Marjory pointed to the raven on the potager wall. “Very well. He’ll keep an eye on you. Wave at him if you need anything.”
As another night fell, Dawn should have curled up with a book. She couldn’t. Two days shut in the cottage were enough, and her feet itched to walk over the estate’s soil. Odd how as a child she spent years often confined to her bed and never imagined escaping those four walls. Now she longed to prowl around the grounds and to feel a gentle night breeze stir her short hair. She also needed the hum of energy from the estate’s magical ground that would carry up through the soles of her feet.
She pulled her robe tight around her waist and crept out with the wolfhound at her heel. She needed to dig her toes into the dirt, and while her body still ached from the numerous scratches and waged an internal war against Ava’s poisonous agent, her need to renew her connection with the land was the greater force.
The watcher on the wall peered at her as she left the cottage. Would he tell Jasper she was outside? A chill washed over her body that had nothing to do with the damp in the air. Dawn walked east to see if her lads had progressed any further with burning the herbaceous borders.
The moon above lit the way and only the occasional cry of an owl, or rustle of leaves, broke the silence. Woman and canine moved silently across the grass. Dawn stopped in the long expanse of rectangular lawn between the herbaceous borders. The beds were six feet wide and ran straight for nearly sixty feet.
The end was marked by an enormous five-foot urn on a two-foot plinth. In the urn, she had planned to plant a tall silvery grass with long, graceful stems. At night when the moon struck it, it would look as though a silver fountain erupted from the vessel. Would she see her vision come to fruition now?
If her services were no longer desired by the earl, then she would note the species and genus she planned to use in the urn for the gardener who came after her. She had spent many nights drawing planting schemes for the long borders and imagining the right combinations of colour that would delight people over spring and autumn. Those plans would now be stored with all the other notes and drawings in the cottage.
How she longed to watch the map in the cottage morph and redraw itself as the estate healed and new combinations emerged. Would another now witness that magic?
She turned Elijah’s words over and over in her mind until they spun like a top. Either she could torment herself for days, or she could confront the issue head-on and seek the truth. Would she know if Jasper had played her false?
An itch started in her palm, and when she looked down, a sad tendril of the pea-like vine draped over her hand as though it were dying. Its core was flat and deflated, and its single leaf curled at the edges.
Did the expired plant mean their connection was severed, or had the plant appeared to remind her that there was a force far larger than her at play?
“If only you could talk and explain everything to me,” she muttered to the plant. Then she curled her hand into a fist and the Cor-vitis vanished when she relaxed her fingers.
Dawn looked up as the night air thrummed with a refrain she had heard before. Her heart thudded in her chest as she turned. The monstrous creature emerged over the tops of the hedges and dropped to the ground with a thump. He stood in front of the plinth like a hideous statue. His extended wings almost reached to each side of the border.
Then with a sigh, he retracted his wings and tucked them to his back. One hand rose as though to reach for her, then the hand turned into a granite fist and dropped to his side.
“Marjory said she had cut all your hair off.” Even his voice was rougher in this form, as though each word was dragged over gravel.
Dawn raised a hand and tugged on a short curl by her ear. “It was tangled beyond saving.”
“The raven said you were here. I had to see you, even though you would not speak to me.” He spoke but remained locked in place. Not a muscle moved as though he were solid stone.
Dawn wanted to look away but found the sight of him fascinating, despite the pain he brought. Was everything about him carved from stone, and how did he turn from man to gargoyle?
“It hurts,” she whispered at length. “To think what you did with her.”
A single breath heaved in his torso and he looked down at his clawed feet.
Was it even a betrayal when there had been no promises between them? He lured her with seductive words about the Cor-vitis choosing a couple who were meant to be together, but she had never given him her answer.
Her quiet conversations with Elijah had helped Dawn work through the tangle in her mind, but there were still strands she didn’t want to tug. Like how the sight of Jasper, even in granite form, made her heart beat faster and her palm itch.
He raised his head and stepped toward her, but Dawn recoiled.
“Elijah said that Ava used you as a weapon against me.” She held up her hands, halting him. Could she place her faith and hope in the quiet words of the young man? And if she did, did that absolve Jasper of his actions?
“Yes. Ava commands and I must obey. I do not go to her willingly.” He spat the words out, pebbles thrown into the night. His massive hands curled into fists the size of teapots and the claws on the tips of his wings extended.
Dawn shook her head, as much to deny his words as to try and stop the itch on her right hand that became an insistent wriggle. She thought the Cor-vitis had died, but it seemed to want her to lay her hands on Jasper and revive it. “You are bound to her.”
He paced along the edge of the border. A statue turned sentry, marching back and forth. “As she is to me. The sanctuary’s heart can compel the Lord Warder to answer her summons, regardless of my personal feelings.”
“I saw you! I saw the things the two of you did and the…the noises you made.” She was determined not to cry. She would not show how deeply she was cut.
“You saw and heard her. Ava has been watching us these last few weeks and has seen the feelings grow between us. She knew exactly what would hurt you most. That is what she has always been good at, ferreting out a person’s weaknesses. For many years now she has forced me to answer her summons and binds my limbs to make me endure what she does.” The pacing ceased and his wings unfurled and sprang from his back. The claws turned inward as though imagining they struck out at an enemy, and his hands turned into fists clenched so tight veins raced along his thick stone arms.
It made a twisted sort of sense that Ava took the person Dawn cared for the most and turned him against her. What bothered Dawn was she couldn’t figure out how it had been possible.
She had heard mutterings of how a man could force himself upon a woman. Once, a young woman along their road had been savaged and faced the unbearable choice of either marrying her abuser to save her reputation, or being disowned by her family. Could a woman force herself upon a man? The very idea seemed impossible.
Ava had used her serpent vines to bind Jasper’s arms, legs, and wings. Would that have been necessary if he were a willing participant in her nocturnal activities? For all she knew, being tied up might be a normal part of relations between Elementals. Or was it done to render Jasper a powerless victim?
How she longed to have her mother here. Verity Uxbridge, truth taster, could whisper his words and savour them on her tongue. Then she could tell her daughter if he spoke sour lies or sweet honesty.
Mouse sat at her side and Dawn twisted her fingers into his fur as she thought. She wanted to trust Jasper, but she had so little to judge him against, and their acquaintance was still so new.
“I can’t believe she did such a thing simply to horrify me.” Had Ava known she was asleep under the tree and then put her plan into effect?
For many years, he had said.