After Julian’s exit, it felt like there wasn’t enough oxygen in the air to pull in a proper breath.
“I apologize, Pamela, you shouldn’t have had to witness that little tête-à-tête.”
She shook her head. “Don’t apologize, Jamie. You’re going to be prickly with one another, that can’t be helped. It will take time to get to a place where either of you is comfortable enough to have a normal conversation.”
Jamie went to the windows that looked out toward the drive. “Do we know who his friends are in Belfast?”
“Well, we know one,” she said.
“You think he’s enough of a fool to go visit the Reverend?”
She shrugged, not wanting to malign Julian without proof. “I’ve learned the hard way and so have you, not to underestimate just what Reverend Broughton is capable of. If he wants to use Julian to pull you back into his game, he will.”
The Reverend Broughton was an old and implacable enemy of Jamie’s who had long sought to make his life difficult. For some reason he believed that he and Jamie shared a father though there was no proof of such a thing.
“Yes, I know that, I don’t quite see how to stop him, though, short of killing him, and the law tends to frown upon that, unfortunately. You would think,” he sighed, “that the game would be getting just a bit dull to him by now.”
“You’d think so, but you’d be wrong,” she said. “Jamie?”
“Yes?”
“Are you all right?”
He shook his head and took a long breath in through his nose. “Yes, I’m fine, or I will be once I’ve calmed my temper. Would you care to go riding? I think that might restore me to a more civil frame of mind.”
“I—”
“Maggie will be more than happy to keep watch over the children,” he said, anticipating her protest. “We can check on them before we go.”
“Yes, let’s go,” she said, the thought of a ride immensely appealing.
They saddled the horses in a companionable silence. The stables and paddock lay in a pool of afternoon light and the smell of horses and feed and leather was soothing to the senses. Jamie was riding an Arabian stallion named Naseem Albahr, which he had bought the month before. The horse shimmered coal black from nose to tail and stood sixteen hands high. He was impossible for anyone other than Jamie to ride, or handle in any way. Even with Jamie he showed his impatience regularly. She was riding a lovely bay named Danu, with an even temperament and an energetic gait to her. The filly also possessed the invaluable attribute of being the only horse in the stable that would tolerate Naseem Albahr’s high-hoofed behavior.
They set off at a brisk canter, down the main trail away from the stables. This land led down the mountainside and into a small, lovely valley filled with hazel and oak and ferns that grew to almost prehistoric size. She hadn’t ridden Phouka since Casey had disappeared, a cause of great guilt for her. Jamie had offered to have him back in his stables, so that he would get regular exercise. She thought she might have to take him up on his offer, because there was never any time, nor could she leave the children alone on the off chance she might have a spare five minutes at some point.
She loved this side of the mountain, loved the strange magic that seemed to linger here and the sense that the wee bloody city below and all its tragedies did not exist. A soft breeze floated in from the west, and the scent of fir needles and wet earth rode in upon it. A green mist lay over the woods and bracken, lighting the hollows with celadon fire.
A fox darted across the path just then and narrowly missed being trampled by Jamie’s demon of a horse. Naseem reared back, hooves slashing at the air and Jamie cursed, tightening his grip on the reins. She hurriedly took Danu off to the side, where the filly let out a long whicker, and then set to munching the new grass at the trail’s side, as if to make clear she had little concern for tetchy stallions or stray foxes.
Pamela stood and watched, reins clutched fast in her hands. There was nothing she could do to help Jamie, odds were she would get herself trampled if she tried. Besides, Jamie had the best hand with horses of anyone she had ever known. If he couldn’t calm the stallion, no one could.
With some horses Jamie used soft words and soft touch, but with such a spirited stallion he used an entirely different approach. She knew some of the Gaelic curses, but Jamie knew them all, and used them to great effect.
“You bloody bastard!” he said, and clamped his thighs hard on the stallion’s rib cage, pulling the reins to turn his head. She gasped as she saw the stallion’s neck make contact with Jamie’s face. She covered her eyes after that, certain that the horse was going to kill Jamie or break its own legs in the attempt. After that it was all sound, thrashing, cursing, and a severe impugnment of the stallion’s dam and the snap of tree branches breaking off.
