by Lauren Royal
She couldn’t think of anything to say to that. It wasn’t as though she’d had a choice. And it had been nice for her as well, also though nice didn’t quite describe the experience.
In truth, she was hard-pressed to summon a word that could.
Her tankard made a swishing noise when she twisted it back and forth. “Who’s Mary?”
“Mary?” He busied himself swallowing his coffee and folding the news sheet.
“You spoke of a Mary in the night.”
“Ah.” An enigmatic glint came into his eyes. “A girl I love.”
“Oh.” She studied her chocolate.
“A young girl, all of five years.”
“Oh!” The rush of relief took her by surprise. “What happened to her in your dream?”
“It’s what happened to her in real life that signifies. Geoffrey Gothard attacked her mother, and Mary got in the way. She still breathed when I left, but she hadn’t awakened. The surgeon said she wouldn’t last the week.”
“By all the saints.”
“Mary was an orphan, abandoned in London’s Great Fire. My brother rescued her, and I found her a home in my village. With the childless Widow Bradford—her husband had died in a mill accident. No fault of mine, but I felt responsible.”
“Why?”
“It was my mill,” he said lightly.
His mill? Jason was a miller? She wouldn’t have thought so, but then she hadn’t thought at all of how he might earn a living. She’d been too busy being furious with him.
Or, since the wee hours of last night, wondering if he’d kiss her again.
To hide her suddenly burning face, she sipped.
“Mary was bright-eyed and intelligent,” Jason continued. “She loved to laugh. She used to follow me around the village, and sometimes I’d stop by the Bradford house and play with her—”
Cait’s tankard clunked to the table. “Play?” She tried to picture serious-minded Jason on his knees with a small child.
“Yes, play. Backgammon and the like. She’s remarkably good with numbers.”
“You play backgammon?”
“Why does that surprise you?”
She shrugged. “I cannot picture you playing anything.”
“My family plays lots of games. The fellow you’ve seen…he’s not me as I usually am.” He rubbed his smooth upper lip. “When Gothard came into my life—hurt people I cared for…”
“What of the mother?” She ran a fingertip around the rim of her tankard. “Do you love her, as well?”
He drank leisurely, delaying his answer. “No, but I feel responsible for her.” He lowered the tankard, then steepled his fingers and studied her across them. “Why do you care?”
“I’m stuck with you, Jase. I’m trying to puzzle you out.”
A slow smile dawned on his face, and he hadn’t winced at the nickname.
She decided to push her luck a little. “Who do you love? Besides Mary?”
“What I’d love right now is breakfast,” he said evasively. “And here it comes.”
And that was that for now, Cait supposed as Mrs. Twentyman set a plate before each of them. But he wouldn’t keep her in the dark now that she’d put her mind to figuring him out. He might think he understood lasses, but he’d never met the likes of her.
Hiding a smile, she watched him begin to eat.
He did love to eat.
Now she just had to figure out the rest.
THIRTY
“TELL ME another,” Jason said later, after they’d been on the road for hours—miles and miles of flat road that snaked through rich but unchanging farmland. It made a monotonous view that begged for a diversion. Lucky for him, Emerald had proved quite diverting indeed, regaling him with Scottish tales all morning.
“Can we not stop for a while?” She flexed her shoulders uncomfortably. “Is it far still to Grantham?”
“Not too far. One more story.” He tugged playfully on one of her plaits. Even more than the stories themselves, Jason was enjoying the way Emerald recounted them. She seemed swept away, her voice full of fun and adventure rather than hostility and mistrust. “In the sea fairytale you mentioned mermaids. Do you know a mermaid’s tale?”
She thought for a moment. “Aye. But it’s a sad one.”
“Tell me. By the time you finish we’ll be there and stop for dinner.”
