I Loved a Rogue The Prince Catchers (11 page)

“I don’t know why he had to leave so soon,” Ravenna complained, “when he’d just arrived.”

“Gone?” Eleanor stood in the parlor doorway, her stomach a knot. “The Gypsies have gone?”

“Only Taliesin,” Papa said distractedly, opening a book upon his knee.

He had
gone
? After only three days back in St. Petroc? Without telling her? “To where, Papa?”

He turned pages. “North, I believe.”

Had he come and told Papa he was leaving, yet not said good-bye to her? Everywhere was north from Cornwall. Her chest felt too tight for full breaths, as though the sickness in her lungs had returned but
so much worse
.

“Has he gone for a short trip?” She didn’t care that her words might reveal her. She’d never before felt such longing and joy and perfect aching. She wanted to see him. She must see him or she would burst with this feeling. He needn’t kiss her if he couldn’t. She could be content with speaking with him, feeling his ebony eyes upon her. That would be enough. It
had
to be enough.

“He is unlikely to return until the spring,” her papa said. “His uncle has interests that he needs Taliesin to see to in . . . where was that? Bristol, perhaps. Fetch my spectacles, child. I can never make out Professor Hinkle’s writing without them.”

The spring? An eon away. A
lifetime
.

Yet he had said nothing of it. Instead, without a word he had abandoned her in a strange confusion of yearning. Indeed, he had encouraged her to it, seeking her out immediately upon his return to St. Petroc, inviting her to walk with him, urging her into that pond, then kissing her and bringing every bit of her to life.

A more measured mind—a mind as measured as everyone believed hers to be—would have tucked away her longing, to retrieve again when he returned. A more sanguine character would have gone on with her usual modest amusements and her work, and brushed off the niggling suspicion that he had teased her to a purpose. Because Taliesin Wolfe had never
not
taunted her into doing things she shouldn’t do. Since she could remember, he had taken pleasure in challenging her. Simply to prove that he could best her.

This time he had succeeded. With her head flying above the clouds, she couldn’t deny it. Eager to see him again, with warm cheeks and memories of their forbidden adventure, she’d been thinking of nothing except him for days, combing her hair, cleaning her teeth, dressing in her finest frock. All for him. She’d even found his favorite book to lend him, the story of Tristan and Iseult he liked so much even though it was so tragic. She’d done all this thinking of him.

While he had gone off to Bristol without a single word.

But he would not best her for long.

With that intention, she spent the winter translating Latin texts for her papa, riding the old cart horse every day, and avoiding the copse where a Gypsy boy had coaxed her into the pond, kissed her, then told her to go. And she planned for spring. On holidays when Tommy Shackelford came home, she asked him to teach her how to drive his curricle so that in the spring she could drive it right past Taliesin with her nose in the air and prove that he didn’t do everything better than her after all. He knew how to drive a wagon, but she didn’t think he’d ever driven a curricle. Two could play at this game, and she wasn’t about to let him win.

It was the longest winter of her life.

When finally he returned, even taller and broader and more bone-meltingly beautiful than eight months earlier, she was ready for him, entirely prepared to hold her own against any challenge he could throw at her, and so eager for more kisses she trembled with anticipation.

She saw him first at the May Day fair. Across the field crowded with people, in the trading corral he was mounted on one of his uncle’s half-broken horses, handling it as easily as a knight on a charger. Nerves a-kindle, she waited for her opportunity to get the best of him.

Then, nothing.

No visit to the vicarage. No finding her when she was alone and teasing her or walking with her or holding her hand or kissing her. Nothing.

The day after the fair, the Gypsies departed.

It was only later, much later—after he did not return that fall, instead sent a letter telling Papa that he’d found permanent work up north and would not be returning to St. Petroc again—that she knew she had mistaken it. After the pond he had not been trying to challenge her. He had gone without saying good-bye to her not because he thought he would get the best of her, but because he simply didn’t think of her at all. When he’d taught her to ride, walked with her, kissed her, he had merely been a boy passing the time, and she meant so little to him that he’d swiftly forgotten her.

Unaccustomed as she was to her new feelings, and not comprehending how longtime admiration could turn to indifference, it took some time for her to understand it all. But eventually she did. As months passed and she realized what it meant to truly miss him, to be forced to accept that he was never coming back, it seemed certain that this time she had been the only one playing the game. The only one foolish enough to fall in love.

Chapter 9

The Dungeon

D
rearcliffe sat on the flank of an ancient wood, a dark, ominous hulk of ivy-encrusted stone fashioned into imposing gables decorated with Gothic pinnacles, and all of it surrounded by a high wall. To the west, a hill rose steadily to an apex topped with a lonely church tower.

