Between the Devil and Ian Eversea: Pennyroyal Green Series

by Long, Julie Anne

  “I won’t keep you.”

  Tansy nearly laughed. She liked this strangely regal young girl, for no real reason except that she seemed utterly self-possessed. And she was convinced Polly wouldn’t say a word about seeing her here.

  “Perhaps I’ll see you at the Pig & Thistle, then.”

  Polly nodded politely, and Tansy drew her horse around and set a course for the trees. And presumably Polly resumed pondering Everseas. Polly, who would likely live and die in Pennyroyal Green, and might never even see London, and so the Everseas, such as they were, comprised the weather of her days.

  There was a lovely hush in this little wild portion of the woods; some of the trees seemed as old as time itself, through birches and hawthorn, over a little rise, until she saw a clearing.

  It was small, mossy, surrounded by a number of large oaks and a horseshoe of shrubbery, but it would get enough light, and one day, perhaps next spring, anyone meandering by would think they’d stumbled across a fairy bower, if everything went according to plan.

  She would have to hurry, as the sun was growing higher and she didn’t want to perspire through her muslin.

  She dismounted and tangled the reins in a hawthorn, then unwrapped a bundle of things she’d brought with her.

  An hour or so of dirty, satisfying labor later her work was nearly done. She stood back, peeled off her work gloves, and surveyed her handiwork. Then sprinkled it all carefully with water from the two flasks she’d brought with her.

  Then she led her horse over to the fallen tree and settled herself in the saddle again.

  Polly was gone. Back at the Pig & Thistle, no doubt.

  On the way home, Tansy indulged in loosening her bonnet and letting it dangle behind her so the breeze could run its fingers through her hair. Surely she wouldn’t brown in just the few minutes it took to ride from the forest back.

  She rode blithely back to the stables at Eversea House, confident no one would have witnessed a thing.

  She was blissfully unaware of Ian Eversea standing at his window, frowning, watching her golden head bobbing like a guinea atop Genevieve’s mare, scandalously, well-nigh incriminatingly, alone and looking a trifle disheveled.

  SOME KIND OF thud in the wall had awakened Ian from a perfectly satisfactory nap. It was the second night in a row that such a thing had happened. Were the rodents brawling for territory in the walls? Perhaps they ought to get a few cats.

  He rolled from bed and was instantly, mercilessly, humbled by the fact that he was no longer twenty years old and able to abuse his body in all manner of ways without consequences. His muscles had tightened after all that bending and hammering on the vicarage roof. He needed to stretch and bend all his limbs and have a good scratch before he could move with any sort of grace.

  He settled in at his desk and bent again over his map. He’d marked his ports of call with a neat little star. China. India. Africa. South America. America. He could keep moving just like this for years, if he wanted to. And something in him eased when he looked at that map. Whenever he felt like a dammed river, whenever he felt caught between Sussex and London, whenever Chase or Colin said the word “wife” in a way that made him want to kick both of them, he found the map a great comfort. The day was coming when he would set foot on the ship and it would move over the ocean and not stop moving. It sounded perfect. He had no doubt about what and whom he would miss. It was just that he suspected moving would feel like a relief, and that whatever dogged him might finally be left behind somewhere on the South Seas.

  He looked down at the book on his desk. He hefted it in his hand, idly ruffled the pages, and quirked his mouth wryly. Why in God’s name would Miss Danforth give him a bloody book? And blush scarlet while doing it? In all likelihood for the same reasons Landsdowne had given her one. Perhaps she had a cat’s talent for crawling into the lap of the one person who could scarcely tolerate it. Miss Danforth was likely the sort who couldn’t rest until everyone worshipped her. It was wearisome and irritating, yet admittedly faintly amusing.

  All in all, however, the very notion of her made him tired. The girl wasn’t quite who she wanted everyone to think she was, and that troubled him.

  Still, the book had been a gift. And as he remembered her face flushing scarlet, he laid it aside again with a certain tenderness he couldn’t quite explain.

  He looked up.

  It was nearly twilight, and a stiff breeze was beginning to sidle in through his window, which was open a few inches.

