Tainted Love

Chapter One

The year 1889, Bar Harbor, Maine...

"These various symptoms you describe - in my professional opinion, they exist only in your own mind."

Damn and blast her esteemed Boston physician anyway, Lily Hill raged to herself in memory. Did a caustic stench steal his breath away? Had he removed a bloodied corpse from a barrier reef, where the battered body lay impaled like a wiggling fish on a hook? How dare that supercilious doctor gravely denounce the state of her mind without knowing what frightful recollections played out in her head?

For all she cared, he could stick his useless diagnosis up his esteemed arse. His professional opinion mattered not one whit to her.

To prove her complete lack of concern, she skipped town the day following her "delusional" diagnosis. All things considered, a fortuitous escape.

Or so she had thought at the time.

Her confidence had slipped a bit since. Now that her stagecoach skirted the rocky Maine coastline, returning her to the place where she had first taken leave of her senses, doubts assailed her. Would her homecoming result in a cure or a further descent into madness?

In her unqualified opinion, the patient's prognosis looked grim. Not that she foamed at the mouth or talked aloud to herself...

"Well, not yet anyway."

Lily covered her mouth with a gloved hand. Had her fellow passengers overheard her outburst, had they started to stare?

The man in the corner. The fidgeting one scratching his snout. He had definitely gazed in her direction. Under the guise of pulling an ear and other assorted twitches, several more wayfarers also cast her suspicious glances.

Unless - was she imagining those furtive looks? Were those shifty gazes symptomatic of her recurring hallucinations?

Lily sat up straighter on the bench. Oh, God. How had she come to this? Could she no longer differentiate what was real from what was false, no longer tell who meant her well from who meant her harm?

Calm. She must stay calm. She would feel more herself, more rational, after disembarking.

The Concord Coach held three rows of benches, all snugly filled, cheek-by-jowl. When the driver reined in his team, swung open the door, and unfolded the stairs - heralding the arrival of her destination - the blessed release from the close confines came not a moment too soon. Still she hesitated, delaying her departure in favor of leaning forward in her cramped seat and peering outside.

A green sweep of century-old pines partially diminished her perspective. A cloak of silvery mist obscured the rest. No matter. Off in the distance the windswept cottage waited, a sad recluse teetering on a stone precipice high above an unforgiving sea. Isolated. Lonely. Cut off from everyone by both nature and design. Though windswept, though battered and bruised, the creaky structure had withstood the test of time and the harshness of Maine weather.

Lord. But she had missed every tarnished shingle, every distorted wave in the eighteenth-century glass windows, every lovely warped imperfection that transformed an aging house into a much beloved home.

Curious, Lily mused, how people - herself included - oft times came to resemble the houses they inhabited. More curious still why some places inspired longing in the breast while other locations provided only fodder for conspicuous forgetfulness. Oh, who knew why shiny-new buildings left no imprint at all on her heart while this broken-down relic of the past remained forever fixed in her soul? The hows and whys of such obsessions were best left to poets -

And to those over-rated Boston physicians who specialized in the treatment of madness.

Irrational or not, the cottage had tangled itself up inside her, as much a part of her being as her own name, as essential to her survival as the very veins coursing under her flesh. That admitted, she entertained no illusions about this trip. Just as surely as ten long years of exile equaled a decade of longing, this homecoming would be far from easy.

Like unaccustomed rains to parched desert sands, tears suddenly moistened her dry eyes. In response, Lily dug an upper tooth into her bottom lip. Hard. Not enough pressure to break the skin, the subsequent bloodletting prompting intrusive questions, but close.

Her anguish clawed for escape. If not for her gloves, she would have scraped the underside of her wrists raw with her fingernails. Self-inflicted pain invariably prevented a breakdown in her composure.

She had to do something, did she not?

Quite bad enough succumbing to bouts of melancholia in private without spreading the dreary doom and gloom about in public too. Apart from that consideration, any untoward show of emotionalism while subject to the scrutiny of others would only call notice to herself, a dangerous circumstance for a woman in her position.

Oh dear. Now she had done it. A low mumble had broken out in the coach as her fellow passengers dispensed with irritated silence to complain amongst themselves over her delay in disembarking.

No question, she really should leave. The lathered horses were growing restive and the much put-upon coachman, impatient to be off, had already deposited her carpetbag on the ground. Like it or not, the time had come to face her past.

Lest she discomfort her companions en route to the door, she murmured a perfunctory "Excuse me" in advance of plowing through the sea of outstretched limbs before her. Fair warning given, she vacated her corner seat at the rear of the vehicle, stiffened her spine and proceeded to bypass retracted feet, while deliberately stomping on those extended to trip her up.

Really, who could resist?

Perhaps someone saner than she might have refused the allure. Alas, armed with her recent madwoman diagnosis, she trod on every leather boot in her path.

Damn judgmental hypocrites, the lot of them. They deserved their crushed toes.

"Enjoy the remainder of your journey," she called gaily over her shoulder, and alighted the coach, exposing not so much as a hint of ankle in her descent. A dismissive wave to the driver, a firm grasp on her retrieved carpetbag and Lily was off, hastening through the cottage's rusted front gates, her stride purposeful yet decorous...

Until the coach bumped and groaned around the bend in the lane and disappeared down the treacherous hill, taking the disapproving passengers with it. Then, her purposeful stride screeched to a halt.

