The Landlord's Black-Eyed Daughter (10 page)

“I can't tell you how excited I am to be meeting an authoress,” said Lady Marston, slipping her arm through Elizabeth's. “
Castles of Doom
is so vivid. I just finished the second
installment and I love Ranulf Navarre. He's deliciously evil, isn't he?”

Elizabeth gaped at her admirer.
Ranulf Navarre? Why would Lady Marston mention the name of Simon de Montfort's baron?

“I…” She swallowed. “I beg your pardon?”

“I said, I find Ralf Darkstarre deliciously evil, don't you?”

“Yes, evil.” Elizabeth quickly regained her composure. Her mind was playing tricks on her. Perhaps the peel tower had stirred her imagination.

As Lady Marston continued, Elizabeth smiled at the circle of beaming faces. Almost all of the ladies were far older than she, domestically settled, and desirous to hear about the peculiar but assuredly interesting life of a writer. Elizabeth rather enjoyed being the center of attention. Several ladies hailed from London and were summering in the Dales. They seemed eager for any diversion from the slow country pace, and Elizabeth was more than happy to oblige them.

“Why is it that you've never married?” asked Lady Marston. “I have a nephew in Coventry who would be perfect for you.”

Elizabeth gave one of her standard responses. “As another author, Lady Chudleigh, once wrote, ‘Wife and servant are the same, But only differ in the name.' I prefer my single state.”

Dorothea's nostrils flared and she fanned herself vigorously. The other ladies laughed.

“I think you should write your next book about highwaymen,” said Mrs. Wright, the wife of a country squire. “Dear me, did they have highwaymen in the Middle Ages?”

“If they did not, they should have,” Elizabeth replied diplomatically.

“Remember when Claude Duvall terrorized the highway?” Mrs. Wright patted her generous bosom as if stilling her heart. “Of course you wouldn't, Miss Wyndham, since that was before your time, though unfortunately not before mine.”

“I've read about him.”
Indeed, who hadn't?
“They say he was arrogant, insolently charming, and equipped with such an overpowering sensuality that maids, widows, wives, rich, poor, and vulgar women all enjoyed his bed. He sounds intriguing, doesn't he?”

“Ahem,” Dorothea interjected, obviously disturbed by the improper turn of the conversation. “He wasn't before my time, Elizabeth, and, if memory serves, Claude Duvall was even better known as a liar, a cheat, and a card sharp.”

As always, Elizabeth felt duty-bound to contradict her stepmother. But before she could utter one word, Walter Stafford appeared at her side. “I must apprehend our guest of honor,” he said, sounding like the lawman he was. Placing his hand in the small of Elizabeth's back, he guided her toward the music room.

“Have I told you how radiant you look today?” he asked, ushering her inside.

“Thank you, my lord.”

Walter waved his perfumed handkerchief at several guests, two-fingered the handkerchief back inside his cuff, then sat Elizabeth upon one of the settees and joined her there. “I have visited London and Bath and many of the kingdom's most fashionable resorts,” he said, “yet I have never seen a lovelier woman.” He touched her hat, which tilted rakishly over her forehead. “I do believe you're missing one of your ostrich plumes, my dear, and I noticed earlier that your shoes were a bit scuffed, which is no wonder. White kid might not have been the wisest choice. But other than your shoes and hat, you are perfection.”

Just before entering Walter's house, Elizabeth had exchanged her boots for a pair of slippers. She had also tidied her hair and donned a hat. Now, ignoring his remarks, she pretended an interest in the entertainment—an indifferent interpretation of Handel. Soon her attention wandered. She studied the carpet, patterned with flowers, baskets, and fruit. She studied the walls, paneled with damask silks in pale hues. She tried to calculate the cost of Walter's remodeling. Her host pressed his thigh against hers. She shifted away.

Without warning, she heard the music alter its cadence, though no one else seemed aware of this obvious discrepancy.

Elizabeth's breath came in hot gasps and every instinct urged her to flee. The melody sounded familiar, yet she had no earthly idea where she had heard it before. Clear-toned and mellifluous, it evoked images of celebration. And death.

