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IN THE WIND’S EYE
CHAPTER SIX
What is taken from the fortune, also, may haply be so much lifted from the soul. The greatness of a loss, as the proverb suggests, is determinable, not so much by what we have lost, but by what we have left. Bovee
Despite what he had thought, his grandmother said nothing to Sinclair about missing Mass on Sunday although her pursed lips and flashing eyes conveyed her anger more than mere words could have. He had spent the week avoiding her and now that the guests were beginning to arrive for Conor and Tina's party, he could no longer expect to be spared his grandmother's scathing tongue. Nor was he. "Young man!" Sinclair stopped, lifted his eyes to heaven, then turned around, a smile he did not feel plastered on his mouth. "Yes, Ma'am?" Grace Vivienne was advancing on him, an elderly gentleman in tow, her hand held securely in the crook of the octogenarian's arm. "I want a word with you, Rory Sinclair!" she snapped. "This can't be Sin!" the old gentleman exclaimed. His rheumy eyes lit up. "Devon's brat?" "How are you Colonel Bartlett?" Sinclair inquired, reaching out for the frail, liver-spotted hand that was thrust at him. "Fair to middling, boy; fair to middling." Roy Floyd Bartlett's grip was firmer and stronger than Sinclair would have imagined. "You're looking fit as snuff. None the worse for wear, I'm thinking." "He has gained some weight since coming home, but he, like his cousins, has developed a strong addiction to the Brew!" Grace Vivienne stated. "Do tell," the Colonel grinned. "Like a spot of it, myself, at the end of the day." He released Sinclair's hand. "Nothing like good Kentucky whiskey to aid the digestion." "Humph," Grace Vivienne snorted. "Where is Leland, Rory Sinclair?" Sinclair looked around them. "I think he and Brendan are showing Mr. Arnold the new foal. Would you like me to………" "I want you to walk with me," she cut him off and politely disengaged her hand from Col. Bartlett's arm. With a sweet, almost coy look on her wrinkled face, she tilted her eyes up to her escort. "Will you excuse us, R.F.?" She held her hand out to him, fingers curled downward. The Colonel bowed elegantly, took her hand and kissed the arthritic fingers.. "Of course, Ma'am." He inclined his head in Sinclair's direction then ambled off, spine erect and shoulders squared. "I've always liked the Colonel," Sinclair said. "I should think so," his grandmother snapped. Before he could respond, she threaded her arm through his and began to walk toward the gazebo, dragging him reluctantly in her wake. When they reached the structure, she indicated that he help her climb the steps. Once inside, she sat on the swing, arranged her skirts, folded her hands in her lap, then looked up at him sternly. "I have been informed that you visited an establishment of ill repute this past weekend," she stated. Sinclair winced. Who the hell had told the old biddy? He opened his mouth to answer, but his grandmother didn't give him a chance. "Now, I understand why you did not see fit to Honor the Lord and keep Holy his Sabbath!" "Grandmother, I am………." he began, his face red. "Going to hell as surely as the sun will set in the West!" she threw at him. Her mouth twisted into an ugly line. "But then you seem to revel in consorting with whorish women, do you not, Rory Sinclair?" The blush on Sinclair's face turned redder still, but it was anger now instead of shame that deepened the color. "As I was going to say before you so rudely interrupted me, Grandmother," he grated, his jaw set, "I am a grown man. I have certain…….." Grace Vivienne waved a dismissive hand. "Needs?" she queried. Her nose practically quivered. "I know all about men's so-called 'needs', Rory Sinclair. Your father, the Saints be good to him, kept a darkie for his amusements." She snapped open the fan that she wore hanging from a strap on her left wrist. She fanned herself briskly. "While I find the whole sordid business contemptible and ungodly, I quite understand the nature of a man; and although I recognize these baser instincts as things men seem compelled to satisfy, I will not have a grandson of mine spending the night in such places!" Sinclair ground his teeth together and carefully chose his words. "I had had a bit too much…….." "Brew!" his grandmother finished for him. "Yes, I am aware that you have developed the habit." She stopped fanning and glared at him. "That will stop, Rory Sinclair. I have already so informed your cousins that there will be no more indiscriminate imbibing in my house." "Your house?" he questioned, his anger building. "Since when did Willow Glen become your house, Grandmother?" Storm clouds were building in the dark recesses of his eyes. "The house is Leland's, not yours!" Grace Vivienne's lips curled with