Anna sighed. “This is my fault. I failed them as a mother.”
“Nonsense,” Elisa said. “Ben is happy after years of moping and anger. Bronwen will find her way. You must give her more than the usual amount of time. Your children are all as headstrong as you, Anna. Even your adoptees acquired your stubborn streak.”
“Thank you, I think,” Anna said. “Although if Bronwen must have time to find her way, I do wish she wouldn’t do it quite so…publicly. Our family has always kept our messes private. Bronwen seems to be determined to cavort where everyone can see her disgrace.”
“She wants to be just like her big sister Sadie, that is all,” Natasha replied.
“Sadie is at least experimenting with life in America where no one cares,” Anna replied.
A hand rested on Anna’s shoulder, drawing her attention to behind the chair. Jasper smiled at her and withdrew his hand. “I apologize for eavesdropping. It wasn’t my intention. I was standing to one side, waiting for Lilly to arrive.”
“Lilly is upstairs with the twins?” Elisa asked.
“She should be done by now,” Jasper said. “I interrupted, because I believe I can offer a temporary solution regarding Bronwen, Princess.”
“I’m listening,” Anna said. “At this stage, I will listen to anyone,” she added.
Jasper crouched down next to the chair so all three women could see him without straining their necks. “I will not interpret that as literally as you spoke it.”
Anna put her hands to her cheeks. “Oh, Jasper, of course I didn’t mean it that way! I do apologize—”
He held up a hand, his eyes dancing. “Natasha is correct. You must give Bronwen time. She has had a privileged upbringing, yet she is the daughter of a princess and a commoner. It can be confusing. I speak from experience.”
Anna nodded. “Yes, your father, the Archeduke of Silkeborg. We are second cousins, Jasper. My grandmother married your father’s great grandfather.”
“Aren’t all the Continental families threaded together, if you go back far enough?” Elisa asked.
“Most likely,” Anna admitted. “Although, again I must apologize, Jasper. It isn’t until this moment I even made the connection.”
“I grew up not speaking about my father,” Jasper told her. “I find the habit hard to dismiss. It is not entirely your fault.”
“You said you had an idea about Bronwen, Jasper?” Natasha asked.
Jasper’s smile grew wicked. “On how to give her time while minimizing her reputation’s destruction among society? Yes. Let Bronwen come and live with me and Lilly for a while.”
Anna drew in a breath, hope flaring. “At Northallerton?”
“The house is more than big enough,” Jasper said. “Even with Lilly and me, little Seth and the twins, we still rattle about the place. Another adult would be welcome company for Lilly, too. I spend far too many of my days placating angry Yorkshiremen.”
“Bronwen could run wild in the north, Anna,” Elisa added. “No one would take the slightest interest in her, there.”
Anna looked once more at her daughter. Bronwen was drinking her tea, now, holding the cup without the saucer and catching drips with her other hand. Anna winced. “I accept, Jasper,” she told him. “With my desperate and humble thanks.”
“We’ll take care of your daughter, Princess,” Jasper replied. “They say the air in the Vale is a cure for many ills.”
“I most certainly hope so,” Anna said and sighed.
Chapter Two
Northallerton, Yorkshire. October 1865. One year later.
As they topped the last rise, the view opened across the valley, all the way to the great York road, on the far side. Running toward the road was Bullamoor Road, which Bronwen and Agatha had been following from a distance. On Bullamoor Road a carriage was heading west, toward Northallerton. Vehicles were unusual. The road was always empty.
Bronwen glanced at Agatha, to see she was not too breathless. These long walks were her precious joy, only her health was not what it used to be.
Agatha, though, was peering at the road and the carriage on it. Her eyes were too weak to read, yet her sight was keener than Bronwen’s over great distances. The corners of her eyes wrinkled as she peered. “It isn’t moving.”
