Kissed by Starlight (34 page)

Then Blaic took both reins into one hand and put his arm about Felicia’s shoulders. Giving her a squeeze, he said, “No. I do not think of her now as once I did. I try to keep to reality and for me, now, that is you.”

“But you did love her once.”

“I wonder. I think perhaps I loved her beauty as much as her spirit. Regardless of whether I loved her or not, she is gone.”

“Does love end, then, with death?”

“I don’t know enough to tell you. I do know that I could never have brought out all the facets of her that her mortal lover did. For me, she would have always been a princess, almost a goddess. That is not what she wanted. She wanted to be a woman. He made her a woman, more enthralling, more intriguing than any goddess.”

He smiled down on her, and Felicia felt her heart melt for him. “You are more to me now than she ever could have been. Please, Felicia, believe me. No matter what happens, know that with you I have found more happiness than I have known ever before in all my long, lonely life.”

Felicia buried her face against his coat. They drove like that for long minutes until she regained her composure. In a little while, the jouncing of the gig combined with a night notable for much activity but little sleep made her head nod and bob. Blaic said, “Sleep, if you can. We have much to do tonight.”

* * * *

They waited until nightfall at Blaic’s shed behind the orphanage. Felicia stood at the window, watching the children play. She did not like the way Melissa kept herself apart from the others, nor the dark expression on the young girl’s face. Even when her young favorite, Peter, toddled up to her, she spoke with evident roughness, sending him away in tears.

Had the hope that Felicia had tried to plant in the girl’s heart turned to bitterness? She well knew that one might rally under a hundred disappointments, only to sink at last under the hundred and first. Had her apparent defection been the last straw for Melissa?

“You can’t go out there,” Blaic said, seeming to read her mind. “It’s much safer if no one knows you’ve come back.”

“So you’ve said. But I don’t know why. She can’t have me thrown into gaol again without looking like a fool. The days when they put unmarried girls in the stocks if found in the arms of a man are, thank heaven, long gone.”

“Trust me,” Blaic said, smiling at her in the cheerfully careless way that always turned her knees to warm butter.

Felicia had thought he might while away the hours by lying down with her in the rickety bed where she’d slept for several hours earlier in the day. But instead, he had pulled a knife from his pocket and was whittling away at a scrap of wood. At first, she took no notice. Then, she asked, “Isn’t that iron?”

“Steel,” he answered. “I bought it from the landlord this morning.”

“But I thought... Didn’t you say that steel was forbidden?”

“I said, I think, that we don’t like it. It makes us uncomfortable.”

“And yet...”

“And yet here I am using a steel knife? I noticed some days ago while gardening that I seem not to mind iron or steel any longer. I found an iron plowshare half-buried down by the stream. I’m hoping to plant some water lilies there. Well, I couldn’t ask any of the children to heave the dirty thing out, so I did it myself. Since then, I’ve used a metal hoe, a scythe, and a trowel. No ill effects as yet.”

He put down his tool and came to her side. “It’ll be dark in half an hour. We should go as soon as Mary calls the children in.”

“I wish we could see her. I hardly had the chance to tell her how much I appreciate everything she’s doing.”

“From the way she cried all over you at your last parting, I think it’s as well you don’t put her through another.”

She asked Blaic no questions at all. It did not take genius to understand that he had changed. The facts spoke for themselves. He had not transported them instantly from the inn to the orphanage, nor did he offer to waft them both to Hamdry Manor. He held a steel knife in his hands and, she recollected, had used silverware at the inn. He touched her — she felt a shivering thrill at the memory— and had not offered to do her bidding.

Blaic was becoming a human, if he was not one already.

Felicia did not know whether to rejoice for her sake or to mourn for his. If he became Blaic Gardner in truth, there would be at least some chance of his staying with her. But if he lost his place in the Other Realm, would he not, sooner or later, blame her?

“I am tired of this gig,” Felicia said, climbing up into it once more as evening approached.

“The horse is tired of us. But I explained to him why he could not return at once to his quiet stables.”

“You explained to him?” Perhaps she’d speculated about his new humanity too quickly.

