Celeste Bradley - [Royal Four 03]

by One NightWith a Spy

  “I’m sorry about the steeple chasing,” she added. “It was important to get far and fast. The Liar’s Club was right behind us.”

  The stallion huffed a disbelieving snort.

  “Oh, very well. Not right behind you.” She straightened wearily in the saddle. Horseback had once been as comfortable as any chair for her, but she’d not ridden so hard and desperately for many years. She would most definitely be feeling the consequences when she woke tomorrow.

  The stallion drew in a giant breath, expanding his ribs against the inside of her legs. Julia winced. Her skirts were of necessity rucked up to her knees and her stockings were shredded from their wild cross-country escape. The fact that her skin stung and throbbed beneath the tears didn’t bear thinking about just yet.

  “We ought to be close now,” she told the stallion. “There are always traveling fair folk at the Dunston harvest fair about this time.”

  The stallion ignored her, since she’d been saying that same thing for the last hour. “No, truly,” she assured him. “Oats and hay for you, bangers and mash for me.” She sighed. “And perhaps a bit of liniment for my arse.”

  “Well, now, I think I can ‘elp you with that, pretty lady.” A figure stepped from the bushes into the last of the evening light to leer at her. “Rubbin’ in the liniment, anyways.”

  Julia halted the stallion quickly and peered at the thickset, bearded man before her. Then her lips tilted. “And won’t Petunia have something to say about that, John Wald? She still has that rolling pin of hers, doesn’t she?”

  The man started, then blinked at her. “Jilly Boots? Is that our skinny little Jilly-girl?” He laughed out loud and threw open his arms.

  Julia let him haul her off the stallion, for she doubted she could get down with her stiffened limbs. “Hello, John,” she said around his bear hug.

  He set her back and took another look at her. “We heard you’d married up, fine lady now and all. Folk still havin’ a ‘Say’ about how you caught yourself a lord. Always meant to go take a look at that man of yours, see if he was treatin’ you right.”

  Then he seemed to see her black gown for what it was. Widow’s garb. “Well, now, don’t tell me you lost ’im already?”

  Julia nodded, not trusting her voice. She’d lost Aldus and Marcus both in less than a fortnight. If there was such a thing as a blacker black, she’d wear it.

  “I’ve lost a great deal, I’m afraid,” she said finally. “All I have now is what I’m wearing.” She tilted her head at the stallion now cropping grass by the side of the road. “And someone else’s horse.”

  John gazed at the stallion speculatively. “Those are the best kind,” he mused. Then he looked back at her. “Then what of the Pickles folk? I heard you gave ’em all monkey suits and salaries. Did you lose them, too?”

  She sighed. “Had to knock down and get out of town.”

  That was all she needed to say. He threw an arm over her shoulders. “They’ll be about, then,” he said comfortingly. “Come and use our second wagon. Petunia’ll be over the moon to see ye.” He glanced back at the stallion. “He any good? It’s too late to start a new show now, but a trick act would sure bring ’em in next season.”

  Julia looked at Marcus’s stallion blankly. She’d not thought so far ahead. Could she simply turn herself back into Jilly the trick rider? Was such a thing even possible? She wrapped the reins about her hand and clucked the stallion into following her to the campsite ahead, where the colorful wagons of the fair folk were gathered.

  It might not be much, but it was more future than she’d had five minutes ago.

  Petunia was indeed “over the moon” and eagerly bestowed the second wagon, her best nightgown and she and John’s second best set of tin. “I’d give you the good’ns, milady,” she said apologetically, “but they’re still on the fire.”

  Julia smiled at the homey sights and smell’s of campfire cooking and took the battered set of pots and pans. “This is lovely. And please call me Jilly, just as you used to.”

  Petunia bobbed. “Yes, milady—I mean—” Flustered, Petunia turned her ire on John. “Don’t just stand there, you dolt. Lady Barrowby’s wantin’ a plateful, or I miss my guess!”

  Julia shook her head, laughing. “I think I’m too weary to eat. If you’ll do me the favor of spending a bit of that pampering on my horse, I’ll take my rest now.”

