The boy tried to scramble to his feet, but it was obvious that he’d had the wind knocked out of him. “I didn’t do nothin’!” he gasped.
“I didn’t think you had. I just wanted to ask you a question.”
The boy continued to stare at him but seemed less inclined to dart back into the trees. His eyes were as dark as his hair, enormous in his thin face. He looked as though a few extra dinners would not come amiss, and even in the dimness it was clear that his clothes were threadbare. “What is it, then?” he said, when he had begun to catch his breath. A slight belligerence edged his voice.
“I’m looking for my sister. We’re afraid she might have gotten lost or hurt herself walking in the woods. I just wondered if you might have seen her.” Charles made himself speak slowly and gently, and let his hands hang loosely at his sides where the boy could see them.
It seemed to work; the boy’s shoulders relaxed a fraction. “A gadji?” he said. “Yah, I might have seen.”
A—a gadji? What was he talking about? Charles blinked, and then understood. “You’re a gypsy, aren’t you? I saw the smoke from your fires.”
The boy bristled. “We ain’t gypsies. We’re Romany. An’ what of it? We camped there before—we don’t come near your big house.”
“I know,” Charles said soothingly. “It’s all right. No one’s going to chase you away.” Lochinvar’s father, Lord Northgalis, was notoriously soft-hearted when it came to letting gypsies camp on his land and gather fallen firewood. They’d always repaid his kindness by respecting his game birds and poultry yard. “You think you might have seen my sister? She’s tall, with blue eyes—” He stopped, struck by the large dark eyes fastened on him, and reached carefully into the coat pocket not occupied by hideous summer reading material.
“Here,” he said, producing the last two sandwiches from his tea with Lorrie, wrapped carefully in his handkerchief for future consumption. “Are you hungry? It’s getting late and it would be a shame if you missed your supper.”
The boy stared at his outstretched hand and then at him, as if calculating how quickly he’d have to move in case this were a trick. Then he lunged forward and snatched the packet before stepping back a pace or two. Charles waited silently while he unwrapped the sandwiches, sniffed at them suspiciously then, satisfied that they weren’t poisonous, stuffed his mouth with them.
“I saw her, all right,” he said thickly through a mouthful of deviled ham, a few minutes later. “She’s your sister?”
Charles nodded, glad he’d had the impulse to give him the sandwiches; the boy seemed much less inclined to bolt now. “My eldest sister. She’s married to Lord Northgalis’s son.”
“Eeee,” said the boy, after a large swallow. “She the big lord’s bori? That’s bad, that is.”
Charles’s stomach flip-flopped unpleasantly. “Why? What’s bad about it? Where did you see her?”
He had to wait for any further information while the boy chewed through another enormous mouthful. “The gadji I saw—I seen her a lot, walking in the woods ever since we got here. She always alone, looking scared, but she don’t go back to her house like she should.”
“Yes—go on!”
The boy shrugged and wiped his mouth on a ragged sleeve. “She’s gone. They took her.”
“Who?”
The boy glanced around him, then sidled closer. “Biti Foki. A lot of them—as many as both my hands, twice.” He held them out, wiggling his fingers. “They wore cloaks the same color as leaves so it was hard to see them, but I saw their long bows and their white faces. The tallest one was carrying her—” he mimicked cradling something tenderly against his chest. “They got her with their little arrows so that she would sleep and not struggle. They were singing, like they were happy, but I don’t know the words they talk. I hid so they didn’t see me—I didn’t want them shooting me with one of their big arrows so that I never wake up no more.” He nodded solemnly.
Charles felt as if his ears had gone numb—as if all of him had—as he tried to take in the boy’s words. Persy had been kidnapped by pale-faced men carrying bows…except that if Lorrie were right, they hadn’t been men at all. The thought broke his paralysis.
“You’ve got to come with me,” he said, reaching out to take the boy’s hand. “You’ve got to tell Lochinvar and Lorrie what you saw. How long ago did you see them? Maybe if we hurry we can go after them—”
But the boy had stepped back in alarm from Charles’s outstretched hand, then turned and ran.