“Of course. Horses like to have things explained to them. Jogging from here to there at another’s bidding without ever knowing why is weary-work.”

“Indeed ‘tis,” Felicia said softly to the sky.

The ten miles to Hamdry Manor passed uneventfully. Most country folk went to bed with the sun and their betters retired far earlier in the country than in town. Certainly a house of mourning where the servants were all under notice would be no scene of wild gaiety by night. They would be able to proceed undisturbed.

“I remember the last time we had a night excursion,” Felicia said. “Every servant in the house turned out to catch me by the heels. Every one of them were prepared to swear that I was attempting murder. What will they say this time?”

“Don’t worry,” Blaic said grimly. “They won’t have the chance.”

“Are you certain you can find the spot in the dark? There’s no moon tonight. I looked in the almanac at the inn.”

“I’ll find it. I just have to return to the spot where I first saw the men.”

“You mean, your pedestal?”

“That’s right. Once I am there, I shall be able to see the exact spot. It lined up with one of the large cedars on the far side. Much has changed, but the tree is still there. It is impossible to mistake it, for it is the only one with two tips.”

So it proved. Felicia stood by while Blaic climbed up onto his granite plinth. He said, “I never thought I should stand here again. I remember...” Abruptly he jumped down, landing with a solid crunch on the gravel walk. “I’m a fool. I was not placed upon this platform until years after the treasure was buried.”

“That’s right. I remember when they moved you.” Felicia looked out past the hedge that had been planted on the other side of the walk. It was some four feet high and served as a background screen to the statues. “Can you tell which tree it was? You said the spot lined up with a tree.”

He too stared out at the enclosed green sward beyond the hedge. “Forgive me. It’s been more than a hundred years. Let’s go out there. Perhaps something will jog my memory.”

He carried the spade they’d brought with them over his shoulder. Felicia led the way to a gap in the hedge. They made their way back to a spot between the tree and the place where Blaic had stood for so long. He said, “Even I am guilty of taking such simple matters as an evening stroll for granted. After standing still for so long I should relish every motion.”

Felicia wanted to tell him that she enjoyed watching him move. She had appreciated his masculine grace from the moment she’d first seen him. Now that they were intimate, she had even a higher appreciation for the beauty of his body. Did she dare tell him?

“Here,” he said. “This looks right.”

“We can’t dig up the entire lawn. We’d be here for weeks.”

He cast a glance around. “It’s a pity I’m not still sensitive to iron. I could have walked over the spot and known it.”

“Then it’s hopeless?”

“No. Let’s walk around a little and see if anything strikes us.”

“I’m sure others of my father’s family have searched. He told me that he spent many summers searching when he was a boy, but he had no clues to work from.”

“No clues? There was not a scrap of paper, or a hint of any kind handed down from father to son?”

“Nothing like that. Only...only the tale that Roderick Stavely hid his fortune rather than let the King have it.”

“ ‘Rather than the King have it.’ Let me see... King Charles was deposed, was he not?”

“And murdered. He was executed.”

“I read about that. It’s not the kind of thing that would happen in the Wilder World. We have had one king since the Long-Ago Before. He hasn’t always been kind — certainly not to me — but he has always been king. I wonder if Roderick buried it before or after the king’s execution.”

“What difference does that make?”

“Perhaps none. Yet it seems strange to me that a loyal gentleman would bury his treasure sooner than deliver it to a living king who could have used it to raise an army.”

“Yes,” Felicia said musingly. “Even stranger is that the family would not try to conceal their shame. Yet the story has been handed down. But I cannot recall if I ever heard when Roderick was supposed to have done this thing.”

They stood out in plain sight on the lawn lit up in starlight. Anyone who looked out from the house should have seen them. Felicia, realizing this, said, “Shouldn’t we thrash this out somewhere less open?”

“Hmmm?” Blaic stood looking at the ground. “Not a sign of any stone, ridge, or hillock.”

“No, there wouldn’t be. The gardeners roll and mow this patch once a week.”

“Yet there must have been something once.”

“You would know better than I.”

