18
Jack Dorian was restless. Even in the giant barn with everyone still asleep, his spirit felt caged. Nature’s calming breath washed over his moist skin from an open window, and he sprang up to answer the summons. Despite the stiffness in his back after a restless night, he moved with quick steps and slipped out into the dark-pink hues of early dawn.
He exhaled, rubbing his hair and face to wake himself. Already he felt freer, calmer, simply being outside. Yet as he strode out toward the pond, wading through tall grass and bounding crickets, that heaviness returned. Not unpleasant, but impossible to ignore.
It had started when he’d jolted awake with a sudden awareness, a conviction. The ballet in his head—hemustwrite it. Now. Somehow, it was significant.
He’d lain awake, the curve of his back aching against the unaccommodating wood floor, but the prodding wouldn’t leave him. So he let his mind work on it, trying the new pieces this way and that. The hero and Vanessa, in love? That had never been part of the story. They’d always been at odds, forced towork together but never affectionate. His hero, it seemed, had been holding out on him.
That’s what bothered him. Of all the characters playing about in his mind, the hero was the one he knew the best. The man had several shadowed corners, and he refused to reveal what he knew about the great fire where Vanessa had met her tragic end, but this was one twist he’d never expected. Had he actually been in love with her? Or had they merely produced a child together?
He adjusted and readjusted, but no position, no amount of heavy sighs, removed that undeniable pressure, so he rolled over and got up. Something wasn’t right. And he was the one who had more pieces than anyone—the one who needed to figure it out. He’d meant to put the thing away, to leave well enough alone, but it wouldn’t leavehimalone.
Now as he stepped up on the rickety pier over the pond and looked across the pink-dappled surface, he acknowledged to himself what that sudden unquenchable urge might have been—and where it had come from. He recognized it. Try as he might to ignore the God his guardian Mrs. Hatchette had drilled him to know, to pretend denying him, Jack was encountering him once again. And it washerfault.
Wherever Ella Blythe went, there existed an aura of God, like a faint aroma. Despite her insecurities, her rote verse recital, all her preoccupation with perfection, God hovered nearby. Perhaps that’s what had drawn him to her in the first place. Something deep at the core of him had immediately responded to her, that face full of character and pluck, her poise that did not demand respect but quietly inspired it.
He’d been disappointed to learn of her obsession with religion, but it had slowly begun to occur to him that it was apart of her charm and could not be divorced from her nature. It held her upright with a steadiness of character and strength that was not loud and showy like a fire, but more of the quiet brilliance of a raw gem. God had drawn near to her, and though she seemed to wrestle with how it all fit together in her life, God was part of who she was.
And now, after far too much time together, it was leaking onto him. He stared back across the field to the tall gray structure in the middle of it. He fully wished he could ignore the conviction threading through the loose places of his soul. Writing this ballet was a dream, but it would be incredibly difficult. He simply wasn’t used to giving voice to sordid things, even in writing. She would be affected, too, if he went through with this. She would see the connection immediately, and the truth about her mother that came out in the ballet would crush her. This wasn’t going to be pretty.
Ah! But it could beput off.
It wasn’t as if Ella was standing in front of him this minute. They had the entire ride home to talk. He mentally shelved the discussion, but all too soon she was moving toward him in his peripheral vision, her gown displacing the tall stalks around her. He turned and let his gaze linger as he’d done so often. What was it about her? Jack loved the rush of danger, except when it came to women. And for all her innocence and quiet steadiness, Ella Blythe did not feel safe.
She stepped near with that unmistakable poise, and he welcomed her into his presence with a silent smile, chest tightening. Then that weight settled upon him again, that inescapable conviction, displacing the peace he’d come here to find. It was time to write that ballet, and time to tell her the truth.
19
The air had an odd mix of moist soil and plant aroma as I breathed deeply near the pond, and though it was strong, it was not unpleasant. “Early riser, are you?”
“I rarely sleep for long. I’m surprised to see you out here, though. Aren’t you a bit nervous?”
I smiled, hugging my wrap around me. I didn’t know if he spoke of catching my death in the early morning chill or the risk to my reputation, but my answer was the same. “I’m not afraid of much out here, it would seem.” I perched on a large rock overlooking the pond. Bulrushes waved in the breeze from the fringes of the water. “Besides, you’ve so thoroughly done your job as a storyteller that I was compelled to find out what you’ve decided about that villain. And your heroine, Vanessa. Do you know either of them yet?”
“The villain will likely remain a murky mystery for a while.” He sighed, weighted with the plight of his characters as if it truly mattered in the real world. “It’s too much power for a man to have who isn’t even the hero of the story.” He stared down at the murky pond swirled with green. “Perhaps if I knewhow the story ended,whythe fire was set, I’d see the villain’s face and...”
Fire? “I see.” And at last, I did. I analyzed his face, his posture. “Why does Delphine Bessette’s story fascinate you so? Why take such an interest in my mother’s tragedy?”
“My interest lies with the suspect, because I thoroughly believe he’s the true hero, and not the villain.” His sigh was deep and steady. “Marcus de Silva was my foundation when I had none. My only semblance of something stable. I cannot give up on him.”
I looked at his troubled face, vibrating just under the surface with all manner of nervous energy, and my displaced heart swelled with understanding. One was always restless until he knew what home was for him. Restless, and scrambling for any outcropping on which to place his feet. He’d found one in my father, it seemed. “Howdidyou come to the circus?” The question was soft and gentle.
“My mother brought me when I was young, because of a silly obsession I had with tigers. I wanted to see one up close, and I begged and begged, so she took me. Snuck me out of the house and pumped me full of excitement, and it was everything I’d always hoped. And more.”
I waited, my bones sore against the rock, but he merely threw pebble after pebble into the glassy water and watched it sink. Then a softwhap-whapabove drew his attention, and he turned, expression once again flooding with life. “Shh. This is what I came to see. They’re finally here.”
I followed his gaze to a pair of pure-white swans gliding together against the bright pink morning sky, floating down with feathery grace. They circled and landed in the center of the pond, tucking their wings close and stretching their necksas gentle ripples formed around them. We sat in perfect silence for long moments, drinking in the sight of those beautiful creatures.
“That’s you, right there. Your style as a dancer. You see? You needn’t compare yourself to any other woman, when you dance as you were created to do. You, Ella Blythe, are a swan.”
“That isn’t my own style then, is it? It’s the swan’s.”
He studied me, a smile playing on his lips. I was drawn to his presence, to the untroubled and easy way I felt around him. “Very well then, be a blend. One part swan, the other...” He leaned close to balance his chin on his fist, reading something in my face. “The other, Delphine Bessette.”
My mind blanked. I forced my lips to part, pushing air in and out of them.
“There’s an element of her legendary style inside you, but I see the swan as well. A sort of otherworldly aura—celestial, perhaps. Pure, lovely...” He tipped his head with a small smile. “Just out of reach for the common man.”