“Wait!” Charles shouted after him. “Where did you see them? Where were they going?”
The boy didn’t reply. Charles took a half-hearted step or two after him then changed his mind. He had to find Lochinvar.
But Lochinvar proved difficult to find. He was still gone when Charles returned to the house; Charles fidgeted in his room for nearly an hour, waiting for either him or Persy to come home. The bang of the front door at long last broke the tension: Charles darted from his room to see who had arrived, but all he saw as he hung over the banister was Pearson, the butler, ringing a loud hand bell in the front hall. All the servants came running; only something dire like fire or flood would merit such a summons. They gathered around the butler’s sturdy form. A few minutes later the female servants left, whispering in twos and threes, while the male servants filed behind Pearson into the library. Charles frowned and hurried down the stairs, sidling into the library after them.
Lochinvar and Lord Northgalis were there, dividing the servants into pairs and giving them terse directions then sending them out of the room. Charles tried to get Lochinvar’s attention but he was too intent on his task to pay him any mind—and before Charles knew it, had hurried out himself.
“Lochinvar!” he called, running to the door to catch up with him.
He didn’t so much as pause. “Not now, Charles,” he said shortly.
“I need to tell you something—”
But he’d already joined his valet, Parker, who awaited him at the front door, and they were gone.
“Blast it!” Charles muttered to himself, then remembered that Lord Northgalis was still there. “I’m sorry, sir. It—it’s Persy, isn’t it? Lochinvar didn’t find her?”
Lochinvar’s father sat down heavily in a chair and rumpled his gray hair in distraction. “No, he didn’t.” His usual expression of absentminded benignity had been replaced with worry and grief. “We’ve sent the footmen and grooms and gardeners out to look through the home woods before it gets completely dark. I—I don’t like to think of her out there, alone in the dark.”
Charles hesitated. Should he tell Lord Northgalis what the gypsy boy had told him? How much did he know about Persy and her magic—or about the supernatural creatures living on his own land? “I’m sure she’s…well, she’s not silly and vaporish like most girls,” he said bracingly. “Even if she fell and hurt herself or something, she won’t be scared.”
Perhaps it hadn’t been the most comforting thing to say after all; Charles saw a tear slide down Lord Northgalis’s cheek. “I—I could not bear it if something has happened to our Persephone. Known her since she was a baby…she is so dear to us—to me. I lost Lochinvar’s mother far too soon…I don’t want my son go through the same horror I did.”
Charles gulped. Lady Northgalis had died when Lochinvar was still a young child, and Lord Northgalis had never even considered remarrying. “I’m sure they’ll find her, sir,” he said.
Lord Northgalis looked at him bleakly. “I forget that she’s your sister, too. What will your mother and father say to me?” He rested his elbow on the arm of his chair and shaded his eyes with one hand.
“Er…excuse me, sir,” Charles muttered, and slipped out of the library. It was time to find Lorrie and tell her what he’d learned.
It was close to eleven before Lochinvar came back. The menservants continued to search in the summer night, armed now with torches and lanterns, but his valet had made him come back to the house for a few minute
s’ rest and a bite to eat. Dinner had more or less been forgotten by everyone; Mrs. Harris, the cook, had given up and set out a buffet of cold meat and bread and cheese in the kitchen for the searchers as they came to and from the house.
“What are you doing still up?” Lochinvar said when he caught sight of Charles standing in the library doorway. “No, I can’t eat that now, for God’s sake, man,” he added irritably to Parker, who stood next to him with a covered plate.
“It won’t help her ladyship if you don’t have enough strength to go out and look for her,” the valet said sternly.
Lochinvar sighed. “Very well. Set it down and fetch me a coat not soaked in dew, will you? And change yours, while you’re about it—it won’t help her ladyship if either of us catches cold.”
The valet smiled grimly, helped Lochinvar off with his coat, and left the room. Charles let him through and came in, Lorrie following close on his heels. Lochinvar, who’d sat down and was gazing unenthusiastically at the fricasseed chicken on his plate, looked up and raised his eyebrows at them.