A pack of dogs rushed to the gate, snarling and gnawing at the bars as if they meant to chew through to mount their attack.

Taliesin’s horse looked down his long nose and offered them a contemptuous snort. But the less seasoned mare was restive beneath Eleanor. Guiding her mount to a pile of toppled stones, she slid out of the saddle and onto the stones awkwardly. Anything to avoid his hands on her again.

The coach drew up behind them and Betsy alighted.

“Glory be, miss¸” she said, her eyes as wide as Eleanor had yet seen them. “We’re not going in
there
to look for clues, are we? We’d more likely find ghosts.”

“We are going inside, Betsy. But you needn’t fret. I’m certain Sir Wilkie is perfectly amiable.”

A servant with patched elbows, faded knee breeches, and torn stockings came from the house and calmed the dogs by scattering a handful of biscuits on the pebbles. With a beleaguered air and a ring of keys larger than at least two of the dogs, he unlocked the gate and swung it wide on rusted hinges.

“This rabblerash won’t bite,” he said in the thick roll of the coast. “They pretend they’re fierce, but every one of them is a cowardly varmut.”

“Thank you. I am—”

“No need to tell me.” He waved impatiently. “Won’t remember anyway. Come to see the master, and I’ll take you to him. He’s in the dungeon, it being Tuesday. The boy there’ll take your beasts. They’ll be well cared for. If they’re not, the master’ll flay the whelp alive.”

The stable boy, a lad of no more than eight, took the mare’s lead from Eleanor’s hand and gave her an enormous wink.

Betsy cowered close as they approached the door. “Do you believe in ghosts, miss?”

“I don’t believe that anything from the past can harm me unless I allow it to, Betsy.” Stealing a glance at the man beside her, she found his eyes quite serious upon the building’s facade.

“Very wise,” he said.

Sir Wilkie’s servant ushered them forward. Within, all was cold and damp and stuffed to the ceilings with objects. To one side of the foyer, chairs of all sizes and fabrics were stacked one on top of another. The other side seemed decorated by a mad artist, with easels and half-finished paintings and palettes of paint all cluttered together, cups of paintbrushes and old rags like mismatched rainbows scattered throughout.

“This way. This way.” The servant gestured past the stairwell and to a door at the rear of the foyer.

Betsy dug her heels into the floor. “I’m not going down into a dungeon, miss. I’ll stay right here and wait for you, if you don’t mind.”

“Why don’t you find the kitchen and call up some tea for us all? I think it’s likely we’ll find there isn’t a mistress here.”

Betsy nodded, cast Taliesin a narrowed glance, and disappeared through a door behind a stack of chairs.

Taliesin held the door open for her and she went before him into the bowels of Drearcliffe Manor. The space darkened swiftly as she descended and her feet sought each steep step more slowly than the last. The glow of firelight came behind her. Taliesin passed a candle to her.

“Ah,” she said, accepting it. “You have been in dungeons before, I assume.”

“You assume correctly.”

At the base of the stair she halted. The air here was dryer than above, smelling of dust and resonant of glue. The candle illuminated piles upon piles of books. Stacked against the walls, books by the hundreds made a narrow corridor of brown and red and blue and green that glimmered with dull gold.

“Sir Wilkie is an avid reader, it seems,” the man at her shoulder said.

“He is a hoarder.” She ran her fingertip along the closest bindings and brought it away dusty. “He keeps things, even things he does not wish to keep, because he cannot rid himself of them. Even though he might try, it is too painful for him to let them go.”

“I can understand that well enough.”

She turned her face up to his. Deep eyes. Sculpted mouth. Satin hair. Her hands wanted to touch all of him. Longing lashed her thoughts and strapped her belly.

“You should not have kissed me,” she whispered.

He leaned in, surrounding her in the tight space. “Actually.” His eyes scanned her features, resting finally upon her lips. “You kissed me.”

“I—”

“Ussel now, miss! Sir!” Sir Wilkie’s manservant called from beyond the books. “The master’s waiting.”

She pivoted and followed the corridor between the stacks, glad of the dark that hid her fiery cheeks. Gradually the stack to her right descended from the ceiling to head height, then lower, revealing the thick bars of a jail cell against which were piled yet more books on the other side.

An opening appeared to her left. Sir Wilkie’s servant stood just within.

The cell was not terribly large, and decorated with more stacked books. A squat, coal-burning stove was the source of the dry air. Beside it was a small writing table and a large, comfortable leather chair with a gentleman of advanced years ensconced in it. Scraggly gray hair topped with an old wig and tied with a ribbon framed a face lined with wrinkles. A pair of shrewd, bespectacled lapis lazuli gems peered at her.

