Bewitching the Baron (11 page)

“I am afraid I do not understand you,” she grumbled.

He took her hand, rubbing his thumb along the back of her knuckles. “I think you do.”

She tugged her hand free, trying to ignore the delicious shiver his touch had aroused. “Why are you here? Did you need my aunt for something?”

“I have decided to take you up on your offer of a personal tour of the district.”

“That was my aunt’s offer, not mine.”

“Do you refuse me?”

Valerian looked into his face, friendly with a hint of mischief. The arrogance of their first meeting was nowhere in evidence, and she hoped it had gone into permanent hiding. Did he really want to be shown around, or did he want an excuse to be with her? Whichever it was, she found she was not displeased at the thought of spending time alone with him. “No, I do not refuse you.”

He helped her carry the books back into the cottage. Theresa was measuring drops of extract into a bottle when they came in.

“Good morning, Mrs. Storrow.”

“Baron.” She nodded a greeting, then turned to her niece. “Valerian dear, would you mind bringing this to Mrs. Frowdy? Young Toby is having fits again.”

“I will be showing the baron the sights of the district, such as they are. It should be no problem to include the Frowdy farm.”

Aunt Theresa looked terribly pleased at this news, and Valerian gave her a warning glare. She was rewarded with a knowing and rather encouraging wink.

Valerian wrapped the stoppered bottle in a cloth, and dropped it through the slit in her skirt into the pocket pouch that hung from her waist.

Back outside, the baron’s mount was cropping grass.

“Do you want Aunt Theresa to keep an eye on your horse?” Valerian asked.

“Not necessary. We will be riding.”

“I do not see two horses.”

“No, Darby is most assuredly just one horse.”

“My lord, surely you do not—”

“When we are in private, could you call me Nathaniel?”

Valerian stared at him, protests to riding double forgotten. “Why on earth would you want me to do that?”

“Humor me. Come now, let me hear you say it.”

“I would not want people to assume we were so intimate.”

“Who is to hear? And if they did, would not it be better for them to assume you were sharing your bed with me than with young Eddie?”

“More likely they would believe I was after you both.”

“I will challenge to a duel the first man who suggests you are unfaithful,” he said melodramatically, putting a hand to his sword.

Valerian could not help a smile. He was jesting, she knew, but it was nice to pretend a man might fight for her honor, albeit a dubious sort of honor in this instance. “I suppose ’twould be ungracious of me to refuse after such a declaration . . . Nathaniel.”

“Music to my ears, my dear.” He leered comically at her, but she thought she saw in his eyes a touch of true appreciation, underneath the levity.

He mounted Darby, then took his foot out of the stirrup and put down his hand. “Up we go.”

There seemed no point in arguing. She could stand and complain that she did not want people to see her clinging to his back, and he would laugh off her protests. Truth be told, she wanted to ride. She had only rarely been on a horse, and the prospect of being carried to the Frowdy farm was far more enticing than that of walking the three miles.

She put her foot in the stirrup, and Nathaniel grasped her small hand in his own. He pulled her up in one swift movement, and she found herself behind him, astride the horse on a small cushion attached there for riding pillion. She arranged her skirts as best she could, tucking the cloth under her legs. Darby shifted his weight, and her arms quickly went around Nathaniel’s waist.

“All set?”

“Set enough.”

“You will have to tell me where to go.”

She told him which path to take from the meadow, and with a soft click from him Darby started off. Valerian could feel the shifting muscles of the horse under her legs, and of Nathaniel from her arms around his waist. She rested her cheek against his back, watching scenery go by. She liked having this innocent excuse to touch him, even if her thoughts of him were not always so pure.

They traveled overland, leaving the path behind, and did not speak beyond the directions Valerian gave. Once or twice they passed people out tending flocks, and Valerian let her eyes pass over them, not acknowledging their presence. She wanted to pretend they would not notice her; at the same time that she wanted them to see that a nobleman had chosen her to ride with him.

They arrived at the Frowdy farm far sooner than Valerian had expected. A horse had definite advantages over walking. She straightened up, pushing away from his back, and tapped his shoulder.

