Even if the man with the eye-patch had discovered that a woman with a blond boy had been trying to get a seat on the Carlisle coach, he could not know which way they had gone. Hopefully, his inquiries had taken some time. The innkeeper hadn’t seemed the type to easily volunteer much information.
She gazed away across the hills and found without surprise that she was close to exhaustion herself. Then she saw why Hal had stopped in this particular spot.
A scattering of huge granite boulders lay beside the turn of the road. Several trees were growing in their beneficent shelter. It was a perfect spot to bait the horses and sit in the sun for a picnic.
For below them stretched a wide glen and—magically claiming her attention—an ancient castle, isolated and ruined, towered at the mouth of a narrow gorge, where a stream fed snowmelt from the peaks into the valley. Water leaped and foamed, throwing spume high against the moss-covered walls. Trees clustered thickly, some having taken root in the walls of the gorge itself, so the castle seemed to float as if it were unreal—a mirage that might disappear at any moment.
“It seemed,” Hal said with his light humor as he examined the scene, “that this was a particularly romantic and picturesque spot, which deserved our admiration, if not our rapturous breaking into verse. But, alas, the only poetry to which I can bend my wanton tongue would be most unsuitable for the scene below us, don’t you think?”
So Prudence found herself climbing down from the carriage, wishing that she might be anywhere but here—with this uncertain rogue, on a treacherously lovely day, in a heartbreakingly beautiful place.
Bobby raced about on the grass, laughing and skipping. Hal took the basket from the chaise, then unwrapped his own provisions, which he had tied up in a square of cloth. He spread a blanket from the carriage and invited Prudence to sit.
Far from displaying the retiring habits of a servant, Hal dropped down beside her. He shrugged out of his jacket and used it to make a cushion for her back. Then he leaned his shoulders against the sloping wall of granite and stretched out his lean, strong legs, his booted feet negligently crossed at the ankle, so that Prudence was painfully aware of the graceful lines of his body.
Bobby curled up beside Hal. They of course shared their food. It was a perfect, marvelous picnic that left Prudence devastated.
For as they feasted on the fresh bread and fruit, the cold meats and cheeses, Hal began to tell Bobby a story. He wove into the tale every element of high romance that could be imagined, and then took the story into flights of wonder.
The ruined castle became populated before her eyes with stalwart, long-haired warriors, armor shining; lovely princesses, sad with longing; scaly dragons breathing fire; swart hobgoblins, trolls, and giants; and wild swans keening their wild cries overhead. Forests became enchanted; trees had voices; and flowers sprang wherever maidens put their feet.
When Hal finished, Bobby—every sense filled and satisfied, eyes shining with happiness—fell asleep against the storyteller’s knee. Hal gently picked the child up and carried him to the chaise.
Prudence stood and leaned against the great outcropping of granite that had sheltered them. She closed her eyes and let the warm afternoon sunshine beat down on her lids. For no reason she could fathom, tears pricked. A painful lump blocked her throat. She felt lost. Voiceless, humbled, entranced, searching for some thread to hold her to the earth.
A light touch brushed across her hair, and a hand was gently laid over her closed lids.
“No,” Hal’s voice said. “Don’t open your eyes.”
Prudence trembled, blinded by his fingers, her senses alert to him: his clean scent mingled faintly with that of leather and horses; the knowledge that he towered over her, slim and lean; the clear memory of his features; the soft, regular rhythm of his breath.
“For only a moment, angel,” he whispered into her ear. “For one moment out of time, relax. This is the enthralling land of Faerie. No rules apply here.”
His hand dropped away, but Prudence knew only her disturbing longing. Her closed eyes must block her tears. Yet a tremor ran over her skin. Her legs swayed.
She felt him pull the pins from her hair.
It fell lightly around her neck and across her shoulders. She could feel it being smoothed back, until his long, firm fingers cradled her face, then slipped behind her head. Subtle, delicious sensations, lovelier than she had ever imagined.