Bronwen looked again. After staring for long moments, she realized the carriage had made no progress along the road. It was still in the same location where she had first spotted it. “We can go farther south, instead,” she told Agatha. They had been heading for the moors on the other side of the York road, where they hoped to find wild garlic and the last of the bog rosemary before the frosts.
“We should see if they need help.”
Bronwen laughed. “Help from us? We’re two women.”
“No one stops on the road that way unless they’re forced to it.”
Bronwen scowled at the motionless carriage. It looked small and far away. “Are you sure?” Agatha didn’t like dealing with other people. Although, other people didn’t like dealing with her. Bronwen wasn’t sure which had come first.
“Help is help. It’s always welcome.” Agatha hitched the bag on her back into a more comfortable position.
“They could move on before we get there,” Bronwen pointed out, as they walked down the gentle slope. The dale between them and road was a patchwork of emerald paddocks, darker hawthorn hedges and three white-washed cottages. Black-faced Yorkshire sheep cropped under the warm noonday sun, their dirty woolen backs white flecks scattered over the fields, creating a tweed effect.
The warmth and the cloudless sky had driven Agatha to insist upon her long walk today. There were few warm days like this left in the year. Bronwen had learned to trust Agatha’s weather-sense and had capitulated when Agatha insisted on walking despite the stiffness of her joints and the ache in her back.
Agatha showed no sign of stiffness now as they negotiated the slope. “If they’re gone when we get there, then our way won’t be blocked anymore, will it?” she said in her wavering voice.
Bronwen couldn’t argue with Agatha’s reasoning. She saved her breath for the walk, for Agatha increased their pace until they were both striding across the shorn grass, scattering sheep as they went. Agatha sometimes surprised Bronwen with displays of energy more suited to a far younger woman. Her mind was always young and modern.
The carriage remained where it was, even as they climbed the slope toward the rutted road. As they drew closer, Bronwen recognized the vehicle. It was one of the local hacks, who plied his trade between Northallerton town, where the train from York passed through, and locations in the valley. The carriage was listing to one side.
As most local passengers walked to Northallerton and saved their coins, it meant whoever had rented the hack was a stranger to the district.
Bronwen could see why the coach was motionless. The far side wheel lay on the ground and the driver was fussing with the axle. The horse stood with hips cocked, his nose to the ground, nipping at the tufts of grass between the tracks.
There were no passengers walking about. Had they insisted upon remaining inside the carriage, even on a day like this? How odd.
Agatha eased herself under the last hawthorn hedge. Bronwen wriggled through the thin opening, then tugged her skirt back into place. She tossed her hair back over her shoulder.
Agatha nodded toward the driver.
Bronwen moved over to where he was bent over the end of the axle. “Did you lose the pin?”
The driver straightened, startled. He swore, bringing his hand to his chest.
Bronwen kicked at the wheel. “It looks whole.”
The man glared at her from under his thick, silver brows. “Bloody pin sheered right off. If I can get the other end out, then I can put a temporary pin in place and be on my way.” He glanced from Bronwen to Agatha, who was hovering near the rear corner of the carriage. “Or I might be if you two’d be men. How on earth I’m supposed to get the wheel back on…”
“One thin
g at a time,” Bronwen told him. “Get the remains of the pin out first.”
He glared at her. He looked as though he was building up to a pithy reply.
“Where are your passengers?” Bronwen asked, deflecting his ire. Through the leaning window, she could see the carriage was empty.
The driver scowled again and jerked his head toward the trees on the other side of the road. “He be inside, taking…well, a moment to himself, so to speak.”
“Just the one, then. Well, let’s look at the pin to start.”
Agatha tugged on Bronwen’s skirt. She turned her chin, toward the woods.
Bronwen heard the cracking and crunching of someone heavy moving through them. He was breathing hard. Harder than was justified for traversing a thin copse of ash trees that had lost most of their leaves.
Bronwen let her mouth curl down. He must be a London fop, unused to more exercise than lifting his brandy glass and knife and fork.
The man gasped. It was not a sound of exertion, but one of pain.