“We know what’s happened to Persy,” Charles said. No sense trying to ease into it. “Lorrie—er, Miss Allardyce had sort of guessed that it might happen, and then the gypsy boy told me—”
“What?” Lochinvar rose, nearly knocking his chair over. Charles had never seen his usually calm, composed brother-in-law so tense, so close to explosion. “What about the gypsies? Allardyce, what is this about?”
Lorrie took a deep breath. “I don’t know exactly where she is being held, but I know with whom she is, my lord.”
“The fairies took her!” Charles burst out, unable to contain himself any longer. “I went to look for her, and I met a gypsy boy, and he told me he saw her with them. Miss Allardyce had just been telling me she was worried that they were after Persy, and she was right! We’ve got to go rescue her, only—”
Lochinvar held up a hand. “Wait. I want to know more about this gypsy boy you say you saw, Charles. When was this?”
“I just told you.” Honestly, wasn’t he paying attention? “It was when you went out on Lord Chesterfield to look for Persy before dinner. I went into the woods and he was there, not too far from the house. I gave him some sandwiches and he told me he’d seen Persy in the woods a lot, but that today he’d seen her with a group of fairy warriors carrying bows. She was unconscious—one of them was carrying her. He said they’d probably got her with their enchanted arrows so that she wouldn’t struggle.”
Lochinvar suddenly looked angry. “He told you that, did he? And then what happened?”
“Well, I wanted him to come up to the house and tell you what he’d seen, but he got scared and ran away—”
“Yes, and so did the whole gypsy encampment. They must have cleared out about then, because there was no sign of them when our men got there. But they found this on the edge of their camp.” He shoved a small bundle of fabric at them. Lorrie gave a gasp and snatched it up, shaking it out to look at it.
“It’s the shawl Lady Seton was wearing when she went out this afternoon,” she said. “She wanted just a light one to cover her neck from the sun. It was found at the gypsies’ camp?”
Lochinvar nodded grimly. “Your gypsy boy was spinning you a tale, Charles. What else was she wearing today, Allardyce? Any jewelry? Did she have money in her purse?”
Lorrie shook her head. “She didn’t take a purse, my lord—she never does. She was wearing her pearl brooch and her wedding ring, and the sapphire ring my lord Northgalis gave her for her birthday.”
“Enough to be a temptation. I’ve sent a couple of men out on the main roads to look for them, though they have several hours lead on us…in case she’s still…still unhurt.” His face twisted.
Charles couldn’t stand it any longer. The boy hadn’t been lying. He didn’t know how he knew that, but he did. “But what about what Lorrie said—and what the boy told me—”
Lochinvar slapped his hand on the table. “Confound it, Charles, I don’t know what nonsense Allardyce may have told you, but—”
“I don’t think it’s nonsense, my lord. Look at this.” Lorrie was holding up Persy’s shawl. Halfway along one edge, about where it might rest on a wearer’s neck, was a small hole. Caught in it was a tiny silver point, barely half an inch long, with a short broken length of slender shaft not much thicker than a straw still attached to it.
Charles leaned forward and carefully detached it from the threads that held it, then handed it to Lochinvar. “That doesn’t look very gypsy to me,” he said.
Lochinvar stared down at the tiny object in the palm of his hand. “It’s—there’s magic in it.”
Lorrie reached out a tentative finger. “May I?” At Lochinvar’s nod she took it and lay it on her own palm. “Oh, yes,” she said softly. “It’s there.”
“What about me?” Charles reached for it impatiently. Honestly, he was tired of everyone forgetting that he also had magical abilities.
The silver point seemed to burn his skin, then freeze it as though it were carved of ice. He felt a woozy sensation, and hastily picked it up by the broken shaft. No wonder poor Persy had been knocked out, if they could all still feel the magic left in it. “Well?” he said to Lochinvar.
“I…we don’t know it was the Fair Folk, though,” Lochinvar replied, but uncertainly, and Charles suddenly felt sorry for him. Kidnapping by gypsies was something that could be dealt with on a straightforward, mundane level, with police constables and the invisible but firm hand of the law. But fairies were another matter entirely.
