by Jo Beverley
By darkness, at least.
Her breasts were obviously uncontained.
A shawl. She hunted again, but the two she'd brought were far too fine for this mad venture. They'd be soiled or damaged, and then what could she say? She hated the cowardice in that, but she couldn't take a shawl and she didn't have a cloak with her.
No one would see her breasts in the dark.
Hair.
She untied the ribbon, fingered her hair loose and then gathered it up and tried to pin it in place. Bits kept slithering down. She'd never arranged her own hair in her life and it was far more difficult than she'd thought.
Very well. Loose it would be. Perhaps it would make it even less likely that she'd be recognized. Certainly Sarah, Lady Jardine had never appeared in such an unruly state before.
She studied herself in the mirror again and was startled. She looked scarcely older than when she'd wed. But then, she was only twenty-six now. Had she slid into thinking of herself as close to Edward's age?
She thought about her clothes. All expensive, all in the latest style and excellent taste, but perhaps they were a little matronly. She'd like to promise herself great changes, but she knew that wasn't in her. Edward would disapprove and she would bow to his will, as a wife should. But tonight -- tonight she would have this brief flight of freedom.
She put on stockings and then half boots, for the ground could be rough and even muddy and she wasn't silly enough to ruin slippers or ask for a fall. Now all she had to do was leave. She looked back at the window, wishing she had wings, but feet it must be.
She opened the door cautiously and looked out. The corridor was deserted. The men were probably still at the dinner table, unless some had drunk themselves under it. Politics didn't preclude drunkenness.
Voices from the drawing room told her some ladies were still there. At any moment one of them could decide to go to bed and discover her uncorseted and loose haired.
She rehearsed a feeble excuse of wanting to go to the library and hurried along the corridor and down the stairs, praying there truly were few servants left in the house.
She paused in the entrance hall, wondering how the two ladies had left the house. By the large front door? She could see the bolts drawn on the inside.
The rumble of men's voices from the dining room suddenly rose into a burst of laughter. Any of them could emerge, or they could ring for more drink, more food, more candles. She fled into the shadows of a back corridor and paused there, fighting a panicked heart and a need to retreat to her room. There would be back stairs near her that led up to the bedrooms....
She gathered her courage again. This was such a little thing. If she couldn't do this, she'd never do anything.
The other errant ladies had left from beneath her bedroom window. She considered which way that was. On the opposite side of the hall to the dining room.
She crept cautiously back into the hall, then went rapidly to a door and through it. She was in a plain parlor of some sort, but the window was too high off the ground to be an escape. Nape prickling with nervousness, she left, eyes and ears alert, and entered the next room.
Another parlor, but with glass doors -- unbolted! Grinning with triumph she tried them. They opened silently onto a shallow terrace which had steps leading down to the garden and some sort of path beyond that. She closed the doors and took the road to adventure.
Chapter Three
Once she was on the ground, however, she rubbed her arms. Even with long sleeves she felt the chilly dampness. You'll catch your death! she heard in her old nurse's voice.
It would be warmer by the fire, so she hurried that way, thankful for some moon to show the path and warn of any obstacles. But then the path turned left to go along the house and her goal lay ahead, across grass.
She must leave the well-trodden ways. She who'd never before been out in the night like this, without escort and someone to light her way. Alone in the moonlit night. In danger.
What danger?
What likely danger threatened here other than a mole hole twisting her ankle?
Gingerly, she stepped onto grass, so soft and springy beneath her boot. It felt magical. Smiling, she hurried toward fire, music and laughter. She was free of all trammeled ways. She might regret this later, but for this brief moment she was free.
As she drew closer she realized the bonfire wasn't in the village, but in a field to one side, at the base of the hillside. She turned away from the buildings and civilization fell away.
The fire roared against the backdrop of the dark hill, circled by a line of dancers. They moved to the rhythm of flute and drum, but not as in a line dance in a ballroom. Each dancer seemed to choose his or her own steps. Some were in couples, hands joined or elbows linked, occasionally twirling in one another's arms, but others danced alone to the common beat.
Sarah felt that rhythm in the earth and bounced in place, wishing she could join in. Even if she were brave enough it might not be allowed. This event might look chaotic but there would be rules. There were always rules.
Not everyone was dancing. People stood in clusters, drinking, talking and laughing. A few sat on the ground in groups, but they must have come prepared with something to sit on for the grass was damp. It looked as if the whole village was here, though perhaps the dancers were mostly young men and women. Children ran about playing inexplicable childish games.
Where were the two ladies from the hall?
She saw them, hoods thrown back to reveal Miranda Hoyt-Grenville, as expected and -- surprise -- Amanda Stoneycroft! They were part of a group of women, at ease and welcomed. Sarah wished she could join them, but how could she as she was -- in her plain gown, without stays, and her hair hanging down her back?
She began to back away from the firelight. If she left now, perhaps no one would ever know.
"Pretty lady, dance with me."
She started and turned to see a man by her side. Where had he come from?