  He crossed to it to pull the curtains closed and peered out, then ducked back in, hiding behind the curtain.

  Miss Danforth was out on the balcony, and her blond hair down about her shoulders—good Lord, she had miles of it— almost created its own light, so brilliant was it beneath the half-moon. Soothing stuff. His hands flexed absently as he imagined drawing his fingers through it.

  He watched, mystified, as she leaned slowly forward and assumed something like an awkward arabesque. Her night rail filled like a sail in a passing breeze, and he was treated to a glimpse of very fine white calf before it deflated. She tilted her head at an impossible angle, and her hair fell in a great sheet down her back. Soothing as watching a river move.

  But what the devil was she doing? Perhaps it was some sort of interpretive dance? Was she bowing toward America the way Muslims bowed in the direction of Mecca?

  He winced as she gracelessly righted herself again, her arms seesawing. He could rule out dancer.

  She slumped again, propped her chin on her fists on the rail of the balcony and returned to gazing out at the black of the Sussex hills, as if she expected something to emerge from it, or something had vanished there. Perhaps expecting some beau to come and climb the balcony, à la Romeo Montague.

  It was funny, but he’d done that more than once, too: stare off into the dark as if it were a crystal ball, as if the dark could reveal to him as much as it concealed.

  And then she dropped her hands and rummaged about again at something he couldn’t see. He held his breath, as he waited for the pouch of tobacco to appear.

  She emerged with a bottle.

  Of what appeared to be . . . Mother of God . . .

  Liquor.

  Surely not.

  Surely he was dreaming this.

  It was followed by a little glass, which she settled with a little clink on the edge of the balcony.

  She yanked the cork and splashed just a drop or two into the bottom of it.

  Clear liquor, which meant it was either gin or whisky.

  Or water. Perhaps she found English water intolerable? Perhaps she’d imported American water.

  But then she toasted the darkness and bolted it, and there was no mistaking the wince. God knows he’d winced just like that countless times in his life.

  And like a diva leaving the stage after a second act, she backed into her room again.

  Chapter 12

  THE SUSSEX MARKSMANSHIP TROPHY gleamed on a little podium like a grail.

  Which it was, for every man gathered. The contest would begin with archery, progress to shooting, and end with winner carrying away a tall silver cup, theirs to keep until the following year.

  The row of targets were arrayed, waiting to have their hearts pierced with arrows.

  The Everseas and Redmonds took turns hosting the contest, and this year the honor fell to the Everseas. Ian was the Master of Ceremonies, graciously bowing out of the competition, having taken home the cup twice in previous years.

  Nearly everyone in Pennyroyal Green and Greater Sussex appeared to be present, including a few Gypsies and a regiment of soldiers, resplendent in red coats. The Pig & Thistle had been closed for the duration, and Ned was there with Polly.

  Most years, the men would arrive and stand, eyes shaded, admiring the silver cups and fantasizing about victory, while exchanging advice and playful insults ab
out prowess.

  This year fully half of the men were gazing at another sort of grail.

  Off on the sidelines, Miss Danforth, in a pale blue walking dress with a darker blue ribbon trimming it, had managed to find a place in the sun where the satin trim gleamed, setting her off like a beacon. She was surrounded by a crowd of admirers that ebbed and flowed a bit like the tide, according to whomever she was bestowing her attention upon. Lord Henry was among them, as was Simon Covington and Seamus Duggan, and Landsdowne was on the periphery, though he was at least proximate to Olivia. Ian saw his sisters, Genevieve and Olivia, Evie Sylvaine—his vicar cousin’s wife—Josephine Charing, Amy Pitney, and a few other worthy ladies of the Society to Protect the Sussex Poor. But they stood in a knot that looked decidedly judgmental. A murder of crows, a pride of lions, a judgment of ladies, he amused himself by thinking. Still, he might need to revise it to a murder of ladies, given some of the expressions.

  They were to take the competition in several sets; the contestants would have three shots each at different distances.

  “Set one!” he called. “Take your places, please!”

  The men filed onto the field, Simon among them, and he smiled and saluted in the direction of Miss Danforth.

