Keeper of the Swans

by Nancy Butler

  She quickly knelt beside the bird, her hands fluttering above it in confusion. She didn’t want to touch it, didn’t want to increase its already palpable fear. It raised its head to her, neck snaking forward, and hissed, opening its vermillion beak halfway.

  “You’re safe now,” she crooned. “He’ll take you back to the island. I promise you’ll get well again.”

  She was crying now, the hot tears streaming down her cheeks. A shadow loomed over her and she started back in alarm. It was Romulus.

  “Go back to the boat,” he ordered in a ragged, breathless voice. “Now.”

  “But I can help you,” she said as she scrambled to her feet. “Let me help.”

  Romulus was gazing down at the swan, his eyes hooded. “Now,” he repeated without looking up.

  She turned and started back toward the boat. When she reached the first clump of tall grass she spun around. “Please let me—

  Romulus was kneeling over the white bird, and there was a knife in his right hand.

  “No!” Diana cried as she flew back to him. “No, please, Rom! I promised…I promised.”

  He looked up at her, his face as white as the glistening feathers of the swan. “Do you want to see this?” he snarled.

  “No,” she whimpered. “But there must be something you can do. As you did with the heron. A splint, a bandage. I promised you would make him well.”

  He shook his head, his eyes two wells of darkness in his pale face. “I am doing the only thing I can do. And the longer you stand here arguing with me, the longer this poor beast has to suffer.”

  She turned and fled. Went crashing through the grass, heedless of the sharp blades slicing at her arms. The only blade she could see was the one in Rom’s hand, as it drew the life’s blood of the great white bird.

  After struggling along through the dark reeds, she eventually found the boat, floating a little offshore. She tugged it closer by the bow line and slid over the low gunwale. Crouched in the bottom of the boat, she let her tears overtake her, sobbing out her pain against one raised knee.

  “I-I promised…” she stuttered out into the night. Because Romulus could do anything. Because he could solve anything. He was a healer and a rescuer. But tonight he had become a killer.

  Her tears had subsided by the time he returned to the boat. She couldn’t see his face, but as he climbed onto his seat she could feel the tension rising from his body. She wanted to apologize for alerting the poacher, but knew this was not the proper time. Before he pushed off, he reached his hands over the side and into the water.

  Blood, she realized. He’s washing off the swan’s blood. She was nearly sick at the thought.

  He rowed them back to the island in grim silence, his powerful shoulders clenching and unclenching as he sent the boat against I he current.

  “Go to the house,” he ordered as he drew up beside the slip. “I need to check the other side of the—”

  Diana didn’t wait to hear the rest of his words as she turned with a low sob and ran off into the darkness. She couldn’t go to the house, couldn’t bear to face the sixteen orphans. Would the death of the swan tonight mean that there would be more orphans in the morning?

  Without a conscious destination in mind, she paced rapidly along the path until she came to the pond. In the moonlight, the flat granite rock looked like obsidian, cool and hard. She stretched out upon it, letting the night air soothe her troubled spirits.

  How ironic—that she’d thought Romulus daft for caring so much about the swans. But he wasn’t daft. And now she cared as much as he did. It had wrenched her heart to see that majestic animal injured and in distress. And she understood why Romulus had had to end that distress—there were some things even a tall river god couldn’t put right. But that realization pained her as much as the death of the swan.

  Romulus Perrin couldn’t save the swan from the poacher, and he wouldn’t save her from Sir Beveril Hunnycut. That knowledge tore at her insides. Because in her heart that was what she was hoping he would do. That he would offer her a chance to stay with him, to work with him and learn from him. About the river, and the birds. About life and the harmony of an existence without trappings. And about love.

  She rolled over and away from the beguiling moonlight. Was that what she truly wanted? To learn about love from a man who was a recluse and an oddity? A river warden who was mistrusted by the villagers, who was friends with the Gypsies? She breathed a prayer of apology to Helen as she said aloud, “Yes. Oh, yes.”

