Rogues & Desperadoes Series
Lord Rogue
Moonlight and Memories
Shelter from the Storm
Wayward Angel
Denim and Lace
Cheyennes Lady
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Mystic Isle
Mystic Guardian
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Mysteries:
Family Genius Series
Evil Genius
Undercover Genius
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Twin Genius
Twisted Genius
Silver Enchantress
Dark Lords and Dangerous Ladies
Copyright © 1988, 2016 Patricia Rice
First Publication: 1988 New American Library
Book View Café: 2016
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Silver Enchantress
Excerpt - Silver Enchantress
England, September, 1740
Elli carried in an armful of firewood and stacked it by the grate, then fed smaller kindling into the flames to revive last night’s ashes. She enjoyed watching the small flames licking the dry twigs, growing larger and hungrier until the whole kitchen filled with their warmth.
The coziness of Dulcie’s kitchen always attracted her, and she worked to keep it that way. The kettle sang a merry tune as the fire grew strong, and Elli reached for the tin mugs hanging on the hooks on the wall. She brought down the blackened frying pan, too, and sliced rashers into it. Dulcie enjoyed waking to the smell of coffee and breakfast cooking. It was one of the reasons she had first allowed Elli to make herself at home there.
Elli’s thoughts were far from the past now as she stirred the meat and held a slab of bread above the fire. The day had begun with a frost upon the ground, but the sun promised a lovely day, at last, and she had plans for just such a day.
Dulcie waddled into the tiny kitchen area behind her shop, rubbing the arthritic hip that had kept her awake most of the night. “You’re a dear, my girl. What’s an old woman to do without a young one about?” She settled at the old wooden table, inhaling the aroma from the mug Elli set before her.
Elli made no reply, but lifted the pan from the fire, sopping the grease onto the toasted bread and producing plates for both of them. She hummed contentedly as she worked.
The old woman sighed and shook her head. She would give a year’s earnings to hear the tale that never passed those silent lips. The first time Elli had appeared in the village she had been just a child tagging behind Nan and her assorted brood. Nan had always wanted a girl, instead of that unruly herd of young hooligans. But Nan had sworn she was her sister’s child and none could prove differently.
Over the years the child had taken to wandering into the village on her own. At first, one or the other of Nan’s brood would fetch her, but after a while she came and went on her own. There was no questioning the girl, but the occasional blackening bruise upon her fair wrist or cheek spoke volumes. Her willingness to work had opened doors as well as hearts.
Eventually the child had become a part of the village, sleeping wherever there was a spare bed, eating wherever there was an extra bowl. One of the men had sought out the girl’s family, only to discover them gone from the hut they had occupied for so long. The villagers could have turned her over to the parish, but none seemed willing to agree to that. So the child stayed, adopted by an entire town.
The girl’s silence irritated some but was accepted by most. Many thought her a half-wit and laughed at her daydreaming ways, but Dulcie knew better. She had once worked in a house of quality and knew their looks and manners. This changeling child had the high, fine cheekbones and straight, proud nose of an aristocratic lineage. Her long, slender figure was repeated in the fine bones of her hands and feet. By-blow she might be, but witless she was not. Her seemingly mindless wanderings had a purpose, though it differed from the prosaic ones of the villagers.
“Fine day today. Off to the woods, are you?” she inquired, watching as the girl bit hungrily into the toast.
Elli nodded, sketching with her hands in the air as she did with a stub of charcoal when she had paper. The child had learned to coax color from many of the plants in the woods, and Dulcie knew the berries would be ripe enough today to make red.
Dulcie nodded in understanding, wishing she had the coins to buy the child real watercolors. But this was a poor village, and the meager living she made at mending and sewing scarcely kept a roof over her head. The others, too, had families to feed and clothe. Elli received what little they had to give, but coins for watercolors none had to spare.