Safe from prying eyes, she practically inhaled the red petals right off her grandmother's prize-winning climbing roses. The faint cinnamon fragrance bringing back thorny memories, she chucked her horribly frumpy, but-oh-so-practical, traveling bag in the tall grass. A patch of thistle received her dumped black reticule.

A fine spot for it too!

Next to go was her dull, navy-blue bonnet. This, she launched skyward. When the hideous hat landed, resembling a misshapen tulle toadstool on the overgrown walk, she kicked the flattened monstrosity out of sight, out of mind.

Good riddance to it!

Her dove-gray wrap followed suit. The conservative mantle flew not nearly as high, nor did it land nearly as far, but hers was a valiant effort if she did say so herself.

Inspired - actually, as rash as a case of poison ivy - she shed her tasteful but detested gloves. A toss later, the black kid decorated a nearby trumpet vine.

Heavens. Whatever would the good people of Bar Harbor say if they could see her now? Why, her actions were quite, quite scandalous.

Though not nearly as scandalous as that time she danced naked under the moon. Now there was scandal.

She sighed. It might have happened yesterday, the incident was so clear in her mind: her tangled red hair tickling her sublimely bare bottom; a dark brooding gaze making her flesh burn. She set out to tease the somber owner of those dark brooding eyes and had succeeded admirably.

Laughing, Lily spun in a giddy circle, just as she had back then.

Crushed stones scattered under her eminently serviceable leather boots. A gray dust tornado whipped into a billowing frenzy. The gritty cloud gradually settled, coating the bombazine skirts of her traveling gown.

Too, too terrible. She reaaaalllly should control her unseemly urges. But ever mindful that a nice, long, pointy hatpin waited in the wings to puncture her euphoria and drop her back down to earth with a resounding swoosh, she said to hell with propriety and spun all the faster.

Dizzy as can be, she gazed at her grandmother's perennial garden, all her crazed spinning blending the harmonious hues into a discordant jumble. Disliking the muddy color mix, Lily finally stilled. With her equilibrium restored, she identified each plant individually, finding not one sweet, safe pastel in the bunch.

None of those pale flowers for her grandmother. Oh, no. Pastels bleached out in the afternoon sun. Victoria Hill planted vibrant tones. Juicy colors. Sensual colors that brought a blush to the observer's cheeks. A sensory orgy sprawled before her like a bed of languid lovers -

Juicy. Sensual. A sensory orgy. Sprawled languid lovers.

Hisssss!

The pointed hatpin did its work. Not a clean merciful pop, but a slow, flattening leak.

A hot air balloon losing its hydrogen - best not strike a tinderbox nearby - her homecoming giddiness deflated. Much sobered, Lily concentrated on the scene before her.

The kitchen garden was unchanged; the pungent scent of aromatic plants still filled the warm air. Her industrious grandmother had already harvested some herbs; these hung upside down from the porch rafters to dry. The neat bunches, tied with brown-corded string, swung back and forth in the ocean breeze.

Biting her lip against the tears sneaking up on her again, Lily recalled all those long ago summer days spent churning up and planting this sun-kissed earth, loam so rich and fertile anything would grow in it.

On the left, a clump of wooly thyme dominated an entire corner of the garden. Given free rein, the invasive creeper would take over everything in its path, even spilling out over the walkway to grow between the driest and most inhospitable cracks in the porous stones.

Once upon a time, she had been wild too.

No more. Experience had trained her well, pruned her hard. Now her behavior was as tame and mannerly as the great drifts of lavender that softened the cottage's fieldstone foundation. And like those showy plants, she had become self-contained and self-consciously ornamental, essentially attractive and entirely superficial - a damn fashion accessory draped on the arm of a certain wealthy and prominent Boston banker.

Charles. She would not think of her fiancé now.

Instead she glided to her knees. Dislodging long-rooted dandelions, digging out stubborn crab grass, while leaving behind fledgling seedlings - volunteers, her grandmother called them - to grow on without competition, she lost herself to the mindless occupation. Faster and faster, plucking and yanking, she discarded the garden tyrants, the weeds forming a wilted pile in no time at all.

Digging in the dirt was far more therapeutic than swallowing the laudanum her esteemed Boston doctor had prescribed to aid her troubled sleep and calm her frazzled nerves. If only sunshine and warm earth came in medicinal form...

A snap of a twig. The crunch of footsteps. The steady drone of bees and birds gone suddenly quiet.

Wait! Over there - did someone watch her from behind the dense cover of trees?

Her nape prickling, she drew her soiled and fluttering fingertips up her thighs. From the force of recently acquired habit, she clasped her white-knuckled hands in her lap - to mask any remaining unsteadiness - while she awaited the appearance of another aberration. Or apparition. Or figment of her imagination. Of late, they had all become too frequent visitors.

"Is anyone there?" she called on the outside chance that perhaps, just perhaps, this time her tormentor was flesh and blood.

"Did I frighten you?" asked a disembodied voice.

Not only was that warm baritone real, its owner was instantly recognizable as he stepped out from behind his green cover.

His presence did nothing to reassure her. Quite the opposite. She trembled at the sight of him.

She said what sprang to mind. "Yes! You did frighten me!"

Unfortunately, with spontaneity came honesty - not the best method of dealing with Doyle Donovan. The truth would give this man too much power over her. Too much control.

The truth might very well get her killed.