“Oh, any number of times. She believes I must be warned repeatedly. I don’t know if that is because she thinks my memory is faulty or that she imagines my fear of you will increase with her repetition.” She touched his arm, he returned his gaze to her, and then she felt his shaking, a definite vibration of his body. “But—” She struggled to remain light. “But she needn’t repeat herself, because I am already terrified of you, of course.”
He drew away from her. “Of course.” He moved from the shed and to the path toward the house. The rain had slackened, but the sky was still thickly gray, and upon his cheeks rode a thin sheen of moisture.
“Are you ill, Mr. Yale?”
“In fact I am not perfectly well today, Miss Lucas.”
“Oh,
no
. You must have taken a chill from the road. Is that why you have stayed away today? You don’t wish to share it with us?”
“I am happy to report that this is not an illness any of you can contract.” He said this grimly.
“I don’t understand.”
He stopped, turned to her, and strain showed upon his brow. “It is a temporary state, not one that you need concern yourself over. Do leave it at that, if you will.”
“You look very serious.”
“There is probably a reason for that.”
“I am supposed to take that as a hint, but instead I will now pretend to be remarkably obtuse. I was worried about you, being gone all day.”
“I am well able to take care of myself, Miss Lucas.”
“We are quite remote here, in the middle of nowhere. I only wondered where you had gone.”
This seemed to give him pause. “Were you afraid here? Without me?”
“Not afraid. It’s very peaceful here. And frankly after the constant excitement I don’t mind a day of rest in such a pleasant place. I was only worried about you.”
“Then you needn’t worry further. I will not leave again.”
“Perhaps you ought to sleep.”
“Excellent idea.”
But he did not. He attended her to the kitchen where she assisted Mrs. Polley with preparations for dinner while Owen blithely regaled them with stories of the ironworks that made Diantha’s hair stand on end.
“When my sister took the fever, they put her in the sick house. She caught the croup. Didn’t last two days after that.” His shoulders drooped.
“Those places aren’t fit for animals.” Mrs. Polley scowled. “Best you’ve found my mistress here to take you in.”
Diantha chopped herbs without finesse and cracked eggs into a bowl and was lucky she did not cut off her fingers with the knife or spill their dinner onto the floor. She had no attention for anything but the gentleman. He also watched her, shadows beneath his eyes and hands in his pockets. But he seemed unusually restless.
They ate picnic style, without ceremony in the kitchen. Owen consumed half the platter of eggs, bread, and jam the moment Mrs. Polley set it on the table. Diantha made a plate for Mr. Yale and, remarkably, he ate. Then, with a “Thank you” to Mrs. Polley and a bow to her, he left.
Diantha gobbled up the remainder of her food and went after him. She found him in the parlor, facing the hearth where the peat simmered, hands thrust deeply into his pockets, his eyes closed. He opened them as she entered and turned to her.
“Forgive my hasty exit, if you will, Miss Lucas.”
“You are truly ill.” She went toward him and he withdrew from her a step. She halted, her stomach turning over.
“I am less than comfortable, it is true.” His jaw seemed very tight.
“Perhaps you have taken Mrs. Polley’s chill.”
“Now you are repeating yourself.”
“Well, I may be, because although I’d thought before that I had a lot of courage, I may not after all, for I cannot possibly allow you to be suffering some more serious, dreadful disease, because I do not wish to sit here helplessly in the wilds of Wales and watch you
die
.”
His brow lifted. “You have a fine flare for the dramatic, Miss Lucas. Usually dormant, admittedly. But when it animates it is truly impressive.”
She wrung her hands. “You are very frustrating to converse with sometimes. Tell me what is
wrong
with you.”
He looked toward the window. “Nothing that a few fingers of brandy would not put to rights. Ah, it has begun again to rain.”
“You look like you wish to say ‘fitting’ or something equally dispiriting.”
“Not at all. It is only that when one has spent a night outside in the rain without sleep, a night enjoyed within doors in a fire-heated room seems a vast luxury.” He smiled then, but barely, and his eyes held a peculiar look. The look of the predator again.
A shiver skipped up her spine. “You spent last night outside in the rain? After exhorting me to find a bedchamber in which to sleep?”
