Duainfey (3 page)

"Fey?" she asked, voice breathy. "You spoke to a Fey?"

Dickon sent her a glance. "Interested, are you? As it happens, I did. Altimere of the Elder Fey, as he styles himself. Quince met him at the Boundary nine seasons ago; bought the grandsire of that filly I can't recall off him at the time. No man alive could ride the beast, but he was magnificent, and Quince bred him to his finest mare.
That
produced Thunderbolt, the filly's sire, half-Fey and half-mad. The filly, Ferdy tells me, is spirited but not murderous, and Quince counts her his success."

"But a Fey lord," Caroline persisted, her eyes wide and focused on Dickon's face. "Why is he here?"

"Quince invited him to visit, the next time he was on the roam, and Altimere took him at his word. Now he's on the lookout for land, says Ferdy."

"Land . . ." Rebecca murmured. "To farm?"

Dickon shook his head. "Horses," he said succinctly. "Apparently the outcome of Quince's breeding program got this Altimere to thinking about what profit he might realize from half- and quarter-Fey horses. If he breeds here—and produces horses whose sole object is not to murder their riders—then he has a fair shot at the city market." He shrugged.

"If he settles, I suppose he'll become quite commonplace. But as the first Fey in the county—"

"Not quite the first," Mother said surprisingly. "We had a Fey lady and her suite with us the winter Rebecca was born. They put up at the Hound and Horn, as I recall it, and made sure to visit all the houses in the neighborhood. She came to us for tea, she and her—well, I suppose I can only call him her bodyguard. He stood the whole time behind her chair, straight and silent as a blade."

"Really?" Dickon frowned slightly. "I don't remember that."

"You were with your aunt and uncle, my dear. Ask your father—I'm certain he'll recall. He and the lady spoke together privately for some while. She was looking for news of kin, and wished to inspect the—"

"But what does he look like?" Caroline interrupted impatiently. "Lord Altimere."

"Well." Dickon pushed his plate away and leaned back in his chair. He fingered his wine glass and looked up at the pale ceiling.

"He's a tall man," he said slowly, "tops me by a hand or two. Slender for his height—you know how Fey are."

"How should we?" Rebecca asked, interested despite herself. "
We
don't go to the Boundary to trade, and I was an infant when Mother's Fey lady came to call."

Dickon met her eyes. "True enough. Say then that he's tall and slender, sharp-faced, but with a good, strong nose."

"His hair?" Caroline asked, when he paused. "Is it yellow, like mine?"

"Yellow, oh, aye," Dickon returned slowly; "you might call it yellow—but not like yours, Lady Caro. And his eyes—you see I anticipate your next question!—you might say that his eyes are a pale brown. His coat—attend me now, Mother—was tawny, and his breeches rust colored, his boots polished so high I could see Ferdy reflected in them."

"What did he say?" Caroline demanded. "Was his voice sweet on the ear?"

"Really, Caroline," Mother said. "Such inquisitiveness!"

Her sister lifted her chin. "Why should I not know what this Fey lord is like?" she asked defiantly. "How if I meet him in the village?"

"Caroline!" Their mother was clearly shocked, but Dickon only raised an eyebrow.

"Looking to attach the Fey, Lady Caro?" he drawled, and Rebecca looked at him sharply. "I'd be careful with that one, were I the Earl's second daughter."

"Oh, pooh!" Caroline returned scornfully. "I'm not such a goose as Rebecca. And why shouldn't I look to a Fey lord?
I
may marry where I will."

It was hardly one of Caroline's sharpest barbs, but it cut, nonetheless. Rebecca closed her eyes, and her left hand clenched into a weak fist on her lap.

"Caroline, such self-consequence is hardly becoming," Mother said sharply. "Your father has made an unexceptional marriage for your sister, and you may hope that he does as well for you."

"I may hope that he does immensely better for me!" Caroline answered roundly. "I am not ruined and crippled into the bargain. It's a wonder Father found
anyone
to take Rebecca. Even an old man in need of funds might be expected to have some sensibilit—"

"That will do!" Dickon bellowed, making the china dance on the table. "You are distempered!"

