“Something always happens after that dream.”
“I’ll be careful, ’tis a promise. I know what I’m doin’.”
It was against Zak’s nature to be careful, Rand thought. And whenever Zak said he knew what he was doing, it was a sure sign he didn’t know a blessed thing.
“I’m not askin’ ye t’ go with me,” Zak continued. “’Twould be more chancy with the two of us skulkin’ about. Meet me at the crossroads north of Middleham at midnight. Then I’ll be off t’ Scotland meek as ye please.”
Anytime Zak planned something on his own, trouble followed. Rand knew that all the common sense in the world wouldn’t sway his cousin, so he would have to attend the fair in order to keep a close watch. But he must not bruise Zak’s pride. That would only make the brash bull-shooter more reckless.
“’Tis agreed, midnight,” Rand said, forcing a nonchalance he didn’t feel into his voice. “Don’t be late,” he added, leaping atop Prancer.
Zak grinned and raised his pistol in mock salute. “Ye’ll see, cousin. ’Twill go as smooth as a bunter’s bottom.”
Heading down the path, Rand heard Zak’s cheerful bellow.
“Love is a wonder, that’s here and yonder, as common to one as to mo’e. A monstrous cheater, every man’s debtor, hang him, and so let him go.”
“Hang him,” Rand echoed. Then he shivered, for he feared the song’s words were an omen.
Eleven
“I can’t tell you how excited I am to be meeting an authoress,” said Lady Marston, slipping her arm through Elizabeth’s. “Castles of Doom is so vivid. I just finished the second installment and I love Ranulf Navarre. He’s deliciously evil, isn’t he?”
Elizabeth gaped at her admirer. Ranulf Navarre? Why would Lady Marston mention the name of Simon de Montfort’s baron?
“I…” She swallowed. “I beg your pardon?”
“I said, I find Ralf Darkstarre deliciously evil, don’t you?”
“Yes, evil.” Elizabeth quickly regained her composure. Her mind was playing tricks on her. Perhaps the peel tower had stirred her imagination.
As Lady Marston continued, Elizabeth smiled at the circle of beaming faces. Almost all of the ladies were far older than she, domestically settled, and desirous to hear about the peculiar but assuredly interesting life of a writer. Elizabeth rather enjoyed being the center of attention. Several ladies hailed from London and were summering in the Dales. They seemed eager for any diversion from the slow country pace, and Elizabeth was more than happy to oblige them.
“Why is it that you’ve never married?” asked Lady Marston. “I have a nephew in Coventry who would be perfect for you.”
Elizabeth gave one of her standard responses. “As another author, Lady Chudleigh, once wrote, ‘Wife and servant are the same, But only differ in the name.’ I prefer my single state.”
Dorothea’s nostrils flared and she fanned herself vigorously. The other ladies laughed.
“I think you should write your next book about highwaymen,” said Mrs. Wright, the wife of a country squire. “Dear me, did they have highwaymen in the Middle Ages?”
“If they did not, they should have,” Elizabeth replied diplomatically.
“Remember when Claude Duvall terrorized the highway?” Mrs. Wright patted her generous bosom as if stilling her heart. “Of course you wouldn’t, Miss Wyndham, since that was before your time, though unfortunately not before mine.”
“I’ve read about him.” Indeed, who hadn’t? “They say he was arrogant, insolently charming, and equipped with such an overpowering sensuality that maids, widows, wives, rich, poor, and vulgar women all enjoyed his bed. He sounds intriguing, doesn’t he?”
“Ahem,” Dorothea interjected, obviously disturbed by the improper turn of the conversation. “He wasn’t before my time, Elizabeth, and, if memory serves, Claude Duvall was even better known as a liar, a cheat, and a card sharp.”
As always, Elizabeth felt duty-bound to contradict her stepmother. But before she could utter one word, Walter Stafford appeared at her side. “I must apprehend our guest of honor,” he said, sounding like the lawman he was. Placing his hand in the small of Elizabeth’s back, he guided her toward the music room.
“Have I told you how radiant you look today?” he asked, ushering her inside.
“Thank you, my lord.”
