He stood, not seeing the dog anywhere.
It registered then, that the pain in his leg and ribs had faded to nothing more than a faint throb. Before he could contemplate the anomaly, he heard a thump from beneath a child-sized table set with china, tatted napkins, and silverware. A tablecloth draped the top and hung all the way to the floor. At one edge, Nick caught sight of a tail sticking out from the fabric.
“Johnny?”
At the sound of his voice, the pit bull burst from underneath the table. The cloth caught on his back and tottered half of the dishes. They cracked as they hit the tile floor. Johnny Boy bounded over to Nick and jumped up on his thighs, his tongue lolling and his smile wide.
Nick dropped to his knees, holding Johnny’s muzzle to escape a slobbery greeting. Disbelief shimmied through him, tinged with shock. It appeared Johnny was already well enough to travel. How could that be possible, when his injury had been so grave?
“All right, boy. Lay down now, c’mon. Roll over.”
His entire body wagging, Johnny flopped to the floor and rolled on his back. His legs stuck up, feet dangling at the joints. He barked, waiting for Nick to pet his belly.
Nick obliged, scratching the soft fur on the dog’s chest and stomach as he searched for the wounds he’d had the day before. Most of them had started to scab over. But today, he almost couldn’t find them. They were nothing but scars. Even the stitch on his throat appeared to be closing—the skin rejoining, as if it’d been healing for months as opposed to ten days. Then Nick noticed a bright purple residue in the middle and around the edges of the wounds.
Had he not known better, he would’ve thought Clooney had doctored the dog. But this looked more like something that would grow on a plant … a fungus, perhaps.
Fungi usually decomposed other organisms … they didn’t heal them. It made no sense.
Nick released Johnny. The dog catapulted to his feet and shook his fur before trotting about the room, exploring. Upon finding the stick-horse, Johnny Boy clamped his teeth on the ribbons. Nick wrestled the toy away, leaving the ribbons frayed. He was awestruck at the dog’s strength. It was as if the pit bull had never been at death’s door.
Remembering his own injuries, Nick set the stick-horse out of the dog’s reach and lifted his leg, propping his foot on the bed’s edge. That same queer purplish fungus lined the seam below his knee where his own gash had closed.
Stunned, he scraped away some of the residue. It flaked off easily, like a powder.
His stomach flipped. No one could mend this quickly. And could this be the same fungus Aislinn and Miss Felicity had been so concerned over? If so, it was indeed a mystery. For what sort of fungus spontaneously sprouted upon someone’s flesh during the night?
Finding the basin he’d used the prior evening to wash off, he scrubbed at the spores until they flaked away, unsure if he should be disgusted by the infestation or grateful for it.
He dressed quickly, shrugging into a sage green shirt the maid had brought in as he slept. After stepping inside trousers still wrinkled from the day before, he braided his hair in a slip-shod fashion, in too much of a rush to care.
Just as he gathered up the tattered stick-horse and threw open the bedchamber door, he ran smack into young Tobias. Johnny Boy bolted toward the opening. They both jumped out of the way to keep from getting bowled over.
The young man regained his balance and raked a lock of thick, sandy hair off of an intelligent forehead. He was tall for his age, coming up to Nick’s nose.
Appearing nervous, he adjusted his gray vest and trousers over his white shirt—a typical stable hand’s uniform. Dark eyes, glistening like a muddy creek in the sunlight, turned upward to meet Nick’s.
“Pardon, Lord Thornton. Her Ladyship asked that I should help take out the dog.” Short, thick lashes wavered as he glanced in the direction of Johnny Boy’s escape and then at the stretcher he’d propped in the hall, obviously befuddled by the dog’s improvement.
“And where might Her Ladyship be?” Nick asked, trying to staunch his annoyance at her. Of all the mysteries and enigmas in this castle, Felicity was indeed the most binding. The more he tried to remove her from his thoughts, the more she preoccupied them.
“She’s gathering eggs in the henhouse with Lianna. And she plans to cut you a branch for a new cane. She—we never expected you to be walking so soon … you or the dog.”