Rebecca's eyes flew open in shock. Her brother's nature was impetuous, but to shout at one of his sisters over the dinner board? Mother would surely have his—

"I believe your brother is correct," Mother said coolly. "Your nerves are in disorder. Pray retire to your room and compose yourself. I will be up presently to hear how you mean to make amends to your sister."

Caroline lifted her chin. "I needn't make amends for speaking the truth," she said, but the effect was spoilt by the quaver in her voice.

"Perhaps not," Mother returned implacably. "But the way in which the truth was spoken—for that, you owe much. You are excused, Caroline."

It appeared for a moment that the Beauty would argue the point. Her usually pale cheeks were stained red, her eyes flashing fire. But that fiery stare faltered and fell before Mother's cool, dismissive glance. She bundled her napkin onto the table and rose with a mumbled, "Excuse me," which went unacknowledged by both her parent and her brother.

Rebecca, the goose—the
cripple
—Rebecca waited until her sister was decently out the door before she placed her own napkin on the table and pushed her chair back.

"If I may be excused," she murmured, keeping her eyes modestly on her plate. "I would like to walk in the garden before the moon goes down."

"Now, Becca—" Dickon began, and—

"Of course," Mother said, somehow managing to override him without raising her voice. "You missed your walk this afternoon, I know. Take your shawl—and remember to come bid me goodnight before you retire."

"Yes . . ." she murmured and got hastily to her feet, deliberately not meeting her brother's eyes. "Good evening, Dickon."

" 'Evening, love," he said softly. "Bold heart wins all, Becca."

It was an old joke, and she smiled for it as she moved down the room, keeping her steps sedate with a sheer effort of will.

As she reached the hallway, she heard her brother's voice.

"Tell me more of your Fey, now, Mother. What was her name, and why should she be searching for kin in our tenants' book?"

The wild garden was ebony and silver in the moonlight. An urchin breeze capered playfully through the leaves, shaking a riot of scent into the silvered air. Rebecca paused by the spinictus bush, its flaming blossoms dyed black by the night, and breathed in the spicy aroma.

Over the rustling of the breeze in the leaves came the high-pitched
peepeepeep
! of the new froglings down in the pod. Rebecca looked up into the indigo sky with its sheen of stars, and awkwardly pulled her shawl tighter. The breeze carried an edge of chill this evening and her withered arm was sensitive to the cold. It hung, useless and aching, down her left side. She could move it somewhat, with concentration and paying a tithe in pain, but the fingers had no fine control, and the limb itself was without strength.

Ruined and crippled into the bargain
—Caroline's pettish outburst roiled in her memory, blighting her pleasure in the night.

Sighing, she walked on, her feet sure on the shadow-filled path.

If she had harbored any tender sentiment regarding Sir Jennet's offer, Dickon's candid assessment would have long since retired it. In fact, she had known for some time that the only man who would take her was one more in need of her portion than affronted by her history or her—affliction.

By that measure, Caroline's jibes should not have wounded her—indeed, she
had
only spoken the truth. But it was Caroline's genius to always lay tongue to the most hurtful means of expressing the truth, as it was Dickon's to find the most gentle.

And neither spitefulness nor kindness changed the fact that she had allowed Kelmit Tarrington to take her up into his phaeton, against her aunt's explicit wishes. Once up, she noticed what had not been apparent from the ground—that he was somewhat the worse for his wine.

So much the worse, indeed, that his horses escaped his control while he was trying to kiss her, and it was she who snatched the ribbons from his lax fingers and brought the pair under control—too late. The phaeton went down in spite of her efforts, and Kelmit's neck was broken.

She—she was fortunate to have escaped with her life, so they said to her face.

Behind her back, they whispered that she and Kelmit had planned a secret elopement, which was, Rebecca owned, ducking beneath a tendril of wintheria vine, what anyone who had more sense than a girl of seventeen might well assume. The truth was simply that she, unbeautiful and indifferently courted, had been flattered that the man described by her cousin Irene as "the catch of three seasons" had offered her a mark of distinction.

She followed the moon-bleached path 'round to the medicinal garden, and there she sank onto the bench beneath the old elitch tree, one-handedly pulling her shawl closer. The herbs swayed in the small breeze, silver-grey in the moonlight, and the scents of the night bloomers mingled into a minty sweet breath.

