by Dima Zales
He chuckled. “Are we not sitting together? And if you are not here, where are you?
When she didn’t answer, he pressed, “Where would you like to be?”
“Home,” she said.
“And how will you get there?”
She frowned at him. “What has Emory told you about me?”
He laughed and it seemed to come from deep within his belly. She couldn’t help smiling.
“With his words, you mean?”
“Of course with his words! How else would he tell you anything?”
Rohan gave her a teasing smile. “Words are perhaps the least effectual form of communication, which our dear Father Knightly so aptly demonstrated in this morning’s sermon.” He gave a great sigh and looked at the church.
Father Knightly stood on the steps. The two men scowled at each other. Rohan looked sad for a moment and contemplated his hairy toes sticking out of his leather sandals. Then he looked up at her. “For example, the good father and I just enjoyed a little exchange. Did you notice?”
“Would ‘enjoy’ be the right word?”
“Much more fitting, I believe, than derogatorial.” Rohan gave her a small smile. “Forgive my demonstration. I just wanted to prove that there are more means of communication than words. So, do you want to know what Emory said of you with his words? Or otherwise?”
Words could be insulting, but the otherwise? She’d really like to know the otherwise.
“I thought so.” Rohan laughed again, looking a fraction wicked. “Last night he said you were…shall we say, derogatorial.”
“He was mean, not me.” I just wanted to see where he’d been hurt. I still want to see that.
“He said you said to him, ‘shuck you.’ He didn’t know what it meant, but he didn’t like it.”
“He wasn’t meant to.” She hated that she sounded contrite. Should she apologize? It did sound pretty offensive, even if it didn’t mean a thing. “Did Emory tell you I want to go home?”
“You’ve lost your way?”
“Yes!” Petra’s heart leapt. “Can you help me?”
“Maybe, but you may not like it.”
“I really want to go home. I’m desperate to go home.”
Rohan considered her and then asked, “Then why don’t you?”
“I don’t know how!” She would if she could. Of course, she would. Even if it meant never seeing Emory again. He meant nothing to her. She needed to tell him that he was rude and mean, she’d be doing the world a favor by teaching him to be polite.
“Last night I saw you heal the gypsy. He was writhing in pain, and then you did something, said something, and he...calmed down. Now he’s gone. He was so bloody and hurt. He couldn’t have just walked out. You did something.”
Rohan shook his head. “I can’t bring you peace, Petra.”
She flung out her hands. “But you worked some sort of magic.”
“It’s not magic, my dear.” He sighed. “You’re asking the wrong questions.”
“What do you mean?”
Rohan scratched the top of his head. “Perhaps instead of asking how, you should ask why.”
“Why do I want to go home?” Petra’s voice squeaked.
“No, my dear.” He studied her with patience. “Why are you here?”
Petra placed her hands on her hips. “I don’t know that either.”
“But have you asked?”
“And who would I ask? You?” She took a step closer and lowered her face even to his. “Do you know why I’m here?” she asked slowly and steadily, as if she was talking to someone who had difficulty understanding English.
“You’re here for the same reason I’m here. Indeed, wherever any of us may be.” He grinned at her, which made her even angrier. “To help.”
“To help? Help who? Help with what?”
“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened.”
She balled her hands into fists and thought of knocking Rohan on the head. “Show me where to knock, because I’d really like to know.”
“Ask and receive not because ye ask amiss.”
Petra applauded herself for not knocking the man to the ground.
“Some questions just don’t have easy answers.”
A snapping twig interrupted their conversation. Petra looked up as a shadow fell across the bench.
“Ah, Miss Baron.” Garret took a deep breath and brushed the hair from his eyes. “I’ve found you.” He looked uncomfortable. “Good day, sir, I’d come to accompany Miss Petra to the manor.”
Petra didn’t consider her conversation with Rohan over; she still had plenty of questions for him, questions she didn’t want to ask in front of Garret.