Body ramrod stiff, eyes staring straight ahead, she willed her limbs to remain motionless. Then, after the obscure melody had faded, along with the last solemn notes of Handel, she experienced relief. And an almost overwhelming sadness.

Walter clapped politely. Rising from the settee, he signaled for silence. “Miss Wyndham recently had one of her poems published in
The Spectator,
” he announced. “You will do us the honor of reading it, Elizabeth, won't you?”

While she complied, Walter watched her hungrily. Two words came to mind—ripe and voluptuous. Several curls had escaped from her formerly neat club, yet even the undisciplined hair enhanced her aura of sensuality. Despite her physical attributes, he wondered whether he didn't desire Elizabeth primarily because she presented a challenge. He knew he was attractive. He also knew that he was the wealthiest man in the Dales and could have his pick of the ladies, even though men outnumbered women. In the cities the mix was reversed, and desperate fathers sometimes bribed bachelors to propose.

You wouldn't be so arrogant if we lived in London,
Walter thought, yet perversely Elizabeth's haughtiness merely added to her charms. Rapidly
diminishing
charms. Time would inevitably take its toll. A man of his age, forty, was at the height of his desirability, while any woman past twenty could best be described as a shriveling bouquet. Soon Elizabeth would sprout crow's feet, a drooping jaw line, a thickened waist, and a sagging bosom. Soon no man would have her.

Anticipating her impending decay did not make him feel any better. He indulged in sex with other women, of course, but he fantasized that it was Elizabeth he dominated. Now that he doctored yet another inflammation of his genitals, he was forced to limit his sexual encounters. Perhaps his celibacy partially accounted for his inability to shake Elizabeth from his thoughts.

A scowl creased his brow, negating that last notion. While it was common knowledge that physical desire and romantic love were violent mental disturbances of short duration, he had been intrigued by Elizabeth for five years, ever since his arrival in the Dales. He feared he was obsessed by her.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned, hoping his expression, rather than words, would reveal his annoyance. The butler whispered, “Reverend Farnsworth is here, my lord. He said he must see you. He further states that he has been victimized by a heinous crime.”

Fully expecting that the highwaymen had struck again, Stafford hurried outside. Reverend Farnsworth, wearing around his neck the white Geneva bands of his Presbyterian ministry, was leading a horse up and down the drive. Walter had never seen the reverend appear so agitated, except during his recent sermon against the “Frogs.” Those foreigners were destroying England's existing social structure, Farnsworth had thundered.

“I believe I've been sold a doctored horse, Lord Stafford,” Farnsworth huffed. In his black coat and hose, he looked like an enormous beetle. “'Twas earlier in the day, near Coverham. The gent had a string of fine-looking mounts, and I purchased one at a very good price. But I was told that this gelding here is seven years old and from his lumbering gait I suspect he's far older.”

“There's only one way to find out.” Walter pulled apart the roan's lips and displayed its teeth. “As you know, I am an expert on horseflesh. See those black marks on the crowns of your gelding's incisors? They generally disappear by age nine, so seven could be feasible. Aha!” He ran his finger along the teeth. “Real infundibulate have a ring of pearly enamel, which these lack.”

“What does that mean, m'lord?”

“Bishoping. Those marks were burned by a hot iron.”

Reverend Farnsworth's eyes widened. “The gent said this gelding was the property of a nobleman who had gone abroad. That is the reason he offered up such a good price.”

“What an ancient line. And he probably showed you a second horse that he swore was ordered to be sold by the executors of a deceased minister. No doubt he had tales for each animal, and all equally false. I'm afraid you've been duped.”

“No!” Farnsworth could scarce believe that anyone would cheat a man of the cloth. “What is this world coming to? If you want my opinion—”

“Tell me about the coper,” Stafford interrupted, impatient to return to Elizabeth.

“He was large, well dressed, and he could talk the ears off a person. I've not seen him around these parts before, m'lord, but he wasn't a Frog. He was an Englishman.”

