“An that makes ye sad, eh?”
Tears spilled down her cheeks. “Very.”
“I thought o’ yer friend last night, Mistress. ’Twas late an’ I seen…” With an embarrassed cough, Tim retrieved a curry comb from the shelf and began combing Rhiannon’s tail. “’Tis lonesome here when no one comes.”
“The White Hart looks like a ruin.” She sniffed and lifted her head.
“Mail coaches stop, Mistress, an’ from time t’ time a carriage. The rest just died away. They have a new inn at Horsehouse. But now ye’re home, so the lights’ll come on, the coaches’ll be back, an’ things’ll be like always. Better.”
Elizabeth stroked Rhiannon’s velvety nose. “Oh, Tim, I wish that were true.”
Before she could start weeping again, she said good night to her ostler, left the stable, then crossed the yard. The coach guard blew his horn, signaling his passengers. Soon Tim would have to re-harness the horses, a chore he wouldn’t relish. Not because he was lazy, but because he thought the horses required a longer rest, which they probably did.
Inside the hallway, Elizabeth removed her gloves and cloak.
A coachman buttoned his second greatcoat atop his first, all the while loudly urging his passengers to finish their meals. “We’re be’ind schedule an must ’urry along!” he shouted.
The four passengers vociferously protested being rushed.
“I can’t help it if the service ’ere is slow,” the coachman fumed, wrapping his neck cloth around his throat. “We’ve a way yet ter go an I mislike drivin’ at night.”
Elizabeth walked past them into the common room. Save for a couple playing draughts and a lone man nursing a pint at the bar, the room was empty.
Grace, her old maidservant, appeared. She wore a spotted apron and a badly frayed mob cap. Eyes downcast, she carried a broom, and, as she walked, she made a halfhearted attempt to sweep the floor.
Elizabeth saw that the windows were streaked. Dust layered the pianoforte and grandfather clock. The fire barely flickered and the poker was absent. A poker would have allowed the guests to stir the ashes.
Looking up, Grace dropped her broom. “Mistress! Ye’ve come back!”
“Odd’s bones, lass! What’s happened here?”
“He’s a mean man, that Horace Exe. ’Tis like workin’ for the devil and a miserly devil at that.”
As if Grace had summoned him, Exe scurried past, chasing the departing passengers. Hand outstretched, he yelled, “One moment now! That’ll be three and six-pence.”
“But we haven’t had time to eat,” a portly passenger protested. He began to wrap one of the fatty steaks in his handkerchief.
“Is it my fault you’re slow eaters?” Exe snapped. “And it’s against the rules to take food from the inn. Some would call it stealing.”
“See, Mistress?” Grace pouted. “That’s what I put up with. Can ye imagine my ’umble disgrace? I’m thinkin’ of other employ, I can tell ye that!”
“He’s a bad one,” Elizabeth agreed. She knew exactly what Horace Exe was up to. It was an old trick, one used by many unscrupulous innkeepers, one her father would have died before employing. The same food would be set out for the next round of passengers. No wonder so few frequented the White Hart.
Grace balled her hands in her apron. “I can hardly keep from speakin’ me mind to that old skinflint. Oh, but wouldn’t I love to tell him what I think of him.”
At any other time Elizabeth would have questioned Grace about her unaccustomed reticence, but now she simply retreated to her room. So the White Hart had come to this. A cheerless inn with a miserly keeper who cheated his customers of their rightful due.
I don’t care. Just let me be.
Her bedroom possessed an unused, musty smell. Elizabeth fumbled for the tinder box beside the candle, struck the flint and steel, caught the linen tinder on fire, then inserted a match tipped with brimstone. Raising the lit candle, she inspected her room. It looked the same, yet not the same. For one thing, dust decorated her writing table, bureau, and washstand.
She sat heavily upon the bed and ran her fingers across her mother’s quilt. The top layer of material was smooth and thin from years of use. Her warming pan, which had heated her covers on thousands of winter nights, rested at the foot of the bed. It felt as relentlessly cold as the rest of the room.
