18.
1845...
~ "I hope it's always like this." Ada said from her comfortable perch on top of the falls. It was another summer day and she was enjoying the warmth of sun and the impromptu swim by their secret place.
"How do you mean?" Arthur asked. He turned to her and smiled. His features so much more relaxed here then when she had seen him in the village with his family.
The trees on this summer day were much smaller in the surrounding forest. They could see the dark castle and massive rose garden much easier from their secret view above their waterfall.
Arthur looked worriedly back at his boyhood home. His home, his prison.
"After were married. I hope everyday is like this." Ada corrected. She combed long fingers through her jet black hair.
The girl by his side was a beauty. Her features were enhanced by hair the color of pitch and dark brown eyes that seemed to peer into the soul. Her figure was small and pleasing and her skin was very fair. Perhaps it was her shocking beauty that had caused the jealous women in the village to whisper about her behind their hands. To accuse her of bewitching the young men and even old men. Men that rightfully belonged to them.
"I hope so to." Arthur said turning back to her. His face relaxed and happy now that he was away from the castle.
Ada smiled at the young Heir.
"Have you talked to your father about us?" She asked him.
"Not yet. Time isn't right." Arthur said. His face pulling into a worried line. Even though he was a grown man, he was still treated like a boy by her father. He wasn't married yet because it was a prospect he had put off for as long as he had been able. His family wanted him to marry a wealthy heiress from New York who Arthur couldn't stand. Who was just as empty and cold as the rest of his family.
While out riding one day, he had caught Ada trespassing on their land and fell under her spell. Perhaps the villagers had been right and she did have some kind of power over men. He had fallen for her as if she really were some type of enchantress. He never wanted to be without this strange beauty. This woman who made him forget the pressures and difficulties of his family. Forget their coldness, if only for a while.
"Your going to have to tell him you don't want to marry some socialite." Ada said gently running her long fingers through his hair. "That you want to marry me."
Arthur turned into her contact.
"I do want to marry you." Arthur whispered sadly. "It's not that easy. With my father, it never is. My cousins Eames and Dom can marry who they want. Their not the heirs to the title. Certain things are expected of me. I can't be the man I want."
"Your free as any other." Ada said confidently. "Your have your schooling done. You can leave Blackwood." Ada told him.
Arthur said nothing.
"Is it the money? You don't want to leave that? Not even for me?" She asked.
"I would leave it all for you." Arthur said. "I just would rather face the devil himself then my father."
"We can talk to him together." Ada offered. No one could say his beloved wasn't brave.
"No." Arthur snapped. He sat up straighter. "You know how people talk about you in the village."
"I don't care about that." Ada said. "Just because I have no family to recommend me or great fortune, I can marry who I like. Love who I like."
Arthur smiled as she kissed him.
~ Arthur had taught Ada to ride since he had discovered her and hid her from the wrath of a local woman who had accused her of witchcraft. A simple misunderstanding because the woman's son had declared his love for a poor girl who had no right to be loved by anyone respectable.
Arthur knew Ada didn't have to cast any spell on the youth to have him fall helplessly in love with her. She didn't have to do a thing to make any man want her. That was Ada's only crime. His beloved had a kind heart and that soon rendered him helpless to her. He had hidden her first in the stables and then the castle.
He wanted nothing more then to protect her from the ignorant villagers who wanted to hurt her. He had found himself becoming closer to her as the days and weeks went by. His feeling for her growing as they spent hours together in their secret swimming hole. Planing their lives together as soon as they were away from his father.
~ There were over 100 servants on the grand estate. It was hard to sneak Ada back into the castle without anyone noticing, but with Eames and Dom's help, Ada was clad like a boy and brought inside.
"Now, I have to go down to dinner. Then I will talk to my father." Arthur was saying as he pulled the laughing girl into his arms, kissing her. The room he had hidden her in was near the tower. A place the servants were forbidden to go. It was the safest place for his beloved to hide.
"Arthur, come on." Dom said to his cousin.
Dom was still single like Arthur, but his mother had been the old Lord Blunt's daughter as had Eames'. Arthur was the only son of an only son. He alone was the heir to Blackwood and the family treated him like a commodity instead of a person.
He had been instructed what to do, what to learn, how to act and above all, who he must be united with to ensure the reputation of such a great family.
"Come and get me when you do. I want to meet him. He'll like me, I promise." Ada said as Arthur's cousin pushed him out of the room.
Arthur smiled. One of the rare smiles he had in the castle walls.
~ "Your crazy, you realize." Dom was saying as he helped his cousin with his tie. The Blunts always dressed for dinner. The young men had shooed away the Valet so they could speak in privet.
"I know I am." Arthur said with a smile. "I love her. I will marry her. I don't care what father says."
