The Ground She Walks Upon (9 page)

"Ye've just coom home, indeed, but here ye be talkin' of Dublin. Ye can't go there alone." Grania persisted. " 'Tis necessary to have a husband."

"I—I won't be leaving soon, Grania. Not until... not until there's no longer a reason to stay here." Ravenna's lips grew taut as she measured tea from a rusty tin. Her education had been superb, but she still made tea her own way, water in the pot and then the tea, the English be damned.

"Are ye sayin', child, that ye'll be waitin' here until I die? 'Tis a foolish waste of time if ye are." Grania cleared her aged, phlegmy throat and placed a gnarled hand on the cat on her lap. In the years Ravenna had been gone, it seemed there was a whole new crop of cats taking the charity to be offered at Grania's cottage. Ravenna petted the fat brindle, Zelda, still Grania's favorite, and wondered if she was destined to be the kind of woman Grania was, to live in a cottage full of stray cats, to weave her tales for the town's children. And to be called a witch.

Grania suddenly pointed a serpentine finger at her and said with a passion, "I'll not be dyin' soon, Ravenna. Not 'til you're wed and taken care of. There's no doubt about that. I failed ye mother. I'll not fail her daughter."

"You didn't fail Mother," Ravenna said quietly. "She loved my father, I know it."

Grania grew still. "I think she loved him too, lass, but I haven't had a vision givin' me the certainty of it."

"Then enough of this sadness. I've come home. For now we still have our house, and
some
money. There's no pressing need for me to be off to Dublin now. I've taken

Trevallyan's punishment and wiped the slate clean. Let's begin anew."

"Ye mustn't think he punished ye. He didn't."

Ravenna didn't answer.

"I sent ye to school of me own free will."

Ravenna still didn't comment.

"I don't want ye to be seein' that Malachi again, now that ye are back. 'Twas one of the reasons the father convinced me to send ye off."

"Malachi had nothing to do with what I did," Ravenna was quick to answer. "I haven't seen him in five years. You can't make me turn my nose up at him if I see him on the street. He's the only friend I've ever had."

"He's a rebel. They say he's running with the White Boys. Ye need to make other friends, Ravenna."

She shook her head. "There aren't any more White Boys, Grania. And I can't make other friends. No decent person in Lir will acknowledge me. 'Tis not worth the trouble to try."

"They've forgiven Brilliana by now. Ye'll see."

"No. I don't believe it. And they think you're a witch, and you've done nothing to disprove it. I hear you're still mixing brews and potions and selling them to the townfolk. All the fine English schooling in the world won't make them see me as anything but the witch's bastard granddaughter, a girl born too low to be their equal, and now one cursed by an education that makes her all too aware of such things."

"Ye'll fit in one day. I've seen it."

"How?" Ravenna asked, wishing fervently Grania would tell her, because she could never see such a possibility for herself without leaving for Dublin.

"Just ye wait, me girl. Just ye wait. Now here's Father Nolan a-knockin' at the door. Why, ye best be answerin' it quick before he thinks less of our hospitality."

Ravenna looked up from her scribblings and breathed in the wild salt air of Lir. She had been home less than a week and already the old ways were taking hold of her. Her feet were bare and dusty. She had hung boiled bed linens to dry in the sun and then unceremoniously plopped down in the fragrant grass and begun to write. A breeze wafted from the sea, lifting her tangled black curls from her nape and blowing them gently from her face as she reread her scrawl. There was a smudge of soot down her nose where she had rubbed it after tending the laundry fire. The trappings of her English education were as abandoned as the puddle of soapy water left to drain down the hill toward the thin blue line of the sea.

She was happy. So happy in fact that only Aidan, her faerie tale prince in shining armor, come
to
take her
to
his castle, could have made her happier. The Weymouth-Hampstead School was in the past, Grania's knees were feeling better with the mist gone from the glen, and Ravenna had come home. Bother having friends, she thought, holding her arms out wide to embrace the sight of Lir's four emerald fields. The standing stone was like an old familiar, and her feet were finally free of those stiff, terrible boots. Friends were something she had always longed for, and perhaps always would, but in the meantime, she was home. She had her tales of Aidan and Skya for company, and she told herself with utter conviction that there was nothing more in the world she wanted.

"Why don't ye go for
a
walk in the glen? Meself, I think I'll sit here in the sun and listen
to
the wind whip the laundry," Grania said, cackling with delight over a batch of new kittens a neighbor had brought them after having found them abandoned in a roadside ditch. Three kittens clung to Grania's apron and one,
a
black one they named Malcolm, was nestled on the old woman's shoulder, purring so loudly Ravenna could hear it over the wind.