“Everything’s wrong,” she whispered. Rising and replacing the candle upon the table, she watched shadows flicker across the wall. All the lights and laughter were gone. Gone were the tantalizing kitchen smells, the purposeful bustle of servants, the feeling of home.
She had once believed that without Rand all the colors of excitement and laughter would disappear. She had once thought that without Rand the flowers would turn gray, the trees white, the sun black. But that had been an abstract summation, formed when Rand had been very much alive. Now, with his death, her worst fears had been realized.
Elizabeth thrust her hands beneath her skirts in an effort to warm them. She felt cold outside and hollow within. I have nothing left to live for. If only I could will myself to die like Janey. Perhaps I’m already dead. My mind and heart feel that way. Perhaps ’tis only my body that does not yet realize it is a cover for a corpse.
Suddenly, she heard Rand’s voice, loud and clear: “Where is your courage, Bess? I love you for your sense of adventure.”
The voice was inside her head, of course, but she understood that Rand wouldn’t want her to admit defeat. Rand wouldn’t want her to lie down and die. What would Rand want? What had he told her during her all too brief prison visit?
Something about how the only thing that made better copy than a penitent highwayman was an arrogant one. Something about how the chapbooks would say that he was rebellious to the end.
But Elizabeth could say it much better than the chapbooks.
Charles Beresford was gone, but there were other publishers. They would appreciate her established reputation, not to mention the profits her novels generated. Suppose she wrote a fictional account of a highwayman whose courage and convictions defied all reason? The tale would be told by the heroine, and not one of her vaporous, timid heroines either.
No, by God! This heroine would love her highwayman to distraction, give up her inheritance, perhaps even her virtue…
Three hours later, Elizabeth put down her quill, rubbed her neck, and stretched her sore shoulders. She had written a beginning, just a beginning, but already she felt warmer, less hollow. She would call her book A Highwayman Comes Riding, and through her prose Rand Remington would live forever.
The shutters rattled unexpectedly, as if disturbed by an unseen hand. Remembering Rand’s promise, Elizabeth’s heart leapt. Perhaps he had waited for her at the peel tower. Then, when she didn’t appear, he had decided to visit the inn.
Absurd! Rand was dead. A sudden thought made her bite her lower lip. Could Walter have lied about the tarring? The press accounts hadn’t continued beyond the execution itself. If Rand had not been tarred, he might conceivably have survived the hanging.
Stumbling to the window, she swung open the shutters. Wind swirled the powdery snow above the cobblestones and caused bits of debris to jerk across the courtyard like drunken dancers. Only the lonely light from the stables disturbed the darkness. Elizabeth glimpsed Tim, standing in the lantern’s glow, maintaining a vigil for the coaches that no longer came.
***
The next day Elizabeth felt fatigued, both in body and spirit. Glancing toward her pen and ink pot, she decided that her sense of emptiness could best be assuaged by riding.
The next chapter could wait.
Tim saddled Rhiannon and Elizabeth rode to Great Whernside. She crossed fields dotted with sheep and passed cattle huddled close to their barns. She galloped across bleak moors and barrows, then followed icy streams into dark, secret valleys. She halted occasio
nally to uncap a silver flask and sip lemonade baptized with brandy. The brandy lit a fire inside her belly, but her extremities still felt numb. Near the peel tower she reined in Rhiannon. A flood of memories overwhelmed her and she quietly wept.
She remembered Rand as he’d stood framed by the rubble, his hair blowing in the wind. She remembered the feel of him as he’d swept her from his stallion and she pressed against a chest that rippled with finely hewn muscles. And yet that same rock-hard chest had adapted, yielded, enticed, and protected her.
Elizabeth gazed at the spot where they had lain, when the night had swirled around them and the moon had raced overhead. She could taste Rand’s tongue and smell his sandalwood scent. She could feel the hardness of his body, the urgent suck of his mouth, and the tease of his lips against her breasts. Most of all, she remembered the tender touch of his hands, slowly bringing her to a peak of ecstasy she had never known before, nor would ever know again.
