A Shadow's Bliss (13 page)

She said nothing, but came straight towards him. He bowed humbly as she passed, then looked after her curiously. She moved with fluid grace, her cloak swirling about her, and her head held high. She was very proud, he thought, but he was not surprised that she had disdained to speak to him. The wonder was that she had come anywhere near him. He was sure she was a well-bred lady, and it was surprising that her menfolk should allow her to walk out alone on the moor at dusk. She was going up the rise, in the direction from which Green and the Frenchman had come. Perhaps she had intended to meet them, or perhaps she was a guest at Castle Triad and had felt the need for a brisk walk before dinner. But—alone? There were gullies and unexpected fissures on the moor that could be treacherous. Troubled, he hurried after her. It was risky to warn her that the gentlemen had already passed, even if he said he'd only seen his lordship from a distance. She would surely tell Green, who might fear to have been overheard. Still, it was getting darker, and a fellow could not stand by while a lady lost herself out here. He began to run, his stiff muscles not helping his speed.

Reaching the top of the rise, he peered about. The light was almost gone, but he should be able to distinguish her. He could not. Strain his eyes as he would, there was no sign of the blue cloak. She'd been walking swiftly, but not so swiftly as to have passed completely from sight. Perhaps she'd fallen. He went on, scanning the thick turf and occasional furze bushes anxiously. And then he heard hoofbeats once more; a male voice, and a woman's low laugh. That must be the answer: the lady had been met and was likely safely on her way to the castle. Relieved, he turned back toward Roselley.

There was more now to concern him. Green and the Frenchman had spoken of an expected and evidently much disliked visitor to Breton Ridge. They'd also mentioned a squire, whom they both feared. Lord Kenneth Morris was the local squire. He was known to be a proud man, but scarcely the type, thought Jonathan, to inspire anxiety in a bully like Green. Nor was Lord Kenneth in London at present, as Green had indicated the “squire” was, so they had likely referred to another squire. The Frenchman had implied that someone had followed his lordship “to this place.” A man named Roberts—or was it Robson…? Rossiter! That was it! His frown deepened. Might this Rossiter be the man the lady in the blue cloak had gone to meet? Was “this place” Breton Ridge or Castle Triad? Or could the Frenchman have been referring to the Blue Rose Mine? He and Green had come from the direction of the old mine, and the lady had gone that way, and had been met.

Puzzling at it, Jonathan went slowly through the gathering darkness. Why a'plague should anyone have the least interest in following his lordship anywhere? And why all this interest in a mine that hadn't been worked for several years?

*   *   *

A cold drizzle was falling when Jennifer dismissed the children, and their exuberance turned to squeals as they scuttled for home. She held Isaac Blary back, and picked up the sketch that lay atop a pile of others on her desk. “This is very good, Isaac. Why have I never seen any more of your drawings?”

His broad features had flushed with pleasure, but he lied, “'Cause I hasn't never done any. Me pa do not hold with such fool stuff.” Jennifer looked, up at him steadily, and his flush deepened to scarlet. Abandoning bravado, he mumbled, “If ye please, Miss Jennifer.”

“That's better,” she said quietly. “You're big for your age, and will soon be a man. Big men, Isaac, have an extra obli—duty to others. Because the Lord has given them a healthy body and more strength than many, they should repay Him by being kind to the weak and the less fortunate.”

He hung his head. “I never pulled Lily's hair. But her brother's allus punching me 'cause I were took on at the castle, and he weren't.”

“That should be ‘was not,'” she pointed out with a smile. “Do you like working for my father?”

“I'd like it better if Crazy Jack didn't work there now. Me pa don't like it neither. He says as it's meaning.”

A little frown creased her brow. “I think he must have said ‘
de
meaning.' But Jack is a fine worker and a good man. He was very ill, and can't quite remember things, that's all.” She saw his lips parting, and went on hurriedly, “This is King Arthur, no? And the knight on horseback—what a fine horse, Isaac!—would be…”

“Sir Lancelot!”

“Yes, of course. And how beautifully you have drawn poor Guinevere. I see that you think of Camelot as having been a great city.”

