“I doubt anyone knows what Mr. O’Rourke is doing here except Mr. O’Rourke,” Sophy pronounced. “It’s possible Lord Ellington has sent for help due to the troubles. It is also possible Mr. O’Rourke is exactly what he says he is, agent for a merchant who wishes to buy wool. I know for a certainty he has spoken with Mr. Tyler and looked at samples of our fleece. I am told he was quite knowledgeable. So other than causing a flutter in the dovecote, I am inclined to believe we may excuse Mr. O’Rourke of any ulterior motive for his visit among us.”
A sigh from Beth, a disgusted sniff from Alice. “We’ll remember those words, Miss Upton,” Alice warned, “when they start carting our men off to the gallows.”
With unspoken agreement seven heads hastily bent over their work. If thoughts of Terence O’Rourke lingered in any but Julia’s mind, there was no sign. But to Julia this unknown, unseen Irishman seemed a nemesis come to bury them all. Any man who caused such a flurry among the women surely was not a simple wool buyer. Julia had not heard of Bow Street employing Irish Runners but it was entirely probable the Earl of Ellington, in his position as magistrate, had sent for help. Surely Jack had heard the rumors about O’Rourke. Dear God, she must see Jack as soon as possible.
“’Tis himself will be the Guy.” The words resounded ominously in one of those inexplicable pools of silence that strike even the most lively conversation.
“What did you say, Alice?” Julia inquired, rudely jolted back to the realm of female chatter.
Alice looked down at the sachet in her hand took a tiny stitch, pricked her finger. Blood fell onto the white muslin, irrevocably ruining her work. A hiss of expletive and the sachet hit the table, bounced and skidded off onto the floor. “I’m that sorry, missus!” she burst out, “but that’s the truth of it. My Tom says the major’ll never let you stay in trade, that we’ll all be starvin’ again. Even though menfolk do stick together, ours all say it’s not right what he done. Bringing that foreign woman home when he’s already got a wife. So…” Alice studied the worn tabletop, then firmed her jaw into a determined line. “So they’ve had me dyeing cloth green and making a uniform. The Guy’s to be the major.”
“Good God!” breathed Sophy.
“But they can’t!” said Julia sharply, surprised by her surge of anger. Never had she considered the possibility his own people might turn on Nicholas, using Guy Fawkes as an excuse to burn their landlord in effigy.
“There’s no talkin’ them out of it, missus,” said Alice. “Goodness knows I’ve tried. Told ’em they wuz cuttin’ their own throats but listen to a woman they’ll not, I can tell you!”
“It’s not just themselves they be thinking of, missus,” Emma added. “They be defending your honor. It’s fond of you they are for all your kindnesses. Because of you our children have full stomachs and pink cheeks. The men know which side their bread ’as the butter.”
“But they mustn’t.” Julia could not resist a rush of pleasure at the compliment but it would not do. It would not do at all. “Emma, Mary, Alice, Beth,” she said earnestly, “you must talk to your husbands, your sons and fathers. Tell them they must not cause trouble. Things are bad enough as they are…” She stopped, dismayed by her admission. Slowly, choosing each word with care, she continued, “We’ve allowed ourselves to think of The Willows as ours to do with as we pleased. We were wrong. Everything here,” she waved a hand to include the herbs, the sachets, the table, the kitchen, the cottage, the land around it, “everything belongs to just one person. Nicholas Tarleton. Even if we had been married for years and had a dozen children, I would have no legal right to do what we have been doing here. A word from the major and none of you will see a ha’pence from all the work you have done. It’s the herbs themselves will burn for Guy Fawkes.”
“We’ve plenty more at home,” Beth asserted proudly.
“They’ll have the militia out,” Julia countered, not unkindly. “No favor is too great to be granted to a Peninsular hero, you know. They’ll raid your cottages, confiscate every bit of green down to last whiff of thyme for your soup pot. It might take a day or two to burn it all but never doubt they’ll do it. I’ve seen the major in action. He is nothing if not thorough. Our herbs will be but an ocean of fragrance tickling noses all the way to Nottingham.”
Around the table eyes widened in fear and dismay. “Men can be the very devil,” declared Emma, summing up their thoughts with a shake of her gray head.