  For the second time that night, Rom’s shadow loomed over her, but this time she did not start back in fear. She merely sat up, gazing at him with wide, worried eyes. He knelt down beside her, raising one of her hands from the surface of the rock. She could have sworn his fingers were trembling.

  “You didn’t need to run from me, Allegra,” he said in a gruff whisper. “I am not angry with you.” He shook his head when she started to protest. “The poacher would have gotten away regardless—he had a horse tethered to a tree. I want you to understand that.”

  “I cried out,” she said bitterly. “I gave away our position.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I know who he is now. I got a good look at him before he tossed away the lantern. All it needs is for me to accost him in the village and put the fear of God into him.”

  “You’re not going to turn him over to a magistrate?”

  He shook his head. “This matter is between the poacher and myself.”

  She said earnestly, “But he needs to pay.”

  “I’m not interested in vengeance, little witch. I just want him to stop killing my birds.”

  She shook off his hand. “Then you have a heart of stone. I would like to see him festering in a jail cell for years and years.”

  Romulus drew back from her as though she had struck him. “Don’t wish that on any man, Allegra.”

  “But didn’t you see what he did to the swan?” she cried. “He practically butchered it.”

  “No, I butchered it,” he said softly. “The poacher merely crippled it.”

  Diana groped in the darkness to take back his hand, holding it between her palms. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lash out at you. But I’ve never watched anything die. Especially not something I cared about.”

  “How can you care?” he asked. “Yesterday you didn’t know a baby swan from a hen’s chick.”

  “But now I do know the difference,” she murmured. “And now I must care.”

  “You are a very unusual girl, Allegra,” he said with a sigh. “And I’m sorry you had to be there tonight. Sorry that it ruined everything….”

  “No,” she said sharply. “I’ll never forget how it felt to be on the river with you.” Her eyes were raised to his. “Never,” she whispered.

  Romulus held her gaze for a moment, afraid of what he read there and even more afraid of how much he wanted to respond to the yearning expression in her eyes. He rose to his feet abruptly and pulled her up after him. Her body swayed dangerously close to his.

  “Go back to the house now,” he said, shifting away from her. “I really do need to go out on the river. There are some nesting sites on the other bank I want to check.”

  “Will there be more orphans, do you think?”

  “I hope not. I believe that was a cob he trapped tonight. With any luck it was one that had already lost its mate. Will you feed the cygnets for me while I’m gone?”

  “Of course. And I’ll make sure they all stay where they belong.” She gave him a tight smile, and then turned for the path to the house.

  “And where do you belong, my witch?” he murmured as she was lost in the tangled shadows of the trees. “Where in blazes do you belong?”

  * * *

  Romulus found the rowboat on the eastern bank of the Thames. The current had lodged it beneath the trunk of a dead oak, which lay canted out beyond the shore. He’d lit his lantern then, to see if he could identify the boat. Many of the estates along the Thames marked their rowboat
s and pleasure barges with their livery colors. This one was no exception. It bore a Greek key design painted in scarlet and gold along its outer gunwale. “Mortimer House,” he muttered. James Mortimer’s barge bore the same design on its sides.

  And if he was still doubtful that this was the craft in which Allegra had come down river, the sight of a tattered, white satin rosebud caught in one of the oarlocks convinced him.

  So she had come from Mortimer House. It needed only that he row upstream and tell them of her whereabouts. Perhaps she had been a guest at the house, maybe even a friend of Beveril’s intended. Then something stirred in his brain, and he recalled her comment of the night before, As long as it’s not Allegra Partridge. She’d said the name with distaste. And Partridge made one think immediately of Vivian Partridge.

  Even to those on the river who kept to themselves, as Romulus did, it was well-known that Lady Hamish’s nephew had been carrying on a less-than-discreet affair with the beautiful widow. Romulus had seen her numerous times, riding with Sir Beveril near Hamish House. Several times she had even stopped to speak with Romulus, inquiring after his work, while Beveril sat his horse beside her, bristling noticeably. Romulus had to admit she was an exquisite creature. Not that he cared overmuch for Junoesque blondes.