“I reckon as it were a better place than Tintagel. A king like Arthur wouldn't never've had a crumbly old hole like that! And I doesn't s'pose it was like Castle Triad, neither. Nor I don't mean to be a rudesby,” he added with a scared look, “'cause there's lots as does, I know.”

She had noticed the resemblance to herself in young Blary's drawing, and said smilingly, “Do you mean that people believe I am descended from Queen Guinevere?”

His eyes fell away and he said with sudden bashfulness, “A queen might look like you, Miss Jennifer. Not that you're a bad lady, or nothing like that.”

“Perhaps the queen wasn't, either. It was all so long ago. Nobody really knows what happened.”

“No. And 'sides, she's trying to make it up, ain't she?”

Jennifer walked to the door with him. “Do you mean that business about the Spanish Armada?”

“Well, folks saw her, didn't they? And she come just 'fore the Battle of Bodmin Moor,
and
Bosworth Field,” he declared, his eyes alight. “They do say so.”

Jennifer opened the door, admitting a gust of wind and a spattering of rain.

“I know they do,” she admitted. “But I should rather see you working at your sketches than listening to superstition, Isaac. I want to see more, if you please.”

He nodded and went out, pulling up his ragged collar against the wind, and directing a low-voiced taunt at Jonathan, who stood on the steps holding an oilcloth over a large flat object balanced beside him.

“Have you been sent to bring me home, Johnny?” asked Jennifer warmly. “Good gracious, how wet you are! There was no need for you to wait out here. Come in, do!” She ushered him inside, looking at his burden curiously. “Autumn is chasing summer very fast this year, I think. Now, leave your parcel there, and use this,” she handed him the towel she brought each day. “Your hair is soaked. Did you bring the coach?”

“Yes, ma'am. Young Porter is walking the horses for me.”

He rubbed at his hair vigorously, reducing it to a tangled mop of elf locks that made her laugh and remark that he looked like a rumpled little boy. He grinned and retied the riband.

Returning to her chair, she said, “Now sit down for just a minute and tell me about yourself. I've not seen you for days. How is your arm? Mrs. Newlyn said it was very badly bruised, as I was sure it would be. You should not have gone straight to work for Noah Holsworth after you'd rescued Lord Green.”

“But I had promised Noah,” he said, sitting on a desk, and noting how charmingly the little dimple beside her lips came and went when she smiled. “My arm is very well, I thank you. And—and I've to thank you also for the work at Triad.”

“'Twas small reward compared to the hundred pounds you were promised. No,” she chuckled, “do not go up into the boughs again! I meant no offence. How is it that my brothers are at loggerheads over you?”

“Are they? Mr. Royce wants me to gentle the young chestnut stallion he brought back from Newton Abbot.”

“I would have thought Oliver Crane should do that.”

He did not answer. The head groom was a competent individual with a thorough knowledge of horses, but he had a heavy hand for man or beast, and young Royce Britewell, aware of that trait, had decided that Jonathan's way with horses was more to his liking.

Having drawn a few conclusions of her own regarding Mr. Crane, Jennifer said shrewdly, “Royce does not want the animal's spirit broken, is that the case?”

He replied with a faint smile, “I did not say so, Miss Jennifer.”

‘But I fancy Mr. Crane had plenty to say,' she thought. It was typical of her younger brother to have cared not a whit for the head groom's inevitable resentment of such a situation. Especially since she chanced to know that Crane held Jack in contempt and referred to him as the Shadow Man. Troubled, she asked, “Does that make things difficult for you?”

“It—er, keeps me busy,” he said, in a massive understatement.

“It must, indeed. Besides which, you help Noah Holsworth, and work for Mrs. Newlyn! My goodness, have you no time for yourself?”

“Yes, ma'am. In fact”—he stood and began to unwrap the oilcloth from his bulky parcel—“Noah allows me to use his tools and any spare pieces of wood. So—I—er, was able to make … this.”

“A chalk board!” She clapped her hands, and ran to admire it. “And what a nice frame you have made!”

