When she’d finished, he gave her a rather wry smile. “Perhaps I should have known too.”
“Why?”
“Well, I told you Jenny’s portrait was discovered in the attic, but what I didn’t say was that it was found because a bird was trapped there, and a footman was sent up to get it out. The bird was a robin, and it lighted on the portrait, which was under a cloth behind an old cupboard. In his efforts to catch the bird, the footman pulled the cloth off, and realized he’d found a lost portrait. The robin then flew out of its own accord, the footman came down and mentioned his discovery to Beech, who told me. I went up to investigate, realized whose portrait is was, and had it brought down.”
“Did you see the robin?”
“No.”
“If you had, I’m sure it would have had some odd white feathers in its wings.”
Rowan plucked a piece of wild thyme, and rubbed it between his fingers. “You know you wondered the other night if that damned mallard was connected with it all? Well, given all that’s become clear since then, I’ve just thought of an amusing coincidence. The first Lord Avenbury was named Francis.”
“Really?” She smiled and turned her head to look at him. “Why do you think Jenny can speak to me, but Robin can’t?”
“Marigold, the abilities of supernatural birds are a mystery to me,” he replied with a slight laugh.
She sighed. “Jenny keeps begging me to save them, but I don’t know what to do. All I’m certain of is that I have to be at your side to fight the curse, and that’s why marigolds appear in Jenny’s portrait. On the day of the will, Robin brought me a marigold and rowan leaf in front of Falk, and I saw for a moment that Falk was alarmed. Now he and his friends have burned the same plants at the oak. He knows that while I’m with you I am a threat to his plans. Rowan, I’m sure I have a strength or power of some sort, for I felt it yesterday when I touched the standing stone, but I don’t know what it is or how to use it. Falk is aware of it, but is satisfied that his strength is much greater. He regards me as something of a single candle next to his blazing sun!”
Rowan answered a little teasingly. “Don’t belittle yourself, madam, for Robin and Jenny are relying on your candle. And so am I, come to that.”
“Don’t joke, it’s not funny.”
“All right, let’s be serious again. Something puzzles me. Why do you think Robin caused Merlin’s death? After all, it helped Falk, not you. Because of that single event, he was able to create a will to suit himself, and take Castell Arnold from Perry.”
She suddenly perceived the answer. “By removing Merlin, Robin freed me to marry you!”
“But it was pure chance that brought us together at the Spread Eagle!”
“Was it?” She looked intently at him. “You said you stayed there because your appointment at Windsor Castle took much longer than expected. Why did it take longer?”
“Well I...” He drew a long breath, and then laughed a little sheepishly. “There was a robin in the Queen’s apartment, and her ladies were having the vapors. It took some time to quieten things.”
“I hazard it was our robin. You see? It wasn’t chance after all!”
“All right, I accept that chance probably had little to do with it, although how it could be foreseen that on such minute acquaintance I would ask you to marry me, I fail to see.”
“Rowan, you are the one who has always believed in fate. I’m in the portrait, and so I have to be here. Therefore you asked me because you were bound to. And if Robin and Jenny’s interest in me is anything to go by, I’m not meant to be a helpless bystander. There is something I have to do. Robin and Jenny know I can help. They aren’t ordinary birds, they’re supernatural, and Jenny can speak, so why doesn’t she
Tell
me!”
“Being supernatural may not mean she actually knows. Maybe you have to find out for yourself.”
She turned her head to look at him. “I’m determined everyone is to live happily ever after.”
He laughed. “As in the best fairy tales?”
“Yes!” she said fiercely. “I’m not going to let Falk and or a miserable old Tudor alchemist dictate
my
fate! Nor yours, nor Robin’s nor Jenny’s. Nor Perry’s, come to that.”
“What a veritable tiger you are, Lady Avenbury.”
“I fight to defend what I love and what is mine.”
“I know you do.”
“I’ll fight to keep you from Alauda,” she said suddenly, hardly knowing the words were there until they’d been said.
He smiled a little regretfully. “I, er, fear I haven’t been entirely fair with you concerning Alauda. The fact is I don’t love her anymore, nor is she still my mistress. It’s over.”
