by Sandra Heath
Theo looked at him in surprise. “Ward? I didn’t know he’d had one.”
“Oh, yes, a little girl called Eleanor Rhodes. She was the apple of his eye, but then she vanished one day, oh, years ago now. Your uncle cut up very rough about it, and quite frankly he hasn’t been very agreeable ever since.”
“How do you know so much about it?”
“Chance really. I heard my parents discussing it when I was a child. It seems that a branch of my family is called Rhodes, and it was wondered if Eleanor was actually a cousin. The possibility must have come to nothing, however, for it wasn’t pursued, and she remained your uncle’s ward.”
The carriage entered St. James’s Square, its team of white horses stepping high. Lord Carmartin’s town residence was in the far corner, a three-story redbrick property with pedimented, shuttered windows on the two lower floors, and an imposing porch that jutted out to the iron railings that guarded the drop between the pavement and the basement. The square was a handsome area, with a railed octagonal pool where a flock of seagulls fluttered excitedly around the central equestrian statue of King William III. At the height of summer there was boating on the one-hundred-and-fifty-feet-wide pool, but there were no boats there at this time of year. The wind rippled the chilly water, and overhead small white clouds raced across the blue sky.
Conan watched the seagulls, and then realized what was attracting them. A squirrel was perched on King William’s head, for all the world like a red fur hat. How on earth had it crossed the water to get there? And why was it in St. James’s Square anyway? There wasn’t a tree in sight! The gulls fluttered and swooped, and when he looked at the statue again there was no sign of the squirrel, although he was sure the gulls hadn’t snatched it. The gulls flew off as the carriage drew closer, and Conan decided he’d imagined the squirrel.
Theo suddenly looked sharply at him. “Mm? What was that you said?”
“What was what? I didn’t say anything.”
“I— I thought ... Oh, it doesn’t matter.”
The carriage continued around the square, then Theo sat forward with a start. “Come on now, Conan, you’ve just said it again!”
“I tell you I haven’t said anything,” Conan repeated a little testily. What was the matter with the fellow?
Theo stared at him. “You didn’t say ‘Eleanor’?”
“No. Well, not since mentioning your uncle’s ward. Why?”
“Oh, I ...” Theo looked away a little awkwardly.
Conan smoothed the moment over. “It was probably a street call—this wind distorts everything.”
“Yes, I suppose so.” Theo let the matter drop, but a puzzled crease remained in his brow.
The coachman maneuvered the horses to a halt at the curb. Conan grinned at Theo. “Well, we’re here, so you might as well get on with it.”
“Will you look after Bran for me?”
“If I must,” Conan replied without enthusiasm, for the likelihood was that his spotless attire would soon look as disreputable as Theo’s.
“I fancy I’ll need a good deal more Diabolino when this is over,” Theo muttered as he flung open the door of the carriage and climbed down. The wind blustered coldly in for a moment before he slammed the door and approached the house.
As he disappeared inside, Bran whined suddenly, and Conan saw that the wolfhound was gazing alertly toward the central pool. A young woman was standing beside it with a white horse, yet he hadn’t heard her ride up. She wore a lilac riding habit and a veiled hat that cast her face and hair into shadow as she tied a length of ribbon to the railing that surrounded the pool. He knew her ... didn’t he? No, he didn’t just know her, he loved her!
Bran whined again and pawed at the carriage door, distracting Conan. In that second both the young woman and her mount disappeared, just as the squirrel had a few minutes earlier. All that remained to show he hadn’t imagined her was the lilac ribbon that fluttered on the railing.
Puzzled, and not a little shaken, he opened the door and climbed down. Bran scrambled out too, his claws scraping as he set off across the square, baying at the top of his lungs. He dashed around and around the square, searching for the young woman, but although he halted hopefully at each exit, tail wagging nineteen to the dozen, there was no sign of her. Conan reached the railing and removed the ribbon, which still bore the creases where it had been tied around her hair. The scent of flowers— primroses, he thought—seemed to cling to it, fresh, sweet, and so haunting that he closed his eyes. Bran returned and stretched up to snuffle the ribbon, then whined.