“I fully admit to being a hypocrite. Throw me in irons and bear me to the hangman’s noose, if you wish. I will be there soon in any case.” He said this last seemingly as an afterthought.
“Now who’s the nonsensical one? You are irrational. You should go to sleep.”
“Thank you, I will remain here. But you are welcome to go yourself.”
“It is only dusk.”
For a moment his eyes flashed bleakly, a shadow of desperation like that night in the hotel corridor in Knighton when he had touched her, that night that he did not remember because he had drunk too many spirits.
Then, abruptly, she understood. Or thought she did.
“But you won’t have a few fingers of brandy now,” she said slowly. “Or even one. Will you?”
His gaze shifted to her face but he said nothing.
“You have ceased drinking spirits, haven’t you? Altogether.”
“You—” He paused, and seemed to reconsider, then said only, “I have.”
“And it is making you ill.”
A moment’s silence, then: “Yes.”
Another silence stretched during which she was entirely unable to say the many things that rushed to her tongue. Her virtue and his honor were now tangled in a piteous mess.
“Because of what happened between us at the inn in Knighton,” she finally said.
“Because of that,” he replied.
Her unsteady hands found a chair and she lowered herself into it. “You should sit down.”
“I am comfortable standing.”
“You look about as comfortable as my sister Charity when my mother tried to marry her to Lord Savege. Before he married Serena, that is.”
A smile creased his delicious mouth. “I hadn’t heard that story.”
“They all keep it very quiet. It was one of the reasons my mother left, I think.” She could not look at him directly now. “She was disappointed in her high hopes for Charity.”
A pause. “And what of her hopes for you?”
“Oh, she had none to speak of for me. Charity is very beautiful and demure, of course.”
“Ah.”
He could not possibly understand, not this handsome gentleman, elegant and well mannered even when he was ill and in the impossible situation into which she had gotten him with her reckless quest and her brazen behavior.
“My father always said he would cease drinking spirits,” she said. “He did so once, but he didn’t last the sennight. I was very young, but I remember it because after several days when he wished to drink his whiskey again he told me to fetch him the bottle.”
“And did you?”
“I refused.” She shrugged. “I liked him better without the whiskey. He was more enjoyable to talk with. Not that day, of course. He was furious, and when my mother returned home she locked me in my bedchamber. Shortly after that my father became ill. My mother said he drank himself to an early grave.”
There was another very long silence then during which nothing stirred but muffled sounds from the kitchen and Ramses’ soft snores from the hearth rug.
“This is not the first time.”
Her breaths stilled. It seemed he would confide in her after all, this man who owned secrets she feared she could not hope to understand.
“How was it that time?” she asked. “Those times?”
“That time. Better than this. Considerably better.”
She took a big breath and stood up. “It goes against my feelings on the matter in general, but you should not do this. Not now, at least. If I promise not to—”
“No. Be still.”
“Be
still
?”
“Rather, as still as you are able.” It seemed that he wished to smile, but he looked remarkably poorly, for all his elegant cravat and coat and perfectly handsome face. His eyes were the worst, as though the hungry predator searched for something he could not find and the desperation was building even as they spoke.
“You look peculiar.” She moved a step toward him and this time he did not retreat. “You are thinking about taking me home again.” His mind must have gone where hers had. It would be so much easier for him if she simply weren’t his responsibility. Then he could do as he wished, go where he wished, drink whatever he chose without fear of her throwing herself at him. “I would be if I were you.”
“Then it is a good thing for you that you are not me.”
But she could not be satisfied with this, not when his gaze seemed now to consume her, each feature of her face at a time.
“Then what are you thinking about?”
His attention fixed on her mouth. “The . . .”
She could not breathe properly. “The . . . ?”
“I cannot stop thinking about”—his gaze rose to her eyes—“the cellar.”
She must be very stupid. “The cellar?”
He swallowed and she saw the rigid movement of his throat above his neck cloth. “Last night I emptied the bottles in the drawing room and the library, but . . .”
Oh
. “But there is a wine cellar belowstairs, isn’t there?”
He nodded, a ripple of a shiver crossing his shoulders quite visibly. She had not really understood until this moment.
Now she did.
