Drake's Lair (4 page)

Instead, she carefully placed bunches of fresh mallow stems, bottles of garlic tonic and rue salve, mint pennyroyal, and parchment paper cones of candied angelica for the Tinker children in her marketing bag. It should be enough to trade for a new basket and tools. The mallow stems alone should be enough. She hated to part with them, not knowing when she would ever find more. She hadn’t found mallow anywhere but Drake’s Lair, and the Tinkers greatly prized it. They would chew the stems, mixing it well with saliva then apply it straight from the mouth to swellings, sores, and abrasions, which their rugged lifestyle awarded them daily.

It would have to be enough, and she put a shawl over her soiled gray twill gathering frock—it was long enough to cover most of the hopeless stains—and opened the door of her neat little cottage only to pull up short.

“Oh!” she cried in surprise. Her breath caught as she stared down at her gathering basket on the cobblestone step, her tools and gloves tucked neatly inside.

She set the marketing bag down and fingered the basket, her sharp eyes darting in all directions, but there was no sign of anyone lurking in the drifting dawn mist ghosting over the hedgerows.

The phantom had been and gone.

When she lifted the gloves from the basket, something stiff inside one of them crunched in her fingers. Drawing it out, she found it to be a missive sealed with red wax—an embossed ‘
S
’ in the shape of a dragon. Breaking the seal quickly, even though she hated spoiling it, it was so fine, she read:
This does not mean that you may gather on Drake’s Lair
.

Shelldrake
She quickly put her marketing bag back inside—all but the paper cones of candied angelica—and latched the cottage door. Tristan Hannaford, Earl of Shelldrake had to leave Drake’s Lair sometime. Then she would just see about that. Meanwhile, she straightened her straw bonnet, and marched off in the opposite direction in search of new, less troublesome gathering grounds to plunder.

On her way, she stopped at the Tinker’s camp with the candied angelica for the children. They knew her well. While the Tinkers were skilled with herbs themselves, they spared none of their yield for such luxuries, and the candy was a welcome treat. They did not hunt for their fresh botanicals locally, but scoured the meadows and fields farther north, between Tregidden, and Laddenvean whenever they camped in the wood, since they had horses and wagons and could make the trip there and back in a day. Mostly, they used dried herbs, however—mysterious herbs gathered from all over the Continent during their travels—herbs with exotic names, such as
cinquefoil
, found on wastelands and roadsides,
adder’s tongue
, gleaned from uncultivated fields, and
devil’s bit
scabious
, from wild European meadows and woodlands. The stories of their gathering had always fascinated her.

Rosen, the elder’s daughter, welcomed her. It was she who kept a close watch on all the children in the band, and though she accepted the sweets gratefully, she insisted that Melly accept something in return. While this was decided upon, Melly took a cup of Rosen’s chamomile tea by the open campfire as she often did when she visited.

“The earl is come home,” Rosen observed, joining her. The children gathered around, jumping and prancing impatiently in anticipation of their treats, and she meted out the confections sparingly and shooed them away.

“How did you know?” Melly queried, genuinely surprised, since they were quite a distance from Drake’s Lair—from St. Kevern, come to that.

The Gypsy flashed a smug smile in reply. She was auburn-haired, with huge brown eyes, and flawless skin with an olive cast. She was about the same age as Bessie Terrill, and Melly marveled at the difference. Rosen looked much younger, though she had born six children, by her husband, Pascoe. He was not at the camp, neither were many of the other Tinker men, which was unusual at that hour.

“Where is everyone?” she inquired, changing the subject, since she evidently wasn’t going to get an answer to her previous question.

“Another flaw comes,” Rosen replied. “They make ready a new place deep in the wood for us, not so in the open. Is safer. Soon now you taste it on the wind. You lick your lips and taste the salt. Then the sea birds come—great clouds of them riding the little wind that comes before. Then you take shelter.”

How well Melly knew, she’d weathered many a storm in the year she’d lived in St. Kevern. Only a year, so much had happened to her in only a
year
. Before that she had never heard of a flaw, or foraged in the fields and bogs. But she did have a way with herbs and flowers. She had always possessed that talent. It was inherent.

