The Highland Dragon's Lady (14 page)

As they talked, the lightning outside slowed, then stopped. The clouds began to break up and drift away. Looking out the window, Reggie thought that they’d be gone within half an hour. The sky would be as blue as it had been in the morning, the birds would sing, and only some fallen branches would testify that anything had ever been otherwise.

She wished she could make herself calm again as quickly. Either she managed a decent bluff or everyone else was too rattled to take notice of how many times she wiped her hands on her skirt, or how often she had to lick her dry lips.

She wanted to be sick. More than that, she wanted to crawl somewhere dark, curl up, and wake when the whole damned mess was over—when the ghost had been found and put to rest and Whitehill was just Whitehill again, without mysterious white figures, sudden storms, or homicidal birds. Reggie had asked what to do now, but her first impulse had been to storm at her father:
You
couldn’t have left well enough alone, could you?
It would have been better, she’d thought just then, if they’d never tried to contact the ghost at all.

Of course, Janet could have turned deadly anyhow in time—or been deadly already. A broken ankle could have been a broken neck. And if Pater hadn’t decided to pry, she’d never have met Colin.

Almost as soon as she thought
that
, Reggie told herself not to be revolting. No man was worth having a dozen people in danger. Besides, if she’d never met Colin, she’d never have missed him, so that line of thinking was stupid as well as horrible.

Even so, when she met his eyes, the impulse to run away faded, and she was at least glad that she hadn’t stayed in London. Looking at him or hearing his voice made Reggie feel as though there was at least a chance that everything was going to turn out all right, and that she was doing some sort of good.

Also, he made a dashed pleasant distraction. Even sitting at a decorous distance from him, and watching him lean against the wall and look weary, Reggie only had to let her gaze travel the length of his sleek thighs or dwell on the thin yet sensual lines of his lips to feel her body tingle. The scratches on his face and the bandages on his arm didn’t detract from the effect, oddly enough.

“Regina?”

Mater’s voice pulled her, blushing again, out of her carnal reverie. “Um. Yes. Sorry. Yes?”

“Your father and I are going down to the village to see that everything’s all right. Will you and Edmund be able to see to our guests?”

“Yes,” Reggie said, stifling a wholly inappropriate fit of giggles regarding which guests she’d be happy to “see to.”

“Downstairs seems the ticket for most of us,” said Edmund. “Our current hostess excepted, I’m afraid.” He bowed a little to Mrs. Osbourne.

“I’d best clear up the candles,” said Miss Browne.

“I should help,” said Mr. Heselton. “The exorcism was my doing, after all.”

“But your ankle—”

“I’ll do it,” Reggie said. “The rest of you go raid the pantry. Edmund can show you how. I don’t think I’ll summon anything nasty.”

“Not with my guidance, at least,” said Mrs. Osbourne.

There wasn’t actually very much to snuffing candles, not even ones that had been lit in a mystical circle, not now that the ghost was out of the house, at least. Reggie went counterclockwise at Mrs. Osbourne’s instruction, but she didn’t feel any particular power leave or build as the candles went out.

“I probably shouldn’t make a wish,” she said, looking up from the next-to-last one.

Mrs. Osbourne laughed, though not too heartily. She was still being careful about her ribs. “You could if you wanted,” she said. “I think I’ve already wished on these particular candles, though. Their virtue might be exhausted.”

“Have you?”

“More or less. That’s a substantial chunk of what magic is, you know—wishing hard enough and doing it through the appropriate channels.”

“Huh,” said Reggie, and she set the blown-out candle on the dresser in a neat row with the others. They’d tell the servants that the gas had gone out, probably. Mater was decent at making up stories when she needed to be. “How long have you been doing this?” she asked, turning to look at Mrs. Osbourne.

The medium was wearing a pink dressing gown with ruffles at the sleeves and the neck. Her hair was down, the covers were pulled up to her waist, and her nightstand held a box of chocolates, two green bottles, and a half-read novel:
Cut
by
the
County
. She didn’t look like a magician, all pointy hat and star-spangled robe. Aside from being female, she didn’t look like a gnarled old witch, either.