“I fear you will have to speak with Nicholas, Julia,” Sophy declared. “He must be warned. If it comes as a surprise, things could well turn out as you have said.”
“I can’t,” Julia groaned. “We are barely speaking on any subject at all. How can I hope to talk rationally about something as important as this?”
“Perhaps ’tis not rational thought that’s needed,” said Alice Potter with a good deal of cheek.
Beth Collins looked blank while Sophy, Meg, Mary Carter, and Mrs. Tompkins tried to look shocked while struggling to hide their smiles. “Indeed, Julia,” Sophy said sternly, “I fear you have little choice.”
Meg thrust back her chair and moved decisively toward the large pantry at one end of the kitchen. When she returned, she set before Julia an entire jar of dried rose petals. “I think you’d best burn the whole thing,” she said.
* * * * *
Blinded by an anger which astonished even himself, Nicholas made a headlong dash back to The Willows, only to be brought up short by a joyous whoop of greeting a scant mile from the Earl of Ellington’s dower house. Avery Dunstan, Viscount Cheyney, galloped toward the man he had followed into war. He wrung Nicholas’ hand, then gripped the major’s shoulder as if to make absolutely certain he was real.
“Jack told me you were alive, Sir, but truly I found it hard to believe,” he blurted out. “I am so damnably glad to see you!”
Nicholas returned his junior officer’s greeting with equal warmth but shrugged aside the young man’s hero worship. “I have a great many people to thank for my deliverance, Cheyney. Julia, Dan Runyon, the monks who cared for me…Pickering for bringing me off the field.”
“He’s here, Sir,” Avery interrupted. “Pickering. Hurt his arm bringing me in, then came back to England to help me home.” Lord Cheyney, uncomfortable with admitting to any infirmity, shrugged and added, “I do well on horseback—was on my way to visit The Willows, in fact—but I’m not so fit on my feet. Home for two or three months, I fear.”
“I’m living proof that you’ll recover, Lieutenant,” Nicholas said lightly, “or did I hear you’re a captain now?”
“Yes, Sir, Major, Sir!” Jack’s young brother said with an eager grin. “Will you come back to the Park with me, Sir? It’s closer than The Willows and I know the parents would wish to welcome you home as well.”
Many hours, a sumptuous supper and a two bottles of brandy later, Nicholas started the four-mile journey home from Ellington Park to The Willows. In the flurry of his homecoming and the weight of the problems confronting him, he had lost all track of dates and time. He was drifting along immersed in a vague haze of brandy and random thoughts when he became aware that there really should not be two harvest moons glowing orange in the black October night. After a few moments of owlish regard, Nicholas decided the moon on his left, atop a hill more than half a mile from the road, was actually a large fire, its flames leaping and growing even as he watched. The clash of reality into his dreamworld startled his hands into sudden movement. His horse backed and reared, snorting in surprise.
“Steady, old boy, steady. I’m sorry,” Nicholas cajoled. “I’m not that foxed, I don’t believe. I am not seeing things and there’s no building up there as best I can recall. What’s the date, old boy? Not Guy Fawkes…” Surely he’d recall if it were November. But Guy Fawkes was close. This could be some early mischief. Or…did they follow the old customs for All Hallow’s Eve in this corner of Lincolnshire? He had never been here in October. Whatever the cause, it was certain mischief was afoot on his land
.
Aided by the nearly full moon, Nicholas set his horse toward the blazing fire. As he cautiously approached the hill, the glowing mass of red and yellow resolved itself into a bonfire. Black silhouettes moved against the flaming backdrop. Bile rose in Nicholas’ throat, his stomach heaved. Ah, dios. Carlos. Sweat rose on his brow. He gulped the cool crisp air and steadied his horse. Gradually, the images returned to rolling English countryside, a hill buttressed by solid gray granite and figures who danced instead of fought. There were no explosions of black powder, no clash of steel, no cries of death. Only the spritely strains of a solitary fiddle pierced the night. A Hallowe’en celebration, by God and a fine time they were making of it.
