by Lisa Berne
“Yes,” he answered quietly. “Are you angry with me for not saying anything? Did I do wrong?”
“To own the truth, I’m not sure I could have seen it, even if you’d told me. I wouldn’t have wanted to see it! I was so wrapped up in what I thought the Earl was like, and in what he thought of me, that it was like living in a very odd fairy tale—quite disconnected from the real world. It took me a while to figure it all out, to see things clearly. So no, I’m not at all angry with you, ma sherry moo, and moreover, I’m so grateful for you. You reminded me how much I value honesty—because of your honesty.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that, signorina. It nearly killed me, keeping silent. Are you . . .”
He hesitated, and Gwendolyn said:
“Am I what?”
“Are you very sad?”
She thought about it. “Well, for just a tiny bit I was—I think it was the relinquishing of a bright, shiny, foolish little dream. If that makes sense? Seeing the Earl at Almack’s for the very first time, and seeing him looking at me so glowingly—I believe we each of us fell in love with appearances—or with an idea of what love is—not with an actual person. It’s rather embarrassing to admit, but looking back, I—well—I fell for a pretty face. And I think he did, too. Perhaps that might sustain him for a lifetime—that kind of superficial adoration—but it wouldn’t me. It had already begun to pall, in fact, though I hardly realized it.”
“When did you get your first inkling?”
“I think it must have been the day I had tea with the Westenburys. Oh, Christopher, it was so awful, and in so many ways! I’ll laugh about it someday, but for right now I’m just so thankful for my narrow escape. At any rate, that evening I was in my room, drawing—doodling, really, without really noticing what I was doing—and when I looked at my drawing, I saw that I’d drawn a rather odd wedding scene.”
“Why was it odd?”
“Because I created a scene with the Earl, the Countess, Rupert, all the Westenbury sisters, and a minister—even a flying unicorn!—but somehow I’d left myself out of the drawing. A wedding without a bride. Deep down, I think I already knew that something was very wrong.”
Christopher nodded, looking thoughtful, and after that they fell into an easy, companionable silence alternating with idle talk of this and that, the hours seeming to swiftly go by as they passed through Camberley, Hartley Wintney, East Stratton, Eastleigh, and Totton, and then into a forest through which the road twisted and turned, as sinuous as a snake. They met few travelers now.
“Once we’re out of these woods,” said Christopher, “we’ll nearly be there. How are you holding up, signorina?”
“Oh, I’m fine. It really is so much easier riding astride. Very unfair to women to be consigned to the sidesaddle! After today, I’ll always want to ride this way. But actually, there is one thing . . .”
“Yes?”
“Well, it’s—in Escape from Castle Killarney, the heroine rides from midnight till evening the next day to get away from her horrid parents and equally horrid suitor. She gallops the whole time, which, now that I think of it, doesn’t make any sense at all, because no horse can do that, but also, she never stops once to—ah—relieve herself, which no woman would do! It’s curious how I never thought about it at the time, but, of course, when you’re completely caught up in the story, you just don’t. So, ma sherry moo, what would a man do in this situation?”
“Go behind a tree.”
“That’s what I’ll do, then. Hold my reins, will you, please?” She slid off her horse.
He grinned at her and took the reins. “Gwennie, you’re pluck to the backbone.”
Playfully Gwendolyn lifted up her tall black hat and swept him a bow. “Thank you, kind sir! And now, if you’ll excuse me—”
She turned away and went some little distance into the woods, grateful for all those marvelously tall concealing trees.
Christopher waited for Gwendolyn. Within him reverberated the incredible news of her broken engagement, like a drumbeat, over and over again.
I’m the one who’s ended it.
I’m the one who’s ended it.
A wild surge of happiness rolled through him.
He didn’t know what would happen next.
All he knew was that life had changed—suddenly and unexpectedly, and, from his perspective, infinitely for the better.
As he waited, it came to him that the afternoon was waning, and that here, in this dense woodland, dusk came early. Everything seemed to have gone still and silent, and a creeping gray-green shadow had fallen upon them, blurring the demarcation between road and forest, trees and sky.
