by Tracy Fobes
“I’m going alone, Mrs. Fitz. I’ll see ye in an hour or sae, tae change intae my riding gown. And thank ye for being sae frank with me.”
With that, Sarah grabbed her reticule and a woolen shawl, hurried from the room, and raced down the staircase. She walked across the great hall and out into the sunshine, a tapestry image of the white unicorn held firmly in her mind.
Beneath her feet, the grass was springy, and on another day it might have put a lilt in her step. But today, she felt as if a weight hung from her heart, dragging her downward, and she plodded along. A sigh slipped from her lips as she crossed the grounds, then passed the kitchen barn where she’d slept, and made her way into the woods surrounding the castle.
On the whole, she hadn’t much experience with woods. She’d spent much of her life standing high on a hillside, the wind rolling down from the mountains to thunder in her ears. Rather than tread down a sylvan path surrounded by trees and emerald bushes, like the one that now led her into the forest, she’d picked her way down a swath of green that wound past crumbling rocks and wiry brush.
Sarah paused after entering the forest, noticing how much darker it was beneath the canopy of green. Mist wound past her face and she shivered a little, growing cold. She pulled her shawl tightly around her shoulders, not certain if she liked this new place. It had the feeling of secrets, the sound of slightly off-key melodies that had hidden meanings. And it was very quiet.
She came to a place where the path forked and, frowning, chose to go to the left. The sunshine had always been clear and bright in the high country, without the haze that the lowlands brought, and it had always warmed her through her cotton dress, even as the wind clawed at the plaid she wore round her shoulders. At home, if she became cold, she merely had to slip into a space between two gray stones and the wind would become a whisper, while the sun grew hot on her face.
Here, though, the mist twined around in spectral shapes and darkness reigned. She could find no safe haven to warm herself. She paused, bumps rising on her arms, as an unfamiliar animal cry echoed through the woods. It sounded like a very small child crying out in fear. Wondering what could have made that horrible noise, she searched the trees and surrounding brush in vain for animals she recognized, but saw nothing.
Abruptly she turned around and retraced her steps down the path, wishing she hadn’t decided to come into these woods. She’d been too hasty in deciding to go off on her own. Trembling, she wondered if she hadn’t heard an animal at all. Perhaps these woods were haunted.
Aye, she’d heard a lot about haunts, and faeries who didn’t like people. The ghost of a shepherd who’d fallen into a gully and broken his neck had supposedly haunted the moors around Beannach for years, calling for his lost sheep, and everyone knew about the young man who’d fallen asleep in the hills for one hundred and two years, only to awaken with a long white beard and his life nearly over, the victim of a vengeful faerie colony. What sort of ruthless creatures did these trees hide?
She came to a fork in the path, the same one that she’d passed by several minutes before, and studied her two choices. Had she gone left earlier, or right? Shoulders tense, she decided she’d taken the path on the right before, and now had to go left.
She began walking again. Stagnant pools of water had gathered on either side of the trail, and little white insects landed on their surfaces. Some of the insects flew about, looking much like snowflakes that refused to settle upon the ground. She might have thought them pretty if she didn’t feel so nervous.
Another cry echoed through the woods. Again, the cry remained unfamiliar, but this time it sounded gravelly, threatening. She moved even faster, until she was nearly running. She had to get out of these woods. She didn’t know what sorts of creatures lived here, but she didn’t fancy meeting up with some angry faerie who could put her to sleep for a hundred years.
Her heart pounding, she pelted forward, not seeing the exposed root until the last second, certainly not soon enough to stop herself from tripping over it and falling into a pile of dead leaves.
The nasty, throaty cry rang out again, this time from only a few feet away.
Nearly sobbing, she scrabbled away from the noise and into the brush, and when she felt a nudge on her arm she squeezed her eyes shut and yelled aloud, afraid the faeries had found her.
Something growled in her ear.
Remaining utterly still, she slowly opened one eye, and then the other. Two small, beady black eyes stared back at her. Swallowing, she pushed herself up until she was sitting, her skirt spread around her, and stared at the little creature. He was gray, black, and buff, with a white stripe from his nose to the back of his head. His claws were curved and powerful looking, suggesting he did a lot of digging. In fact, he reminded her of a large weasel.