  Petunia and John watched every moment of her climb into the second wagon. Julia waved and smiled, then closed the narrow door on their overeager hospitality before she could lose her poise. Once alone, she leaned her forehead against the flimsy door and took a deep breath.

  “Imagine that!” she heard Petunia exclaim. “We’ve got a real lady in our wagon!”

  “She’s still Jilly, though, ain’t she?” John sounded doubtful. “She’s so fine now …”

  This was home, and yet not home. Her family, yet she was so different now. Julia sighed. Perhaps a simple future as Jilly the trick rider was more complicated than she’d thought.

  She removed her battered widow’s gown and donned the nightdress, which was too short and too wide. The wagon had been hurriedly emptied of John and Petunia’s extra belongings and the bench bed had been made up with a faded but clean quilt. Julia stroked it, remembering sleeping beneath a nearly identical one all her childhood.

  “I’m back where we started, Mama,” she whispered. She dropped her head into her hands. She felt like a pendulum, moving from one extreme to another, her life a pattern of gains and losses.

  Had she ever been as low as now?

  No, she decided. This was indeed the worst day of her life, for this time she had nothing to carry her on. No husband, no family, no estate, no lover, no work. Her hands and arms and heart had never been so empty.

  “Well, tomorrow will surely be a step up, then.”

  She dropped back onto the quilt, pressing her hands over her eyes. Now that she had stopped moving, it seemed that all the emotions she’d held at bay during this endless day were coming up to ambush her.

  Marcus.

  She would not cry. She would not. She’d taken her leave of him, she’d had her last taste of his love and she’d kept his horse. There was nothing to be gained from tears.

  Yet there was no denying that he’d caught her when she’d thought herself clean away. The last thing a man like Marcus wanted do was fail. He could find her again, for he’d wormed his way deep inside her. He knew her, in just the way she’d always dreamed of having a lover know her.

  Unfortunately, her lover was now her enemy.

  Oh, what the hell. Sometimes tears were the only way for a woman to know she could still feel.

  A roar split the morning quiet.

  “Sebastian?”

  Julia threw back the covers on her cot and sprang from her borrowed wagon without sparing a moment to don her wrapper. Carelessly running through mud and muck with bare feet, she crossed the camp in mere seconds to where the menagerie was housed.

  Behind the cart where the monkeys sat dolefully scratching at one another, Sebastian sat morosely in a battered, wired-together beast wagon. His mane was matted and his eyes were running and he had never looked thinner.

  “Oh, sweet baby,” Julia breathed as she knelt in the mud next to the bars. “Don’t you worry, Mummy is here now.”

  “Oy! Get away from that beast!” A burly fellow in muck-spattered canvas trousers ran up to pull at her arm.

  Julia slapped him away and turned back to Sebastian. “Don’t worry, my darling. I won’t let the bad man hurt you.”

  “Hurt ’im? Miss, I paid a year’s profit for ’im! Bought ’im off a farmer what was set t’ kill ’im. But ’e won’t eat and he won’t let no one near ’im!”

  Julia was working at the twisted wire holding the wagon door shut. “You must chop his meat fine and take out all the bones. He needs brushing and he has a cold. Lions are from Africa, you idiot! You cannot leave them out in the chill night air!”

&nbs
p; A big dirty hand appeared before her intent gaze, blocking her. “Miss, yer ought to go back to the girly wagon and leave the beasts to them what knows their business.”

  Julia turned on him. “Girly wagon? Girly wagon?” The man took a step back before her fury. “My family owned their own show, you muck raker! I’m Jilly, the trick rider, and this is my bloomin’ lion!” She took another step and poked the man in his grubby waistcoat with one finger, hard. “Now go chop the meat!”

  “Y-yes, ma’am.” The man ran for his life, followed by a rousing roar from Sebastian.

  Julia reached through the bars and ran her hand through Sebastian’s mane. “That’s right, sweet darling. You tell him.”

  Sebastian took her wrist in his great, toothless jaws and tugged gently. More.