Tra cane e lupo, he thought. Between dog and wolf. Mauro’s expression for this eerie time bridging day and night, when an inability to distinguish between the two could be not only dangerous, but fatal.
Just then, from behind him, came the sound of horses, and men’s voices—raised, laughing, with the kind of rollicking, sloppy good cheer that could rapidly turn bellicose, a tenor with which he was all too familiar from his experiences in various osterias and tavernas. Drunk, he thought, quickly turning the horses around to face them, and perhaps three or four in number.
They came around the bend, their horses cantering, and he saw that he was right.
Four men, laborers and townsmen by their dress, all broad and brawny, and plainly inebriated.
Christopher felt himself tensing, his every sense on the alert, but kept his breathing relaxed and steady. He resisted the urge to turn his head to where Gwendolyn had gone among the trees, very glad that she was nowhere in sight, and through sheer force of his will tried to tell her to remain so.
The men pulled up, eyeing him with a kind of riotous, greedy speculation.
“Ooh, a nob,” one said, slurring, and another chimed in:
“Extra horse, eh? Nice little mare, that.”
The third one said, “You don’t need it, do you, guv?”
“You don’t need two, m’lord, you can walk, can’tcha?”
The first one said, as if struck by a bright idea: “Ooh, we can sell ’em in Bournemouth, then.”
“Split the money three ways.”
“Oi! There’s four of us, jingle-brains!”
“Who’re you calling a jingle-brains, you climp!”
“I am. Want to make something of it?”
“Aye, by crikey, I do!”
“Shut up, you lot!” roared the first man. “Let’s take the horses and be on our way.”
He’d be damned if he let their horses be stolen, Christopher thought. Four against one: not his favorite odds, but so be it. He’d fight if he had to, but first . . . He said, injecting into his voice an obvious nervousness, “Going to Bournemouth, are you? I wouldn’t go that way, if I were you.”
“Why not?” demanded the first man. “Got every right to go there!”
“Yes, of course, but—I’ve just come that way—oh well, never mind,” said Christopher, looking behind him as if highly uneasy. “It’s just that—no, I’m sure I was wrong.”
“What? What is it? Tell us, damn it, or we’ll beat it out of you!”
“Robbers?” chimed in another one of the men, oblivious to the irony of his question.
Christopher gestured at the riderless horse next to him. In a low, nervous tone he said, “It’s like this. My friend Gwyn—he’d fallen a little behind, you see. I didn’t think anything of it, because he’s not a very good rider, not like you lads—”
A couple of the men nodded proudly. “Well, go on, what happened?” said one.
“I heard a strange noise coming from the woods. At first I thought it was just an owl, but then Gwyn—he gave a terrible shriek—I turned around, quick as anything, and he was gone.” Christopher closed his eyes as if in horrified anguish. “Gone,” he repeated shakily, opening his eyes again to find his audience listening with pleasing attentiveness.
“Couldn’t have been an owl,” said one of the men. “An owl couldn’
t carry off a man.”
“Might’ve been a big owl,” put in another, looking a little worriedly around him.
“No owl’s big enough for that, you lobcock.”
“You sure it was an owl you heard, guv?” said one, trying to focus his rather blurry gaze on Christopher.
“It sounded like it,” he replied, keeping his voice nervous, tremulous, “but I suppose it couldn’t have been, really, because as soon as I heard it, lads, I felt a dreadful prickling at the back of my neck—”
“Old Blue Alvin!” exclaimed one of the men, and the others murmured uneasily, starting to look around them too.
Christopher gave a theatrical start and clapped a hand to his nape. “Old Blue Alvin—who on God’s earth is that?”
“He’s feeling it again! The prickles!”
“Old Blue Alvin, guv—ain’t you never heard of him? The meanest, ugliest boggart in all of Hampshire!”
“Took three of my sister’s best chickens, he did, and just two days ago!”