“Shall we go?” Garret asked, his tone the same he’d use if he were asking if she’d like to witness a hanging.
Petra looked over her shoulder and saw Anne talking to Emory. Her heart pinged. He wore dark breeches, a white open shirt, a low-slung belt and despite his simple attire he looked like royalty. She couldn’t hear their conversation, but she managed to hear the words ‘rendezvous’ and ‘this afternoon.’ From the expression on Garret’s face, she knew that he had also heard their plans.
Garret followed her gaze and his scowl deepened. “Come,” he urged her toward the waiting carriage. As he took her arm and tucked it into the crook of his elbow, he patted her hand as if to console her. “Good day, sir,” he said to Rohan, leading Petra away.
Garret looked worse than she felt. He sat in the carriage and stared out the window with lowered eyebrows. He had one leg crossed over the other and the top leg swung like a pendulum. Petra sat across from him, carefully avoiding his boot.
Carriages looked romantic with their velvet interiors and gold gilded paneling, but they smelled of horse poop and bumped and jostled over every rock and pothole. Petra and Garret bounced toward the manor in uneasy, teeth-rattling silence.
Until they stopped.
Garret reached forward and pounded on the dash. “I say, Fritz, how now?”
When Fritz didn’t respond, Garret pushed back the curtain that separated the cabin from the driver’s perch. No Fritz. Garret muttered a curse that she’d never heard before, but because it must have been bad, he gave her a sideways look and muttered an apology.
Seconds later Fritz appeared at the carriage door holding a large metal contraption in his hand. Garret asked what Petra was wondering. “What is that?”
A pink tinge stained Fritz’s neck. “I beg your pardon sir, this is an axle.” He cleared his throat. “A broken axle, to be more exact.”
“Well, by faith, fix it.”
The pink tinge moved to Fritz’s cheeks. “I haven’t the proper tools with me, sir.” He looked balefully at the contraption.
Garret pushed out of the carriage, and Petra watched through the window. “Then how will we get home?” Garret demanded.
“It’s not far,” Petra said, considering her satin shoes and wondering how they’d hold up in a cow pasture before she said, “We could walk.”
“Walk?” Garret’s expression said he wouldn’t have been more surprised if she had suggested they turned themselves into birds and fly across the field.
She saw the towers of Pennington Place on the other side of the hill. It wouldn’t take long. She’d walked much farther last night. “It’s right there.”
“Walk through the field? With the cows?” Petra smiled because he looked so much like Kyle when he’d been told he had to drive his Uncle Billy’s Oldsmobile to school because his Volvo needed an oil change.
She pulled her lips down, attempting to look serious. “Well, they won’t hurt us, will they?”
“They’re filthy.”
“But slow, right?” She didn’t know anything about cows, but the ones on the cheese commercials always seemed good-natured.
The pink dominated Fritz’s face. Sweat ran down his forehead and he pulled at his collar. He’s hiding something, Petra thought. Bu
t why?
14
A bull is different from cows:
A bull is much more muscular, has larger hooves, a very strong neck, and a big, bony head.
A bull is taller and weighs a lot more.
A bull becomes fertile at about seven months of age.
A bull is nothing like the California happy cows in the TV commercials.
—Petra’s notes
Fritz answered by pulling down a basket from the driver’s perch. The warm smell of fresh baked bread escaped from beneath the check cloth covering the basket and wafted her way.
Mary, you sly match-making dog, Petra thought.
“Sir, if you and my lady wish to retire in the shade of the tree,” Fritz said, his words stiff, as if rehearsed. “I will fix the axle and return herewith.” He pulled a quilt from his perch and tucked it over his arm.
Herewith? The blanket suggested a stay overnight. Petra glanced at the cloudless sky, grateful for the sun and warm breeze. “My lord, we can walk,” she insisted.
“No!” Fritz said at the same time Garret bellowed, “We will not!”
