Poaching, of course. That was the primary function of Gypsy dogs, and as she had indicated before, a white animal would be of no use in the dark.
“John-the-Baptist thought I would like some company here when he is away. So he kept him alive by giving him to suckle at a goat. And when the pup was strong enough, he came here to live. He is a good watchdog, although little enough stirs on the moors.”
“Except perhaps ghosts,” I joked, thinking of the bleak grimness of the place when the sky was iron grey and the clouds seemed to lower just overhead.
“Oh, yes. The ghosts,” she said soberly. “But the dead do not always lie quietly, do they, lady?”
I thought of the people I had known who had died. I had never seen a ghost, but I had known the unquiet dead.
“No, they do not,” I agreed. I hurried to change the subject. “John-the-Baptist is an unusual name.”
“He is an unusual man. Perhaps you will meet him. He will come this way again soon. Always in the springtime,” she said, and for an instant I fancied I caught a note of wistfulness in her tone. I could not imagine her living so long removed from her people, seeing her husband for a few weeks of each year.
I thought again of Magda. She had been banished from her Gypsy family and had spent some time as my laundress in London before rejoining her people. It was not impossible that Rosalie had been banished as well. I knew the Gypsies had many taboos for which the punishment was always banishment.
“You said you are a—what was the word?” I asked her.
“Shuvari. The English call me a witch, but among my own kind I am a healer.”
“And the villagers here, the English, they do not bother you? I would have thought them inclined to be superstitious about such things.”
She shrugged. “They remember the old ways here, when there was always a village wise woman to help babies into the world, and ease the passing of the dead. They trust me because I soften their sorrows and because I have the gift of potions. There is not a condition I cannot remedy, if a person wants my help.”
“A gift indeed,” I observed. “You are lucky, Rosalie. Not many people have the good fortune of knowing their purpose so clearly.”
She tipped her head to one side, as I had often seen my raven, Grim, do. Her eyes were dark and bright with interest. “You speak as though you wander, lady. But you should not. Your path is one you put your feet on some time ago. And even though you cannot see the way for the shadows, you must know these shadows will not always cloud your vision.”
I toyed with the Medusa pendant at my throat, turning the coin over in my fingers. Rosalie looked at it curiously, but said nothing. I tucked it away lest she ask about it. My relationship with Brisbane was complicated enough without trying to explain it to a virtual stranger. “You speak like a fortune-teller now. I thought you did not have the sight.”
“I may not read tea leaves or palms, my lady, but it is easy enough to read faces. Yours is a questioning face, always looking for answers, always seeking the truth, for yourself and for others.”
I smiled at her. “I think that is a very polite way of saying I am curious as a cat. And we all know what happened to the cat—curiosity killed her.”
Rosalie took the last slice of cake onto her plate. “Yes, but you forget the most important thing about the little cat,” she said, giving me a wise nod. “She had eight lives left to live.”
I hurried my steps as I returned to Grimsgrave Hall. Dark clouds had gathered, and though it had not begun to rain, the wind was freshening, whipping my skirts and shawl about me and dragging my hair free from its pins. I cursed it as I struggled down the moor path, so intent upon my unruly hair that I did not see Brisbane approaching until he was nearly upon me.
“You’ve come back,” I said stupidly, so stunned was I to see him there, conjured like something out of a dream. He was dressed for travelling, his suit perfectly neat, his cuffs crisp and white. How he managed to keep himself so fastidious was one of the mysteries I had yet to solve.
He fixed me with a humourless look. “You ought to be inside,” he scolded. “There is a storm coming.” He was scant feet away, but I could scarcely hear him for the wind.
“I know,” I told him, exasperated. “Where do you think I am going?”
He took my arm just above the elbow, his fingers warm even through the wool of my clothes. He nudged me along the path, guiding me toward the house.
“Well, considering you are the most contrary woman of my acquaintance, you might just as well have been headed for the crag.”
I pulled a face, but when I opened my mouth to remonstrate with him, I thought better of it. There were lines of fatigue at his eyes and mouth, and for this brief moment, it was enough simply to be near him.
After a moment, he turned sharply to me. “Are you quite all right?”
“Yes, perfectly. Why do you ask?”
“Because I have just called you contrary and you did not bother to contradict me. I thought you might be ill.”
He was watching me intently, and in that moment, every feeling I had ever nurtured for him rose up within me.
“Do shut up, Brisbane,” I told him. I raised myself on tiptoe and pressed a kiss to his cheek. I meant it to be a trifle, a little thing to tease him with. I ought to have known better. One cannot taunt a lion and walk away unscathed.
In the space of a pulsebeat his arms were around me and we forgot the wind, the coming storm, the sad ruin of a house before us. We forgot everything except this electric thing that bound us, sparking a reaction whenever our flesh touched. He smelled of leather and wool and tasted of apples and I could have died in that moment and counted myself happy. He groaned my name when I put my lips to his neck, and then he kissed me again, wrenching the shawl from my head completely to bury his hands in my hair, scattering pins to the ground.