contempt. "As long as I am matriarch of this family, the house is under my jurisdiction!" The fan began to move at an incredible speed, causing the fine white hairs at her temple to move as though they were alive. "Leland has no problem with that. Why do you?" "Leland couldn't care less about what goes on around him!" Sinclair snapped. "He came back from the war missing his leg as well as his backbone, it seems, if he can accept you making him a guest in his own home!" His grandmother surprised the hell out of him when she pushed up from the swing and, without a moment's pause, drew back her hand and slapped him as hard as she could. Rocked by the force of her hand, Sinclair stumbled back, the imprint of her palm livid on his scarred cheek. He put up a hand to the stinging pain, wondering how a woman his grandmother's age could move so fast and hit so gods-be-damned hard. "Do not," he heard his grandmother say in a low, compelling voice, "ever speak to me in such a manner again, Sir!" Knowing he had overstepped his bounds, Sinclair swallowed his embarrassment, lifted his chin, and tried to keep the anger from his voice. "I apologize, Grandmother," he said, his jaw clenched. "From the moment you were born, I told Devon you would be the scourge of his family," Grace Vivienne declared. "I told him he would have to take the strap to you more than he ever would Duncan or Leondis." Her eyes narrowed hatefully. "Unfortunately, you were his favorite and he allowed you far more leeway than he ever did your brothers." She raked her gaze down his tall frame. "And that was surely a mistake for you have turned into a common individual with no manners or sense of family pride." Sinclair held his tongue. He had always known his grandmother despised him, but he was just now learning how much. When she took a step toward him, he stood his ground, refusing to cower as Leland, Conor, and Brendan did before her wicked temper. "Were it not for you," Grace Vivienne said, her face ugly and hateful, "WindLass would still belong to this family. As it is, unless you start doing what is expected of you, it will remain in that heathen's hands!" "And just what is it you think I can do, Grandmother?" he threw at her. "I have no money….." "Take it back!" the old woman shouted at him. "HOW?" he returned with equal fire. Grace Vivienne poked him in the chest with her fan, punctuating her words with a vicious stab. "Do I really have to tell you, Rory Sinclair? There is only one way: Go after the whore!" "And just what am I to do about her husband?" Sinclair scoffed, letting slide the insult to Ivonne. A mean , evil smile formed on the old woman's lips. "Kill him, of course." "In cold blood?" he questioned. "Just shoot him down on the highway like a rabid dog?" "Challenge him to a duel," she suggested, her smile lethal. "You are a better shot than he, are you not?" Sinclair snorted. "The last I heard, dueling was illegal in Savannah, Grandmother. Even if I managed to win, I'd be hung for murder." "Oh, pooh!" she snapped, waving away the suggestion. "There isn't a magistrate in seven counties who would dare convict a McGregor of murder for disposing of a heathen like Delacroix!" "Well, I hope you'll forgive me for not finding out if that's true or not!" he grated. Grace Vivienne lifted her chin. "Speak no more to me of backbones, Rory Sinclair. It seems neither you nor your cousin returned from the War with one in tow!" With that, she snapped her skirts behind her and was down the steps and onto the lawn as agilely and quickly as a woman half her age. Sinclair watched her bulldoze her way across the verdant lawn, marveling that such a small woman could be such an overpowering presence. He saw her guests--and there was no question that those assembled to honor Conor and Tina were his grandmother's guests, no one else's--bow and scrape to her as though she were the Queen of Georgia. "A mad queen," he said beneath his breath. "A crazy old bitch of a queen!" Since there had never been any love to lose between them, he wasn't hurt by her treatment of him. He had long since developed a tough skin over his heart where his grandmother was concerned. After his parents had been killed, she had applied the strap she had mentioned far too many times for him to have anything but fear and dislike for the old woman. Her whippings with the leather strap she kept for such purposes had drawn blood until it ran down his bare legs. The first woman he had ever bedded had remarked upon the scars on his backside. "You must have been one hell of a child!" Francis had quipped. "I was an unloved child," he'd returned. Standing there in the gazebo, his hand on the post beside him, Sinclair wondered--and not for the first time--why his grandmother hated him the way she did. There had to be more to it than just having been born.