She caught just the shadow of his grin, yet it was enough to make her sigh. She looked at the house again. “What about the house?”

“Don’t worry about it. No one will see us.”

“No, I meant the house was here then. It has been changed inside, but the structure is the same. Maybe it can give us a clue.”

“How? I could not see the house from where I stood.”

“No. I wish there was enough moon to see by.” She stood looking up at the house she’d known since her childhood. It looked different in the dark — wider and darker, yet less solid. It was as if it were only a few inches thick, a silhouette of black paper against a dark blue sky. “We shall have to come back by daylight. You can’t even see the chimney pots.”

“Chimney pots?”

“Yes. They’re a pretty conceit. The arms of every family connected with us are hung on the chimney pots. They get terribly black with the smoke. I remember my father always wanted to send someone up to clean them, but it’s astounding how many servants fear heights when there is such work to be undertaken.”

Blaic took a few pacing steps. “ ‘Rather than let the King have it.’ Are you certain that’s how the tale went?”

“Yes, I’m sure that’s what my father said. He showed me once that it was written down in a book his father had kept.”

“Can we get into the house to see that book?”

“No, of course not. We shouldn’t even be here.”

Blaic said, “What I wouldn’t give for that cloak of invisibility now!”

Felicia again kept silent rather than hurt him by asking a question about the change in him. Let him tell her when he was ready.

He stopped pacing and took her by the shoulders. “Felicia, perhaps I have gone completely insane. Be kind to me if I have, but answer me this: Did your grandfather write, ‘He buried his treasure so that the king should not have it,’ or were the lines more like, ‘He buried it so that the king should overlook it’?”

“What is the difference?” Felicia asked, just half a breath before the answer occurred to her.

“All the difference between the king’s army and the king’s arms. Which one of the chimney pots bears the Royal Arms of England?”

“She doesn’t know,” Clarice said. “But I do.”

Felicia did not feel foolish when she jumped out of her skin with fright, for Blaic was in just as bad a case. “Good heavens!” she said, pressing her hand to her heart. “You scared me almost to death!”

“Well,” Clarice said, obviously not displeased with her effect, “you were making so much noise an army could have surrounded you without your knowing. What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” Felicia countered. “With your feet in no more than carpet slippers and only a robe around you. You’d catch your death of cold, if you didn’t have one already!”

“Don’t fuss, Felicia,” Blaic said. “Clarice can help us.”

But Felicia was casting worried glances into the trees. “If she heard us, others probably have. We should go.”

“It’s all right,” Clarice said, looking curiously at Blaic. “Mama’s gone to see Justice Garfield. I think there’s trouble brewing for someone; she looked most agitated. I hope it’s for Mr. Ashton. That dog deserves whatever he gets.”

“Perhaps not everything,” Felicia murmured, thinking of what Blaic had told her of the attorney’s violent end.

Clarice asked again, “What are you doing out here?”

Blaic handed the tale to Felicia with a gesture indicating she should proceed. “We are looking for Roderick’s treasure,” she said.

“Roderick’s treasure? You are! How thrilling! Where do you think it is?”

“Not far from this spot, if what we know is true.”

“How do you know?” Clarice asked, looking at the ground as though expecting to see the treasure shining at her feet.

“I — um —” Felicia caught Blaic by the sleeve and gave his fine coat a most unladylike yank.

“I read a great deal of history,” Blaic said, sounding very pompous. “In the course of my studies, I came across a clue to the location of the treasure.”

“So that’s who you are!” Clarice said in a tone of enlightenment. “Everyone has been wondering. We’ve all been speculating like mad because it was plain as day that you were no gardener.”

This seemed to prick Blaic’s vanity. “I’m an excellent gardener. Such manual labor is in no way beneath me.”

“No,” Clarice said doubtfully. “But it was obvious from the first that you had not come here just to do that. Some said you had a romantic reason.” Even with a voice roughed by ill health, Clarice could still laugh enchantingly. “But perhaps that was only a purpose you found after you came, eh, Felicia?”

Felicia wondered that her blush was not bright enough to supply the light they needed. As it was not, she simply tossed her head proudly and said, “He could not resist me!”