A/N: At long last, the finale... I think you all have been waiting for it long enough. That is why I chose to post it immediately following the previous chapter. Now I will lay down my own quill and let my fingers rest awhile. I hope you find this up to par with your expectations. All reviews, good and bad, are welcomed and, as always, appreciated.
Love,
M-
Chapter 12
It wasn't supposed to end like this.
That was the same thought shared by two separate minds. One not knowing where or how far the other was from him; the other, standing just outside the door that would bring her back into his life just as it was ending.
Entering the room, all that Kathryn could smell was death lingering around with its cold hands. Just waiting for the final moments to grab its prize and take him away. At least she could tell he was conscious. With his eyes still closed against the fair amount of light drifting through the room, the Earl sighed, clearly aggravated.
"I wasn't aware I had an audience..."
A faint smile graced her lips. That's the man she remembered. Embittered and acid-tongued. Stalling for a moment, Kathryn just looked over his decrepit profile from the safety of distance. From there, she countered with some of her own forgotten wit that seemed to surface again without warning, although soft as it was.
"I'm well overdue for a debt to be repaid. You spied on me once, it's only fair that I return the favor. At least that's how I remember it."
John visibly shook.
"It can't be true."
He readjusted himself on his throne of pillows so that he could sit up properly and look at her. Kathryn noticed how even this little bit of effort took almost every ounce of energy from him. It saddened her to see the frail form infront of her, but yet still have the vibrant memories of the merciless debauchee. Suddenly her eyes darkened from missing him. Even blistered and ill as he was, she still saw a shadow of what he once was.
"All these years of silence and now you come to me...looking like that...and leave me here, to lay, without the rigid body to do anything about it. And they call me a sadist..."
His eyes, although cloudy with cataracts and sickness, still shone brightly with the mischief of his finer, more careless days. Kathryn proceeded closer to his bedside and smiled at him knowingly. The Earl reached out one gnarled hand to the material hem laying about her hip and tugged it, bringing her closer so that she bent to his laboring chest. With his voice, smooth and low against her cheek, he whispered.
"I would rip you apart..."
The words weren't threatening, but, had he retained the body and stamina he possessed years ago, Kathryn would've been in trouble. She felt the feeble yet determined lips press against the corner of her mouth, causing her to smile.
"I have no doubt that you would Johnny."
He made a small nondescript noise at the mention of his name.
"Say it again. It's been a long time."
Kathryn's throat became thick with unexpressed emotion and when she said his name for the second time, it came out in more of a hoarse whisper than a forgotten sentiment. Still it held an effect on the Earl.
"Why now? Why, when it's already too late?"
"Because you were looking for me. Before this, I heard you haunted the old theater looking for me."
John laughed bitterly at the memory of stalking through the backstage so many times. The first few times, women vied for his attention, but soon after, came to realize that it was pointless to even try. To them, the famous Earl of Rochester had finally gone mad. It was more surprising that he had gone mad over a girl. To imagine a man like him losing himself to the ghost of a woman. One that wasn't even his own wife no less.
"Two years actually..."
Kathryn silently wondered if it had really been that long. She knew better than to underestimate the will of a determined, of not altogether incorrigible man. The voice of that man cut through her thoughts, pulling her from them again.
"What else do you know about me?"
She sighed and played with the lace that was fringed on one of his many pillows.
"A lot more than you think..."
He went to grab her hand to stop it from it habitually nervous movement, but before he could, she dropped it back down into her lap.
"Your wife, is she well?"
That stung him. More because the question held not malice or bitterness, only pure concern. A lot more than he or the cow he married, had deserved. His tone took a spiteful tone as he referred to her.
"She's well. Well enough to be burning my plays and my poetry if that acrid scent that I'm smelling is that of ash."
Kathryn just cocked an eyebrow in amusement while he paused momentarily to fuss with the over doilied cuffs of his night shirt and huffed.
"She hates my writing..."
She bit her lip and mumbled.
