Thorns Grow on the Same Tree

A deeper than average rut in the uneven country road jostled my daydreams that flowed with florid roses and bleak castles. The depths of my own eyes stared through me as dark thoughts again filled my mind.  

I shifted focus from the reflection I contested for several miles. Beyond the transparent image in the carriage window, scenery transformed from tree-lined roads and unfamiliar cities into casual country fields. 

“Well then. Welcome back, Miss Magareen.” My escort of chance and timing quipped. 

His gentle voice pulling my attention into the depths of the carriage.

The ride and escort had been a discomforting welcome at the station. The carriage, a carapace of deep mahogany panels and parapeted corners festooned with dim lanterns, looked for all the world to be a funerary wagon. The formal dress of footmen, coach, and horses carried further morbidity in appearance. 

Within, the carriage retained as well all the comforts of a coffin. Deep puce curtains dimmed the space while velveteen and satin lined the seats and inner panels. 

I turned from the window to the recently met Joram Hadowen, an estranged cousin, according to his introduction at the station. In sharp contrast to all else was the brightness of Joram’s company, without such I would have considered my destination grave indeed.  

A charmer and jester by character study thus far. The young Hadowen’s ready wit had served as consistent reminder that I was not alone, though my heart had felt so since the eve of my departure from the cottage.  

“I was beginning to think we had mistakenly left your mind at the station.” Joram adjusted in his seat across the carriage.

“I was merely-” I was cut short. 

“Dreaming of roses?” He swept one long trousered leg to cross his knee. 

“No.” The lie bounced from my throat with the upset of another rut in the road.

“My mistake then.” His fingers brushed the carriage ceiling with a hiss as he extended his arms. 

He tapped a discordant rhythm into the ceiling until mind and arms grew weary.

“I simply nodded off.” Though my annoyance at Joram’s wry wit and agitating antics pricked my senses, I considered the difference in our manner due to opposition to our upbringing. I had, at tender age, been shuttled off by Ama following the entombment of my parents. Joram, to the contrary, was raised by an aging uncle with more dear attachments to the Hadowen aristocracy. He had said little of what had become of his own progenitors.

I retook to an earlier conversation. “In the early leg of our shared journey, young Master Hadowen, you regaled some spotty histories of your guardian. Pray, continue?”

Joram prefaced his words with a laugh. “You must call me Joram. And certainly not Master Hadowen, no matter your courtesy, once in the enclave of Yarrow Hart.”

He enfolded his arms across his chest as he assured I would meet this uncle, whom he called Fiorello, in due course at Yarrow Hart. “And you will be unable to miss him. If his reputation and voice do not announce his person, his penchant for red bow ties certainly will.” 

At the mention of this uncle’s leanings to bow ties, my attention piqued. Memory served the ghost of a similarly garbed gentleman at the funeral rites that clawed at my mind. 

Concern crossed my brow. “I had not considered how many new, or long forgotten faces I would encounter at Yarrow Hart.” 

“The gathering at the Hart is new each season, and I have little knowledge of whom you have met in other circles.” Joram toyed at stray waves of his hair. “I do hope you can be persuaded to enjoy the company of your newly acquainted cousins though. Most especially the prime Hadowen specimen set before you.”

I allowed a wry grin to Joram’s words, and at his fleet of dishevelment as another rut caught him unawares.

“Your humor as well as uniquely gentlemanly par roguish personal appearance has offered some amusement thus far.” I offered in cordial exchange. 

It was true indeed, Joram, though unexpected, had offered an almost instant bond. But, what of the others? Would they be as willingly amicable as Joram to welcome kin thus estranged?

I gazed across the carriage at this new acquaintance and distant cousin. I had not considered that even in the weakening half light he might wonder at my stare. “I will enjoy the company as much as the company is want to enjoy mine, I can only suppose.” 

Joram rested on the puce velveteen opposite my seat as he leaned a strip of light illuminated his queer half grin.  

“It all depends, I’d say, if we did indeed leave a piece of you.” Sandstone hair tumbled over Joram’s impish features. 

A brew of emotions took my senses as I backed from this twist of words. 

Mirthful laughter buffeted the carriage walls easing my tension. 

Joram possessed a lovely charm and appearance, a Hadowen trait I failed to fully attain due to muddled parentage. I could scarce imagine our relation until I looked into his eyes. This dictum of careful breeding was often remarked by Kassia and Ama, even as they might have intended the observations of my darker hair as a sign of how far from the Hadowen branches I had fallen. 