“Let me down. I do not want Mrs. Frowdy to see me up here. ’Tis bad enough that you are with me.”

Nathaniel reined in, and with his help she slid off Darby. Nathaniel followed suit, and walked beside her up the dirt track to the stone cottage.

A scrappy-looking dog barked his hoarse warning at their approach, drawing Mrs. Frowdy out of the house, a toddler peeping round her skirts.

“Good day,” Valerian called.

“Good day, Miss Bright.” Mrs. Frowdy stared at the baron, surprise and embarrassment pinkening her cheeks, and Valerian made the introductions. Mrs. Frowdy curtsyed, and looked considerably more flustered than Valerian had ever seen her.

“I have brought the tincture for Toby. How bad have the fits been?”

Mrs. Frowdy cast a self-conscious glance at the baron. “Not so bad.”

Valerian gave Nathaniel a look that said this would go better if he made himself scarce, and she subtly shooed him with her hand. He raised an eyebrow at her. His curiosity obviously outweighed any impulse to accommodate her.

Valerian moved closer to Mrs. Frowdy and lowered her voice. “How bad?”

“It is not that they have been so bad,” Mrs. Frowdy whispered back, darting glances over Valerian’s shoulder at the baron. “But they have been too often for my liking. Once or twice a day it is happening. The poor little thing shakes something terrible, twitching and jerking.”

Valerian nodded and handed her the bottle. “Give half a spoonful every morning. It is valerian, same as last time, only my aunt has strengthened the concentration.”

“Will it stop the fits?”

“It should, especially if you can keep him from getting too upset by anything. If it does not stop them . . . Well, there are always other things we could try. If it does work, though, I can give you some plant starts, and teach you how to make the tincture yourself. I do not think this is something Toby will grow out of.”

Mrs. Frowdy thanked her, and curtsyed again to the baron, who nodded in acknowledgment. The farm wife stood in the doorway and watched as Nathaniel remounted, and then in complete disregard to the concerns Valerian had expressed upon arriving, he put down his hand to help her onto the horse.

Valerian ground her teeth. She could not refuse his hand, hanging there in the air, with Mrs. Frowdy watching. He would make a fuss, and that would be even more of a spectacle. He probably
wanted
people to think he was bedding her. She mounted with ill grace behind him, giving him a hard pinch in the side as revenge.

When she turned to make her farewells to Mrs. Frowdy, it was plain from the woman’s sparkling eyes that gossip would be flying by nightfall.

“I told you I did not want her to see us like this,” Valerian hissed at the back of Nathaniel’s neck as they headed down the road.

“Others have.”

“But not Mrs. Frowdy.”

“Is she a particular problem?”

“Let us say she is not always kindly disposed towards Aunt Theresa and me. She will make the worst of this.”

“I disagree. She will no doubt conclude that you hold a special place in my heart, and be reluctant to speak against you. I do, after all, hold the deed to the farm she lives on.”

The man had no understanding of how life in Greyfriars worked. “That will not stop her. She is devious. She would never speak openly against me: She is mistress of the innuendo. She spreads rumors, and gossips with the innkeeper’s wife, which is as good as putting out a news sheet.”

Nathaniel leaned to the side and craned over his shoulder to see her face. “I do not understand. If she causes you and your aunt such trouble, why do you go out of your way to help her? I understand treating the child, but why offer to teach the woman to make the medicine herself? Why deliver it to her, when she could come get it?”

“I cannot hold against her her failings,” Valerian said, “although at times I confess I am hard-pressed to hold a charitable frame of mind. She does not mean to be so terrible. She fears us, and so she strikes out. What good would it serve to be petty in return? That would only increase her resentment, and then perhaps Toby would not get any medicine at all.”

Nathaniel blinked at her, and turned to face front again. “You are kinder than I.”

“Cruelty is a luxury I cannot afford.”

They were silent, heading up into the hills. Valerian had to cling tightly to his waist, and scoot herself forward when she began to slip back over Darby’s broad back.

“What was it you gave her?” Nathaniel finally asked, breaking the silence.

“Mrs. Frowdy? A tincture of valerian.”

“Is that an herb of some sort, or a mixture named after yourself?”