Still shaken by the force of his feelings, Conan slipped the ribbon into his pocket, and then took Bran by the collar to lead him back to the carriage.
Chapter 7
At that moment in the second-floor drawing room of Carmartin House, poor Theo was being torn off a considerable strip by his uncle, who was definitely not pleased to meet with any resistance to the proposed union.
“Now listen to me, you ungrateful whippersnapper, you are marrying Ursula Elcester, and that is the end of it!” Lord Carmartin slammed his glass down so hard that his pre-luncheon cognac splashed on the highly polished mahogany table beside his comfortable crimson velvet chair. His cold eyes peered over the thick-lensed spectacles wedged upon the end of his large nose.
Theo rose unhappily from his seat and placed a hand on the marble mantelshelf to gaze down into the gently swaying flames. Then he glanced back at his angry uncle. “You must forgive me, sir, but I simply cannot like the prospect of Ursula Elcester.”
“What has like to do with the scheme of things? We’re talking about a marriage of convenience.”
“I know, but it would help if I at least understood a woman who enjoys translating ancient Welsh myths!”
“Understood her? Damn it all, boy, you’re going to bed her, not delve into the mysteries of her mind! Any man who is fool enough to make a study of female intelligence is doomed!” Lord Carmartin moderated his tone. “Look, m’boy, it ain’t as if you’re expected to live in domestic bliss with her. All that’s needed is an heir or two, and then you can both go your separate ways.”
“Yes, but the getting of heirs requires a certain, er, intimacy, sir.”
‘‘By the saints, if you can’t manage that, you’re no nephew of mine!” roared Lord Carmartin, losing patience again. His watery hazel eyes were bright, and spots of high color marked his lean cheeks. Jasper Octavius Carmartin was of a generation that had little time for such things as love matches. A man got married, and then, provided he was fortunate, some level of affection followed. That was how it had always been, how it should be! He had married twice, so he should know! All this modern namby-pamby romantic nonsense had no place in the serious matter of increasing estates and fortunes. This match was a certain way of joining the Elcester lands to his own, and to that end he cared as little for the bride’s wishes as he did his nephew’s.
Theo returned his attention to the fire, and suddenly it seemed to him that he saw the image of a young woman shimmering among the flames. She had wonderful green eyes and a sweet, heart-shaped face framed with silky red hair. He had seen her before in his dreams, on the night he’d arrived in London from Naples.
Hardly had she appeared in the flames, when the whisper he’d heard in the carriage was repeated. “Eleanor ... ” Dear God, he must have had even more Diabolino last night than he’d realized! But then the fire shifted, and the image was destroyed in a thousand glittering sparks that fled toward the chill London sky. Startled, he stepped swiftly back from the hearth.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” his uncle demanded.
“Nothing, sir, nothing at all.” Theo glanced at the fire again. Could the image be of his uncle’s lost ward, Eleanor Rhodes? Although why he should think that he really didn’t know, for Eleanor was not an uncommon name. He turned to face the older man. “May I ask you something, sir?”
“Within reason.”
“I’m told you once had a ward—”
>
“That is definitely not within reason!” interrupted the older man, his eyes suddenly alight with bright emotion.
Theo drew prudently back from the brink. “Forgive me, I did not mean to upset you. Er, about this match. I suppose you really are set upon it?”
“Most certainly. Thomas Elcester and I have decided that it will take place soon. Damn it all, as a widower I’d marry Ursula myself if I thought it would achieve anything, but two childless marriages do not bode well for a fruitful third. I’m nothing if not pragmatic about such things.”
“Well, I may not be any more successful than you,” Theo pointed out, for large numbers of offspring did not appear to be a family feature.
“Damn it, boy, all marriages are a lottery where such things are concerned. Both you and Ursula are healthy, and therefore the chances are good. That is my last word on the subject. I want you to go down to Gloucestershire tomorrow in order to dance suitable attendance upon the lady. It’s a formality, because she won’t have any choice in the matter either, but we must go through the motions.”
We don’t have to do anything, I do, Theo thought resentfully.
