Kissed by Starlight (3 page)

Best of all, there was no incredibly handsome man standing over her.

Felicia sat up, shaking her hair so that it brushed over her back. This was her own room, not the dark asylum she’d feared in her dreams. The curtains of her bed were drawn back to show the pale blue walls and framed engravings of Grecian scenes her father had chosen. The winter sunlight sifted through the white damask curtains over the windows. She also saw a servant asleep in a comfortable chair near the banked fire, her cap askew.

“Miss Liza?”

The woman snorted and startled. “You awake, then?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll tell mistress.” Her flat, wrinkled face showed no emotion, neither pleasure nor distaste. Yet Felicia knew the woman disliked her, had hated her from the day she’d come, taking her tone from Lady Stavely. Even at ten years old, Felicia had understood why.

Nevertheless, she was daughter of the household whereas Liza was just a maid. She would call her “miss” since Lady Stavely insisted, but she would not forget who was the maid. “Please send one of the others to me first,” Felicia said quietly. “Mary or Rose. I want to wash, and I’m hungry.”

When the woman had gone, Felicia threw the covers aside as always. She hated to lie in bed, drowsing away the morning. How much better to jump out, bounding into the day!

Felicia found she had little bounce this morning. As soon as she stood up, her head spun sickeningly. She sat down again, noticing that the feather bed did not shift under her weight. The mattress had become very compacted over the last few ... hours? Days?

Taking stock of herself, Felicia realized it must have been days. Her hands, as she looked at them, seemed claw-like. Pushing back her sleeve, she saw the bones of her wrist, while her legs not only felt like sticks, they’d noticeably shrunk. She thought about crossing the room to peer in the glass, but it suddenly seemed very far away.

A timid knock at the door diverted her attention from herself. Lady Stavely wouldn’t knock timidly under any circumstances, and well-taught servants don’t knock at all. “Come in, Clarice.”

“You are well! You are!” Clarice ran in, her face aglow with relief. She jumped up beside Felicia, rocking the bed, and threw her arms around her half-sister. “They wouldn’t let me see you. They said I might get sick too. As if I ever fall ill!”

“No, you are never ill, dearest.” Felicia returned Clarice’s embrace warmly, though her arms seemed to have little strength. At least holding on to the girl slowed the vibrations in her head.

“I told them you weren’t going to die! Cook and that Mrs. March that brings the geese—they said you were going to die like Papa, but I flew out at them and told them you weren’t. That Mrs. March! She turned white as snow when I shouted at her. I screamed and screamed until she went away.”

Knowing Mrs. March, the tale had probably spread clear to the Cornish border by now. “You must have frightened her, Clarice.”

“Good! I wanted her frightened. They frightened me, so that’s as it should be.” Clarice gave a little nod as though to defy argument of this fundamental point. Then, like a darting bird, she was dashing off at a tangent. “You’ll never guess what happened! Go on, try!”

“I’m sure I can’t. Why not tell me.”

“Oh, you’re slow, Felicia. The kitchen cat had five kittens . .. two ginger, one black, one striped, and one little tabby cat that Cook says shall be all mine! The others must be drowned if no one will take them, but I’m sure I can find someone who will! After all, Mrs. Binns was just saying how her cottage is overrun with mice and with all the stables our friends have, surely someone needs cats.”

“Are you going to ask them?”

“Mother says I may, if I take John Groom with me.”

Clarice jumped down from the bed and dashed to the window. “Oh, and the snow’s been grand, Felicia. What a bore that you’ve been too sick to play! But you’ll come out today, won’t you?”

“Not today, dearest. Perhaps tomorrow.”

“You’ll have to see Doctor Danby first, I suppose?”

“I suppose.”

“I like him. He gives me peppermints.”

“Yes, I know.”

Clarice’s thinking jumped around as easily as she did herself. “Cook is keeping some cake for you since you didn’t have any after Papa’s funeral. I’m glad we shan’t have a funeral for you, though the cake was really very good.”

“I’m—I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

The girl looked toward the door. “Uh-oh, that will be Mary with your breakfast. I was told not to trouble you until Mother said it was all right. I’d better hide!”

“No, dear! Not under the bed. Sit over there and you can talk to me while I eat.”

“Oh, that will be jolly! I can tell you about the snow fort! Collie is so clever.”