  “Good luck!” she called cheerily.

  Seamus Duggan, who’d been too busy being poor and then a bit of a roustabout for most of his life, wasn’t an archer, and so he was able to watch from the sidelines. Very close to Miss Danforth. He waved at Simon cheerily, ironically, too.

  “READY!” Ian called.

  The archers hoisted their bows and selected their arrows.

  “AIM!”

  The bowstrings were drawn back in near balletic unison, and targets were skewered with steely gazes.

  And just then Seamus Duggan stepped in front of Miss Danforth and she reached out to touch his elbow, reflexively.

  When Seamus Duggan turned to smile at her, Simon reflexively rotated toward the two of them as if he were helpless not to, as though it were a crime in progress he needed to arrest immediately.

  And that’s when he shot the arrow into the crowd.

  Time seemed to slow as it whipped through the air toward the masses of people.

  “RUN!” Somebody—many somebodies—screamed.

  The crowd scattered in all directions like flushed birds, screaming for their lives, shedding handkerchiefs and bonnets and shoes in their haste to flee.

  And when they had retreated and checked their persons for arrows, there was a murmur of relief and congratulations.

  Which tapered off into a hush when it became clear one man remained behind.

  Quite conspicuously behind.

  Almost as though . . . he’d been skewered in place.

  A brief ominous silence ensued as all eyes turned Lord Henry’s way.

  He was still upright.

  He was white as a flag of surrender.

  “I . . . think I’ve been shot,” he said, bemused.

  Alas, nobody disagreed.

  The hush seemed to gather density, like a thunderstorm about to break.

  “Yes, I do believe I’ve been shot.” He said this louder.

  Then louder, as shock gave way to clarity and, presumably, to pain. “Help! I’ve been shot! Help! Help! Murder! Murder! Murderer!” He pointed a quivering finger at Simon, who looked as though he wished the ground would swallow him.

  There was a great murmuring in the crowd.

  “Unless yer ’eart is in your arse, Henry, I think you’ll live to see another day,” someone shouted.

  Henry whirled vainly trying to get a look, like a dog chasing its tail.

  The arrow had entered his left buttock cheek. Everybody could see that except him.

  “He shot me on purpose! Scoundrel!” He lunged for Simon, just as Ian lunged for him, to seize his arm and pull him back.

  “Calm yourself, lad. You oughtn’t move overmuch.”

  The arrow was well and truly in there, piercing right through the nankeen.

  “Aye, ’ave a rest, milord. Ye might not want to sit down to rest just yet, though,” someone called, to general laughter.

  “Don’t laugh!” somebody else shouted. “ ’Tis a tragedy! He needs ’is arse for horse riding and sittin’ at the pub chairs!”

  “ ’E looks a bit like a weathervane, don’t ’e, wi’ that thing stickin’ out o’ ’im?”

  “That’s a fine tail feather ye got there, m’lord! Ye look like me prize rooster!”

  “That there be a mighty funny-looking grouse ye’ve bagged there, Simon! Are you going to serve him up tonight?”

  Simon was wretched and white-faced with shock. His hands were trembling. “Stop it!”

  “Wot’s it feel like, m’lord?” somebody asked the wounded Lord Henry.

  “It hurts!” he said, sounding surprised and martyred. And a bit intrigued. “Quite a bit, actually.” He was doing an admirable job of not weeping, though it certainly looked as though he wanted to. And Ian knew the look of a man who would faint at any moment.

  “All right. That’s enough,” he barked. “Behave yourselves, gentlemen. And ladies,” he added ironically with a swift and pointed look in Tansy Danforth’s direction, whose gaze fled from his. Having been skewered before, though admittedly not with an arrow, Ian had a good deal of sympathy for it. “Is your father at home, Miss Pitney?” he called.

  Miss Amy Pitney’s father was the town doctor.

  “The next town over, delivering a baby,” she said regretfully.

  Ian sighed. His shoulders slumped. “Very well. I need ten tall and preferably wide volunteers . . .”

  AND THAT’S HOW, thanks to Miss Danforth, Ian found himself on his hands and knees carefully extracting an arrow from the large white hindquarter of a whimpering man.

