Again, he displayed his generous nature. As he’d taken her in, clothed her, and treated her well, he was offering aid to those the king and Parliament would see shunned.
The Test Act barred Catholics and anyone else refusing to profess allegiance to the Church of England from holding public office. Many had lost their positions because of it, falling into poverty and desperation.
A swineherd and his three snuffling, muddy charges rambled down the street. The pigs looked pitifully thin.
“Not much of a herd.” Richard nudged Miranda sideways, against the wall of a house, and stood between her and the beasts. Their passage churned the damp soil into a muddy bog.
“Thus far, Croyland has little to recommend it,” he noted.
“I can’t dispute that.” Save that it gave them time, however fleeting, together. Perhaps she should feel guilty about taking pleasure in something that came of such tragedy, but she couldn’t regret any time spent with him.
Even the High Street in Croyland was dirt. If not for the thick wooden pattens, or undersoles, she wore with her shoes, she’d be ankle-deep in the mire.
Most of the houses stood close together, as those in London had before the fire, with overhanging upper stories that blocked the sunlight. Puddles of slop dumped from upper windows added to the general stench. She and Richard stayed close to the walls to avoid any that were dumped as they passed. Despite the pattens, his arm provided welcome support as they slid through the mud.
“I feel as though we’re running out of time,” she said. “I haven’t Seen anything, but I have a strong feeling of urgency.”
“As do I. Even the weather returning to the usual doesn’t seem right. It’s like the calm before the storm. Although I’m needed in London, I feel as though I should go to Hawkstowe. My scrying shows my steward is coping well, but I should be with my people.”
The crowds still in town for market day only added to the general muck and mess. Richard had been lucky to find rooms at a good inn. Crowds also brought the danger of sickness, but there was nothing to be done about that. People had business to transact.
The Royal Oak’s faded sign came into view, a tree with a man, supposedly King Charles, in its branches. With the sun almost set, the image was harder to make out.
“At last,” Richard said. “I’m ready for a hot meal.”
They entered the inn. “Go on upstairs,” he said. “I’ll order food sent up.”
With narrow windows in the front and none elsewhere, the long, low-ceilinged taproom was dim. Dingy, once-white plaster walls reflected lantern light poorly. Pipe smoke mixed an acrid stench into the food aromas and clouded the view of the room.
Miranda gave him a wry smile. “Considering the mud, Patience will be doubly grateful that we had her wait here.” Richard hadn’t wanted to make the maid privy to the discussion, and that had worked to Patience’s advantage, letting her stay snug and warm in the hotel today.
“M’lord!” The cry came from across the tap room.
They swung toward it, Richard frowning. “Perhaps that call isn’t for me,” he murmured.
A sturdy figure pushed through the gloom and the crowd. “M’lord—that is, master!”
“Robin!” Richard stepped forward, then halted abruptly.
Miranda also stopped. What was the stable lad doing here? His pale face and worried frown boded ill.
“Master. I’ve news from London. Dire news, mil—sir.”
The earl shot him a warning look. “We’ll talk upstairs, Robin. You might have waited there with Patience.”
“I wanted to see you as soon as you came in, master.”
“I’ll order the food,” Miranda said. “Go on.”
Richard thanked her with a nod. “Come, Robin.” He mounted the stairs two at a time with the boy behind him.
When Miranda reached their private parlor, Richard greeted her with a tense expression. “Grandmère’s ill. Has been since the day after we left.”
“Oh, no—not that mysterious sickness?” She sank into a chair, the food she’d ordered forgotten. His worry tightened her chest and knotted her stomach, doubling the effect of her own concern.
“No, mistress,” Robin said. “Quite sick to her stomach, she was, Jane said. But not this new plague or whatever ’tis.”
Richard nodded at the reference to his grandmother’s maid. “Go on, Robin.”
