Tarleton's Wife (41 page)

Julia woke drenched in sweat, gasping for breath. Her final glimpse of the appalling scene had been… How was it possible? An enveloping warmth.

And hope.

“The baby smiled.”

“What?” Nicholas was too much the soldier not to be instantly awakened by his wife’s distress. He opened his eyes to find her sitting bolt upright beside him, hugging her arms in front of her.

“It was The Nightmare,” Julia explained. “I’ve had it only one other time this past year. In London. It seemed to be a warning. This was much, much worse. Horrible! And yet…at the end the baby smiled.”

Nicholas pushed himself up, leaning back against the ornately carved oak headboard. “You’d best tell me about it,” he said.

From the very beginning Julia had hugged The Nightmare to herself in secrecy, as if the telling of it would unleash its fiendish images into the real world of daylight. Even Meg and Sophy knew only the barest outline of its terrors. But now she told the whole story from the beginning. From the first days at The Willows when she curled in upon herself, uncertain she could bear the agony of her grief. The long days of apathy when her mind would not function, the nights that plunged her back into a world of horror.

“And then The Dream came,” Julia said. “Suddenly you were with me, Nicholas. By that time I had become so accustomed to the extraordinary I never questioned the how or why of it. You were with me and that was all that mattered.”

Nicholas drew his wife into his arms. He had not realized how much she had suffered. How much she cared. If he had not already been certain she was the woman for him, he would have known it now.

When Julia finally drew away from his chest just far enough to speak, she had to struggle to gather her scattered wits. Love was indeed a miracle. And perhaps not as one-sided as she feared. “Having you with me drove away The Nightmare,” she murmured. “There were a few pale flickers and then it was gone. Forever. Or so I thought until one night in London.”

Nicholas listened intently as Julia described the distorted nightmare which followed her visit to Albemarle House. “Now that you look back on it,” Nicholas asked, “do you still think it a warning?”

“Yes. I fear Viscount Albemarle had far more than his children on his mind. At the time I spoke with him I was too desperate for a position to notice. I was so pleased to be wanted…”

“But your great good sense was still with you,” said Nicholas reasonably. “And in the night it recognized the man for what he was and chose to warn you so that you could reevaluate the situation and heed your own good judgment.” He pushed damp tendrils of hair away from Julia’s face and lightly brushed her lips with his. “Does that not make sense?”

“Yes, of course but tonight it was so much, so very much more frightening. Everything was closer. Most horribly bloody. Colors flickered and swirled—every shade of red, orange…and blue.” Julia’s eyes opened wide as she understood the significance of what she’d seen. “Not blood, Nicholas. It was fire!”

“Do not come the Irish with me, Julia,” Nicholas commanded sharply. “We’re all obsessed with Guy Fawkes at the moment. ’Tis no wonder you dreamed of fire. Was there more?” he asked with a hint of incredulity as his wife plainly remained unconvinced by his pragmatism.

Julia took a deep steadying breath. “I am convinced The Nightmare in London was a warning and you cannot deny we have been together—close together—in dreams neither of us can understand. So how can you deny this nightmare might be a true warning?”

Nicholas took his wife by the shoulders and laid her gently back against the pillow, then lowered himself until he was snug beside her. Propped on one elbow, he hovered over her, considering her question. “I don’t deny the situation is dangerous,” he conceded. “We need all the warnings we can get. I have to admit a fire—if we could only guess where—is highly likely.”

“Nicholas,” Julia gasped, suddenly recalling a detail she had not mentioned. “Nicholas, this time the skeleton—
your
skeleton—dissolved into ash.” Julia clutched Nicholas’ nightshirt, balling it into her fist. Her blue eyes widened into pools of fear. “I’m terrified, Nicholas. I’ve had you back so short a time. I can’t lose you again. I can’t!”

He stopped the tumble of her words with his lips but his mind refused to lose itself in his wife’s allure. He raised his lips just far enough to ask, “Just as I woke, you said something exceedingly odd. About a baby. What was it?”

“The baby smiled.”

“When did the baby smile?” Inwardly, Nicholas mocked himself for getting caught up in this nonsense.

