by Jane Feather
Oliver’s dirk flew through the air, passing a bare inch from the seated man’s face before burying itself in the wooden post of the mantel. Not by so much as a twitch did Simon indicate that he was aware of the weapon’s path.
“Such an incontinent temper you have, Becket.” Simon leaned forward and pulled the dirk free. He handed it back, hilt first, to its owner. “I believe you would do well to cultivate a cool head . . . at least in your dealings with me,” he added thoughtfully.
“Do you threaten me?” Oliver was discomposed, blustering, but it was clear he could find no graceful path of retreat.
Simon shook his head. “I rather thought that was your territory, Becket.”
Oliver spun on his heel, caught his foot in the fringe of the tapestry rug, nearly fell but righted himself by grabbing on to the bedpost again. He half stumbled, still off balance, to the door. “You won’t have her,” he declared over his shoulder, his little eyes squinting malevolently. “You won’t have her, Hawkesmoor.”
The door slammed shut behind him.
What in God’s name had Ariel seen in him? The thought that that venomous fool had known Ariel before he had stung Simon.
Which little beauty spot had he meant? She had one on the underside of her right breast, and another little cluster tucked beneath the curve of her right buttock. . . .
Simon’s jaw clenched as he fought to control the surge of irrational fury, the wave of disgust at the thought of Becket’s slimy fingers discovering the beauties and the tiny imperfections of Ariel’s body.
Ariel moved, mumbled, kicked the covers from her. Her robe was translucent with sweat, clinging to her breasts. It was tangled around her waist, and her belly and thighs and the honey gold triangle at the base of her belly glistened with perspiration.
Simon wetted the cloth with lavender water and bathed her skin. It seemed to ease her, and her hectic murmurings ceased. He found a clean shift in the linen press, scented with the dried rose petals sprinkled between the garments. He bent over her, easing the soaked robe up her body, lifting her on the palm of his hand as he freed a fold caught beneath her bottom. In the grip of fever, she seemed weightless, insubstantial, easily held on his hand.
He maneuvered the garment over her head, and bathed her skin again with the cool, fragrant cloth before slipping the clean shift over her head, drawing it down her body. The sheets were damp beneath and above her, but he didn’t know how to remedy that until Doris returned.
The girl came back within the half hour, the hounds prancing at her heels. “I’ll bring clean sheets, m’lord,” she said when Simon explained the situation. She took away his tray and returned with an armful of clean sheets and reheated bricks.
“Surely she doesn’t need those? She’s hot enough as it is.”
“We need to break the fever, sir,” Doris informed him knowledgeably. “Lady Ariel told me how to do it when me mam had the childbed fever. If you could lift ’er up . . .?” she added tentatively.
Simon lifted Ariel bodily from the bed. Her eyes fluttered open for a minute, but he could see no recognition in them and it frightened him. He sat down, holding her on his lap, listening to her vague mutterings, feeling her limp, boneless fragility. If this was what laudanum did, it was no wonder she had resisted taking it.
“There y’are, sir. It’s all clean an’ fresh, m’lord.” Doris gave a last pat to the pillows.
Simon laid his burden back on the bed, and Doris packed the hot bricks against Ariel’s inert body, then drew up the covers, piling on an extra quilt. “Will that be all, m’lord . . .? Oh, an’ Edgar said as ’ow the roan’s doin’ well as could be expected. ’E’s cauterized the wounds and put salve on ’em, and the mare’s quiet.”
“Thank you.” Simon drew a guinea from his pocket and gave it to the maid with a smile. “Good night, Doris.”
Doris gazed at the glittering largesse in wide-eyed astonishment. Then she bobbed a curtsy and took herself off at a run, almost as if she expected the coin to disappear into thin air if she stayed.
Simon’s hand returned to his pocket. He had felt something else when he’d reached down for the guinea. He drew out Ariel’s bracelet and held it up to the candlelight. What was it that had so disturbed the woman Sarah when she’d looked at it on Ariel’s wrist? It was almost as if she’d seen some significance in the jewel.
It seemed he wasn’t the only one who found it strangely disturbing. It was very odd.