It might have been only a minute, it might have been a hundred years we stood there. It was not until the thunder rumbled directly overhead that we broke apart. Brisbane was breathing heavily, his broad chest rising and falling like a man who has just run a great distance. He stepped back sharply, then gathered up my shawl, fairly flinging it at me.
“For God’s sake, Julia. You were a fool to come and a greater fool to stay,” he shouted over the wind. “Why do you not go back to London?”
As calmly as I could manage with shaking fingers, I laid the shawl over my head and tied it securely. “Because you need me. You said so yourself.”
He thrust his hands into his hair, tearing at it. “I was wrong. I did not mean it. I do not need you. Do you hear me? I do not need you. Go away, Julia. Go back to London and take your silly romance with you. I want none of it.”
He turned then and left me standing in the middle of the moor, the vast empty moor that tore his words to pieces on the wind. It was a long time before I followed him, but when I did, I saw Hilda’s pale, watchful face peering from the window on the stairs.
THE TENTH CHAPTER
The smallest worm will turn, being trodden on.
—William Shakespeare
Henry VI, Part 3
I slept poorly that night, my dreams full of misty moors and storms breaking over Thorn Crag. I wandered, lost and sodden, crying out to Brisbane. He stood at the top of Thorn Crag, laughing, his black greatcoat tossing on the wind as he circled an arm about Ailith Allenby. I woke and buried my head under the pillow in disgust. I could not imagine a more pathetic scene. It was something straight out of melodrama, and it occurred to me that the setting of Grimsgrave Hall was bringing out all of my worst tendencies to sentimentality.
“I loathe myself,” I muttered.
“Do not talk to yourself, Julia. It makes me fear for your sanity,” Portia said dryly.
I peeked out from under the pillow, surprised to find her sitting on the edge of the bed, fully dressed in head-to-toe velvet the colour of pale seawater, and holding a packet of envelopes.
“The post!” I cried. We had had no co
rrespondence since we arrived at Grimsgrave. There was no delivery arrangement for the Hall, and Godwin’s trips into the village to collect from the postmistress were few and far between. Valerius had offered to fetch it himself, but the postmistress had declined to give it to him as he was a stranger. He had sulked the better part of a day over the insult, but I had little doubt it would be forgot once he had had the pleasure of his letters.
Portia handed me mine and I thumbed through them eagerly, delighted to see that Father had written, as well as a number of my siblings and my dear friend, Hortense de Bellefleur. There was also a letter from Bellmont, and I put it carefully aside to read later. I could not stand to open it yet lest he disappoint me by not agreeing to help the Allenby ladies.
Portia had opened her first letter and was staring at it, her complexion quite pale.
“Dearest? Is something wrong?”
She shook her head and pocketed the envelope. “No, just those damned Riche brothers. I told them I needed a proper riding costume before I left London and they’ve sent me nothing but apologies. Difficulties with the woolen mill in Scotland, or some such nonsense.”
She fell to reading her letters again, and I sank into reverie. Memories of the crushing scene between Brisbane and me on the moor rolled over me and I thrust them back. This was not the time to let a trifling setback discourage me. He had told me the first night that he needed me, and after seeing how shattered he was by one kiss, I believed his actions rather than his words. He had not appeared for supper the previous night, nor to sit with the rest of the household. He had kept to his room instead, carefully locking the door behind him as he went. I would have been affronted at this precaution had I not realised that he knew me very well indeed.
Resolutely, I rose and began my toilette. I chattered to Portia about my plans for the day, scarcely noting her quiet answers.
“I only hope Bellmont won’t be completely horrid about helping the Allenby ladies,” I went on, dithering between my violet tweed ensemble and a smart black velvet suit more appropriate for town. “You know how stubborn he can be. I must say, I did not expect to like Ailith. One cannot like a woman so perfect, even if her clothes look like something out of a primer on modesty, but she has proved to be quite amiable, although that Hilda is quite foul. But I do quite like Lady Allenby and I mean to do all that I can for them. How is the organising going, by the way? They do not seem to mind you taking a hand in things, and you really ought to get on, you know.”
Portia shook herself, as though she had been a thousand miles away. “Oh, they are cordial enough. As yet I have only made lists. Linen to be bought, furniture, plate. The builders will have to be brought in to see about the collapsed wing. It may not be feasible to repair it. Brisbane will have to decide.”
I caught sight of her then in the looking-glass. She had taken the letter from her pocket again, and she looked as I had never seen her look before. She was pale to the lips and her expression was one of utter loss. I turned and went to her, laying a hand on her shoulder.
“Portia.”
Her brave façade crumbled then. She turned her face up to me, tears sparkling on her lashes. Even in grief she was beautiful. “She’s left me, Julia. Jane has left me.”
“Of course she hasn’t left you. She has gone to Portsmouth for her sister’s confinement. She will return when Anna is recovered from the birth.”
“No, Julia,” she corrected fiercely. “She will not return to London. She is gone.”
I collapsed onto the bed next to her, unbelieving. “Jane? She cannot have left you. She loves you.”
“She did once. Perhaps she still does. I like to think so. But she is gone,” she repeated.
Portia’s fingers were knotted over the letter, creasing it.
“When?”