Never averse to mixing with his men, Nicholas was about to move forward into the circle of light when it occurred to him that his presence would very likely put a damper on the celebration. He was of no mind to spoil their fun. For a few more minutes he watched the dancers. The cluster of figures round a barrel of ale, sparks leaping above the flames, winking out in the blackness above. Not so oddly, Nicholas regretted his position prevented him from joining in the merriment. His life was at sixes and sevens. And bloody lonely. With the possible exception of young Avery, there was no one to whom he could talk. Even Dan Runyon—damn his eyes!—had defected to the other side. Jack Harding was once a friend but now… The major’s pulse raced as Violante’s words echoed through his head. Friendship with Ellington’s bastard was a thing of the past.
Carlos too was gone, Don Raimondo estranged by the insult to his daughter’s honor, Julia as well as Violante, grievously offended. Nor had he been on comfortable terms with his parents and brother for many years. With the high-pitched wail of the fiddle ringing in his ears, Nicholas reluctantly turned his horse back the way he had come. The stallion whinnied, shied, came to an abrupt halt as shadows rose up before them. To the sides. Behind.
“Not so fast, guv’nor,” growled a voice out of the flickering darkness. A hand grasped his stallion’s bridle.
The shadows closed in. Only his long years of meeting strange and dangerous situations kept Nicholas from revealing his stab of primitive horror as the firelight flared to illuminate the grotesque faces ringed around him.
Demons, goblins, skeletons, fallen angels, a devil in red, a nightmarish caricature of Napoleon Bonaparte, all monstrous figments of surprisingly fertile imaginations. Some of the masks were of sophisticated papier-maché, others no more than crude drawings on old flour sacks. But all were sinister, made more so by the broad shoulders beneath the masks and the pitchforks, scythes, or cudgels in each man’s hand.
The major recovered quickly. “Where are you from that you don’t know who I am?” he demanded of the man who had spoken. “None of your concern,” snarled the Napoleon mask. “We be visiting, you might say. And we don’t need no gentry nosin’ round where they ain’t wanted.”
“Got a right to have a bonfire on Hallowe’en, we have,” the red devil asserted stoutly with a menacing swing of his scythe. “Come more’n five mile to have us a little fun, we did. And we plan to have it.” A chorus of agreement ran through the grotesque circle.
“I can see things have changed since I left England,” Nicholas said. “I am as much in favor of a bit of fun as the next man but I’m not fond of being run off my own land by a bunch of addlepated fools with pitchforks.”
“So you be the major,” said Napoleon thoughtfully. “Well, Sir, ’tis said you’re a bloody hero but I’m thinkin’ you’re better known in these parts as the man who pays his workers—whether they be farm or mill—the wages of starvation.”
“Aye,” added a particularly bizarre and lopsided demon, “’tis y’r wife’s the saint, God bless ’er, bringin’ in money for the farm workers.” Pity she can’t do for the mill folk as well. It’s not a pretty sight to know your wife and childer must work fourteen hours a day at a loom or waste away for lack of food.”
A low growl from the ring of ghoulish creatures drowned the sound of the fiddle and the crackle of the fire. Pitchforks tilted to the ready, not a few cudgels swung clear of the ground. The dancing firelight caught the shining curved blade of the scythe, turning it the color of blood.
At the back of the ring of menacing figures a finely drawn satyr kept his sneering painted features trained on Napoleon, leader of Hallowe’en mob, who had a firm grip on the major’s stirrup, his belligerent gaze fixed on Tarleton’s unconsciously arrogant and powerful stance. The satyr’s left hand moved toward the pistol under his jacket as his right inched toward the knife thrust into his belt. This was the moment things could go either way. If Tarleton had the sense to bend a bit, they might yet get out of this with their skins intact.
Nicholas was scarcely a stranger to blood or battle. Nor ignorant of a tight situation when he saw one. These were his mill workers from Nottingham and not a few of his farm workers as well. Hence the pitchforks and the scythes. He had been a soldier long enough to know when to retreat. No glory could come of Julia waking to find herself well and truly a widow.
“You must have noticed I was leaving,” Nicholas said quietly.
Behind his mask the satyr’s lips drew up in a smile not dissimilar to the painted grimace of his disguise.
“I had no intention of stopping the celebration. I hope you understand I have not been home long enough to learn what I need to know about either the estate or the mill. But if you wish to come to me with your grievances I will hear you out.”
He raised his voice enough to make sure that everyone in the threatening ring of shadows heard him. “But I do not discuss anything with men who hide behind masks. Come to me openly and I will hear you. With no reprisals. But if you continue in the hole-in-the-corner manner you have shown tonight, you will lose my sympathy entirely. Now stand aside. I am leaving.”