Joram’s crystalline eyes, a unique trademark of the Hadowen clan, matched my own in depth and intensity, yet held a nuance of sharpness the like of ice even with the twinkle of merriment. Their spark ignited within me a cradle memory that harkened my father’s glittering orbs.

 “I have left nothing behind, so the Hadowen clan will simply have to accept me whole or dismiss me outright.” I shook away renewed visions falling into thoughts long past. 

Even under the Hadowen maxim of beauty and grace, my cousin’s tousled hair brought sheepdogs to mind as his laughter ebbed to a murmured snicker. I wrestled against the desire to push the curls from his pale face.  

Joram shifted the curls impeding his view with a nonchalant toss of his head. “I doubt anyone would dare dismiss you, Mistress Magareen.”

He settled into his seat and again crossed his slender legs, arcing one over the other. 

“I ask again, what thoughts had you away so long?” Mirth colored his quiry.

As I turned to observe the passing hills and noted vibrancy of the green I forgot myself, and my guard. 

“Roses.” I exhaled and eased my head against the plush seat cushions. “As you surmised.”

“Roses. You see, we know one another as blood should.” Joram’s humor burbled. “But what Hadowen does not see visions in red. Indeed, you’ll have your fill of those soon enough.” 

I elevated my gaze to parallel Joram’s and to appraise the intention in his words.

“There are roses enough at Yarrow Hart to give a dozen to every maid in Prague.” The gleam of my cousin’s limpid smile alighted the far side of the carriage.

My humor returned, not for the first time in the venture. “And still clan Hadowen has not been able to coerce a bride suitable to your measure that you travel alone to the familial estate.” I lobbed a smirk out the window. 

Joram put a hand to his ear. “What was that, dear cousin? I hope that rare show of humor was at the disbelief of the rumors about our family’s honorable house rather than those surrounding the sustained bachelorhood of our generation. Yourself included in that, mind.”

His laughter shook free once more the cascade of unruly tresses. 

I pushed remnants of memories to the back of my mind as I tucked a stray curl behind my own ear. If I could not tame Joram’s locks, forcing my tendrils to compliance would serve to cure the itch.

“It is true then? As my cousin Kassia and her maid Lilly shared whispers of how Hadowen men were more likely to maintain bachelorhood well into their greying years than to wed as young as my father had.” I of course left off that Aunt Ama would cut short the gossiping upon entering the space. 

Kassia’s mood had often been muted when discussing the manners of the Hadowen fraternity. She had once spat even under Ama’s gaze.

“Cads and bastards, the lot of them.” Joram echoed the words cast from the murmurings of outsiders.

I cleared the memory with a muted cough. Now acquainted with a relation as charming as Joram, I was less guilty in the freedom from Kassia’s judgements. “My apologies if I cast any offense.” 

“But, of course, when wed we do in House Hadowen it is to tighten the family lines.” Joram rested a hand upon his chin. 

His eyes a gleam of impishness and perversion.

“That is a rumor I gave no credence.” I flushed.

“A shame that. We are a handsome and stunning lot.” Joram held his gaze upon a moment too long before dismissing my duress with another laugh.

A pause and a breadth of silence allowed yet another jostling in the carriage to reset the conversation.

I dared not allow my thoughts and whims to linger on coupling and cousins. “We will be at the estate soon, I hope? These roads are doing nothing for my comfort.”

Joram took pains to lean and peer through the glass.Forced to shift in his seat to face the direction we traveled he nearly came to crouch at the narrow gap between our seats. 

He watched a while, as green hills rolled past.  

Joram had chosen the seat behind the driver at my behest. I had never been suited to travel, as even short distances made my senses weak. The train nearly did me in altogether. Motion sickness had threatened once again since leaving the city streets. 

“The road looks to be narrowing ahead.” He noted as if the statement held meaning beyond simple observation. “The cobbling more level as well.” 

 I was grateful at the prospect of a less rumbling course. The conclusion to my current travels could not come too soon.

Assuming his intention, I leaned to look ahead. “Does that mean we have reached the grounds of the manor?” 

“Near enough, but we’ll still be at least an hour from the main house. We breach the edges of the gardens momentarily though.” Joram replied, still surveying the path.

“Are they truly that expansive?” I glanced from sprawling moors to the back of Joram’s head.