He spoke like a gentleman but no gentleman would go about in an open-necked shirt. Not even tonight? she wondered. He was certainly a handsome rascal with broad shoulders, a chiseled chin, and thick, ruffled hair, but he knew it too well. His smile told her that.
She responded as she might in a ballroom. "I'm sorry, sir. I'm not dancing."
He had a flagon in his hand and drank from it before asking, "Why not? You seem to have working limbs."
To speak of her limbs!
"We have not been introduced," she said frostily.
He laughed. "Then by all means let's observe the proprieties. My name is Justinian."
"Really?" she asked skeptically.
"On my honor, sweet lady. My parents had high expectations. Call me Just if you like."
"But are you?"
He grinned. "I try at least to be fair, which you are without effort. Your name?"
His quick wits amused her, but she lied. "Lucilla." She'd always wanted a classical name instead of a Biblical one.
"No village maiden she!" He tossed his flagon to roll on the grass. "Come, fair Lucilla, dance!"
He didn't wait for permission but seized her hand and pulled her forward. Sarah said, "No..." but then suddenly surrendered and ran with him into the warmth and light of the fire. This was what she'd wanted after all. They wove into the line together, but he immediately released her hand and stepped lightly by himself.
"Dance!" he said and Sarah did, but still trying to follow one of the many dances she knew well. After a few steps she abandoned the attempt and simply danced. She didn't dance with her partner, but she welcomed his bright-hearted presence.
"Who are you?" she called as she twirled, one arm in the air as if a gentleman turned her.
"I told you."
"I mean, what? You're a gentleman."
Again the grin. "That rather depends on the definition, fair Lucilla. You are a lady."
"Not at the moment," she replied and surrendered to the dance, aware of laughing with delight as if mad d
runk, yet she'd hardly touched the ratafia.
She caught sight of Miranda and Amanda and a bottle being passed around to top up glasses. The group was standing near a table which held glasses and cups and tankards and a cask of something, cider or ale. If Amanda Stoneycroft had brought a bottle of her ratafia to the revels, who knew what might happen here?
Then she progressed to the far side of the fire, away from the women and the village, but close to the edge of the rising ground. In front of her, a couple spun out of the dance and ran up the wooded hill.
"Don't look so shocked," her partner said. "There's no shame to it, especially tonight."
Sarah knew enough of country ways to understand. That couple would be sweethearts already and would marry as soon as a child started. If no child came, in time they'd try with someone else. Country ways might have served her and Edward better.
Her partner captured her hands and swung her round. "No sadness, Lucilla! Not on Lady's Day Eve."
"It's Lady Day," she objected.
"Only recently."
"For a millennium. It's the feast of the Annunciation."
"You don't know?"
"Know what?"
"Better you don't, then." He put an arm around her waist and jigged her along to the demanding drum beat, but she dragged him out of the dancers.
"Tell me."
He considered her, then said, "The Lady celebrated tonight isn't Mary. She has many names, including Mab, but you can call her Titania."
"As in A Midsummer Night's Dream?" she scoffed.
"Midsummer is another quarter day, is it not? But that one belongs to Oberon. Michaelmas belongs to the Lady again, and Christmas to the Lord, though he prefers it to be celebrated on the old date, Twelfth Night."
"With a bonfire and drunken revelry," Sarah said, for that was the custom in many parts. But she came to her senses. "Mere folly and superstition."
"It makes as much sense as most human celebrations. Been to the Court in London recently?"
"Yes, have you?"
"For my sins, powdered hair and all."
If true, he was much more of a gentleman than she'd thought.
"So, fair Lucilla, do you want to continue to celebrate the Lady, or flee as if from the jaws of hell?"
"It's pagan."
"What's wrong with that?"
"Everything!"
"Let's try a pagan kiss."
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
Sarah froze with shock, and then pushed at his broad chest, panicked by his strength. But then the sweet play of his mouth against hers stole all resistance.
A kiss, that was all, and not unlike a kiss or two she remembered from when young men had wooed her, in fun or in seriousness, alarming her occasionally with the persuasive sweetness of their lips. Perhaps that alarm was why she'd sought the safety of age and steadiness with an older gentleman. Edward's kisses never alarmed.
Then he deepened it. She resisted again, then melted again. She'd never been kissed like this, and never responded like this, with heat and a deep shuddering ache, so that she gripped the shirt against his back with need.
"Not here," he gasped, and taking her hand he raced her up toward the woods.
Part way, she came to her sensed and broke his hold. "No, I can't!"
He looked back at her, wild but smiling. "You need further introduction? My surname is Maberley."
"Be sensible. Even introduced, we can't!"
"I am very sensible of the need to love you, fair Lucilla, and of your need to love me. Why not?"
"Common decency. I'm married."
"Then why are you dancing?"
She'd known there would be rules. "You dragged me into it. But even if I weren't married, it wouldn't be decent. Not for people like us."
He put his hands on his hips. "Fine for coarser folk? People are the same beneath the sheets. Or in a faery bed."
"A faery bed?"
