by Lisa Cach
Valerian scanned the hillside once to be sure there was no one about, then slipped through the opening. She had told Aunt Theresa about her discovery, but had kept it secret from the town. If any of the townsfolk had ever known about it, they had long since forgotten. She always felt a twinge of guilt for guarding her secret place so jealously, but was adept at assuaging that guilt with the argument that she needed the cave’s comforts more than the villagers.
A small iron lamp, of the same style that had been used for hundreds of years with oil as fuel, sat in a niche in the rough wall along with flints for lighting it. Even these few steps into the cave the temperature had dropped noticeably, sending a chill over her skin. She lit the lamp, its flickerings barely reaching into the dark passage ahead. She could have found her way without the light, but even she was not immune to the imaginings a dark cave could arouse. A light, however small, was a comfort.
The passage slanted and twisted, the ceiling rising and falling, and there were several places where she had to climb over boulders. The sound of rushing water grew louder as she progressed, reaching her ears through fissures that led to a subterranean river. She had never seen the river, and where it went was one of the mysteries of her world.
The air in the passage gradually grew warmer and more humid, and soon she had reached her destination, the chamber with the pool. The chamber was about ten feet across, and the ceiling high enough that she did not feel claustrophobic. The water, steaming with geothermal heat and filled with minerals that gave it an unpleasant flavor, entered through a rift surrounded by a stone face that was carved into a rock. The water poured out through the mouth, and had eaten away the lower half of the carving. The face had round, pupil-less eyes, and hair that radiated outward like the rays of the sun.
She had been more than a little afraid of it when she had first discovered the face, but when she had sketched the carving for Aunt Theresa, her aunt had explained that it had most likely been left there by the Romans, centuries earlier.
Those long-vanished Romans had bricked in a small dam at the opposite end of the pool, preventing the water from rushing away through a dark chute of stone. That dark, empty drainage maw was the one part of the chamber Valerian could have lived without. The water that overflowed the dam ran into and down that passage with an eerie echoing rumble that she imagined was precisely the sound a cave-dwelling ogre would make devouring children.
She lit the three other lamps ranged along the near side of the pool, then stripped and slid into the warm water. It was hot enough to make her chilled fingers and toes burn, and she savored the pain of it as long as she could, then lifted both feet and hands out of the water, gradually letting them sink back in as her body adjusted to the heat.
She closed her eyes and let her mind drift free. The heat relaxed her muscles, and she leant her head against the edge of the pool, the rest of her body submerged. She imagined she could feel the remnants of mud lifting and floating away.
Eddie’s image and his unwelcome embrace flashed into her mind and replayed itself in horrid detail. She could feel his touch, and a shudder of revulsion shook her. She pushed the images and sensations away, and she tried to replace them with thoughts of her carvings, the wooden animals she made. Eddie came back. His lips slimed over hers, his tongue oozing between her lips, rich with whiskey and vomit. She brought Oscar to mind. Clams. What to do tomorrow. Anything but Eddie, but he and his thick tongue kept creeping back into her mind.
She thought of the baron and mentally plastered his face over Eddie’s, making it his arms that held her, exchanging Eddie’s scent for the baron’s clean one. The revulsion subsided, and a warmth tingled through her. She imagined him leaning down to kiss her, careful and erotic in his assault as he had been by the Giving Stone, and a shiver ran through her. She slid her hands up over her breasts, thinking of how it would feel to have his hands on her bare skin.
A part of herself rebelled against the fantasy. She did not want the baron invading such an intimate part of her mind, living in the erotic scenarios that were her deepest secrets. He had no right to be there.
The rest of her only cared that the images felt good and had the power to erase Eddie.
She slid her hand down to the soft hair between her legs, cupping herself. She let the edge of her finger press between the fold, and rubbed gently. She imagined it was the baron touching her, stroking her softly as he kissed her.
What would he look like, devoid of those rich garments? Would there be hair on his chest, or would his skin be smooth and silky? And what would it feel like to hold his manhood in her palm, to lead him inside her . . . Her fingers changed their movement, and she imagined his strong hips between her thighs, her legs held wide, and the penetration she had never felt except in erotic dreams. Her muscles tensed, and then the contracting waves of her relief washed through her.
Her eyes opened to the dim cave, the shadows dancing on the wall, and the water gurgling through the mouth of the stone face. Her fantasy lover had departed with the spent desire, and she was left feeling empty and alone.
Maybe Aunt Theresa was right, and she should think about taking what the baron apparently had in mind to offer. Sex with a real person surely would not be so lonesome as this. Surely she could not be so sad afterward if there were a warm body next to her, to touch and lie against and have hold her.
Other women her age were getting married and starting families, having spent ten or more years working at crafts or in service, saving money for just such a future. She had some money of her own saved, and had a craft that would provide additional income to her family, but there would never be a man who wanted to marry her.
It was hard enough to accept that she would never marry, but it was even worse to think that she might go her whole life without ever experiencing what it was to lie with a man. The baron would never want to marry her, and his interest in her might pass in less than a week, but he did seem to want her now. Perhaps he would be her only chance to know what it was to join with a man.
