Felicia wondered that her blush was not bright enough to supply the light they needed. As it was not, she simply tossed her head proudly and said, “He could not resist me!”
Blaic said, “That will do. Clarice, you say you know which chimney pot has the arms of the king on it?’’
“Of course. Before I was cured, I’d been up on the roof a hundred times; it’s the one place Nurse could never catch me.” She pointed toward the roofline. “The tallest one, dead in the center of the roof. It even has a lion to hold it up, the only one that isn’t a completely fanciful creature.”
Like a queen in a human-sized chess game, Felicia found herself out in the center of the lawn alone. Blaic stood in his old place, lining her up directly in sight with the tall, bifurcated cedar. Clarice stood at the far end of the lawn, making her body as straight as the king’s chimney. As near as possible, Felicia had to find the crossing point between their two lines of sight.
“Half a step to the left,” Blaic called, soft but clear.
“Come slightly forward... Too much! Back a little.” Clarice sounded like a breathless nightingale.
“That’s it,” Blaic said. “Perfect!”
“Yes...” Clarice sounded a tiny bit hesitant. After a moment, her voice came again, confident. “Precisely so.”
Felicia lifted the spade as high as her tight sleeves would permit. With a decisive blow, she drove it into the earth. Then she waited for the other two to join her. But it was Blaic alone who arrived.
“Where is Clarice?” he asked. “Shall I go find her?”
“No, you dig. I shall go.”
Even when she had stood alone, she’d had the comfort of knowing that Blaic had his mind as well as his eyes upon her. But as she walked off into the night, she heard the thunk and grind of his shoveling. Once out of his sight, she felt the voices of the garden gather around her.
Had she become a stranger to this place in the few weeks she had been away? Or had she been a stranger always, permitted to remain on sufferance? She seemed to hear whispering in every corner, harsh and hostile, and to feel the influence of perverse eyes upon her. She found herself turning about as the fear of the night crept up to touch her with a panic that reached out from the deepest, oldest part of her humanity.
“Clarice?” she called, ashamed of how her voice wavered. From the corner of her eye, she saw something black move on the bleached grass. When she looked at it straight, though, it had vanished. The moment she turned away, to call again for Clarice, she had the horrible feeling that the thing had returned and was creeping toward her.
“Clarice?” Frustrating to keep the voice low when what she wanted was to shriek her sister’s name. Where was she? “Please answer me.”
A sudden wind blew down from the moor, rushing past with the sound of breaking floodwaters. Even if Clarice had answered with a scream, Felicia would not have been able to hear her. Felicia had the dreadful feeling that other things were using the noise of the wind to approach within striking range. She tried hard to convince herself that she was giving way to her nerves, yet all the while she believed without proof that something was about to reach out to jerk her ankles from under her. Forgetting every caution not to be heard at the manor, she called out Clarice’s name strongly.
Felicia felt the claws of panic dig more deeply into her spirit. She despised herself for it but as each moment passed she grew more breathless. She needed Blaic’s help, treasure or no. She hurried across the lawn to his side. “Blaic...”
“Nothing yet.”
“No. I mean, come with me. I can’t find Clarice.”
“Perhaps she’s gone back to the house. You did mention that she was most inadequately dressed.”
“Without a word? No, something has happened to her. Please come with me.”
“In a moment.” He pushed the spade in once more, even as she reached for his arm to drag him, bodily if need be, to the far end of the oval lawn. She felt the shock as the tool hit some solid object in the dirt.
“This is it,” Blaic said softly. “We should be very proud of ourselves.”
“Never mind that now! Please let us find Clarice.”
Blaic was already down beside the box, trying to lift it up. It was not like him to be so unfeeling. Either the lust for gold had overcome his chivalrous nature, or he was showing his true colors. But that Felicia would not believe.
“She’s in no danger,” Blaic said. “Help me.”
“She may very well be in danger.” Felicia put her hands on the dirty, ironbound box to steady the top. It was no bigger than the box she carried her best hat in, but rectangular. It bore a heavy lock and chain, both crumbling with rust-brown flakes.
