Chapter 10
The path that led to the bay forked once it reached the trees, splitting into a Robert Frost poem come to life. William waited for her at the head as she said her goodbyes to Anya. She was keenly aware of his eyes on her, just as she was aware of the way her stomach tied in knots. How tiny shivers spread across her skin. She knew that her self-awareness was wasted, as William’s opinion of her stood little chance of swaying from where it stood. He knew her to be foolish and clumsy—that when she said things, it was often without thought. Her mentioning the bay at lunch stood as a shining example of her lack of forethought. Something said out of ignorance and not spite. William knew that. He had to know that.
Still, Buffy thought it best not to mention it at all. She’d rather William forget it completely. The lightness in his eyes, while not entirely dulled now with his family’s departure, was fragile at best. She loved seeing him like this. She wanted so much to know what it would take to keep that look in his eyes forever.
“She liked you,” William said, nodding at the gravel road where Anya and Xander’s car had disappeared. “They all liked you.”
Buffy’s insides warmed with cautious hope. “Did they?”
“Oh yes. Anya will most assuredly be here every week, gabbing your ear off about things you couldn’t possibly care less about.”
He smiled and reached for her hand. As always, her skin sparked when their fingers entwined. When their palms pressed together. And again, she remarked inwardly how silly she was. How her heart could flutter like a schoolgirl when she was his wife. When much more than his hands had touched her body. When she knew what it felt like to take him inside. And yet, the blush on her cheeks refused to fade. It seemed she’d be stuck with her girlish nerves for the rest of her life.
“I don’t mind,” Buffy replied, determined to keep him talking. She’d been so dreadfully lonely since they’d arrived at Manderley. Having William at her side as he steered her toward one of the woodland paths made her think of Monte Carlo. “Anya is charming.”
William chuckled appreciatively and squeezed her hand. “That’s one way to put it,” he observed, stepping aside as the dog, Jasper, bounded merrily in front of them. Then he paused, captured her gaze with his and said, “She really did like you.”
She nodded, though her mind couldn’t help but wander to what Anya had said before they parted ways. How different Buffy was; how Buffy wasn’t what she would have expected. How Buffy was nothing like Drusilla.
“Did she?” Buffy asked self-consciously, wetting her lips. Her eyes fell to Jasper, whose red coat shimmered with gold under the afternoon sun. “Anything in particular?”
“Are you fishing for compliments, love?”
It was hard not to blush under his grin. He so very rarely grinned at her. “I am curious,” she replied, her lips tugging upward. “Nothing more.”
William chuckled again, brushing a spontaneous kiss across her temple. Buffy’s hold on his hand tightened with shock and she begged her legs to sustain her. If this was the result of a familial visit, she’d have Anya over as often as possible.
“She told me little that she didn’t tell you, I’d imagine,” he said, whistling casually at Jasper as the dog trundled down the trail that veered to the left. He jerked his head to indicate the opposing path. “Anya rarely forms an opinion that she doesn’t share with the world at large.”
“I’m still curious.”
“Of course you are, love.” He paused and frowned, whistling harder at Jasper, who, after staring at his master for a few seconds in bewilderment, had continued down the wrong path. William continued talking, though, as if nothing had interrupted him. “She thinks you’re clever, if not a little quiet. She thinks you have ambition that you’re probably not aware of. Oh, and she thinks you’re old fashioned…which she finds delightful and refreshing.”
“Old fashioned?” she echoed with a frown.
“Era of Jane Austen, that sort of thing. Anya isn’t accustomed to people who weren’t brought up as we were.” He squeezed her hand reassuringly. “It’s amazing, really, that you turned out as lovely as you did, what with people like Mrs. Kendall setting those crucial examples for you. My God, I’d never have lifted my head from my books had I been in your shoes. You show remarkable strength and integrity.”
The wave of astonishment that crashed over her was potent enough to knock her off her toes, but she didn’t have time to dwell on what he’d said. The second the words left his lips, William’s attention was once again drawn to their dog, who evidently hadn’t understood his master’s direction.
“Jasper!” William called. “This way.”
The dog’s hesitation was palpable, but not as much as the meaning behind it. And as they set down the trail, Buffy found herself slammed with the burden of inadequacy all over again. She was certain, by the dog’s mannerisms, that William and Drusilla had never walked this path. No, of course not. He would not take his second wife where he had taken his first.
A theory that William confirmed the next second by saying, “I haven’t had the chance to come to the Happy Valley as often as I would have liked.”
“The Happy Valley?”
“It’s a small clearing where I come to clear my thoughts,” he replied. “I used to come here at least once a day….even when life was at its busiest.”
“But you haven’t been in a while?”
William sobered, drawing in a sharp breath. “Not in a year, at least,” he replied softly. “I used to come here to write. To draw inspiration. To…” A pause. He swallowed hard and cleared his throat. “To write.”
