Had We Never Loved

by Patricia Veryan

  The youth said contemptuously, “’Cause he might get loose, a’course, or someone else might find him ’fore we got back. ’Sides, the Squire says—”

  Abruptly, Glendenning’s misery was forgotten. He stiffened, listening intently. The Squire? Were these crude varmints referring to a simple country squire? Or was it possible that they spoke of the murderous leader of the League of Jewelled Men? No, that was ridiculous. More likely some local squire had sent them out after poachers. Clearly, they thought he’d been aided by someone they sought. That Amy and Absalom could have any connection with the business was out of the question. Unless … Amy had admitted stealing those confounded chickens. Was she being hunted down for that crime? It was not impossible, but on the other hand, would any squire send four men to track down the purloiner of two fowl? Whatever the case, there was no doubting what would happen if rogues of this stamp got their filthy hands on her. He tightened his jaw and made some grim resolutions. He might be a “lecher,” and “a poor excuse for a gentleman,” but, by Jupiter, he’d die before he’d lead them to—

  “What you whispering about?” demanded Sep.

  Billy Brave’s voice shook. “I—thought I—heered something.”

  “Of all the perishing—” began the youth scornfully.

  “Stow yer gab,” snarled Greasy Waistcoat. “There it is again!”

  There it was, indeed. A low moan that set the hairs lifting on the back of Glendenning’s neck. A moan that rose into a hideous wheezing, then ended in an unmistakable hee-haw!

  Sep laughed shakily.

  The youth said in mixed relief and disgust, “’Tis nought but a perishing moke!”

  Greasy Waistcoat’s voice had a shrill edge as it sliced through their half-embarrassed exclamations. “Listen! Pox on you! Listen! That ain’t no dang ass!”

  Silence, as they all strained their ears. There came a soft chuckling, gradually increasing in volume until it became a scream of insane laughter that died away, leaving a hushed yet throbbing quiet in its wake.

  “Oh,” whimpered Billy Brave. “Oh! My Gawd!”

  The youth asked threadily, “What the … hell … was that?”

  “They do say,” quavered Greasy Waistcoat, “as Old Nick likes to change his shape! He appears first as a beast, and then—”

  “Shut up,” ordered Sep fiercely. “Likely ’twere nothing worse than someone’s donkey what’s strayed and woke up a stupid owl. Any rate, it’s gone now, so—”

  But it hadn’t gone. Sep’s harsh words were in turn rudely interrupted. If anything, the chuckling was closer this time, and Glendenning’s blood ran cold, for it echoed upon itself, as no earthly voice might do.

  “Look!” Billy’s voice squeaked with terror. “Holy Christ! Look!”

  With an effort, Glendenning managed to turn his aching head. He gave a gasp, and lay rigid.

  An eerie glow was drifting through the trees. As it came nearer he discerned a long white robe, one abnormally long arm waving menacingly, and, tucked under the other—a human head. A ghastly, glowing, blood-streaked head, with a gaping mouth, and dark hollows for eyes. And ever, as it came, that horrible, bubbling chuckle came with it.

  The youth uttered a choking sob of terror.

  Made of sterner stuff, Sep jerked a long-barrelled pistol from his pocket. The night was reft with an instant of glaring fire and an ear-splitting retort followed by a brief and oddly musical sound.

  The apparition paused. Its head was gone, but now both those long, handless arms rose to the sides. A piercing howl of rage rang out, and the nightmarish thing surged toward the petrified little group.

  A shriek was closely followed by another. Four bold thieves fought tooth and claw in their frantic efforts to be first through the only other break in the dense shrubs that surrounded them.

  Faint with horror, the viscount tried to drag himself up, but the thing was almost upon him. Crowding into his mind came memories of terrible tales of headless queens in the Bloody Tower; of vengeful ghosts and phantoms that at school had been gleefully related by senior boys to shivering new boys; the reports of foul fiends and witches so often recounted in hushed voices in London coffee houses and country taverns. The sounds of flight, the terrified shouts, were fading. He was all alone, and his bones were like water. He could do no more than throw up one arm to protect his head, and shrink back against the tree trunk, waiting in helpless dread for those unearthly glowing arms to touch him.

  Silence.