“Aye, and a goat went missing from Jud Clark’s last night.”
Earnestly another man put in, “Did you happen to see the blue smoke, guv, when you turned about?”
“My God, I did,” said Christopher in a horrified way. “Rising straight up from Gwyn’s empty saddle!”
The men all exchanged nervous glances.
“Old Blue Alvin can take the shape of any animal he likes,” said one man, rather apprehensively. “Everybody knows that.”
“You mean,” Christopher responded very loudly, “like a giant owl with deadly claws?”
“Aye,” whispered another of the men, putting a hand to the back of his neck, and just then, floating through the air, as if from high above them, came a long, low, hooting sound.
“It’s him!” hissed the man, his hand flying to his mouth, his eyes going round with terror. “Old Blue Alvin!”
“Surely—surely not,” stammered Christopher, by now enjoying himself very much. “It’s just—just a regular owl, lads, isn’t it?”
“Whoo hoo,” came the disembodied sound again. “Hoo . . . hoo . . . hoo.”
“That ain’t no regular owl!” exclaimed one of the men, horrified. “It sounds almost like a person, by crikey!”
“Oh my God,” said Christopher. “Old Blue Alvin’s finished with Gwyn, and now he’s hungry again!”
“Well, he ain’t getting me! I’m going back to Totton, and double-quick!”
“I am too!” declared another of the men, and wheeled his horse about.
“Wait!” Christopher said in an anguished voice. “Don’t leave me behind, lads! Wait for me!”
From above them came the eerie disembodied sound, noticeably shaky this time: “Hoo . . . hoo . . . hoo.”
“Old Blue Alvin’s getting mad!” shrieked one of the men, and another one added shrilly, “Sorry, guv, you’re on your own!”
Then they were all galloping away, back toward Totton, and in very short order had disappeared from sight.
Christopher, his shoulders shaking with laughter, rode his horse, with Gwendolyn’s alongside, into the woods where he’d last seen her.
“Oi!” said Gwendolyn, from high above his head. “So I’m a bad rider, am I?”
He looked up. There she was in a tree, standing on a limb and one arm curled firmly around the trunk.
“I had to set the scene,” he explained, grinning. “By the way, your hooting was getting shaky toward the end.”
“It’s hard to hoot convincingly when you’re trying not to laugh.”
“By crikey, it is.”
Then she did laugh, and began to climb down.
“Need any help?” he said.
“I’ll let you know.” Nimbly she descended, branch by branch, limb by limb, and finally jumped the last five or six feet, landing lightly on the ground. Dusting off her palms with a satisfied air, she said, “Well, I must say, it’s reassuring to know that I can still climb trees. And my hat didn’t even come off! I’m quite pleased with myself.”
“As well you should be, signorina. And thank you for pitching in at just the right moment.”
“You gave me the perfect cue. Oh, Christopher, you were marvelous! I was so frightened at first, but then I saw how splendidly you alarmed them!”
“You can never be too cautious when Old Blue Alvin’s around.”
She giggled and got back onto her horse. They made their way onto the road again, and resumed their journey to Bournemouth. And Christopher saw how the levity left Gwendolyn the closer they got, to be replaced with concern, anxiety, and that puzzling look of resignation.
Chapter 17
They arrived in Bournemouth just as full darkness was beginning to descend. The town was extraordinarily crowded with people, horses, carriages everywhere. An inquiry at the first inn to which they came elicited the news from an ostler that a countrywide nautical festival was in full swing.
To Christopher, Gwendolyn said in a low voice, “The Earl told me that de Montmorency’s been here many times before. Wouldn’t he want to stay at the finest inn?”
He nodded. “I can’t imagine him going anywhere else.”
Gwendolyn said to the ostler: “Could you tell us, please, where we can find the best inn in Bournemouth?”
“This here’s the best one, sir. Practically no fleas in the beds, and the sheets aired once a month, see?”
“It does sound very nice,” she said tactfully, “but the thing is, we’re looking for one of those stiff-rumped, prinked-up nobs—the sort who carries around his own bedsheets and demands a private parlor because the common room’s beneath his touch.”