"...there was a small bonfire in the courtyard when I arrived."
John just sighed and laid further into his cushions.
"Just as well I suppose. They'll soon be burning them in the streets. Why not let her be the first to do it... I do have something for you though."
She looked up at him, mildly surprised.
"John how could you have known that she was going to..."
He cut her off while pulling a small, red journal from underneath his pillow.
"...I had a feeling the Misses would be bitter so I saved this from the kindling and have been trying to hide it safely for over a month now. I didn't think you would ever see me again, but I gave instruction to Alcock to send it to you in my stead should I pass on. I guess whatever God my mother is praying to decided to let me have a last minute reprieve on her behalf of blind faith."
Kathryn took the small bound book and looked at the nameless spine, not missing the fact that John ran a lingering finger down to her wrist when he handed it over. She went to open it but he stopped her by putting his hand on the cover.
"Not til I'm gone...please."
Looking at his face, she could see that it was important to him that she wait, no matter how much the thought of him dying hurt her. A silence fell over the both of them as she remembered the man that he was. They hadn't known eachother personally for more than a week but God how he had infuriated her! But with that, came his relentless passion that Kathryn had never been able to find in anyone else. Not that she had tried often, but when she did take a lover, she found it useless. Now, all that was left of the man she knew, was a mischievous glint lying behind he tired eyes. Somehow, that was good enough for her.
"I'm assuming you heard about Billy..."
Being jarred out of her thoughts by his words, Kathryn's eyes lowered to her nervous hands. Obviously uncomfortable at the mention of that particular name. But, the Earl, still being who he was, pushed it a little further.
"...His last breath of air held your name within it. Did you know that too? I forced it back into his mouth with the blade of a dagger. And what are your thoughts on that?"
Her voice came out quiet and meek and still she didn't meet his eyes when she answered.
"I have none...only relief and a certain amount of gratitude owed to you."
That shocked John to say the least. He hadn't been expecting such an answer from her and it showed when he finally caught her eyes. Her eyes searched him carefully and held a resonate sadness in them for his physical state. Why had she waited so long to come back? Pulling a chair close, Kathryn decided to fill the void that his silence posed.
"Do you know what happened the day I disappeared?"
This time his eyes mirrored hers with a flash of his own sadness and resolve. He knew that she was safer away from him, who knows how bad they would've hurt eachother eventually had she stayed. For that, John could regrettably say that his mother had been right.
"Apparently, I had become a bigger burden than I had hoped. But that's in accordance with the lady of the house and I know how dramatic mommy dearest can be."
Kathryn shot him a leery and playful look.
"Lest we forget the theatrics of her very son..."
A ghost of a smile made itself present on John's face.
"Ahh...those were my glory days. I was at my finest when I was with you."
Kathryn leaned over to look him in the face with a dignified brow raised.
"Well, you're with me now, do you feel any different?"
He retaliated by jutting his chin in the air at her.
"If I worked properly, perhaps then I could show you physical proof of what a difference your presence makes, but I digress. Certainly my charm has not worn down just because my flesh has decided to take its leave."
She smiled slightly at that.
"The same can be said for your sense of humor, I see."
He scoff indignantly, his voice retaining its silky texture .
"My dear, if I lose that, then I truly am dead."
Her eyes saddened and lowered from his at the upbringing of the very grave subject she was trying to avoid. With him being as far gone as he was already, there really wasn't a use in beating around the bush to save fragile feelings. The Earl chided softly with his tongue and brought his hand under her chin to lift it up. His gaze had softened substantially as he spoke to her in hushed tones.
"I'll have none of that. Time has passed me by without a second glance for anyone to grieve, so I do not expect you to waste any of the time we have left by crying over me now. There'll be plenty of opportunities for that when I finally shut my eyes and sleep."