  He peeped from under his trembling fingers. Dear God, how hideous it was! Floating above him; those handless arms waving about, and a faint indeterminate odour emanating from it.

  A high-pitched nasal wail pronounced, “Your sins has found ye out, evil one! Do ye repent of your vile scheme to ruin a innocent young girl?”

  Dizzy and sick, Glendenning gasped out, “I—I do…”

  “And does ye solemnly swear never to put your wicked hands on her no more?”

  An illiterate bogle this, but one did not quarrel with so fearsome an apparition. Through chattering teeth, he declared, “I does— I do! N-never!”

  Slowly, the arms sank. If only it would go away! ‘Please, God! Make it go, and I’ll … nevermore…’

  By all the saints! It was—it was folding in upon itself! Becoming smaller and smaller! Glendenning could bear no more. He was going to faint … like a girl.… Perhaps because his eyes were closing, the odour was clearer. Fresh baked bread!

  His eyes shot open.

  The ghost had melted into a glowing pile on the ground, and was being gathered up by—

  “Amy!” he croaked.

  She looked down at him. “Can you get up?”

  “No,” he declared, humiliation very quickly replacing his superstitious fears. “Do you know you dam-dashed near caused me to have a seizure?”

  With a muffled giggle she said, “I might’ve knowed I wouldn’t get no thanks.”

  He said in sudden anxiety, “Have they hurt you? That shot—”

  “It broke me head. The one I had under me arm, lucky fer me.” She bent and took his hand. “Come on.”

  With her help, he struggled to his feet. Dazed but persistent, he panted, “But, you … glowed! How, on earth—”

  “D’ye want to wait about here and gab like a fool till they come back? Or would you as soon live a bit longer? Come on!” And then, in a kinder voice, “Oh, crumbs. You can’t can ye? Poor lordship. A fat lot of good you done by running away.”

  “I … wasn’t running … away.”

  “Not running, anyways,” she said, with a jeering laugh he thought most insensitive. “Lucky I brought Lot. You can ride him. It won’t be the Lord Mayor’s Coach, y’r honour. But it’ll have to do.”

  There was so much he wanted to say, so much he wanted to ask. But it was all he could do to lean against the tree where her strong hands had propped him, and, when she returned, to drag his protesting body onto the donkey’s back and be carried, most unheroically, to safety.

  * * *

  “All I said,” repeated Enoch Tummet, adjusting the black bow that tied back his temporary employer’s thick hair, and regarding it with approval, “was as it struck me as a odd thing. O-d-d odd.” He peered critically at the haughtily handsome face in the mirror, and reached over to loosen a lock of hair too tightly drawn back above the flaring right eyebrow.

  “Devil take you!” snarled August Falcon, slapping his hand away. “Don’t do that!”

  Tummet’s bright brown eyes twinkled in his square and rugged countenance. “Makes you look ’uming, mate,” he said irreverently. “Don’t please the females if a gent looks like a froze codfish.”

  “One,” said Falcon, his own midnight blue eyes glittering, and his voice dangerously quiet, “for the five hundredth time, do—not—call—me—mate! Two, since I appear still to live and breathe, I suspect I am sufficiently human—not necessarily a desirable trait. Three, I have no cause to believe the ladies are either displeased, or that they reg
ard me as in any way ‘frozen.’”

  “Right ye are, guv,” said Tummet agreeably. “Orf, I was. Ain’t nothing froze about yer.” He turned away and, under his breath, muttered, “A perishing volcano, more like it!”

  Falcon, the possessor of excellent hearing, murmured, “I only pray that someone, someday, will explain to me how I was so fortunate as to inherit you to impersonate my valet.”

  “Easy, ma— sir. Me guv’nor, Captain Rossiter, went orf ’crost the water on ’is ’oneymoon. And I don’t like boats.”

  “Ships.”

  “’Swhat I said. And then yer valet’s pa come down ill, so ’e left yer. And, bang-and-slam, ’ere I am.”

  Falcon shuddered. “I think my mind is failing me. Logical enough. Between you and Morris, there’s—”

  “Which reminds me. ’E’s waiting. Dahnstairs, mate. Sir mate!”

  Falcon’s cold gaze slanted to him, and Tummet offered his broad engaging grin.

  “Do I dare to hope your legal employer has returned with him?” enquired Falcon.

