Once Upon a Time

by Marylyle Rogers

  "Ah, well, at least you are a lord and they'll be openin' the door to you." As Dooley slowly shook his head, spikes of red hair trembled. "For the likes o' me they won't."

  "Not the front door," Comlan agreed. "But the servants' door in the back is answered at odd hours, and even now the boot boys will be about their work in a tiny room just inside."

  "That's as may be." Not easily mollified, Dooley argued. "But Beastie is no' like ta answer me call."

  "She will if you send one of the boot boys to her door with this note."

  Dooley scowled suspiciously at the folded paper Comlan extended to him. "What's it say?"

  "That her 'lambie' is in danger." Emerald eyes gazed steadily at the questioner. "And that she needs the aid of a chaperone to see her reputation untainted while her body is safely delivered from the threat."

  Reluctantly accepting the logic and likely success of his friend's message, Dooley nodded and yet probed deeper. "And then what?"

  "Then…" Mockery sparkled in green eyes although Comlan's face remained serious while he gave the answer his cohort wanted to hear. "I'll whisk you both to Liverpool and we'll find the lost colleen."

  Whisk? Dooley grinned. That was the term Comlan used to describe his uncanny ability to see a body moved even long distances in a heartbeat. And he'd like to hear the skeptical Beastie explain how anything short of fairy powers could transport her so far, so quickly. That prospect did more to speed Dooley on his way than any other argument could've done.

  Chapter 17

  Running as fast as she could through the loose dirt of a freshly tilled field, bare feet sinking into its furrows, Amy struggled to reach a line of trees faintly seen on this near moonless night.

  But Paddy could run faster than Amy and with unrestrained hands was more easily able to keep his balance despite the earth's uncertain surface. He had nearly caught up with the figure looking like a ghost dashing through the dark in a flimsy nightrail, when she took a misstep and fell—hard.

  Knocked breathless, Amy couldn't move for several minutes. And by the time she could, it was too late. Paddy picked her up and set her on her feet before brushing away loose dirt with a gentleness she found more ominous than the roughness he'd employed in her capture.

  The next instant Paddy swept Amy off bare feet to carry her back to the waiting coach. She'd have found this action more frightening still if it hadn't also reminded her of the source of certain rescue pinned inside her night attire but forgotten until in Paddy's lifting of her, it raked across sensitive skin.

  "Tch, tch." Beattie fell back on her favorite response to any and all things inexplicable—silently. Out here in the country during the darkest hours of night, even the slightest noise sounded like the loud chime of a discordant bell.

  Still, if ever there were circumstances to justify her irritated, skeptical comment, this night's did. She'd been disconcerted at the outset by a boot boy waking her to deliver a written plea for the aid of her company in preserving her lambie's reputation, particularly since the message gave no hint of what or who threatened Amy. More unbelievable than the summons had been the discovery that she was expected to join two mad Irishmen on a mission to rescue Amy from an abductor. But the most extraordinary, most incredible of the night's events had come when she stood one moment in Lord Comlan's drawing room and the next found herself here between dusty lane and hedgerow.

  And all this for what reason? A heavily overcast sky hid the moon but even so Beattie recognized the rustic nature of her surroundings. Who knew where this deserted site was located? She didn't and scowled. However, that was far less important than the also unanswered question of why they were here beside an empty road, with no Amy in sight.

  While Beattie stewed and Dooley dozed atop a thick clump of vegetation, Comlan silently gazed into the night. His thoughts, too, were with Amy but he looked beyond her current predicament to another challenge far more complex. Inwardly he searched for a resolution granting the ultimate paradox—a happy ending for both the king of the Faerie Realm and his dark human colleen.

  Under intense concentration distant shadows seemed to take form and berate him for failing to see an obvious answer.

  The night seemed endless—but not long enough. Amy would've sighed but for the annoying gag drying her mouth as effectively as a blotter absorbing ink.

