“Perhaps I can grow some of the plants I lost in the blight.” She tried to find the positive aspects and ignore the ones based on superstition. He could not hold her prisoner.
“Tell me what you need, and I will send for them,” he agreed. “Perhaps you will be content to stay here and not wander the woods alone.”
He’d said the words she dreaded. She tried not to imagine the silken bonds knotting tighter. She could not argue with him in the face of his generous gift. Perhaps she should have asked to be returned to her grandmother’s house.
“I like wandering the woods,” she said gently so as not to upset him. “But I shall like working here just as much.”
“Good. Then I need not wonder where you are while I visit the mines.” He kissed her cheek and released her. “I thought I would leave in the morning while the weather holds.”
Oddly enough, she didn’t want him to leave. The bonds he held her in were strange indeed.
Ninian forced a smile and turned to pat his cheek. “Do not be gone too long. It will be lonely here without you.” And that, too, was the truth. Cupid’s arrow had truly pierced her heart. She didn’t want to be alone again. She had been alone far too long, and this man offered her understanding far beyond that of most others.
“It will be very strange without Joseph popping out of closets and watchmen dragging David home. I fancy we won’t know what to do with ourselves.” He kissed her again and then wandered off on his own pursuits.
Ninian didn’t dare tell him that she had five expectant mothers, three feverish children, and an ailing old woman to tend to in the village. He’d surely chain her to the castle walls.
***
Drogo’s first suspicion that all was not as he planned occurred upon his return to the castle after a week at the mines. He hadn’t intended to stay so long, but they’d shown him some exciting new possibilities, and he’d fallen in with some other mine owners to discuss the canal, and one thing had led to another. Perhaps he should have worried more about leaving his new wife alone for so long, but Ninian had wreaked havoc with all his theories about marriage. He actually trusted her.
Perhaps he had been a little hasty in placing that trust.
The new maid taking his hat and gloves at the door didn’t disturb him. He had no objection to Ninian’s hiring servants without his help. Sarah had done it all the time.
The tapestries hanging over the stair rail didn’t bother him greatly either. He understood that women had nesting instincts he didn’t possess, and he rather appreciated the results. If Ninian wanted to air the wall hangings, fine.
He didn’t understand why there was a hustle and bustle in the moldering haunted master suite, however. He should have bolted the damned thing shut.
Taking the stairs two at a time, he discovered Lydie at the first landing, carrying her infant and an armful of linens. “What the devil are you doing?” he demanded crossly. “And where is Ninian?”
Lydie looked startled. “I don’t know. Should I? She could be in the conservatory, I suppose.”
“What’s going on up there?” he repeated as a loud crash came from the suite.
“Oh.” Lydie appeared vaguely guilty as she glanced over her shoulder. “They’re cleaning. The chimney was a disgrace. I’m taking these down for washing. Here, would you hold Henrietta? I’ll be right back.”
Dazed, Drogo stared at the wide-eyed infant suddenly thrust into his arms. The infant blew a bubble and gurgled as he held it at arm’s length and prayed it wouldn’t break.
He’d only been fourteen the last time he’d held an infant. At the time, his stepmother had been wailing with grief, Joseph and David had frightened the nursemaid into hiding, and Paul had been howling as if his little heart would break. He’d tried picking him up, rocking him, patting him on the back as he’d seen the maids do, but none of those things had helped. The experience had terrified him. He’d disliked being helpless ever since.
Well, at least it wasn’t howling. Holding the squirming bundle with both hands at arm’s length, Drogo stalked up the stairs to see what the hell was happening in the haunted suite. He certainly hadn’t authorized any repairs in there.
The first thing he noticed upon entering was the room’s warmth. He raised his eyebrows in surprise at the roaring fire in the hearth. The damned thing was big enough to roast a pig.
He gazed at the newly replastered and painted walls. Someone had replaced the cracked and broken panes in the solar window, and sunshine streamed through the undraped expanse. It looked almost cheerful.