Bronwen started forward, toward the point where his noisy progress told her he would emerge from the trees. As she got closer, he shouldered his way through the bare branches and fir trees, then staggered onto the verge at the side of the road.
He was a big man. That was the single impression Bronwen received before focusing upon his hand. He held the wrist tightly with the other hand, his fingers stretched taut.
Bronwen ran to him. “Let me see.” She reached for his hand, intending to push the white, stiff cuff and thick worsted jacket sleeve out of the way.
“It burns!” he breathed and dug the fingers of his other hand into the skin over the back of the injured one.
Bronwen saw the telltale rash. Stinging nettle. Yes, he was in pain.
She looked through the trees, searching for the big, broad leaves of a dock plant and spotted one at the foot of an ash. “Agatha, the dock plant. Would you mind?”
Agatha nodded and stepped into the trees to harvest a leaf.
Bronwen returned her attention to the man’s hand. He scratched with the other fingers. She slapped his hand away. “Don’t do that.”
His gaze met hers. Blue eyes, open wide in surprise. A blue that nature only provided not long before the sky turned to night black. “I beg your pardon?” he said, shocked.
“You’ll just make it worse, if you scratch. Hold your breath for moment and leave it alone.” She took his wrist and bent it, turning his hand over to see the palm and the underside of the fingers, looking for more burrs. “Did you brush your hand against the nettle when you were walking?”
“I must have. I don’t remember. My hand suddenly burned. It is the most excruciating…what is that?” he finished sharply, looking at the moist, green leaf Agatha held out to Bronwen.
“Relief,” Bronwen told him, taking the leaf.
“Another plant?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she turned his hand back over and wrapped the big leaf over the rash. There were no burrs left in his skin to remove. It must have been the lightest of contacts.
Bronwen held the leaf down with her fingers for a moment and watched him.
His expression was one of bewilderment and dismay. Then the dock leaf worked. She watched relief and growing awareness fill his face. His eyes met hers once more. “The pain is fading.”
“Yes.”
“That is extraordinary.”
“Not really.” She tapped the leaf. “Here, you can hold it in place. Leave it there for as long as you can.” She let go of his wrist and braced herself for the usual suspicion and fear to settle into his eyes. Witch was the least of the epithets leveled at her in the past. People didn’t trust what they didn’t understand.
His gaze shifted from her to Agatha. For a heartbeat she saw Agatha as a stranger would: An old woman with long, stringy gray hair, a wrinkled face and few teeth. A back bent from carrying burdens far beyond what any woman should bear. And a patience and immoveable will rising from a long lifetime lived alone.
Bronwen squared her shoulders, ready to spring to Agatha’s defense. It wouldn’t be the first time.
The man looked at the dock leaf once more. “What is in the leaf?” he asked. “Something that counters the nettle sting, clearly, but what? What is the effective ingredient? Do you know?”
Bronwen’s surprise left her speechless.
His interested faded. “Unless it is merely an old wives’ tale you have remembered, that happens to work?”
The dismissive note whipped Bronwen into responding. “There is an acid compound in dock plants.”
“Not a base?” he replied, his interest lifting once more. “I’d have thought that to counter such a sting, a base would be needed.”
“It’s not a sting. It’s a burn. Mild acids alleviate that pain. If I’d had vinegar to hand, I could have used that, instead.”
“Then you know your chemicals,” he replied.
“As you do, apparently,” she shot back.
For a moment, they looked at each other.
He had thick, golden blonde hair above the blue eyes and was clean-shaven. His clothes were fine gentlemen’s garments, with a hint of European tailoring. His shoulders were wide, which matched his height and the size of his hand. The wrist she had glimpsed beneath the cuff was strong, too, which made him far more physical a man than the elegant suit and overcoat and bespoke tailoring suggested.
His square chin dipped. “I confess I am at the outer limits of my knowledge of chemicals. I suspect you know more than I. I would not have thought to find a complimentary plant to counter the first one.”
