“Is that Brightshire?” Emma asked. “I’ve only been through at nightfall on the day of our arrival. I was so nervous that day I don’t remember a thing. It seems so small. And where are the people?”
“Not Brightshire, but Goldenbrook.”
“The hamlet? Where are the shops and businesses? How do they live? Just houses set out in a field, not much more. I’m surprised.”
“Most of the inhabitants have found work in Brightshire, which is only three miles away. Or they’ve moved to London to find employment in the many factories springing up like garden weeds. They used to work the fields for landowners around these parts, but all that has changed with modern machinery. Fewer men are needed to put in crops and keep the fields.”
“But three miles is a long way in a storm, or if you have a sick child. I would think some sort of doctor here would be nice.” Her intent contemplation formed a V between her brows. “Is there a school?”
“A small one.”
“It feels so isolated. This is also where Mathilda Tugwer lives, yes?”
“You remember her name? She can do you no harm, Emma. You have nothing to fear from her. Still, I would caution you about . . .” He paused and searched for the words to help his wife understand. “Becoming too friendly. She’s not really a gypsy, since she’s lived in these parts for years, but I’m sure she’d not be averse to making a few coins by telling your fortune, or mixing a tincture to chase away blues or help you sleep.” He reached over to smooth back some strands of her hair caught by the wind. “I’m not saying she doesn’t have healing abilities, I just don’t want to see you be hurt in any way. You’re trusting to a fault sometimes. Be kind, but be cautious.” He couldn’t tell what she was thinking.
“You want me to stay away from her?”
“Not really that. Just don’t let her pull you into anything that makes you uncomfortable. There is a difference.” He pointed at movement below in Goldenbrook. “Would you like to see the hamlet closer?”
“Would you?” she asked.
“I would. For old times’ sake. Actually, more than that. Each day I’m back, more of the hurt of my childhood falls away. I’m happier than I believed I could be. And, if I’m truthful, I’d like to show you off. I may be the new duke, but I still sometimes feel like the illegitimate son who lurked in the shadows. I want everyone to meet my beautiful wife.”
Squeezing Charger with his calves, Beranger led the way down the trail.
The women working between the cottages stopped what they were doing and took notice. The children came to a screeching halt in a billow of dust. The baby was the only one who seemed unaffected by their arrival.
Beranger and Emma halted some ten feet away. “Good day,” Beranger greeted.
Their eyes were large. By now they’d caught sight of the duke’s coat of arms on Beranger’s saddle pad. They curtsied, and the children ran off behind the shed.
“Can you tell me if Rodrick Simmons is still the proprietor of the Gilded Goose?” During his early teens before he left to sea, Beranger used to stop in from time to time and have himself a half-pint of warm ale, even as a boy. He could taste the bitter bite now from memory.
“Oh, yes, Your Grace,” the older woman said.
Beranger recognized her as Mrs. Parker, the mother of a girl named Phoebe who used to run with the boys whenever she could sneak away from her chores. He wondered what had become of her.
“Old man Simmons still pours the ale, if ’e’s sober. If not, ’is son will do the job if ’e’s around.” She looked over to the quiet pub. “Mr. Simmons is gettin’ on since you was here last. His ’ealth ain’t what it used ta be. ’E’ll be mighty happy ta see you ’gain. As am I, Your Grace. I used to love your pretty eyes. You go on an’ say ’ello.” She smiled at Emma and gave a small nod. Both curtsied again.
A warm feeling of goodness flowed through Beranger. During his years in America, it was the bad memories that had mostly stuck with him, the reasons he’d left this land. But being back was helping him to remember good memories too. He hadn’t thought much about all the people who would be affected by his return, and if they would or would not remember who he was. His findings were proving more moving than he’d ever expected.
“Tell me, Mrs. Parker, what’s become of your daughter, Phoebe? She used to play in the woods with the lads all those years ago. She could keep up with us, no trouble at all.” He looked around, thinking the place almost looked deserted. “I’ve thought of her over the years, I’ll admit.”