Prudence did not dare to look into that long-lashed harebell gaze. So to her shame, like the princess of the fairy tale, she stood enchanted, as Hal touched her shaking lips with his own and began to tease nectar from her mouth.
Ah, the delicate, wild, insistent taste of his lips! All while he was stroking her hair in long, sensuous waves down her back. Her longing pooled in her heart, desperate, filled with wonder.
“Your hair is shining in the sun like the magic strands of silk that bound the jester to his lute,” he murmured against her mouth. “With your hair down, you are someone else. Be that person while you may, angel. ‘Let us go, while we are in our prime / And take the harmless folly of the time!’ You may be as angry with me as you like afterward. After all, when we get to Carlisle, I won’t be employed any longer, will I?”
His touch disappeared. Prudence opened her eyes to see him striding away toward the horses. She sank to the ground and squatted there for a moment with her hand over her mouth.
Oh, dear Lord! She was nothing better than a hussy. She hadn’t objected, or pushed him away, or closed her mouth. Miss Prudence Drake had stood there like a ninny, seduced by a fairy tale, and had her senses sweetly ravished.
She forced herself to stand. Squaring her shoulders, she pulled replacement pins out of her pocket. Rapidly she put up her hair.
The carriage horses looked at her over their nosebags as Prudence climbed back into the chaise next to the sleeping child. A few moments later, she heard Hal untie the horses, put the feedbags away, and climb onto the box.
In the next hour they had dropped down into the valley and passed through the long village of Thornhill. They would reach Dumfries in two hours. By the time they came into Annan, it would be dark. Before midnight they would reach Carlisle, where there would be innumerable coaches to England, and she could say good-bye to Hal forever.
Prudence felt the force of that future with a strange desolation, as tears slipped silently down her cheeks.
* * *
The chaise lurched to halt. She awoke to a confusion of shouts and curses. Bobby startled beside her and cried out.
Hal’s voice, soothing, yet authoritative, countered the sounds of several men and a woman, screaming and wailing.
Hal came to the door and looked in.
“I am very sorry, Miss Drake,” he said formally. “There has been a small accident. No one is hurt, but the road is blocked. We may have to stop here for some time.”
She rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “Where are we?”
He turned away for a moment and made inquiries.
“Two hours from our destination,” he said after a moment. “We lack but fourteen miles or so to Carlisle. Longtown and romantic Lochinvar are lost in the murky dark ahead of us. We are stranded at Graitney.”
Prudence peered from the coach window, her arm around Bobby. The child stared wide-eyed into the night. They seemed to be in the main street of a small village. Beyond a straggle of houses, the countryside stretched away into a flat, barren darkness.
Several men ran up with torches. The road ahead was blocked by a large wagon, which was entangled with an overturned carriage. The occupants, a young girl and a man at least ten years her senior, were standing in the road arguing.
“I shan’t marry you at all!” the girl cried. “Look what you’ve done! You’ve run us into a great haywain, dumped me into the road, and spoiled my pelisse.”
“By God, Sarah,” the man returned. “If all you can mind is your damned pelisse, I’ll be glad to let you go home to your father without a wedding, and that’s
the Lord’s own truth.”
The girl began to wail in great wrenching sobs.
“I believe,” Hal said with a swallowed smile. “That we are witnessing the ruins of an elopement. I am given to understand that it is less than a mile to the border. But whatever we may think about the young lady’s dashed hopes, her swain has crashed his carriage against that large wagon and we cannot pass. Shall we go into the inn and refresh ourselves while we await developments?”
Prudence took Bobby by the hand and climbed from the chaise. A boy ran out from the inn and took charge of their carriage. She allowed Hal to give her his arm, and they walked together into Graitney Hall, the only inn in the place.
“Here comes the couple, Mr. Scott!” someone cried as Hal pushed open the door and they stepped inside.
“Ah, the poor tired bairn!” a plump woman in an apron said. “He’d like some warm milk in the kitchen, I’ll be bound.”
A rotund man with a smile like a hay rake beamed at Hal and Prudence. He seemed to be splendidly foxed, and most likely the proprietor.
“Bless you, my dears!” he cried. “What might your names be now?”