“Very well.” She sighed and shifted on the saddle, a diversion in itself. “In the Land-under-Waves live the mermaids, which we call Maids-of-the-Wave. They are lovely to look at, and their voices are sweet and melodic. Their lower bodies are shaped like the fishes and glitter like salmon in the sun. They have long, coppery hair, and on beautiful days they sit on the rocks and comb it.” She paused. “Unlike me, they have combs.”
Jason laughed. “I’ll buy you a comb before the day is out, I promise. And a Chase promise is not given lightly.”
“I shall hold you to that.”
He didn’t doubt it.
“On moonlit nights,” she continued, “the Maids-of-the-Wave sometimes take off their tails and don pale blue gowns. They can walk on the land then, and they’re fairer than any land-dweller lass.”
“Not fairer than you,” Jason protested.
She shook her head. “If you’re attempting to flatter me, I warn it will get you nowhere.”
“You cannot fault me for trying,” he said smoothly. Was he flirting? He wasn’t ordinarily a flirt.
“Do you want to hear the story?”
“Did I interrupt?” Behind her back, he grinned. “Pray, do go on.”
She cleared her throat. “One moonlit night, a handsome young farmer was walking along the cliffs when he heard the most beautiful voices raised in song. He looked down to see a company of fair lasses, all dressed in pale blue, dancing in a circle around one who was the fairest of the fair. Then he noticed nearby a pile of scaled tails, still wet and glistening in the moonlight. He crept down the rocks, took one, and ran home with it.”
Absently, Jason trailed a finger along the part in Emerald’s hair.
She looked up and back, bumping her head on his chin in the process. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Did I do something?” His eyebrows snapped together. Whatever had possessed him to touch her? Aloud he asked, “What happened next?”
Sending one more puzzled look over her shoulder, she faced forward. “When the mermaids saw the man stealing away, they screamed and ran for their tails. Hurriedly they put them on and jumped into the sea. All except one, the fairest of the fair. Her tail was missing.”
“This is sad,” Jason remarked, failing to hide the smile in his voice.
“Hold your tongue,” she admonished. “Now, the young farmer locked the tail in a box and hid the key. Before long, someone came to his door and knocked on it. He opened it to find the most beautiful lass in the land. Tears were pouring from her big blue eyes—” Interrupting herself, she looked up. “That’s the tallest spire I’ve ever seen,” she said, sounding awed.
“St. Wulfram’s,” he told her.
A sight to see, the church seemed a combination of every period of Gothic architecture mixed with traces of Norman and possibly Saxon work. She gawked until he turned onto Grantham’s busy High Street, a distinguished row of modern gray stone buildings interspersed with the occasional old, half-timbered Tudor.
“Now, to find a place to eat,” Jason said. “In the meantime, please do continue your tale. You cannot leave me hanging on the precipice of such tragedy.”
“Very amusing. Now, where was I?” She fussed at her skirts. “Oooh, look at that angel.”
The carved stone angel was brightly gilded, giving it the look of solid gold. It perched over the gateway of an inn called—appropriately enough—The Angel.
“Whose heads are those?” she asked.
Jason halted and squinted up at the corbel above the winged cherub. “King Edward the third,” he decided. “So that must be his queen, Philippa of Hainault.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “I see you’re not completely uneducated.” Before he could protest that thinly disguised insult, she added, “Edward was brutal to the Scots.”
“Everyone was brutal in those days,” he pointed out. “Edward was after revenge for Bannockburn.”
“He got it,” she said dryly.
“So this is what comes of educating girls,” Jason quipped as he guided Chiron through the archway, earning himself a hard pinch on the knee.
He helped Emerald down and led her inside. The Angel’s taproom had a fine timbered ceiling and an enormous stone hearth, but no fire this summer day. Since the weather was warm, Jason opted for a cold dinner of bread, cheese, and small pickled onions. He carried it to where Emerald had seated herself by a stone vaulted window.
“There are so many people,” she marveled, watching them pass by on horses, in carriages, and on foot.
“Wait till you see London.” He sliced the thick slab of cheddar. “So, what happened after the woman showed up?”