Marigold sat up to stare at him. “Over?” she repeated incredulously. “But, why didn’t you tell me?”
“Oh, reasons ...”
“When did it end?”
“From the moment you told me she was party to what Falk perpetrated at Castell Arnold. How could I love someone who was capable of such spite?” He smiled up at her. “Especially when the victim is so very, very fascinating, being not only an amazing forger, but a gifted mimic as well.”
He assumed a lisping tone. “Oh, Alauda, Alauda, you’d betht know the earl is therching for you!” Marigold was dumbstruck. Even without speaking to Alauda, he’d
known
it was her?
Her stunned silence amused him. “As to the note you composed so carefully, did you really think I wouldn’t recognize my own paper and ink? I knew Alauda hadn’t sent that second note, but as I had no intention of complying with the first, I fear you labored in vain, Marigold.”
“If you wish to make me feel foolish, you’re succeeding.”
He pulled her back down to the grass, and leaned over her. “The last thing I wish to do is make you feel foolish, Marigold,” he said softly, drawing a thyme-scented fingertip gently across her lips. “The truth is, I was flattered by your efforts to obstruct Alauda. No, that’s not strictly true, for I’m
still
flattered.”
“You’re my husband, Rowan, and I didn’t intend to share you with her.”
“You’ve never had to share me.”
“But I would have had to at Vauxhall Gardens if I hadn’t followed you, wouldn’t I?” she said quietly.
He shook his head. “No. I know what it may have appeared to you, but in fact I was leading her on, with every intention of informing her the liaison was over. I’m afraid I was punishing her for her treatment of you.”
“How astonishingly ungentlemanly, my lord.”
“I agree, but in mitigation I offer the fact that I had just discovered how little of a lady she really was.”
She smiled, and couldn’t resist reaching up to touch his cheek. “Well, my husband, I am a very determined wife. I’m not going to let Falk succeed in
anything
on midsummer day! This legend is mine too, remember? And I only believe in happy endings,” she whispered.
He took one of her ringlets in his hand, and parted the strands between his fingers. “I wish I could believe too, but I can’t. Marigold, I didn’t tell you it was over with Alauda because I was afraid you would feel too much for me, and be hurt because of what I think must happen in eleven days’ time.”
“I’m going to outshine his beastly sun!” she said determinedly.
“Marigold—”
She broke in. “Anyway, it’s too late to prevent me from feeling too much.”
“I can only bring you heartbreak.”
“That I suffer already, but I would rather endure an age of heartbreak because of you, than never have met you at all.”
“Oh, Marigold ...” He put his lips softly to her forehead.
She gripped his arms. “Rowan, if you no longer love Alauda, do you think you will ever be able to love me?”
“Oh, foolish, adorable Marigold, don’t you realize that I already do?” he breathed, and bent his head to kiss her.
Her arms slid joyously around him! She loved and was loved, and her heart was so full of happiness she thought it would burst. His kiss became more urgent, and she felt the sensuous brush of his tongue against hers. His scent filled her nostrils, so heady and masculine, so arousing ... He untied the drawstring on her gown, and her bodice parted to allow his hand to cup her breast. Her nipple was hard and so sensitive to his touch that her breath caught with pleasure. His lips moved from her mouth to her throat, and then down to her other breast. He took her nipple into his mouth, drawing upon it and flicking it with his tongue until she almost cried out with delight.
She felt him drag her skirts up, and then undo the front of his breeches. She held her breath with excitement as he pushed into her, filling her with his entire length. For a long moment he did not move at all, but simply lay joined with her. She felt how he throbbed within her, then he leaned up to look into her eyes.
They gazed at each other as he began to withdraw and then reentered. His strokes were long and leisurely, becoming gradually more and more imperative. She could feel herself reaching out toward something wonderful, a doorway into ecstasy. They crossed the threshold together, and were swept up into a glory of emotion and color that was so magnificent that she felt tears on her cheeks.
They lay together afterward, still joined, their hearts beating close, their fingers and limbs entwined. There was complete understanding between them, a shared intimacy so precious that neither of them wished to break it. Love enveloped them both, as warm and glowing as the sun itself.