He was really dying...Regardless of his words, or maybe it was the fact that they so closely mirrored some of the last ones that he said to her before they fought and she left him, Kathryn still found a tear slipped through her lashes and onto the Earl's palm. In the past, he had not wanted to show vulnerability or displays of open affection, but now, it was all turned around. Wilmot could sense something was wrong so he dropped a hand on her knee and began to trace patterns on it to ease her.
"That day...when your mother came to my door after you had gone, I saw that Billy wasn't that far behind. I heard the argument between the two of you when I went to call you back. I saw him duck into the ally and became frightened that he would act rashly had I been alone. I explained my situation to your mother, so she sent me off rather quickly."
John took it all in as it came, having already figured the reasoning behind it a long time ago. It still did nothing to lessen the pain of her absence.
"I see..."
Kathryn blinked.
"That's it? That's all you have to add? You don't want to know anything more?"
John caught her eye in a long glance. Telling her that he'd already know what she would have said anyway. Still, his eyes held her there.
"Do you know I almost killed my best servant because of you? It didn't cross my mind til long after he'd been knocked out that he couldn't even tell right from left without the help of smudging it in coal on his hands. My mother, on the other hand, is just as aggravating to get anything out of as a festering boil. So, I was left wondering. The rest doesn't matter because, unless I'm hallucinating, you're here now."
Kathryn blushed slightly from the way he looked at her.
"And here I was, thinking that you had gotten all you wanted from me years ago. So afraid that if I came now, you wouldn't even remember my name."
The Earl smiled softly, but in a sad and pained sort of way. His paled, discolored eyes lifting slowly to reveal the slight presence of unshed tears.
"My love, it will be your name on the lips of two dead men before the day is through. It just so happens that while the first was a traitor and died as he should; in the cold, dark night. The other however, is a sad and world weary debauchee, that will die as he should. Ridden with the mental and physical consequence of his playboy days, while laying in his deathbed next to a lover that he'll never truly have."
At that, he slightly tugged on the hand that she didn't realize he was holding. He pulled her from her sitting place to lay beside him. With all too much finality, Kathryn realized what he was saying and how he meant it. She laid there, tears silently falling from her eyes as he watched her with his heavy-lidded gaze. Nothing was spoken between the two of them as she listened to the slow beating of his heart through his chest and felt his feeble hands thread themselves throughout her long hair. Finally, she heard him whisper her name, his lips sweeping ever so gently across her forehead. His heartbeat dwindled, and John Wilmot, Second Earl of Rochester slipped away.
Kathryn had no recollection of just how long she had laid there. It must've been hours and even then, his wife hadn't come to look in on him. Only when she felt an uncommonly gentle hand on her shoulder, did she realize that Alcock had been there.
"C'mon Miss...the longer you keep like this, the harder it will be to let go."
She knew she didn't have to reply, she didn't even think she had the strength, but she didn't protest as the brawny man lifted her out of the bed and carried her into another bedroom of the house. Her arms hung limply around his shoulders until he laid her down again and sat on a small footstool beside the bed. He reached into his inner coat pocket and retrieved the small book John gave to her and handed it over.
"Don't want to be forgetting this...he worked hard on it. His best, if you ask me."
Kathryn couldn't bring herself to open the book while she wasn't alone, it just didn't seem right. Soon, Alcock got the point and just as quietly, left her there alone. She thought her eyes had abandoned all the sadness left in her, but when she lifted the cover, her tears welled up again as she ran a hand down the page and across the elegant scrawl of John's handwriting. There, on the first page, was a poem.
The Seamstress
God has made a mad fool of me.
How cruel to mock me with such a pretty face.
If I gave up now to a ghost in a hall,
A shadow beyond a curtain,
I'd meet nothing but a cold draft of suffocating air.
My spirit would linger like a silk caress.
Woven with the gaze of an absinthe colored stranger,
This fragile thread in my hands...now.
Will it mend or melt my heart.
Am I to break her gently,
Or will she be the end of me?
Redemption is not for my kind,
I will die seeking nothing but the eyes of my beholder.
If she be waiting for me,
Then I will know that I am forgiven
And that heaven does exist