Walter waved his perfumed handkerchief at several guests, two-fingered the handkerchief back inside his cuff, then sat Elizabeth upon one of the settees and joined her there. “I have visited London and Bath and many of the kingdom’s most fashionable resorts,” he said, “yet I have never seen a lovelier woman.” He touched her hat, which tilted rakishly over her forehead. “I do believe you’re missing one of your ostrich plumes, my dear, and I noticed earlier that your shoes were a bit scuffed, which is no wonder. White kid might not have been the wisest choice. But other than your shoes and hat, you are perfection.”
Just before entering Walter’s house, Elizabeth had exchanged her boots for a pair of slippers. She had also tidied her hair and donned a hat. Now, ignoring his remarks, she pretended an interest in the entertainment—an indifferent interpretation of Handel. Soon her attention wandered. She studied the carpet, patterned with flowers, baskets, and fruit. She studied the walls, paneled with damask silks in pale hues. She tried to calculate the cost of Walter’s remodeling. Her host pressed his thigh against hers. She shifted away.
Without warning, she heard the music alter its cadence, though no one else seemed aware of this obvious discrepancy.
Elizabeth’s breath came in hot gasps and every instinct urged her to flee. The melody sounded familiar, yet she had no earthly idea where she had heard it before. Clear-toned and mellifluous, it evoked images of celebration. And death.
Body ramrod stiff, eyes staring straight ahead, she willed her limbs to remain motionless. Then, after the obscure melody had faded, along with the last solemn notes of Handel, she experienced relief. And an almost overwhelming sadness.
Walter clapped politely. Rising from the settee, he signaled for silence. “Miss Wyndham recently had one of her poems published in The Spectator,” he announced. “You will do us the honor of reading it, Elizabeth, won’t you?”
While she complied, Walter watched her hungrily. Two words came to mind—ripe and voluptuous. Several curls had escaped from her formerly neat club, yet even the undisciplined hair enhanced her aura of sensuality. Despite her physical attributes, he wondered whether he didn’t desire Elizabeth primarily because she presented a challenge. He knew he was attractive. He also knew that he was the wealthiest man in the Dales and could have his pick of the ladies, even though men outnumbered women. In the cities the mix was reversed, and desperate fathers sometimes bribed bachelors to propose.
You wouldn’t be so arrogant if we lived in London, Walter thought, yet perversely Elizabeth’s haughtiness merely added to her charms. Rapidly diminishing charms. Time would inevitably take its toll. A man of his age, forty, was at the height of his desirability, while any woman past twenty could best be described as a shriveling bouquet. Soon Elizabeth would sprout crow’s feet, a drooping jaw line, a thickened waist, and a sagging bosom. Soon no man would have her.
Anticipating her impending decay did not make him feel any better. He indulged in sex with other women, of course, but he fantasized that it was Elizabeth he dominated. Now that he doctored yet another inflammation of his genitals, he was forced to limit his sexual encounters. Perhaps his celibacy partially accounted for his inability to shake Elizabeth from his thoughts.
A scowl creased his brow, negating that last notion. While it was common knowledge that physical desire and romantic love were violent mental disturbances of short duration, he had been intrigued by Elizabeth for five years, ever since his arrival in the Dales. He feared he was obsessed by her.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned,
hoping his expression, rather than words, would reveal his annoyance. The butler whispered, “Reverend Farnsworth is here, my lord. He said he must see you. He further states that he has been victimized by a heinous crime.”
Fully expecting that the highwaymen had struck again, Stafford hurried outside. Reverend Farnsworth, wearing around his neck the white Geneva bands of his Presbyterian ministry, was leading a horse up and down the drive. Walter had never seen the reverend appear so agitated, except during his recent sermon against the “Frogs.” Those foreigners were destroying England’s existing social structure, Farnsworth had thundered.
“I believe I’ve been sold a doctored horse, Lord Stafford,” Farnsworth huffed. In his black coat and hose, he looked like an enormous beetle. “’Twas earlier in the day, near Coverham. The gent had a string of fine-looking mounts, and I purchased one at a very good price. But I was told that this gelding here is seven years old and from his lumbering gait I suspect he’s far older.”