“Pardon?” She dragged her gaze from the window.
He handed her a piece of bread topped with cheese. “The mermaid.”
“Oh. The Maid-of-the Wave.” She took a bite. “Well, when we left her she was standing there in her blue dress, greeting. I mean, crying.”
“Greet means to cry?”
“Aye. And she said, ‘Won’t you have pity and return my tail, so I can go home to the Land-under-Waves?’”
“Let me guess.” He popped an onion into his mouth. “He couldn’t stand to see the woman cry, so he returned her tail.”
“Nay.” Her eyes danced, looking turquoise today. “Maybe that’s what you would do. But not this young farmer. He thought she was so gentle and beautiful that he couldn’t bear to let her go. He told her, ‘What I have I will keep. But shed no tears, fairest of the fair, for you may stay with me and become my bride.’”
She paused for a sip of The Angel’s strong ale.
“Did she marry him?” Jason asked.
Cocking her head, she studied him. “Would you marry someone who kept you forcibly?”
He nearly choked on his own ale. An uneasy silence stretched between them until he wiped his mouth and said, “So, what happened?”
“She walked away and returned to the sea, but without her tail she couldn’t join her people. Instead of standing up for herself, in the morning she went back and agreed to be the man’s bride. She begged him to be kind and never tell anyone who she was or how she came to be there, and he promised.”
“And they lived happily ever after?”
“Nay. I told you it was a sad story.” A faraway look in her eyes, she touched her emerald. “All the people of the village loved the Maid-of-the-Wave, but the man kept his promise and didn’t tell them where she came from. They believed she was a princess, brought to them by the fairies.”
“Half-witted fools,” he said and ate another onion.
A frown appeared on her forehead. “You don’t believe in fairies, either?”
“Of course not.”
“Well, then, that makes two of us,” she said with a grin.
He laughed. “So, were they happy together?”
“Oh, aye, for a spell. They lived in peace for seven years and had two bairns, a lad and a lassie. The Maid-of-the-Wave loved them dearly. Then came a time the farmer went to town to trade. It was a long journey, and he was gone several days. The mermaid was lonely without him, so she wandered the seashore with her little ones. As she sang to her wee lass, she remembered her people who lived in the Land-under-Waves.”
“Very sad. Are you going to finish that?”
With a roll of her eyes, she handed him the rest of her bread. “One evening her son came to her and said, ‘I found a key. It opens Father’s box, and I looked inside. There’s a tail in there, a big, shiny, beautiful tail that looks like a salmon’s.’ She gasped with shock and excitement and asked for the key.”
“And he gave it to her?”
“Of course. She was his mother. After supper she put her children to bed and sang them to sleep. Then she opened the box and took out her tail. She sat by the fire for a long, long time, for she wanted so badly to go home to her people, but she didn’t want to leave her bairns.” She paused for a heavy sigh. “But then she heard the sound of singing coming from the sea. Her sister mermaids were calling to her. She kissed her two children and wept—”
“Greeted.”
She smiled, though her eyes looked sad. “—greeted over them until their precious faces were wet with her tears. And still she heard the songs from the sea. With a heavy heart, she took her tail and hurried to the Land-under-Waves.”
“Abandoning her children,” Jason put in with no small measure of disgust.
“Aye,” she said and nodded. “When the farmer returned the next morning, the sounds of joy and laughter floated to him from the sea. In his cottage, his children were fast asleep. But the box was open and empty. He sat down and wept, because he knew that the Maid-of-the-Wave had gone.”
She released a shaky breath. Without thinking, Jason leaned to cover her hand with his. “You must miss your own children.”
A puzzled look came over her face. “What do you mean?”
“Your children. Your…bairns. A lad and a lassie, like the mermaid’s, yes?”
“You think I have bairns?” She tugged back her hand. “Me? I’m only seventeen. I’ve never even—”
“Never mind.”