“Just as it ended,” Julia replied, speaking slowly, unsure if she really remembered or had imagined it. “Everything was covered with white ash, even the baby. But his eyes shone black and his lips turned up in smile.” Julia’s fingers touched her husband’s jaw, lingered over his cheekbone, tightened around a handful of his hair. “I remember now…it wasn’t icy anymore. There was warmth…”

Suddenly aware she was pulling Nicholas’ hair hard enough to raise his sandy brows, Julia abruptly let go. Their eyes met. For once, she had her husband’s complete attention. Without a trace of skepticism. “
I did see it!
” she declared. “Though, truthfully, a happy ending to that horror seems very strange indeed.”

“What happened at the end of your other nightmares?”

“I always woke up screaming.”

“So…this
was
different.”

“It was another warning,” Julia mused, “but possibly, also an ending. Yet I fear these particular shades will not go easily. The warning was of fire…violence…and death.”

“Nothing we don’t already know,” Nicholas said. “I’m a soldier, Julia. Death is no stranger. We hoped to prevent trouble but somehow I never really thought we would. Whatever comes, we’ll deal with it with as little loss as possible, I promise you.

“And now,” said Nicholas in a swift shift from soldier to lover, “since we’re both so wide awake…”

Once again, as in The Dream, love triumphed over The Nightmare.

Chapter Twenty

The following morning Julia found her husband in the library frowning over a list of people they hoped could be counted on to exercise restraint during the crisis. There were all too many question marks scrawled next to the names Julia herself had penned. With grim intensity Nicholas circled the names of those he had yet to see.

“Almost everyone will be in church tomorrow,” Julia volunteered. “You can catch any you miss today.”

“Ummm.” Nicholas, list forgotten, seemed not to hear her. His sight was fixed far beyond the list of names, the library, or his wife.

“Nicholas, what is it? Nicholas?”

“I had forgotten tomorrow was Sunday.”

Patiently, she waited for an explanation.

“If I were a good commander and knew the enemy was expecting an attack on a certain day, what would I do?”

Julia’s eyes widened. “Attack early but what does that have to do with tomorrow being Sunday?”

“Most of the cottagers are Methodist, are they not?”

“Yes.” Julia still could find no clue to her husband’s train of thought.

“They are evangelicals, are they not? Keeping the Sabbath more strictly than the Anglicans?” When Julia concurred, he continued, “Then it’s unlikely they’ll mount an attack on the Sabbath. Therefore,” Nicholas’ voice firmed as his thoughts coalesced into something closer to certainty. “Therefore, we’re out of time. It’s tonight.” He strode to the bell pull, gave it a yank. “I wonder if Ellington will believe me.”

“He is a fool if he doesn’t.”

“Good girl,” Nicholas murmured. He pulled her to him, one hand cupping her cheek, his eyes never leaving hers. “You’ll remember all I’ve told you? Tell Daniel to have our guards here well before dark. Stay at home. Go
nowhere
. Promise me, Julia. Stay inside all day today. You did all you could yesterday. Leave the rest to me.”

By the time Peters appeared Nicholas was engaged in composing a hastily scrawled note to Jack. He bade Peters order his horse, a groom to act as messenger and sent for Daniel Runyon. “Do not expect me back tonight. Even if nothing happens, I must see that all remain alert.”

“Nicholas?”

Julia had seen him go into battle so many times he was unprepared for her white face and quivering lips. Once again he gathered her tightly in his arms, pressing her head against his chest. “You’ve followed the drum all your life, Mrs. Tarleton,” he scolded softly over the top of her head. “Don’t turn into a watering pot at this late date. This is England, not Spain. These are our own people. We’ll put a stop to this nonsense before it’s started.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“No…but I’d like to,” he admitted, strangely cheerful. There was something about holding his wife in his arms which gave him an astonishing sense of permanence. Omnipotence. Nightmares be damned. The English Revolution was not going to begin in Lincolnshire.

As Peters announced the major’s horse was ready and accepted the message to be sent to Jack Harding, Nicholas bestowed a lingering kiss on his wife and strode out of the room, never looking back. He was halfway to Ellington Park before it occurred to him to wonder if Julia’s nightmare had served its purpose. Had he been more open to the possibility of hidden dangers? Looked for trouble where all was quiet?