"Do the deer still bound through the clearing where the violets grow?" Ravenna asked, her English-schoolgirl manners fighting the urge to run free through her old haunts.

"Yes, me child. Go see them. 'Tis been a long time."

"It's a glorious day for a walk." Ravenna paused, wondering what Headmistress Leighton would think of a ramble through the forest unchaperoned. It did seem reckless. She was a young woman now, not a child, but the ache to go was almost a physical pain.

"Perhaps I will go." She tied her hair with a glossy purple-satin ribbon, the best she owned, then gathered her papers and wiped her inky fingers on her apron. She was back in Ireland now; back in her beautiful Lir, the townland that she had dreamed of, longed for, forever it seemed. A morning walk while the dew still clung to the grasses was not the shocking, wanton behavior it might have been back in England.

She took one last look at Grania, who was as content petting her kittens as God was at making time. Gingerly, she brought up the topic she was restless to know more about. "I see the townsfolk are still bringing you their unwanted animals. Don't you fear they may become a drain on the pocketbook?"

Grania laughed while the kitten clung to her shoulder. " 'Tis not a fear of that, me child."

"And why not?" Ravenna asked, staring at the old woman. She could no longer squelch the urge to find out the source of Grania's money. With the fantasy of her father put to death before she had left for England, as an adult she burned to understand.

Grania all at once became sober. "I told ye, my child, the money is from a customer who pays me well for me brews."

Ravenna was cursed with no longer being a child and no longer believing everything she was told. "When I was at school, a stranger sent me a set of silver flatware with the initial R on it. I never told you about my need for it because I didn't want you to spend money on such luxuries. But did you send it, Grania? Do you have so much money that you could afford a set of silver flatware?"

"I heard about the way the girls teased ye. It broke me heart not being there to defend ye. But I didn't send ye the silver, Ravenna. 'Twas not from me."

Ravenna took a deep breath and wondered if she was relieved or only more frustrated. She was sure Grania had sent the silver, even though the old woman might have cleaned the cupboards bare to pay for it. She was so sure, in fact, that before she left London, she'd sold the silver in order to be able to give the money back. But Grania didn't lie, and she was certainly not worried about money. Her grandmother had not sent the silver, so Ravenna had only more unanswered questions. There wasn't a soul in the world she could think of who would send her such an expensive gift. Who was the mysterious benefactor? Had her father left her an inheritance that Grania wouldn't tell her about?

"Money is no concern of yours, Ravenna, and we must not talk about it again."

She stared at Grania, who had returned to playing with her kittens. The old woman was never going to tell her anything about their money. Grania was not the eccentric old biddy without being stubborn.

"I'll be back before the sun is overhead," Ravenna said, wondering how she would ever find out about her father without Grania telling her. Resolving to wheedle something out of Grania soon, she stared at her blind grandmother one last time, then picked up her skirts to leave.

"Go quick on the heels of the hunt, Ravenna."

"A fox! The hounds are baying like wolves! Hear them, Trevallyan?" The young lord took a swig from a silver flask, pocketed it, then turned to his host.

Trevallyan sat a black stallion with his usual arrogance. His hunting party numbered seven: two London lords, their personal squires, an Italian duke and a French marquis. All were having a bloody good time, except perhaps Trevallyan himself, who appeared rather bored.

"Go after him, then, Ramsay! By all means, I'd like to see that," Trevallyan said under his breath, giving the young man a rather disparaging look. The morning dew was drier than the young English lord.

"By God, I will!" Ramsay thundered in a burst of bravado. He gathered up his reins and kicked his steed to a full gallop, all the while tottering dangerously in the saddle.

"I give him two minutes before he falls on his arse," Lord Chesham said, ruefully watching his partner bounce off his saddle, then luckily bounce back into it again.

A deer bounded through the woodland, nearly jumping over Ravenna in its haste to be gone. The sun shone gold on its mottled young coat, and Ravenna felt a swell of pity at the thought that it was no doubt frightened by hunters.

Gathering handfuls of sweet fragrant violets to bring to Grania, she raised the flowers to her nose and lost herself in their innocent scent. It was then she heard the hounds.

They were still far in the distance, howling like the savage dogs they were. She gave little thought to them, knowing that Trevallyan was known to frequently run his hounds, but when the sound came nearer, she felt more and more like the young doe that had white-tailed through the glen. She realized it wasn't good sense to be walking in the woods when the master of Trevallyan was out on a hunt. Anything was fair game. Perhaps even a young woman.

She gathered the last of her flowers and stuffed them into the pockets of her apron. The baying grew louder, the sound a sweep of ice down her spine. They had to be going after a fox, but she had no way of knowing if the fox had crossed her path. If it had, she might be in dire trouble.