“I’ve already sent word to Carmartin Park,” Lord Carmartin continued, “so you’re expected there late tomorrow evening, that’s the twenty-eighth, in case you don’t realize. I’ve noticed that you can be remiss about dates and appointments when it so pleases you.”
Theo tried not to react to the sarcasm.
“Thomas Elcester and I have already agreed he will invite you to dinner the evening after. That’s the twenty-ninth.” Lord Carmartin finished.
“How pleasant,” Theo murmured under his breath, and then glanced once more at the fire. Oh, how loath he was to go to dine with awful Ursula? Why couldn’t she look like and be like the divinity he had seen among the flames? He cordially wished the Elcesters, père et fille, to go to perdition and stay there.
Lord Carmartin’s voice penetrated again. “It will be best bib and tucker time while you’re at Elcester Manor, m’boy, so there isn’t to be any foolish foppery.” His withering glance encompassed his nephew’s Cossack trousers.
“I’m not a fop,” Theo replied, taking offense.
“Anyone who wears those damned ridiculous things is a fop as far as I’m concerned, and that’s what Thomas Elcester will think as well, so temper it a little. Dress more like your friend, er, what’s his name? Berrytown?”
“Merrydown. Sir Conan Merrydown.”
“That’s the chap. He always looks manly.”
Theo managed to hold his tongue. Oh, how he hated these one-sided exchanges, his uncleship loading the ammunition, his nephewship in the firing line.
“How is Merrydown?” Lord Carmartin inquired.
“Very well. Actually, I’d like to take him down to Gloucestershire with me. From your own account Carmartin Park isn’t exactly cozy, and I’d be glad of the company.”
Lord Carmartin cleared his throat. “Oh, I suppose it’s all right, although the dinner invitation won’t extend to him as well because Thomas Elcester clearly won’t know of his presence. Just make sure you behave faultlessly where the Elcesters are concerned. The last thing I want at this stage is a resumption of the old feud.”
“I understand, sir.”
“Good.” Lord Carmartin rose from his chair and went to pour some more cognac for them both. Then he came to press a glass into his nephew’s hand. “This will be a wise connection, m’boy, for it means you will one day be master of a hefty slice of the county. You mark my words, this match will see the founding of a new dynasty. Here’s to success between the sheets, eh?” He clinked Theo’s glass.
Theo mumbled something, but drank the toast. Then his glance moved back to the fire, where the shimmering face fingered in his memory. A beautiful, vulnerable green-eyed redhead called Eleanor. Oh, if only ...
Chapter 8
Ursula was awakened before dawn the following morning. She didn’t know what had disturbed her, and for a few moments was too drowsy with sleep to stir properly. The oak-paneled room was in shadow, with only a faint glow of ember light in the hearth of the heraldic stone fireplace, and the last of the moonlight slanting low through the pale green curtains. It was a beautiful old room, with an intricately decorated Tudor plasterwork ceiling, and an uneven wooden floor that was scattered with rugs. Her four-posted bed was hung with heavy lemon-white-striped silk, gold tasseled and fringed, and the fireside chairs were upholstered in the same material. There were two doors, one to the passage, the other to the adjoining anteroom, which served as a dressing room, with a washstand, dressing table, and wardrobes.
Ursula lay with the tendrils of sleep still curling all around. The air was cool, and she shivered a little, drawing the bedclothes up around the shoulders of her lace-trimmed nightgown. Then the window curtains moved a little in a draft. She looked drowsily toward them. Had she left the window open last night? Oh, it didn’t matter now, for she wanted to sleep again. Her eyes began to close, but suddenly there came a soft scampering sound. The scampering became a scuffling, and she sat up in alarm, pushing her tangled hair back from her face.
A squirrel was sitting on the floor, looking at her. For a split second Ursula thought it was a rat, and gave a gasp of horror, at which the little creature darted away toward the window and disappeared out into the night.
She heard the ivy rustling against the wall as the squirrel made its escape. Flinging back the bedclothes, Ursula got up to hurry to the window, where there was an upholstered window seat upon which she always knelt to look out. The predawn air was cold in the embrasure, and the mullioned window was indeed ajar, although she was certain it had been closed when she retired.