He had not been first to make mention of the gardens. Since childhood, I had both begged and lamented stories of Yarrow Hart. By Ama’s accounts, my paternal family’s most cherished and venerable domain played host to the most renown rose gardens in the country, if not the modern world. I harbored skepticism with all other rumors surrounding the holdings of the Hadowen.  

The acres of roses were a thing of beauty and allure if tales were to be believed. Kassia to the contrary had claimed to see the grounds only once, as a child, and still the memory had haunted her. 

Even as the carriage trundled ever closer I felt at any moment I would be denied a prize I had little realization how deeply I had sought until now. Still I doubted the chance to judge for myself. 

“You arrive at a poor time to get the full terrifying effect of the gardens I am afraid. The earliest will be out, certainly, but scarcely the numbers that will blanket come the harvest.”

I could not imagine a reality in any way resembling the hyperbole I had thus far been explained.

As if interpreting my dubiousness, a jaunty grin spread Joram’s lips. He stared from his position into my narrowed gaze.

“The sea of vermillion is said, by many nearby townsfolk, to invoke visions of blood and violence rather than of perfume and romance.” He motioned me move to the side of the seat. “I am sure you can tolerate sharing your bench for the last leg of our journey. I promise to point out the sights as we come upon them.”

I frowned my discontent at being crowded, but made space as requested. 

“Come now, cousin. Estranged from the roots of Yarrow Hart, I may be, but do not think I’ve not heard the stories as you have. Certainly, the grounds are not the ocean fairy tales claim it to be.”

The jovial expression of my cousin gave way to somber mood as Joram locked his gaze with mine. “I have no need for tales to speak. I have seen the inspiration of dreams and nightmares. This place of tales has been my home for more than a few seasons.” His expression lost all mirth. “It is not the living roses that drive men mad in their number and wonder.”

I offered a bewildered grimace, but before I could speak I was startled by the sharp turn of Joram’s head. His hand out in gesture to look ahead.  

I leaned, founding myself uncomfortably close to a man I at once realized I hardly knew yet felt deeply connected. My skin prickled as I pressed my cheek to the surprisingly cool glass. I peered around the fore of the carriage and horses. 

The distant horizon lay slashed by a sanguine score. As it stretched into view the crimson sliver unfurled. Still far from the details of this wild scar, awe already seeped into my spirit.  

“Well, shall we start counting rampant roses?” Joram’s playful grimace faded as he regarded my face. “Good gods, you look about to be ill.”

Nausea indeed threatened. “I may need some air.”

Without thought I slid aside the window pane and immediately greeted regret at my actions. A scent like nothing I could explain struck my senses. It was as if I had plunged, submerged, drowning in perfume, my breath stolen by the floral aroma.

“I suppose I should have warned you.” Joram shielded his nose with a kerchief. 

I shifted from the opening in the carriage.

“It’s… so…” Words were lost as I reeled.

“Disgusting.” Joram repulsed.

I accepted a second kerchief extended by Joram. 

Disgust was not the word I had sought in explanation. 

I feigned protecting my nostrils with the linen, yet remained intoxicated by the unmetered embrace of roses.

Though intense beyond measure, my discomfort ebbed as I allowed the ambrosial pungence to drown my other senses.

Counting roses, as Joram initially suggested, to pass the last stretch of the journey was far less amusing as their number surmounted even the most preposterous projection. The gardens were equal parts alluring and appalling. With only early blossoms to satisfy this first taste of Yarrow Hart, I did not  feel robbed in the least of wonderment. 

“This is nothing like the height of the season.” Joram’s words quivered at my ear.

The impossible magnitude of blossoms raced my heart at the sheer potential invoked and to some measure, terror. 

As I considered this harvest he spoke of, a movement caught in the distance. A silhouette of a broad bonnetted woman. 

“There is a woman there.”

“I see no one.” Joram leaned to peer where I pointed. “Possibly a petal poacher though. The guard will tend to her.”

“Poacher?” I nearly laughed the word until I caught the sincerity in Joram’s features.  

“The Hadowen fortune rests on every bloom. And like the roses themselves, we have grown thorns to protect that which is precious.” A darkness glimmered in Joram’s pale eyes. “The same is true of our family.”

I caught my instinct to recoil as his hand rested on mine.

“Even relations far removed are as valued as the blossoms far a field.” His smiled tempered the solemnity of his gaze. “You are meant to return to Yarrow Hart, and we are glad for it. Ignore any who claim otherwise.”

It was a strange welcome into the fold of familial bondage, but the sincerity could not be denied.