Half-walking, half-running, she crossed the grass meadow. Briars snatched at her hem and slowed her down. The dogs' baying grew louder.

"Damn," she whispered to herself, cursing the idle rich, and more pointedly the man she remembered from that strange encounter so long ago. "I'll not let them hunt me like a fox."

"Trevallyan! Must be a leash of foxes! I've never heard the hounds in such a frenzy!" Lord Chesham called ahead as he cantered through the woods on his hunter.

Trevallyan, Master of the Hunt, galloped hard in the forefront. His scarlet coat made an easy marker to follow as he tried to gain upon the hounds. But all at once, he brought his mount to a stop.

Leaning down, he pulled a long satin hair ribbon from the broken twigs of a bush. Sternly, he lifted one fine eyebrow and shouted to the men riding up behind him, "Fools, the lot of you! 'Tis not a fox at all! The damned hounds are off their scent! They're going after a girl."

Lord Chesham nearly pulled his mount up in his surprise. "Why do you say that, Trevallyan?"

Trevallyan gripped the purple ribbon. He whipped his horse on, a grim expression lining his handsome face. "Look down, Chesham. Then pray we are not too late."

Ravenna ran until her heart thumped in her chest and her lungs screamed for air. The pain in her side was like a nail being driven between her ribs. She ran and ran until the briars sliced her feet to bloody, stinging agony, but still she couldn't outrun the hounds that trailed her. The baying grew more hysterical. If she was in the path of a fox, she might be torn to shreds by the bloodthirsty hounds before their master could stop them. And if she was not in the path of a fox, if the hounds had mistakenly somehow begun to track her, then outrunning them wouldn't work. She was doomed.

I am not a fox, you bloody curs!
she thought, now knowing how it felt to be the fox, stricken with terror as it ran from a pack of obsessed, flesh-ripping hounds. Her skirts caught in the brambles and her ankle twisted in a depression. She righted herself and ran again, the hounds more quick by half.

Branches whipped at her face and clawed at her clothing. Wild-eyed, she searched for a marker or a telltale tree that would give her an orientation, but she could find none. The forest of her girlhood had changed. She couldn't remember the direction of the nearest cottage.

The baying grew louder and more violent. The first bitch hound nipped at her heels. Screaming, she tried to pull herself up onto an oak, but her skill at climbing trees had long ago been driven away in favor of the less useful skills of making tea and embroidery. She jumped, and got a good grip on the first branch, but in her heavy skirts, she couldn't get a foothold on the tree. Other hounds came streaming into the clearing, yowling like Puritans on a witch hunt. Ravenna kicked at them, still holding on to the tree branch. Another second, all she needed was one more precious second, and she'd be up in the tree.

Panting, she swung her feet to get one of them around the thick oak branch. Dogs leapt at her, their vicious teeth ripping her skirts. Two grabbed a fold of her gown and hung on with their mouths, weighing her down. Others followed. Soon, she couldn't escape. Her grasp slipped on the tree branch. She screamed and fell into the pack.

"Hold hard! Hold hard!" she heard a stern male voice shout from above.

But it was too late. Protecting her face with her hands, she waited for the salivating, tearing jaws to clamp on to her.

Dogs were everywhere, bumping her, sniffing her, their tails slapping her, but none of them bit. One command of their master had turned the rabid pack into a tame, even polite, gathering of beagles.

Stunned, Ravenna took a moment to catch her breath. A hand appeared from the pack of hounds and lifted her gently to her feet. Six men on horses surrounded her, but her gaze, blurred with fearful tears, could hardly make them out.

She brushed a heavy lock of black hair out of her eyes and glared at the man standing in front of her. A jolt of recognition passed through her. It was Trevallyan, of course, for he was the only one in the county who owned hunting hounds. He appeared older than she remembered, but he was still fit and lordlike in his manner. Recognition fired in his eyes also. They had both changed since that ill-fated day she had broken into his bedchamber; she had grown from a child into a woman, and he had gray streaked through his blond hair.

"Ravenna."

The harsh whisper caught her off-guard. There was a strange emotion in the rasp of her name, and for several seconds, she could only stare at him, caught like
a
spider in the web of his shocked stare.

"What are you doing, walking in the woods alone when I'm running my hounds?" he said, wiping all emotion from his face. His words cut the silence like the rip of a bedsheet.

"I—I—" She suddenly boiled with anger. She had paid her price to Trevallyan. She owed him nothing now. He might be the ruler of the county. Others might fear him, but she wouldn't. She despised him too much. "I could have been killed by these beasts!" She flung out her hand, gesturing to the dozens of hounds that milled at their feet.