Or was he making a mountain out of a molehill and a fine fool of himself in the bargain?

* * * * *

The day wore on. Ramsey Tarleton and Oliver had disappeared. No doubt, thought Julia with wisdom if not with charity, borne off on some atavistic need to join the dominant male of the species. The women at The Willows occupied themselves in the stillroom, helping Sophy prepare a large supply of her medicinal washes and ointments. Pamela Tarleton surprised them all, proving to have the steadiest hand and greatest patience in mixing equal parts of oil of yarrow and oil of plantain, then carefully grating and adding beeswax to the mixture to form a salve.

“Soldier’s Wound Wort,” pronounced Sophy. “Common yarrow found in nearly any field. ’Tis no wonder soldiers learned its value long ago.”

Earlier Sophy and Mrs. Peters had raided the linen cupboards. Any sheet with so much as a sign of wear found its way into a pile which the maids tore into strips and rolled into bandages. Mrs. Peters herself laid out neat stacks of lint.

Pamela Tarleton paused in the midst of grating beeswax and wiped her brow. Her eyes widened at the steadily growing piles of bandages on the counter at the far end of the large room. “Surely we won’t need this much,” she said in dismay as the import of what they were doing fully struck her.

“It’s best to be prepared,” Sophy returned crisply, without raising her eyes from the pungent steam rising from the pot she was stirring.

Julia had no wish to add to their fright but it was only right that the women understand what they might face. “The men from Nottingham have been unwilling to talk, let alone listen,” she said. “We believe our own cottagers will be loyal. In fact, Daniel and Louis Tyler have hired a goodly number of them as guards.” Many of them, the fathers, husbands and sons of Willow Herbals’ workers. And followers of Captain Hood. Julia never doubted their loyalty.

“Oooo, ma’am,” wailed one of the maids, “I seen men with guns outside and Mr. Tyler ridin’ ‘is big ’orse up and back and ’oldin’ ’is shotgun up like he was agoin’ to defend the ’ouse all by ’issel.”

Julia turned her face away so the maid would not see her smile. Indeed, it was not funny. Defending the castle was a job for knights in armor, not aging estate agents whose expertise lay in sheep, wheat, cows and new methods of irrigation. And the militia was nearly as raw as the farmers and gamekeepers. Only two genuine soldiers among the lot of them—Nicholas and Avery Dunstan.

“Perhaps it’s time for a break,” Julia announced bracingly. “Can you leave your pot, Sophy? I think a peek at the baby and some tea will set us all to rights.” She thanked Mrs. Peters and housekeeper’s helpers, bidding them also to take a well-earned rest.

While Sophy and Pamela Tarleton took turns admiring young Sean Nicholas Runyon, Julia surveyed the front drive and the stable area. The window of the Runyon’s corner room made an excellent vantage point. Louis Tyler was no longer riding up and down in front of the house but armed men could be seen scattered around the perimeter of the house and the outbuildings. The stable boy was bent over a stout pole, industriously attempting to shape one end into a point. Jeffries and one of the grooms were peeling bark off several stout tree branches and smoothing the ends into an easy grip. Even from such a height, the clubs appeared to be lethal. Harkins, the second footman, was polishing the tines of a pitchfork with considerably more fervor than he applied to the household silver.

These were good men, Julia thought. But they had little chance against a determined mob. Presumably the militia was gathering, poised to rush to the site of any disturbance. But the militia was small and the area between Grantley and Nottingham a vast network of back roads, trails and fields lying open in the quiet aftermath of the harvest. Would the mob—if there was a mob—be content with firing hayricks and smashing fences? Julia doubted it.

Later, as she poured tea in the intimacy of her private parlor, Sophy and Pamela peeked through the curtains at the men patrolling the gardens at the rear of the house before seating themselves on a small sofa. Sophy accepted a cup from Julia before announcing, “I hear that Irishman has brought in bully boys from London. If the mill workers have any sense, they’ll think twice before attempting more trouble. Mr. O’Rourke is not a man to be trifled with.”