Silver Enchantress

by Patricia Rice

  Flinging off hat and gloves and throwing them to the equally beaming servant, Drake demanded, “Where is my wife?”

  The footman’s smile died of incomprehension, but Drake scarcely noticed as he heard laughter drifting from the music room. She would be with Diane, of course, and he strode down the hallway to the broad, paneled doors.

  Throwing them wide with the triumphant gesture of a king returned to his palace, Drake halted abruptly before he had taken two paces into the room.

  “What in hell. . . !” He glared at the two figures half reclining on the sofa.

  Michael leapt to his feet, but Diane continued to lie lazily against the rolled arm, a mischievous light on her usually serene features. She met her brother’s gaze with defiance.

  “Welcome home, Ulysses,” she murmured as the two men attempted to kill each other with looks.

  “I demand some explanation, Jasper.” Drake clenched his hand in a threatening fist.

  “I had thought to tell you at a more propitious time, but if you must break down closed doors, do not expect courtesy in return. Diane and I are to be married. We were just discussing the date.”

  Stunned, Drake glanced to his sister for confirmation, then back to his old friend. The grim determination in Michael’s eyes warned angry denials would be useless, but Drake’s own joy softened this blow. With a laugh he realized Michael had stolen no less than he—one sister for one fiancée.

  “I think a brotherly discussion might be called for, but I am in no mood for it at the moment. Where is Eileen?”

  Michael and Diane’s expressions transformed swiftly from relief to bewilderment.

  “Eileen?” Diane asked, struggling to regain a sitting position. Michael leapt to her aid, catching her skirts and helping her swing her legs over the chair’s edge.

  “Eileen,” Drake repeated firmly. “Where is my wife?”

  “Wife?” Both repeated blankly.

  “Since when has this room acquired an echo?” he demanded. “Or is this some new game to mock me? Haven’t I endured enough? Where is my wife?”

  “Lady Pamela, you mean,” Diane ventured.

  “Pamela?” Drake stared at her in incredulity. “You mean Edmund hasn’t married the twit yet? Even from behind bars he could manage one last gesture of decency.”

  Michael sat quite abruptly on the sofa. “Edmund?”

  Deciding love had scrambled their brains, Drake recited patiently, “My cousin, Edmund, and my former fiancée, Pamela. They are still expecting a child, are they not? Although”—he counted swiftly on his fingers—“it seems to me the child ought to be well on its way into the world by now. Surely you did not think I was fool enough to believe the bastard to be mine?”

  Michael and Diane exchanged guilty glances, and Drake experienced an incredible impression of sinking. “You thought the child was mine?” he asked in disbelief. When they nodded, he groaned. “And you told Eileen?”

  “I did not know. . . She said nothing of being your wife. I only meant to protect her,” Michael offered.

  “Protect her,” Drake groaned. “Why did you not just slap her in the face?”

  “That’s enough, Drake,” Diane spoke sharply. “It is your own fault for being so closemouthed. You could at least have had the decency to tell me you were wed. Here I have been worrying myself sick that if His Majesty did not hang you, Lord Westley would shoot you and Sir John horsewhip your remains. Surely you must have some idea where Eileen could have gone. Is she not with Sir John?”

  “We just came from leaving Lady de Lacy at Summer Hall. When Eileen was not there, I simply assumed. . .” Drake swung around as he heard whistling in the hall. The voices that followed, however, were male, and his face composed into a polite mask.

  Auguste and Pierre rambled in, gesticulating as they caught each other up on the past weeks. Following in resigned amusement came the musician and poet, Teddy and James.

  Drake brightened. “Good, just the men I need. Auguste, Pierre, ride back to Summer Hall and see if you can find out Eileen’s whereabouts from anyone there.”

  Pierre’s face fell. “I just raced here on your trail. I’ve been without sleep for twenty-four hours. You want me to turn around and go back again?” He shook his head in bewilderment.

  “Drake, you are not thinking clearly,” Michael interrupted. “Go upstairs, get some rest, let me ride to Sir John. I left her with her aunt. Surely she would not disappear without some word.”