"That's what I'm told." He took her hand again, enclosing her fingers warmly, protectively, then bringing her knuckles to his lips for a kiss. "We could find out."
She pulled free again. "I can't."
"Then why are you here?"
Because I wanted to be brave.
Because I wanted to be free.
"I shouldn't...."
"If we never did anything we shouldn't, life would be intolerable dull."
Oh, the sharpness of the truth.
When he again drew her toward the woods, she went. It was only a wooded hill, after all, and not that dense with many trees still only in bud. She wasn't committing to anything. He'd shown that he'd allow her to retreat.
But then, as they moved further from the fire the chill air shivered on her back and the ground became rough with undergrowth that caught at her skirts. She halted again.
"I could break a leg."
"You won't."
Moonlight suddenly showed a path through the scrubby growth. A couple emerged and came down it, entwined, smiling, talking to each other in soft, intimate voices. They were so wound up in each other that they passed Sarah and her companion as if they were part of another world.
Already lovers when they went in, she reminded herself.
Already committed.
He drew her forward and she allowed it, glad of a strong arm around her waist and his warmth. But then suddenly everything around became brighter.
"Odd," she said, turning to inspect. The trees here were slender and most were still leafless so the moonlight could penetrate, but the illumination seemed brighter in here now than it had been in the open.
"How?"
"The Lady's magic," he said.
Faery? She glanced around. "I want nothing to do with that."
He pressed fingers to her lips. "Don't say that here."
She kissed his fingers before she thought better of it.
He chuckled, but said seriously, "Take care, Lucilla. We've entered the realm of Faery. It's a powerful world that interweaves with ours, but it's ruled by creatures who pay no heed to human laws. Tonight the Lady is here and the woods are thick with magic. It can be the sweetest blessing or deadly peril. The Lady blesses all who come into her domain, but only as long as they please her."
"And if not?"
"What's the opposite of bless?"
"How do you know all this?"
"It's in my blood. But choose now. We can wander at will here as long we please, but if you're inclined to scoff or insult, we should leave."
"That would be wiser." But Sarah was hearing faint music of an odd yet beautiful sort, and the air seemed scented not just with the moist growth of early spring but with herbs and flowers of other seasons.
"What is wise?" he asked softly. "If we please the Lady she might favor us with a blessing."
Sarah still had some sanity. "A child, you mean? I don't want that." Or not with you.
A child that Edward would believe his own?
No, no, she'd never do that to him!
"That's the tradition," he agreed. "That a child conceived here will be especially favored, but the blessing can be some other deep desire. What is your deepest, most potent desire, Lucilla?"
To be free.
No. She wouldn't, mustn't, think that! Only Edward's death could free her, and she truly didn't want that.
He was studying her, frowning a little. "What is it?" When she didn't answer, he said, "Explore or leave? If we explore, I promise to do nothing to offend you."
Sarah realized that at this moment she had freedom of a sort. It was fragile and would be brief, but it was sweet in her mind to imagine that for now she was free of human laws and rules.
"It's permitted?" she asked, hovering on the brink.
"Haven't I said so? Come."
She went with him hand in hand along paths that seemed to light before their feet. If there were other people in the woods, and surely there were, she saw no sign of them. It was as if they were in a world of their own. Then she began to glimpse bright fl
uttering creatures in the corner of her eye.
"Am I imagining them?" she whispered. "Are they fireflies?"
"If you like."
She turned her head quickly to try to catch a clear look at one, and did. A huge moth with luminescent wings? No, it was − she could hardly believe it − what she'd always imagined as a fairy. A tiny person with gossamer wings, who studied her with jewel-bright eyes.
"Perhaps I'm dreaming."
He pinched her arm. "Still here?"
"Next you'll tell me A Midsummer Night's Dream was true."
"Will Shakespeare knew his faery lore, though he oddly set his play in May."
"I remember 'Ill met by midnight, fair Titania,'" Sarah said, "and a great deal of careless malice toward innocent humans."
"Afraid?"
"With reason. This isn't right."
"It isn't wrong, either. Come, sit, and we can converse as if at an evening party."
There was a mossy hump and any flittering creatures had disappeared.
"It will be damp," she said.
"I doubt it."
She allowed herself to be coaxed to sit and it was completely dry, the moss making a thick, soft cover.
As she settled, she said, "This must be a dream."
He sat beside her. "Then what harm in enjoying it?" Perhaps his extraordinary good looks were due to faery light? Did they improve her appearance, too?
"Let me tell you about yourself," he said.
"You, too, have magical powers?"
He smiled, a most beguiling smile. "I'll merely guess and you can tell me if I'm right or not. You're a high-born lady. No guesswork there. You're married, as you said, and I think you're titled. Another kind of lady."
"Correct on all points."
"Now you speculate about me."
That allowed her to frankly study him, which was no penance. She couldn't remember ever seeing so perfectly formed a man, and his casual dress enhanced it.
"You're a high-born gentleman," she said, enjoying broad shoulders and a glimpse of muscled chest. "Perhaps even a lord. I didn't think so at first, but you admitted to attending Court."