Wonderful description,
Walter thought sarcastically. If Farnsworth were any more specific, half the Dales would be under suspicion. “The chap most likely thinks to sell his horses in Middleham, Reverend. I have various patrols on the road, and you might give them a description. I am quite certain my men will scour the fair looking for a large, talkative gent.”

“Yes, well, I trust you will further investigate the matter, m'lord. Come to think of it, he might have been a Frog with a false accent.” Shaking his head, clutching the roan's reins, Farnsworth turned to leave.

Walter slipped back inside the music room, but Elizabeth had finished her piece. Dorothea Wyndham sat at the pianoforte, accompanying Lady Marston, who was warbling an unidentifiable tune.

***

Pretending to sip lemonade baptized with brandy, Elizabeth scanned Lord Stafford's face. She feared he had been called away because of Rand, but Walter soon dispelled her fears with a brief recounting of Farnsworth's plight.

After Lady Marston had lurched through her finale, they all enjoyed a leisurely dinner. Then Walter offered his guests a choice of cards in the drawing room or bowls on the green. For the Wyndhams, he suggested a tour of his latest renovations.

Lawrence exclaimed over Walter's expanded stables and racehorses, while Dorothea waxed poetic over his new dairy, which had been constructed with marble walls. The milk, cream, and butter were stored in porcelain vessels, cooled by splashing fountains.

“Isn't this lovely, Elizabeth?” Dorothea's hands fluttered over the Stafford seal, engraved on one of the butter churns. “I've never seen such a magnificent dairy.”

Elizabeth thought the room resembled an enormous mausoleum.

Dorothea was even more impressed by Walter's garden, renovated in a Gothic style, complete with grottoes and artificial ruins. “This makes me feel so pleasantly melancholy,” she said, clapping her hands in delight over a crumbling tower and a broken archway. “Doesn't it you, Elizabeth?”

“It must have cost a fortune,” offered Lawrence.

“I have a fortune to spend.” Walter turned to Elizabeth. “I confess that after reading
Castles of Doom,
I sympathized with poor King Henry. He lavished so much money on the arts and architecture and was vilified for his pains.”

“But in Henry's case, the money belonged to his subjects,” she countered.

“If one believes in the divine right of kings, Henry was totally justified.”

“That is an outmoded notion, or at least thinking people find it so.” Every time Walter opened his mouth, Elizabeth felt that her scheme to play the demure companion was in jeopardy. Temper simmering like a pot of boiling water, she walked away. Almost immediately, she spied a hermit's cell. The small religious house might dispel her hostility. Peering inside, she stifled a scream.

A monk knelt in the shadows, his head bent forward, his hands steepled in prayer. Elizabeth shivered violently. A whisper of the mournful, melodious chant she had heard inside the music room floated through her memory.

She blinked several times, thinking the monk was just another one of her visions. It couldn't be a real monk, for Catholics had no power in England. Furthermore, any man with position and money was Protestant, and would never harbor a Roman clergyman, no matter how perfectly the clergyman enhanced the decor.

“Very lifelike, isn't it?” Walter stood at her elbow. “Of course, 'tis merely a stuffed figure. I thought he might add a pleasing touch of gloom.”

“Why is it that we hate papists, yet we strive so hard to reproduce their traditions and mimic everything about them?”

Walter laughed. “My dear Elizabeth, one can enjoy the look of an era without believing in its deceptions.”

“Didn't you mention earlier that we might visit a bull baiting in Middleham, my lord?” Dorothea asked, obviously fearful that Elizabeth would start another argument.

“Aye,” Lawrence said. “I'm always eager for a bit of wagering. I mean, I would be if I still gambled. I'll just enjoy watching, eh, Bess?”

“Yes, Papa. I'm anxious to attend as well.”

But more precisely, she was anxious to get away from the kneeling monk in his gloomy cell.