Resolutely, Nicholas dug in his heels, ignoring Napoleon and the skeleton at his horse’s head. Napoleon hesitated, then stepped back, loosing his grip on the stirrup. The mob parted, leaving room for the major to ride through the grotesque phalanx of Hallowe’en creatures. Gradually, the night darkened around him. Only the moon and stars were left to guide him home. Nicholas never looked back.
The satyr gave close watch until satisfied no one followed the major into the night. Terence O’Rourke then turned away, slipping into the shadows. Among the large company of masked men his departure was no more noted than his earlier presence.
* * * * *
“Daniel, you shouldn’t,” Julia protested. “It’s much too late.”
“Nonsense,” said Sophy briskly, busy with her own preparations as Daniel struggled up the stairs with two buckets of hot water from the kitchen below. “You can do with a good bit of pampering on your first day back among us. And a hard one it’s been, to say nothing of the smoke from our fire. ’Twill do you a world of good, my dear.”
As Daniel poured the contents of the buckets into a hip bath on the plain wooden floor in front of the fireplace, Sophy finished tying shut a cheesecloth bag of her favorite herbal selections and plunged it into the hot water. “There now,” she declared with satisfaction. “Let that steep for ten minutes and you’ll have a bath fit for a queen.”
“Very well,” Julia acquiesced with a smile, “though I dislike seeing Daniel playing footman.
“And you’d like Jeffries or Harkins comin’ up to this room?” Meg Runyon asked. “I think not. You’ll have Daniel do for you or have to do for yourself, missus!”
Julia laughed. “So I’m a silly fool, I’ll not argue on that score. I’m grateful to you all and well you know it. But, Sophy, I think I must ask what infusion I’m about to immerse myself in.”
Sophy’s smile was lit with the zeal of a true believer. “A fine mixture, my dear. Lavender, rosemary, comfrey root, thyme and verbena with a geranium leaf or two. You’re to soak in it, mind,” she cautioned, “not just in and out. I promise you’ll feel much more the thing. ’Tis plain to see you’re feeling pulled.”
Julia mad
e a wry face and nodded. “Thank you all,” she repeated as Daniel poured two more buckets into the tub. “Friends are a precious gift.”
“No gift,” Daniel growled. “Friends are earned. And you’ve more than just those of us here.”
“Aye,” Meg asserted. “We’re all with you, missus.”
Julia’s eyes darkened. “Thank you, Meg but I’m not sure this is a matter for taking sides. Right now…right now we all lose. And I see no way to make things better.” Idly, Julia touched the bag of herbs softly swirling in the newly poured water. The fragrance was beginning to drift up from the dark water and waft its way through the room. With a brisk movement she shook the drops from her hand, drying her fingers on her skirt. “Now go to bed, all of you. It’s been a long day for us all. I’ll manage very well for myself.”
They went, taking their thoughts and speculations with them. While Nicholas Tarleton was being confronted by threatening creatures of the night, his stock was not much higher under his own roof.
With a few deft twists Julia pinned her long brown hair high on her head. Stray tendrils teased her forehead, tumbled gracefully to the back of her neck. Beyond the circle of firelight the room was chill. Julia undressed by the fire, neatly placing her garments and a large towel over a ladder-back chair to one side of the fireplace. The deliciously scented water beckoned. With infinite gratitude for her friends’ insistence on this luxurious pleasure, she stepped into the tub, immersing herself up to her chin. Her sigh of contentment drifted through the fragrant air. If Nicholas should come upon her now…
Would he come? As he had last night. Would she deny him?
The scent of burning rose petals overcame the sweet mix of herbs Sophy had added to the bath water. Their bonfire at the bottom of the garden should have been a lark, Julia thought, a bit of light humor to brighten their lives. But no smiles came. The four of them—Julia, Sophy, Meg and Daniel—had tiptoed out of the house—in truth, some might have used the word sneaked—finding their way by light of the moon to a sheltered spot in the lower garden. There, in a fallow patch of earth, Daniel had laid a small fire from a bag of sticks gathered earlier that day. “Ye must have fresh faggots from the woods,” he’d said and the women had not seen fit to disparage his belief in his own set of superstitions.
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