  “’Ain’t no ’arm in ’oping, is there?” But Tummet saw the dangerously thin line of the mouth, and added hurriedly, “The lieutenant come alone.”

  Falcon rose, slipping a great sapphire ring onto his slender hand. “He shouldn’t be here, when we’re engaged to fight tomorrow morning! Damme, but the man has as much breeding as—” He directed a simmering glance at his pseudo valet.

  “As me, eh guv? Lord love yer, I ain’t got no breeding, and I knows it. Don’t worry me none. What I see of them as got breeding, they’re always running about losing all their rhino—that’s money to you, mate—or shooting of each other if one looks at the other sideways, or being bored and miserable. Now—take me on the other ’and; I lives a very jolly life. I can—”

  He was interrupted by one of Falcon’s rare laughs. “I don’t doubt you can, you accursed hedgebird. Get out my colichemarde and check the blade. Morris has likely come to tell me that Lord Kadenworthy is agreeable and our meeting will take place tomorrow, as scheduled.”

  Tummet pursed his lips. “The lieutenant should’ve let ’is seconds come and tell yer that, guv.”

  Falcon grunted, and strolled to the stairs thinking that James Morris was perfectly aware of the correct protocol to be observed in an affaire d’honneur. It would be astonishing if the pest was here for any other purpose than to moon over Katrina.

  His suspicions were borne out when he entered the morning room to find his beautiful sister laughing merrily with the lieutenant, and holding a great bouquet of pink and white roses.

  “What the devil are you doing here, Morris?” demanded Falcon. “I would think I’ve made it plain that you are not welcome in my house.”

  “Oh, now, August,” said Katrina, smiling at him. “How can you scold, when Lieutenant Morris has brought me such lovely flowers?”

  “We’ve a garden full of flowers, and I fancy our gardener is not become too aged and decrepit to pick you some!”

  His eyes dreamy, Morris said, “Miss Katrina looks like a bride, don’t she?”

  “Which she will become when a worthy gentleman asks for her hand!”

  Morris sighed. “Dished again,” he said mournfully.

  “Always supposing I care for the worthy gentleman.” Katrina spoke quietly, but she seldom voiced any opposition to her autocratic brother, and Morris brightened.

  Falcon was both irritated and disturbed by this glimpse of insubordination. He scolded, “You should know better, ma’am, than to receive Morris alone, and—”

  “Besides,” put in Morris, picking up an earlier thought, “it ain’t your house. Belongs to y’father.”

  “Who is here in all his glory.” Mr. Neville Falcon’s elegantly bewigged head appeared from around a deep chair, and his whimsical grin was levelled at his son. “Wherefore, Katrina and Lieutenant Morris are properly chaperoned, dear boy, so do not be flying into the boughs.”

  August crossed at once to shake his father’s hand and utter a polite greeting. “I had thought you was in Sussex, Papa. What brings you back to Town?”

  “Boredom, of course.” With a little difficulty, Mr. Falcon extricated himself from the chair. “I know you thought I was safely tucked away for a month or so, but I can stand just so much of sylvan solitude and then must again inflict myself upon you. However naughty I may have been.”

  August looked irritated. Katrina gave a trill of laughter. Morris was considerably shocked. This plump little gentleman, with his merry good humour and mischievously twinkling eyes, was the last type he would have expected to have sired such a volatile individual as August, or such a ravishing beauty as Katrina. One could only assume that his children had taken after their mama’s family. Certainly, Mr. Falcon had neither his heir’s looks nor his fiery temperament. In fact, that last speech might give one the impression that Neville Falcon was the son, and August the stern parent. As for Mr. Falcon’s attire, Morris could scarcely keep from staring.

  Neville Falcon wore a pigeon wing tie wig, but the solitaire attached to the bow at the back was not the customary thin black riband, being instead a bright scarlet, continuing around the throat above the white stock. The lacy jabot was exceptionally full, foaming out from his chest, and causing the gentleman, in Morris’ opinion, to resemble a pouter pigeon. His coat was impeccably tailored, but the deep purple velvet made a poor blend with the lavish scarlet embroidery on the great cuffs of the sleeves and down the front panels. No less garish was his puce waistcoat adorned with silver flowers; and although his unmentionables were an inoffensive pale blue satin, they did nothing to improve matters.