All at once she felt like a perfect nitwit. Good Lord, how she’d allowed her imagination to run away with her! She willed her heart to slow down, and her breathing to calm, and soon she felt almost normal.
Curiosity filled her. What sort of creature was this? Avoiding looking directly into his eyes, as most animals viewed that gesture as confrontational, she pulled her panflute out and played the weasel’s song, a crafty melody about self-reliance and of the things beneath the earth.
He responded with a throaty growl that she could almost understand, but not quite. Regardless, delight filled her. She knew she’d understand him in time. Here was a new friend, someone to talk to during the lonely weeks ahead of her.
A tiny chattering noise caught her attention. In the nearby brush, a hare stood absolutely motionless, its gaze fixed upon her. Here, again, was another friend. The rabbit’s song she knew well, and she played it for him, warbling about fertility and fleetness, drawing the creature from the brush to her side.
One by one, other animals joined the first two, their attitudes both curious and friendly. If she knew a song for a particular animal, she played it, much to the newcomer’s gladness. And as she trilled her panflute, and thanked them for their greetings, and listened to their stories, some of the sadness and anger that had been a part of her for weeks began leaking away.
When Sionnach arrived and joined in with a spirited yip, she gave the little fox her first true smile since she’d come to Inveraray and began to enjoy herself. She didn’t worry about anyone witnessing her socializing with the locals; she was so deep in the woods that she doubted anyone could ever find her.
Laughing aloud now, she called all of the forest’s inhabitants to her, and played so merrily on her panflute that some of them began to dance.
8
A lready dressed in his hunt coat and breeches, Colin sprawled in a chair and stared moodily out the window. Sunlight painted shadows on the floor nearby and burnished the simple Scottish furniture in his dressing room to a rich mahogany. He glanced at the ormolu clock on the mantelpiece and saw the time had drawn close to one in the afternoon. Another whole hour had to pass before Sarah would meet him in the great hall for their ride.
Leg hooked over one side of a chair, he absently stroked the velvet covering the chair’s back. Thoughts of Sarah with her panflute, her violet eyes gazing at him and tilted upward like a cat’s, filled his mind. Something in her eyes, some fey quality, continued to haunt him. It stirred an uneasiness in his gut. And yet, he wasn’t afraid of her. Rather, she attracted him in some primal way he couldn’t quite define.
Many years ago, during a ride here at Inveraray, he’d found a little feral cat who’d caught her paw in a leghold trap. The cat had hissed at first, then looked at him calmly, its eyes fathomless yellow pools that had seemed very wise to him, above the pain of a mortal existence. Why wasn’t it screaming? he’d wondered. Didn’t it feel the pain of the trap? It was made of flesh and blood . . . how could it not feel pain?
Naturally, he had freed it. Before he could catch it, it had raced off into the woods. Having witnessed its vulnerability, part of him had wanted to help it, and protect it. He’d always wondered what had happe
ned to that cat, and had checked the barns for it frequently. Had it succumbed to infection, or gone on to enjoy a lengthy life?
The cat’s odd introspection, its otherworldly look coupled with vulnerability, had aroused the same sort of uneasiness in him then as he felt now. Perhaps his uneasiness was rooted in the fear that came with not understanding, he mused. Of sensing that the cat had thoughts so different from his that he simply wasn’t equipped to understand.
Whatever the case, Sarah possessed that same wild, fey quality the cat had shown, and now, ten weary years later, Colin couldn’t let this go. He wanted to understand. He needed the faint dread and boredom that had taken over his life to go away. He needed to hope.
A poem came to mind, one of his favorites by William Blake, about a tyger burning bright. He wondered if he could capture Sarah’s strange qualities on paper, just as Blake had immortalized the tiger. Frowning, he stood, walked over to his writing desk, and sat down. He slapped a fresh piece of parchment on the desk, dipped his quill in ink, and considered.