“There’s only one way to find out.” Walter pulled apart the roan’s lips and displayed its teeth. “As you know, I am an expert on horseflesh. See those black marks on the crowns of your gelding’s incisors? They generally disappear by age nine, so seven could be feasible. Aha!” He ran his finger along the teeth. “Real infundibulate have a ring of pearly enamel, which these lack.”
“What does that mean, m’lord?”
“Bishoping. Those marks were burned by a hot iron.”
Reverend Farnsworth’s eyes widened. “The gent said this gelding was the property of a nobleman who had gone abroad. That is the reason he offered up such a good price.”
“What an ancient line. And he probably showed you a second horse that he swore was ordered to be sold by the executors of a deceased minister. No doubt he had tales for each animal, and all equally false. I’m afraid you’ve been duped.”
“No!” Farnsworth could scarce believe that anyone would cheat a man of the cloth. “What is this world coming to? If you want my opinion—”
“Tell me about the coper,” Stafford interrupted, impatient to return to Elizabeth.
“He was large, well dressed, and he could talk the ears off a person. I’ve not seen him around these parts before, m’lord, but he wasn’t a Frog. He was an Englishman.”
Wonderful description, Walter thought sarcastically. If Farnsworth were any more specific, half the Dales would be under suspicion. “The chap most likely thinks to sell his horses in Middleham, Reverend. I have various patrols on the road, and you might give them a description. I am quite certain my men will scour the fair looking for a large, talkative gent.”
“Yes, well, I trust you will further investigate the matter, m’lord. Come to think of it, he might have been a Frog with a false accent.” Shaking his head, clutching the roan’s reins, Farnsworth turned to leave.
Walter slipped back inside the music room, but Elizabeth had finished her piece. Dorothea Wyndham sat at the pianoforte, accompanying Lady Marston, who was warbling an unidentifiable tune.
***
Pretending to sip lemonade baptized with brandy, Elizabeth scanned Lord Stafford’s face. She feared he had been called away because of Rand, but Walter soon dispelled her fears with a brief recounting of Farnsworth’s plight.
After Lady Marston had lurched through her finale, they all enjoyed a leisurely dinner. Then Walter offered his guests a choice of cards in the drawing room or bowls on the green. For the Wyndhams, he suggested a tour of his latest renovations.
Lawrence exclaimed over Walter’s expanded stables and racehorses, while Dorothea waxed poetic over his new dairy, which had been constructed with marble walls. The milk, cream, and butter were stored in porcelain vessels, cooled by splashing fountains.
“Isn’t this lovely, Elizabeth?” Dorothea’s hands fluttered over the Stafford seal, engraved on one of the butter churns. “I’ve never seen such a magnificent dairy.”
Elizabeth thought the room resembled an enormous mausoleum.
Dorothea was even more impressed by Walter’s garden, renovated in a Gothic style, complete with grottoes and artificial ruins. “This makes me feel so pleasantly melancholy,” she said, clapping her hands in delight over a crumbling tower and a broken archway. “Doesn’t it you, Elizabeth?”
“It must have cost a fortune,” offered Lawrence.
“I have a fortune to spend.” Walter turned to Elizabeth. “I confess that after reading Castles of Doom, I sympathized with poor King Henry. He lavished so much money on the arts and architecture and was vilified for his pains.”
“But in Henry’s case, the money belonged to his subjects,” she countered.
“If one believes in the divine right of kings, Henry was totally justified.”
“That is an outmoded notion, or at least thinking people find it so.” Every time Walter opened his mouth, Elizabeth felt that her scheme to play the demure companion was in jeopardy. Temper simmering like a pot of boiling water, she walked away. Almost immediately, she spied a hermit’s cell. The small religious house might dispel her hostility. Peering inside, she stifled a scream.
A monk knelt in the shadows, his head bent forward, his hands steepled in prayer. Elizabeth shivered violently. A whisper of the mournful, melodious chant she had heard inside the music room floated through her memory.
She blinked several times, thinking the monk was just another one of her visions. It couldn’t be a real monk, for Catholics had no power in England. Furthermore, any man with position and money was Protestant, and would never harbor a Roman clergyman, no matter how perfectly the clergyman enhanced the decor.
