Love endured. If Jared loved her, truly loved her, he would wait. He would wait. She had seen it in his eyes, heard it in his voice. He would make that sacrifice for her. But to what end?
She wandered over to the oaken locked shelf that she had been given the key to six years before. She knew what it contained, but she had never had the courage to open it. Five generations of journals and diaries. Accounts of the lives, the loves, and she knew, the pain the women of Briar Cliff had endured.
Slowly, she drew the key from her pocket and opened the door on a past she had sworn she would never visit.
Chapter Eighteen
Father has sworn Matthew Timmons will save me from the demons of lust that are the curse of my birth. I will do as he bids, but my heart breaks, for I know I will never again see my beloved Daniel… Sarah Santiago. She had been Tabitha and Diego’s first-born daughter.
Father was right. I am cursed. My female needs torment me both sleeping and awake. James is disgusted by my very presence, of course. I cannot blame him for this. I am a blight upon my family… Samantha Fieldings. Her husband had been James Fieldings, a religious and righteous leader of the community at the time.
God save me. I have wed Davis Eldon as Father ordered. What have I done? I have refused the demand of the one I love for this life. A life of ease, of all I knew should have been mine, for what? For the suffering I now endure. What have I done? My heart breaks for my one true love. My soul aches… Elissa Fieldings Eldon.
They can make me marry as they please, to satisfy the terms of this insane Trust. But they cannot make me suffer. Grayson may be the choice of my father, but it is his brother, Lawrence, to whom my heart and body belongs. I will not suffer the fate of those before me. I will know love, if only in the darkness of the night and the sheltering arms of deception… Karen Eldon Marshal
If only I were as strong as my parents. They loved, they laughed, and they knew at least a small measure of happiness. The man I loved, precious Kimmie, I won’t say his name. He was not your father, he was never my lover, and as your father was prone to remind me, he preferred the money. I am too weak, and I know I will not survive this illness. Should I die, then Briar Cliff and its protection falls to you. All that the women of our line have dreamed of falls upon your shoulders, my precious daughter. You can have it all. It can all be yours, just as it was meant to be. But for what? You are inheriting generations of pain, anger, deception and tears. It is truly a curse, and one I pray you deny. Love, Kimmie. Laugh. Let your heart be free and your body be your own. A house, no matter how beautiful, or how priceless, will ever take the place of those things.
I hope you are reading this diary, that you have read those who have gone before, now that I myself have passed on. I hope that the years you have spent away from this house, from me, have given you a chance to grow strong, to break away from the curse this house brings.
So many years I refused your father the truth he often pleaded for. He wanted only to know that you were his true daughter, and I, in my selfishness, refused him that. I realize now, as the end draws near, that I leave you alone, where before I had thought I would be here to see you triumph. I leave you alone. Without the father who perhaps would have treated you with kindness had I not driven the wedge between you.
I suffer now for my selfishness. No, not I, for I will pass on. But I go, knowing I will never rest, because you shall now suffer.
Briar Cliff is the curse, Kimmie, not your desires or your femininity or your gentle heart. It is this estate, and the past that has cursed us all… Claire Marshal Madison. It was dated the week of her death.
When Kimberly looked up from the final diary it was to see that night had overtaken the house. The light beside her glowed eerily, a single point of illumination within to emphasize the darkness that surrounded not just the estate, but her soul as well.
She had been away at school when her mother had become ill, and she hadn’t been called home until the last moment. She had believed for so many years that it had been her father’s decision to keep her unaware of her mother’s health. But now she knew the truth. It had been her mother’s.
They had both deceived her, had used her as weapon, one against the other until nothing had been left of the child in their eyes. She had been a sword and she had been the one to suffer.
She wanted to scream, to rage, to destroy the house brick by brick until nothing remained of the agony that resonated through her body. She wanted nothing more than to wipe away the memories of a past that should have never been.
She was crying. She wiped at her cheeks as she closed the diary and laid it beside those she had glanced through before. She stared around the library. Centuries of books graced the shelves and Kimberly knew that many more were in storage. Books that museums would salivate over. In five years, they would have been hers. It would have all been hers.