The woman’s face brightened with pride. “Why, she’s made a good marriage, Your Grace. Yes, a good marriage indeed. Wed the blacksmith.”
Leo Lewis. Bully. Five years older and uncaring who he picks on.
“You remember Leo? His pa died, leavin’ ’im the forge and livery. Most these wee ones ya see scattered are theirs. I keep ’em most days—seven, to be exact.” She glanced around, her wide smile revealing several missing teeth. “Keeps me young, running after ’em. You might see ’er if you’re ’eaded ta Brightshire. Just think, the duke asking after my daughter.”
“We are,” he replied. “I’ll be sure to look her up. Good day.” Turning Charger, he preceded Emma over to the Gilded Goose and dismounted.
Going from the overcast sky outside into the utter darkness of the Gilded Goose rendered Emma almost blind. There was a crackling fire in a huge stone hearth, astounding because of the small size of the pub. Two fellows sat on rickety stools in front of an uncommonly low bar top, bent over their drinks. They didn’t even look around at the sound of their entrance.
“We’ll only stay long enough to say hello,” Beranger whispered as he drew her along by the hand. “Rodrick Simmons was kind to me back then.”
“I don’t mind, Beranger. Remember, I’ve been inside Eden’s saloon.”
Beranger chuckled, low and deep. “And I went a round of boxing with those drunken fellows because of it. Yes, I remember. That’s exactly why I don’t want to stay.”
Emma pretended to pout, letting the wicked gleam in her eye tell him she was teasing. “But I’d like to taste the ale.”
“Come on up ta the bar, young fella,” a familiar voice called. “Bring your lady. We won’t bite.”
The speaker was an old man with hands deep in a bucket of water as he washed glasses on the low bar.
“Mr. Simmons, remember me?”
The man quickly looked up.
“Beranger Northcott, back from America.”
The two men at the bar clambered off their stools in astonishment and stood with their mouths agape.
“Is it really you, Beranger?” Mr. Simmons mumbled, squinting. He reached for a towel and quickly dried his hands. “You were but a lad the last time I served ya a half-pint. Look at ya now.” He chuckled. “Even then you could hold your beer. Now you’re tall and strong—the picture of health. By God, you standing before me does this old man good. The day you ran off was a sad day. Took the heart right out of the shire, ya did.”
The old fellow tottered out and wrapped his thin arms around Beranger, hugging him fiercely.
A burly man, who must have been listening from the back room, came through the door behind the bar and glared. “I heard the news yesterday, Pa. True, it’s him all right. And ’e’s the Duke of Brightshire, now that Gavin’s dead in his grave.”
Mr. Simmons swung around to his son. “What’s this you say? Duke of Brightshire? Shame on you for not saying something sooner! I’d have been ready for Beranger’s visit. He’d never forget a friend.”
“Aye. I remember you, Your Grace,” the younger version of Rodrick said with a sneer in his voice. “The sneak has returned to claim the title after Gavin is cold in his final resting place. What is the shire coming to?”
The two standing men listened with interest. “Murdered with his own knife,” one of them mumbled. “Foul play that’s never been established.”
Frightened, Emma gripped Beranger’s hand. Only yesterday she’d had
the conversation with Beranger about him being careful. And now this? They’d been told, and believed, Gavin’s death had been an accident. Her worst nightmare was coming true right before her eyes.
“Why do you say that?” Beranger demanded. “Do you know something, or is the beer talking? Speak up!”
Mr. Simmons’s son stuck out his chest. “That brother of yours used to gamble with us, not that these men have much to lose, but that didn’t stop the duke. He’d clean us out on a regular basis and smile as he went out the door. Even with the financial struggles at your castle, we had less to lose than him. Braggart and a cheat. I say he got what he had coming!”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Is this everything?” Tristen asked, glancing at the small carpetbag Charlotte had just set at her feet.