There was a lull suddenly in the proceedings, and a dry voice said, “You can uncover your eyes now.”
She glanced up to find Jamie giving her an amused look from the vantage point of Naseem’s back. The horse was still snorting, coat gleaming and Jamie had moss and bark in his hair, as well as a black eye that was going to be truly impressive.
“Bastard had the last word,” Jamie said, and slid down off the stallion’s back, taking care to stay clear of the bobbing head and snorting nostrils, before putting a hand gingerly to his rapidly swelling eye.
They were near to his grandmother’s cottage.
“Jamie, I think we should stop and see Finola. She can have a look at your eye.”
Jamie opened his mouth, no doubt to protest, when Pamela caught a flicker of movement in her peripheral vision and turned to see the woman in question moving toward them through the dim of the woods. Finola was a small woman, but one with a fierce presence. She had her herb gathering basket over one arm and the other hand clutched a variety of wet and muddy plants.
The green light of the wood made Finola appear as if she had just crossed the border from that other world, the one that seemed to shimmer right along the boundaries of Jamie’s land, a place apart, enchanting but also frightening. Pamela had spent a fair bit of time with her only a few months back, and it had convinced her that the woman was part witch, at least where plants and their uses were concerned.
“Come into the house,” she said without preamble, her eyes narrowed against the sunlight, “an’ I’ll have a look at that eye of yers.” She put her basket down, tucking the muddy roots in with the other plants she’d foraged, and then looked up at Jamie, touching one hand lightly to his eye.
“We should probably get back to the house,” he said, politely, but with an edge to it.
“Ye can spare a minute to let me tend to yer eye an’ to drink a cup of tea,” Finola said crisply, “not to mention a little civilizing wouldn’t hurt ye just now, I’m thinkin’. I’ve a pot of comfrey already brewed an’ cool, ye won’t have to hang about long, if that’s what’s worryin’ ye.”
Jamie cast a glance at Pamela and she nodded. She liked Finola, and wasn’t averse to stopping for tea. Mostly, she wanted Jamie’s eye attended to, for like most men he was too stubborn to have a doctor look at him when he was hurt.
She followed Finola into the cottage. It was just as she remembered, though she suspected it had remained much the same for decades. She could feel Jamie behind her, the electricity fairly crackling off him. She had been here one strange and dark night with Casey, a night where time and space had seemingly been suspended in this small cottage and she had reached out to find the man who now stood beside her.
Pamela sat, her skin thrumming with the electric charge in the room. Jamie and two of his relatives in one day might be more than her nerves could manage. Finola had a will of steel as well as a mind as sharp as her grandson’s. Pamela thought perhaps this was why they seemed at odds with one another—they were just too much alike. There was something more, though, something that simmered just beneath the surface and could be felt now, roiling about the room. Finola had never said what caused them to fa
ll out, nor had Jamie. She didn’t suppose either one was about to enlighten her now.
Finola, never one to waste time or words, set about making a compress for Jamie’s eye. She soaked a pad of cheesecloth in the tincture, which Pamela knew would be triple the strength of ordinary comfrey tea, and then wrung it out a little and put it on Jamie’s eye. He put a hand up to hold it, and used the other eye to glare at his grandmother, who returned the look with interest. While Jamie did not look much like Finola, his eyes were the mirror shade of hers, a dark green jade, bright with anger at present.
Once the tea for drinking was made, she handed them each a mug and then sat down opposite them on a three-legged stool by the fire. With her usual tact, she got straight to the point.
“I suppose the reason for yer fine temper today is because yer son is visitin’ ye.”
“And how do you know that?”
“Just because you rarely grace me with conversation doesn’t mean others on the estate don’t talk to me.”
He shot Pamela a sideways glance with his good eye, and she started guiltily, despite the fact that she hadn’t known about Julian being there until she had walked into his house today.
“It wasn’t Pamela, she only just arrived, so ye can scarce blame her.”