  Rolling over an unusually rough stretch of road the decrepit coach lurched, jostling Amy against Paddy. She groaned, not for the bone-jarring bumps but in frustration. These reviving jolts were most unwelcome to someone impatiently waiting for her companion to drift into at least a light slumber. Paddy straightened and repositioned himself to gaze through a paneless window while Amy glared through the one opposite.

  Their journey had begun with Paddy sitting in the seat across from Amy but following her unsuccessful attempt to flee, he'd moved to sit beside her. His body was a block between her and the gaping hole where the door she'd shattered had once been, leaving her to more thoroughly feel a prisoner.

  A faint glimmer of hope beckoned her toward the beacon at its source. When thrust back into the coach at the end of her failed flight, Amy had made a discovery. Her escape, run, fall and recapture had resulted in at least one positive consequence. Her bonds were looser—only slightly but possibly enough. Unfortunately, so long as her abductor watched, she could hardly struggle free without drawing the kind of attention that would smother her hopes.

  The instinct to nibble her bottom lip thwarted by intruding cloth, Amy admitted an even less pleasant reality. As useful as unfettered hands would be, winning liberty would still be difficult for a woman alone, dressed in her sleep attire, and only heaven knew where in a night-dark countryside.

  The beacon of hope was near and yet too far away—pinned inside among— the many folds of a cotton nightrail while Amy's hands were tied behind. This fact left her depressingly aware that opportunities for escape were reduced by every turn of the coach's wheels. She had to try something, had to risk bold measures no matter how improbable.

  Staring blindly through the window, expression unchanged, Amy tried to limit the movement of her arms while nimble fingers released one and then another of the already loosened knots binding her hands together. Grateful that night's dim light would hide the flush of victory on her cheeks, she next held a cuff tightly while slowly pulling up the arm inside its thankfully loose sleeve.

  Once the freed right arm lay curled across a bare midriff, Amy began surreptitiously moving its hand in search of the onyx circle so tantalizingly near. When fingertips at last found their goal, Amy restrained an urge to immediately wrench it free. Instead, she tamped down small flames of anxiety and impatience while taking care in unfastening its hold on white cloth. The amulet slipped loose, and she gently cushioned its fall.

  Remembering Comlan's admonition to be sure her palm completely covered the amulet, Amy laid the precious broach atop one thigh and carefully laid her hand over the whole. His additional warning about the difficulty of locating her while moving hadn't been forgotten. But she had no choice. Might the desperateness of her situation compensate for their pace? At least she must earnestly try.

  "Comlan… Comlan… Comlan…" Silently, over and over, Amy repeated the call, praying her fantasy king would hear…

  Three figures lingered, motionlessly waiting beside a country lane until the rural-quiet was invaded by the sound of an approaching vehicle. While a horrified Beattie watched, Lord Comlan irrationally stepped into the roadway's center as a sorry excuse for a coach—one door missing—slowly rounded the sweeping corner some little distance away.

  "Halt!" Hair glowing brightly despite the cloudy night, Comlan issued an implacable, single-word command.

  The coachman's response was to send a whip curling and cracking over the back of his horses; callously urging powerful animals to run the interloper down.

  Beattie couldn't stifle a shriek and the coachman gasped when, rather than moving aside, the reckless man strode forward with
hands raised palm-out.

  Despite the coachman's zealous efforts to drive his horses forward, they slowed to a halt one pace from the again motionless Comlan.

  "Leave the reins on the seat and climb down."

  The panicked coachman instantly obeyed with every shred of haste his considerable girth permitted. He was terrified. After all he'd seen the speaker exert control over horses supposedly under his command, great beasts whose strength he'd attempted to use in crushing this man.

  Dooley promptly climbed up to replace the coachman and in taking control of the horses released Comlan to set his beloved colleen free.

  But no sooner had Comlan turned to do so than the one they'd come to rescue threw herself headlong into his unprepared yet welcoming arms.

  "It worked!" Amy gazed up at her golden savior, heavy masses of ebony curls tumbling down and around her shoulders in sharp contrast to her white nightgown. "It really worked!"