“She wouldn’t let nobody bleed her. When she stopped sickin’ up and fell to sleep, Jane, she thought that was a good sign. Next morn, though, milady woke up a bit but wouldn’t open her eyes. Mumbled about not t’bleed her and to send fer Reverend Winfield on account of him being good with herbs.”
“What happened next?” Richard asked, his voice flint.
Miranda folded her hands in her lap, her grip tightening, as his impatience thrummed in her body.
“She fell back asleep. They couldn’t rouse her, and the reverend was gone to Canterbury the day before she fell ill, and the cap’n with him, so Enderby, he said I was to come tell you. Sent me on Zeus, he did, figurin’ as how you’d come in your coach and so would need a fast horse to ride back. He thought you wouldn’t want no hired horse what might go lame on you.”
The lad paused for breath, his face anxious. “I hope I done right, milord.”
“Yes, Robin.” Richard spoke calmly, gripping Robin’s shoulder, but the fear jabbing him echoed Miranda’s. “Go down to the kitchen and ask for food and a bed.” He frowned at Miranda. “Did we order food?”
“It should arrive soon,” she said.
Questions screamed in Robin’s uneasy look, but he left the room as bidden.
Richard rubbed a hand over his face, finally letting his worry show. “Poison could have the effect Robin described, but how would she have taken poison? Not that it matters now. I’ve no time to waste.”
“You must go at once, of course.”
No hint of his feelings now leaked through his tight control, but his set face and stony eyes betrayed his anxiety. “They should have sent to Lucius or even to Jeremy in Canterbury, but it’s too late for that now. I can reach home faster than I can send word telling them who else could help.” He walked to the hearth with his hands extended toward the fire.
After a moment, he said, “Have Patience pack your things. It’s too late to set out now, so we’ll leave at first light.”
“We?” She frowned at him. “Enderby sent Robin on Zeus so you could make the best possible speed back to London, which you agree is critical. He made it here in a bit more than three days. Now you want to wait for the coach, which took five days? You could travel faster alone. I could wait here for news.”
“Out of the question.”
“Or follow you at a slower pace.”
“Absolutely not.” He scowled at her. “I won’t leave you unprotected.”
“Someone should wait to hear from Father Gregory.”
“Grandmère’s illness stinks of coincidence. I’ll take no unnecessary risks with your safety.”
“You risk your grandmother’s life if you delay.”
Pain flashed through his eyes. “She expects me to protect you, and I will.”
Miranda glared at him. “What about what I expect?”
“You can’t want me to leave you here. Grandmère may be genuinely ill, or she may have been poisoned. If the latter, it was done either to bring me out of Croyland or to separate me from you. I would rather risk Croyland.”
His answer warmed her, but she forged ahead. “You can’t know that. What about the time shift? The dreadful weather, the crop failures? The people disappearing?”
A flash of pain in his eyes told her that shot had gone home.
Though she shouldn’t discount the possibility that Wyndon wanted to isolate her, she couldn’t let Arabella die. Or give up a chance to find the Chronicle and put everything right again.
His face set in an expression she could only call dogged. “I have a responsibility to keep you safe.”
> Even if that meant sacrificing his grandmother? Miranda couldn’t let him do that. “If Lord Wyndon harmed me, what would you do?”
His face hardened. “I’d kill him.”
Around a rush of selfish pleasure, she said, “Surely he knows that. I’m safe from him, wherever I am.”
“Unless he wants to provoke me into a duel.”
“He must have any number of other ways to do that.”
“He could provoke me in many ways,” Richard said slowly, as though the words escaped against his will, “but none that would matter more to me. Not even the one he may already have chosen.” Raw passion turned his eyes a dark, stormy blue.
Fierce joy pounded through her heart as desire crackled between them, but she made herself speak calmly. “The king, I assume, would also want an explanation, and so might the Conclave. So Wyndon has reason to avoid angering you. If he caused your grandmother’s illness, he did it to draw you away from here, which bodes well for the results of our inquiries.”