She set her hands on her hips. “Then we must empty those bottles as well.”
“No.”
“Do you want to give up on this, then, after all? It would be easier, of course, at least while I am demanding that you—”
“No.”
They looked at one another for a long moment.
He took a tight breath. “Down to the cellar it seems we must go.”
“I can do it alone,” she offered.
“No.”
“I really should tally the number of times you say that word to me.” Beginning with the moment he had stopped kissing her in the inn at Knighton, then had done so anyway. The moment that had led them here.
A
s it happened, he was little help after all, except in keeping her company, and at least this way she could watch him and make certain he did not expire on the spot. The wine cellar was small and dark but remarkably dry and removed from the kitchen where Mrs. Polley had fallen asleep.
He leaned against the doorjamb and seemed more at ease. But he traced the path of liquid from each bottle into the drain with an increasingly feverish stare.
“The clarets must go first,” he murmured.
“Why? Are they the strongest?”
“God, no. I simply don’t care for claret.”
“Then we should empty them last.” She took up the nearest bottle of brandy and glanced over the racks stacked with bottles lying on their sides. “Uncorking each is something of a chore. I don’t know how butlers do this every day. My fingers are already beginning to blister.”
“Break the necks.” His voice was tight.
She did not look at him. She would beg him to go upstairs, but she knew he would not. He was a very strong man. He had borne with her for days already, after all, and now he was doing this. For her.
“Break them on what?”
“A rock.” He looked grim.
“Outside?”
“Outside.”
“In the rain?”
“On the side of the well.”
“The well? Then the water will be—”
“It is dry.”
“How do you know that?”
He stared at her, his eyes slightly glassy now.
“All right,” she mumbled. “But then I shall have to carry them all out there.”
“I will help.”
She donned her cloak and he his coat, and armful after armful they lugged the contents of the cellar—five score bottles in all—to the well beyond the kitchen door.
He sat on the wall at the edge of the courtyard in the rain and watched her snap each bottle on the rock and pour its contents into the well.
“That one smelled horrid.” She wrinkled up her nose.
“It did not.”
“You cannot smell them from all the way over there.”
“Care to wager on that?”
“I suppose not.” She shook another bottle dry then threw it down the well shaft. “We shall have to compensate these poor people for the ruination of their cellar.”
“Indeed.”
Rain pattered softly now on the glistening gray stone of the well and the grass between them, the dusk advancing into night.
“You can go inside, you know. I can finish here quite well on my own.”
“I do not wish to go inside.”
She sighed. “You do not wish to leave sight of all these bottles of wine, I suppose.”
“I do not wish to leave sight of a pretty girl.”
Her pulse did a little uncomfortable leap, which was silly, because although she had thrown off her spots and fat she was by no means pretty. But he was possibly a little delirious.
“If you can smell the wine from such a distance,” she said, willing away her swift heartbeats, “what else can you smell?”
“You.”
Another leap, quite a bit more forceful. “R-Really? What do I smell like?”
“Fresh air.”
If he’d said something silly, like roses, she would have known he was flattering emptily. Instead, warmth invaded her in crucial places that she couldn’t like. He made her feel hot and off kilter, but she could do nothing to satisfy that feeling, so she wished he wouldn’t.
“You are being metaphorical, aren’t you?”
“No. You actually smell like fresh air.”
His words pleased her far too much. Perhaps Mrs. Polley was right and he was the devil sent to frustrate her.
The remainder of the wine flowed down the well. She shook out her weary hands and wrists and followed him into the house.
“I am exhausted.”
“I am rather exhausted myself, and I only watched.” He drew the thick bolt on the front door and it thunked into place.
“How do you feel?”
“Do not ask me that.”
“Why not?”
“Because, contrary to expectations, I don’t care for you in the role of nursemaid. To me.”
Expectations?
“Why not?”
He looked down at her and his eyes seemed for a moment at peace, gently silver in the candlelight. “You ask too many questions, minx.”
“I like it when you call me minx. No one ever has, you know.”
“I confess myself somewhat shocked.”
“I am not yet out in society and there is no one around Glenhaven Hall or the Park that would call me such a thing. Except you. But you have so rarely visited.” She thought then an astounding thing, that perhaps she had not been entirely honest with herself about her memories of him, that perhaps she had remembered her brief encounters with him too well. “Will you turn in now?” she managed over the sudden hammering of her heart. “You do look tired.”