He dropped the bracelet onto the top of the dresser and turned back to the bed. He yawned, aware of a deep physical fatigue. But where was he to sleep? Slipping into the furnace created by Ariel’s fever-ridden body and the phalanx of hot bricks was not in the least appealing. Before Malplaquet, he could have slept easily in a chair, or even on the floor, wrapped up in his cloak. But then he’d had a different body. A supple, youthful, straight and strong frame unaffected by a little discomfort.
He thought longingly of his own cool, fresh bed in the chamber across the hall. But a promise was a promise.
He locked the door. Then he made up the fire, threw some more coltsfoot into the skillet, blew out all the candles, and with a resigned sigh removed his coat and boots and lay on top of the covers beside the now gently snoring Ariel. He drew the side of the topmost quilt up over his body, rolled onto his side facing Ariel, flinging a protective arm over her, and sank into oblivion. The dogs settled in front of the hearth with synchronized sighs of satisfaction.
Edgar bathed the roan’s wounds again and renewed the paste of saltwort to guard against infection. The mare whickered feebly, her head hanging in surrender to the pain of the man’s ministrations. Edgar laid a thick blanket over her flanks to guard against drafts, filled a pail with bran mash, and set it down in front of her. She snuffled but turned away.
Edgar was removing his leather apron when the door to the tack room edged open to admit a scrawny boy bearing a foaming tankard. “Lord of ’Awkesmoor sent this to ye, sir. In gratitude, like.” He proffered the tankard. “’Tis best October, mulled and laced with apple brandy.”
Edgar licked his lips. It was his favorite drink of a miserable winter night. “Well, that’s right kindly of ’im, lad. Thankee.” He took the tankard and turned back to the brazier with a little sigh of pleasure.
The boy tugged his forelock and disappeared into the night, the door clicking behind him.
Edgar sat down on his cot, stretched his legs to the brazier’s warmth, and took a deep appreciative gulp of the mulled ale. The apple brandy hit his stomach with a fiery stab, then spread through his body, bringing a delicious languor to his limbs. He stretched out on the cot, propping the thin pillow behind his head as he finished his nightcap. But before he had drained the drink, the tankard fell to the floor from his suddenly nerveless fingers, splashing its contents onto the brazier, which hissed and spat. The tankard rolled to the far wall and Edgar’s head lolled against the pillow, his body inert.
Ten minutes later the door opened softly and a head peered around. The man listened to the deathly silence, then as quietly withdrew, drawing the door closed behind him.
“He’s out,” he whispered to the three men who stood in the darkness before the double doors to the stable block. “The mare’s in the fifth stall along.”
Thieves in the night, they slithered through the darkness of the block, counting the stalls as they went, their eyes growing accustomed to the dark unrelieved by so much as a gleam of starlight from the high round window set above the doors that they had closed behind them.
They found the mare. Hands ran over her belly, checking that she was the horse in foal. A halter slipped over her neck, and two men bent to attach pieces of sacking to her hooves. The horse whinnied in puzzlement until a nosebag filled with grain silenced her.
They led her out of the block, across the stableyard, through the paddock, and down to the river. A flat barge was moored at the narrow dock, and a man stepped out of the trees as they approached with the mare.
&nbs
p; “Let me see.” His voice was a harsh, rasping whisper in the bitter night. He too ran his hands over the animal’s belly first, before checking the rest of her. He grunted with satisfaction. “This is the one, all right. Keep the blanket over her, I don’t want her getting chilled on the river.” He stepped back and gestured that they should load the horse onto the barge.
She went trustingly. She had never been given cause to fear humankind. The hands that had touched her hitherto had only been of the gentlest; the voices she had heard hitherto had always been soft and caressing. And, indeed, she had nothing to fear from the earl of Ravenspeare, who watched sharply as she was led onto the barge and secured to the rail. She was too valuable a property to be treated with less than the utmost respect.
Chapter Sixteen
JENNY STOOD AT the garden gate, listening for the sounds of Edgar’s gig on the cart track. It was still dark and her mittened hands were chilled holding the handle of her basket. She heard the cottage door open behind her.
“Edgar’s late,” she called over her shoulder to her mother. “It’s not like him.”
She turned and came back up the path. “You shouldn’t stand out in the cold in that thin robe, Mother.” She pushed Sarah back into the warmth, following her in and closing the door. “Shall I make some more tea?”
Sarah nodded. She went to the small window, frowning like her daughter. Edgar was as reliable as the moon’s cycle. If he said seven o’clock, it would be seven o’clock.