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"Where have you been?" Sinclair smiled. "Getting my tale chewed," he responded and took the slim hand that was extended toward him. "How's married life treating you, Little Cousin?" Christina Dunn Brell shrugged. "I've got my work cut out for me, Sin." She sighed loudly. "C.J. is a handful, I'm afraid." "I do believe you'll manage," Sin laughed. He looked at this petite woman with the golden hair and sassy blue eyes and almost envied C.J. his possession of the lady's heart. Tina would be a blessing to his cousin. Tina looked around them, then lowered her voice. "I hear tell you've been visiting naughty places and doing wicked things," she accused, but the twinkle in her eyes gave lie to the seriousness expressed in her words. Sinclair ducked his head toward hers. "And enjoyed the hell out of it, too!" Tina drew back, pretend shock on her delicate face. "For shame, Rory Sinclair McGregor! You'll go to Hell for sure!" "So I've been told," he returned. C.J.'s new wife linked her arm in his. "Then I shall just have to try to save you," she put in. "And how do you propose to do that, Miss Wiseacre?" he asked, walking with her. "I shall have to find a good woman to take you in hand," she countered. She did not look up at him, but she had felt his body go rigid. She didn't give him a chance to protest her words for she continued on in an insistent voice. "You know you need to marry." "Who says so?" he grated, his jaw set. "Conor and I," she replied. She risked a look at his face and wasn't too discouraged by the slight pique that had mottled his complexion. "We want you happy." "Then tell Ivonne to leave that prick she's married to," Sinclair snapped. A long relationship since childhood with the man walking beside her allowed Tina to overlook his vulgar word and the anger in his tone. She squeezed his arm tighter and refused to comment. "I'm not joking, Tina," Sinclair told her. "Oh, I know you aren't," Tina responded. "But you and I both know there will be no divorce for Ivonne so stop acting like a little boy's whose candy has been filched by the local bully and grow up!" Sinclair stopped, causing the woman at his side to stumble. He had to put out a hand to keep her from doing so. He lowered his voice so no one would hear. "Don't you start giving me advice about how I am suppose to conduct myself, Christina!" "Then stop mooning after Ivonne and get on with your life!" Tina demanded. "She is a married woman with a child on the way and there is no chance under heaven that any of that is going to change!" "So I'm just suppose to forget I love her? Forget that she is the only woman I will ever love?" he challenged. Tina held his stare. "She wants you happy, Sinclair, and she knows the only way that will ever happen is if you get over her!" "And if I don't want to do that?" he fumed. "Then you will become the male version of Grace Vivienne Brell Brell!" Tina seethed. "I don't have a female first cousin to marry!" he tossed at her, knowing where this was leading. Tina's eyes narrowed. "You know what I mean!" "No, I don't," he returned, obstinately. "See?" Tina grumbled. "That's what comes of marrying your first cousin! Someone should have warned Grace Vivienne that her grandchildren would be addled!" "I don't want anyone but Ivonne," he stated, each word dropping like a rock into the conversation. "Well, you can't have her!" Tina reminded him. She lifted her hand and waved to a group of women who were standing together near the long plank boards that had been set up as buffet tables. "But I can introduce you to……….." Sinclair disengaged his arm, spun around on his heel, and was
striding briskly away before Tina could stop him. "Coward!" she called after
him, but her giggle let him know she wasn't angry. "You have to make him understand that things have changed," Ivonne had insisted. "Make him get on with his life." "He's a stubborn man," Tina had insisted. "You can lead a mule to water, but you can't make him take a wife he doesn't want!" Ivonne smiled as she remembered their conversation. Tina was infamous for mixing her metaphors. It was one of her most endearing traits. Conor and Sinclair had given her a nickname when they were growing up: Willa Wiseacre, for Tina was always dispensing advice whether it was asked for or not. But the advice she had given her girlhood friend the evening before had gone straight to Ivonne's heart: "You have to let him go as well, Ivonne," Tina had counseled. "Until you do, neither of you will be able to get over the other." Easier said than done, Ivonne thought. For as long as she drew breath, she would love Sinclair McGregor--and only Sinclair McGregor. He had been her heart and soul for as long as she had known what true love meant. Her dreams had been filled with his handsome face and her body ached for the feel of his strong arms around her. "Are you feeling