herself.
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“What now?” she asked aloud, unwilling to hold back the pain, unable to bear the separation in silence.
“Only you can answer that one, Kimberly.” Matthews reminded her that she wasn’t alone, and that the rest of the world wasn’t blind. “He’s a good man. I hope you know that.”
She glanced over at him, seeing the compassion and sympathy in his eyes.
“He’s the best,” she said slowly, her gaze returning to the road as her fingers clenched on the steering wheel.
“My daddy always said anything worth having was worth waiting on,” he finally said philosophically. “Guess you’ll have to find that one out for yourself though, huh?” Jared was worth waiting on, but for what reason? She shook her head as she watched the road, counting the miles as they separated her from the farm and the man awaiting her there. He was worth waiting on. But was she?
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Chapter Seventeen
Briar Cliff. A week later, Kimberly turned into the long driveway that led to the stately Pennsylvania estate. Huge oaks lined the paved road, casting a dappled pattern of sunlight and shade over the dark path. She had once found it comforting, the sheltering limbs as they spread over the road, embracing each arrival. Now, she found it oppressive, restraining.
Pulling into the long circular driveway, Kimberly drew in a deep breath as she attempted to control the emotions overwhelming her. She hadn’t returned to the home she had been raised in, since her mother’s death. The conditions of the Trust would have allowed her to live there; her father would have preferred it because he could not continue residence there without her. Which had been one of the main reasons she had refused to stay.
It hurt, remembering the past. For years she had tried to block the memories, to keep from reliving the pain and fear she had known as a child. To keep from remembering her mother, so frail and fragile, huddled in a corner, her arms wrapped around her body as tears streamed down her face.
She shook her head. She wasn’t here to remember, yet somehow she knew that was inescapable.
Opening the door to her beat-up sedan, she stepped outside and stared around the grounds with a sense of déjà vu. She could hear her childish laughter, her mother’s voice calling out to her, filled with amusement and…love?
Kimmie, you know your father won’t like you climbing that tree. Was it laughter? Her chest tightened with the remembrance of the smug undertones of her mother’s voice. It had been like a dare. And Kimberly had accepted it as such.
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My sweet Kimmie, don’t worry, baby, we won’t let mean ole daddy ruin our fun will we, baby…
That hadn’t been love in her voice, it had been satisfaction.
She shook her head fiercely. Was this why she had never returned? Why each time she had planned to come back to Briar Cliff something inside her had made her change her mind, there had always been something more important to do.
She pushed her hand into her jeans pocket and pulled out the single key she carried there. It would open the doors to Briar Cliff, and the memories she had fought to hold back for longer than she had realized herself.
The wide, oak, double door opened smoothly. There wasn’t a squeak or a hesitation as they swung on their well-oiled hinges.
Kimmie, this is all yours. Yours and your daughter’s and your daughter’s daughter’s. Don’t let him ever take it, Kimmie. Not ever…
She had been six, standing in the foyer after yet another of her father’s furious exits.
Her mother had been in tears, her shoulders heaving with her sobs, her green eyes shadowed with misery.
She stood in the same marble foyer, staring around her, seeing the past rather than the gleaming oak and teak wood trim, or the centuries old antique hall tables and cushioned chairs, or the priceless crystal decorations.
Over two centuries of dedication to the stately home had made Briar Cliff a resource unto itself. It was quite simply, as a whole, priceless. The trust set up six generations before had ensured that there would be no sales, no chance of mortgages, or of loss. It had grown only more valuable over the generations.
But the antiques and delicate wood carved borders were only glanced over.
Kimberly had never seen Briar Cliff as a heritage, it had been her home. But now she saw it, felt it as something more. It wasn’t a home. It wasn’t a heritage. It had been a curse.
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She moved slowly through the house, room by room, the voices of a past she hadn’t wanted to remember washing over her.
God damn you, you stupid whore. All I asked you to do was play hostess, not the slut…
You fucking bitch, he’s gone… Do you hear me? He left. Took the money your father gave him and ran. Are you so fucking lame you can’t even remember he didn’t want you…
Kimberly wanted to cover her ears, but there was no blocking the memories.