“I think they were trying to make it look as though the gypsies had taken her,” Lorrie said. “They scared them off and left her shawl at the site of their camp on purpose. After all, they don’t know that there’s anyone else with magic here apart from her who might guess otherwise.”
“How do they know she’s a witch? And why does that matter?” Lochinvar had taken Persy’s shawl back from Lorrie and was gripping it in both hands, as if he could somehow squeeze Persy from it.
“They must know that she’s a Leland, from one of the oldest magical families in England. And you know the stories about how the fairies like to take witches to wife,” Lorrie said gently.
Charles waited for Lochinvar to get angry again, but he didn’t. Instead he looked tired and bleak, just as Lord Northgalis had, but also determined.
“Then I have to go find them and take her back,” he said simply. “If I have to dig up every barrow in Hampshire to find her, I will.” He went to the bell pull. “I’ll start with the ones right here at Galiswood, as soon as Parker brings me my coat—”
“My lord, I don’t think that’s a wise idea,” Lorrie said. “It’s nearly midnight, and night is far friendlier to their senses than to ours. You wouldn’t be able to get within a half-mile of them without their knowing it.”
Lochinvar looked as though he might argue, but finally nodded. “I won’t call my men back in, though. If it were to get out among the servants that there truly are fairies out there, we would have a panic. And just in case she did only get lost—”
There was a discreet knock at the door and Parker came in, carrying a dry coat. Lochinvar quickly moved forward to take it from him. “Thank you, Parker. Why don’t you get some rest now, and then you can take over for me in a few hours.”
“You’re going out to look for her some more?” Charles asked. Hadn’t he just accepted that it had been the fairies who’d taken Persy?
“I have to. You two should get some sleep as well. I expect we’re going to be very busy come morning.” Lochinvar was already at the door.
“But—“
“You're quite right, my lord,” Lorrie said, and with a stern look steered Charles out of the room. Once they were back in the hall and on their way up the stairs, she stopped him. “You heard him. He has to keep looking, if only for appearance’s sake. Tomorrow, we have to start figuring out how we can get your sister back.”
Charles suddenly remembered that it
had been a very long day and that this morning he’d still been at Eton, where his only trouble had been that he had a lot of boring summer reading to look forward to. “How do you think we’ll be able to?”
Lorrie shook her head. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
Chapter Four
Charles was awakened the following morning by urgent knocking. “Stuff it, Mallory,’ he mumbled irritably and burrowed deeper into the bedclothes, and then came sufficiently awake to recall that this wasn’t Eton, nor was it likely that his friend Mallory was whacking the end of his dresser to wake him up. He scrambled to a sitting position just as Lorrie opened his door and stuck her head in.
“Get dressed,” she said without preamble. “You’ve got a visitor.”
“What? Who? Is Persy back?” he asked hopefully.
She gave him a look that reminded him remarkably—or perhaps not so remarkably—of Ally. “We’ll be in the library. Hurry up—he’s skittish enough to bolt at the least thing.”
He? “He who?” Charles asked, but Lorrie had already left.
Charles leapt out of bed and pulled on his clothes from yesterday, strewn haphazardly across the floor. He was still knotting a kerchief around his neck (quicker than a cravat) as he arrived at the library door and went in.
Lochinvar, looking like he hadn’t slept at all—which he probably hadn’t, Charles guessed—was sitting on the edge one of the large tables. Lord Northgalis was seated in a chair behind it, his shoulders slumped. Lorrie stood by the sofa. They were all looking toward the fireplace, next to which a small figure stood staring back at them defiantly, its arms crossed on its chest. It was the gypsy boy from yesterday.
He looked almost as haggard as Lochinvar, and it was clear from his reddened eyes that he had been crying. “I brought you back your dikla,” he said when he saw Charles blinking at him from the doorway. “I told you us Romany aren’t no thieves.” He reached into a pocket and pulled out the handkerchief that Charles had wrapped the sandwiches in the day before, carefully folded.
Charles Bewitched (Leland Sisters) Page 3