“I knew she had been troubled by Anna’s condition. Jane wanted children so desperately, you see. She was so deeply envious of Anna’s happiness. She had begun to wonder if she had done right in living with me. I told her she ought not to go to Portsmouth, but she said she must, it was her duty to help her sister. I offered to come with her, but she refused. She made me come—wanted time to think, she said. We quarrelled that last morning.”
I remembered the sharp silences, the tense, wordless moments that had flashed between them, and I realised how utterly stupid I had been. “I thought she was upset at you leaving her,” I ventured.
Portia’s lovely mouth twisted bitterly. “No. She was upset because she was leaving me. She did not want to, you know. Not really. But she is tired of it all. She is tired of being sneered at by polite society. She is tired of being a laughingstock. She thinks we are a joke, Julia. And she wants babies of her own.”
“Where has she gone?”
Portia gave a little laugh that ended on a sob. “She is going to India as soon as it can be arranged.”
“India? Good God, why? She has no money. What possible reason can she have for wanting to go there?”
She swallowed hard, then forced the words out through stiff lips. “She is to be married. That is the real reason she’s left me, you know. She met him in Portsmouth, some connection of Anna’s husband. He is going to India to make his fortune, and she will go with him. She wants children, you see. And she will not have them with me.”
I put my arm around her, gathering her close. “Oh, my dearest. I am so sorry.”
“We had prospects, I told her. I even offered her Valerius for a stud if she really wanted a child. It did not seem such a terrible notion. He is handsome enough, and we would have been raising my own niece or nephew. She told me not to be vulgar,” Portia said. There was no emotion to her words now, just a flat recitation, as though she wanted to get all of the horror of it out and away. “We quarrelled over that. We quarrelled over taking a child from an orphanage or workhouse. I thought it was a noble idea. She told me it was no substitute for having a child of her own. I accused her of being selfish, reminded her that we had enough money to take a hundred orphans to raise if we liked. I think I may have made reference to Oliver Twist.”
“Oh, Portia, you didn’t.”
“Of course I did. I was angry and sarcastic and stupid. I said things she will never forgive, and even if she could, I cannot take away the fact that although I love her more than my own life, I cannot give her the one thing she wants most of all.”
I held her as she cried, aching for her as her shoulders shook with violent sobs. She wept noiselessly, stifling her sorrow against the neck of my nightdress. I rocked her as if she were a child, and when she was spent, I dried her tears with my own handkerchief and told her to blow her nose and attend to her face.
“Tell me, how much do you love her?” I asked when she had repaired the worst of the damage with a damp sponge and a powderpuff.
“Enough to follow her to the ends of the earth in a white petticoat,” Portia said sadly.
“Careful, dearest. That’s what Mary, Queen of Scots, said about Lord Bothwell and look what a nasty end she made.”
There was not a flicker of a smile on my sister’s face.
“What do you mean to do?” I asked.
She took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. She seemed calmer now, resolute. “I must go to Portsmouth. Immediately. Today in fact.”
She rose and began to gather her possessions. I stared after her, mouth agape. “Portia, you cannot be serious. You cannot leave, not now.”
She collected her books from the little writing desk, tossing them into an untidy heap next to me. “Sort those, will you? I shall want the Scott for the train ride. No Brontë. I’ve had quite enough of moors to last me a lifetime.”
I shoved the books aside and rose. “Portia, listen to me. You cannot just rush to Portsmouth this instant. You don’t even know when the train is leaving.”
She shrugged and tossed a pair of stockings at me. “Bundle those. It doesn’t matter when the train is leaving. There is bound to be one today sometime. Wherever it goes, I will go. Any stati
on is bigger than the one in Lesser Howlett. There will be connections elsewhere. I do not care where I am bound, so long as I am moving. I will take Valerius with me. I will send him back directly I’ve arrived, I promise.”
I knotted the stockings together and dropped them onto her books. “Portia, you promised Brisbane you would organise his household. You’ve hardly begun.”
She flapped a hand at me. “That was just a stratagem to bring the two of you together. Now you’re here, the rest is up to you.”
“Stratagem? You never intended to put the house to rights?”
“God, no. I loathe doing that sort of thing.”
“But—but you are brilliant at it!”
She shrugged and yanked two shawls from the bedpost where she had flung them earlier. “I am rather good at speaking German. That does not mean I enjoy it. I offered because I knew you would never be able to resist the chance to play the coquette and thrust yourself at Brisbane.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “That is quite possibly the most hurtful thing you have ever said to me. I am not thrusting myself at Brisbane.”
She tucked the shawls under her chin and began to fold them haphazardly. “Yes, you are, and you would be no sister of mine if you didn’t.”
She took my hands in hers and I could not tell whose were the colder.
“Julia, you do not need me. You have come here because you know in your heart he loves you. This is your chance to have what you always wanted. Seize it, and do not let him go. He is confused and wounded and I think he has more secrets than the Sphinx itself, but he is a good man. And I believe he loves you in ways you cannot possibly fathom. Stay, and make him see you. I cannot give up Jane without a fight, and you must not give up Brisbane.” She lifted her chin. “We are Marches, and our motto is Audeo. I dare. Dare to take the life you want in your own two hands and do not let it go, do you hear me?”
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