“Yes. It appears we’re swift on the mend.” Nick thought upon the queer fungus, determined to know if it was similar to the one in the greenhouse. “You are friends with Miss Aislinn.”
A flush of color filled the stable hand’s neck and ears. “I-I don’t know what you mean, sir.”
Nick held his gaze. “I saw your concern when she fell.”
Beads of sweat formed on Tobias’ brow. He hesitated before nodding.
The boy was honest. Nick’s respect inched up a notch. “I would venture you’re familiar enough to know that she’s been studying some sort of fungus of late, in connection to her aunt’s sickly caterpillars.”
Tobias’ Adam’s apple bobbed and his hands gripped in front of his waist. “Please, sir. It is nothing improper. We merely talk … sometimes. Rarely even. I-I have helped her gather specimens once or twice. You must understand. She has no friends her age.”
“I’ll not get you in trouble with Her Ladyship, as long as your intentions remain honorable. I just want an answer to the fungus. Does Miss Aislinn know anything about it? Has she made any discoveries?”
Tobias’ chin twitched—devoid of even an echo of whiskers and smooth with the sheen of youth. “She’s been seeking information in her father’s journals. She has them with her in the playroom this morning, spread out on the bed.”
Nick offered a stern scowl. “And you would know that, how?”
“I … oh, no sir. No. Nothing like that. I took up some baskets of flowers for Lianna. Binata was there. We had a chaperone.”
Nick tipped his head. “See that you always do. If you truly care for Aislinn, her reputation and virtue should be your utmost priority.” He moved into the corridor alongside the stable hand. “I suggest you catch Johnny Boy before he makes hash of the fancy drapes in the parlor.” He held up the stick-horse. The threadbare ribbons swayed with the movement. “He’s in high spirits today.”
Tobias nodded; he lifted the stretcher and strode away, stepping aside as Lia passed him in the corridor. She stopped him when the stretcher raked the bun pinned high atop her head, causing some loose tendrils to stick to the canvas. After a firm scolding, Tobias was allowed to proceed.
As Lia turned to Nick, he leaned the damaged stick-horse against the wall behind him in hopes it would elude her slumberous gaze. He had no time for explanations. He needed to speak to Aislinn, to finally get a look at Jasper’s notes.
But Lia was on a mission. She held a tray in her hands and the scent of cinnamon and coffee wafted through the air as she stationed herself directly in Nick’s path. Nick’s stomach grumbled. He supposed he could take the breakfast upstairs in the playroom.
“Mister Sir.” She curtsied. Her blue frock—the same luminous hue as her eyes—grazed her ankles with the movement.
“Good morn, my lady.” As Nick bowed at the waist, he noticed several errant strands of straw sticking out from between her dusty, bare toes, completely at odds with the refined image she was trying to present. He couldn’t help but grin.
When he straightened, an indignant scowl met him.
“A suitor should never laugh at his lady.”
“Forgive me.” Nick dragged his palm down his facial hair—from lips to chin—wiping away the smile. “It was a twitch actually. Yes. My lips were twitching.”
“An itch more probably. From all that hair you wear on your face.”
“Or could be I’m allergic to hay.” He gestured to her feet.
Her chin dropped. “Oh! We use it to pad the buckets.” She wriggled her tiny toes. “It keeps the eggs from cracking.”
“I see.” Nick noticed a book tucked beneath the napkin on the tray. “Is that for me?”
“Auntie sent it. She said you might like to read as you ate.” She held it out to him.
He thanked her, balancing the platter on one palm. Pushing aside the cinnamon pudding and coffee kettle, he peeled back the napkin to reveal the book—a compilation of famous authors’ quotes. A soft blue petal peered out from the middle of the pages. Nick worked his finger into the space and nudged the spine open.
The bookmark was a forget-me-not, freshly picked and pressed. Nick ran his finger along the stem. Skimming the print on the page, he found a Mark Twain quote lightly circled in pencil: Forgiveness is the fragrance which the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it. The word “violet” was marked through lightly and replaced with the handwritten: mouse’s ear.
Dazed, Nick stroked the flower’s silky petals. Felicity had been listening, after all.