A few minutes before three, she’d reached the specified meeting place at the edge of the forest to find Tristen waiting. She shouldn’t feel so nervous, she told herself. If only she had her pony and the cart to focus her attention on, give her something to talk about. She glanced at her belongings and then up into the gamekeeper’s stonelike expression. “Yes, this is all.”
A breeze had come up in the last few minutes she’d been waiting. Tristen retrieved her bag and took a step away.
“Please, I can get that. The carpetbag’s not heavy, and I’m used to fetching and carrying things for myself.”
With his rifle cradled in one arm and the handle of her bag gripped in his other, he gave an affirmative nod. “I’ll carry your bag, Miss Aldridge. As I mentioned before, the clouds have been gathering and are heavy with rain. I doubt we’ll get all the way to Brightshire without getting drenched. We best hurry. I’m surprised you didn’t bring an umbrella.”
“I don’t have an umbrella, sir.”
“No need to call me sir. Tristen is fine with me.”
He didn’t look at her as they stepped out of the cloudy sunlight into the overgrown tunnel of forest to begin the journey. The path instantly darkened, and she was suddenly more than grateful for Mr. Llewellyn’s presence, even if he did look a little put out with the chore.
“All right then, Tristen, I will. And you must call me Charlotte in return.” She glanced around and then up at him. “And where is Bagley? Did he find trouble and have to stay home?”
From the corner of her eye, she saw him sigh. “He did—again. His endless barking startled a nesting pheasant off her eggs. He needs to learn what he’s to chase and what he’s not to disturb. Since he can’t seem to remember the difference yet, he’s home in the shed.”
She chanced another look at him. “The shed?” she said, unable to mask her distress.
His frown softened. “More a small barn with other animals. It’s plenty large, with food and water. He’s not being punished. I just don’t want him dashing around causing mischief.”
A gust of wind sent the treetops dancing above their heads, the great canopy of green and yellow swishing loudly. The briskness of the dropping temperature produced goose bumps on the backs of Charlotte’s arms. An eerie feeling skittered up her back. Thank heavens the bread delivery was Thomas’s job and not hers. Her vivid imagination would have made the trip unbearable on a day like today. Every twig that snapped or leaf that rattled made her peer over her shoulder.
“Have you met my brother, Thomas?” she asked, trying to banish her nervous thoughts. “He’s the one who usually delivers the bread to Ashbury and comes through once a week.”
“Thomas Aldridge? No, I haven’t. The woods around the castle are quite extensive, though, so I never know where I’ll be. I can’t cover every mile every day.”
“No, I wouldn’t think so.”
A distant keening, the sound resembling the cry of an infant, whispered faintly by on the wind. Charlotte shivered and stopped in her tracks. She’d heard the superstition enough times. “Did you hear that?” she asked. “The lost baby.” She wrapped her arms tightly around herself and looked up at the trees. The forest had darkened even further. “The poor thing sounds so sad.”
Tristen stopped and looked back at her—being his stride was so much longer than hers, he’d already gotten quite a few paces away. A curious tilt brought his brows together. “That’s the wind in the trees. There’s no lost child here or anywhere else. Just because others believe such silliness, you shouldn’t.”
“So you’ve heard the myth, then? This is the first time I’ve heard the sound for myself.”
“Aye. And that’s all it is, a superstition.” He gave her a critical look. “I didn’t take you for the gullible sort, Charlotte.”
I really can’t blame him. Until I heard the eerie wail today, that’s exactly what I thought of others who came into the bakeshop with stories of ghosts and apparitions. But the cry does sound just like a baby, heartbreaking and sad. What am I to think?
“No, I’m not superstitious—but I do have an active imagination. I always have, and sometimes it leads me into trouble.”
“Like imagining a member of the peerage and a country girl could fall in love?”
She jerked to a halt, not believing what she’d just heard. What should she say? She’d never be able to change his preconceived notions about her—especially after what Margaret had shared.
“No. But that’s my business and not yours.”
A self-satisfied expression appeared on his profile.