A large crowd clustered around the center of a field where a black bull had been tied. A fifteen-foot rope, secured by an iron ring affixed to a stake, circled the bull's horns. Several men stood on the sidelines, along with their bulldogs. The men restrained the dogs by holding onto their ears. The dogs whined or yapped at the bull. Common folk and powdered lords debated the strength of the bull and the skill of the dogs.

Rand kept to the outskirts, positioning himself so that he had a clear view of the horse traders beyond. Though he seldom lost sight of Zak, he didn't dare move too close. Standing together, they might trigger some observant victim's memory.

This is madness,
Rand thought, as he watched his cousin collar a rotund farmer. How could Zak bring defective horses to a town renowned for its breeding of blood stock?

In fact, the entire area was dotted with huge stables. Many had been constructed from the stones of Middleham Castle, sprawled above the town. For some reason, the castle's jagged silhouette further reinforced Rand's uneasiness. Yet nothing sinister had occurred, it was nearly sundown, and Zak had been successfully cheating people for hours.

Rand studied the faces of those awaiting the bull baiting. No one paid any attention to him. He was dressed in a coarse woolen tunic, tight-fitting breeches, and home-knit hose. His hair fell free, without even a queue to hold it in place. Rand thought he looked plainer than all but the poorest yeoman farmer, and was well pleased with his disguise.

He noticed a tall man in a double cauliflower wig who moved majestically through the crowd.
We've placed the hangman's noose around our own necks,
he thought, recognizing Walter Stafford. The lawman tilted his head toward his companion, a woman clothed in a blue riding outfit. Despite the ostrich-plumed hat that shadowed her eyes, Rand could never mistake Elizabeth Wyndham's sun-kissed complexion, nor her slender waist and rounded hips. He felt a rush of anger. Elizabeth possessed the power to destroy him, if she chose. Rand had heard rumors, but he had summarily dismissed them all. She so obviously loathed Stafford that any gossip about her being his mistress or his fiancée was ludicrous.

What if her scorn had been pretense? Had she fingered Rand as the highwayman, eagerly relating a detailed description to Lord Walter Stafford, the most dangerous man in the Dales?

Impossible! She could not have responded so ardently to Rand's embraces if she wore a mask of duplicity—or could she?

Lady Guinevere had acted in a similar manner when confronted by Ralf Darkstarre, unable to resist his effortless seduction. In fact, that was the very same scene which had scandalized the dowagers at Beresford's drum.

At that moment, the signal was given and a gray dog was released to run at the bull. “Scrag him, Cornwallis!” screamed the dog's handler, his voice rising above the excited murmur of the spectators. Rand positioned himself at the back of the crowd where he would have a clear view of Elizabeth, Stafford, and Zak.

***

In the ring, Cornwallis darted toward his adversary. The nameless bull turned a horn. Trying to get beneath the bull's belly in order to seize his muzzle or dewlap, Cornwallis circled behind the bull's tail, barking all the while. From the sidelines, the dog's companions echoed the sound.

Elizabeth, who was far nearer the action than she wished to be, covered her ears. She hated the violence inherent in such events and regretted her earlier eagerness to attend.

The bull pawed the earth. Its breath emerged in angry snorts. Cornwallis edged closer, slinking on his belly. The bull charged, sliding his horns beneath the dog. Cornwallis flew into the air. The crowd gasped. Handlers ran to break the force of the dog's fall. Dazed, Cornwallis shook his head and staggered to his feet.

The crowd cheered, though Elizabeth was sickened by the entire business. Was she the only one who found such sport cruel? She felt alien to those around her, alien to their values and perceptions and the world they inhabited.

I don't belong here. But where do I belong?

The dog darted in, catching the bull's dewlap. The bull roared and twisted and kicked, breaking free. He charged forward until he reached the end of his tether. His head snapped back, and he slammed to the ground.

Elizabeth's hands balled into fists.
How brutal we all are,
she thought, looking away from the bull, now bellowing in rage and pain. But what could one expect from a society that considered public hangings entertainment? Reluctantly, she focused on the ring again.

The bull rocked his head from side to side. Blood dripped from his mutilated dewlap.

Today we watch a bull bleed. Soon it will be Rand.