“Well, using dock plants is an old wives’ tale,” Bronwen admitted. “I wanted to know why it worked, so I learned.”
He nodded. It was a small movement. “Because knowledge is how the world becomes a better place.”
“I suppose, yes. I haven’t thought of it that way.”
“I have.” His gaze was steady.
“Ah! Got the bastard,” the driver cried. A sharp ringing of metal punctuated his exclamation.
He bent and picked up the sheered pin from beneath the sagging axle and tossed it into the trees and rubbed his hands together, pleased. “I’ve got a couple of railway dog spikes in the box back here, that I picked up around the station. One of those will do nicely.” He headed for the back of the carriage and Bronwen heard the box creak open and the driver rummage in the gear inside.
She bent and picked up the edge of the wheel and brought it up onto its edge, then rolled it closer to the carriage. “Agatha, you must thread it onto the axle. I’m stronger than you.”
Agatha sidled past the man and put herself in front of the wheel and nodded.
Bronwen let it go and moved to the rear of the carriage. The driver straightened up, the thick metal spike in his hand. She nodded. “Is that why you kept them?”
“Never thought I’d have to use one,” he admitted, shoving it in his pocket. He reached under the corner edge of the carriage and looked at her. “Let’s see how strong you are, missy.”
Bronwen got her fingers under the edge and nodded.
“One…two…three,” the driver breathed.
Bronwen hauled, her neck and shoulders straining, as the edge of the carriage bit into her fingers. It was shockingly heavy. The two of them lifted it only a few inches.
“I need five more inches!” Agatha said, her voice wavering.
Bronwen let the carriage go and sucked at her fingers. The driver sighed. “It was a long shot, anyway,” he said, his tone kindly.
“Let’s try again,” Bronwen told him. “This time, though…” She hauled her skirt up and bunched a fold of it over her hands and fitted them beneath the edge of the carriage.
The passenger was staring at her, his wounded hand held against his chest, the other hand cradling it so he could keep the dock leaf in place. He seemed both shocked and amused at the sight of her petticoat. Bronwen didn’t care. She hadn’t had to care about such things fo
r a long while. Besides, the only way the carriage and the man would leave would be if she and the driver could lift the carriage high enough to let Agatha fit the wheel back on the axle. Practicality demanded the indecency.
She looked at the driver and nodded once more. “One…two…three.”
They lifted, blowing heavily. The carriage raised another three inches.
“More!” Agatha cried. “More!”
Abruptly, the carriage raised up the necessary four inches.
Bronwen gasped.
The passenger leaned his head to one side, from around the corner of the carriage. He was bent in such a way she could tell he had his hands beneath the side of the carriage there. “If you can do it, so can I.” He straightened, moving out of sight. “Can you get the wheel on now?” Bronwen heard him ask Agatha. There was no strain in his voice.
The carriage remained raised and steady, while Bronwen listened to the wheel being fitted back on the axle. She could feel the vibrations through her grip on the bottom of the carriage.
“Let it down,” the passenger told them.
Bronwen lowered the weight, rather than letting go. The driver copied her.
The carriage settled back an inch or two, then stayed there.
“Bugger me…” the driver murmured to himself, standing back and watching the conveyance as if it would give way and sink once more if he looked away. Then he moved around the corner to look at the wheel, pulling out the dog spike as he went. “Let me at it. Let’s get it locked in tight before it spills once more.”
Bronwen brushed her skirt back into place. There were stains on the front of it from the grime beneath the carriage and tears from pushing through hedgerows. Few people would see her before she returned home and there was still rosemary to gather.
She moved around the carriage to check how Agatha fared.
The passenger bent and picked up the fallen dock leaf and placed it back over his hand.
Agatha shook her gray hair back over her face and hunched back into her customary posture and shrugged the bag back into position against her shoulders. “We should hurry, before the rain gets here.” She looked at Bronwen.
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