She submerged herself completely in the water, as if hiding from the thought.
Chapter Seven
Valerian sat on an old rug in front of the cottage, the meadow grasses around her bright with new growth. Several of her father’s medical texts were piled around her, and she squinted in frustration at the one that lay open in her lap. It was not telling her what she needed to know.
It had been three days since the Eddie and Stinky disaster, and she had stayed close to home. Charmaine had visited with loud complaints about Valerian’s behavior, and let them know that the whole town was gossiping about Eddie’s amorous advances on the tidal flat. Any hopes Valerian had that the kiss had gone unnoticed were thoroughly dashed. She told herself she was staying home to avoid adding fuel to the gossip fire. The truth, which she could barely admit to herself, was that she was too cowardly to face anyone just yet.
So, she had stayed close to home, and had more time to spend with her aunt than she had had for a couple months. By the second day she realized that all was not well. Although she hid it well, Aunt Theresa was tiring easily and appeared to be in pain. Valerian could hardly believe she had been so blind as not to notice it sooner. Aunt Theresa must be trying very hard indeed to keep it from her, which was an alarming fact in itself. There would be no reason to hide it, if it were only a minor ailment.
Her father’s medical books, despite their wealth of information, could offer her no firm diagnosis for her aunt based on the few symptoms Valerian was aware of. It would help considerably if she could examine her aunt.
Valerian sighed and closed the book, staring out across the meadow at the distant wedge of blue water between the hills. Before he had died, her father had taught her the eye-sight-saving trick of interrupting her reading by focusing on a distant object. She smiled, remembering the Latin lessons in his study that had taken so very much squinting, puzzled perusal on her part. Her father, a doctor, had seen no reason not to teach his daughter
to understand the medicine of science, just as her mother taught her the medicine of herbal tradition and women.
She slid the heavy tome off her lap and reached for the anatomy book, giving up for the moment on diagnosing her aunt. The anatomy book was her favorite of them all, with the detailed drawings depicting bones, muscles, the circulatory system, and all the internal organs. When she was small the images had held a repulsive fascination for her. The repulsion had since faded, and she now viewed the workings of the human body with intellectual fascination.
She flipped to the page depicting the male sexual organs, casting a glance over her shoulder to check that Aunt Theresa was still inside. Not that there was anything to be secretive about: Aunt Theresa would be the first to encourage her prurient interests.
She was tracing the route of the urinary tract with her fingertip when a shadow fell across the page. She dropped her hands over the page, and squinted back over her shoulder. At first all she could see was a backlit shape, and then, even as she realized who it was, he spoke.
“Doing research?” the baron asked.
Her face flooded with heat. She took her hands from the diagram, and with false calm turned the page, striving to appear unaffected by his presence while her insides quivered. “A healer must have knowledge of all the body’s systems.”
The baron went down on one knee beside her and lifted the heavy leather cover of the book in her lap, flipping through a couple pages, closer to her than he needed to be. “You read Latin?”
“Yes.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Probably better than you do.” His nearness made the hairs on the back of her arms stand.
To her surprise he smiled widely, showing perfect teeth. “No doubt you do. Languages were never my strong suit. The maths and sciences were more my field, not that they have done me any good.” He moved away and settled onto a corner of her rug, one leg stretched out to where it nearly touched her knees. “Where did you learn to read Latin? I cannot quite imagine any local priest deciding to teach you.”
He was certainly making himself at home. Did all aristocrats assume they would be welcome, or was this arrogance peculiar to him? “My father taught me,” she admitted grudgingly. This man had no right to know her personal history. “He was a doctor, and saw no reason not to teach me what he knew.”
“He is dead?”
“Both he and my mother. When I was twelve.”
He was quiet a moment, his eyes gentle. “I am sorry. That must have been very hard.” He sounded sincere, and she softened a bit.
“It was a long time ago. I still miss them, but it does not hurt so much anymore. Mostly I wish that they could see me now, and see that I turned out all right. I know that sounds selfish.” She did not know why she was revealing so much personal information. Maybe it was because of the way he was looking at her: as if she were an interesting human being, worthy of being listened to. No one but Aunt Theresa ever looked at her that way.
“Selfish how?” he asked.
“Selfish that I wish they could see me, but I give no thought to the lives they still had to live, the years that were taken from them.”
“Not selfish,” he said, crooking a smile at her. “I imagine that is how fortunate children think of their parents, as having existed only for them.”
“Perhaps. Aunt Theresa came and got me after they died, and I have been living with her ever since. She continued the education that my parents began.”
“So you come from a family with a tradition of healing.”
“You could say that. Some of my ancestresses were not particularly lucky in having followed such a calling, though. People who know no better have a way of confusing knowledge of herbs with witchcraft.”
“You and your aunt seem to have led a peaceful life here in Greyfriars. Has no one ever accused you of being a witch?”
She shrugged. “There have been a few tense situations.”
He tilted his head and looked at her, almost as if she were a painting he was trying to understand. “You have led a serious life, I think. I doubt there is your like to be found anywhere amongst the young ladies of London, for all their sophisticated appearance.”