“Very lifelike, isn’t it?” Walter stood at her elbow. “Of course, ’tis merely a stuffed figure. I thought he might add a pleasing touch of gloom.”
“Why is it that we hate papists, yet we strive so hard to reproduce their traditions and mimic everything about them?”
Walter laughed. “My dear Elizabeth, one can enjoy the look of an era without believing in its deceptions.”
“Didn’t you mention earlier that we might visit a bull baiting in Middleham, my lord?” Dorothea asked, obviously fearful that Elizabeth would start another argument.
“Aye,” Lawrence said. “I’m always eager for a bit of wagering. I mean, I would be if I still gambled. I’ll just enjoy watching, eh, Bess?”
“Yes, Papa. I’m anxious to attend as well.”
But more precisely, she was anxious to get away from the kneeling monk in his gloomy cell.
Twelve
A large crowd clustered around the center of a field where a black bull had been tied. A fifteen-foot rope, secured by an iron ring affixed to a stake, circled the bull’s horns. Several men stood on the sidelines, along with their bulldogs. The men restrained the dogs by holding onto their ears. The dogs whined or yapped at the bull. Common folk and powdered lords debated the strength of the bull and the skill of the dogs.
Rand kept to the outskirts, positioning himself so that he had a clear view of the horse traders beyond. Though he seldom lost sight of Zak, he didn’t dare move too close. Standing together, they might trigger some observant victim’s memory.
This is madness, Rand thought, as he watched his cousin collar a rotund farmer. How could Zak bring defective horses to a town renowned for its breeding of blood stock?
In fact, the entire area was dotted with huge stables. Many had been constructed from the stones of Middleham Castle, sprawled above the town. For some reason, the castle’s jagged silhouette further reinforced Rand’s uneasiness. Yet nothing sinister had occurred, it was nearly sundown, and Zak had been successfully cheating people for hours.
Rand studied the faces of those awaiting the bull baiting. No one paid any attention to him. He was dressed in a coarse woolen tunic, tight-fitting breeches, and home-knit hose. His hair fell free, without even a queue to hold it in place. Rand thought he looked plai
ner than all but the poorest yeoman farmer, and was well pleased with his disguise.
He noticed a tall man in a double cauliflower wig who moved majestically through the crowd. We’ve placed the hangman’s noose around our own necks, he thought, recognizing Walter Stafford. The lawman tilted his head toward his companion, a woman clothed in a blue riding outfit. Despite the ostrich-plumed hat that shadowed her eyes, Rand could never mistake Elizabeth Wyndham’s sun-kissed complexion, nor her slender waist and rounded hips. He felt a rush of anger. Elizabeth possessed the power to destroy him, if she chose. Rand had heard rumors, but he had summarily dismissed them all. She so obviously loathed Stafford that any gossip about her being his mistress or his fiancée was ludicrous.
What if her scorn had been pretense? Had she fingered Rand as the highwayman, eagerly relating a detailed description to Lord Walter Stafford, the most dangerous man in the Dales?
Impossible! She could not have responded so ardently to Rand’s embraces if she wore a mask of duplicity—or could she?
Lady Guinevere had acted in a similar manner when confronted by Ralf Darkstarre, unable to resist his effortless seduction. In fact, that was the very same scene which had scandalized the dowagers at Beresford’s drum.
At that moment, the signal was given and a gray dog was released to run at the bull. “Scrag him, Cornwallis!” screamed the dog’s handler, his voice rising above the excited murmur of the spectators. Rand positioned himself at the back of the crowd where he would have a clear view of Elizabeth, Stafford, and Zak.
***
In the ring, Cornwallis darted toward his adversary. The nameless bull turned a horn. Trying to get beneath the bull’s belly in order to seize his muzzle or dewlap, Cornwallis circled behind the bull’s tail, barking all the while. From the sidelines, the dog’s companions echoed the sound.
Elizabeth, who was far nearer the action than she wished to be, covered her ears. She hated the violence inherent in such events and regretted her earlier eagerness to attend.
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