When they had laid it upon the bosom of the ground, Felicia said, “Please let it alone. We must find Clarice. Have you forgotten what your People did to her the last time she stumbled across their revels? What if it happens again?”
“It can’t. There are no more revels until day after tomorrow. They’ll come out then for the first new moon of spring.” The last word had come out with perhaps more force than he expected, for he had inserted the thin edge of the spade between the two sides of the hasp and had, at that moment, broken it apart.
“Open it, Felicia.”
Before she could mention Clarice again, he’d guided her hand to the edge of the box and helped her push back the lid. Gold, as brilliant as the day it went into the confining earth, glinted back at her. Brittle cloth tore and something began to fall. Instinctively, she reached out to catch the heavy slither of a golden chain in her hand.
Jewels reflected fire, dazzling her eyes. A golden plate held everything, like a strange feast of wealth. Only slowly did Felicia realize that gold and jewels reflected only light that was present. And neither she nor Blaic were carrying a torch.
She turned on her heel to find half a dozen people standing behind her. At least two of them carried flaming torches that sent down sparks every time they moved. In the forefront stood her stepmother, dressed with great care, the gems on her fingers looking surprisingly tawdry compared with the treasure at Felicia’s feet.
“Good evening,” Felicia said inadequately. “Look what we’ve found.”
Lady Stavely laughed. “A good effort, but quite useless, Felicia. Constable Richards, if you please.” She waved the man forward.
The constable, looking like a bursting sausage in his too-tight wine-colored coat, lumbered up to stand beside Felicia. “Come along with me,” he said, clamping a bulging hand on her arm. In her ear, he whispered, “This time, you’ll do as I say, witch, or you’ll pay for it.”
“Blaic!” Felicia cried, turning toward him despite Richards’s painful grip.
“Ah yes,” Lady Stavely said smoothly. “You’ll receive a reward for this, my man. The jewels alone are worth that, but to deliver the thief into the law’s hands...what a coup! Yes, you shall be rewarded.”
“What are you saying?” Felicia demanded. “Blaic, please.”
He looked as satanic as it was possible for a fair-haired man to appear. His lips were twisted in a sneer, his eyes hard and cold. When he spoke, his voice was coarse. “I brung her ladyship a warning today when you thought I was with the horse. Huh! When do it take hours to groom a horse? Never asked yourself that.”
“Blaic?” She stared at him in horror. Strangely, she did not feel like fainting, though her mind had evidently suffered a mutiny in which sense and reason had been overthrown. Felicia continued to stare at her lover as the constable dragged her away.
Then she heard Clarice scream her name. The girl struggled fiercely but uselessly to be free of the grasp of William Beech and his brother. They looked troubled at thus laying their hands on the future owner of Hamdry Manor, but held her nonetheless. The girl went limp and called piteously to her mother. “Mama, what is happening?”
“Never mind, my dear. All will be well. Take that creature away, Constable.”
Richards obeyed. Felicia’s last sigh
t was of Lady Stavely throwing herself to her knees, plunging both her hands into the box, and letting the coins and stones fall like glittering rain. Her laughter stung like a lash.
Chapter Nineteen
Blaic had expected to feel all his powers come back with surging vigor. The hurt, well-nigh-dead expression in Felicia’s eyes as Constable Richards took her away told him that his betrayal of her was complete. According to the curse Boadach had laid on him, he should have again been in full command of his natural rights. Yet he felt only a desperate urgency to find Felicia and make everything right again. With so many people around, he could not, however, make his escape as yet.
Perforce, he accompanied Lady Stavely into the manor. She kept a close watch on the servants who carried the box, turning back every second to be certain nothing had fallen from it or to see that they did not steal their hands into it. Clarice, released from the unhappy gardeners, ran into the house first. Her mother only smiled, as at a child’s careless hurry.
She directed them to lay the box down on the drawing room carpet, regardless of the clots of worm-infested dirt that clung to it. “Kindly tell the others that their notice is revoked,’’ she said in as pleasant a voice as she possessed. “There will be enough for all your wages and perhaps — one never knows — a little over!”