His shoulders relaxed. His eyes lost their intent stare, as though he considered what she had said.
He shook his head. “I won’t risk it.”
“Instead, you would risk your grandmother, who has done so much for me. No. I’ll walk out of here first.”
“You wouldn’t. You’ve nowhere to go.”
“I’ve worked all my life. I’ll find a job.” Her gaze locked with his. “I mean it, Richard. I do.”
His eyes flashed. His jaw tightened. After a long moment, he ground out, “So be it, then, my lady, and may neither of us come to rue this day.”
Weak pre-dawn light filtered through the parlor window, where Miranda stood watching the inn yard. An ostler brought Zeus into view. The stallion pranced as though he couldn’t wait to depart. She saw no sign of Richard. Would he come to her, or had she angered him so much that he would ride away without a word?
She had presented a brave front to him out of necessity, but now that he was going, doubts clamored in her head.
Surely she would wait alone only for a few days, perhaps a sennight at most. Then she would be safe in London again.
She forced her chin up. Until Richard left, she would show no trace of concern. After that, she would do whatever necessity demanded of her.
In the hallway, a board creaked. Her pulse kicked, and Richard walked into the room. He was dressed for travel, in sturdy wool clothes and high leather boots.
He tossed his hat and his oiled leather cloak onto a chair and set a small, fat purse on the table beside it. “I don’t know how I let you talk me into this.”
“It’s the right thing to do, and you know it.”
“I wish I did.”
He paced to the window. Staring down into the yard, he said, “I’ve paid the bill for the next ten days. That should suffice. That purse is for you, for any further expenses.”
She nodded, and he continued, “It should be enough for any need that might arise. When I reach London, I’ll send the Hawkstowe outriders, most of whom are Gifted, to escort you. Don’t start home without them. Robin knows them. If he has any doubts, wait here for me. I’ll return as soon as I can.”
Even Gifted outriders would do only so much good against a wizard who could travel time, but they ought to deter any bandits. Although she hated to think of Richard riding back and forth so hastily, it seemed the wisest course. “As you wish, Richard.”
“I’ll be off, then.” His glance caught hers. The shadow of her pain darkened his eyes. He, too, saw their final parting ahead. “Miranda ... ”
She couldn’t have said which of them moved first, but they met in the center of the room. As she reached up to him, Richard caught her close and lowered his head. Open and demanding, his mouth locked with hers. Her lips parted in instinctive welcome. Heat rushed through her veins and pooled in her lower body. Aching to be close to him, she lost awareness of everything else.
His mouth left hers to press hot, hard kisses down her throat and over the swell of her breasts. Gasping, she rocked against him, and he claimed her mouth again with a wordless, impatient sound.
Lost in a haze of pleasure and need and longing, she clung to him. An indeterminate time later, her head began to clear.
Outside, a horse whinnied.
I must go.
She heard him say it but couldn’t understand how. He couldn’t have spoken, not while he was kissing her.
Breathing hard, he raised his head. The depths of his eyes burned with the same fiery, frustrated desire that sizzled through her veins and ached in the depths of her body. She longed for the right to voice it, but he had made it clear that there could be no future for them, regardless of whether they could set history right. Instead, she touched his cheek gently.
He caught her hands, kissed them, and pressed them against his heart. “Don’t leave the inn, Miranda. Promise me. Aside from other concerns, I don’t want you to risk this sickness.”
“The Gifted are immune, aren’t we?”
“Thus far, but that may not last. Nor will it protect Patience or Robin.”
With his departure looming, his worries returned. She felt them in his tight grip and read them in his intense stare. “I promise. I’ll pray for your grandmother.”
“I’ll see you soon.” He kissed her hands again and left.
She hurried to the window. A few moments later, wearing his hat and cloak, he emerged from the inn. With the ease of a natural horseman, he swung onto Zeus’s back. He looked up at the window and raised a gloved hand to the brim of his hat in salute. Before she could return the gesture, he wheeled the stallion toward the gate.