  Julia laughed damply and pulled her hand from the cage. “On my way, love.” She wiped the spittle carelessly on her borrowed nightdress and bent to the tangle of wire once more. “If the idiot ever meant to tend you,” she muttered, “he would never have tied this up so.”

  “Someone who doesn’t love the Beast?” The deep voice came from behind her. “I don’t believe it.”

  Julia’s heart stuttered in its beat. She whirled to see Marcus standing there. “How did you find me? The fair folk would never—”

  Marcus shook his head. “They didn’t. I tracked Sebastian. People don’t soon forget seeing their first lion.” He tilted his head and gazed at her for a long moment. “You love that mangy beast. I knew wherever he was, you would not be far away.”

  “Marcus, you must leave.”

  He stepped closer. “You know I cannot,” he said softly.

  I cannot let you go.

  Marcus above her, inside her, on the damp ground. The ache in his voice, the need in his eyes—

  There was no point to those thoughts now. Her mind was firmly convinced, her heart was too shattered to voice an opinion, but her body still felt the pull of his nearness. She lifted her chin. “I want you to leave. I can make you go, you know I can. The fair folk will come running at a word.”

  The corner of his lips lifted a fraction. “Two words, actually. Now I have two words for you. Marry me.”

  The mere mention of such an impossibility cut deep into her heart. “I will not bring you down so.”

  “Would you say yes if I left the Four?”

  She crossed her arms to hide her chill. “No one leaves the Four.”

  “Etheridge did.”

  “Within himself, Etheridge will be the Cobra until he dies. He’s simply fulfilling his duty as our—your spymaster instead. You must serve as the Fox. There is no other.”

  No one leaves the Four. The truth was, the Four never left them. She was the Fox now, and she always would be. Could she ever simply be Jilly again, knowing what she knew, having tasted the power and profoundly exalting commitment of the Four?

  “Isn’t it wonderful?” The wistful words escaped her before she could stop them. Before her stood the one person in the world who understood what she’d lost.

  He raised his hand slightly as if he wished to touch her, then abruptly aborted the gesture. “Sometimes it is. Sometimes … it is not.”

  “I think I finally understand why I cannot be the Fox,” she said softly.

  “Because you think with your heart?”

  She looked up to see the utter understanding in his gaze. It ruined her inside. She reached out impulsively.

  He moved back slightly, avoiding contact. “It is no bad thing to feel so deeply,” he said. “But such passion does not belong in the Four.”

  She put her hands behind her back. “No, of course not. The point is moot, however, for I can never be part of the Four.”

  “Perhaps, but you have changed us, like it or not. It turns out that we would have considered allowing a highborn woman to take the seat. That is a vast relief to those of us who find scant possibilities for successors in the current crop of young men.”

  She blinked. “Would you choose a woman to succeed you?”

  “It is a possibility.” He didn’t smile, but his eyes grew brighter. “I have the highest esteem for intelligent women.”

  She smiled at nothing in particular. “You’ll never guess who I had decided to appoint.”

  “So that is all.” He took a breath. “We’ll not meet again, you and I.”

  She swallowed. “So final. Yet, how else can it be?” She held out her hand. “I shall always …” She stopped. “Well, perhaps that’s best left unsaid. I shall always remember you,” she finished.

  He took her hand so briefly, it was almost as if they hadn’t touched. “And I, you.”

  She bit her lip. “Is that all we should say?”

  “Is there anything else?”

  She shook her head. “No … yet, how can it be that we can simply decide this? I’d become rather used to having no control over my heart.”

  Marcus said nothing. He still had no control over his heart. It was only the rest of him that would be riding away.

  She raised her chin and gave him a watery smile. “I am not sorry, not for a single thing.”

  I am. Oh, God, I’m so sorry for everything I took from you.

  “I’m glad,” was all he said.

  I’m sorry that I shall live the rest of my life with a rip in my soul, just penance though it be. I’m sorry that you will never become who you were meant to be. I’m sorry I wasn’t who you thought me. I’m sorry I am not actually Marcus Blythe-Goodman, destitute gold-digger and free man.