all right, my dear?" Ivonne shook herself and looked up to the man standing beside her. "I am fine, Edward," she replied. "You look a touch wilted, Sister." Ivonne frowned. "I am fine," she repeated and turned her attention to the tall, graceful blond woman standing beside Edward. "Why don't you take your sister and introduce her to everyone, Edward?" Edward nodded absently. He had spotted the one man he had been searching for in this boring mass and was studiously watching him. "I shall. Perhaps later." "There are so many terribly handsome men in the throng," Evangeline Delacroix Hardy quipped. Her violet eyes swept over the assembled men. "I can hardly wait to be introduced to those you think suitable, Edward." "Of course," her brother replied, but he wasn't paying any attention to his widowed sister. Finding her a husband so he might get her out from under his roof was certainly high on his list of things to do, but at the moment, he had something more important on his mind. Evangeline looked away from the men she had been surveying and down at her sister-in-law. "You know," she said, her mouth crooked into a frown of disapproval, "it would not be considered decent for a woman in your condition to be seen publicly in New Orleans." "Savannah has long made its own rules," Ivonne responded, her face set. "Just because a woman is pregnant…….." "Oooh!: Evangeline said, putting her hands over her ears. "One does not say that word in polite company!" She stamped her foot. "Edward, please! Isn't it bad enough that I must accompany you into public with her in such a condition? Must we be subjected to her base language?" Edward looked away from his quarry and stared at his sister. "What?" he inquired. He had no idea what his sister and wife had been discussing. Not that it mattered. From the moment Evangeline had shown up on his doorstep two days earlier--and upon learning of the soiree scheduled at a neighboring plantation and insisting that she be included--the household at WindLass had been turned upside down. Not only had his only sibling arrived with every possession she owned, but the twit had made it plain that she would be living with Edward until husband number three could be found. And that wouldn't be soon enough for Edward! "She is enceinte, Edward," Evangeline complained as though her brother didn't know his wife was with child. "You should have insisted she stay home." "Take your sister and introduce her around, Edward," Ivonne ground out, her hands clenched tightly on the arm of the chair in which she sat. "I insist!" Edward sighed. "Of course." He wanted to be out of Evangeline's company as much as his wife did. He held out his arm. "Come along, Sister." Ivonne's face was murderous as she watching the tall, willowy creature sashaying away with Edward. As it all too often happened when beautiful women meet, there had been instantaneous dislike between them. Each had sized up the other and formed an immediate and irreversible opinion of the other's attributes. Ivonne had no idea--and didn't care to know--what Evangeline thought of her. Her thoughts on her sister-in-law, however were precise and to the point: Evangeline was a female shark! "I will need to re-marry as soon as possible," the woman had stated at the table that first night. "A lady must never be without resources and have to depend upon the charity of her family." "What happened to all the money John David Hardy left you?" Edward had asked. Evangeline had tossed her blond curls. "Once his gambling debts were paid, I was left virtually penniless." "And I don't suppose there was any money left from the Granger estate?" Edward had pressed. Ivonne had learned that Evangeline's first husband, Gerald Francis Granger, had been bitten by a rattlesnake not long after their marriage. The poor man had lingered on for several weeks, then took his last breath while calling for his wife. "Edward!" Evangeline had proclaimed, putting her handkerchief to the corner of her eye. "You know I do not like to disgust my darling Gerry!" Edward had explained to Ivonne later that evening that Granger had been a wealthy tobacco farmer in Virginia, but his family had protested his will, which left everything to Evangeline, and the estate had been settled in favor of his brother. "I'll be willing to bet the next time she marries, my dear sister will have papers drawn up that will ensure there is no way for her husband's family to contest what he leaves her!" Edward had commented. "That's providing her husband proceeds her in death," Ivonne had reminded him. A strange look had come into Edward's face and he had smiled. The smile had been almost evil. "I would venture to say Evangeline will be around long after she's put a few more husbands in their graves." "Edward!" Ivonne had gasped. She didn't like the woman, but had found that a terrible thing for a man to say about his only sister, but Edward had