Chapter 30 – Daisy
I nto the maze, we go.
My belly trembles with nerves and my heart is fluttering wildly once we’re dressed and stepping outside into the heavy fog of a late December morning. All hints of the sunrise have vanished in the blink of the eye. That’s the way it is here but I’m missing the sun’s warming rays as the gravel path crunches beneath our shoes.
I can hear the faint sound of the ducks at their pond, sound carrying in that amazing way it does. I smile, wondering if any of them or the swans ever fly over the hedge to visit the forbidden place we’re headed.
Grant is holding my hand, quiet but not withdrawn, as he leads me toward the boarded-up entrance to the hedge maze I’d found weeks ago. When we arrive there, I see the way is no longer shut. “Luis,” he says by way of explanation.
Through the arched entry, there is a wall of green immediately before me and already decisions to be made. “Right or left?” I whisper.
“Either way will lead you to where I mean for us to go this morning.”
“It’s so large.” I can see enough from my studio’s window to know it’s enormous. I found that fascinating before but that same enormity frightens me now that I’m faced with it.
Grant gives my hand a squeeze. “Right or left, I know the way, Goldilocks. I know this maze like the back of my hand. I spent hours hiding out in it as a boy.”
“Hiding from what?”
“Expectations.” My heart aches, imagining a young Grant trying so hard to please a difficult to please grandfather. “No breadcrumbs are required to find our way and, I promise, I will never leave you to find your own way.”
Taking comfort in that, I turn right and then let my footsteps lead us. It’s strange how quickly one feels like a child when they enter a maze. The path is wide enough for us to walk abreast comfortably but the paving stones are covered in moss with tufts of grass growing all around them. They would be quite slick during a storm, I think before quickly pushing the uneasy thought aside.
The hedges have grown very tall, well past ten feet. Most remain orderly enough as the maze was formed decades and decades ago but the years of neglect have left some branches to grow where they will. One catches my hair, like a spider’s web, and I shudder.
“There is nothing to fear,” Grant assures me as he lightly runs his fingers through the errant tendril.
I take a calming breath, believing him. For all the inner turmoil I’ve been feeling lately after Anders told me his very unwelcome bit of gossip, I trust my husband not to lead me astray.
As the path winds on, we come upon covered bowers with stone benches, an intricate circling feature that has me all turned around and even a defunct fountain where lovers might have once made wishes by tossing in coins. “You sound like my mother,” Grant says when I mention that last bit.
“Good. But, I see no coins in the bottom of that murky fountain.”
“A Barclay leaving perfectly good currency to tarnish in stagnant water? Ridiculous, madam.”
I giggle at his playful huff, leaning my head against his shoulder. “Now that I see more of it and have grown used to the mist and quiet, I will admit I love it here.”
He tilts his face downward to gaze at me, his dark eyes full of emotion. “Good. This maze is why I married you, Daisy.”
His words send a chill through me and an inexplicable ache. “Why?”
“Come along. It’s not far. She had a favorite spot to sit and tell me tales when I was a little boy.”
I don’t have to ask who she is. Recalling what Mrs. Keating said, I can’t picture a better location for a mother to recite tales of fantasy and mythical creatures to an adventurous child.
I’d noted the oak tree through my studio’s window but didn’t realize how deep and winding the path leading to it would be. The shade of the branches and the ever-present fog make it seem darker here but mystical, too. And, I am not afraid now. All around its wide trunk, there’s a circular stone bench. “Does it keep whatever forest magic lives in the tree contained?” I ask.
Grant doesn’t chuckle at my whimsy this time. He has grown very quiet as he looks at a large stone ahead just clear of the main path.
It’s not just any stone. It’s a headstone. A grave . With steps as slow as the mist moves, I go to read the inscription.
Elyse Pellew, Devoted Mother
“Grant?”
“If I lost the estate, who knows what Lincoln or some stranger would do with it? Lincoln wanted to develop it into a subdivision. What purpose would the maze serve then?”
Wrapping my arms around his waist, I murmur into his jacket. “Of course. But, I don’t understand why she’s here if there’s a mausoleum-”
“They never married. She wasn’t a Barclay. Only Barclays by birth or marriage are buried in the Barclay Family Mausoleum. To my grandfather, it was as simple as that.”
“But, she was your mother, the mother of his only grandson and heir,” I say, infuriated on his behalf. Poor Grant was bound to be shattered by losing her unexpectedly. Couldn’t Old Linus Barclay see that? Wouldn’t that be more important than some spoken vows?
“I didn’t want her body buried somewhere I’d never been. I wanted a place that I knew with her, somewhere that was special to us.”
For all his practicality, my husband’s heart is as easily ruled by love as anyone else’s might be. It was a thoughtful act, unexpected from one so young. And, after all this time, he’s still fighting to protect her. I love him for it. I love him . I have never loved anyone more.
“Luis and two of his under-gardeners helped. In truth, they did most everything.”
“You were a child of ten.”
“Yes, not strong enough to do more than cry and be in the way.”
“I doubt Luis thought like that.”
“No, I doubt he did. I think he loved my mother though I’ve never asked. He joined us often during our wanderings, the pair of them talking about trees and flowers together as I ran along the paths playing. He cried, too, as they lowered her casket into the ground.”
Oh my heart. “You may be right. He’s still here.”
“Radcliffe found us just as they had finished.”
I grimace, picturing Old Vinegar Fish being insensitive. “Did he tell on you?”
