“Miss Hill, these various and sundry symptoms you describe . . . In my professional opinion, they exist only in your own mind.”

Damn and blast her esteemed Boston physician! How could he possibly know what played out in her head? Did a caustic stench steal his breath away? Had he removed a bloodied corpse from a barrier reef where the battered body had lain impaled like a wiggling fish upon a hook? How dare he gravely denounce the state of her mind! For all she cared, he could stick his useless diagnosis up his esteemed arse. His professional opinion mattered not one whit to her.

To prove her lack of concern, Lillian had skipped town the day following her “delusional” diagnosis. All things considered, a fortuitous escape—

Or so she had thought at the time.

Her confidence had slipped a bit since. Now that the stagecoach skirted the rocky Maine coastline, returning her to the place where she had first taken leave of her senses, doubts assailed her. Would her homecoming result in a cure or a further descent into madness?

Presently, the patient’s prognosis looked grim. Not that she foamed at the mouth or talked aloud to herself—

“Well, not yet anyway,” she said, talking aloud to herself.

Covering her mouth with a gloved hand, Lillian darted her gaze left to right. Had her fellow passengers overheard her outburst, had they started to stare?

The man in the corner, the fidgeting one scratching his snout, had definitely looked in her direction. Under the guise of pulling an ear and other assorted twitchy moves, several more wayfarers also cast her suspicious sideways glances.

Unless—was she imagining those narrowed eyes? Were those oblique looks symptomatic of her recurring hallucinations?

Lillian sat up straighter on the bench. Oh, God! How had she come to this? Could she no longer differentiate what was real from what was false, could she no longer tell who meant her well from who meant her harm?

Calm. She must stay calm. She would feel more herself, more rational, after disembarking.

The Concord Coach held three rows of benches, all snuggly filled, cheek-by-jowl. When the driver reined his team to a standstill, swung open the door and unfolded the stairs—heralding the arrival of her destination—the blessed release from the close confines came not a trice too soon.

Still, she hesitated, delaying her departure in favor of leaning forward in her cramped seat and peering outside.

A green sweep of century-old pines partially diminished her perspective. A cloak of silvery mist obscured the rest. But off in the distance she knew the windswept cottage waited for her, a sad recluse teetering upon a stone precipice high above an unforgiving sea. Isolated. Lonely. Cut off from everyone by both nature and design. Though windswept, though battered and bruised, the house had withstood the test of time and the harshness of Maine weather. Lord! But she had missed every tarnished shingle, every distorted wave in the eighteenth-century glass windows, every lovely warped imperfection that transformed the aging house into a much beloved home.

Curious, Lillian mused, how people—herself included—oft times came to resemble the houses they inhabited. More curious still why some places inspired longing in her breast while other locations provided only fodder for her conspicuous forgetfulness. Oh, who knew why shiny-new buildings left no imprint at all upon her heart while this broken-down relic of the past remained forever fixed in her soul? The how’s and why’s of such obsessions were best left to poets—

And to those much over-rated Boston physicians who specialized in the treatment of madness.

Irrational or not, the cottage had tangled itself up inside her, as much a part of her as her own name, as essential to her survival as the veins coursing under her flesh. That admitted, she entertained no illusions about this trip. Just as surely as ten long years of exile equaled a decade of longing, this homecoming would be far from easy.

Like unaccustomed rains to parched desert sands, tears suddenly moistened her dry eyes. In response, Lillian dug her upper tooth into her bottom lip. Hard. Not enough pressure to break the skin and bleed, thus prompting the intrusive questions of others, but close. The anguish inside her clawed for escape! If not for her gloves, she would have scraped the underside of her wrists with her fingernails. The sharpness of the self-inflicted pain invariably prevented a breakdown in her composure.

She had to do something! Quite bad enough succumbing to bouts of melancholia in private without spreading the dreary doom and gloom about in public too. Apart from that consideration, any untoward show of emotionalism while subject to the scrutiny of others would only call notice to herself, a dangerous circumstance for a woman in her position.

A low mumble broke out in the coach. Her fellow passengers had dispensed with their irritated silence to complain amongst themselves over her delay in disembarking.

No question, she really ought to leave. The lathered horses were growing restive and the much put upon coachman, impatient to be off, had already deposited her carpetbag upon the ground. Like it or not, the time had come to face her past.

Lest she discomfort her companion travelers en route to the door, she murmured a perfunctory “Excuse me” in advance of plowing through the sea of outstretched limbs. Fair warning given, she vacated her corner seat at the rear of the vehicle, stiffened her spine and proceeded to bypass retracted feet, while deliberately stomping on toes extended to trip her up.

Really, who could resist? Well, perhaps someone saner than she might have refused the allure, but alas, armed with her recent madwoman diagnosis, she trod on every leather boot in her path. Damn judgmental hypocrites, the lot of them! They deserved their crushed toes!

“Enjoy the remainder of your journey,” she called gaily over her shoulder, and alighted from the coach, exposing not so much as a hint of ankle in the descent. A dismissive wave to the driver, a firm grasp on her retrieved carpetbag, and Lillian hastened through the cottage’s rusted front gates, her stride purposeful yet decorous—

Until the coach bumped and groaned around the bend in the lane and disappeared down the treacherous hill, taking the nosy and disapproving passengers with it. Then, her purposeful yet decorous stride screeched to a halt.