“Who are you and what do you want?” His voice was rough and as aged as his velvet coat and breeches.

“I am Eleanor Caulfield.” She curtsied. “This is my traveling companion, Mr. Wolfe.”

His sharp blue eyes focused tighter. “A Gypsy, eh?” He made an impatient gesture to his servant. “Mr. Fiddle, lock up the silver. Can’t be too careful with a Gypsy in the house.”

“Yes, sir,” Mr. Fiddle said, and departed.

“I don’t suppose it would relieve you to know that I haven’t any interest in your silver.” Taliesin glanced about. “Your books, on the other hand, would make quite the library in my house. I’ve just the room for it.”

“Aha, speak like a gentleman, do you? Dress like one too. But I’ve seen my fair share of cozeners, young man. I’ll not be bamboozled by a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” Sir Wilkie scowled. “Well. Speak up, missy. I’m a busy man. I can’t be bothered by every pretty young thing that comes calling. What is it you want? If it’s to poach in my wood, I won’t have it. Smelled shot smoke yesterday beyond the ford. I’ve never heard of a Gypsy hunting with a firearm. More likely to eat what’s already dead and call it the Almighty’s blessing. But if it was some other menfolk of yours”—he pointed a bony finger at her—“then you’d best tell them to hare off my land or I’ll send Fiddle with the Manton to flush ’em out.”

“I’m sorry to hear that you must endure poachers, Sir Wilkie,” she said. “But I can assure you we have only just arrived at this hour. I understand that you collect odd objects, and have in your possession items that have washed ashore. Items from shipwrecks.” She didn’t know why she should be clutching her fingers together tightly now, nor why the ring that Arabella had given her seemed especially heavy in her pocket.

“Interested in a shipwreck, are you?” His eyes narrowed. “Which one?”

“Unfortunately, I don’t know. It happened twenty-three years ago. I don’t suppose you’ve been collecting items since then?”

He scowled. “I’ve been collecting since I was a lad, and I’m not a day under seventy.”

“Could I perhaps see the items that you have collected from the sea, sir? I would be tremendously grateful.”

“I don’t give a sow’s ear for your gratitude, missy. I haven’t got the time or the patience to gather every scrap of wreckage in this house for your perusal.”

“But, sir, I—”

“Don’t ‘But, sir’ me, missy. I’ve said no and that’s an end to it.” He stood up. “Now where’s Fiddle gone to? He’ll show you out. Did you ride? Come in a carriage? He’ll make sure your animals get what they need.”

“Sir Wilkie.” She moved toward him. Where her skirt brushed against his writing table it pressed the ring into her thigh. “If you would be so kind as to let me look about your house a bit before we leave, I would—”

“Look about my house? What’ll you be demanding next, I wonder? Peeking in my drawers while I’m still wearing them? Aha! That’s made her color up when her nosy presumption didn’t.”

“Oh.” The notion of Sir Wilkie’s drawers strangled her. “I don’t think—”

“Sir.” Taliesin’s voice was deep. He did not step forward or move, but all at once his shadowy presence seemed to fill the small space. “Miss Caulfield has the most benign interest in your house and belongings, and she has requested your assistance without demanding that you disturb yourself unreasonably. She deserves your apology.”

Sir Wilkie’s bright blue eyes bulged. “Well . . . I . . .”

“I agree.” The voice came from behind her, clear and firm. A young man stood in the opening of the doorway, his guinea bright hair making a contrast with the gloom of the dungeon library.

“Sir Wilkie has spoken atrociously, madam,” he said with an easy smile. “And he must apologize at once or I shan’t remain.”

“Young jackanapes.” Sir Wilkie glared. He cast an agitated glance at Taliesin, and bowed. Then with another glare at both men, he slumped back down in his chair. “She’s welcome to look. But if she removes a single item, I’ll run them both off my property.” A defiant jaw jutted toward Taliesin.

“And that, I’m afraid, is all that he is likely to oblige us,” the stranger said to Taliesin. A rueful grin spread good humor across his chiseled features.

“Thank you, sir,” Eleanor said. “You are kind to help.”

Taliesin remained silent, his attention intent upon the newcomer.

“I understand you have only just arrived,” the stranger said. “Why don’t we all go upstairs and enjoy some refreshments while Fiddle collects the items you wish to see?”

“I should like that.” The ring burned against her leg. “But who, may I ask, is proffering the invitation?”

He stepped forward into the lamplight and made an elegant bow. “Welcome to Drearcliffe, Miss Caulfield.” His bright blue eyes upon her were appreciative. He nodded to Taliesin. “Mr. Wolfe.” His attention returned to her. “I am Sir Wilkie’s grandson. My name is Robin Prince.”