  Drake strode through the room to stare at the gathering clouds. “It’s going to snow. There isn’t much time. Michael, you’ve seen her. My God, what if she is out there in the woods, living off stolen apples and berries again? You don’t know the little monster. I can’t just sit here and wait. My heir could be born in a snowdrift.”

  At this mention of an heir, Pierre and August glanced around for enlightenment. Only Diane understood their predicament, and she filled in the gaps while Drake and Michael argued.

  “Eileen might be headstrong, but she is no fool,” Michael insisted. “Let me go to Sir John and enlist his help. If she cannot be found at Summer Hall, we’re likely to find her sooner if there is a number of us.”

  Drake nodded agreement, though in his heart he knew logic did not apply to Eileen. If she wanted to hide, they would never find her. His only consolation lay in the fact that she had always left a trail if any cared to follow. But this time it had been well over a fortnight. The trail might be more than cold by now.

  Michael strode out, ever the soldier and loyal friend.

  Diane intruded as her intended left the room. “What of Lord de Lacy, Drake? He will not represent any further danger, will he?”

  “That is the reason it has taken us so long to return,” Drake explained. “It seems Eileen comes by her temper honestly. Her good mother—and you must realize, Lady de Lacy is even tinier than Eileen—went after the earl with a dagger. She only nicked him, of course, but then she found a bottle, and when he meant to throttle her, she broke it over his head. A damned good wallop she gave him. He fell like an unmanned fortress. That caused all manner of rioting among his men, and we had a time of it for a while, until the gendarmes appeared. Then it seemed nobody could find his noble lordship’s remains.”

  Drake’s tale-telling drew a gasp from Diane, and the rest of his audience appeared intrigued, all except Pierre, who already knew the ending. He scowled at having his own story up-staged.

  “So the scoundrel is still on the loose?” Auguste asked.

  “No. It appears some of my men got a little hasty about clearing the decks when the law came upon us. They flung everything that wasn’t moving into the tide, which was going out. Rapidly. De Lacy wasn’t moving.”

  “Oh, my.” Diane held her fingers to her mouth and stared at her brother in horror. “That means he could still be alive. He could have woke when he hit that cold water and swum to shore.”

  “Which he undoubtedly did.” Drake shrugged. “We spent weeks explaining to the French what happened and looking for some trace of de Lacy. Lady de Lacy was in near hysterics when she realized she may not have killed him. She led the search and would have carried a sword if I had not persuaded her there were none available in her size. ’Tis a pity we did not find him first. I would have enjoyed watching her wallop the bastard again. She stole a frying pan from the inn kitchen.”

  A chorus of “bravos” went up from the male portion of the audience, but Diane waited with impatience for her brother to complete the tale.

  “Unfortunately, his lordship fell into less gentle hands than Lady de Lacy’s. You should not be hearing the rest of this, Diane.”

  His sister lifted one eyebrow in a gesture mimicking him. “Do you want me to change the subject? Shall I ask just exactly when you persuaded Eileen to marry an annoying fellow like yourself?”

  Drake ignored the broad grins of his audience. “Just don’t tell Michael I told you this. De Lacy made it to shore but was in no state to go far. He was discovered by a
number of the less-than-gentle tribe who walk the waterfront. He was rolled for what he had and when he protested, a few others joined in for entertainment. His last moments were less than pleasant, I venture to say. By the time the incident was reported to us, we could only identify the description they gave us. We were allowed to leave then, but I don’t believe any of us will be welcome in Calais for a good long while.”

  Drake bowed to the applause of his audience, but his eyes wore a haunted look as he straightened and moved toward the doorway. “Wake me when Michael returns.”

  “Drake!” Diane caught his attention. “She loves you, you know.” Diane waited, watching his face.

  “I forced her to marry me. How can you know that?” Drake demanded wearily. The weight of that knowledge sat heavy on his heart. He had given her no choice. She must have known she was carrying his child even then. She’d had no choice at all.