“Thank you, my lady,” the burly butler said glumly as he ushered the men out. Blaic could not help noticing that none of the servants seemed particularly delighted at being reinstated. There were some mutterings heard as Lady Stavely herself shut and locked the door behind them.
“Really, if I did not hate her so, I could be grateful to Felicia. Such a clever girl! To guess at a secret that has been deceiving the owners of Hamdry for a hundred years! How did she ever manage it?”
Blaic said, “ ‘S like you said: She be mortal clever.”
He had hardly exchanged three words with Lady Stavely during his brief stint as one of her gardeners. She would not wonder at his sudden lack of perfect diction. She wasn’t even listening to him. She’d knelt on the carpet, throwing open the box. The reflection of the candles off the gold lit her from beneath, taking years from her face. Blaic was not at all attracted, however, for her eyes remained as hard as the gems she adored.
“Marvelous,” she crooned. “Marvelous. And so thoroughly opportune. One feels almost as if the thing were meant to be.” She wound a chain set with sapphires around the sleeve of her dark brown dressing gown as though trying the effect. A moment later, she was jamming rings on her already loaded fingers until they would no longer bend. The gold plates she lay to one side with the jeweled and enameled cups. It was the body ornaments alone that intrigued her.
“Roderick had magnificent taste. Only the best things are here. Look—these earrings! They are the ones in the portrait of the third viscountess. As a girl, she was a lady-in-waiting to Elizabeth the First. Some say these were the queen’s gift on the advent of the girl’s marriage. And these cuffs!” She held up two bands of solid gold inset, rather gaudily, with large rubies and opals. “Inscribed to Roderick’s own sister, who was every bit as bad as he was. No morals at all, then.”
A moment later she was digging once again. Now she had half a dozen chains draped around her neck, including several gem-encrusted crosses. She’d shoved a diadem into her hair, to jostle with several diamond combs. She should have looked like a queen but she more resembled a gypsy wench hung with the tawdry trinkets sold at cheap fair stalls.
A sudden banging on the door awoke Lady Stavely from her dream of greed. Forgetting perhaps the locked door, she hunched over the treasure, spreading her arms wide as though to conceal it. “Who’s there?”
“Clarice! Mama, open at once!”
Blaic twisted the key, ignoring Lady Stavely’s choked protest. The girl came in with a determined step. She’d thrown on a round gown, buttoning it awry in her haste. She did not seem to notice the thousands of pounds’ worth of jewelry her mother had strung so haphazardly about her person.
“Mama, you’d better put your hat on. We are going to take Felicia out of that dreadful place.”
“Why would we want to do that?” She smiled, dismissing the matter as no more than a childish trifle. “Come and see, my love! What a magnificent hoard dear Roderick put away for us! It’s really quite providential that we should find it now, when things were looking so very bleak! With the price the plates alone will fetch, we need not fret ourselves over any temporary lack of funds.”
“Mama, never mind all that rubbish! We’ve got to help Felicia. Right this instant, Mama!” Clarice stamped her foot for emphasis. “I can’t bear to think of her spending even one extra moment with that creature Richards. I think he has evil designs on her person.”
“‘Rubbish’?” Lady Stavely had apparently not even heard the rest of her daughter’s declaration. “This isn’t rubbish. ‘Tis all perfectly genuine — I know true gold from pinchbeck, believe me. There’s nothing false, nothing paste... Why, even these pearls came from Arabian oysters, not some glassmaker’s shop, for all the string is rotted away. How magnificent they will look when you are presented, my dearest, for pearls are always the most suitable wear for young girls.”
Blaic said out of the side of his mouth, “She’ll not leave those gauds without you dragging her.”
Clarice threw him a punishing glance. “Don’t you dare speak to me, sir! How could you mistreat my sister so? After all you have been to each other?”
“How do you know about that?” Blaic demanded.
“As if a blind man couldn’t tell!” She crossed the room to her mother’s side. Kneeling down, Clarice pleaded, “Mama? Mama, please come with me. Whatever you think of Felicia, you can’t leave her in gaol.”