When she returned to the White Hart, Tim said, “Lord Stafford hisself rode in a while ago. He asked fer ye, Mistress.”
“Damn! He said he would visit, but I forgot.”
“He’s still inside, waitin’.”
Elizabeth sighed. She had raced Rhiannon across the moors for hours and the mare was tired. Another ride was out of the question, so she’d just have to face Walter and make it very clear that his presence was unwelcome.
What would he threaten her with this time? Dorothea had said something about the prosperity of Wyndham Manor. “Cozy and prosperous,” she had said.
But Elizabeth had not wed Walter. Did he hold the deed to the manor? Would he now hold it over her head?
Nonsense. He had sworn he hated her, not once but many times. And yet last night he had said that he was old and tired and meant her no harm. What new tricks did he have up his sleeve?
With trepidation, she neared the inn’s garden. A flock of ravens scattered into the wind. Startled, Elizabeth followed their dark flight above the roof.
From a window on the second floor, a movement caught her attention. Two faces hovered there. One belonged to a woman with pale, unbound hair. The other face, bearded, was framed by curly hair, black as the ravens that dotted the sky. The bearded man was looking up, but the mournful woman seemed to be staring at Elizabeth.
In an attempt to better examine the faces, Elizabeth shaded her eyes. She was too far away and the slant from the sun precluded seeing every feature clearly, yet the woman’s unbound hair distressed her. The White Hart employed four maids and they all wore their hair tucked inside mob caps.
Elizabeth gathered up her skirts and ran for the inn. She stumbled up the stairs and flung open the door.
The room was empty. It wasn’t large enough to hide anyone and nothing appeared disturbed.
Elizabeth shook her head. “’Tis the brandy,” she whispered.
Yes… perhaps the brandy had caused her to envision faces that weren’t there.
With a start, she realized that the air inside the bedroom was cold enough to make her bones ache. Racing downstairs, she headed for the front door.
Walter grasped her by the arm, halting her flight.
“Elizabeth! What ails you? You ran down those steps as if pursued by demons.”
“I swear I saw someone upstairs, but the room is empty. Did you see a fair-haired woman with a delicate, oval face? She had a haunted look to her.”
“I’ve seen nobody matching that description.”
“Did you send someone to spy on me? A woman? Perhaps a man as well?”
“Why would I do such a thing?”
Her gaze skimmed his body and face, looking for any sign of pretense. His feet didn’t shuffle. Above his goatee, his mouth was drawn rather than set in a taunting sneer. His eyes remained impassive, nary one trace of the hypocritical piety she’d come to recognize so well.
She drew a calming breath. “Forgive me, my lord. I know ’tis rude, but I feel ill and must retire.”
Walter glanced at his pocket watch. “’Tis eventide, Elizabeth. Perhaps a glass of wine?”
“No, thank you.” Wine was the last thing she needed. “Good night, my lord. I mean, good afternoon. In truth, I don’t know what I mean.”
Eyes blurred by sudden tears, she turned away from him, stumbled down the hallway, entered her bedroom, and swiftly locked the door.
Then she stretched out on the bed and for the first time in months slept deeply, dreamlessly, without any fear at all.
Thirty-two
Ranulf and Janey!
Ranulf and Janey had been the faces at the window.
Had she been less fatigued, less fuddled by brandy, she would have recognized them immediately.
Rising from her bed, Elizabeth removed her crumpled riding attire and donned a wrapper. So, two ghosts now inhabited the White Hart.
Strange. The thought did not disturb her. On the contrary, it comforted her. With Rand gone, Ranulf and Janey had come to watch over her, protect her, and she now understood that Janey had been trying to convey an urgent message.
Nonsense. Ghosts often appeared, and sometimes they moved from place to place, but they never spoke.
Even Padfoot didn’t bark.
Elizabeth had no idea what time it was. Perhaps she’d slept ten hours, perhaps five. When had she sought the sanctuary of her bedroom? Three o’clock? Four? “Eventide,” Walter had said.