But Rand and his companion were long gone.

The crowd screamed further encouragement at the dog, who had once again attached himself to the bull's throat. The bull tossed his head upward. The dewlap tore. Cornwallis tumbled to the earth, then scrambled back to the safety of his handler.

“Well done!” Walter's shout joined the crowd's applause.

Elizabeth raised her eyes to the evening sky, gradually melding into twilight. The town of Middleham clung to a hillside. In the distance, she could see the remains of Middleham Castle. Once the castle had housed kings and queens, knights and ladies. Now townspeople exercised their horses across the surrounding plain while wild birds nested among its ruins. But tonight was a special time when special things happened. Would the ghosts of the dead meet for one last banquet?

She shivered, filled with the same apprehension she had experienced when she spied the praying monk. On tiptoe, she spoke against Walter's ear. “I am going for a stroll, my lord, and shall meet you later.”

“I shall count the minutes, my dear,” Walter said, but his gaze remained riveted on the ring, where a second dog had just been loosed on the bull.

As Elizabeth made her escape, she saw a full moon—lush and golden—inch above the moors. The air was warm and smelled strongly of wood smoke. Nightingales called from the darkness of the copses while insects whispered.

Midsummer's Eve was believed to be a time when restless spirits walked the earth. On the hillsides, bonfires had been lit to hold them at bay, and young men made a game of leaping across the edges of the flames. She strolled among the revelers, stopping every once in a while to scrutinize the foot races and wrestling matches. She watched the husbands who smoked their pipes and passed around bottles of gin. She watched the wives who gossiped and, at the same time, watched their children. She envied the lovers who drifted toward the privacy of hedges.

A fiddler began to play. Couples joined hands and circled the bonfires. The tempo of the music increased. Spectators stomped their feet and clapped their hands. The dancers whirled, faster and faster, keeping time to the screech of the fiddle. The bow ran up and down the strings—wailing, beckoning, threatening, promising.

As the firelight shimmered off sweaty faces, muscular arms, bare chests, and flat stomachs, Elizabeth ached for her own man. Not any man. One man.

Where are you, Rand?
she silently pleaded, watching sparks explode heavenward where they soon disappeared into liquid blackness.

“'Tis a night made for love,” a man whispered.

Elizabeth turned in surprise. “Rand! Are you real, or am I imagining you?” She traced the muscled ridges of his chest, then quickly dropped her hands, as if she had just encountered the bonfire's flames. “You certainly appear solid enough, but what are you doing here? Why haven't you left the Dales?”

“My partner saw fit to stay a while longer. I'll be meeting him later, at midnight. Then we shall leave straightaway for Scotland.”

Elizabeth nodded. “Midnight. The hour when the veil is lifted between this world and the other. Be careful. You might meet a parade of ghosts on your way to Scotland.”

“You speak nonsense, Bess.”

“Yes. We are rational people and such things do not happen.” She looked around, afraid someone might be eyeing Rand with suspicion, but they were in a secluded spot, surrounded by prickly hedges. Rand must have seen her earlier and followed.

“I've not been noticed,” he said, indicating his garments.

I would notice you,
she thought.
So would any other right-minded lass.

Despite his clothes, his bearing was every bit as proud as an aristocrat's. His stance was straight and tall. Had his solid chest been clad in armor, it would have stopped a dozen arrows. The moonlight flashed over his hair, causing it to shine like polished onyx. Long, thick strands fell below his broad shoulders.

The butt of a pistol had been thrust into the belt of his breeches, so she smoothed his shirt over it. “I had to bury your blasted coin purse, Rand. The jewelry was useless to me. Lord Stafford lists all stolen goods in the paper, which means every pawnbroker has a description.”

“Is that why you're angry with me?”

“I'm not angry.”

“Yes, you are. Otherwise you would not have been Stafford's companion at the bull baiting. I thought you hated him.”

“I don't hate him. He's slimy, insignificant, and I pity him. Nevertheless, I agreed to this engagement months ago.”