But when she smiled and said, “Most of my life—and that’s a while, though I won’t tell you exactly how long,” Reggie believed her.

Kneeling again, she picked up the last candle. “You are the—well, the genuine article.” Puff went the flame. “I always thought most mediums were fakes.”

“Most of them are. Like many businessmen and not a few doctors. Even I’m not entirely honest all the time. It’s a hard world, and most of us have to make a living somehow.”

“And the spirits don’t always answer?”

“Or they answer too well. I never wanted to tell a client that his son barely knew him when he was alive and doesn’t care much now, or that her husband misses his mistress—or his card game—more than he does her. There’s no comfort in it for them and no money for me.” She gestured languidly toward the nightstand. “Chocolate? I should warn you, I’ve eaten the hazelnuts already.”

“Er—”

“I find that they settle the nerves wonderfully. So much worry comes from a lack of adequate food. Particularly in young ladies.”

Helpless before that line of argument, Reggie took a chocolate. It turned out to be strawberry cream. “Maybe,” she said. “You seem calm enough, that’s for certain.”

“Oh, that’s mostly the laudanum, dear.”

“Right,” Reggie said slowly. “I’d guess it would be.”

Mrs. Osbourne chuckled again, low and throaty. “Granted, I also won’t be in much danger now that Madam Morgan’s out of the house. I’d be fretting more about the lot of you if I was entirely in my right mind, though, I assure you—I’m not completely callous.” She leaned back against her pillows. “I should have broken bones long before this. It gives one such wonderful license.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Reggie, laughing herself this time. “I’d thought you just had too much experience to worry.”

“I’m flattered. But one never has too much experience to worry in situations like this. Not that I’ve been involved in anything precisely like the current state of affairs. Most of the spirits I’ve encountered have been rather peaceful. Surly, at worst. I’d never met one who’d dabbled in the black arts, let alone one who was partly a demon.” Mrs. Osbourne sighed. “I doubt anyone will believe me if I tell them what’s happened here. I never quite believed the stories I heard.”

“You’d heard about demons?”

“Here and there, and very vaguely. Nothing particularly useful. It’s too bad, because I rather like being the source of knowledge on these excursions. Now the Scottish young man gets to hold forth while I’m reduced to an ornament. I hope your father doesn’t mind terribly.”

“Not at all. Pater simply feels guilty that you got injured.” Reggie picked up the candles, then stopped. “What about other things? Other beings, that is?”

Mrs. Osbourne blinked. “What about them?”

“Well—have you ever met anything that wasn’t human? Alive or dead.” Reggie was glad she was holding the candles. She wanted to rub the back of her neck and was sure that would give away that the question wasn’t entirely offhand. “Um. Mermaids or, um, fairies, or dragons, or, I don’t know, angels?”

“I’ve never met any such thing, no,” said Mrs. Osbourne, forehead wrinkling as she thought. “I don’t think I’ve ever been virtuous enough—or wicked enough—for angels, and I doubt I’d see a mermaid unless she took a liking to Blackpool. And I’m still alive and unburned, which would seem to let out dragons. Why?”

Reggie rearranged the candles she was holding. “Just wondering. I mean to say, if ghosts and demons and all that are real, there’s nobody to say that other things from stories might not be out there somewhere.”

“Quite possibly,” said Mrs. Osbourne. “I doubt one would know about fairies—nobody ever seems to, in stories, unless they announce themselves as one’s godmother—and there’s plenty of the world that nobody’s been to yet. I did meet a talking cat once, and a friend of mine knew a man who was supposed to be three hundred years old. He was human, though, or so she said.”

“How would a human being live that long?”

“Oh, magic, I suppose. There are men in China who say it’s all a matter of having the right sort of elemental balance. And one hears about the Philosopher’s Stone and so forth. I’ve honestly never bothered investigating. The Other Side seems quite restful to me. Have another chocolate.”

This one was coconut. Reggie chewed it thoughtfully. “You’d probably get bored,” she said eventually, “and also feel superior to everyone. If you lived that long. There’d be no living with you.”

Mrs. Osbourne shrugged. “With some justification. Once one sees a few hundred years, I’d imagine that neither the world nor the rest of us can be very surprising. And when one knows a pattern, the people who don’t see it must seem very stupid at times. Petty and emotional. Like schoolchildren at dinnertime.”