That haunted tone she hated so much had crept into his voice without warning, and she found herself drenched in cold. The implication made her bones sting. He hadn’t been here since Drusilla died. Since his inspiration left him. There hadn’t been a need to come to a place of tranquility and peace since his life was robbed of it.
Jasper trotted ahead of them with a notable lack of confidence, turning every few yards to make sure they were still behind. And despite the fact the dog very clearly did not belong to her, she found herself easily won over by his warm eyes and cheerful bounce. He was a happy animal; wondrously oblivious to the tension that dripped from every corner of the de Winter property. She envied his easy unawareness. If only she could enjoy the grounds as Jasper did; if only she could ignore the shadows that touched her heart. The whispers that chased her down every corridor. The whispers that trailed her even now—trailed her as she and her husband walked the path to the Happy Valley.
She could not escape the whispers, no matter where she ran.
A gasp crushed her chest when the canopy of trees finally cleared into a small valley. The place was absolutely mesmerizing. Sunlight poured through spider-webbed branches, spilling across the forest floor like warm lemonade. Painted leaves papered the ground, sprinkling greenery with rays of color that had to have been blessed by God Himself. Ethereal light bathed her skin through the breaks in the natural canopy. In all her life, she’d never seen anything so beautiful.
She didn’t realize how wide she was smiling until she turned and met William’s eyes, a bolt of electricity rippling through her system so fast that she nearly forgot to breathe.
And she stood corrected. While breathtaking, the Happy Valley couldn’t hope to compete with William.
“Do you like it?” he asked softly, his tone strangely heightened. As though more than just her approval rode on her reply.
“It’s glorious.”
“You think so?”
Buffy nodded, dragging her eyes from his self-consciously. “Oh yes,” she whispered in near reverence. “It’s perfect.”
“I thought you’d like it.” William smiled gently, his thumb stroking the back of her hand with such subtlety that, for a second, she could imagine they lived in an uncomplicated world. A world where there were no obstacles or unseen barriers. A place where there was no distance between them at all; that all problems were nothing more than delusional fabrications.
“I believe that Manderley is more than the manor,” he continued a few minutes later. “The land itself and everything on it. This place we’re at…the Happy Valley…this is Manderley, as well.”
She nodded again. His voice was an aphrodisiac.
“I just needed to establish that so when I told you that this spot, right here, is my favorite corner of Manderley, you wouldn’t look at me like I just fell off my nutter.”
She smiled in spite of herself, glancing down before her cheeks reddened again. He would catch her blush either way so there was really little sense in hiding; she supposed it was self-preservation above all else. The idea that he would allow her into a place he treasured—his favorite corner of Manderley—warmed her heart. And it made the ground she stood on seem all the more sacred. All the more holy.
“I thought you might like to come here to draw,” William suggested.
“You did?”
“Only if you like, of course. I just know that my best ideas come to me when I’m here. There’s something…” He paused and shrugged. “It was just an idea.”
“Oh, no. I’d love to. I can’t…I can’t imagine a better place to sketch.” A brilliant, genuine smile stretched her lips, warmth tickling her insides. “Thank you.”
Perhaps today had changed things. She didn’t know, and she wasn’t about to gamble that her concerns—her worries and her jealousy over a woman whose home was now a tomb—were now issues of the past. But there was a sense of peace that came with standing in the Happy Valley she could not deny. William had brought her to a haven. Perhaps he had not taken her where he would have taken Drusilla, but he’d still given her more than she believed she deserved.
Just in this. In one simple gesture. William had this sanctuary, and he’d let her in.
“Wesley liked you quite a bit,” he said, breaking her line of thought abruptly.
Buffy blinked. “Did he?”
“Yes. Wesley’s good opinion is hard to come by, and once lost is lost forever.”
“Couldn’t be too hard to come by if he’s formed an agreeable opinion of me,” she countered. “I barely spoke to him.”
“People communicate without words. I think your eyes speak for you, even if you bid them to remain silent.” He released her hand with an encouraging squeeze. “I might have him check on you if I ever have business that draws me to town. You wouldn’t mind, would you?”
The idea that she would ever be left alone at Manderley with only the harsh, condemnatory eyes of Mrs. Hart following her with every step she took left her cold and shaken. Still, she wasn’t sure how wild she was about the idea of having a virtual stranger assigned to be her keeper. At some point, she knew she was going to have to step outside the proffered protection of the few kindhearted people around her.
However, the thought was enough to make her stomach churn. Alone in an unfamiliar place with an overbearing woman who wanted nothing more than to pick her apart. And while she didn’t know Wesley, she trusted William. William hadn’t led her astray thus far—even when it came to Mrs. Hart. He’d told her that she was a shrewd, able maid, and she was. Mrs. Hart’s personal feelings for Buffy had yet to interfere with her dedication to her work. If William had faith in his friend, then she wouldn’t contest.