“I am, rather.” He bowed. “Good night, minx.” He turned and made his way up the stairs.
Diantha went to the kitchen still warm from the fire and draped Mrs. Polley with a blanket. Then she climbed the stairs and found the bed in which she and her companion had slept the night before, the linens still musty but dry. Curling up beneath wool blankets that smelled of camphor balls, she lay there with her uncomfortable thoughts and worried about him.
A
s day broke she woke with renewed courage and confidence. Sleep healed all ills, and she had thrown off her silly notions. Young girls would have foolish
tendres
for elegant gentlemen and she could not chastise herself for having had one herself, especially since he’d been so gallant that time. Today they would again set off on their journey and once they found her mother he would go his own way and she would no longer constantly think about him.
Snatching a piece of bread from the kitchen, with a light step she returned to the foyer. He stood at the base of the stair, hollow-eyed and gaunt-cheeked.
“Miss Lucas, if you would be so kind, I require your assistance.”
“To stand?”
He seemed to attempt a smile. “To drive me on a short errand.”
“An errand?” She felt wholly incapable of forming longer sentences. He had not recovered overnight. Her heart felt atrociously tight.
“Owen informs me that there is a village nearby, including a shop at which I might purchase several items of which I am in need. I fear that I am not up to my best this morning. I would appreciate your help.”
She swallowed back her distress and the intense desire to throw her arms about him. “You have it, of course.”
He gestured toward the door, his other hand clutching the knob at the bottom of the stair rail so that the knuckles were white. “After you, madam.”
“But there is no carriage.”
“The carriage house boasts a modest gig.”
“There is no carriage
horse
.”
“Galahad will suffer it. He has before.”
“He has?” She went at his side across the yard toward the stable.
“On occasion. Will you mind it?”
“Of course not. But why didn’t you send Owen?”
“He is sleeping, as well he should be. He has worked hard and deserves rest.”
“That’s very considerate of you.”
The gig was modest indeed; upon the box, they sat touching from shoulder to thigh. She could contrive no suitable conversation; the pleasure of this connection was too sharp.
The village was not far along the narrow road that ran beside the stream, tucked into a crevice of the valley. It wasn’t much of a village, in truth, only a handful of buildings and a squat stone church that in comparison to the abbey seemed negligible.
He seemed to know precisely where to go, pointing her to a cottage with a trellis festooned with vines that glistened with rain. He descended from the carriage and offered his hand.
She took it, which was strong but not steady. “I should probably be assisting you down.”
“As you are the one wearing skirts this arrangement must suffice.”
She squeezed her fingers into his. “You will tell me if I can help you, won’t you?”
“You are helping me now.”
Two men emerged from the next building and peered at them quite blatantly. Mr. Yale drew her hand onto his arm and nodded to them.
“Good day, sir,” one said with a narrowed eye, but he bowed. He was an older man, gruff of face and whisker and neatly dressed like any man of Glen Village back in Devon might be. Her escort nodded then opened the door accompanied by a jingle of bells.
Within, all was fragrant of roses, rosemary, and sage. Little brown bottles lined shelves, candles of many hues were stacked in piles about the place, and jars stuffed with dried herbs and prettily colored dried flowers. A woman with a mass of gray hair snaking around her head topped with an enormous cap stood from a rocking chair in the corner and came forward.
“Well well, sir. A good day to you!” She curtsied. “And to you, miss.” But she did not take her eyes off Mr. Yale, for which Diantha couldn’t fault her. “What brings a lady and a gentleman such as yourselves to my shop today, I wonder?” Then she did look at Diantha, an up and down assessing regard. But it had nothing of scorn in it, only curiosity.
“Good day, ma’am.” Mr. Yale produced a folded paper from his waistcoat pocket. “Will you be so kind as to supply me with these items if you possess them?”
She stared at him while she unfolded the paper, then glanced down. Her brow furrowed.
“St. John’s Wort . . . Milk Thistle . . . Powder of Cayenne . . . Laud—” Her eyes snapped up, this time assessing him it seemed. “You are in luck, sir. These I have, and a few other items you might like.”
