Page 115 of Wicked Rivals
Charles laid his other hand over hers and gave her a gentle squeeze as they clung to Ashton.She silently prayed as she stared at Ashton’s pale face. If only Brock would hurry and fetch the doctor…
*****
Ashton couldn’t see, couldn’t breathe. His body burned.
Flashes… Pieces of his life were scattered upon a fitful burst of wind, and his soul drifted away bit by bit.
His eyes flew open, and he gasped. Every muscle, every bone felt light, almost weightless. He was lying on a settee, light pouring through the bay windows of a room he recognized. He was in one of the old drawing rooms in his home in the country.
But things weredifferent. The carpets were old, faded, the patterns more than twenty years old, and the draperies letting in sunlight were out of fashion.
I had those draperies changed ten years ago…
Ashton shook his head, trying to dislodge his confused, muddled stream of thoughts. Where was he? Home…but it was the home he’d had as a child.
The door to the drawing room suddenly opened, and he saw a younger form of himself walk inside. It was him as a boy of seven years, and he wasn’t alone. Behind him came his father, a broad grin on his lips as he approached one of the cherry wood tables beside the fireplace, where a gleaming chess set waited to be played.
“If you win, Ashton, we will take breakfast up to your mother. And if I win, we shall go fishing, just the two of us,afterwe’ve given your mother her breakfast.” Malcolm winked at the little boy.
Ashton stared at the scene in fascination, his heart aching.I remember this day…
It was one of a thousand such days he’d had as a child, full of warmth, sunlight and love. One that was full of endless possibilities and no urgency. The sort of day a fortunate child in a loving house would have.
How had he forgotten that? For so many years since his father had passed, he’d remembered only the man who’d gotten deep into his cups and visited gambling hells to waste their fortune. But he hadn’t always been that way. He’d been kind once. Loving and playful. A man who’d spent hours fishing with his sons and teaching his daughter to ride. A man who loved and was loved.
Ashton’s eyes burned, and he blinked rapidly.
“Father.” He spoke the word, but neither the man nor the boy looked his way. They were intent on their game of chess. The boy crowed in triumph as he claimed the first pawn from his father.
“You were always talented at that game.” A deep voice chuckled from behind Ashton, making him jump.
His father, looking like the man he’d watched die so long ago, stood behind him. But the haunted look he’d expected to find wasn’t there. Only peace.
Confused, Ashton glanced between this vision of his father and the man who still played chess with his younger self.
“Father?” he whispered. How was it that he could feel like that seven-year-old boy all over again?
Malcolm came to stand behind him, watching their younger selves play chess. The squares upon the board were coated in lacquer, gleaming in the sunlight.
“Father, how…where…?” He was at a loss for words and blinked back a stinging sensation in his eyes.
“It’s a place in between.” His father watched as the young Ashton claimed another pawn, grinning at the younger Malcolm across from him.
Ashton looked around him. The sunlight heated his skin, and the smell of his mother’s spring roses perfumed the air, their white petals blossoming outside the windows. Morning dew clung to the leaves, but there was no birdsong or breeze from the open windows.
“Between what?”
Malcolm’s eyes were a mixture of peace and melancholy.
“Between your last breath and your first.”
Ashton tried to understand what his father was saying. Splinters of memories formed inside his mind… Rosalind telling him she loved him, letters pressed to his chest, the crack of a pistol, blinding pain. Ashton clutched his shoulder, but it was a phantom pain. There was no blood on this shirt.
“I was shot.” He strained to cling to those memories, but they were beginning to fade, like mist at dawn. Everything slipped into obscurity but Rosalind’s face.
His father nodded at their distant selves still removing moving pieces around the board. “Do you remember that game?”
Ashton let go of his arm as the phantom pain subsided.