“I wouldn’t mind,” Buffy replied. “Though I don’t want to be a bother.”
“No bother at all.”
“No bother to come and check on a friend’s new wife because she doesn’t know her way around the house?” She sighed and shook her head, her eyes falling on Jasper, who was rolling joyously in a pile of golden leaves. “I feel so…”
“I know, love. It’ll pass.”
The calm assurance in his voice offset the ringing in her head. She parted her lips to reply when Jasper suddenly rolled to his feet with a cheery yip and took off into the woods. The move was so spontaneous that it took a few seconds for Buffy to register in which direction he’d darted. Toward the other path—the path he was more familiar with.
The path walked with Drusilla.
“Oh!” Buffy inhaled sharply. “Jasper!”
William stiffened. “He’ll be fine,” he said. “We should head back.”
But Buffy wasn’t listening. Without realizing it, her feet were leading her to the grove of trees that separated the Happy Valley from the opposing trail. The curiosity that burned her heart was getting the upper-hand on her caution, and before she could stop herself, she’d disappeared in an awning of branches.
“I’ll get him,” she called over her shoulder.
“Buffy, come back.”
She was too busy following the sound of paws rustling through leaves and snapping twigs to hear the edge in his voice. “It’ll only take a minute,” she replied.
“Let him go! He’ll find his own way home.” A pause. “Buffy! Come back!”
Navigating over stones, between trees, and over large, fallen branches took fancy footwork, but somehow Buffy managed, even while wearing impractical shoes. The further she went, however, the further away Jasper’s barks sounded. And in a matter of seconds, Buffy’s head was swimming in the hum of the bay as waves crashed against the shoreline.
While Mrs. Hart had been very correct in her assertion that the bay couldn’t be heard from the east wing of Manderley, Buffy had, over the past two days, become increasingly aware of the crash of wild water somewhere in the distance. It had become so familiar to her so quickly that, even as she and William had walked to the Happy Valley, she hadn’t noticed the vibrations grow louder. None of it had registered.
The second her eyes landed on the bay, she was deafened by the crash of the waves. By the roll of the clouds against the horizon. The swish of the sand as water washed along the coast. The scene was breathtaking, but somehow callous. So unlike the quiet seclusion of the Happy Valley—this was open and lonely. No matter how far she looked, nothing was there to look back. Even the stretch of land that encompassed the water before spilling into the ocean looked empty.
The beach itself was equally vacant. There was a boathouse to her far left that looked, if possible, more haunted than Manderley. It had not been touched in months.
Buffy shivered hard and crossed her arms. She did not like it here.
“Jasper!”
The dog rolled in a sand bank with freedom she envied. He barked cheerily when he saw her and bounced again to his feet, shaking sand off his coat. And from the enthusiasm in his run when be bounded to her, one would assume Jasper had not seen her in hours. Buffy crouched to her knees and ran her fingers through Jasper’s now slightly-clumpy red fur. She couldn’t help but grin when the dog’s warm tongue lapped eagerly at her open palm.
“You are certainly the friendliest dog I’ve ever met,” she murmured fondly. “But that doesn’t mean you can run off whenever you like. We best be getting back.”
And the sooner the better. The significance of William’s failure to follow her to the bay wasn’t wasted on her, and the more she focused on the dog, the less attention she could give her self-consciousness. She’d done something William hadn’t wanted—she’d come to the place where Drusilla disappeared. There was no doubting that. The unlived-in boathouse. His willingness to let Jasper vanish in order to avoid stepping foot on the beach. It all added up to one undeniable conclusion.
Her curiosity had spoiled everything. The peace of their afternoon. The trust in his gift—in sharing his sanctuary. But Buffy didn’t want to think about it. The thought was too disturbing, and she wanted to hold onto the warmth inside her as long as possible, even if she was chasing dreams rather than reality.
“Come on, Jasper,” she said again. “Come on.”
And then a sound reached her ears that wasn’t the howl of the sea or the bark of a dog. A voice. A man’s voice.
A voice that was not William.
“She don’t come here no more.”
Buffy gasped and bound to her feet, jerking around so fast she nearly lost her balance. The man behind her was unlike any man she’d ever seen. His eyes were lost. His clothing was tattered and worn. A lopsided hat adorned his head, and his hands were garnished in a pair of ratty, aged gloves. His face was young but his eyes were old, and she found herself inexplicably frozen with fear.
“I’m sorry?” she asked, stunned.
Jasper barked his support.
The man swayed slightly from side to side, looking from the boathouse to the bay and to her again. He didn’t maintain eye-contact for long.
“She don’t come here. The dark lady.” He paused and glanced up cautiously; a child on the edge of a sharp reprimand. “Are you gonna send me to the asylum?”