"I think Uncle would rather see you dead then see you happily married to a common washer woman." Dom said honestly.
"Well, I think it's romantic." Eames joined in. The roguish cousin who had come for an extended visit from England was happy to be apart of this scandal. He had hated how slow everything moved in the country and complained loudly that he wanted to go home to England. The only diversion had been his help in keeping Ada hidden.
"Poor but beautiful girl meets rich, stick in the mud, boy." He continued. Arthur glared at the cousin he didn't care for.
"They fall in love, despite his families expectation of him and he is tragically killed by his overbearing father. Heartbroken girl is comforted by boy's cousin with a charming accent. They run off together. Lovely story." He finished giving Arthur a smile.
~ Dinner was still an hour away and Arthur went to speak to his father in his study. Behind a desk made for a king, sat Lord Blunt. He was a formidable older man who was still mired in the traditions and old ways of his father and grandfather. His heart as black as the stones that had built Blackwood Castle.
"I don't wish to see you until you agree to marry Miss Sonnet. She is my business partner's daughter and very well off. You have rejected every woman your mother and I have sent to you." The old man said starting in on the same speech he gave to Arthur every time he saw him.
Arthur felt his courage falter. What was it about this old domineering man that made him so weak and cowardly? The only time he had been able to stand up to this beast was when he refused to marry a line of ugly, selfish spoiled girls he insisted on allaying him with.
"Father, I intend to marry." Arthur said steeling himself up. The old man looked surprised.
"Well that's good." He said. His voice still angry and judgmental.
"It's not Miss Sonnet. It's not one of the ladies you have approved for me." Arthur said gravely.
"Who is it then?" He father barked.
~ Lord Blunt was in a rage. Like a beast that had been let lose from hell, he stormed out of his study and grabbed a frightened house maid.
"Where is she?" He growled into her scared little face. "The girl my son has been hiding."
"Father!" Arthur was shouting as the young man came out of the study. His nose bleeding and his lip swollen and cut from a recent beating. "Please, don't do this!"
"The witch, the whore! Where is she? I know you have seen her, nothing happens in this castle without the servants seeing it. Tell me!" he barked at the maid.
"Up... upstairs", by the tower." The girl whimpered as Lord Blunt jerked her onto the floor and charged up the stairs.
~ Ada was alone in her little room when Lord Blunt found her. He didn't bother to knock, only kicked the door in. The old man was quick to bar the door so his son could not get in. Before she could stand to face the wrath of the Beast, his large hands were around her delicate, pale throat.
"Dishonor my family?" He growled. "Cast your wicked spell on my house? On my legacy?"
The old man's face was in a rage as he pulled Ada to the floor. His hands were impossibly strong and she could feel the air leaving her body.
~ Arthur reached the fifth floor just as his father shut the door to Ada's room and locked it. Try as hard as he could, he couldn't open it. He could hear his beloved's screams from outside as the Beast was growling and shouting at her.
"Ada!" Arthur shouted in impotent furry as he beat on the heavy oak door.
"Arthur, what's happening?" Dom asked as his two cousins came to see that all the noise was about.
"Ada!" Arthur shouted. "He's in there with her!" Arthur said to them as the three young men tried to break down the door.
Ada wasn't screaming anymore.
~ When Lord Blake opened the door, she lay on the floor. Her neck broken, her eyes glassy and vacant. She had been beaten and murdered by the hands of the Beast.
"What have you done?" Arthur gasped as he ran into the room. He gently picked up his beloved and held her lifeless body close to him. Hoping he could somehow restore her life with his presence.
"Ada?" He called softly to her as he brushed back her dark hair.
"Ada... please." He begged.
Present day...
~ Arthur looked at the girl who used to look like Ariadne. So many years had passed he could scarcely believe his eyes as she transformed herself into his beloved. Into his Ada.
"Ada?" He whispered fearfully.
Her features were still that strange frightening beauty he had remembered. A face the villages thought too perfect to be anything but evil.
"I came back." Ada whispered.
"Ada." Arthur whispered as she ran a hand over his cheek. Her long fingers going to his hair like she had so long ago.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for what happened to you." He breathed not able to take his eyes off her.
"I know." She said. Her voice strange and ghost like. Everything about Ariadne was gone. Replaced by this long dead girl.
"I came back, for you." She whispered in that strange voice. "You found me in the woods, just like before. You sent me away. But I came back for you. I'll always come back for you, my love."
"You cursed us." He whispered as he drew the strange, phantom girl into his arms. His lips touching hers. Ada's lips and flesh were cold. As cold as the water she had been sent to the night she was murdered.
"My love." She cooed gently. Her voice and lips making him shutter. "It wasn't I who cursed you."