She’d like to tell him to just turn around and go back the way they’d come, but the forestlands had grown even darker. Rose’s warning of poachers and outlaws echoed in her head.
“I don’t want to see you get hurt, Charlotte,” he said. “I’m looking out for your best interest.”
“No need,” she said coolly, lifting her chin. “I can take care of myself.”
The baby’s cry sounded again, and she regretted her words. It wouldn’t do to alienate him just now.
“Maybe—maybe that wasn’t the lost baby,” she said, her pace slowing again. “But just a woman somewhere nearby with a cranky child in tow. Sound does carry on the wind, you know. It has to be real.”
“It’s the wind,” he insisted. “The sound never happens on a calm day.”
They’d come to the bend in the road where the track made a sharp turn. She wondered why the road had been cut that way and not straight through. The next section of road, which would lead to Brightshire, was much longer than the one they’d just traveled. A soft pitter-patter of rain sounded on the leaves above. Tristen had been right. She wouldn’t arrive home without getting wet.
“Where do you think the sound comes from, then?” she asked, with nothing left to debate and fearful he’d pick up again with her private affairs.
He slowed to walk next to her, his expression growing animated. “When he wanted to search out the sound’s origin himself, my uncle found a fissure in the craggy granite outcrop to the northeast.”
“Have you been there?”
“Not yet.”
“Then why hasn’t he spread the word and put a stop to the fears? That would be the kind thing to do. Many folks believe in ghosts, and the crying baby doesn’t help.”
“The fissure doesn’t help.”
“Yes, that’s what I meant.”
Tristen smiled, surprising her. He was stingy with his smiles, and they seemed to wield a great power. Even the mysteries of the forest took on new appeal.
“Because the legend of a baby’s ghost in the duke’s forests keeps many of the poachers at bay. Uncle Arson says without the tale, poaching would be worse.” He gave her a long look. “I can’t say that I blame him. All he wants is to avoid confrontation where men might get hurt. Besides, he didn’t start the rumor, just didn’t lay it to rest.”
His uncle? Avoid confrontation? Feeling brave, she asked, “Does your uncle have a temper? Or get into fights?”
“What? Of course not! That’s an odd thing to ask.”
She lifted one shoulder innocently, as if she hadn’t had an ulterior motive in mind. “Just wondered. By th
e way it sounded, I thought perhaps he went around looking for trouble.”
“He’s the most even-tempered man I know.”
She was mulling over his response when a sight up ahead made her feet slow and then finally stop. The discussion of ghosts and apparitions had her edgy, even if Tristen had given her reason to believe the superstition was just a myth. A shiver ran up and down her spine.
A good quarter mile away was a shape in the middle of the road. Not tall like a man, or large as a horse, but not small enough to be a boulder or a parcel fallen from a wagon. Then suddenly, the silhouette moved, its dark surface writhing and flapping.
Frightened, she grasped Tristen’s arm and pulled him to a stop. “What’s that? I can’t tell from here.” Her whispered plea came out a garbled mouthful. Her fear mounted when he didn’t respond directly.
“Don’t be frightened,” he said, low. “Could be a beggar. Bent over or sitting in the road.”
“In the center of the road? How strange.”
“Not much traffic. Plenty of time to move if a carriage or cart comes along. Come on, or we’ll never get you home before the rain starts in earnest.”
She could tell by the way he never took his eyes from the thing in the road that he was more concerned than he let on. She was glad he had his gun. Was this some sort of trap set by outlaws?
Her mouth felt filled with sand. Every rumor she’d ever heard whispered in her village went through her mind. Tristen marched on, seemingly unaffected by the fact she still clung to his arm. But she couldn’t bring herself to let go for fear he might dart off the road, leaving her alone with whoever or whatever that was. Slowly, needing more contact, she let her hand slip down his forearm to his hand, where he, without question or missing a beat, enfolded hers within his own.
As they neared, whatever, or whoever, moved again.
The baby sounded once more, soft and lilting on the wind.
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