  Diane smiled. “She told Michael she loved her husband. There would not be more than one, would there?”

  Drake considered this piece of knowledge with a growing, if weary, smile. “Twins. It may be twins. You can all be godparents.”

  With this utterly incomprehensible reply he left the room, his step a trifle jauntier than a moment before.

  Michael returned from Summer Hall at dinnertime. It was all the small party could do to keep Drake from setting out the instant Michael made his report. Not only was Eileen not at Summer Hall, but her mother had disappeared shortly after her arrival also.

  “Damn and blast it to bloody hell!” Drake paced up and down in front of the fire. “Did you search all the hiding places in the cellars? The cottages in the woods?”

  Michael sank wearily into a high-backed chair and rested his frozen boots upon the grate. “We tore the place apart. Lady Summerville does not seem exceedingly worried, so I venture to say they are safe somewhere, but more than a little angry with you. I explained my error, and she was disturbed about that, but I don’t think she really knows where they are. We can only hope they try to communicate with her sometime.”

  “Eileen? Communicate? You nearly have to bludgeon the little fool to drag information out of her. Did you search Lady Summerville’s estate, the one she offered as dowry? What about the Drews’ tavern?”

  Michael shook his head. “There was not enough time for all that. I knew you were anxious, and I came straight back. I don’t think there’s any real need for concern. She’s safe, somewhere.”

  “Safe? Do you have any idea what she considers safe? Remind me to tell you sometime how she hid me from His Majesty’s finest. You are talking about a woman who crossed half of France, alone, on a mule. She’s furious with me. She could be in Ireland by now. I’m trusting she has enough sense not to set out for the colonies in her condition, or I wouldn’t doubt she’d try that. For all I know, she has a tree house and intends to spend the winter living off apples.”

  Drake abruptly halted his pacing as the force of his words struck home. Apples and trees. Not a tree house, but a castle for a princess. She had gone home.

  “You’ve thought of something?” Michael watched him narrowly.

  “The enchanted forest. Tell Diane to send out the leprechaun army to search those other places I’ve named, but I am going to the enchanted forest. Send Diane any messages. If you do not find Eileen anywhere else, follow me. It may take an army to flush the vixen from her den.”

  Drake practically sprang to the study door in his haste to set out and was halfway into the hall before Michael gathered his wits to yell after him.

  “You want me to send someone to Ireland?” he asked.

  “Pierre and Auguste know the way. Let them toss a coin,” Drake yelled back, before disappearing in the direction of the stable.

  Snow had already begun to fall by the time Drake set out. Diane had called him a fool for leaving in the dark, but confident he had guessed right, she had promised to send a carriage after him in the morning. He’d had to wait until she scribbled a hasty note to Eileen, and the cook had prepared a feast for the new marchioness, and the entire staff offered their aid in the search. If he did not find Eileen tonight, she would be the subject of a search the likes England had never seen by morning.

  Drake prayed it wouldn’t come to that. Perhaps he had done a lot of things wrong, but he had done them for the right reasons. Surely she would understand that. Perhaps he shouldn’t have forced her to marry him, but there had not been time to tear away her defensive barrier. And if there were any chance she felt the same as he did. . . Their marriage could not be wrong. Even if she did not love him, it could not be wrong. He could never have let his child wear the name of bastard.

  By the time the sky showed promise of light, Drake had worked himself into a frenzy of anger and despair. Snow had blown in dry piles across the road. The bitter cold had him frantic for Eileen’s safety. Anxiety heightened his anger. She should never have endangered herself and their child by disappearing in weather like this.

  The enchanted forest where he had first met Eileen hid any promise of daylight, and Drake had to maneuver the rutted cart paths with care. The woodcutter’s cottage he remembered now lay in gutted ruins, but he stopped his horse and explored the remains just the same. Dawn gave just enough light to turn the fallen thatch and rotting timbers to dull gray, but not silver. She had not returned here.