“There is a—a stand, also.” He unfolded that sturdy object eagerly. “I tried to make it the proper height for you to use comfortably, but I think your pupils will manage to reach, if the small ones stand on a box.”

Her face alight, she declared, “'Tis lovely! Oh, I have
needed
one! Sir Vinson promised and promised to have one sent from Plymouth, but he always forgets.” She ran one slender finger along the top of the frame while Jonathan watched her, overjoyed because he had pleased her. “This carving is much too fine for so commonplace an object. You must have worked and worked!” She clasped his arm, her bright eyes looking up into his smiling ones. “Oh,
thank you,
Johnny!”

Instinctively, his hand rose to cover the slender beloved fingers resting on his shabby sleeve, but he restrained himself in the nick of time. His hand clenched hard and he lowered it and stepped back from her.

Jennifer gazed at his averted face and could hear her father's words: ‘Keep him at a distance…' She had not kept him at a distance. She
must
stop behaving as though he was an old and dear friend. He was
not
of her own station in life and must never be encouraged to believe—Well, must never be encouraged.

She said with forced lightness, “Will you set it up near to my desk, please? And tell me what you've been doing for Mr. Fleming. Are you making something for him?”

Jonathan carried the stand to the spot she indicated. “He wanted a shelf for his compendium of Christian Apologetics, and whilst I was installing it we fell into a discussion of the
Octavius
of Minucius Felix, and—”

Jennifer blinked. “Which is written in Latin, surely?”

“Mmn.” Concentrating on the exact adjustment of the legs of the stand, he said absently, “He says my accent is deplorable, but that I can translate quite well.”

“Whereupon he commandeered you!” Hiding her astonishment, she said, “He would, of course. And has doubtless kept you poring through his dusty old tomes and writing translations, or searching out references for him!” In the same airy tone, she added, “You'll be an Oxonian, I suppose?”

“No. Eton and then Addiscombe, because all—” He bit off the words, his head jerked up and he stared at her, his eyes dilated with shock.

As triumphant as he was dismayed, she exclaimed, “You are starting to
remember!
I knew you were an educated man, I
knew
it! Oh, when I tell Papa, he'll be—”

“No! You must not!” He saw her smile die and a rare frown replace her enthusiasm, and he said distractedly, “He would want to know— I mean, he'd be sure to think—”

“What I begin to think, probably. That you know exactly who and what you are! That you are running, or hiding from someone. From the authorities, perchance!” Chilled by that possibility, she drew back slightly.

He searched her face, and stepping closer to her, demanded, “What are you thinking? Can you suppose for one instant that I could harm
you?
”

She'd never realized quite how tall he was, and he looked different somehow, and rather grim. She said, “You—you might harm my family.”

“No, I tell you! I would die sooner than bring you grief!”

He was indeed different! An intense stranger who was a far cry from the shy, shrinking young man she knew. A little frightened, but intrigued, she said, “Who
are
you? Tell me the truth.”

“I don't know!”

“I think you do know. Certainly, you are not what you pretend to be!”

“I do not pretend, I swear it! People judge me crazy because I can only recall snatches of my life. And because I have—lapses, even now, that cause me to do things I cannot understand. But it's not nearly as bad as it was at first.”

Her imagination conjured up a trail of victims with their throats slashed, and she asked faintly, “What do you mean ‘at first'?”

His eyes fell away. He muttered, “I mean—when I first came here.”

“No, that is not what you meant.”

He was silent.

Irked, and bewildered by a painful sense of betrayal, she accused angrily, “You still deceive! Creeping about, and pretending to be afraid to stand up to others! Hiding the fact that you have had a fine education, and making me believe all that fustian about being afraid of the sea! Oh, how gullible I was! 'Tis all a shield for something. You have some secret reason to stay here! Admit that you are a Riding Officer, come to spy on us all!”

“No! Why must you think so ill of me?”

“Because you hide the truth. And since you continue to do so, you leave me no choice. I must warn my Papa 'gainst you.” She started to the door, but he was very fast and ran to block her way.

“I beg you, do not! He'll send me packing, and I've done nothing. All I ask is—is to stay.”