Her room faced south over the hidden valley toward the Green Man and Elcester village. A spring mist enveloped the woods at the bottom of the valley, so that only the tallest trees were visible, but the sky far above was clear, and the moon, more than three-quarters full, cast a cold clear light over the countryside. To the west rose the ridge along which the Stroud road passed; to the east the valley descended gradually and secretly toward the hamlet of Inchmead, some two miles away, and two miles beyond that the small mill town of Nailsworth.
Below the window, the manor’s terraced gardens descended into the mist. The fountain played in the topiary garden, where the paths were laid in a symmetrical pattern that had been set down in the sixteenth century. Ursula’s attention was drawn to two squirrels playing around the base of the fountain; then she saw more running along the low urn-topped wall between the topiary garden and the rose garden on the hazy lower level. In fact, there were squirrels everywhere. Daniel Pedlar was right, there was a plague of them!
Then something else caught her eye, an incongruous bobbing light on the far side of the valley. Someone was carrying a lantern down through the field behind the Green Man. Who would be out at this hour? Not Rufus Almore, that much was certain. As she watched, the lantern disappeared into the mist as whoever it was entered the woods close to Hazel Pool. Down in the gardens, the squirrels had melted away into the mist.
A dog began to bark in the grooms’ quarters over the manor stables, and she heard the horses shifting nervously in their stalls. Voices drifted up to her as the men were aroused from their beds and went to see what was wrong. Ursula wanted to know as well, so she hastily donned shoes and a sensible aquamarine merino gown and dragged a brush through her hair before tying it back with a white ribbon. Seizing her gray cloak, she hurried from her room.
Her father had also been disturbed, and was down in the stables in his nightshirt, purple dressing robe, and tasseled hat. The dog was no longer barking, and the horses were quieter. No one knew what had upset the animals, for a search had revealed no sign of an intruder. The head groom shook his head in mystification, and then muttered something about it being ‘that whatever-it-was down in the woods’. Ursula felt a chill finger pass down her spine as she remembered the lantern.
Mr. Elcester decided to make a
nother search of the stables himself, and would not hear of Ursula staying outside. “No, m’dear, you go back to your bed.”
“But—
“Do as I ask, m’dear.”
“Very well.” She kissed his cheek and began to return to the house, but as she passed the steps down to the first garden terrace, she paused to look in the direction of the woods and Hazel Pool. The first gray light of dawn now marked the eastern sky, and a vixen screamed somewhere, an eerie sound that always made her heart quicken a little. Then she thought she heard something else. Voices? She wasn’t sure. A strange feeling of excitement and curiosity began to course through her. If something was going on in the woods—her father’s woods— then she ought to find out what it was. Her father wouldn’t know what she was up to, because he would think she was safe in bed. Valor nudged common sense aside, and she gathered her skirts to hurry down the steps.
She descended through the terraces, and on reaching the misty rose garden at the bottom, she opened the door in the tall boundary wall. Beyond it lay the lower park sloping away toward the woods. Rufus Almore’s fright crossed her mind briefly, but then she was outside and hurrying along the path through the dew-soaked grass. The mist swirled around her, sometimes cloaking everything, sometimes thinning so that she could see almost clearly.
The edge of the woods loomed before her, fringed with the creamy white of hawthorn blossom, which filled the dawn with perfume. She entered slowly, for the well-remembered trees seemed menacing, and it was impossible not to remember that May Eve—Beltane—was imminent, when witches took to the air to do their wickedness. She thought she heard odd little sounds; the squirrels maybe, for she sensed them nearby, and once or twice she glanced up to see one leaping from branch to branch overhead. There was no birdsong, she noticed, for usually the dawn chorus would be getting under way at this hour.
Voices sounded again. They were singing. No, chanting or reciting something. She felt she should recognize what they were saying, for there was something familiar about the rhythm. The woods folded over her, and the scent of hawthorn gave way to the more subtle fragrance of the bluebells that lay in drift upon moon-silvered drift all around. Wreaths of mist curled and uncurled, but always the path remained visible, leading her on toward Hazel Pool in the heart of the woods.