  That left no other choice. Sir John had told him of the village where he had found her. Drake knew the place, built on the remains of some medieval town adjoining the estate of a rather formidable earl who lived in London. The family would most likely be at home for the Christmas holidays, but Drake had no intention of calling upon their services unless necessary. He would search the village himself first. If she did not come out of hiding, he might resort to more desperate measures.

  Smoke rose from most of the chimneys in the village by the time Drake made his way out of the woods and onto the hill overlooking the tiny cottages. From this distance the low-lying buildings appeared to be a fairy-tale sketch from a childhood storybook. One or two of the larger houses sported slate tiles for roof, but most had neatly piled thatch. Cobbled walls sparkled with recent whitewash in the dawn’s light, blending in with the patches of snow blowing across the dirt road.

  Drake dismounted on the hill and tethered his horse. Deliberately spreading a woolen blanket upon the frozen grass, he sat and made his breakfast from the meal packed in the saddle pouch. His gaze never left the village as he followed every movement. He would give her time to come to him.

  An hour later, his patience had grown thin. The blacksmith had thrown open the forge doors. An unusually well dressed tribe of children yelled and screamed and threw handfuls of loose snow at each other in the street. A tall, black-haired woman hung her wash out to freeze, and a stout, crippled old lady waddled over to keep her entertained. If Eileen were anywhere in that village, she knew of his presence by now, and she had not come out.

  He could take that as a sign she did not wish to see him, but Drake had no intention of heeding that wish. Whether she liked it or not, they were married, for better or worse, and it was about time the little heathen recognized the fact. She could not spend the rest of her life running away, or running after something that existed only in her imagination. She would have to accept him as he was, with all his faults and foibles. It was time the druid became a mortal just like him.

  By the time Drake had pounded on half the doors in the village, his anger had worked to a boiling point. He knew she was here; there were signs of her everywhere, even if the deliberately blank stares and evasive answers he received were not evidence enough.

  In two weeks, she had turned the village into her imaginary castle. Sketches that could come only from Eileen’s talented fingers graced the walls of half the rooms he had seen. The pinafores on the girls tumbling in the streets were decorated in gay embroidery with pictures of unicorns and laughing flowers. Even the boys carried small wooden shields painted in fanciful coats of arms as they
played a game that called for fire-breathing dragons and damsels in distress. She was here, and he would tear the damned town down to find her.

  Drake beat upon a wooden door under a sign denoting a seamstress. He remembered Sir John mentioning a seamstress, and God only knew, Eileen had learned to make those delicate stitches somewhere. She had certainly spent little time with proper teachers. No one answered his knock, but before he could try the latch, one of the girls in the street became victim to a fire-breathing dragon. In her effort to escape, she tumbled at Drake’s feet, tearing a great hole in her woolen gown and scraping her knee on the cobblestone path.

  The child’s anguished cries brought Drake to his knees. Feeling utterly helpless, he lifted the sobbing child into his arms and muttered soothing words and promises until the girl’s cries diminished to tearful gulps. She peered up at him with suspicion and a hint of coquetry.

  “Are you a handsome prince?” Her lips quivered as the painful scrape reminded her of her downfall.

  Drake grinned. “No, I’m just the frog. I’m looking for my princess. Will you help me find her?”

  “Is she beautiful?” The child’s eyes went wide and she contemplatively popped a finger into her mouth.

  “More beautiful than the sun and the moon. She is an enchanted princess, you see. She can turn apples into dreams and gold into moonlight.” Drake smoothed the child’s long pinafore and pointed to the neatly stitched stars and rainbows. “She can make stars and rainbows just like these.”

  A smile grew around her grubby finger. “Oh, you mean Elli. She’s standing behind you.”

  With a giggle the child leapt from Drake’s lap and ran off to rejoin the play, leaving Drake to rise and stare at the vision appearing in the now open doorway.

  “Would the frog like a kiss?” Auburn hair gleamed in the dawn’s light as she looked up at him through laughing silver eyes, and a mischievous dimple appeared at one corner of her lips as she popped a finger in her mouth, making it totally impossible to steal even a taste of what she offered.