What was it about her that had stirred his uneasiness? That fey quality? And why did she intrigue him so? She was beautiful, yes, but something more than that bound him to her.
Unbidden, one of Sarah’s panflute melodies came to mind. The hair rose on his arms just from the memory, and he knew in that moment that it had to be her aura of, well, enchantment that had unsettled him. He didn’t believe in magic or its possibilities, and yet, more than once she’d displayed a special touch with animals that went beyond the normal. His gut told him she had a bit of the faerie folk in her. Indeed, she was upsetting notions that he’d held close for the majority of his life, and even as the thought made him uneasy, it drew him on like a lodestone.
The verbal explanation that he’d cooked up in his mind hardly satisfied him, however. It just didn’t fully capture the intense yearnings and restlessness he experienced around Sarah. His reaction to her was visceral, without logic, and could not be quantified or qualified. Giving in, he put his quill down and stood. Then he moved over to the window and stared out at the lawn, seeing nothing.
A soft knock at the door interrupted his reverie.
“Come in,” he said, and turned around to face the entrance.
Higgins, his valet, walked through the doorway, a man unremarkable in dress and appearance in tow. “Mr. Cooper, lately of London, has come to call,” the valet announced softly.
The runner offered Colin a smart bow. “Good afternoon, my Lord.”
Glad to see the runner at last, Colin answered with a similar greeting and told Higgins to leave them. Cooper had a reputation as being the finest bloodhound in all of England. He’d captured criminals in thieving dens and had, according to gossip, unmasked traitors in the most exclusive drawing rooms of London. Now, he would help Colin discover whether or not a certain kitten was really the duke’s daughter.
Once the valet had closed the door behind him, Colin asked Cooper to sit and offered him a brandy. The runner accepted and, with little ado, got straight to the point.
“So who’s the girl I’m to investigate?”
Colin fixed him with a stare. “Mr. Cooper, can I rely on your discretion?”
“Of course you can, my lord.” Several years older than Colin and sporting a grizzled mustache, Cooper nodded once to emphasize his trustworthiness, then patted a side pocket that no doubt held references.
Colin took the other man at his word. He had no reason to distrust the man. Still, he hesitated. The words almost refused to pass his lips. Unaccountably, he felt like a conniving devil. “I need you to verify the story of a certain young lady who has come to live at Inveraray.”
“Do you mean the duke’s daughter?”
Colin nodded. “I want you to make certain that Sarah Murphy is, indeed, his daughter. I bear no ill will toward her,” he hastened to add, “but I don’t want the duke led down a garden path, only to discover that the girl whom he had thought of his own blood is nothing more than a common peasant. Will you do it?”
“Aye, my lord, the assignment sounds interesting.” Cooper stretched his legs out and took a sip of the brandy Colin had given him.
“I’ll tell you what I know of her. I’ve also written down the particulars of her former address and directions to find it. Higgins will give these to you as you leave.”
“Very good.” The runner put his brandy snifter on a side table. “Tell me everything you can.”
Remorse niggling harder at him, Colin explained the circumstances of the carriage accident that had claimed the Duchess of Argyll and her entourage. He told the runner everything that the duke had relayed to him about Sarah’s earliest years, and enumerated the events leading up to the duke’s discovering Sarah on the moors, including his own role: that of discovering the duchess’s unmistakable, heart-shaped emerald ring in a jeweler’s collection when he went to purchase a birthday present for Amelia Helmsgate.
One eyebrow raised, Mr. Cooper listened attentively to Colin’s entire discourse, and when Colin was through, he leaned back expansively. “I suppose you’ll not be wanting the duke to know about my investigation.”
“This is between you and me, as are the results. You must tell me, and me only, what you find.”
“As you wish, my lord.” Cooper stood. “With your leave, I’ll head into the Highlands on the morrow.”
“Excellent.” Colin opened a small trunk pushed against one wall of his dressing room and withdrew a fist-sized velvet pouch. He tossed the pouch, full of gold sovereigns, to Mr. Cooper. “Will this be enough to get you started?”
The older man caught it, loosed the strings, peered inside, and whistled. “Aye, my lord, that’s more than enough.”