Buffy frowned, her fear slowly shrinking. “What?”
“Please don’t send me to the asylum. I ain’t done nothin’.”
“I…” She licked her lips, positively bewildered. She needed to get back to William. Now. “I…I ought to be going.”
“She don’t come here.”
“Jasper.” Buffy patted her hip and the dog, as though reading her mind, fell in line at her side. “We’re leaving now.”
“I don’t want to go to the asylum.”
There was nothing to say to that, so she said nothing. She started back for the woods from where she’d emerged, a wondrously oblivious dog at her side. She was almost surprised when she saw William waiting for her, pacing furiously between a row of trees. He turned the second he heard her approach, and she knew immediately the warmth she’d wanted so hard to hold onto was gone.
Instead, her insides were doused in cold. In a storm of torment and conflict. He stared at her for empty seconds as though he’d never seen her before.
“Why?” he demanded sharply, his tone cold and distant. William had never spoken to her like that before—he’d never spoken to her with anything stricter than the nature of a disapproving schoolmaster. He was shaking hard, nervous hands running through his hair as he ostensibly fought for control. “Why? I asked you not to go, Buffy. For God’s sakes—”
“I was just—”
“You were just…I told you that Jasper could find his way home!”
Jasper barked at the sound of his name.
“I went because the bay doesn’t frighten me, William,” Buffy replied, her eyes widening the instant the words left her lips. And by the look in his, she knew she’d crossed a line. A very severe, drastic line. Beyond the one at lunch. Beyond the hints that danced around the reality of Drusilla’s death. In that horrible instant, he looked thoroughly gutted. As though she had betrayed him.
“The bay doesn’t…” William tore away from her before she could breathe, Jasper trailing after him happily. “You wouldn’t dare,” he continued, storming furiously in the direction of the manor. “Not if you had my memories.”
“But I don’t,” Buffy cried as her legs took off after him. “Can’t you see that?”
“Buffy—”
“Please! Just tell me what to do.” There must have been a note in her voice that reached him, for the next second, he’d frozen in place. And she continued on, unable to stop. Something within her had split, and she couldn’t prevent the wall from breaking. “I don’t know what to do, William. My God, I’ve never felt so lost in my life. I can’t talk to you—”
He whirled around the next second. He couldn’t have appeared more startled if she’d struck his cheek. “Yes you can,” he protested. “Of course you can.”
“No, I can’t. Whatever I say or do…it’s wrong, you see? And if I don’t speak, it’s still wrong. And I can’t talk to you because…” She swallowed hard, doing her best to ignore the shrill in her ears. If she didn’t do this now, she’d never again have the courage to meet his eyes. “Because I don’t have your memories. I don’t know what’s going to bring that look into your eyes.”
“What look?” William asked softly.
“The look in your eyes now. The way…you go somewhere I can’t follow. And there’s nothing I can do or say to make it better.” She threw her arms up in frustration. “And even if there was, I wouldn’t know what to say. I don’t understand why you married me.”
“Buffy, I—”
“I’m young. I’m foolish. I’m naïve. I’m so far from you, William.”
“Stop.”
“No, I—”
“Stop!”
She didn’t know when he’d come so close; all she knew was that his hands had closed around her upper arms and his mouth was on hers in a hard, almost demanding kiss. The contact was so sudden that she didn’t realize what had happened until he’d released her. Until his arms were around her small body, his fingers woven through her hair as her cheek found his shoulder. It all happened so fast. Everything. One second, they were arguing, and the next she was in his arms.
“I’m sorry, love,” William murmured, trembling. He was trembling. The knowledge shook her completely, and all around her, sound drowned away.
They remained locked together for long minutes. In the archway that led to the Happy Valley as Jasper hunted grasshoppers and sniffed the trails of forest wildlife. Just two people—two people anywhere. Two people in each other’s arms.
“I never should have brought you here,” he said softly, a long, resigned sigh rolling off his shoulders. He brushed a kiss across her brow. “God, I wish I’d never come back.”
He didn’t clarify if he spoke of the Happy Valley or Manderley, and Buffy didn’t ask because she feared the answer. Instead, her body tightened with anxiety, and she shook her head until the scenery around her meshed into a blur of motion.
“Don’t say that,” she begged. “Please.”
“We should have never come…”
“We’ll make it work. I love you.” Blindly, she pressed her lips to his, but pulled away before he could react. She couldn’t stand the sting of rejection. Not now. She was determined to deny him the chance. “I love you so much. We’ll make it work.”
William said nothing. His arms tightened around her, but he said nothing.
Buffy had never known a louder silence.
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ghostgirl13's prompting. Therefore, I lovingly dedicate this story to her. She kept me on my toes, even when I didn’t want to be kept.