“I hope he hasn’t had an accident.” Jenny spoke her mother’s thoughts as the kettle on the hob steamed. “Overturned the gig or something.” She poured boiling water unerringly onto the raspberry leaves in the pot, and the fragrant aroma wafted upward.
Sarah brought mugs to the table and sliced bread from the quartern loaf on the board. She buttered the slices thickly and spread honey on the butter, handing one to Jenny.
“I might as well eat breakfast,” Jenny agreed, pouring tea into the mugs before biting into the bread. “I wonder if I should walk up to the lane, see if I can get a ride to the castle from a carter. Or maybe someone will have news if anything’s happened to delay him.”
But something had, she knew, and she didn’t demur when her mother put on her own cloak and accompanied her out into the now lightening morning, up the track to the lane running between the village and the castle.
A dray approached and came to a halt beside the two women. “Mornin’, Mistress Sarah, Miss Jenny.” The carter touched his forelock. “It’s early fer you to be standin’ around in the cold. Can I take you anywhere?”
“We were waiting for Edgar from the castle, Giles.” Jenny recognized the man’s voice. “He was supposed to come for me at seven, but something must have delayed him. Lady Ariel caught a chill yesterday and I was going to see how she’s doing this morning.”
“Oh, well, you ’op up, then, Miss Jenny.” The carter jumped down to give the young woman a hand. “’Ow bad is Lady Ariel? Is yer mam comin’ too?” He glanced inquiringly at Sarah, who shook her head firmly and stepped back onto the verge. She had no need now to pass beneath the archway into Ravenspeare Castle.
“Ariel had the fever,” Jenny said, not needing to see her mother’s movement to know that she had refused the carter’s offer. “She has a weak chest, you know, so it’s always a matter of concern if she gets chilled.”
“Oh, aye,” the carter agreed sagely, raising a hand in farewell to dumb Sarah as he set the dray in motion again. “We can’t ’ave Lady Ariel fallin’ ill. What’d ’appen to the rest of us?” He turned the dray expertly on the narrow lane to return the way he’d come. “But we’ll be losin’ ’er soon enough, o’course. When she goes off to ’Awkesmoor.”
Jenny murmured something that could have been taken for assent. Even if Ariel didn’t go to Hawkesmoor, she didn’t intend to stay at Ravenspeare. But Jenny was beginning to wonder about her friend’s plans, and how Hawkesmoor would fit into them.
The question absorbed her and banished the puzzle about Edgar’s failure to appear until the carter drew up before the arched door leading into the kitchen courtyard of Ravenspeare Castle. “’Ere y’are, then, Miss Jenny. Should I come in wi’ you?”
“No, I can find my way to the kitchen, thank you, Giles.”
He nodded and jumped to the ground to assist her to alight. “There’ll be plenty of folk in the kitchen to ’elp you out.”
Jenny smiled her agreement and went into the castle. She edged her away along the narrow path between two rows of vegetables in the kitchen garden and reached the opened door without misstep.
“Eh, Miss Jenny. You be come to see Lady Ariel, I’ll be bound.” Gertrude’s cheery voice hailed the blind woman as she stood somewhat uncertainly in the doorway.
“Edgar was to come and collect me from home at seven, but he didn’t appear.” Jenny allowed her arm to be taken, allowed herself to be eased into a chair at the long table. “I begged a ride from Giles, the carter.”
“That’s funny.” Gertrude frowned. “I ’aven’t seen Edgar meself, this mornin’. ’E’s usually in ’ere fer ’is breakfast by six.” She looked around the busy kitchen. “Eh, Mister Timson? You seen Edgar this mornin’?”
Timson shook his head. “Can’t say as I ’ave, Mistress Gertrude.” He glanced around and grabbed a potboy by one thin but wiry wrist. “You, boy, run to the stables and see if Mister Edgar’s there.”
The lad raced off and Gertrude sat down beside Jenny, saying comfortably, “So, ’ow’s yer mam doin’ these days? She was ’ere lookin’ to Lady Ariel, Doris says.”
“She’s well enough, thank you,” Jenny replied, squashing memories of her mother’s strange troubled behavior on the previous day. Her mother had seemed perfectly well ever since, so there was no point continuing to fret over it.