Before anyone else could speak, Bobby looked up at him.
“I am Lord Dunraven,” the child said boldly. “And that’s Prudence, Miss Drake, and that’s Hal the silkie man.”
“Then before these witnesses and almighty God, I declare you, Mr. Hal Silkiman, and you, Miss Prudence Drake, man and wife and bound together in holy matrimony from this day forth. That’ll be a shilling. Write up the paper, Jimmy! Go on, lad, kiss your bride!”
The woman swooped Bobby up in her arms and carried him off to the kitchen.
As Prudence opened her mouth to object, Hal couldn’t restrain himself. Glazed with exhaustion, but luminous with laughter, he leaned down and kissed Prudence with a thoroughness that was obviously entirely unnecessary.
Warmth and sweet moisture invaded her senses again, leaving her weak at the knees, the blood hammering in her veins. It was so unfair. How could he?
“There you are, my dears,” the rotund man said. “Here are your marriage lines!”
“This is nonsense,” Prudence announced as soon as Hal released her. “We aren’t here to be married.”
“Man and wife, right and tight!” the man replied. “And for the sake of giving the wee lad a name, forget the shilling! I’ve had enough damned ale for one night.”
Thrusting a dirty piece of paper at Hal, the rotund gentleman slumped to the floor.
Hal burst out laughing and slipped the paper into his pocket, while Prudence pushed through the crowd after Bobby. She found him happily drinking warm milk in the kitchen.
“Hello, Miss Drake,” he said. “This is a very nice place, I think.”
“A famous enough place and that’s a fact!” the plump woman exclaimed. “All the English lads and lasses run away to marry here in Graitney. Gretna Green, they call it, though some can’t wait so long and marry right there in the toll booth on the high road, a half mile before they get here.”
“I did not come here to be married,” Prudence said quietly. “I would like somewhere private for myself and the child, please.”
The woman showed her to a bedchamber upstairs, and invited her to lie down while the road was being cleared, but Prudence could not relax. The absurd marriage she instantly dismissed. It was obviously not legal—there was no Mr. Silkiman, after all.
But who was he? A great deal now hinged on the answer.
Hal had entranced her so simply, so easily, and not only by assailing her body—though there was that too in the end—but also by enthralling her mind. Was he a rake? Did he make a practice of carelessly seducing women? And why her? A plain, straitlaced governess?
More important, was Hal a threat to more than her equilibrium? Was he a real danger to the child? Especially now that Bobby had announced that he was Lord Dunraven to a room full of strangers!
She was pacing the room while Bobby looked at a book by the light of a candle, when a sudden tumult of noise from the courtyard below brought them both to the window.
A crowd was pouring out of the inn with a great deal of shouting and gesticulating. A huge ox of a man strode at their head, roaring out threats to the night sky. Almost everyone seemed to be drunk.
Half-carried by the mob, then hoisted shoulder high, a dark-haired man sang some sailors’ ditty in a voice oddly musical and graceful. The crowd formed a circle and dropped him into its center.
A multitude of hands dragged off the man’s coat, then his shirt, leaving his lithe body naked to the night air from the waist up.
The young man’s only response seemed to be helpless laughter.
“What’s happening, Miss Drake?” Bobby cried, clutching her hand. “What are they going to do to Hal?”
Chapter 5
Hal had let Prudence follow after Bobby without interference. Then he surveyed the public bar and weighed up his chances of mending his fortunes.
If he was to follow Miss Drake past Carlisle, he must parlay his few shillings into guineas. He had no idea what skills he might possess that would enable him to do so. He could shoot, of course, but he had no pistol and there was no one in this motley crowd who seemed likely to want to wager on a shooting match.
Perhaps he had skill at dice or cards, but he couldn’t risk his small purse while he found out. In the meantime it seemed that the only thing about to be tested was his head for hard liquor, for every man there seemed eager to buy him a drink.
Hal tossed back innumerable toasts, knowing that he would soon be forced to pay for their treat in turn. Was nothing to come out of this but a sore head and depleted pockets? He reluctantly downed another potent glass.