“Don’t speak to me of that horrible girl. When I think of what she’s done to you, my dearest, I could scratch her eyes out.” Lady Stavely took her daughter’s hand in her own, loaded with rings though it was, and pressed it.
Turning slightly, she thrust Clarice’s hand into the jewels and coins. “Feel that? With this fortune, you could win a greater title than merely viscountess! There are dukes who would give more than their title to have a tenth of this. Your beauty has always made you worthy of the highest in the land, but with this...why, even the most stringent matchmaking mother would trip over herself to win you for a son’s bride.”
Clarice winced. Blaic saw that her mother had twisted the girl into a strained posture so that they could both reach into the box.
“Think of it, Clarice. You will be arrayed in the finest gowns money can buy. You’ll dazzle the eyes of every man in London. They’ll hurl themselves at your feet, but never fear — I shall be there to guide your steps. I shan’t relinquish you to any but the most worthy. You shan’t throw yourself away on a man simply because you love him, though he cares nothing for you. Keep your heart whole. Love only that which cannot love another. Your children...your jewels.”
“Mama, let go! You’re...you’re hurting me.”
Blaic pushed Lady Stavely away from her daughter. Clarice fell back with a little cry, massaging her twisted wrist. Lady Stavely, however, rose to her feet, icy disdain in every line of her body. “Who do you imagine yourself to be? Take yourself away.”
“Come, Clarice,” Blaic said. He lifted her under the elbows as she rose. “I’ll take you to Felicia.”
“Please do.” On the threshold, she turned and said, “Mama?”
But Lady Stavely had begun counting the coins, stacking them to either side of her, and had no leisure to look up. She called, “That’s right, my sweet life. Go to bed. All will be well in the morning. We’ll make plans for London. Perhaps the Prince of Wales would buy these. No, his credit is not good. Stay! The queen has plenty of money. She’s bound to leap at these plates and goblets and if she won’t, there’s always foreign royalty. Ten, twenty, twenty-five...I shall have to see if we have any books on numismatics. I declare, I don’t know what half of these coins are.”
“What is wrong with her?” Clarice asked once the door had closed. “She’s never been so...” She closed her lips tightly, as though to prevent some disloyalty from escaping.
“She’s suffering from greed,” Blaic said. “I’ve seen the sickness before. A great many people suffer from it.”
“But she didn’t listen to anything I said! She rarely does, ‘tis no novelty, but she acted as though I were agreeing with her, which I certainly was not! Who cares about trinkets and tinsel when Felicia is languishing in gaol? What shall we do? Constable Richards is so under my mother’s thumb he’d never listen to me!”
“Who can help her?”
“Doctor Danby has always been her friend. The vicar, too, though he has been somewhat disquieted by these ridiculous rumors about her.”
“The witchcraft story?”
“Yes. Naturally, it’s impossible! Witches, in this day and age? Only credulous fools believe such nonsense. Yet Mr. Hales must be careful of his position.” More rapidly, she added, “But I am confident he will rally to Felicia’s defense once I tell him everything.”
She fixed him with a glare that made her slightly tilted blue eyes flame like an angry cat’s. “I don’t know or care what game you are playing, sir, but I promise you this: If my dear sister comes to harm through your double game, I will hunt you down and kill you.”
Blaic saw as though in a prophetic trance the kind of woman Clarice Stavely would one day become. Beautiful, yes, and with a generous heart, but with a spirit so indomitable that only a very special man would ever keep her for his own. He wished he might come back to see this epic battle.
He bowed before her. “If Felicia comes to harm, I hope you will.”
Blaic escorted her into the carriage that waited at the end of the drive. A mist had come up, blurring the lantern’s light. “Be careful, driver,” Blaic called. “Go slowly, no matter what your mistress might urge.”
“Aye, zur,” said the dimly glimpsed liveried coachman. “In a rare tear, she is.”
“Indeed I am, and if you know what is good for you, you will not heed this gentleman’s caution, though I trust he will heed mine. Good evening, Mr...?”
Kissed by Starlight Page 28