The girl moved with grace about the tiled floor, nearly dancing as she scrubbed the last of the grease from the pan and washed the breakfast utensils. Dulcie guessed she must nearly be fifteen years of age by now and sighed again. The skinny child of a year ago was rapidly blossoming into a woman. There were not many boys hereabouts, not since Nan and her brood had left, leastways, but men had a way of searching out unattached young women. This one would be no exception. She wondered how much the child knew about the ways of men but hesitated to broach the subject. Every woman learned soon enough.
Elli gave Dulcie a peck on the cheek and danced out the door. She stopped at the Clancys’ back door and helped the youngest pull up his breeches before following him into the kitchen. The baby wailed for its breakfast while his mother spooned gruel for the others. Elli relieved her of the pot and finished the task while Molly gratefully picked up the babe and quieted it with a full breast. For a fifteen-year-old, Elli had learned more about life than many more educated girls.
Molly gave her a hunk of day-old bread and a slab of cheese as she left. Elli hugged the baby and wandered on. She had no regrets at losing the home in the woods where she had spent so many years. Nan had tried to love her, but the others never had. They had begrudged every morsel that passed her lips. The boys had been rough with her, knowing she could not cry for help or tell on them. As they grew older, they had been worse than rough, and she did not miss their constant harassment. The village was her home. Its inhabitants were her family. She was as content here as she could be anywhere.
That was not to say she was any angel, she knew. When aroused, her anger was violent and rebellious. One of the boys still bore the scars of the red-hot coals she had flung at him. The blacksmith had nearly lost a finger when he made the mistake of touching her in the wrong place while her hands were within easy reach of a knife. Luckily for everyone, her temper stayed well buried for the most part, a hidden demon that haunted her dreams.
Elli switched at the long grass beside the road as she wandered away from the village, sketchpad in hand. She had stolen the sketchpad from a drunken soldier who had stayed at the tavern one night. He had no use for it where he was going, and his poor attempts at likenesses had not been worth the waste of the precious paper.
A carriage rolled along the road ahead, approaching the village Elli had just left. Carriages were rare in these parts, and this one seemed to have some difficulty on the rutted cart path. It lurched from side to side, sending up clouds of dust.
Elli stepped from the road into the tall grass, watching with amusement and fascination as the unwieldy vehicle hit a bump and the driver cursed. She admired the proud bays working so diligently to haul their heavy load.
Today, she had chosen to wear a wide-pocketed apron over an old frock of Molly’s, taken in and hemmed up until it was good as new. The morning sun glittered on the dew, as well as the auburn braid she’d tied with her prized possession, a simple yellow ribbon.
Elli could see a pale woman garbed in mourning inside the carriage, her hair capped and hidden from view. A man sat on her far side, but Elli could discern little of him except the rich blue of his coat. She wished she could squeeze a color such as that from her plants and berries, but so far she had succeeded in only a watered-down version.
The woman glanced out as the carriage rolled by,
and for one brief moment their eyes met. Elli smiled and waited for the dust to settle so she might walk on. The woman screamed.
Puzzled, Elli hurried on her way, eager to reach the place where the best berries grew before others found them.
Inside the carriage, the woman frantically tugged at her husband’s arm as he yelled for the driver to halt.
“Emily! It was Emily! I swear it! Not her ghost, John! Oh, God, please stop and catch her! John, make him stop!” Her shouts grew more hysterical as the driver struggled to bring the horses to a halt.
Her husband looked harried and worried at the same time, nervously patting his wife’s hand and muttering reassurances as he tried to glance down the road behind them. He knew better than to expect to see their dead daughter risen from the grave, but his wife was not normally an excitable woman. Her daughter’s untimely death had strained her health, but he never had reason to suspect it had taxed her mind.
The carriage finally came to a halt and a footman opened the door. Sir John attempted to persuade his wife to stay inside, but she insisted on following him into the roadway.
“There she is, going into the woods! Oh, follow her, John, hurry please!”