Petra rolled her eyes, annoyed, but then her annoyance turned to distrust. “Wait. If I stay here, with you, doesn’t that…I mean, couldn’t that…” she searched her memory. In Laurel’s Regency romance novels, there were complicated rules of etiquette and if any were breached a marriage always seemed to be the punishment. Alcoves, terraces, and bed chambers were off limits, of course, but what about a tree in the middle of nowhere? Garret, as the son of an Earl, would be expected to uphold certain standards, but what were those standards? “If we stay too long together, alone, wouldn’t that be bad for my reputation?”
Fritz blinked rapidly, his lips forming words he didn’t say. Petra watched him through lowered eyelids. What was it with these people? Fritz, Mary, why were they so anxious for her to hook up with Garret?
“I will walk.” Petra announced, scrambling out of the carriage. Her skirts caught on the door jamb, pulling her dress up around her thighs. She yanked them free.
Garret stared at her legs with an open mouth. “Alone?”
“Yes, alone.” Petra swept a disgusted gaze over him as she righted her skirts and headed for the split-rail fence.
“My lady, I beg of you,” Fritz began. “I’ll return shortly, you have my oath, but if you’re in the field, I won’t be able to find you.”
“We could have been halfway home by now,” Petra said over her shoulder. She pulled up her skirts to climb over the fence. Behind her, she heard gasps.
A hand on her arm stopped her mid climb. “My lady,” Garret said. “Please, I know another way. We will be home within an hour.”
The panicked expression on Fritz’s face had eased, the pink had left his cheeks and returned to his neck.
“We’ll have to go through the woods,” Garret said in a tone that sounded like, we’ll have to go through hell.
They walked silently up the hill beneath sun dappled trees. Garret matched his long stride to Petra’s shorter one and she was glad for his quiet, if hostile company. Although she’d ridden to church in the carriage, supposedly on this same road, nothing looked familiar. They could have been transported to Italy for all she knew. “You do know where we are, right?”
“We aren’t far from the village,” Garret told her.
From a distance, the church bells began to toll long and low and Petra wondered why. It felt bizarre to be walking through the countryside with a strange man in a foreign place while church bells rang an ominous rhythm.
They rounded a corner and came face to face with a monster. Not literally a monster, maybe, but definitely monster-like compared to any creature Petra had ever seen up close and for real. Her mind said bull, but her gut said wooly mammoth. His horns glistened in the midday sun. Leaves of grass poked out of his mouth and twitched as he chewed. Standing three feet away in the middle of the road he seemed larger than any of his family members, distant brown menaces in a field.
Garret took a step backward and put a protective arm in front of Petra. “Let’s hope he has already eaten his supper,” he said softly.
The creature snorted, as if to say that he preferred humans to grass.
Emory squinted through the dust motes that filled the tiny wooden structure’s air and counted the powder kegs. Sunlight peeked through broken, gaping slats. Spiders spun in the corners and hay, like a golden mountain, covered nine kegs. The gun powder was easily enough ammunition to blow a wing off Hampton court, destroy the translations, the translators and a few members of the king’s court as well.
“My life for tinder and flame,” Anne said.
Emory glanced at her. Her fever-bright eyes told him that she was only partly jesting. “Come,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder to draw her away. “We are halfway home. It is almost done.”
Anne refused to budge. “But it tempts me so. We should set it now. Imagine the flames.”
Emory, who had his own fearful memories of fire and flame, took her hand and pulled her down a cart path. “If we act too soon, they will have time to recover. The distribution is key. Until then, we cannot risk disclosure, nor can we endanger you.”
“I have no fear of them,” Anne said, shuffling and kicking up small dust devils.
“You should,” Emory told her. “I fear for you.”
“Because I am a gentle woman? Because you believe I should keep my concerns to home and hearth? But who is to say that the word of God isn’t a womanly concern?”
“Chambers and his lot are dangerous, Anne. As you well know, this is not a game.”