Perhaps her slamming the door hadn’t been intentional. Maybe she didn’t look down upon him. Judging from the tragic depths of her eyes and that repeated clutching of her chest—it was possible she had been so wounded by something in her past that she’d lost the ability or courage to ration out her emotions.
Nick started to close the book but noticed in the white space beside the verse that Felicity had scripted an invitation to meet her at noon beside the greenhouse for a picnic.
He smiled. A picnic … what a splendidly ordinary suggestion.
Closing the book, Nick tucked the flower into a buttonhole on his shirt’s lapel. He looked up to find himself beneath Lia’s inscrutable long-lashed gaze. He’d almost forgotten the little sprite was there.
“You don’t seem very brightened,” she said.
“Brightened?”
“When people wake from a long sleep, they should look brightened. All but Auntie. She always looks darker in the morning … it’s her wrinkles that make it so. They get better at night.”
“Do they now?” Intrigued, he resituated both hands to hold the tray, hardly aware that his chin grew warm from the fragrant steam rising from the kettle’s spout.
Lia shrugged. “She doesn’t like me to speak of it. But I don’t care. Not today.”
“Why is that?”
“She won’t let me play with your bog pony. Even though it’s just the right size for a carousel horse. So I found a new pet in the chicken coops.” She stomped a foot. “But Auntie killed it.”
Nick measured her accusation carefully. He had seen Felicity’s tenderness with animals firsthand. She would never intentionally hurt one.
“Did my ghost visit last night?” Lia blurted out before Nick had a chance to delve further into the pet mystery.
His mind spun with the unexpected shift in conversation. “Not that I remember.”
“You didn’t hear any swishing?”
It occurred to him then, that the butterfly wings he’d heard in his dream hadn’t stopped swishing when he’d awakened.
“Yes. In fact, I did.” This revelation left his logic swimming. There had been no one in his room; Johnny would have barked at an intruder. Did that mean he’d had an otherworldly visitor? If so, it validated that a human and spirit could make contact.
His hope to contact Mina flickered brighter in his chest.
Lia started toward her door. “I shall check the flowers on my nightstand. My ghost always leaves his mark there.”
Nick widened his stance, trying to keep the damaged stick-horse hidden from her view. “His mark…”
She paused. “He dots the flowers with purple moss—” Her focus sharpened on him. “I thought your leg was to be resting.”
Nick felt like he was playing hopscotch, bouncing around subjects chosen by the rolling pebble of her little girl sensibilities. He saw the inevitable slide of her gaze to the stick-horse behind him and his stomach sank. “Oh, actually … my leg is much the better. I suppose you would like to have your horse back.”
The words had barely left his lips before she’d stepped around him and had the stick in hand, covering the stallion’s muzzle with kisses. “Have you missed me, Snowbell? Have you?” Then her dainty fingers ran through the torn ribbons and chew marks at its neck. Her gaze met his, wide with accusation. “What did you do to him? You promised to treat him as if he were your very own! Are you so sloppy with the things you love?”
The question punched him in the gut, resurrecting memories better left buried. “I have been known to be.”
She stormed across the threshold into her room, vanishing from his view. Trying to think of the right words to soothe her, Nick stepped inside to find her tiny body kneeling beside the broken china set Johnny Boy had knocked to the floor.
“Daddy’s china!”
Nick set the breakfast tray on the bed, cursing under his breath. He would never have imagined her father had given her those dishes. He pulled the flower from his button’s placket and knelt down, offering it to her. “Please forgive me, my lady. I never meant—”
“I’m not your lady, Sir,” she whispered the declaration, but paired with the tears streaming from those sleepy eyes, it gouged his eardrums like a scream. She took the forget-me-not from his hand and crushed it between her fingers. “And I hate you.”
Chapter Thirteen
Nick sat in the playroom on the bed’s edge, digging fingers into his knees to keep himself from pacing.
Binata stood outside in the hallway, trying to calm Lia’s sobs. The sprite had raced up the stairs to the fourth floor after his encounter with her. When he arrived behind her, she was already in her nanny’s comforting arms.