  He made a tentative hypothesis. If Sir Beveril’s provincial fiancée had somehow found out about Lady Vivian, it was possible she might have fled from him in dismay. But the girl must be wits-to-let to have taken a rowboat out on such a night. Maybe she really was a suicide, he thought with a mirthless grin. After all, it was either kill herself or marry the pompous windbag. Not a pleasant choice, to be sure.

  He vaulted over the side of his boat and into the thigh-deep water. It took only a moment to free the rowboat from beneath the oak tree. A tattered rope still hung loose from the bow and Romulus began to fasten it to the stern cleat of his skiff. It would be a simple task to return the boat to its rightful owner, who would then relieve him of his tempting, unwanted houseguest.

  Simple.

  With a sudden oath Romulus dropped the bow line. Placing one broad shoulder against its stern, he heaved the boat up onto the shore, flattening a clump of sawgrass. He then staggered onto the bank and knotted the rope around one fist. He dragged the boat into the tangle of bushes and tall reeds that edged the river and then flipped it over, so its ash belly lay raised to the night sky. In the lantern light its keel looked quite sound—it had made it through the maelstrom without a scratch.

  With his knife he rapidly hacked loose several lengths of leafy vine and draped them over the hull, obscuring it totally. Not a soul would suspect that a boat lay beneath all that greenery.

  Yes, he mused wretchedly as he climbed into his skiff and pushed off from the shore, it should have been quite simple to return both rowboat and runaway to Mortimer House. But he knew that things were now no longer simple. Not since he had seen Allegra on her knees, weeping over the injured swan.

  A world of complex feelings had surfaced in him at that sight. Anguish, helplessness, and the fierce desire to take her in his arms and comfort her. Her wide, tear-filled eyes had pleaded with him to make things right. And his heart had ached, knowing that he lacked the skill to mend the crippled swan. He had failed her, his water witch. As he had failed the others, the men whose dying cries still echoed in his dreams.

  Romulus knew in his soul that he couldn’t blithely row Allegra up the river and return her to Mortimer House. Whether she was, in truth, Beveril’s fiancée, or merely one of the houseguests, she clearly feared returning to that place. Her unconvincing loss of memory was proof of that. He’d go on pretending he believed in her preposterous charade—he had committed to that lie when he camouflaged her boat.

  He needed to give her more time. To let her trust in him grow, until she was secure enough to tell him the truth. Only then could he bear to let her go from his life. When Allegra was ready to leave his island, he would stand away. Until then, he would guard her and protect her with every fiber of his being. He vowed he would not fail her in that.

  He rowed back to the island slowly, and with each stroke of the oars, his mind rebelled at the knowledge that she would only be temporarily in his keeping. Because he knew that even if she didn’t ask to be returned home any time soon, there were others who would be searching for her. If she was Beveril’s intended, he would likely have called in the Bow Street Runners. Rom feared it was only a matter of time before someone came to fetch her. He now regretted revealing her presence on the island to Niall, although the lad was the soul of discretion. One wrong word on the Gypsy’s part, and Romulus would have half the gentry in the county beating at his door. And they would not take kindly to the thought of a gently-bred young lady being held in the home of a reclusive madman.

  But Romulus was too used to going his own way to let that fear deter him. And he would keep his other thoughts at bay, the ones that whispered to him in the stark, lonely hours of the night. He would deny himself the vision of Allegra melting in his arms, of her sweet, rosy mouth raised up for his kisses.

  She had shown him her heart, as she crouched there above the crippled swan. Compassion for the injured animal had shone in her eyes, and had touched a resounding chord deep inside him. She was no cold-hearted society belle, but a young woman capable of great feeling. That realization had shaken his world.