Rebecca drank in the scents, raised her face to the moonlit sky and closed her eyes. By summer's end, she would be married and on her way to her husband's Corlands estate. She would need to take a careful inventory of the plants growing here, and prepare cuttings and seed packets for their journey. The Corlands climate, so she learned from the almanacs and geographies in her father's library, was cooler and drier than she and her plants were accustomed to. That would scarcely be a problem for the hardier of the plants, but there were several she considered indispensable which were more fragile. She would need to take herself into the village and sit with Sonet. Perhaps the herbalist had kin or contacts in the Corlands. Certainly, she would have good advice, and it was possible, Rebecca thought all at once, that the frailer plants could be grown in the conservatory, alongside whatever warmland fruits and flowers might survive there.

She laughed, quietly, into the night.

On her fourth birthday, she had horrified her father and her uncle, who had asked what occupation she should choose for herself, by answering that she would race horses. On her sixth, she had dismayed her mother and her aunt by declaring that she wished to be a physician.

On her eighth birthday, Sonet had come to work in the kitchen at Barimuir, and had been only too happy to instruct the Earl's daughter from her considerable herb lore.

It was an odd calling for a gentlewoman in these enlightened times, though when Father would have protested that he would not have his daughter grubbing in the dirt like a newlander, Mother had pointed out that her own grandmother had been notable for her herbal cures.

After that, Rebecca was allowed to study, and to plant, to harvest and to make up various tinctures and lotions. As long as she went about these things quietly and drew no attention to herself, her father averted his eyes.

The breeze ran more quickly, and Rebecca shivered where she sat on the stone bench. She should go inside, she thought, and opened her eyes. The moon was sinking rapidly toward the horizon.

She stood, pain igniting her arm. Biting her lip, she remained motionless until the flare had died down to the usual dull ember. Tonight, after she had said her good-night to Mother, she would rub the arm with easewerth, which would warm the muscles. Since there was no treatment known either to the lord physicians in the city or to the lowly herb woman of the village which would restore the arm's strength and suppleness, it was the best she might do.

And that, she thought, turning back toward the house along the darkening path, would have to be enough.

"Why must
I
wear white?" Caroline demanded, for what Rebecca conservatively estimated was the twenty-seventh time since Irene's package had arrived from the city.

"Because you have not yet been presented to the Governors nor made your curtsy to the King," Mother said, just as she had twenty-six times before. "And because your cousin Irene has been so kind as to send the cloth."

Beautiful cloth it was, too, Rebecca thought, smoothing Irene's letter out to read again. Caroline might choose to sneer at mere "white," but the bolt Irene had sent was sombasilk with flowers figured, white-on-white, which would be breathtaking made up into a girl's simple gown.

Not, Becca thought, that Caroline was likely to see it that way.

To her, Irene had sent a bolt of mahdobei, soft and slightly nubby; the color of wheat. It was far too rich a gift, and Becca had considered sending it back, and asking Mrs. Hintchston to make up the sprigged blue she had been saving—but Irene knew her too well.

You will not,
her letter read,
return this bolt to me, Rebecca Beauvelley. I want you to picture me saying that
most sternly
. No, more sternly than that! For if you do return it, I shall be quite cross, as will Edward when I importune him to ride cross-country with neither sleep nor food to hand-carry it back to you and stand by while it's being made up. I would do these things myself, but I am in what Edward's mother insists on styling as "a family way," as if Edward and I weren't a perfectly good family. In any case, Becca, you must have the bolt made up for this
ridiculous
dance of Caro's—have I said yet in this letter how very indulged and spoilt that child is? Ah! Now I have. So,
dearest
Becca! Please do me the very great honor of having the wheat made up into something positively stunning—and tell Hintchston that
I
said stunning, so she will be in no doubt as to what is required! Thank you. Now I may be comforted in my isolation by the knowledge that you will be ravishing!

There! No more scolding, I promise! Let us move on to gossip!

I wonder if you have heard that Charlie Mason—that would be the elder brother of Gerald, who you had eating out of your hand the last time you came to visit—and what a long time that has been!