Aislinn turned from her place at the window, studying Nick. She smoothed the bandage that covered her forehead. This morning, her irises looked more like gliding shadows deep within the sea than a blueberry harvest. The sun streamed in from behind her, glazing her bluish-black hair with shivers of light. He was glad to see her sensitivity to brightness had abated.
“She won’t soon forgive you,” Aislinn said.
Nick nodded, his jaw clenched. “She said she hates me.” It amazed him how that juvenile phrase cut when coming from such a tiny angel. He’d never once been disarmed by a female. But being in this castle full of them in variant stages of life was becoming entirely too unsettling. He’d even lost his appetite for breakfast after the episode with Lia.
“She believed you were her beau.”
“I gather that,” Nick groused. “Damn it all.”
“You’ve not been around many little girls, have you?”
He opened his hand to glance at the crushed flower Lia had thrown at him. “Only my sister, and I was young myself so wasn’t much for coddling her. Is it that apparent?”
“Well, for one, most adults try not to curse around them.”
Tucking the sad wilted stem in his pocket, Nick glanced up, chagrinned. “Oh, right.”
“It doesn’t offend me. After all, I’m not a child.” Aislinn gave him bright smile, lightening his mood a bit. Only then did he notice the freckles spattering the bridge of her nose—as if that one babyish quality refused to be conquered by her maturing appearance.
“Perhaps, if I give your sister a bouquet of flowers?” He awaited Aislinn’s approval.
Aislinn gestured to the baskets of blossoms on the floor. “She already has a garden full of them.”
“Oh, of course,” he said, dejected. “I shall think of something else, then.”
“It will have to be quite spectacular to make up for Father’s china set.” Aislinn strolled toward the bed. A periwinkle dress of soft muslin flowed to her ankles and rustled with her movements. “You wished to ask me something, in reference to your swift recovery? Should you not speak to Clooney instead? Or Auntie, perchance.”
“I suspect Clooney doesn’t believe in the supernatural. And I know your aunt doesn’t.” Nick had been thumbing through Jasper’s journals but couldn’t make heads or tails of the terminology or the messy script. However, it looked
familiar. His sister Emilia had mentioned how Felicity’s handwriting had changed over time, shown him how messily written her correspondences were once they started to exchange chapters for their novel. Nick might’ve suspected it a fluke, had he not seen the neatness with which Felicity wrote his picnic invitation earlier. An odd anomaly, to say the least.
“You’re right.” Aislinn’s freckles disappeared within a pucker of crinkles as she wriggled her nose, recouping his attention. “Auntie doesn’t believe in anything beyond what she can see. She’s not one for fairytales, either.”
Nick rubbed the back of his hand along his bearded chin, surprised at how this saddened him. “That must be why she’s considering marrying Mister Landrigan. Why she still wears black in mourning for her earl. Because she’s given up on happy endings.”
Aislinn regarded her bare feet. “Auntie wears black in honor of my father.”
“Is that so? And why don’t you?”
“Because he’s still here …” Aislinn’s voice trailed as she touched the books around her.
Nick understood. For Aislinn, her father lived on through his scripted words, just as he lived on through some shattered china for Lia. Nick shook his head, wishing he had some magic wand to wave over the tea set and mend it.
“As for Auntie,” Aislinn continued, “her hope dies more every day. With her business dwindling and all of the upkeep … well, perhaps she believes that having a husband might proffer some glimpse of life.” She looked up. “But she doesn’t trust Mister Landrigan. I think if a man came along who could free her spirit of its doubt … she would marry him without hesitation.”
Nick considered this silently. “A man who could give her wings,” he mumbled.
“Pardon?” Aislinn asked.
Nick glanced at the window behind the young lady, his eyes burning from the sunlight—unusually bright for an Irish morning. “Nothing.” He clenched his jaw. “Tell me … that fungus in your aunt’s greenhouse, did it appear before or after the shortage of caterpillars occurred?”
Sweeping aside the books, Aislinn took a seat on the far end of the mattress. She placed a pillow in her lap and fluffed it, stirring the lilac scent of clean bed linens. “After. Why do you care?” The response seemed almost defensive.
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