The child squirmed more forcefully, and terrified of dropping her, Drogo heaved her over his shoulder as he wandered into the next chamber where the bed had been. The men working on the walls tugged their forelocks in respect and returned to pounding. Apparently Ninian had worked some miracle of magic, and the servants were slowly returning. Women did have an uncanny knack of managing things like that.
If Ninian didn’t mind this accursed chamber, he supposed he could endure it. The women were the ones who had complained of it before. He’d just thought the constant repairs a nuisance.
Thinking to locate Ninian in the conservatory, he started down the stairs, meeting Lydie as she hurried up.
“Oh, there you are!” she exclaimed breathlessly, not taking the infant he hastily shoved in her direction. “Your bailiff is in the study, and I can’t find Nanny. I promised to take some of Ninian’s arthritis remedy into town. Would you mind watching Henrietta until Nanny returns? And there’s a letter from Ewen in the hall. Will he be here for the holiday?”
She didn’t wait for an answer but grabbing up her skirt, flew back down the stairs.
Drogo noticed she wasn’t wearing panniers or powder any more. Ninian probably kept her too busy for such frivolity. Realizing he still held the brat, he tucked it under his arm and stalked toward the conservatory. To hell with his bailiff. He wanted his wife.
“Oh, my lord, you’re back, you are!” Cook exclaimed as she hurried from the kitchen. “I’ve none to stir the pudding, and my kettle is boiling. Come along, or it’ll spoil.”
No longer amazed by anything in the chaos his wife had apparently created in his absence, Drogo preceded Cook’s shooing gesture into the kitchen. He didn’t think he’d ever been in a kitchen before. He glanced around in curiosity but couldn’t discern the purpose of the iron and wooden utensils upon the walls.
Cook shoved a wooden spoon at him, and he shifted the babe to one shoulder to catch it. He stirred the contents of the bowl cautiously. It smelled like pudding all right. Why were they making pudding? There was enough here to feed a village.
The kitchen maid returned bearing firewood, which crashed to the floor upon sight of an earl in the kitchen stirring pudding and dandling a babe on his shoulder.
When the girl looked as if she would faint, Drogo decided he’d had quite enough. Shoving the bundle of flailing arms and legs into the girl’s now empty hands, adding the spoon for good measure, he nodded curtly and all but ran out.
He didn’t know how women managed it all, and he didn’t want to find out. Where the hell was Ninian?
Not in the conservatory. He saw evidence of her presence in the apron draped over the settee and the partially planted seedlings on the potting bench. Already, a row of neatly labeled herbs had sprouted on the shelves. She’d been busy.
Feeling somewhat relieved at that, he headed for the tower. Perhaps she was actually napping through all this racket. Expectant mothers were supposed to sleep a lot, weren’t they?
His bailiff caught him in the great hall before he had a chance to reach the stairs.
“My lord, a word with ye, if I might.”
What was he doing hunting his wife in the middle of the day when there was work to do? The fresh air must be affecting his brain.
“Of course, Huntley. What is it?” Abandoning his cha
se, Drogo crossed the wide expanse of towering hall.
“It’s the burn, my lord. Mr. Payton said as to tell you as soon as you arrived. Her ladyship insisted that he take her to the source of the blight. They’ve gone off over the hills, and it’s been since early this morn.”
Drogo thought he would kill her, if she did not kill herself before he got there.
Thirty
“This is the end of the earl’s property, my lady. You can see there is no sign of the source of the problem.” Mr. Payton stood stiffly beside his placid mare as Ninian stared at the barren wasteland leading back to distant hills.
“The stream must come from somewhere,” she insisted. “You have had all summer to explore. It’s impossible to tell much of anything at this time of year.”
“It could come from Crown land, for all I know. Or Scotland. There is naught we can do beyond this property.”