“That strikes me as a feeble excuse. What did you and Stafford talk about, Bess? Did you mention me? Did you tell him who I am? Have you betrayed me?”

The accusation cut between them.
Betrayal.
For long moments, Elizabeth found it impossible to speak, let alone formulate a response. “I would sooner die than conspire against you,” she finally said.

She saw him turn away and run his fingers through his hair. His fingers were long and blunted on the tips. He had strong, callused hands, hardly the hands of a gentleman. Those hands and fingers would feel rough against her skin.

“Take me with you,” she blurted.

Even as she spoke, she knew the impossibility of her demand. She must sort out her father's financial difficulties. The eight hundred pounds from Charles Beresford would arrive any day. Then she and the barristers and the note holders must begin the laborious process of settling the Wyndham accounts. If she left, her father would lose everything. There was also the matter of the final installment of
Castles of Doom.
Soon it would be published with all the attendant obligations.

Yet none of that mattered, not when Rand stood beside her, so close his sleeve brushed her bodice.

“I must admit that I can think of far less agreeable companions,” he said. “But I cannot take you with me.”

“Why not?”

“For one thing, your reputation would be destroyed.”

“I don't give a fig for my reputation!” The warmth of the night pressed upon her. The writhe of the fiddle coursed through her veins, like blood, like the pounding of her heart. “I insist that we run off together. Now! Tonight!”

“Bess, please listen. If we ran off together, eventually you would realize that your happiness lies in being wed to a country squire, surrounded by country children, growing stout and middle-aged in your comfortable country house.”

“No, Rand, I've never wanted that.”

“Occasionally, on a summer evening like this one, you might wonder what happened to me, but it will be an idle thought, soon gone.” He traced the outlines of her lips with a gentle finger. “'Tis the way it should be, Bess.”

Her throat ached from holding back forbidden words, from wanting Rand and all the pleasures implicit in the night. “No, you're wrong,” she whispered. “I would never stop wondering.”

“Never is a long time.”

“I refuse to spend my
life concocting exciting lives for other people. I refuse to end my life drowsing over an almanac, my spectacles slipping from my nose, my gouty leg propped atop a stool. I don't want to remember a Midsummer's Eve long ago, when you and I chatted so politely about what can and cannot be.” The moon hung like a paper lantern beyond their heads, beyond the leaping flames of the bonfires. “I crave different memories.”

“'Tis better thus.” Rand cupped her chin. “To think back upon me, as I will you. I shall be the man who never aged, the man who remained a mystery, so you can make me anyone you wish me to be. 'Tis better to imagine than to know.”

Rand was mistaken, thought Elizabeth. Sometimes her imaginings proved far worse than reality could ever be.

“If we really knew each other,” he continued, “you would accuse me of being cruel or indifferent, and I would nag you for not properly darning my hose. We would uncover all sorts of annoying truths and our love would slip into routine.”

“That's not the real reason, Rand. You think to protect yourself by weaving a web of words. You fear me for other reasons, don't you? I've sensed it from the very first.”

“'Tis not fear, Bess.” He slipped his arm about her waist. “'Tis all so complicated, what I think sometimes.”

The fiddle music ended abruptly, as if it had been severed by a sword. Elizabeth heard Rand's breathing, and her own. The shadows wrapped them together like a cloak. She looked up into his eyes.

We have stood like this before,
she thought,
when the night was known by another name, when the night was called St. John's Eve.

Suddenly, she began to weep.

“Ah, Bess, my bonny Bess.” Rand's voice was tender. “Are those angry tears?”

“Yes. No.” Gasping for breath, she slipped from his arms to the ground below, landing on her knees.

Rand knelt in front of her, then pressed her face against the coarse wool of his shirt. “All right, my dearest love,” he crooned. “'Twill be all right. I'm here, Bess, and we have a few more hours.”

“I don't want you for ‘a few more hours.'”

“Hush.” With his finger, he tilted her chin. “I cannot make love to a weeping woman, even if the moon causes her wet eyes to shine like all the stars in the heavens.”