They had traveled nearly half a mile from where the girl had veered off into the tall grass and strode toward the stand of trees. The man gazed down at his wife in incredulity. Normally a placid man of middle age, he had not run since he was a boy, and he had no intention of taking up the practice now.
He turned to the footman and gestured toward the disappearing child down the road. “Follow that girl, Quigley. Tell her my wife would like to speak with her, if you please.”
The young footman hastened to do as told.
As the lad ran in pursuit of the girl, the woman wilted against her husband’s arm. “Oh, John, am I losing my mind, then? Is this what happens when grief takes its toll? She was so young, John. It just does not seem fair.”
Awkwardly, he held her close and patted her shoulder. “Don’t cry, Emma. You’ll see. It’s the hair, I should imagine. The hair is much like Emily’s. But she’ll be some robust country miss with rotting teeth or crossed eyes or pox marks. Quigley will bring her back, and I’ll give her a shilling to be on her way. You can’t help wishing, my dear. I’d give all I had to bring Emily back for you, but I daresay she’s happy where she is. We must remember that, Emma.”
The woman grew quiet but refused to return to the carriage. She had seen what she had seen, and she refused to believe her eyes had confused a snaggletooth peasant with her own lovely, delicate daughter.
Quigley followed as best as he could, but this was unfamiliar terrain. As soon as the girl slipped into the shade of the trees, she was lost to him. Brambles tore his clothes and small branches slapped his face as he sought some discernible path or a sight of the mysterious girl who had sent the missus into tears.
Elli heard his thrashing and cursing and paused behind a wide oak to discover the source. Unimpressed with the young man in fancy gray livery who had obviously followed her into this lonely place, she slipped away, leaving him to his plight. Men did not rate high on her list of favorite things.
In despair at disappointing the man who had treated him well for so many years, Quigley finally fought his way from the woods back to the waiting carriage. The absence of his quarry told his tale without words, and the lady began to sob. Sir John questioned him with his eyes.
“It weren’t no use, sir. There’s no sign of a path. I called, but she didn’t answer. Disappeared, she did, like a deer at dawn.”
Or a ghost, but Sir John did not put that thought into words. “Thank you, Quigley, you did your best. Make inquiries in the village, will you? She must live hereabouts. I’ll take Lady Summerville to the inn and return to help you.”
Quigley bowed and set off toward the village, and the lady hugged her husband tearfully.
“Come, Emma. You are overwrought. This journey has been too much for you. We will make you comfortable, then settle this mystery at once.”
They climbed into the carriage and rode off, leaving the hapless Quigley to question the suspicious and closemouthed villagers.
By the end of the day, the young footman had resorted to sitting on a stump beside a small tavern, whittling a piece of kindling and watching the world go by. The carriage had not returned and neither had the girl, if she existed at all.
Returning with her sketchpad crammed with colors and leaves, her apron filled with the treasures she had found, Elli spied the young man at his post before she had passed the first house. She turned down an alleyway and entered Molly’s kitchen from the rear.
Brown-eyed, dark-haired Molly glanced up in relief. “There you are. There’s a gent from one of the fancy houses askin’ after you. What’ve you gone and done now? Stolen more apples from his lordship’s trees?”
Elli shrugged and sampled the stew simmering over the fire. She was aware of doing nothing wrong, though she considered his lordship’s apples the same as the leaves on the trees or the chestnuts on the ground, free for the taking. The fancy young man would never find her if she did not wish to be found, and he could prove nothing against her if he did.
Presenting a handful of acorns to the toddler, Elli slipped out into the deepening twilight. Molly knew nothing of interest. Perhaps Dulcie would.
Mischief made her cross the road near enough to the tavern for the young man to catch sight of her bright hair and yellow gown from a distance. He yelled and ran after her, but she paid him no heed.
Dulcie gave Elli a look of irritation as she entered by the back door. “What have you been up to now that the swells are looking after you, you naughty heathen?” She demanded as Elli stopped to warm her fingers at the fire.
