Breaking the Rules (11 page)

He glanced around a little more. The village maypole lay in the straw against a far wall. It had obviously been freshly painted, and new ribbons had been tied to it in readiness for May Day. Then he saw something hanging on the wall above the maypole. It was as handsome a set of antlers as he’d ever seen. Recalling what had happened on the road just outside the village, he went closer and saw just how fine they were. Highly polished and equal on either side, they were scented with something herbal! His lips parted in surprise, but then he glanced down at the maypole. Of course, they were for the May Day festivities. Morris dancing, no doubt. The figure in the road had been someone practicing for the celebrations in full dress.

The main doors of the stables were open to the yard, and Theo turned as he heard someone leaving the inn. He saw a hooded figure—the woman lurking so mysteriously in the inn, he guessed—hurrying toward the little gate into the field. Then Conan ran out of the inn as well, but was too late.

Theo was about to go see what had happened when something made him glance up with a start. A pair of squirrels chased each other along a beam. Then he saw more—indeed they seemed to be everywhere! Theo didn’t quite know what to think. He wasn’t all that
au fait
with the habits of red squirrels; perhaps they were always to be found in places like this.

Conan was going back inside, and Theo was about to join him after giving Bran one last look to see all was well, but Bran was now standing with his front paws on the wooden partition between his stall and the one next to it, into which very little of the lantern light penetrated. The hound’s tail was wagging, and he whined a little.

What was there? Theo leaned over to look and was startled to see a young woman dressed entirely in white pressing back into the darkest corner. There were squirrels at her feet, and they were facing Bran defiantly, as if protecting her.

“I’ve dreamed of you and seen your face in the flames of the fireplace,” he breathed, but then a groom brought the bucket of water for Bran. The young woman shrank back in terror. The squirrels too melted back into the shadows. Theo turned quickly to take the bucket. “Thank you,” he said, and tossed the man a coin.

The man touched his hat, and glanced curiously at Bran, who was so eagerly intent upon the next stall. ‘‘What’s he seen?” he asked.

“Oh, a mouse, that’s all,” Theo said quickly.

The man accepted the explanation. “Them durned cats don’t earn their keep,” he muttered, and walked off to join his fellows in the coach house.

Theo immediately went around into the other stall. “Who are you?” he asked the young woman.

She took a hesitant step forward, her squirrel escort accompanying her. Her white gown was made of costly satin, with pendulous sleeves and a long train that dragged over the straw. It was richly embroidered—with squirrels, he thought—and was totally unlike any gown he had ever seen before. The lantern light fell across her sweet, heart-shaped face, big green eyes, and the mane of loose red-gold curls that tumbled to her shoulders. His heart turned over at her beauty. But he could see right through her, as if she were colored glass.

“I am known as Eleanor Rhodes,” she said. Her voice was gentle and soft, yet with a frightened undertone.

Theo stared at her. “Lord Carmartin’s Eleanor Rhodes?”

“Yes.” A sound distracted her, and again she glanced at the doorway to the yard. “Please help me,” she begged.

“I will do anything you wish,” he breathed, for he would have laid down his life for her.

Just then a furore arose in the yard. Taynton ran out of the inn, shouting that the squirrel had escaped. The men in the coach house dashed out to him, and the innkeeper ordered them to search everywhere. Eleanor gave a terrified cry, and before Theo could do anything, she gathered the folds of her white gown and fled toward the door into the adjacent coachhouse. Bran began to bark furiously and strained to break free of the rope that tied him to the wall. He snapped and snarled, as if he would tear limb from limb anyone who harmed her.

Fleeing to the coach house was a fatal error of judgment on Eleanor’s part, for directly she passed from Theo’s sight, she ran right into some of Taynton’s men. Theo heard her cry out, and dashed to rescue her, but when he arrived, she was nowhere to be seen. The men were going out into the yard by another doorway, and Theo saw them go to Taynton, who waited by the entrance to the inn. Something was handed to him, wrapped in a piece of cloth. Theo could not see what it was, and then Taynton went back inside. The men dispersed, and calm was restored, except for Bran’s continuing noise from the stables. Of Eleanor Rhodes there was no sign at all. Even the squirrels had gone.

Theo halted in the middle of the yard and glanced all around. She
had
been here, he
had
spoken to her! He ran his hand through his hair.

When Conan’s lady, whom he now began to think of as his Lady of the Ribbons, made her getaway without him discovering her identity, he had returned a little disconsolately to the taproom. He longed to know exactly who she was, for shabby cloak or not, the rest of her clothing he’d glimpsed was of good quality. He regarded himself as her accomplice-in-crime, and as such would at least have liked to know her name. He smiled ruefully, for he was in love with a shadow.

He took his refilled jug of mead back to the corner table, and watched Taynton continuing with his landlordly duties. It wasn’t long before the squirrel’s disappearance was noted, and to Conan’s amazement it was as if someone had stolen the crown jewels! The landlord was beside himself, and every traveler in the room watched openmouthed as he sent maids and waiters scurrying in all directions to look for it. Then he dashed outside, shouting to the rest of his men. There were curious murmurs from the diners, and after a minute or so Taynton returned with the squirrel firmly in his grasp. He shoved it angrily back into the cage and closed the door tightly. He checked the catch several times, and then took a length of string from a shelf and tied the door closed as well.