“Ah! One of them gorgers! They all stay at the Lion’s Head, sir, and a pretty penny they pay for it, too.”
He obligingly gave them directions, Christopher tossed him a coin, and they continued on their way.
“Stiff-rumped, prinked-up nobs?” he said to her with a grin. “That’s a fine vocabulary you’ve got there, lad.”
“Whenever Percy and Francis would come home on holiday, they trotted out all sorts of interesting terms they’d picked up at school,” she said, smiling back at him, but all too soon felt her smile fade. How could Christopher be so calm, so lighthearted, when Helen was—perhaps even at this moment—in de Montmorency’s arms? She went on, trying to match him for calmness, “What if they’re not at the Lion’s Head?”
“We can only do our best, signorina, as you pointed out. Let’s take it one step at a time.”
Shortly they came to a large, handsome inn fronting the harbor, which itself was crowded with cutters, ketches, yachts, and dinghies of all makes and sizes. They went into the capacious yard, leaving their horses with an ostler who agreed to feed and care for them, but warned:
“You’ll not find a room here, gents, nor likely anywhere else. The town’s full up this week with the festival and all.”
Christopher nodded, gave him a coin, and together he and Gwendolyn passed into the inn’s front room which—not unexpectedly—was crowded too. A neatly dressed, middle-aged man bustled up to greet them and introduce himself as the proprietor, and Christopher said:
“We’re looking for a friend of ours. A Monsieur de Montmorency, who’d have arrived within the past few hours.”
“Aye, sir, he’s been here—insisted on his favorite room, too. I had to remove a gentleman from Shropshire, and he was none too pleased about it, neither! But as I said to him, private-like, the m’soo’s not somebody to cross, not if you value your own peace of mind, and he took my meaning right away, sir, and went away meek as a lamb.”
Gwendolyn’s heart was beating hard in her chest. “Was there a lady with Monsieur de Montmorency?”
“Not that I saw, sir.”
She shot a troubled, anxious look at Christopher, who calmly said to the proprietor:
“Where is Monsieur de Montmorency? We’d like to see him.”
“Not here, sir, at the moment. But he bespoke a private parlor for nine o’clock, a
nd dinner, too.”
“We’ll wait.”
“It’s past eight, sir, so you’ve not long to cool your heels. Drink?”
“Can you bring it to us here? We’d like to see him as soon as he arrives.”
“To be sure, sir, what would you like?”
“Ale for me. Gwyn?” He turned to her inquiringly.
“The same.”
The proprietor nodded, and hurried off, soon to return bearing two tankards filled to the brim. With a word of thanks Gwendolyn took the tankard he held out to her, as did Christopher, who lightly clinked his tankard against hers.
“Alla vostra salute, signorina.”
“To your health as well, ma sherry moo.” Cautiously Gwendolyn sipped at her ale. A bittersweet tang, a hint of malt and caramel, and very refreshing. “It’s good,” she said, surprised, and had a few more sips, realizing only now just how thirsty she’d been.
She watched as Christopher nodded and took a long swallow from his own tankard.
How easy and confident he was, how solid and capable. And what a wonderful companion. Had he been appalled when she proposed they travel with her clad in men’s clothing? Did he make a great silly fuss about her climbing a tree, or insist that he help her down, as if she were nothing more than a piece of delicate china about to break? Did he protest, shocked, when she wanted a glass of ale, too?
No, not Christopher.
She wished, suddenly and with all her heart, that this splendid adventure need never end.
But it must and it would, she thought with a deep, deep sigh.
“What’s wrong, signorina?”
“I—oh—” How selfish of her to be feeling sorry for herself, and at such a time! Quickly she went on, “Where do you think Helen is?”
“We’ll find out soon enough.”
“I suppose, but—oh, Christopher, what if—what if de Montmorency comes at you with that knife of his?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll hit him with the nearest vase,” he said, and she could only wonder all over again at his cheerfulness.