  "Of course." Comlan knew Amy referred to the amulet's powers, and dazzling silver lights flared in green eyes to match the crystal joy in a gray gaze.

  "But the coach was always in motion… never still." Amy softly confessed this wrong, hoping it wouldn't chill the warmth of his attention.

  A smile of piercing sweetness was Comlan's answer to words that held a far deeper meaning than their speaker could possibly know. This was no place for explanations but when next they were alone he would tell her how bridging the gap caused by a broken rule revealed a closer bond than he'd thought possible between Tuatha De and human.

  With steady scrutiny of the prize came recognition of a serious lack. Comlan had expected to find Amy wearing nightclothes but wrapped in the missing blanket. However, she'd apparently abandoned her blanket in the carriage. Promptly stripping off his jacket, he settled it about Amy's slender shoulders. Her nightgown, though hardly immodest, had never been intended for public view. Garbed only in it she was a lovely, seductive vision he appreciated but one he hated any other man to see… least of all the devious Paddy who had held her captive too long.

  Paddy! Ominous emerald flames lost none of their power for flashing from temper-narrowed eyes. Comlan was upset with himself for permitting anything—or anyone—to divert him from even a secondary goal. Dealing with the devious Paddy was a lesser goal but one that had to be accomplished. Fortunately, from his viewpoint, it was at this moment that Amy's maid chose to assert her influence by acting the chaperone she'd been asked to play.

  Beattie brushed Comlan's hands aside to adjust the jacket more closely about her lambie the better to conceal luscious curves. At last she saw justification for her participation in this mission. Were any member of the Quality to catch even the briefest glimpse of Amy alone at night, dressed in bedgown, and in the company of bachelors, her reputation would quickly be in tattered shreds. Only the presence of a chaperone might rescue Amy from such a dreadful fate.

  Far too cognizant of the Lord of Doncaully's nearness to her lambie, Beattie was relieved when the man moved to peer into the coach through the gaping hole left by a missing door.

  "Ah, you're still here?" Comlan murmured, lips slowly curling upward with no hint of real humor. "I thank you for saving me the effort of hunting you down."

  Paddy cringed which lent a deadly sharp edge to Comlan's mocking smile and that, in turn, frightened the red-haired man all the more. But what the Irish lord did next completely disconcerted him.

  "Be gone now," Comlan ordered. "And yet be assured that I'll know where you are."

  "I would if I could." Paddy's dark eyes were cold despite the burning scorn in his voice. "Tha' little hellion's got the punch of a coal miner and the kick of a mule."

  Comlan's smile warmed with gentle sardonic amusement. "I agree, Miss Danton possesses a fine measure of unexpected talents. So, get out of the coach now before I set her on you again."

  "I can't," Paddy wailed, forcing a facade of wounded dignity over the ugly truth of his anger. "Purposefully kicked in me most tender area, she did. Shoved me aside jist ta reach ye."

  "Shall I help you step down?" The frigid tone of Comlan's sensible response contained a clear threat which inspired a miraculous recovery and saw Amy's erstwhile captor instantly scrambling out and onto the lane with no hint of grace.

  Paddy mutely glared, annoyed with himself for yielding to this mysterious stranger who had clearly lied about an ancestral home.

  "Begone with you," Comlan ordered the fuming Paddy who instead widened his stance, signaling a determination to stand firm.

  In this match of wills the latter had no chance of defeating his golden opponent. And yet before Paddy was shamed by being forced into turning helplessly away, the vexed coachman interrupted.

  "Wot the bleedin' hell!" exploded the man evicted from his post although he most resembled a small mountain and looked to be nearly as immovable. After surrendering by climbing down so easily, he'd been ashamed of his craven action and had lingered, unwilling to abandon the vehicle and horses which were his livelihood. "That rotter gots to pay t'other half of me fare when I sets him down where he says."

  Mocking grin flashing, Comlan turned to face the coachman whose vast size made him conspicuous even though standing slightly behind Beattie and her charge.