Now it was night. She had missed dinner but she wasn’t hungry, and she wondered if she’d ever be hungry again.
The wind prowled outside her room and slammed her shutters against the walls. Walking over to the window and peering through, she saw Tim’s shadow when he passed what he called “the barn’s winnock.” Beyond the stables, the silver highway wended its way across purple moors, as if spun from moonbeams.
Hedges shook while trees waved their bony branches at the sky’s tattered clouds. Moonlight spilled upon the clouds, which crested, swirled, and changed shapes. Death and his huntsmen, she thought. Death and his hellhounds galloping across the face of the moon.
She had heard such tales as a child. How Death sat astride his mighty horse, blasting his horn to mark the hunt. How Death and his sky-riders scavenged the night, seeking yet another harvest of victims.
Elizabeth shivered. Seated at her dressing table, she brushed her hair. “One, two, three,” she whispered. It was impossible to think and count strokes at the same time. “Seven, eight, nine…” Perhaps it was possible, for she could not dismiss the deadly sky-riders. “Twelve, thirteen… damn!”
The wind rapped at her window pane. Its cries swirled around the White Hart’s corners and crevices like the shrill of a banshee. She imagined a banshee, a bone-thin woman with long hair and eyes streaming blood, drifting in the air beyond the window, searching for the inhabitant whose death was imminent.
“God’s breath! Banshees and sky-riders. I must stop this.”
A whistle pierced the room. Elizabeth dropped her brush. The wind, she thought, screeching like a banshee, and now whistling like Rand. She rose, then sank back onto her chair.
A second whistle.
“Don’t do this to yourself,” she admonished. “Don’t respond to every gust of wind, every strange noise.”
The whistle sounded a third time.
Slowly, as if sleepwalking, Elizabeth rose from her chair and approached the window. Opening it, she leaned far out over the casement.
Rand was below, astride his black stallion.
She blinked several times. The wind skittered shadows across the rider’s face. She rubbed her eyes. The moon dipped behind a cloud. When it reappeared, he was still there. “Rand?”
“None but, my love.”
Oh God, this ghost spoke. “It cannot be you,” she said calmly, rationally, even though every instinct urged her to scream or swoon. “You are dead. They tarred you,
then raised you in chains.”
“Who said so?”
“Walter. He swore—”
“He lied, Bess. Save for Billy’s absence, everything went as planned.” In the moonlight, Rand smiled. “But it takes a wee bit out of a man, coming back from the dead.”
Yet uncertain, she gazed down at him. He might be a dream or he might be a vision. She mistrusted her senses, mistrusted the joy and relief racing inward.
“I waited for you, Bess, every night at the peel tower. I even rode into the courtyard once, thinking you might be at your bedroom window. Then I saw you return from York with Stafford.” He darted a glance toward the highway. “I was most diligent at my post, sweetheart.”
Rising in his stirrups, Rand caught a strand of her hair and kissed it. “Come to me now and welcome my return. We have some catching up to do.”
He sounded like Rand. Still only half believing, Elizabeth climbed out through the window and dropped to the ground. “You look like Rand,” she whispered.
Laughing, he lifted her up and settled her across his saddle. He didn’t smell of the grave, nor was he cold. On the contrary, he was blessedly warm. She snaked her arms around his chest and snuggled her head beneath his coat of claret velvet.
“I can’t believe it,” she said, and even to her own ears, her voice sounded half soppy, half reverential. “After all my pain, to think you are truly alive.”
Rand’s arms tightened around her. “How could you doubt? I’ll die when I’m ready and not one moment before.”
At another time she might have argued, but now she merely raised her head to accept Rand’s embrace. His lips brushed her eyelids, the tip of her nose, her cheeks and chin. This is a dream, she thought. Her fingers crept up beyond the lace at his throat, for she wanted to feel where the rope had scarred him.
Rand caught her hand. “Don’t. Please. My neck is still sore. I have a welt as thick as my wrist.”
“Does it pain you?”
“Much less than the alternative.”
The Landlord's Black-Eyed Daughter Page 35