“Do you have some sort of underground psychic network going?”
“No, simply civilized chat over the gate. Have ye forgotten what that’s like?”
“Might be that I have,” Jamie said and laughed, “living in a gulag, while good for the character, plays havoc with a man’s manners.”
“I suppose ye’ve let him get under yer skin?” Finola said, narrowing her eyes at her grandson.
“I suppose,” Jamie said shortly, “I have. He’s a maddening boy—you have met him, haven’t you?”
“Aye, an’ he reminds me in no small way of yerself when ye were just the wee bit younger than him.”
“He is nothing like me,” Jamie said hotly, and Pamela wondered if either of the two would notice if she quietly slipped out the door.
“Oh, he is, it’s only that yer ego won’t let ye see it.” Finola had her hands on her hips, green eyes sparking through the dim cottage light. Jamie’s visible eye was narrowed in the cat-like way that said he was positively furious. All that was missing was the hissing and spitting. Pamela bit her lip to stop herself from laughing. There was a decided resemblance between the two in front of her right now, though she was quite certain neither would appreciate her pointing it out.
“My ego, is it? Well, thank you for the compliment.”
“Oh, laddie, ’twasn’t meant as a compliment an’ well ye know it.”
“I’ll take it as I like.”
“Ye don’t get to be childish, man, but I think ye can forgive him if he is childish for a bit. He’s likely to feel such when he’s visitin’ ye for the first time in his life. I think ye forget just how intimidatin’ ye are to people meetin’ ye for the first time.”
“Me, intimidating? I’ve been hospitality itself since he arrived.”
Pamela stifled a laugh, which caused her to cough in what could only be described as a dubious manner.
The narrowed green eye was on her now. “I’m not intimidating him, am I?” With the dripping cloth still clasped firmly to his eye, Jamie looked less than the picture of righteous indignation.
“I would prefer not to venture an opinion just now,” she said and buried her face in the solidity of the mug, the steam from the tea heating her face.
Jamie laughed, and the tension went down a notch.
“It’s up to you, James,” his grandmother said, in a slightly more conciliatory tone. “It’s yer responsibility, not his. He doesn’t owe you anything, but you do owe him a chance an’ ye need to lend him yer understandin’ as well.”
“Just as it was lent to me at a similar age?” he asked, and there was no mistaking the iron in his tone.
“Ye were a high-strung laddie, an’ ye had the deficits of such a temperament, but ye also had good advisers an’ guides who loved ye.”
“Meddling Jesuits and meddling women is what I had,” he said with no little frustration in his tone.
Which rather accurately described his current set of advisors too, Pamela thought. It seemed to her that the conversation had officially entered territory that did not bear witnesses. She stood and went to put her mug by the big stone sink, then having done so, sidled toward the door. Two or three steps and she would be out of the cottage and could wait in the garden for Jamie, where there was no danger of getting caught in the familial crossfire.
“Pamela,” he said quietly and she froze in her tracks. Damn the man anyway, he never missed anything even when he was in the grip of a dreadful temper. “I’ll leave with you, so don’t try to sneak off.”
“I’ll wait outside,” she said meekly and shot out the door before he could say anything to stop her.
Outside, she took a long breath of the warm air. Finola’s extensive herb garden was softly hazed with new growth. The herbs in this garden were arranged according to their various uses: the herbs for blood-related illnesses at the top of the round—hyssop and motherwort, sage and angelica; followed by herbs for the heart—yarrow and rosemary, with the hawthorn—both leaf and berry; herbs to draw out bruising—comfrey and arnica; herbs for the head and the soul—clary sage, geranium, St. John’s wort, borage, valerian and chamomile. The final arm in the spiral were women’s herbs, for fertility and for preventing fertility, for bringing on the bleeding and for promoting labor in a woman gone past her time—raspberry leaf, blue vervain, the root and leaf of the dandelion, mug wort and tansy. Then there were the herbs for love charms, for spells to bind either man or woman to you and charms to thwart an enemy, herbs to turn aside evil and bring luck, and one low herb that crept along the ground, said to bring the dead back to walk amongst the living. The poisonous herbs were separate, with the deadly nightshade plants outside the wheel and in a pattern of their own that followed the path of the moon from dark to full and back again.