Colin rang for Higgins. The valet knocked on the door less than a minute later and entered.
“Please escort Mr. Cooper out, Higgins.”
“Yes, my lord.” The valet gestured to Cooper, who bowed in Colin’s direction before leaving with the servant.
“I should return within a fortnight or so,” the runner said over his shoulder, just before disappearing from sight.
Colin closed the door behind them. He sighed, relieved that the distasteful business was over. He took no joy in the investigation or the hurtful truths that Cooper might turn up, and in other circumstances he wouldn’t have bothered to hire the runner. And yet, because the duke meant so much to him, he just couldn’t allow Sarah to flit along her merry way without some sort of investigation. He’d seen enough intrigue in his day and knew how damaging it could be.
Then why did that niggling feeling of regret over hiring Cooper keep growing stronger in him? He tried to push it aside, telling himself he was more than justified, but the guilt just wouldn’t let go. He remembered that wild, primal look in the cat’s eyes. In his mind, Sarah’s eyes replaced the cat’s and, without warning, he felt her vulnerability keenly.
His dressing room abruptly felt stuffy and closed in. He dragged on his necktie, loosening it, and decided to go for a walk. He had almost half an hour before two o’clock, plenty of time to take a turn about the grounds and let the fresh air clear his head.
He left his dressing room and descended to the great hall, passing Mrs. Fitzbottom on the way.
The housekeeper, upon seeing him, paused. “Are you looking for Lady Sarah, Mr. Colin? Milady mentioned she would be riding with you this afternoon.”
“Not at the moment. We’re to meet at two o’clock.” Alerted by a pinched look around her mouth, he assessed her with a swift glance. “Is there a problem, Mrs. Fitzbottom?”
“Well, no, not really. ’Tis just that milady is walking the grounds alone, and I’m worried that she may become lost.”
“Was there not a footman available to accompany her?”
“Milady did not want a footman.”
“Did she tell you where she planned to walk?”
“No. She wanted to be alone. But I watched her from a second-floor window,” the housekeeper admitted, coloring. �
�She crossed the lawns in the direction of the Maltlands.”
“Of course. With her kinship for animals, I should have guessed she’d head for the stables. Rest easy, Mrs. Fitzbottom. I’ll find her and bring her back.”
“Thank you, milord.”
Leaving the housekeeper behind, Colin strode across the great hall and out the front door. He walked across neatly clipped lawns that were the color of emeralds, skirting around muddy spots that the rain had brought, and finished the half-mile distance to the Maltlands quickly. The smell of dung sharp in the air, he passed through the stone arch leading to the courtyard and surveyed the busiest place at Inveraray Castle.
Arranged in a rectangle around a packed-earth courtyard, barns, carriage houses, a hothouse, and rubble-stone sheds all competed with each other for usefulness. Nectarines and peaches pressed against the hothouse’s glass walls, their obvious ripeness inviting Colin to come in for a bite. The sounds of a hammer striking metal and an ax hitting wood emerged from the great barn, where the duke’s wrights, smithies, and other craftsmen worked. The horse stalls and carriage barns held numerous varieties of both.
Nowhere did Colin find a trace of Sarah.
He walked across the courtyard and questioned an elderly groomsman polishing the duke’s saddles and bridles. The groom mentioned seeing a young woman hurrying past the Maltlands’ entrance arch. She’d peered into the courtyard but hadn’t actually entered. When Colin pressed him as to which way she’d gone, the old man pointed off to the west.
Colin stared into the large grove of beeches and firs that eventually opened onto fields along the River Aray. He couldn’t imagine Sarah becoming lost. While the woods around Inveraray were thicker than in most parts of Scotland, they weren’t thick enough for anyone to wander in for any length of time without coming to the river. The river, of course, led to Loch Fyne and the town of Inveraray.
Sighing, Colin left the Maltlands and headed west, into the trees. The day had warmed up considerably and created pools of stagnant water. Tiny, white-winged insects took advantage of these perfect conditions and hatched in the pools, flying upward to weave and dip among the rushes.