Two afternoons later, while awaiting Rowan’s return from some business matters in Salisbury, Marigold walked alone toward the bridge over the moat. Knowing that Rowan loved her gave her a new strength and determination, and she had thought long and hard about what she might be able to do to halt the seemingly relentless march of the curse. Neither Robin nor Jenny had come to her again, so she was no wiser concerning her role, and all she could think of was touching the standing stone again, to see if she could glean some understanding of her power.
The air was very warm and still as she reached the stone. As before, the atmosphere surrounding it was very strange, and so she didn’t go too close. First she needed to summon her courage. When she touched it the first time, the experience had not been pleasant, and Rowan wasn’t here to catch her if she fell again.
She swallowed and bowed her head for a moment, trying to concentrate fully upon what she was about to do. There mustn’t be anything to distract her ... She inhaled deeply, savoring the summer sweetness of all the flowers. Everything was quiet. So quiet. Slowly she stepped closer, and stretched out her right hand to the cold stone.
Almost immediately the searing heat blazed through her fingers once more, seemingly almost to make her one with the stone. The world tilted, as if the sun were about to tumble from the heavens, and she felt the great stone circle of Avenbury begin to turn. The birds on the lake were aroused again, flapping wildly skyward as if upon a secret signal. Their cries were so piercing they seemed to echo through her as she struggled not to lose consciousness.
She began to see things. Everything was spinning as blurred shapes came into focus. Robin and Jenny, lovers, their arms entwined, their faces pale with fear. Marigold tried to call them, but she had no voice. She extended a hand. She was holding something, but what it was she did not know. The lovers’ faces brightened with desperate hope “Yes! That’s it!” cried Robin.
“The painting! The painting!” called Jenny, her voice almost lost in the shrill racket of the waterfowl. “Look at it, Marigold, look at it! The truth is there! We can’t tell you more, for you must find the answer yourself. You are the one, only you!”
Robin looked pleadingly at her. “Nine days, Marigold! You only have nine days!”
She longed to ask more, but the lovers were fading again, and all she could do was try to reach after them with whatever it was in her hand. What was it? Why couldn’t she see?
The whole world seemed to be hurtling around now. Everything was indistinct, and the noise of the birds was so loud that it hurt her ears. The sky began to splinter, and the sun fell slowly through into an awful abyss. The birds’ cries reached an earsplitting crescendo as darkness closed in, and she knew no more.
She awoke to find herself lying on the path. Beyond the soaring height of the standing stone, there was an immaculate blue heaven, where the sun shone steadily, and safely. Everything was calm and still, as if nothing had happened, she could even hear a bee on a nearby rose. She closed her eyes with relief, but then they flew open again as something hard jabbed her head. She sat up with a frightened gasp, then laughed at herself because it was only Sir Francis. The mallard was beside her on the path, and had prodded her with his bill.
“Hello,” she said, and gingerly put out her hand to touch him. He rattled his bill, and shook his tail.
“I wish you could speak,” she said wistfully.
“Quack,” he replied sympathetically, and stretched his wings. For a moment she thought he was going to fly away, but he didn’t. She glanced at the standing stone, and recalled her vision, or whatever it was that had overwhelmed her. “What was I holding in my hand?” she murmured, to herself. “Robin said it was the right thing, but I couldn’t see it.”
“Quack,” muttered the drake, clacking his bill again.
“And Jenny told me I must find the answer in the painting, but Rowan and I have looked and looked at it. I’m sure there’s nothing more to see.” Catching her skirts together, she got to her feet, but as she tried to walk back up the path, the mallard deliberately waddled in front of her, almost tripping her up. Then he stood up as tall as he could, so that he looked very long and thin, and he gave her a look that could only be described as highly indignant. It was very plain he wanted something of her.
She hesitated. “What is it?” she asked.
“Quack,” he replied, then stretched up to pull at her skirt with his bill. She was reminded of a child that wanted to be picked up. Was that what he wanted? Uncertain, she bent to him, and when he didn’t back away, she gathered him into her arms. It was exactly what he wanted, for he made a satisfied little noise, and shuffled comfortably. This was definitely
not
an ordinary duck, she thought, as she carried him toward the house.