Valerian rubbed her palm along the worn dark purple of her skirt. She must look plain as a beggar to his eyes. “There would not be much point in my dressing in fancy clothes,” she said, almost to herself. “There is no one here I need to impress.”
“But would you dress to impress them, if there were such people? I doubt it. You act as if you are content to spend your time here, alone with your aunt, interacting with the townsfolk only when necessary.”
“There have not been so many eager to befriend me.”
“The young smith seems eager enough.”
“So you heard about that.” She grimaced, meeting his eyes for only a moment. “I do not know what got into him.”
“The way I have heard it, you lured him and his friends out to you with your sorcerous ways, trapping the one you did not want in the mud.”
She was incredulous with surprise for a moment, staring at him, then exploded. “Ridiculous! I did no such thing. The fools were drunk. Can I help it if they are too stupid to keep from falling into quicksand that a child knows how to avoid? They were imbeciles with a jug of pilfered liquor, and they did not need any help from me to behave like brainless goats.”
He was laughing by the time her tirade wound down. “Calm yourself. I never thought you did want the boy. Maybe I could imagine you as a temptress, but never one who set her sights so low.”
“I am afraid I do not understand you,” she grumbled.
He took her hand, rubbing his thumb along the back of her knuckles. “I think you do.”
She tugged her hand free, trying to ignore the delicious shiver his touch had aroused. “Why are you here? Did you need my aunt for something?”
“I have decided to take you up on your offer of a personal tour of the district.”
“That was my aunt’s offer, not mine.”
“Do you refuse me?”
Valerian looked into his face, friendly with a hint of mischief. The arrogance of their first meeting was nowhere in evidence, and she hoped it had gone into permanent hiding. Did he really want to be shown around, or did he want an excuse to be with her? Whichever it was, she found she was not displeased at the thought of spending time alone with him. “No, I do not refuse you.”
He helped her carry the books back into the cottage. Theresa was measuring drops of extract into a bottle when they came in.
“Good morning, Mrs. Storrow.”
“Baron.” She nodded a greeting, then turned to her niece. “Valerian dear, would you mind bringing this to Mrs. Frowdy? Young Toby is having fits again.”
“I will be showing the baron the sights of the district, such as they are. It should be no problem to include the Frowdy farm.”
Aunt Theresa looked terribly pleased at this news, and Valerian gave her a warning glare. She was rewarded with a knowing and rather encouraging wink.
Valerian wrapped the stoppered bottle in a cloth, and dropped it through the slit in her skirt into the pocket pouch that hung from her waist.
Back outside, the baron’s mount was cropping grass.
“Do you want Aunt Theresa to keep an eye on your horse?” Valerian asked.
“Not necessary. We will be riding.”
“I do not see two horses.”
“No, Darby is most assuredly just one horse.”
“My lord, surely you do not—”
“When we are in private, could you call me Nathaniel?”
Valerian stared at him, protests to riding double forgotten. “Why on earth would you want me to do that?”
“Humor me. Come now, let me hear you say it.”
“I would not want people to assume we were so intimate.”
“Who is to hear? And if they did, would not it be better for them to assume you were sharing your bed with me than with young Eddie?”
“Mor
e likely they would believe I was after you both.”
“I will challenge to a duel the first man who suggests you are unfaithful,” he said melodramatically, putting a hand to his sword.
Valerian could not help a smile. He was jesting, she knew, but it was nice to pretend a man might fight for her honor, albeit a dubious sort of honor in this instance. “I suppose ’twould be ungracious of me to refuse after such a declaration . . . Nathaniel.”
“Music to my ears, my dear.” He leered comically at her, but she thought she saw in his eyes a touch of true appreciation, underneath the levity.
He mounted Darby, then took his foot out of the stirrup and put down his hand. “Up we go.”
There seemed no point in arguing. She could stand and complain that she did not want people to see her clinging to his back, and he would laugh off her protests. Truth be told, she wanted to ride. She had only rarely been on a horse, and the prospect of being carried to the Frowdy farm was far more enticing than that of walking the three miles.
She put her foot in the stirrup, and Nathaniel grasped her small hand in his own. He pulled her up in one swift movement, and she found herself behind him, astride the horse on a small cushion attached there for riding pillion. She arranged her skirts as best she could, tucking the cloth under her legs. Darby shifted his weight, and her arms quickly went around Nathaniel’s waist.
“All set?”
“Set enough.”
“You will have to tell me where to go.”
She told him which path to take from the meadow, and with a soft click from him Darby started off. Valerian could feel the shifting muscles of the horse under her legs, and of Nathaniel from her arms around his waist. She rested her cheek against his back, watching scenery go by. She liked having this innocent excuse to touch him, even if her thoughts of him were not always so pure.
They traveled overland, leaving the path behind, and did not speak beyond the directions Valerian gave. Once or twice they passed people out tending flocks, and Valerian let her eyes pass over them, not acknowledging their presence. She wanted to pretend they would not notice her; at the same time that she wanted them to see that a nobleman had chosen her to ride with him.