To look at, Clarice Stavely was a beautiful girl of sixteen. She had an oval face of such regularity that it might have been Botticelli’s favorite dream. Her golden hair, caught back in combs, rippled over her shoulders as though curled by a master hand but was entirely natural and the despair of anyone who tried to tame it. Her brows arched delicately over eyes that were literally sapphire blue, set at a slight, exotic angle. They were the only exotic things about her, her being in all other respects a perfect English “roses and cream” beauty.

She had a young, budding figure too. Though not tall and given to eating too many sweets, she stayed slender by vigorous exercise. If she was not playing with the servants’ children, she was climbing trees, going for long “bug-hunts,” or playing battle-dore and shuttlecock with her mother’s maid until Miss Liza collapsed with exhaustion. Clarice had ridden too, loving her horse, until the day she’d not returned as expected.

Since that day, three years earlier, she’d been in all respects a child.

Lord Stavely had found her up on the moor, weaving a daisy chain while her horse cropped the lank grass nearby. Her head was unbroken, showing not even a bruise. Clarice herself had given no explanation. She did not remember setting out that day. She had no remembrance of falling from her horse. In fact, she remembered nothing of her life after age seven or so.

Clarice’s quick ears had indeed heard the maid laboring up the stairs with a tray. Mary came inside the door and stood there, tray balanced on a generous hip, her hand pressed to her bosom. She still had breath enough to scold.

“Now then, Lady Clarice, you know better than to disobey your mother, now. Be off with you and don’t come botherin’ Miss Felicia, and her no more than this minute out of bed!”

Clarice pulled a charmingly freakish expression of exasperation. “I haven’t tired her,” she protested. “Indeed, I haven’t... have I, Felicia?”

“No, dearest, not a particle. But if your mother says you shouldn’t be here now ...”

“She’s just afraid I’ll take sick from you, but I won’t. I never get sick....”

Clarice had, ever since her “accident,” fallen into a trick of repeating herself. She could repeat an entire conversation as though it were for the first time. Felicia couldn’t face that now. “You should go if it is your mother’s wish.”

The girl’s full lower lip quivered. “You said I could stay while you ate!” She pushed herself out of her chair and stamped her foot. “It’s sc unfair! Why doesn’t Mama want me to love you?”

She ran from the room, all flailing arms and legs, her skirt rustling. Lady Stavely tried to dress her daughter as befitted her true age, but the long silken skirts and fine linen fichus only became wretchedly battered. In desperation, she’d begun to dress Clarice in simple fabrics, though never in fewer than three petticoats.

Mary sighed as she put down the tray on a table between the windows. “There now,” she said, coming to Felicia’s side. “Don’t be overdoin’ yourself, Miss Felicia. Been hard for the poor lamb, zo it has. We were all afeard we’d lose you too. Even Doctor was afeard. I zee him shakin’ his head when he come out of here no more’n yestiddy.”

She helped Felicia get back under the coverlet and plumped up her pillows to support her back. “Now just bide you still. Not a bite nor sup have you had since the day you was struck ill—nor much before, I’ll be bound.”

“Perhaps not,” Felicia admitted. “But I do want to eat whatever it is that smells so good.”

Mary brought the tray across to lay over Felicia’s knees. Taking the cover away, she stood by while Felicia breathed in the savory aroma. Felicia’s mouth watered at once. But when she groped for the spoon, it was to find that her hand trembled so much that to dip it in the soup was to risk drowning.

“ ‘Tis as bad as I guessed. Here, let me feed you.”

The hot soup warmed Felicia down to her cold toes. The strange sinking feeling went away, and her head stopped feeling as though it were stuffed with fog. She found she could lift the claret glass without spilling any of the wine.

“That’ll thicken up your blood,” Mary said with an air of personal satisfaction.

“I remember seeing you in here,” Felicia said. “Have you been caring for me all this time?”

“Aye. Me ‘n’ Rose. Watch and watch, like the sailors zay. That wench of her ladyship’s only come now and then, if one of us need to leave for some’at. None of us would let the devil come nigh you.”

Felicia lay back as Mary took the tray away. The effort of eating and talking had tired her. “How long have I been ill?” she asked drowsily.

“This ‘ud be the third day. It’s turned fine, after that masterly storm last night.”

“Storm?”