  He was laid out, facedown, on a blanket. Rather like a grouse at a banquet, in fact. Ian’s volunteers surrounded poor Lord Henry in a circle, backs to him, shielding him from the crowd. Nankeen was trimmed away neatly with a knife. Ian thrust his flask at him and instructed him to drink. He was given a rag with which to muffle his screams. And when the arrow was extracted, he was bandaged adroitly, because Ian had needed to do it dozens of times before during the war.

  Lord Henry didn’t faint, but it was a near thing.

  “See the doctor this evening, if you can,” Ian instructed the unfortunate, punctured Henry.

  Simon was white and wringing his hands, hovering on the outskirts of the circle. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it, Henry, I’m so sorry.”

  “No hard feelings.” Harry was clipped but magnanimous in martyrdom. “Do you intend to shoot Duggan next?”

  Ian seized Simon by the elbow and pulled him aside.

  “How in the bloody hell did that happen? You’re a better shot than that, Simon. Not as good as I am, naturally, but . . .”

  Ian knew how it had happened. Or why it had happened. He wanted to hear it from the man himself.

  Simon drew in a long breath and exhaled miserably, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets.

  “It’s just . . . Ian, it’s well . . . it’s just . . . well, look at her,” he said with muffled anguish. “I don’t want to think the way I think, Ian. I really don’t, but . . . look at her.”

  Miss Danforth was wringing her hands, and a small crowd of young men were jostling each other for the honor of comforting her. From where he stood he could see the sun glance off the tears glittering in the corners of her big eyes. Her lush lower lip was trembling. She looked convincingly distraught, for someone so skilled at fomenting mayhem.

  Instantly, a half-dozen handkerchiefs were thrust out to her. She looked up, limpidly grateful.

  “Oh, she’s pretty, all right,” Ian said grimly.

  Behind them was a small
knot of females, all of whose mouths had gone hard and horizontal and whose arms were crossed across their chests. Ian was reminded of wasps about to swarm.

  “Pretty? She’s an angel!” Simon corrected, on an outraged hush. “So delicate and kind.”

  “I’m not certain ‘flattery’ and ‘kindness’ are synonymous, Simon.”

  “You can simply tell she has a heart of gold. Like her hair . . .” he said dreamily.

  Ian snapped his fingers beneath his nose, and Simon looked surprised.

  “You shot Lord Henry because she’s an angel? I think you have your winged beings confused. It’s Cupid who supposedly shoots arrows at people.”

  “It was an accident! I was distracted. She was . . . she did . . . she did something to distract me, let’s just leave it at that. She said archery was her favorite sport of all. That no one looked more like a Greek god than with a bow and arrow. And . . .”

  “And you . . . wanted to be a Greek god?”

  “Of course! Wouldn’t you?”

  “But Cupid is the deity with arrows, and he’s a fat little baby.”

  Simon sighed with exasperation. “I think you’re missing my point, Captain Eversea. What wouldn’t you do for a woman like that? I care for my Josephine with all my heart. And yet . . .”

  Ian looked over there again, and found Miss Danforth looking his way, her eyes bright and silvery even from that distance. As if she wanted to see his opinion of her performance.

  He raised his hand in a subtle, sardonic little salute.

  She gave her head a little toss and graciously waved away the handkerchiefs thrust at her. Tilted her head up and offered up a tremulous smile to the crowd of men.

  On the outskirts of which stood Josephine Charing and Amy Pitney, who looked very willing to shoot her with an arrow. Ian was confident their aims would be terrible, and confident Miss Danforth would somehow escape, because if ever there was a survivor, she was one.

  It was an interesting question, however, that Simon had posed. Ian had done a lot to get a woman. Doing something foolhardy for a woman, in order to impress a woman, however, or earn her regard . . . never. Never had he made a fool of himself for a woman. Most of his family failed to recognize he had a pragmatic streak a mile wide. He’d never called anyone out and he’d never yet been called out, though the duke had cut it very fine. He’d never lost his mind over a woman, though he’d nearly lost his life over one and had certainly lost his dignity once.