Then they were gone. She took a slow, deep breath. Despite her insistence that he go, she had a niggling fear that he was right, that someone had intended to separate them.
Yet she had done what was right. She believed that with all her heart. But if trouble came, she would have to face it alone.
Chapter 22
Two days and a bit more of idleness, coupled with worry for Arabella, took a toll on Miranda’s patience. Richard had left the day before yesterday. With luck, he would reach London today. She hoped so. His grandmother needed his help.
Meanwhile, Miranda was heartily weary of the inn’s parlor. Not even the warming glow of afternoon sunlight could make its dull, cream-colored walls interesting.
Across the hearth, Patience shifted in her seat. She didn’t have to stay in the inn but had steadfastly refused to leave.
Miranda tied off her thread. In the center of the blue silk square, a nearly completed white boar stood. When she finished it, she would join a mulberry silk square to the blue one and make the two into a purse.
If only Arabella lived to use it.
In the meantime, a little solitude would be welcome. “Patience, would you fetch us ale?” Everything cost more now, so she was careful not to indulge too much, but at least the inn still had ale. The bread and meat were running low.
“Yes, of course, mistress!” The maid jumped up. She bobbed a quick curtsey and hurried for the door.
Miranda smiled as the door closed. She would probably never take for granted the luxury of having someone do for her.
“Here, now, you can’t go in there!” Patience’s muffled voice penetrated the closed door.
Miranda looked up. Someone else said something. Louder and closer, Patience spoke again. “My mistress don’t want visitors. ’Specially not strangers. Here now!”
The door swung open. On the threshold, with Patience behind him looking furious, stood Lord Wyndon.
Shock like frigid water poured through Miranda’s veins. On its heels came a thread of fear, but she squared her shoulders. “We have nothing to say to each other, my lord.”
He strolled into the room, stripping off his gloves. With a cool smile, he settled himself in the chair Patience had used.
“Mistress, I tried,” Patience began.
“Never mind, Patience. The ale, if you please.” Miranda spoke firmly. Much a
s she longed for company, she couldn’t involve Patience in magical business.
The maid looked mutinous but said, “Yes, mistress.” She stalked out, pointedly leaving the door open.
Miranda adopted Arabella’s poised, aloof manner and hoped Wyndon didn’t sense her pounding heart. “Well?”
“The time changes will overtake us soon, as I believe the return of late October’s usual weather portends. I cannot have Hawkstowe interfering while I forge a new England, a better one, for our people and the unGifted alike. An England where the use of our Gifts will no longer be a crime. Instead, it will offer greater social standing and wealth.”
He paused, studying her. Softly, he said, “There will be no more need to hide. No more witchcraft trials such as the one that cost you your mother.”
That was tempting. So tempting. Miranda swallowed hard. This man was not trustworthy. She couldn’t forget that.
He eyed her appraisingly. “Keep Hawkstowe out of my way, and I’ll make it worth your while. I can save your family.”
The room blurred, giving way to a vision. Wyndon stood at the center of a spacious chamber with paneled walls. “They will serve us, or they die,” he said. “Make that plain to them.”
The scene shifted. Soldiers herded men and women—the unGifted—into the streets, forced them along with cudgels. One woman screamed and fell to the ground. The troop leader kicked her, then lifted his hand. Flame shot forth. Shrieking, she writhed, and the stench seared Miranda’s nostrils. She gasped.
The vision faded. The room snapped back into being, and Miranda shuddered. She mustn’t let him know what she’d Seen, that he was lying to her about a better England.
Richard was right. Lord Wyndon must’ve caused Arabella’s illness, drawn Richard away, and now wanted Miranda to betray their trust.
He watched her with hawk-like intensity. “Is something amiss, cousin?”
“No, of course not.” She stiffened her spine. “You paint a pretty picture, my lord.”
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