“Oh,” said Reggie.

“Are you all right?”

“Chocolate,” she said. “Swallowed too quickly.”

Also, it felt like a large invisible hand was squeezing her rib cage, but that was probably the corset and the aftereffects of fear. Surely she couldn’t be upset hearing Mrs. Osbourne confirm what Reggie had already known, or should have known, herself. If she was upset, it was only because the day had been long and unsettling. The week had been long and unsettling.

“Still and all,” said Mrs. Osbourne, “I’d imagine the man would have some fascinating stories. I should write—wouldn’t mind meeting him.” Her voice was getting hazier. “Wouldn’t object to meeting any of the beings you mentioned. Except dragons, naturally. I make”—she yawned—“a very bad Saint George. And probably a very good second course.”

“We’ll have to hope they’re not around these days,” said Reggie, managing another laugh. “Or that they’ve all become too civilized for that sort of thing.”

“Civilized dragons? In top and tails, I suppose? I can just see it.” Mrs. Osbourne shook her head. “You’ve got quite the imagination, Miss Talbot-Jones.”

“My God,” said Colin, stopping in his tracks and staring. “Is that yours?”

He looked back and forth between Reggie, descending the steps to the courtyard, and the machine parked there: a small automobile, black wood and brass fittings polished so that they gleamed even under a hazy sky. Colin had seen his share in France and Germany, and even ridden in one or two, but this auto, waiting in front of Whitehill’s stately walls, was quite incongruous.

Reggie looked suited for it, though. A tan duster wrapped her slim form and flapped around her ankles, and she’d tied a number of veils around her large brown hat. Colin wasn’t surprised when she nodded. “Quite a beauty, isn’t she? I suppose autos are ‘she’—like ships?”

“I don’t think there’s been a tradition established yet,” said Colin. He stepped forward for a closer look. With a horse rather than all of the valves and wheels, the machine could almost have passed for one of the phaetons of his youth. Young men had raced those on occasion—he’d done it himself—and more than one had died as a result. “Is it—she—new?”

“A little more than a year old. Benz ‘Velo’—there’s nobody like the Germans for invention.”

“They’d have said the same of us, from time to time,” said Colin. “Where are you motoring off to?”

“Out to make sure we haven’t overlooked anything,” said Reggie. “I know nobody in town has seen anything strange, or not that they’re talking about, but the road
to
town branches a little ways out from here, and there are some farms on the edges of the property. Some not exactly farms too. If the people there have got odd stories to tell, we might want to cast our nets further when we start hunting through the woods.”

“Wise thought,” said Colin.

“Thank you.” Reggie looked at him, taking in coat and hat and the parcel under his arm. “And you?”

“On the directions of my valet, I’m off to see if Mrs. Jones is willing to talk to strange men bearing cake.”

“I see,” said Reggie. “Have you heard that there are wolves in the forest?”

“I think they died off a while back,” said Colin, “but I’ll not leave the path to pick flowers, I swear.”

“That’s what they always say.”

“Fighting a wolf might be a welcome change, if it comes to that.” Colin rubbed at his forehead. “I’ve been translating from French all morning, and I need a respite before I climb the walls. I just hope I can read my own handwriting on the directions.”

“Let me see?” Reggie asked, then took the half envelope Colin proffered and glanced over it, lips pursed.

When she lifted her eyes, there was an unreadable look in them. Colin felt as if she was weighing him, or perhaps the moment, but he couldn’t tell for what quality or to what end. Then the evaluation was over, and she spoke again. “This is three miles. And it’s not out of my way. Care for a lift?”

“Much obliged,” said Colin.

He didn’t deceive himself. He wouldn’t have minded walking three miles—he’d gone much farther easily in his day, and generally carrying more than a lemon cake. He accepted the offer because Reggie was making it, and the leather seat of the auto was on the small side.

And he wanted to see her drive.

Reggie produced a pair of dark goggles from the duster’s pocket, handed them to Colin, and grabbed another for herself. “Good thing for you that I carry a spare,” she said, pulling hers on. “Just let out the strap in the back.” She mounted to the driver’s seat before Colin could hand her up.