His face felt as warm as hers looked. He hated the feelings of doubt that had been niggling at him ever since he’d overheard the men at breakfast. But his gaze dropped to her amulet. A ray of sunshine through the window made the old stone glint green. Emerald green.
Of course she was Emerald. Emerald would deny this, like everything else.
He cursed the aggravating niggle and drained the rest of his ale. “Did the mermaid ever come back?”
One of her fingers traced her crisscrossing laces while she studied him a moment. He shifted uneasily. He didn’t like being studied.
“Nay,” she said at last. “But it’s told that she often returned in the night to peek through the cottage windows at her bairns as they slept. She left trout and salmon outside the door. The farmer told his children that their mother was far away but would never forget them. When her son grew up, he sailed the seas, and no harm ever came to him, even in the fiercest storms, for the Maid-of-the-Wave followed his ship and protected him.”
“That’s not quite so sad, then.”
A wan smile emerged. “Nay, I suppose it isn’t. She had to go back to her place, didn’t she? Her home, where she belonged.” A muddy green now, her eyes met his. “Even though they’d never see her again.”
Like Emerald would go back to Scotland. Her home, where she belonged. “Yes, she had to go,” he agreed, though hang it if the thought of never seeing her again didn’t seem somehow incomprehensible.
THIRTY-ONE
THE ROAD FROM Grantham was hilly with lots of trees and sheep, a welcome change after traveling through flat land all the day.
At Stoke Rochford they took a wee bridge over a wee river—Jason didn’t even hesitate—and rode up to the Church of St. Mary, which was perched on high land with a spectacular view. The village had no inns or taverns, though—no excuse for Cait to get off the horse and ease her aching legs and bottom. Her teeth were aching as well, from gritting them against the discomfort. But she wouldn’t admit that to Jason.
Stretton had enormous trees and a lovely field of yellow wildflowers, but nothing else of note. They plodded on. A sleepy stone village called Casterton boasted a pretty Norman kirk, but Jason didn’t suggest they stop and have a look.
After hours in the saddle, Caithren thought she would scream if she didn’t get some relief. The sun was on its downward slide when she spotted a jumble of stone and patted Jason’s knee.
“Do you think I might stretch my legs?”
“Why?” he aske
d, sounding amused. “Is something wrong with them?”
“Nay.” She set her jaw. “It’s only that I’ve a mind to explore that ruin over there.”
“Oh. I see.” By his tone, she guessed he saw all too much. “I suppose we could do that,” he said, steering Chiron off the road and up the grassy rise that led to the crumbling castle. “We’ve made excellent time today. And I could do with a bite.”
“I thought I heard your stomach rumbling,” she said as he dismounted. “Are you always hungry, then?”
He spanned her waist with his big hands to swing her down. “Seems so,” he said with a grin.
While he tethered Chiron to a tree, she flexed her knees and looked around. The remnants of the castle’s walls meandered up and down gentle, grassy slopes, loosely connected by steps that seemed to lead nowhere. It struck her as both sad and terribly romantic.
From a corner of the site rose the keep, a square tower that was tall but open to the sky.
Rather than sharing her enchantment, Jason was digging in the portmanteau for the chicken, bread, and cheese he’d bought before leaving Grantham.
“Come up the keep,” she said. “I’d wager there’s a lovely view.”
“Go ahead.” He pulled a flask from one leather bag. “I’ll arrange our supper.”
With a shrug, she started up the winding stone steps. Though in better shape than the rest of the castle, the keep was far from habitable. The floors were half gone, and big chunks of the walls were missing. The narrow stairs bore deep depressions from centuries of feet, and there was no rail, but the steps themselves felt solid and safe.
She trudged up painfully, wondering if this was really a good idea after so many hours in the saddle. When she finally reached the top, puffing from exertion, she leaned on the crenelated wall and gazed out over the countryside.
“Oh, it’s glorious!” The land rolled away in all directions, dotted with trees and houses, divided by glistening ribbons of rivers and streams. “You can see from here like a bird in the sky. You must come up!”