“Oh, Mistress Gertrude, Mister Timson, ye’d best come quick!” The potboy reappeared in the kitchen door, his eyes wide with a mixture of fright and excitement. “It’s Mister Edgar. ’E’s dead. Stone-cold dead.”
“What?” Timson was at the door before Jenny and Gertrude were on their feet. He clipped the lad over the ear. “If this is one of yer jokes, young Benjie, I’ll ’ave yer ’ide.”
“’Tisn’t, Mister Timson. Swear to God, it isn’t,” the lad burbled, chasing after the footman. Gertrude took Jenny’s arm unceremoniously and hurried with her after them.
Edgar lay on his cot beside the now cold brazier. His eyes were closed, his face as white as milk. Not a twitch of breath, not a sign of life.
Timson stood somewhat helplessly looking down at the inert figure. Gertrude bustled over with Jenny, then stood aside respectfully so that the younger woman could make her own examination. Jenny bent over, her fingers deftly unbuttoning Edgar’s jerkin and pulling up the rough homespun shirt beneath. She laid an ear to Edgar’s bare chest, placed her flat palm over his mouth.
“He’s not dead,” she pronounced quietly.
“Ooo, I did think ’e was, Mister Timson,” the potboy wailed, stepping out of the footman’s reach. “’Onest to God, I thought ’e was. It weren’t no trick, mister.”
“Scarper!” Timson ordered, raising a threatening hand. The lad scarpered.
“It’s a death sleep,” Gertrude pronounced in a voice full of doom. “I’ve seen ’em like that afore. Sleep like death, then off they goes, sliding into God’s ’ands.” She wiped her eyes with her apron. “Poor Mister Edgar. Such a good man, ’e was. Lady Ariel’ll be beside ’erself.”
Edgar twitched and a small popping sound came from between his closed lips.
“Death sleep or not, looks to me like ’e’s wakin’ from it,” Timson observed. The tankard by the wall caught his eye, and he picked it up, sniffing judiciously. “Dipped a bit deep in the blackstrap, if you asks me. Powerful stuff ’tis.”
“May I see?” Jenny held out her hand for the tankard. She smelled it, then ran a finger over the drops clinging to the sides and licked it. She frowned but said nothi
ng, merely placed the tankard on the floor and bent over Edgar again.
“Edgar? Can you hear me, Edgar?” She spoke softly but insistently. The man’s eyelids fluttered, he lifted one hand from the cot, laboriously as if it weighed a ton and he was having to move it through treacle, and touched his mouth. His eyes opened. His bewildered gaze fell on Jenny and a stricken look crossed his befogged eyes. “Oh, Miss Jenny, I were comin’ to fetch you, weren’t I? What time is it?”
“Close on eight,” Jenny replied. “Lie back for a few more minutes, Edgar. You’ll feel stronger shortly. Perhaps if you had some strong tea . . .?” She looked inquiringly at Gertrude.
“I’ll send one o’ the girls out wi’ the tea,” Gertrude said. “Anythin’ else you’d be wantin’?”
Edgar shook his head and Gertrude went off. Edgar sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the cot. The ground rushed up to meet him and with a groan he dropped his head onto his knees.
“’Ad a bit too much o’ the blackstrap, Edgar,” Timson opined jovially. “Gets to us all sometimes, but I never figured you fer a serious drinkin’ man.”
Edgar raised his head cautiously. He blinked around the tack room. “I’m not.” He shook his head. “Lad brought me a tankard last even, after I’d seen to the ’osses. Wi’ compliments of the earl of ’Awkesmoor, ’e said.”
Jenny picked up the tankard again. “Lord Hawkesmoor sent you the drink?”
“Aye. An’ right good it was, though powerful strong. Must ’ave gone to me ’ead.”
“I expect that was it,” Jenny said. “If you think you’ll be all right now, I’ll go inside and see Lady Ariel. I’ll come back afterward.”
“Aye, an’ I’ll be ready to take you ’ome whenever,” Edgar said. “’Ere, Timson, give me an ’and.” He took the footman’s proffered hand and staggered to his feet. “Gawd, I’d better see to the ’osses. Lady Ariel’ll be wantin’ to know ’ow the roan’s doin’.” Shaking his head, he stumbled slightly toward the door to the stables.