Valerian laughed. “It is a plant. The roots make a strong sedative. My parents named me after it, as it is so useful in healing. The name means strength.”

“It was a good choice for you.”

Valerian smiled, her cheek against the warm cloth covering his back.

They came to the peak of a small mountain, and Valerian felt Nathaniel catch his breath. Stretched out below them was the ocean, and to the left the bay. Greyfriars, set back some way from the shore, was a short strip of thatched and slate roofs partially hidden by trees, with the river flowing by beyond, nothing more than a sparkling line at this distance. On the horizon in front of them, the Isle of Man was a mysterious shadow hunched in the sea.

Valerian dismounted, and staggered. Her legs felt like she still had a horse between them. She put her hands on her thighs to check that her legs were not indeed spread wide like they felt. Her skirt was damp with combined human and horse sweat where it had been beneath her legs.

“I want to show you something,” she said as Nathaniel dismounted. The hill sloped down in front of them for a hundred yards, then dropped off in a cliff. She led Nathaniel down near the edge, then got down onto her belly, inching forward. He followed suit, leaving Darby to crop grass, and together they peered over the top of the cliff.

Powerful winds scaled the cliff and provided lift for dozens of ravens, swooping and hovering along the cliff face. Their nests clung to cracks and outcroppings, and to bits of brush growing from the stone. Far, far below, waves crashed upon jagged black rocks.

“This is where I got Oscar, when he was a baby still in pin feathers.”

“Here?”

“I had come up here for the view, and was peering over the edge like we are now. As I watched, a chick in one nest tumbled out, bouncing halfway down the cliff. The nest was crowded, the other chicks larger, and I think they shoved him. I climbed down and rescued him, carrying him up tucked in my bodice.”

His eyes were wide in amazement. “That was a terrible risk you took.”

Valerian shrugged. “I was more concerned about Oscar than myself. It was not long after my parents had died, and I did not care much what happened to me. The only thing I was afraid of, really, was being attacked by the adult ravens while I was climbing. I thought they might make me lose my balance.”

“They left you alone?”

“Yes. And I do not know why. Maybe they knew I would not harm their chicks, or maybe. . . .”

“What?” Nathaniel prompted, when she did not continue.

“Oh, a silly idea I had at the time.” She had never told anyone this part of the story, and felt now how foolish it sounded, especially being told to this man who had seen so much more of the world than she had. “When I had regained the top of the cliff, with Oscar still alive, I imagined that the ravens had wanted me to have Oscar, so I would have something to live for.”

“And did he give you that?”

She paused, remembering what those first few weeks had been like. “In a way. He gave me someone else to think of, someone who needed me.” And then there had been that other thing she had discovered when she held Oscar in her hands that day, the discovery that set her even further apart from the folk of the village.

“He distracted you from the guilt of surviving, when others had not.”

Valerian turned to look at him, but his eyes were still on the ravens coasting the air currents below. “Yes, that was a part of it.” She watched him, the wind ruffling his dark auburn hair, and saw the lines of some deep regret etch his face. “I think you know something of loss.”

He gave a grunt of false humor. “I have some familiarity with the feeling. Or at least with the guilt part of it.”

“Is this anything to do with the rumors that you left London after a terrible scandal?”

He finally turned to look at her, his hazel eyes meeting her own, and she read pain there. Their shoulders were touching. He leaned his head in close enough that their foreheads almost touched as well. “The rumors—whatever they may be—no doubt have as much truth to them as the ones that fly about you.” He looked away again. “Only you are more innocent than tongues would say, while I am far less.”

Valerian inched back from the edge and rolled onto her side, propping her head on her hand so she could watch him. “What did you do?”

“Your aunt asked me the same question, albeit not quite so bluntly. I did not answer her.”

“You are going to answer me.”

He laughed and drew away from the edge, sitting up. “And why is that?”

“Because you want me to know you.” She did not know where the words came from, but she felt their truth as they left her mouth.

“If you truly knew me, you would lock yourself inside your cottage and never come out again. You would warn mothers to hide their daughters and tell fathers to fetch their swords.” His tone was light, but the crooked smile had the barest hint of a quiver in it.