laughed. "A woman like Evangeline will worry any man she marries to death, Ivonne. Believe me. She hasn't been here long enough for you to want to strangle her, but you will!" He had draped a companionable arm around his wife's shoulders. "Let's just hope we can get her married as soon as possible." He winked. "Else I might be tempted to do the bitch in, myself!" Looking around at the eligible bachelors of Chatham County, Ivonne wondered which one would the misfortune to catch Evangeline's eye. At least, she thought, it certainly wouldn't be Sinclair McGregor, though he was by far the handsomest of the lot, for Edward had hinted that only a wealthy man would be good enough of his sister. Sinclair's name drifted through Ivonne's mind and settled there like a sharp pain. She searched for him among those gathered but didn't see him. Did he even know she was here? Had Tina told him? If she had, he was making it a point to avoid the area of the lawn where Ivonne was seated. She slumped in her chair and placed a hand on the mound of her belly. It wouldn't be long now until her child came. She just wished she didn't feel so bad all the time. For the last two days, she'd been sick to her stomach far more than she had during the first trimester of her pregnancy. Heartburn had been especially bad and she had a niggling shunt of pain just under her ribcage. She hadn't felt the baby moving as much as he had been and not at all that day. She rubbed her stomach. That usually got his attention, but there was no movement. "Ivonne?" Ivonne's heart thumped wildly against her breast and she slowly turned her head. He was standing about five feet away, looking more handsome than any man had a right to look. His dark hair was curled in the high humidity of the August day and a single lock had found its way over his forehead. There was a slight gleam of sweat on his face. "I shouldn't have run away from you that day," she said softly. "I do owe you an explanation." Sinclair reached up and pulled a leaf from the chinaberry tree and looked down at it, unable to meet her eyes. "I don't think now's the time for explanations." "No," she agreed. She ached to get up and go to him, to run her fingers through his thick hair. She had always thrilled to the touch of it, the smell of it. When he lifted his head and looked into her eyes, she caught her breath for there were tears in his. "Tina is intent on playing matchmaker," she heard him say. She could not allow his tears to fall for that would be her undoing. She had done this to him, caused this melancholy that brooded so harshly on his face. It was up to her to set things right, but she had no idea where to start. "I have no intention of marrying, Ivonne," he told her. His look was intense. "I will not settle for second best." The insult was there, she thought. He knew well enough that she, herself, had settled for less than what she had always wanted. He didn't know why--and at the moment she dared not tell him--but one day he would know and she hoped it would not destroy him. "I want you to be happy," she said and felt the prickle of her own tears forming. There was a wry, self-mocking laugh from his chiseled lips, then he looked away, watching a group of children rolling a hoop along the grass. "I don't think that's going to happen, Ivonne," he replied. "You…………" Ivonne felt a wave of nausea lurching up her throat and stopped, trying to swallow down the bitter bile. It would not do to throw up in front of Sinclair; she would be mortified for as long as she lived. Sinclair wasn't looking at her and wasn't aware of the pallor that had erupted over her face. He was watching the children. "I won't pretend to try to understand what you saw in him or why you would want to marry him in the first place, but even if I can't accept it, I can honor it." He squeezed his eyes shut. "Even if that goes against every instinct in my body." Ivonne was beginning to feel worse. She was hot, sweating profusely, and the niggling pain under her ribcage became a steady prod. She put her hands on her belly. "Sinclair?" she whispered. He didn't hear her. "I thought I could stay here, but I can't." He opened his eyes. "I have decided to leave Savannah and go over to Colquitt. Tina's brother says his uncle needs someone to help him with his farm." "Sinclair?!" Sinclair turned to her and froze. Ivonne was standing in front of her chair, her hand out to him. Her face was ghastly white. He took one step, then saw her knees begin to buckle. Moving quicker than he ever had, he was at her side, catching her as she fainted. He swept her up in his arms, yelling for help. Even as he ran toward the house, her unconscious body draped over his arms, he felt the heavy wetness of her gown slapping at his legs and smelled the thick, cloying stench of copper.
THE LEGENDS BEGIN WITH THE KEEPER OF THE WIND
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