Safe from prying eyes, she practically inhaled the red petals right off her grandmother’s prize-winning climbing roses! The faint cinnamon fragrance bringing back thorny memories, she chucked her horribly frumpy, but-oh-so-practical traveling bag in the tall grass. A patch of thistle received her dumped black reticule. A fine spot for it too! Next to go was her dull, navy-blue bonnet—this, she launched skyward. When the hideous hat landed, resembling a misshapen tulle toadstool upon the overgrown walk, she kicked the flattened monstrosity out of sight, out of mind. Good riddance! Her dove-gray wrap followed suit. The conservative mantle flew not nearly as high, nor landed nearly as far, but hers was a valiant effort if she did say so herself.

Inspired—actually, as rash as a case of poison ivy—she shed her tasteful but detested gloves. A toss later, and the black kid decorated a nearby trumpet vine. Heavens! Whatever would the good people of Bar Harbor say if they could see her now? Why, her actions were quite, quite scandalous.

Though, not nearly as scandalous as the time she had danced naked outside under the moon.

Now there was scandal! She still remembered how her tangled red hair had tickled her sublimely bare bottom, and how a dark brooding gaze had made her flesh burn. She had set out to tease the somber owner of those dark brooding eyes and succeeded admirably. Laughing in memory, Lillian spun in a giddy circle, just as she had back then.

Crushed stones scattered under her eminently serviceable leather boots. A gray dust tornado whipped into a billowing frenzy. The gritty cloud gradually settled, coating the bombazine skirts of her traveling gown.

Too, too, terrible. She reaaaalllly should control her unseemly urges. But ever mindful that a nice, long, pointy hatpin awaited in the wings to puncture her euphoria and drop her back down to earth with a resounding swoosh, she said to hell with propriety, and spun all the faster.

Her dizzy gaze bounced into her grandmother's perennial garden. With messy results. Her spinning had blended the carefully arranged orchestration of harmonious hues into a discordant jumble. Disliking the muddy color mix, Lillian finally stilled. With her equilibrium restored, she identified each plant individually, finding not one, sweet, safe pastel in the bunch. None of those pale flowers for her grandmother! Oh, no. Pastels bleached out in the afternoon sun. Victoria Hill picked vibrant tones. Juicy colors. Sensual displays that brought a blush to the observer's cheeks for having the audacity to stare too long. A sensory orgy sprawled before her like a bed of languid lovers—

Sensual displays . . . Sensory orgy . . . Sprawled languid lovers . . .

Hisssss!

The pointed hatpin did its work. Not a clean merciful pop, mind you, but a slow, flattening leak.

Hisssss! Hisssss! Hisssss!

Similar to a hot air balloon losing its hydrogen—best not strike a tinderbox nearby—her homecoming giddiness deflated. Much sobered, Lillian concentrated on the scene before her.

The kitchen garden looked much the same as she remembered; the pungent scent of aromatic plants still filled the warm air. Her industrious grandmother had already harvested some herbs; these hung upside down from the porch rafters to dry. The neat bunches, tied with brown-corded string, swung back and forth in the ocean breeze.

Biting her lip against the tears sneaking up on her again, Lillian recalled all those long ago summer days spent churning up and planting this sun-kissed earth, loam so rich and fertile anything would grow in it. On the left, a clump of wooly thyme dominated an entire corner of the garden. Given free rein, the invasive creeper would take over everything, even spilling out over the walkway to grow between the driest and most inhospitable cracks in the porous stones.

Once upon a time, she had been wild too.

No more. Experience had trained her well, pruned her hard. Now, her behavior was as tame and mannerly as the great drifts of lavender that softened the cottage's fieldstone foundation, and like those showy plants, she had become self-contained and self-consciously ornamental, essentially attractive and entirely superficial . . . .a damn fashion accessory draped on the arm of a certain wealthy and prominent Boston banker.

Charles. She would not think of her fiancé now.

Instead, she glided to her knees. Dislodging long-rooted dandelions, digging out stubborn crab grass, while leaving behind fledgling seedlings—volunteers, her grandmother called them—to grow on without competition, she lost herself in the mindless occupation of pulling weeds. Faster and faster, plucking and yanking, the discards forming a wilted pile in no time at all. Far more therapeutic to garden than swallow the laudanum her esteemed Boston doctor had prescribed to aid her troubled sleep and calm her frazzled nerves. If only sunshine and warm earth came in medicinal form, she would gladly take a tincture-full—

A snap of a twig. The crunch of footsteps. The steady drone of bees and birds gone quiet of a sudden. Over there—did someone watch her from behind the dense cover of trees?

Her nape prickled; her soiled fingertips fluttered and retreated up her thighs. From the force of recently acquired habit, her white knuckled hands finally wound up in her lap and clasped tight—to mask any remaining unsteadiness—while she awaited the appearance of another aberration. Or apparition. Or figment of her imagination. Of late, they had all become too frequent visitors.

"Is anyone there?" she finally called, on the outside chance that maybe, just maybe, her tormentor was flesh and blood.

"Did I frighten you?"

A male voice. Not only real, but instantly recognizable. The owner of that warm and sensual baritone stepped out from behind his green cover. Quite the opposite of reassuring her, she trembled at the sight of him. Independent of reserve, she said what sprang to mind. “Yes! You did frighten me!"

Unfortunately, with spontaneity came honesty—not the best method of dealing with Doyle Donovan. The truth would give this man too much power over her. Too much control.

The truth might very well get her killed.