“We could find the source and stop it,” she said crossly, kicking at a dead limb lying in the brown leaves at her feet. She knew she couldn’t walk farther this day, and the sight of the distant hills discouraged her. She would need a horse.
Mr. Payton had a horse. Mr. Payton was lying. She twisted the dying tip of an evergreen, and the needles fell off in her hand. “I can find my own way back. I want to look around some more. You may go about whatever it is you do.” Furious, it took no effort to summon the imperious tones of her grandmother. It came as naturally as breathing, more naturally than the pleasant face she’d worn for so many years. If she was to be herself, she may as well begin practicing with this annoying insect.
“I cannot leave you here alone, my lady,” the steward responded stiffly.
“Of course you can. I’ve walked these woods alone all my life. I’m a witch, remember? Go away and leave me be.” Muttering under her breath, she set out along the stream bank, taking more time to examine what she had missed in her hurry to reach the source of the blight. The stupid man should have told her he wouldn’t go beyond Drogo’s boundaries. She would have to persuade Drogo to invent more filters. It would be months before the child was born and she could learn to ride. Perhaps they could experiment with the water passing through different filters and determine which was most effective. Drogo would know how to go about that.
Drogo would no doubt chain her to the wall for venturing out.
She heard Payton riding away as she scrambled down a hillside he hadn’t allowed her to traverse earlier. Men! They must think her some breakable china ornament. How did they think the human race had survived all these years? Certainly not by women putting their feet up and doing nothing for nine months out of every year.
At the bottom of the embankment, she crouched quietly, listening to the burn’s burble and the wind blowing through barren tree branches. Sometimes, she could hear things in the wind if she opened up her senses to her surroundings.
The crunch of dead leaves, the slipping of a hidden log, and a loud curse weren’t exactly the sounds she’d had in mind. The resulting crash brought her to her feet.
“Who’s there?” she called. She already knew whoever it was had hurt himself and wasn’t too happy about it.
“The bogeyman,” a deep, irritated male voice called. “Are you all right?”
“Of course I am.” Brushing dead leaves from her woolen skirt, she grasped a nearby sapling, tested it for sturdiness, and pulled herself upward. The child inside her kicked gaily. Her daughter liked adventure.
“Of course you are,” the rough male voice mocked. “You’re a Malcolm. Why ever would I think elsewise?”
“Malcolms can be harmed, just the same as anyone else.” Puffing a little at the exertion of climbing the steep embankment in the direction of the voice, thankful her cough had disappeared, Ninian steadied herself on an oak and glanced around. “You!”
The uninvited guest from their wedding lay sprawled in the dead leaves and debris in a washed-out gully beneath some rowan roots near the edge of the embankment. Massive arms crossed over his wide chest, he managed a magnificent, insouciant pose with one boot turned at an uncomfortable angle, his breeches torn on the bare rocks, while glaring at her from beneath brows more thunderous than Drogo’s.
“My nose recovered,” he said dryly. “My pride is still bruised.”
“It looks as if more than your pride is bruised.” She found a perch on the rocks where she could kneel beside him and tug at his boot.
“Leave it alone,” he grumbled. “Just find me a sturdy stick, and I can go back to my horse.”
“Ives men are occasionally stubborn but usually not stupid.” Ninian tugged at the boot as gently as she could, but he still grimaced as it loosened. She noticed he didn’t deny his family connection. “The foot will swell, and you will have to cut a perfectly good boot if you leave it too long.”
“I’ll steal another.” He pulled his leg from her grasp and with a painful wince, hauled the stiff leather off his foot. “There, are you happy now? Find a stick, and go back where you belong.”
“Since this is my husband’s land, I am where I belong,” Ninian said placidly, testing the bones of his sturdy ankle. “They’re not broken, but the tendons are strained. I’ll wrap it for now. You can soak it when we reach the castle.”
“I am not going to the castle.” Curtly, he jerked his leg from her hold. “I merely wanted to see that you were unharmed. Now go about your business, and I’ll go about mine.”