  When Morris first arrived he had been somewhat stunned by this sartorial extravaganza, but his full attention, as usual, had been upon Katrina, exquisite in a dainty green muslin gown. Receiving again the full effect of the father’s glory, Morris blinked and glanced at the son, the epitome of good taste, in a blue coat whose very simplicity emphasized his dark good looks.

  “Sir,” said August, frowning, “I fear your remark will give our—guest—a wrong impression.”

  “Oh, no,” argued Morris. “Not in the slightest, sir. Assure you. ‘Nature never put the heart of a hen into a tiger!’”

  Mr. Falcon stared at him blankly. August closed his eyes for a second. Suppressing a giggle, Katrina said she must put her flowers in water, and with a smile that devastated her admirer, left the gentlemen alone.

  August turned at once to Morris. “Well?” he demanded curtly.

  Morris tore his eyes from Katrina’s graceful walk. “Ross is in Town.”

  “Never put the heart … of a hen…,” murmured Mr. Falcon in an abstracted way.

  “Then we are able to proceed,” said August.

  “We—ell…,” demurred Morris.

  “What the hell d’you mean? And for God’s sake do not be prating any nonsensical rural aphorisms. Just say it. Plain and simple.”

  “Can’t say anything while you keep tossing jawbreakers about.”

  “Into a … tiger…,” murmured Mr. Falcon, striving.

  August took a menacing step toward the lieutenant.

  Morris grinned. “Found one of my seconds. Lost one of yours. Tio’s hopped off.”

  Roused by his son’s blast of profanity, Mr. Falcon blinked at Morris, then laughed and clapped him on the back. “So you think I’m a tiger, do you my boy? Honesty compels me to admit I ain’t. But—I’ve had my moments.” He slanted a sly glance at August and said sotto voce, “Tell you a few jolly tales, one of these days.”

  “God forbid,” snapped August.

  Mr. Falcon chuckled, wandered to the credenza, and poured three glasses of Madeira.

  August demanded, “Do you say we have to postpone again? Dammitall! He gave me his word! Where did the block hop to?”

  “Which block?” asked Mr. Falcon, carrying a glass to Morris.

  “Tio Glendenning.” Morris accepted the glass with a murmur of thanks. “A good enough fellow, y�
�know. Must be, or he’d never agree to second— Oh—er, your pardon. But he tends to do it, y’know. Vanish I mean. Did the same thing about this time two years since. Everyone thought he’d been—” He cut the words off hurriedly.

  Mr. Falcon settled himself into a gold velvet chair that inevitably clashed with his garments. “I must have a word with that young rascal. One of the reasons I come to Town.”

  Retrieving the third glass, and still fuming, August looked at his father narrowly, then said, “Nothing to do with his brother, I hope, sir?”

  “Do you?” said Morris, surprised. “Didn’t think you liked Templeby.”

  “Very perceptive, for I think him a proper knock-in-the-cradle,” responded Falcon acidly.

  Morris grinned. “We all was at two and twenty. Except you, of course. You probably never was two and twenty. Went straight from short coats into middle-age. Mr. Falcon, was he ever—”

  “I do not consider the light side of thirty to be middle-aged,” said August, his eyes flashing. “Now be so good as to either leave, which would be preferable, or refrain from jabbering nonsense. Papa—about Templeby?”

  Mr. Falcon, who had enjoyed this by-play, sobered, and said thoughtfully, “Don’t know nothing about Michael Templeby. It’s Burton Farrier.”

  The two younger men exchanged taut glances. Morris asked, “Friend of yours, sir?”

  “Be damned if I don’t resent that,” said Mr. Falcon, showing an unexpectedly quelling hauteur.

  “My apologies, but you said—”

  “I neither have the acquaintance of Mr. Farrier, nor have I the least desire to cultivate it! I merely wanted to warn Glendenning.”

  “Warn him?” said August. “Is the Terrier sniffing around Tio’s reputation, sir?”

  Mr. Falcon twirled the wine in his glass and watched it reflectively. “He’s sniffing around a good many of our finer families. Looking for something, I think.”

  “Do you say, Papa, that Farrier is after any fine family? Or only those families having Jacobite connections?”