Her mother’s tears, her screams for mercy, and her father’s voice, rough-edged and filled with fury as he stood over her mother’s cowering body.
Whose do you want her to be?
Kimberly shuddered. How could she have forgotten that? She had been seven, hiding outside the drawing room, trembling in fear, terrified her father would actually hurt her mother.
She remembered her mother’s vo
ice, slurred drunkenly, smug and amused.
Her mother hadn’t been crying. Kimberly stood outside the drawing room now, staring into the shadowed room, and seeing the ghosts of what had been.
Damn you, you lying bitch, I wouldn’t believe you either way, he had screamed. She’s your daughter. Yours. And likely just as depraved and perverted as you ever were…
What had her mother done?
She moved slowly through the house, room by room. The drawing room, the family room, the dining room. In each area she relived the fights, the screaming matches, her mother’s tears, her mother’s smug vindictive words laced with her bitter sobs.
He loved me… At least he loved me…
For God’s sake, the bastard took your father’s money and left. Are you so insane you’ve forgotten that… He didn’t love you, bitch, he used you…
I could have loved you…
I never wanted your love, whore… But her father’s voice had been bitter, furious…hurt.
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Her bedroom. Her refuge. The one room her father had never stepped foot in. Her bed was still there. The wide, white-canopied confection of lace. It was a room made for a princess.
Remember, Kimmie, you’ll be free… Be free for both of us, Kimmie…
Each night her mother had whispered those words to her until her teen years, until her father had put a stop to it. He had sent Kimberly away to school. An exclusive girls’
school that had effectively placed a distance between her and the mother who had nurtured her. Who had nurtured a hatred for the father.
Why had she not remembered that?
She moved from her room, down the long hall, and to the room her mother had taken her last breath.
I was wrong… So many things… her mother had wheezed that last day. Don’t make my mistakes, Kimmie, swear to me, you won’t make my mistakes… I wanted you free, Kimmie… I wanted you free…
Free of what? Free of her father or free of Briar Cliff?
Each room she visited was more of the same. An unending collage of memories flooding her mind, her heart.
In the library, the walls were lined with the portraits of all those who had their time to possess Briar Cliff. From the first, Horace and Catherine St. Montrose. The first Briar Cliff family. It was said Catherine had been a creature of sexuality, a woman as comfortable with her body and her female desires as she was with the wealth she had inherited from her father, a Lord of the English realm. She and her husband had built Briar Cliff.
Her oldest daughter, Elizabeth St. Montrose Michaels and her husband, Hugh, wore the same happy, contented expressions of the first two. The portraits ranged around the room, a gleam of laughter, of satisfaction in the eyes of those inhabitants until she reached Tabitha Elizabeth Montageau and her husband, Diego Santiago. There was bitterness there, in Tabitha’s deep brown eyes, in the pinched contours of her lips.
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There was a sadness in her face only emphasized by the self-righteous arrogance of her husband.
It had been Tabitha who had established the Trust. Who had broken with willing the entire estate to the first-born daughter and set the restrictive and soul-destroying provisions on the inheritance. It was she, most likely at the direction of her husband, who decided that the desires the women of her line possessed were depraved and perverted and needed to be extinguished.
She had condemned her daughter and all those who came after her to a life of restriction and pain. And Kimberly had been her mother’s last hope of breaking the cycle. The Trust terminated in only five more years. But in waiting, in turning her back on what she had seen in Jared’s eyes, what would she be gaining? And what would she be losing?
Love endured. If Jared loved her, truly loved her, he would wait. He would wait.
She had seen it in his eyes, heard it in his voice. He would make that sacrifice for her.
But to what end?
She wandered over to the oaken locked shelf that she had been given the key to six years before. She knew what it contained, but she had never had the courage to open it.
Five generations of journals and diaries. Accounts of the lives, the loves, and she knew, the pain the women of Briar Cliff had endured.
Slowly, she drew the key from her pocket and opened the door on a past she had sworn she would never visit.
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Chapter Eighteen
Father has sworn Matthew Timmons will save me from the demons of lust that are the curse of my birth. I will do as he bids, but my heart breaks, for I know I will never again see my beloved Daniel… Sarah Santiago. She had been Tabitha and Diego’s first-born daughter.