“Why have you no fear for yourself? Or for Rohan?” Anne asked. “Rohan is not in his youth; he should be safely tucked into a monastery tending herbs and perfecting Latin.”
Hearing voices, Emory stopped and placed his hand on Anne’s back.
Anne also heard the raised voices and whispered, “Tis the Sabbath. Have they no care?”
Emory slid his gaze toward her, smiling at her hypocrisy and indignation. “Hush, perhaps it is our zealots,” he murmured. Then he recognized the voices. Slowing, he crested a small hill and saw Petra, Falstaff carrying what appeared to be a picnic basket, and a bull standing in the middle of the road.
Petra waved a large stick in front of the bull’s nose, but the animal didn’t seem even mildly threatened. Further down the road was the carriage, lilting to one side with a wheel lying alongside of it.
Watching Falstaff and Petra battling the bull, Emory fought a wave of unreasonable irritation. “It would appear your would-be suitor is seeking another’s favor.”
“He is not my suitor,” Anne said through gritted teeth. She dropped her hand and turned away.
“Not for lack of effort,” Emory said. His heart thumped, suddenly off rhythm, when Falstaff pulled Petra against his back.
“I’m glad he’s turned his attentions elsewhere,” Anne said, lifting her chin and sounding small and young.
Then Emory realized that he was responsible for the roaming bull. “Did you close the gate?” he whispered to Anne.
She leaned toward him. “A manly chore, much too difficult for a gentlewoman such as myself.”
Emory’s lips twitched. “We must help them.”
Anne shielded her eyes from the sun. “They are as helpless as children.” She said it casually, fondly even, but Emory heard a steely note in her voice.
Emory knew he had to take Anne home. He had only brought her because she had refused to tell him the information, Rohan’s information, unless he’d let her join him. He should have left her in the churchyard and found Rohan himself, but Rohan had been speaking with Petra and he would rather compromise Anne than face Petra.
A bad decision and here he faced another decision. Turn away from Petra, Falstaff and the bull? Before he drew Anne away and bypassed the trio, he heard distant horse hooves. It might be anyone, he thought, but the chill down his spine warned him it was Chambers or his men.
It seeme
d Petra was not to be avoided.
15
King James authorized the Church of England’s translation of the Bible in 1604. He appointed 47 clergymen who completed their task in 1611. Many factions of the church disapproved of the availability of the Bible to the common man.
—Petra’s notes
“He sounds unfriendly,” Garret said.
The bull snorted, pawed the ground and made guttural noises in the back of his throat, but another noise caught Petra’s attention. She looked around Garret’s back to watch Emory and Anne at the fence.
“And what is friendlier than a Sunday afternoon picnic?” Emory said, stepping onto the road, before helping Anne over the sty. “May we join you?”
“Emory, can you not see they are already dealing with one uninvited guest?” Anne smiled but her eyes were calculating. She shook out her skirts; the hem was dirty and smudged.
In a world where it seemed very few of the opposite sex were on a first name basis, why did Anne get to call him Emory? Why did they get to wander through pastures together when she and Garret had to watch their toes for fear of being punished by marriage?
She looked to see if Garret shared her thoughts, but his attention was firmly focused on the bull. Petra’s gaze flew from Emory to Anne and back to the bull, who, snorting and pawing, refused to be ignored.
Emory undid his belt buckle and fashioned a lasso. Petra’s heartbeat accelerated as Emory looped his belt over the monster’s horns. The bull fought, but Emory, avoiding horns, teeth and hooves pulled the creature behind the fence. Anne locked the gate and Emory vaulted to safety.
The entire episode had taken less than a minute. With his nose to the ground and grass sticking from his mouth, the bull seemed happy enough.
Petra wondered how long she and Garret had faced off with the bull. Maybe it’d only been minutes, but it had seemed like forever. How long would they have stayed there, trying to out-stare the bull if Emory hadn’t shown up? She felt a smidgeon of reluctant gratitude.