“Not right away. He understood but, obviously, her casket had gone missing and he was the first person my grandfather sought out for the truth. Linus was so angry when he realized what we’d done. He said we’d desecrated the grounds of Barclay Estate. He fired the other two but gave them a handsome severance not to breathe a word of the burial to anyone. I defended Luis, threatening to run away if he fired him. I wouldn’t back down when my grandfather suggested she might be moved either.”
“That was brave of you.”
He shakes his head. “A foolish boy’s sort of bravery perhaps. That argument was nearly the end of our relationship.”
I recall what Luis told me about Grant going to boarding school soon after that fight. “He sent you away for it, didn’t he?” I ask, unable to comprehend a heart so cruel.
“No, I wanted to go, Daisy. I wanted away from all the memories and from him and… from anything that could hurt me again. That was what love did, I thought. It wounded. I didn’t want to be wounded again. Better to have a heart of stone.”
My eyes glaze over seeing tears in his eyes. His heart is very far from being made of stone. “It doesn’t have to be that way. Sometimes, the pain can be worth it.”
His tremulous smile makes my entire chest ache with the need to hold him. “Yes, I’m learning that. Better late than never, I suppose. In the end, after our fight and some time had passed, Linus begrudgingly accepted what we’d done. He paid for the headstone to be made. Then, he ordered Luis to seal off the maze’s entrance.”
“I don’t… how could he do that? And, why haven’t you opened the maze sooner?”
“She was to be left undisturbed in her favorite place. That’s what mattered to me so I accepted his decision. Or, at least, I tried to.”
“I’m sorry but he seems like a hateful man to me.”
“No, just a man, as flawed as any who carries my last name. And, I think, in time, he came to regret certain things…”
He pulls a letter out of his pocket, one with scrawled handwriting across it, the letter from his grandfather I’d found that day I caught Radcliffe looking through the drawers of Grant’s desk. Opening it, I read:
The maze was well-tended but I lost my way. I’m sorry. Don’t let your garden turn to weeds. Don’t waste your life on lonely, haunted paths no one visits.
Do you think your mother forgave me? Will you?
Such a shame to be filled with regrets when we reach the end. I almost feel sorry for Linus Barclay. But, my heart hurts more for my husband.
“I don’t want to be that sort of man, Daisy. I don’t want to live a lonely life in a garden turned to weeds. I married you for the maze but I…”
He sucks in a deep breath and I would swear he’ll say those three little words I’m longing to hear from him.
“I hope you know I love having you here.”
Not the three little words I’d hoped for but sweet enough for me today.
“And, I will never regret bullying you into marrying me the night I found you sleeping in my bed, Goldilocks.”
He grins and the unexpected levity makes me laugh. In the thinning mist, my laughter seems to echo around us. “I would never call this maze lonely,” I tell him, honestly. Folding the letter back up, I turn to embrace my husband, not minding the tears that dot my cheeks when I kiss him with all the love in my heart.
∞∞∞
The sun has found its way through the fog and mist by the time we find our way out of the maze again. “Daisy, do you dislike my mother’s room for your studio?”
“Why do you ask that?”
“Please… I wish to know.”
He’s sincerely concerned. I remember the day he showed me the room and how I pretended it was fine. “The lighting is not ideal but I’ve come to enjoy the peace up there.”
“I would never want you to feel trapped here as she did.”
“I’m not trapped,” I promise him. Even if I were, I’d be his willing prisoner.
It’s a quiet walk back to the house after that. Reflective.
But, once we’re alone in our bedroom, something different is stirring inside me, an all-consuming need to consummate what I’m feeling in deeds if not in words. “Grant, it’s your birthday.”
“So it is.”
“Can I be selfish and ask for something?”
“There’s not a selfish bone in your body. Ask away.”
“Would you make love to me?”
He looks at me like the question is utterly foolish and perhaps it was. No other words are necessary.
Slowly, with none of last night’s lustful frenzy, we undress one another, kissing deeply between every breath we take. He carries me the remaining steps to our bed, laying me down and reverently pulling my panties past my hips and toes. “So beautiful, my Daisy,” he murmurs.
“Your Daisy.” Always.
No exploratory, spicy flash cards are getting filled out this morning as he spreads my thighs, hovering over me. I moan his name as he rubs the head of his cock through my slit, wetting himself and readying me. Grasping his broad shoulders, I draw a breath and wait for the familiar, beloved stretch when he enters me, claiming me, his bride. I have never known such fulfillment as I do when I’m in Grant’s arms.
He gazes at me with deep affection as he starts to thrust. I rise up to meet each roll of his hips, peppering his chest and jaw with butterfly kisses, wanting him to understand what I can’t quite say yet. I love you, I love you. I want to be your wife for always.
But Vancouver looms in the corner of my mind and the hateful little worries about being good enough or being too dependent on a man keep my lips sealed… except for when Grant draws sweet sounds of surrender from them.
“Daisy,” he grunts as his own release grows closer. It’s slow and sensual but powerful. Has he ever gone so deep? My legs are spread so far apart, a flower welcoming the sun, the grumpy sunshine I married.
“Yes, Grant…” I gasp as his movements start to quicken.
My climax threatens to pull me under, deep down into dark and mysterious places. I can’t wait. This is us, joined as one. It’s no wonder we come together, our cries of ecstasy blending like a melody.
And, after, once he’s rolled us over and has me lying on his chest as he idly strokes my back, I can feel our hearts pounding in time. Two hearts, one rhythm. All I never knew I wanted. I want it all with him.