A whiff of new fennel, warm and sweet, ribboned past on the breeze. There was an old stone dyke at the bottom of the garden, and she walked down to it. It was thick with moss and small starry flowers, blush pink against the worn grey stone. Long ago, someone had planted a small copse of fir here and they exuded their dark magic; the scent, thick and golden, of resin like a perfume brought into being by the warmth of the late afternoon sun. She closed her eyes and breathed it in, letting it relieve the tension that had built up in the cottage. When she opened them, she caught a flicker of movement in the long grass at the base of the firs. It was a fox, golden eyes fixed to hers, a shimmer of roan amongst the sun-dappled green.
She realized suddenly that Jamie was standing beside her, his presence hadn’t disturbed the fox in the least.
“Are you all right?” she asked, softly.
“I suppose if I hadn’t had steam coming out of my ears when we arrived, her words might have been a less bitter pill to swallow,” he said.
“I think she only meant he’s like you in terms of general stubbornness,” she said.
“Well,” he laughed, a sound of chagrin, “what infuriates me most with her is that she’s usually right. I suppose she is this time as well.
“She does have your best interests at heart, Jamie.”
“She usually gets her way,” he said drily, “you needn’t worry on her behalf, Pamela.”
She laughed. “Oh, I’m not worried about her in the least. You, on the other hand, I am worried about.”
“Why?”
“I’m afraid Julian will hurt you. Regardless of what you say, I know you’re vulnerable to him.”
“Do you think he’s like me?” His tone was considerably softer in asking for her opinion than it had been with his grandmother.
She looked at him in the light, the firs dark behind his head and the sun touching his hair gold and yellow, platinum and wheat. Even now, when she kept company with him on
a daily basis, his beauty could take her unawares and she felt that catch in her throat that sometimes occurred in his presence.
“In the obvious ways, he is very like you; in the more subtle ways I think he could not be more different. There is something fine in you that Julian lacks and will never have. Whether it was present at birth and his mother managed to flail it out of him, I don’t know. But it’s not there. He can hardly be blamed for that, because what you are is rare. You’re magic, Jamie, surely you know that by now.”
“Magic?” his voice was off a shade and there was something both mocking and vulnerable in his tone.
“Don’t do that, not with me. Surely you understand what you are?”
“Magic—what is it really? Smoke and mirrors, distraction without substance.”
“You’re starting to annoy me.” She gave him a pointed look and he laughed.
“Come on, Pamela, let’s go back up to the house and see if dinner is ready. Being in a temper always gives me an appetite.”
Naseem was nuzzling Danu’s neck and blew a raspberry in their direction as they approached the two horses. “Now he, on the other hand,” Pamela said, nodding toward the stallion and trying not to laugh, “most assuredly is like you.”
Chapter Twenty
Man of God
ELSPETH DOWDELL HAD A SECRET. She was in love. In love with a man of God, the purest, holiest, kindest man imaginable. She had been in love with him for five years. From the moment she had met him she had felt a certainty in her life that had not existed before.
Elspeth was the sort of woman upon whom churches are built, and ministers rely on to carry out the brunt of church work. She was scrupulous in her attendance to both the Temperance League and Sunday services. She never missed an opportunity to help the Reverend in whatever capacity he might need of her. She cleaned the church on Tuesdays and his home on Fridays. This gave her the sort of access to his life and his thinking that other women, and there were more than a few in the congregation, could only dream about. The Reverend was a busy and important man—there was no more important man in the Protestant community—and she was there to facilitate his great work. Which was, of course, to cleanse their society of the Roman Catholic scum that infested it. She knew all about them, about their strange rituals and unholy worship. She knew the horrible little warrens they lived in, without proper bathing facilities, and how none of them wanted to work, but rather to live off the state and drink and fornicate so as to produce their endless offspring.
In the Country of Shadows (Exit Unicorns Series Book 4) Page 20