“A right bad ‘un. Half the houses are open to the bare sky from here to Tallyford. Wind ‘n’ snow ‘n’ lightning! An’ the dairymaid a-screamin’ that the end of the world was come, and Mr. Varley drunk as David’s sow in pantry. Such a night as I never zee in all me borned life! Some do zay it was the spirit of the master a-going to heaven.”

Felicia had drawn back from the edge of sleep at this news. “Were any of our people hurt?”

“No, they’m all right. Barring them statues out in the garden.”

“Statues?” Now all desire for sleep had fled.

“T’head gardener zeemed like to cry, poor man. Smashed clear to glory, some of ‘em. That big naked one from biblical places...”

“Hercules?”

“I daresay it. And that itty one of the young gel with the lambs. I always liked that ‘un.”

“What about... ?” Felicia licked her lips. “The one all muffled up in a cloak. Do you mind the one I mean?”

“I can’t zay for zhure, Miss Felicia. I only remembered them two ‘cause I liked ‘em zo.”

“Thank you, Mary. If you will be so good as to tell Lady Stavely that I await her convenience?”

“That Liza’s gone to tell her, but don’t you zee her until after Doctor comes. I’ll tell her you be sleepin’, as you should be. You lie down and close your eyes and never mind the house. It’ll bide ‘til you be well again.”

Obediently, because she knew faithful, stubborn Mary would not leave until she obeyed, Felicia snuggled under the blanket. She closed her eyes as the maid picked up the tray, the dishes clattering. Felicia peeked from beneath her lashes to see if she had gone.

Mary stood at the window, pushing it open. A chill breeze came in and danced around the room. Taking the glass from the tray, Mary shook the last few drops of wine out the window.

“Drink the wine,” she whispered, “and defend the drinker.”

Felicia snapped her eyes closed as Mary lowered the sash. She was used to the “magic” of the Devonshire people, how they planted and harvested by the moon, how they relied on the folk medicine of their ancestors. With what she knew of modern medicine, she could hardly blame them for this reliance, for even kindly Doctor Danby killed more than he cured.

Nevertheless, it was unnerving to see the magic practiced before her eyes. Usually it was something kept hidden from the “gentry.” Lady Stavely, for instance, strongly disapproved of such superstition and never missed the opportunity to scoff when the subject was broached.

Her father, born and raised at Hamdry, had been more sympathetic. “There’s more bread put out for the fairies than ever reaches the master’s table. And unless Varley’s a habitual drunkard, I’ll lay odds more of my good burgundy disappears in sprinkled appeasement than ever wets a dry throat. The fairies are always thirsty, it seems.”

Had it all been a fever dream? Compounded of grief for her father, starvation, and the onset of illness? Yet the man had seemed so very real. Even now, she could describe him in every detail, from the pale cut end of the thong that held his hair to the veins that ran down his muscular arms.

She recalled other dreams, monstrous things dimly glimpsed in the depths of her fever. Yet in memory they were misty and confused. He was not. She remembered everything....

“
I am Blaic, Prince of the Westering Lands. My liege lord is Boadach the Eternal, King of the Living Lands and of all the Realm Beyond the World That Dies
.’’

She remembered his voice and his words so well that they seemed to echo in her silent room as though spoken aloud. She opened her eyes, lifting her head above the ridge of her rumpled blankets to look around for him. Surely she couldn’t have dreamed him.

“If I did, I can dream him again,” she whispered, and closed her eyes.

She’d no sooner fallen into a doze than she felt someone standing over her. “Blaic?” she asked, her voice thick.

“No, my child. But I am glad to know you are so much improved.”

Lady Stavely, Viscountess of Hamdry, looked as mild as a nun in her simple black gown. She wore a cross of brown topazes on her bosom and her hair was neatly covered by a small, black lace cap. A woman of about forty years, she kept her figure well and her cheeks were relatively unlined. Yet her skin was dry, crisping into small wrinkles under her long-lashed eyes. They were blue, like her daughter’s in color if not quite so intense in tone. The white hands, stiff with jeweled rings to the knuckles, were never still.

They moved over one another with a rustle like a snake gliding through dry grass. The rings clinked and clattered softly. “Liza tells me you have taken nourishment?”

“Yes, my lady. Cook made soup.”

“Ah, broth is excellent when one has been unwell. Doctor Danby said you might find it difficult to eat at first. You are fortunate to have been spared. The fever was at its height last night. He held out but little hope to us.”