“And here’s the truth of it, then,” one of the drunks was shouting to the crowd. “That yon Sassenach are nae match for a Scots fighting man. It’s aye the Scots at the front of every battle.”
“There’s ne’er a lad south of the border can match ye, Jamie,” another replied soothingly. “Ye are the very de’il of a man in a fight and we all ken it fine.”
“Then wha’ll fight me the night?” Jamie insisted, his red-rimmed eyes sweeping the room. “O’ all yon English loons.” He waved a fist with the stubby forefinger pointing in menace, indicating several of the Englishmen there. “Wha’ll put up his fives, eh?”
“Yon English are all lubberly cowards and we all ken it. It’s a braw, bonny, fine figure of fighter ye are, lad. There’s nae Sassenach could stand one round against ye, Jamie.”
“And would you wager your blunt on that, sir?” someone said in a cultured London accent. “I’ll give a purse of ten guineas to any Englishman here that proves you wrong.”
Hal glanced at the speaker, a tall fellow with brown hair and a nose like a beak. His clothes spoke of wealth, his voice of an idle, cultivated boredom, ready for anything that would act as an entertaining distraction from the routines of life.
The crowd cheered as the gentleman pulled out a purse and counted out the prize money.
His brown eye rested speculatively for a moment on Hal. “Who will stand up for the honor of his country?”
“What a perfect, apposite, and absurd end to a splendid day! I’ll be happy to take the challenge,” Hal heard himself say in what seemed to be an inebriated show of bravado. “But for twenty guineas and a bonus, if I level Mr. James in one blow.”
“I’ll wager ye twa shillings that yon sleekit Englishman will nae stand up to one round with Braw Jamie.”
Hal was instantly deafened by an uproar of speculation.
So as the betting books filled, Hal found himself manhandled out into the courtyard, where under the flare of the flambeaux Jamie was stripping off his coat and shirt. The man was muscled like an ox.
Hal heard a faint echo of his own voice saying: I feel as if I just took the worst from the knuckles of Gentleman Jackson. He had no idea if that had been just an idle boast, or if he did indeed know how to box. Even if he did, would the h
alf-drunk Jamie follow the gentleman’s code, or just start swinging like a savage?
Of course, Hal wasn’t quite as clear headed himself as he would like to have been, which added a certain piquancy to the event.
The mob rapidly divested him of his coat and shirt. Cold air washed over his back and chest like a rush of snowmelt running off a mountain. Feeling instantly more sober, Hal wrapped his knuckles in strips of cloth provided by the plump woman, and assessed his chances.
He had been driving all day. His shoulders and arms were still burning with the strain of it. The warm glow of whisky in his belly was wantonly weighing down his reactions. Hal glanced up at his opponent, who was flexing gigantic muscles to the admiration of the crowd, and tried without success to suppress an upwelling of laughter.
It wasn’t going to do Prudence any good at all, if he was beaten to a pulp before he even had her out of Scotland.
An anticipatory hush fell over the crowd. The sound of Jamie’s heavy panting almost drowned out Hal’s own quick breath, hard and sharp in his ears. He stepped forward and shook Jamie by his great paw of a hand. The man returned it in a grip designed to break every bone.
“Nae blows below the belt,” one of the Scotsmen said. The man seemed to have taken on the role of referee. “Nae kicks wi’ the feet, nor hidden weapons. Have at it, then, lads!”
The two men circled each other for a moment, then Jamie came in swinging his great hands like steam hammers.
* * *
Prudence watched from the room above, transfixed. She wanted to send Bobby to his bed, but the child clung fiercely to the windowsill and wouldn’t budge.
“Oh, dear Lord,” she breathed. “That man will kill him.”
“No, he won’t,” Bobby said. “Hal’s home is the sea and he’s the strongest man there is.”
Prudence hugged the child to her. She ought to force him away, forbid him to watch.
For Hal was obviously not the stronger. He was lean and hard, but lightly built, though mitered muscles ran clearly defined over his back and shoulders.
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