Colin took his own seat—not terrible, particularly in comparison to some of the carriages in which he’d been not so privileged to ride. Reggie’s proximity, so close that he could feel the warmth of her body and smell the scent of lilac from her hair, definitely helped. He leaned back and crossed his legs, trying to look casual.

Whether she knew the source of his agitation or not, when Reggie turned to him, the smile on her lips was pure challenge. “Hang on, Mr. MacAlasdair,” she said, “and don’t fall out.”

She hadn’t spoken without reason. The road out of Whitehill was comparatively smooth. Riding in a carriage, Colin had barely felt it. Now every bump transmitted itself up through the auto and into Colin’s spine, until he felt like his teeth themselves were rattling. Dust and the smell of petrol filled his nose, and the sounds of the motor and the air strove for possession of his ears.

Reggie didn’t drive sedately, either. She didn’t seem careless, from what little Colin could tell, but she cornered sharply and decisively and then went ahead without hesitation, braking when she needed to and not dithering at all. A grin stretched her lips, as wolfish as any Little Red Riding Hood’s foe might have worn, but vastly more attractive.

“You must be a terror on horseback!” Colin shouted over the car and the wind.

Without slowing down, Reggie shook her head. “Decent. I’m better at this, though!”

“How did you get the car down here?”

“Drove down from London.” Her veil whipped into her face and she shook it back impatiently.

“Alone?”

Another shake of her head. “With Jane, my maid. She’s not bad, either. Thinks it’s a fad, though, like Pater.”

Colin’s ears and voice were both adjusting, though he wasn’t sure if anyone who wasn’t a dragon would have been up to the task of making conversation over the noise. “Edmund?”

“Likes horses better. Horses care if you shout at ’em. That’s why I like autos. They do what they do no matter how you talk. Also, it feels a bit like flying.” She laughed into the wind and shot him a look out of the corner of her eyes. “Or maybe not.”

“Flying doesn’t rattle your teeth,” said Colin.

“I’ll get you an extra cushion next time. This isn’t as hard on the muscles, though, I’ll wager.”

“There’s that,” Colin began, “but—”

Thunk.

Colin’s side of the auto dropped an inch, and the whole mechanism lurched along for a few more seconds before jerking to a stop. Steadying himself, Colin grabbed Reggie’s shoulder just in time to keep her from pitching forward or out. The smell of heated metal and petrol smoke rose up around them.

“Oh, damn,” said Reggie quietly but with immense feeling. She pulled a lever, bringing the remaining mechanical sounds to a halt, and stalked out of the auto. With an irritated gesture, she yanked her goggles up onto her forehead. “Stay there, will you? I’ll need the light.”

They’d stopped on the side of a fairly wide road, with oak and aspen trees partly screening them from the fields of grain beyond. Colin couldn’t see any human figures in those fields, even when he removed his own goggles, and there certainly wasn’t anyone on the road.

“Should we stay here?” he asked. “Is it likely to explode?”

From below the automobile’s front, Reggie’s voice rose up. “No. And why would you care? You’re immortal.”

“Only long-lived and hardy, I’m afraid. An explosion might not kill me, but it wouldn’t leave me feeling my best. Besides, I was concerned for you.”

“Well, don’t be.” Reggie stood up and came around to Colin’s side. “I do well enough. Or will until Pater and Edmund hear about this and give me the devil.”

She knelt again, putting the top of her head on a level with Colin’s thigh. The posture stopped just short of suggestive. It would have been blatantly so if he’d turned toward her, and he badly wanted to. Her proximity, combined with the minor shock of the last few minutes, had desire pulsing through him again.

Acting on desire on a public road was unwise, Colin reminded himself. Acting on desire with Reggie in her current mood, and all her concentration on the present calamity, would probably get him slapped. She was trying to fix their current predicament, and she might actually know how.

“Do you need a hand?” he asked, talking mostly to the crown of her hat. “I could lift up the wheel if you want.”

“No need,” said Reggie, rising with a disgusted sigh. “I can see the problem from here—there’s a part that’s supposed to be down there and isn’t. Probably the screw came loose and it dropped off on the road.”