“Ah. I hoped so.”
She gave him a close look then hurried to the back of the shop and through a door.
“Whatever is Powder of Cayenne?” Diantha whispered, but the woman appeared again.
“A pepper from the Americas, miss. Dried and ground to a dust.”
“A pepper?” She flicked a glance at Mr. Yale, but his attention seemed intent upon the little paper pouches the shop mistress was now preparing at her counter. “For what is it used?”
“Certain complaints,” the woman said, her fingers deft as she scooped tiny spoonfuls of red dust into a pouch, then opened a large jar and drew out several sprigs of dried weed with the faintest hint of purple clinging to the shriveled flowers.
Diantha leaned over the herbs, inspecting. “This must be the Milk Thistle. But I don’t recognize many of the others here. What a wonderful shop you have! However do you come to have all these plants?”
“There was a young gentleman lived here not too long ago, miss, who taught me about them.” She glanced at Mr. Yale. “Now, don’t you misunderstand, miss. Molly Cerwydn learned herb craft from her mother and nobody’s been better at it in these parts in a hundred years. But this young man, well, he’d been traveling all over the world to places where they’ve got healing tricks I didn’t know about, you see. So, being eager to improve my craft, I sat him down and bid him tell me what he’d learned. The people in this village, farmers, even the animals, they’ve been glad of it ever since.”
“Whatever happened to the young man?” She ran her fingertip down the side of a big glass jar. “Is he still here telling tales of exotic lands?”
“He’s gone off to who knows where, miss. Though he’s welcome to return when he likes. Everyone here would be glad to see him again.”
Mr. Yale cleared his throat softly. “Ladies, if you will excuse me, I’ll see that the horse is well.” He set a handful of coins on the counter and went out of the shop.
Mrs. Cerwydn wrapped the packets in paper and tied them with a string. “There, miss. Now then.” She looked Diantha over carefully. Then she dug into a deep pocket in her skirt and pulled forth a bottle of brown glass the size of her hand.
Diantha stared; she had seen such a bottle before when her father was ill. Before he died.
The herbalist reached for her hand, tucked the bottle into it, and nodded. “You see that your young man there has the caring he needs.”
But he was not her young man.
Diantha curtsied, took up the package and went out of the shop. Mr. Yale stood across the street with the whiskered man. He came across to the carriage, Ramses trotting along beside. He took the package and she could see clearly the strain upon his brow.
“Back to the house?” she said quietly.
“Back to the house.” His voice was taut.
“What were you talking about with that man?” Mr. Whiskers was still looking at them, and Diantha caught a glimpse of the herbalist peering out the window, and another face in a window in the next building too. “Everybody here is madly curious about us.”
“Villagers. Always like that.” He took up the reins.
“Don’t you want me to drive?”
“If necessary, in a bit.” He snapped Galahad into motion.
Mr. Whiskers stared them down the road.
“You don’t want that man to see me driving, is that it?”
“I don’t care what that man sees.” His hands were tight around the ribbons.
“Then, why—”
“The activity is useful, Miss Lucas. It provides me something upon which to concentrate.”
She turned her attention from the road onto his handsome face fraught with tension. “Is it that bad?”
A muscle in his jaw contracted. “It is that bad.”
O
nce back at the abbey, with Galahad unharnessed, he took the herbalist’s package and bottle, thanked her, and went into the house without awaiting her. She followed, but to the kitchen where she found Mrs. Polley sniffling over a pot of tea and a table spread with biscuit dough.
“It seems you’ve found sugar.” Diantha tucked her companion’s shawl tighter about her shoulders.
“The boy found it.” Mrs. Polley rolled out the dough. “He’s a wily one. I don’t like to know whose kitchen’s wanting now.”
“He
stole
the sugar from someone’s
house
?” She sat down beside the round little form of her companion. “Goodness, I’ve been gone from my friend’s home no more than a sennight and I’ve broken more laws than I can count.” And Mrs. Polley didn’t know the half of it, certainly not the laws of morality she’d broken. She picked at a corner of the dough, the tawny sugar crystals tempting. “I suppose I always knew I would come to no good end. My mother has.”