  Here was a woman who cared about the same things he did—the river and the waterbirds, the wind in the trees and the moon on the water. He had been with her only three days and yet he had discovered in that short time that they were cut from the same cloth.

  He’d always thought of himself a prudent man, not prone to flights of fancy or caprice. He knew his place in the scheme of things and had long ago grown used to his estate. But something about his black-haired foundling had lured him into longing. He now yearned for things that would always be beyond his reach, foolishly aching for a woman who was so far above him, she might have dwelled among the stars.

  He brought the boat up to the slip, too preoccupied by his own thoughts to notice the slim figure waiting at the edge of the woods.

  “I made some stew,” Diana said as he came toward her. He stopped dead in his tracks. “I thought you might be hungry.”

  “A bit,” he murmured, as he waited to let her precede him. He didn’t want to get too close to her just then. “But you should be abed by now,” he said. “It’s quite late.”

  She didn’t move from the path. The kerchief was gone from her hair and the dark curls wafted around her head, glistening in the moonlight. She laid one hand on his sleeve. “You were gone such a long time. I’ve been waiting here nearly an hour.”

  He gave her a wry look. “Then I expect the mosquitoes, at least, have had their supper.”

  She managed a weak grin. “I didn’t mind. But Rom, please tell me—is there more trouble on the river?”

  Yes, he wanted to groan. There is a deal of trouble on the river. You are the trouble, little witch…. I have perjured myself this night to keep you safe, and with no hope of reward for my crime.

  “No,” he said, curtly, trying to tear his gaze from her pale face. “At least nothing I cannot handle.” He began to brush past her.

  “Rom….” She tugged at his sleeve. “I didn’t really come here to talk about your supper.”

  “What then?” He tried to pull away but she held firm.

  “It was you I was worried about, not the river. I thought you might need…someone…I mean, if you were upset about the swan dying.”

  “It happens,” he muttered. “You get over it.”

  “Tell me then,” she cried softly. “How does one get over it, without another to share the pain?”

  He turned to her and let his chin rest for one instant upon her hair. How, indeed?

  He knew in that moment that he desired far more from Allegra than her kisses. He needed the sweet balm of her compassion. In truth, she was not the only one who had been affected by the swan’s death.
But he dared not avail himself of the comfort she offered. As much as his spirit cried out for it.

  Romulus knew a man could share his body with a woman and walk away unfettered. But if he shared still the secrets of his guarded, damaged heart with a woman like Allegra, he knew he would be bound to her indelibly. Then when she left him, as all his foundlings eventually did, it would cause such a wrenching tear in his soul as he’d never before endured.

  Christ! The thought of losing her was already nearly unendurable. If he had any sense at all, he would toss her into the skiff and row her back to Mortimer House while he still had the strength of will.

  But then he recalled his promise. He would offer her a sanctuary until she trusted him enough to confide her reasons for running away. He’d already seen the trust brimming in her eyes when she’d entreated him to save the swan. It couldn’t be more than a few days before she revealed the truth. And in the meantime, he would damn well have to temper his feelings for her, starting this very minute.

  “I’m fine, Allegra,” he lied, drawing back. Her hands fell away from his arm. “Everything is fine.”

  Chapter 5

  The Waterthrush, a Tudor-era assemblage of stucco and beams, was sparsely populated in the mornings. The public house did most of its business at the end of the workday, when farmers and laborers came in for a pint and a good round of gossip. But there were a few men, those with no settled occupation, who whiled away the daytime hours in the pub’s cool, dark taproom, playing at checkers and cards.

  Treypenny’s ferryman, Wald Chipping, was one such fellow. He limited himself to drinking only in the mornings, praying he wouldn’t be summoned to the river by the clanging of the bell beside the water stairs. Prudent travelers who wanted to use the ferry did so in the early morning, before Wald’s daily imbibing began, or late in the afternoon, when he’d had a chance to sleep off its effects. At midday, Wald Chipping was as likely to overturn his passengers in the river as he was to get them across to the opposite shore.