“I don’t want anything in return for the sweets, Rosen,” she said. “They are my gift. I’ll tell you the truth. I was coming here with them earlier, because I… lost my gathering basket, and I hoped to trade for a new one. But then my basket was returned to me, see—” she displayed it proudly “—and I was so happy, I decided to bring the sweets just the same… for the children, since I’m gathering nearby today.”

“No herbs nearby to gather,” Rosen said. “Why you come this way now? You gather by the dragon’s house usually.”

“No longer,” Melly replied. “The earl is opposed to it.”

“Ahhhhhh,” the Tinker intoned. “Finish your tea and give me the cup.”

“Why?”

“I tell your fortune for the sweets.”

“I don’t believe in fortune-telling, Rosen,” Melly scoffed through a lighthearted laugh, “and I told you, I don’t want anything for the sweets, they are my gift—a happy gift.”

Rosen held out her hand and nodded toward the cup. It was clear that there was nothing for it but to comply, and Melly drank the tea to the leaves at the bottom and passed it over.

Rosen deftly drained the few drops remaining in the cup without losing the leaves, inverted it, and spun it around slowly three times in her hands. Then turning it right side up again, she gazed into it and studied the pattern the chamomile leaves had formed inside.

“You have an enemy,” she said solemnly, “—someone who does not seem so.” She reached inside the cup, removed a straight stalk from the leaves at the top, and bit into it. “A man,” she said, discarding the stalk.

“How can you tell?”

“The man is hard to bite, the woman, soft, like in nature. The flaw will bring him. He has a secret. You need to discover this secret… but there is danger… much danger.”

“Rosen? You’re frightening me!”

“You bring me sweets, and I frighten you. Not such a fair exchange, eh? I’m sorry, little friend, that the tea leaves are not kinder. Give me your hand.”

“My hand?”

“Your palm. Let me see.”

Melly extended her palm, and the Tinker took it in both her hands and studied it.

This was foolishness. Melly didn’t believe in cryptic augur, but the Gypsy had no reason to lie—to frighten her, they had always gotten on well. A sudden shiver raced along her spine as a fugitive gust snaked through the clearing teasing the open fire and ruffling the hem of her soiled gray twill frock.

“It is the same,” said Rosen finally. “I see nothing more.”

“What must I do?”

“Nothing. It will find you, the danger. There is nothing to be done but take care and choose wisely. One is not what he seems.”

Melly looked into the teacup the tinker had set aside, examining the pattern the gray-green lump of chamomile leaves had formed in the bottom.

“I don’t know how you do it,” she said. “It doesn’t look like anything to me, but a lump of green mud.”

The Tinker cast her a knowing smile. “You have other gifts, little friend—” she reclaimed the teacup “—and you do not believe, but because you do not, you must not be the one to disturb the reading. Is not good luck for your hand to alter what cannot be changed. But soon you see Rosen’s gift. Soon you believe… very soon, and then you know Rosen speaks truth.”

*

When the work crew arrived at the Terrill croft that morning, Drake was with them. Shed of his blue morning coat, white waistcoat, and neckcloth, with his shirt open at the neck and his sleeves rolled back to the biceps, he scaled the rickety ladder braced against the Terrill’s roof with the rest of them and attacked the chore with the same passion he had summoned against the French at Salamanca.

How well he understood the Terrill’s loss. How deeply he felt their pain. This was something he had to do. It was a purging he hoped would slake the demons that had driven him since that night five years ago, when his whole life had come crashing down around him, just as Will Terrill’s roof had done.

Jim Ellery made no such contribution. Since he was hopelessly inept with tools, Drake appointed him overseer, sending him into St. Kevern village for materials when necessity dictated, thus keeping him out of the workmen’s way as much as possible.

There was no room for error, no margin for delay. Once the morning mist burned off it revealed a sallow, jaundiced sky bearing down out of the southwest. The winds were calm now—too calm. Only the faintest breath of a breeze disturbed the chestnut, ash, and rowan leaves. But what did blow revealed their underside—the silver side. Another flaw was on the make.

Twilight came early, called by the storm, and by the time they lit the lamps, the roof was all but finished. Drake was exhausted. He hadn’t really exerted himself physically since Spain, and overexertion always charged his libido, which was the last thing he needed then. He hadn’t satisfied those urges since Spain either.
Had it been that long?
A cold, purging bath was definitely in order.

