Diarmid Burwash felt the heat of the fire before he saw the flames stretching their scarlet and gold tentacles toward him. Scarlet and gold, gules and or, heart and lion, and he the stranger-in-blood who had no right to any of it. Not to his father's coat-of-arms, to the family motto, nor even to the name.
Diarmid lay rolled in his blankets on the rough wood floor, face toward the dying embers of the night fire, glowing red eyes that winked slyly at him as if to deny they were real embers from a real fire. His mother was dead these six years, he wasn't in county Ross, thank God, he was thousands of miles from Scotland. Not only across the ocean but across all the forests and plains of America to California where gold lay in the streams like sand.
Stella came for Angelica's funeral and took over all the arrangements
to Diarmid’s great relief. She never left, sending word to El Doblez for
Lucita to send her belongings to the ranch and putting Lucita and her
son in charge of the cantina.
Diarmid never mentioned marriage to her and she never indicated she
expected him to. She took over the raising of Davis and Meg as "Aunt"
Stella.
Elena Gabaldon, shaking with dread, knew
Davis Burwash walked behind her but she didn’t look back as, her
nakedness covered by the black cape, she hurried toward the house. After
what Davis had tried to do to her in the ruins, she certainly couldn’t
remain in his house any longer. Despite Meg's need for her, she’d leave
in the morning.
Elena slipped inside the front door as quietly as she could and crept up
the front stairs, afraid a servant might see her if she used the back.
She gained her room with a sigh of relief. After hiding the bundled
shawl in a corner of her wardrobe, she poured water into the washbasin
and dropped the cloak to the floor.
The tenth of July, Davis Burwash
thought, looking around the foyer of his California house in
satisfaction. A date he'd never forget, one he'd happily remember
forever. If he'd had any sense he'd have swept Elena Gabaldon off her
feet five years ago, after their first meeting, and married her then. No
other woman had ever really meant anything to him once he'd seen Elena.
Flowers graced the foyer, not in the usual wedding whites and muted
pinks but, at Elena's request, in what she called "California
colors"--brilliant reds and purples and fuchsias and oranges. As his
sister, Meg had said a few minutes ago--the old place sang with color.
He liked the song.
Their wedding was to be at the El Doblez church but the reception would
be here on the ranch--again, as Elena had wished. She'd asked that
Antonio, Felicia's boy, be allowed to be a ring bearer along with
Patrick, Meg’s son, since theirs was to be a double ring ceremony. Davis
knew the two boys were inseparable even though Felicia was only a
servant and he also knew why. So what if a guest or two raised an
eyebrow? . He might not be able to give Elena the title of countess but
anything else she wanted was hers. Now that she'd finally consented to
be his wife, she'd never escape him again.
Jennifer’s father didn't say a word to
her as they drove back to the ranch in his Cadillac. His silence and her
furtive glances at his grim face did nothing to reassure her, she
figured he was marshaling his forces for an all-out offensive when they
reached the house. He needn’t expect her to be sorry because she wasn’t,
and nothing he could say or do would make her feel that way.
"Into the study," he ordered once they were inside.
Jennifer marched defiantly into the room, determined not to sit down and
let him stand over her while he raved at her. She meant to face him and
give as good as she got.
On her twenty-first birthday, Natalia
Ausmus drove her lemon yellow Kharmann Ghia along the cove road, heading
for the cliff house that perched like a bird ready to take flight over
the ocean. She loved the house, all glass and redwood, rebuilt, she'd
been told after a previous house there had been destroyed by the
earthquake of 1957. The same earthquake that had killed her father and
her mother but had spared their newborn baby--her.
When she was in her early teens she'd often wondered why she'd survived.
Was she destined to be important to mankind? But as she grew older such
questioning seemed pretentious to her. Theodora would laugh her head off
if she ever knew Natalia thought of herself as someone special.
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Natalia Ausmus flew home from Jamaica
accompanied only by her bitter suspicions. She didn't ever want to see
Ross McCann again. Or Theodora, for that matter. It was hard to blame
Fenton who, really, had been betrayed, too. Though, after years of
enduring Theodora's other lovers, perhaps it no longer bothered Fenton.
As far as Natalia was concerned Fenton was more or less a cipher, a
zero, a nothing.
Theodora, Natalia was sure, had planned the entire scenario--Ross riding
his bike to the cliff house at the cove, where he was sure to meet
Natalia; his laid-back play for her; the trip to Jamaica.
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