Ignoring his orders, Ninian worked at the material of her petticoat with a rock until she’d torn a gash in it. Without any particular sense of delicacy, she lifted her heavy skirt and ripped the hole wider until she had a strip the proper length. The blamed man couldn’t even stand without help, so she didn’t see much point in arguing with him.
“This is my business,” she reminded him as she laid her hands on his swelling ankle and concentrated. He radiated pain, and she worked to ease it. “I can give you willow bark once we are home, and it will feel better. There’s not much I can do out here.”
“I’m not going to the castle,” he repeated wearily, leaning back on his elbows as she massaged away the pain. “You really are quite good. A Malcolm with a useful talent is rare.”
Ninian understood more than the pain of his injury was talking. “People do not often appreciate our perceptiveness. Ives men in particular seem to have difficulty grasping things which they cannot see. Do you have a name?”
“Just call me Adonis and wrap the blasted ankle.”
“Adonis?” She grinned at him, and he scowled in return. The resemblance to Drogo was quite remarkable. She’d judge him to be several years older and a stone heavier—all muscle and probably all between his ears. She sensed no evil in him, however.
“Greek gods are a rare breed in these woods. Why were you following me?”
“For lack of anything better to do.” He grunted as she pulled the cloth tight.
“Do you live around here?”
“I don’t live anywhere. Cease and desist, madam!” he howled as she pulled the cloth with all her strength.
“It will feel better when I’m done. If you don’t live anywhere, then there is no reason you cannot come back to the castle. The ankle needs to be soaked.”
“There is every reason in the world why I cannot go to yon blasted castle. Now find me a stick, madam, and be off with you. And if I were you, I’d not mention this encounter to your husband. In case you have not noticed, Ives tend to be jealous men.”
“Now that really would be stupid.” Knotting the bandage, Ninian stood and looked about. “Malcolm women cannot tolerate stupid men. It’s no wonder the legends warn us against you.”
“If you know that, why the hell did you marry the earl?” Cursing as he pushed himself to a sitting position on one of the rocks, he pointed toward a dead tree on his right. “One of those limbs should support me. Can you pull it loose?”
&nb
sp; “Drogo is not a stupid man.” She tested the limb, but it did not crack. She scuffled about in the leaves, looking for a better one. “He is an extremely considerate but very busy man who just has different goals than I do. That does not mean one or the other of us is right or wrong.”
“Fool. You’re in love with him. You don’t have a chance. What in hell are you doing out here risking his precious heir anyway?”
Ninian spotted a stout limb on an outcropping and pulled herself toward it, ignoring the abrupt curses of the man behind her. “Looking for the source of the burn’s blight. You wouldn’t happen to know where it begins, would you?”
She slid back down, stick in hand, and handed it to the angry man who had pulled himself upright in his apparent haste to rescue her from the rocks. She offered him a dimpled smile, but he merely scowled more blackly.
“Don’t give me that innocent look, my lady. I’m not so blind to Malcolm charms as my fool…” He didn’t finish that statement but grabbed the stick from her outstretched hand and tested his weight against it. Satisfied it would hold, he met her gaze more calmly. “The blight begins at the mines to the north of here. Your husband’s family does not teach their sons of the malignancies they perpetrate on the face of the earth in the name of progress. Perhaps Malcolms can point it out to them before it is too late and they destroy us all.”
He heaved himself up the hill by brute force, using the stick as a brace. Fascinated despite herself, Ninian followed him up, carrying his boot. His shirt looked as if it had seen better days, and he wore no waistcoat. His long coat appeared tailored for a younger, smaller man. She thought the boots might be his only pair.
“Drogo’s mines?” she inquired as they reached level ground. “Does he know this?”
“Probably not.” The man—Adonis?—whistled loudly and waited. “He is only interested in productivity and profit and things that he can see and measure. His steward suspects though, and says nothing. It would cost too many people their jobs were the mines closed.”
Merely Magic Page 27