  I’m sorry I caused you to love me.

  She took a breath. “I will keep an eye on the gossip sheets for you. I’m sure there will be notices of … marriage and such.”

  “I will have no such resource.”

  She looked around the encampment. “You could always ask the fair folk. They won’t tell you where I am, but if I allow it, they’ll let you know if I live or die.”

  Marcus had a moment of his future flash before him, where someday he would rise from before the hearth fire in Ravencliff to find a graying Igby at his door with terrible news. In his imagination, the house was cold and empty.

  There would be no marriage—not even for the required camouflage of the Four could he bear to do that. In his heart, he felt as wed as if he and Julia had stood before the Bishop of Canterbury himself. He gazed down at his beautiful, maddening, brilliant Julia.

  “Be well,” he said. Live forever, his heart echoed. Be happy. He reached a hand toward her, but did not touch the flyaway strand of hair that had escaped her workaday braid.

  She gazed up at him, her helpless pain in her eyes.

  “How did we come to this?” she whispered.

  He swallowed. “Fate, I suppose. We were simply not meant to be.”

  She shook her head. “No. Fate brought us together. And I will always believe that for at least one night, we were meant to be.”

  There was nothing more to say. Marcus took one last look into her pain-glazed eyes and then turned away. His lungs felt tight, as if there wasn’t enough air to breathe. Somehow, it didn’t seem like punishment enough.

  20

  Perhaps it is better to be alone, for I cannot bear to be left again.

  As Marcus walked back to his horse, the grounds of the encampment seemed oddly sharp in his vision, the colors jarring. Pulled to the edges of the circle were the plainest wagons, yet even they were brightly painted once upon a time.

  The fading colors told a story of long years on the road, as did the shabby curtains hanging in the tiny windows. Julia’s had been a hard life, it was obvious, yet the people who worked and laughed and gazed openly and curiously at him as he passed seemed quite the happiest crew he’d seen outside of Barrowby itself.

  No conservative village restraint here. The laughter was loud, the voices were boisterous and full of rough humor. The children ran happily about in their varying degrees of dirtiness. One naked infant sat, fat bare bottom in the dust, sucking a finger as it watched Marcus wi
th unblinking absorption.

  Marcus spotted his stallion. The beast was tied to a shabby wagon, absorbed in his nose-bag of oats, being buffed to a gleaming shine by several admiring children standing on overturned pails. He’d never looked happier.

  Marcus hesitated. He’d paid a king’s ransom for that horse, who was meant to be the stud of the Ravencliff stables someday, not some nomadic angel’s show pony.

  Then again, Marcus was leaving behind his heart, cut from his chest and left in the hands of the above mentioned fallen angel. He turned and went on his way. His best horse seemed a small loss after that.

  She’d be gone in minutes, he knew. Even now, she was likely pouring last minute instructions into the beast master’s ear. In less than an hour, she’d be headed down whatever fast road would take her as far from him as possible.

  Forever.

  He didn’t realize he’d turned around until the menagerie wagons came into sight again. Julia stood with the beast master, just as he’d pictured her, burdening the fellow with all the facts of the tender care of spoiled, toothless lions.

  Marcus came up behind her. “Julia.”

  Julia spun about, her lips still parted around her last words. Her first thought was that he’d come back to kiss her goodbye forever. Her second was that he’d come back to clap her in irons and carry her off.

  Frankly, she didn’t know which was worse.

  “Yes?” She hated the breathless, hopeful tone of her voice.

  “I don’t know what to do,” he said simply. “I cannot turn you in. I cannot let you go.”

  She licked her lips. “Are you asking for my advice?” She truly hoped not, for she strongly suspected she might do the stupid thing and help his career by turning herself in.

  “We only had one night together. If I must live the rest of my life without you, then I want one day to match it.” He reached out again, and this time he stroked his finger down her cheek. “I’m asking for time. I want one day. With you.”

  Her heedless heart leaped. “With me?”

  He smiled and turned his palm to cup her cheek. The heat of his skin on hers threatened to melt the vault in which she kept her tears.