She looked up with a smile and a shrug. Even if she could speak, what could she say? She had done nothing.
“Well, there’s some gent’s man out there askin’ questions of you. I’m surprised you didn’t see him when you came in. All day he’s been out there. Proper grand, he is. Mayhap you ought to see what he wants.”
That suggestion struck Elli as ludicrous. She was curious, certainly, but so was the cat who had looked upon the queen.
A pounding at the shop door warned that the footman had begun his rounds again. Shrugging, Dulcie dragged herself back to the front room.
Elli listened as the liveried servant inquired after “the young girl in a yellow frock” seen crossing the street in this direction.
“Isn’t there enough girls where you come from that you must pester after ours?” Dulcie demanded.
“No, ma’am,” the man said. “It’s not that, you see. It’s me mistress. She’s been taken ill since her daughter died. And then she sees this girl what looks so much like Miss Emily, she cries and carries on so that Sir John sent me to look for her. He don’t mean her no harm. It’s just to make the lady happy, you see.”
Elli heard desperation in his voice, and she scowled at the pots on the walls. She had no great amount of faith in her fellow man, but she did not want to cause anyone trouble, either. She intended to go nowhere alone with the man, but she supposed it would do no harm to show she existed.
There was no sense getting Dulcie in trouble. Elli let herself out the back door and walked around to the front. The sun had not yet set. There would be light enough to see the stranger’s expression when she walked in on them.
In the distance, she saw a carriage approaching, probably returning for the servant. She had best end this quickly. Then she could escape into the woods, if necessary. No one ever found her there.
She opened the shop door and brought the colors of the setting sun into the room with her. Quigley swung around and gaped openly.
“This here’s Elli. Be she the one you seek?” Dulcie inquired innocently.
The young man’s thin, dark face was a picture of astonishment as he studied her. “How do you do Miss Elli. . .?”
Elli curtsied and wandered past him, into the shop. She was starving, an
d mischief brightened her eyes as she produced an apple from her apron and munched it. Dulcie nearly turned purple, but the young man didn’t turn a hair.
“Is there a surname you are called by?” Quigley asked.
“She don’t speak,” Dulcie informed him, apparently relieved that he had shown no recognition of the forbidden apple.
“Surely she must have a name. Who are her parents?”
The rattle of the carriage in the street ended this conversation. Quigley headed for the door to signal his employer. Dulcie and Elli exchanged looks, and Elli eased toward the back of the shop.
Elli watched astonishment and worry cross the pretty man’s countenance as he greeted the elegant lady descending from the carriage. He stepped aside to allow her in, followed by an older gentleman, who nodded approvingly.
“I see you found her, Quigley. Good work. Apologize for the delay.”
His wife’s faint cry caused the gentleman to strain to see inside the cottage.
“Beth?” The lady asked in shock, holding her fingers to her lips and staring at Elli, who shifted nervously from foot to foot.
The gentleman’s frown grew more anxious. “Emma, you should not have come. You have over-tired yourself.”
“No, John, look. She looks just like Beth at that age. Beth had all the coloring, everybody said. Our daughter looked more like me. Oh, my God, John, am I truly losing my mind?”
Since his wife’s sister, Elizabeth, had died at the hands of Irish highwaymen years ago, Sir John seriously feared this might be so. He studied the child with more care.
He studied the thick, nearly red hair sweeping to a waistline of incredible tininess. Delicately boned, expressive features framed wide, light eyes of intense curiosity, and Sir John understood his wife’s hysterics. Seen hastily, she would easily pass for Emily’s twin.
As the girl hesitantly stepped toward them, John gasped. He had known his wife and her sister since they were young girls. They had grown up on the estate neighboring his. Elizabeth had been the younger, wilder, and more beautiful sister of the two. He remembered her well, now that he was faced with her image. But the uncanny resemblance was not what had made him gasp. It was the eyes.
Love Forever After Page 36