“Should we go and find it?”

“Yes,” said Reggie, “but we should find a farmer first. One with a couple of strong horses and an hour to spare in return for a ten-bob note. I’ll have to get this back to Whitehill and then have a man come out for the repairs.”

The breeze gusted past them, tugging at Reggie’s veils again. It was chilly at the back of Colin’s neck, and he saw Reggie shiver as well. “Do you know the people who live over there?” He gestured to a house and barn, just visible beyond the waving corn.

She shook her head. “No, but they’re a place to start.”

They walked quickly. Overhead, the sky had gone from hazy to slate colored: not a promise of rain, but a threat. “I hadn’t known how bad the roads out here were for driving,” said Reggie, after a few yards. “I’m afraid this is a far cry from saving you time.”

“The afternoon’s young.”

“I could walk this on my own, if you want to go on. We’re not too very far from Mrs. Jones’s house.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” said Colin. “Once you offered, I also thought my visit might go better with a woman there. Old ladies are suspicious creatures on occasion.”

“I suspect you’d manage to charm her,” said Reggie. She stared off toward the farmhouse, and whatever had crossed her mind was clearly still on it, but she did laugh. “And this would all be rather dire without company, so thank you. I suppose horses do have some advantages, even now. Though I’d take it harder if mine broke its leg.”

“Is that what this is like?”

“Hard to say. Horses don’t generally have parts drop off, at least not that I’ve ever experienced,” Reggie said, and with that, they found themselves in the yard of the farmhouse.

It did not look promising. The yard itself was a neat little place, with a swept path to the door and a red-painted chicken coop, but it was also empty. Nobody came out the door to meet them, though a large ginger tabby slunk around the corner of the house and eyed them with nonchalant suspicion. Through the curtained windows, Colin could see no light, and when they knocked, there was no response from inside.

“It’s a large enough house,” said Reggie. “Try again?”

He did. The cat stared at the noise, then trotted briskly off to parts unknown. Other than that, there was no reaction.

“Probably gone to the seaside for a week,” said Reggie sarcastically. “Just our luck.”

At that, because the universe had a sense of timing, the rain started.

It was a cold rain, which fell in big no-nonsense drops, and the wind picked up with it, making it very clear that the eaves of the farmhouse weren’t likely to do him and Reggie much good. Reggie pressed herself against the side of the house regardless, swearing under her breath in terms that, while not as profane as Colin had ever heard, would probably have shocked the respectable owners of the house.

“This is going to go on for a while, isn’t it?” she finally said.

“Odds are,” Colin said, leaning back against the wall and trying not to anticipate wet feet. His boots would hold out until they didn’t; there was nothing he could do.

“Then for the love of God, let’s find the barn. I think I saw one around the back.”

Running would have been pointless, since they didn’t know their destination. Instead, they squelched their way around the house, determined and silent, until the great bulk of a barn came in sight and Reggie let out a small cheer.

“Hayloft,” said Colin, spotting a ladder and gesturing to it. “It’ll be warmer and drier.”

“And have fewer cows,” said Reggie, climbing in a flurry of muddy boots and skirts. The duster kept Colin, following her, from getting the sort of view he’d have killed for as a youth. The modern age had its disadvantages.

Finally they hauled themselves up into the loft, breathing the sweet smell of hay and peeling off drenched boots and coats. Another oath from Reggie made Colin look up to find her struggling with the knot of her veil, which the rain had condensed into an impenetrable soggy ball. “You don’t have a knife, do you?” she asked.

“No,” he said, “but stand still.”

Walking over, the hay pleasantly scratchy beneath his damp feet, he stopped a few inches from Reggie. “Raise your chin,” he said, and when she complied, he took the gauze between his fists and yanked. It parted easily.

“Oh, thank you.” Reggie sighed, pushing off hat and veils and shaking her head so that her hair went tumbling down her back. “You’ve saved my sanity.”

She didn’t step back from him. Instead, she looked up at him, with her skin flushed from the rain and exertion, her lips red and her eyes bright. Colin had never had pretensions to sainthood.

“Only for my own purposes,” he said and pulled her into his arms.