Demelza Ahern was still on his mind. Just for an instant, when he’d snatched the basket from her, his hand had grazed her arm, then her hands when she tried to hold onto it. Incensed though he’d been at the time, the touch of that soft, tender skin, those tiny fingers against his roughened fist, had shot him through with longing. He’d done the right thing in returning the basket. It felt right. Why, then, couldn’t he stop thinking about golden-brown ringlets, and eyes with the look of a doe’s that had just been flushed from a thicket to face the hunter’s musket? Those eyes haunted him. He had put that look in them. He’d put the fire of anger in them, too. She had pluck, this cheeky little witch, bigod.
Jim
Ellery always favored women with spunk.
Where the deuce did that thought come from, and why did it sting like a burr he couldn’t shed? Climbing down the ladder, he scowled at the steward approaching.

“You look exhausted, Drake,” Ellery said. “I can finish up here. Why don’t you go back to the Lair and get some rest. The bank solicitors are coming tomorrow, remember? You’ll want a good night’s sleep if you’re going to be up to that.”

Drake considered it. He didn’t want to be in Ellery’s company then. He wanted a stiff drink to exorcise the image of Demelza Ahern’s lithe body in his best friend’s arms, and a cold tub to loosen the tightness that had gripped his loins like a fist. But there was something he must do first—something that wouldn’t wait. Something he wouldn’t share.

“You’re sure?” he said.

“Of course, I’m sure. How do you suppose I managed here without you for the last five years, eh? Granted, I’m hopeless when it comes to carpentry, but I can certainly check a roof for leaks. Go home and get some sleep.”

Drake clapped him on the shoulder and moved on. Once he’d said goodnight to the Terrills, he mounted the black Andalusianer stallion he’d brought from Spain and rode north of the village to a tidy little cottage nestled in the valley outside the village proper.

Dr. Edwin Hale took a step back when he opened the door. Drake frowned. Perhaps he should have sent a missive first. The man looked as though he’d seen a ghost. He’d aged in his absence, seeming older than his sixty years. His hair was sparse and gray now, and he’d grown portly. The steely eyes were the same, however. Sharp and articulate. They often spoke when his lips did not, Drake recalled, just as they did now, though he wasn’t always able to read them. Was that dread, or relief gaping at him… or a strange marriage of both?

“Praise God, my lord!” the doctor breathed. “We thought we’d lost you on the Peninsula. When there was no word…”

“I was wounded,” Drake explained. “But as you can see, God threw me back. Neither heaven nor hell is ready for Tristan Hannaford so it seems. I am just come home.”

“Come in—come in, my lord,” the doctor stammered, standing aside to let him pass. He led him to his study, scuffing along the dark, narrow hall in bedroom slippers. “Are you home for good?”

“I don’t yet know,” Drake replied, sinking into a leather wing chair alongside the doctor’s desk. “I’m sorry for the hour. I’ve just come from the Terrill farm, we put the roof on today.”

“You lent your hand to that chore, did you? Terrible thing, terrible thing, little Will’s passing. Why, I brought him into the world just before you… left us.”

“I know.”

“Are you ill, my lord, is that why you’ve come?”

“No—no, I need to know if it’s gotten out… what occurred five years ago. I need to be certain exactly who knows what at this point.”

“I told you then that no one would ever hear of it from me,” the doctor defended gruffly. “I’ve kept my promise, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“And no one has questioned?”

“I signed the death certificates, my lord. My word is no less sacrosanct than the vicar’s. But, begging your pardon, if you’ll forgive me for saying so, you made it rather difficult, leaving the way you did… before the burials. It looked as though—”

“I don’t give a Tinker’s dam how it looked. We both know what happened. I couldn’t face it then.”

“Have you been to the vicar?”

“No.”

“Do you want to know?”

“Not particularly. It’s in the past, let it stay so.”

The doctor shrugged. “Well, for what it’s worth, they’re both buried in consecrated ground—in the Shelldrake crypt.”

“Even though…”

“It was the only way to avoid a scandal. Were the vicar aware, it would have been quite another matter.”

“Well, I thank you for that, Dr. Hale.”

“You and I, that steward of yours and Griggs are the only ones who know what actually happened, my lord. Mrs. Laity was privy to a little more than the rest of your staff, since it was necessary that she be present at the end, but the others all think it was… accidental.”