  The challenger's bravado faltered in the face of a confident smile more ominous than scowls on the faces of a whole army of men.

  "I'll see your expenses better than twice paid for taking my friends to London," Comlan steadily informed the churlish owner of the necessary vehicle and horses.

  The coachman gazed at the speaker suspiciously. Didn't the nob know how long a journey that entailed? Perhaps it was a ploy to lure him to a site more favorable for robbery? Like as not that was so. There was something peculiar about this too handsome, too golden man. For instance, how'd he gotten out here in the nowhere with neither coach nor horse? Aye, this man was plainly some kind of footpad who preyed on honest, hard workers and took their earnings.

  Amused by the rough character's unspoken concerns, Comlan said, "I trust the new door will be acceptable."

  New door? Either this blighter was mad or harbored a nasty sense of humor! Nonetheless, the coachman glanced back toward the portal broken in the woman's desperate attempt to flee and found his door restored. Nay, not his door. This one was sturdy, new, and out of place on the battered carriage… yet welcome.

  "How?" Apprehensive of odd matters he couldn't explain, the coachman's brief question shook.

  "No matter." Emerald eyes glittered while Comlan waved one hand as if brushing useless crumbs aside. "If you go never questioning the speed with which your vehicle travels, at journey's end the rest of your coach will be the match of that door."

  Knowing Dooley would be pleased by this oblique promise of unnatural haste, Comlan took note of the opposite response welling up in both the coachman and Beattie. Their expressions betrayed discomfort with strange powers clearly at work. However, with his experience of humankind, Comlan was certain the coachman was too greedy to further question a promised gift while the opinionated Beatrice was unlikely to admit having seen any of the inexplicable deeds occurring in past hours.

  At that moment Comlan realized Paddy had obeyed his order to begone. His cynical smile tilted further awry. Doubtless that untrustworthy human's departure had been motivated by his terror for the source of incredible events just seen— and rightly so.

  After the hulking coachman arduously hoisted himself up onto the driver's perch again, Dooley handed the reins back to him and clamored down with all the agility that the other lacked. An unexpectedly mild Beattie allowed the Irish lord's manservant to help her into the coach's less than comfortable interior without comment. And her often acidic tongue remained silent as he climbed in behind her.

  As the coach rolled out of sight, Amy gazed trustingly up into her intently watching companion's face with a question in dove gray eyes. While the others were off to London, how and to what destination would they go?

  Amy blushed
when, in answer, emerald mockery both gentled and deepened. The first part of her wordless question was unworthy even of a child fresh from the nursery. After seeing Comlan appear and disappear in the space of a heartbeat; after being transported from fairy ring to cottage garden in an instant, how could she question the method of travel? But still, acknowledgment of that simple fact did nothing to reveal their destination. Before she could put the query into words, Comlan spoke.

  "Remember, once you're back in London, find a solicitor for Daffy." Despite stern words, when Amy glanced up it was to be enveloped in a green gaze of uncommon warmth. "It's a task made the more important by our discovery of the two forged wills."

  "I'll do it as soon as I possibly can." Amy immediately nodded agreement to both the matters already discussed and the promise earlier given, anxious to earn her fantasy king's approval. "But how shall I get you word of the appointment?"

  "Send Beattie with the message."

  Amy grimaced. Beattie was unlikely to take kindly any order involving a further encounter with Dooley.

  "You're wrong," Comlan quietly said, face gone amazingly solemn. "Our servants have begun building a rapport that only concern for your great-aunt has kept you from noticing."

  His beloved colleen looked so skeptical that Comlan abandoned the subject and bent to divert her attention with a kiss quick but of devastating power.

  Willingly yielding to a potent fire she feared becoming as necessary to her as breath, Amy fanned the flame higher with the experience he'd given her.

  Comlan abruptly lifted his head. "Your lips are chapped."

  Though initially startled—unpleasantly—in a few seconds time Amy recognized this as an example of the Tuatha De's contrary nature and likely another test of her ability to cope with his unexpected reactions.