Father was right. I am cursed. My female needs torment me both sleeping and awake. James is disgusted by my very presence, of course. I cannot blame him for this. I am a blight upon my family… Samantha Fieldings. Her husband had been James Fieldings, a religious and righteous leader of the community at the time.
God save me. I have wed Davis Eldon as Father ordered. What have I done? I have refused the demand of the one I love for this life. A life of ease, of all I knew should have been mine, for what? For the suffering I now endure. What have I done? My heart breaks for my one true love.
My soul aches… Elissa Fieldings Eldon.
They can make me marry as they please, to satisfy the terms of this insane Trust. But they cannot make me suffer. Grayson may be the choice of my father, but it is his brother, Lawrence, to whom my heart and body belongs. I will not suffer the fate of those before me. I will know love, if only in the darkness of the night and the sheltering arms of deception… Karen Eldon Marshal
If only I were as strong as my parents. They loved, they laughed, and they knew at least a small measure of happiness. The man I loved, precious Kimmie, I won’t say his name. He was not your father, he was never my lover, and as your father was prone to remind me, he preferred the money. I am too weak, and I know I will not survive this illness. Should I die, then Briar Cliff and its protection falls to you. All that the women of our line have dreamed of falls upon your 107
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shoulders, my precious daughter. You can have it all. It can all be yours, just as it was meant to be. But for what? You are inheriting generations of pain, anger, deception and tears. It is truly a curse, and one I pray you deny. Love, Kimmie. Laugh. Let your heart be free and your body be your own. A house, no matter how beautiful, or how priceless, will ever take the place of those things.
I hope you are reading this diary, that you have read those who have gone before, now that I myself have passed on. I hope that the years you have spent away from this house, from me, have given you a chance to grow strong, to break away from the curse this house brings.
So many years I refused your father the truth he often pleaded for. He wanted only to know that you were his true daughter, and I, in my selfishness, refused him that. I realize now, as the end draws near, that I leave you alone, where before I had thought I would be here to see you triumph. I leave you alone. Without the father who perhaps would have treated you with kindness had I not driven the wedge between you.
I suffer now for my selfishness. No, not I, for I will pass on. But I go, knowing I will never rest, because you shall now suffer.
Briar Cliff is the curse, Kimmie, not your desires or your femininity or your gentle heart. It is this estate, and the past that has cursed us all… Claire Marshal Madison. It was dated the week of her death.
When Kimberly looked up from the final diary it was to see that night had overtaken the house. The light beside her glowed eerily, a single point of illumination within to emphasize the darkness that surrounded not just the estate, but her soul as well.
She had been away at school when her mother had become ill, and she hadn’t been called home until the last moment. She had believed for so many years that it had bee
n her father’s decision to keep her unaware of her mother’s health. But now she knew the truth. It had been her mother’s.
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They had both deceived her, had used her as weapon, one against the other until nothing had been left of the child in their eyes. She had been a sword and she had been the one to suffer.
She wanted to scream, to rage, to destroy the house brick by brick until nothing remained of the agony that resonated through her body. She wanted nothing more than to wipe away the memories of a past that should have never been.
She was crying. She wiped at her cheeks as she closed the diary and laid it beside those she had glanced through before. She stared around the library. Centuries of books graced the shelves and Kimberly knew that many more were in storage. Books that museums would salivate over. In five years, they would have been hers. It would have all been hers.
She shook her head tiredly as she rose from the chair, staring around her as the tears continued to dampen her cheeks. She had been denied her mother as well as her father because of this place. The scars on her soul that her parents had placed there through her younger years would never completely fade. She would never forget that her father’s hatred of what her mother had done had extended to her. She would never forget that the mother she had loved, had trusted and believed in, had used her as well.
But was she any better?
She had sacrificed her life, six long years to the battle lines that had been drawn six generations before.
She had walked away from Jared.
A sob racked her body, shuddering through her as pain sliced through her chest.
An agonizing burst of never-ending regret shook her, causing her breath to catch as a low, racking moan escaped her. She curled into herself, her arms wrapped around her stomach as she whispered his name.