Conan was disappointed to see the creature restored to captivity. He and his Lady of the Ribbons had labored in vain. Well, he for one was not defeated. He sipped the mead, a faint smile on his lips. He would wait until the small hours of the night, and release the squirrel again.

Taynton was at pains to behave as if nothing untoward had happened, but he was considerably rattled. He made much of hanging some tankards on the hooks on a beam, but his glance darted suspiciously around the taproom. Someone had released the squirrel, for the catch was too complicated for the creature to have done it. His eyes went to the corner table, and Sir Conan Merrydown. Oh, yes,
there
sat the culprit, Taynton thought, remembering how Conan had pinned him in conversation for so long. The landlord’s eyes hardened. He had already vowed to keep a very sharp eye on his two unwanted guests; from now on they would not be able to move without him knowing all about it. Taynton put his hand in his pocket, where Theo’s button lay hidden. He had one belonging forfeited by accident, and now needed the same of Sir Conan Merrydown’s, also forfeited by chance. The rest would be simple.

Theo returned from the stables and resumed his seat with Conan, who immediately noticed the missing button. “You’ve lost a button somewhere,” he pointed out.

“Mm? Oh, I-I hadn’t noticed ... .”

Conan’s brows drew together in concern. “Is something wrong?”

“Yes, as it happens.” Theo poured himself a large measure of mead and drank it in quick gulps.

“Steady, for it isn’t lemonade,” Conan murmured.

“Can we go up to one of our rooms? I need to talk in private before I burst.”

“Of course. You bring the tankards.” Conan got up, took the jug of mead, and led the way out into the hall. Reaching the first room the landlord had indicated, he found by the valise waiting on the large bed that it had been allocated to him, not Theo. He set the jug down on a table, and went to the window to look down into the yard.

The
Arrow
stagecoach was preparing to depart, late as it happened, and the coachman was shouting into the inn for the passengers to make haste or he’d lose his job. In the stables, Bran’s barking had now subsided into the occasional mournful howl.

After drawing the curtains and lighting a candle from the fire, Conan took off his boots, poured two more drafts of mead, and then sprawled on the bed. “What’s wrong?” he asked Theo, who stood with a hand on the mantel, looking down into the fire.

“I don’t know, and that’s a fact. But
something’s
wrong, very wrong indeed. Things have been happening, strange things  ... ” Theo gulped some more mead.

“Begin at the beginning,” Conan advised. Strange things? He had a few of those to relate himself!

“The beginning? Well, that would be the night I reached London after journeying from Naples. I dreamed of a young woman.” Theo went on to relate how he’d seen the same woman in the fire, how he associated the face with the name Eleanor, and how he’d now actually met Eleanor Rhodes.

“Eleanor Rhodes?” Conan sat up slowly. “She actually said that was who she was?”

“Yes. And there were squirrels everywhere, like attendants. Oh, Lord, it sounds so foolish, but that’s exactly how they behaved. Conan, it was if I were looking at something that wasn’t really there. I could see through her.”

Conan’s mind flashed back to the incident in St. James’s Square, when he’d first seen his Lady of the Ribbons.

Theo continued, describing how Taynton raised the alarm about the missing squirrel, and then Eleanor had fled into the coach house and disappeared.

These ethereal young women had a habit of disappearing, Conan thought, except that his Lady of the Ribbons now turned out to be very much flesh and blood. A very real hand had released the squirrel, and a very real horse had galloped away.

Theo pressed a log down with his boot. “It makes no sense, Conan. I
heard
them catch her, yet when I looked, they didn’t seem to have her with them. They gave something to Taynton, and that was that.”

“Taynton came in with the squirrel,” Conan said quietly.

“That’s as may be.”

“Theo, the caged squirrel has a red head, green eyes, and a white body. According to you, Eleanor Rhodes has red hair, green eyes, and a white gown.”

Theo stared at him. “Are you suggesting—? Oh, come now!”

“Is it so preposterous? You seem able to accept that voices talk to you, that a young woman can disappear into thin air, and that she has a bodyguard of squirrels!”

“Exactly.” Theo gave a wry laugh. “Don’t you see? It’s because I am losing my mind. I’m seeing and hearing things and that makes me a prime candidate for a lunatic asylum.”

“Then we must both be candidates,” Conan replied.

“What do you mean?”

“You aren’t the only one to see and hear things of late.” Conan told him all
his
mysterious happenings, and then placed the roll of ribbon on the bed as proof that he had not imagined it all.

Theo’s eyes widened. “Why didn’t you tell me about all this?”

“Why didn’t you do the same thing?”

Theo managed a small smile.
“Touché,”
he murmured.

Conan drew a long breath. “Theo, I have a feeling that all this is fate.”

Theo straightened. “I just wish it would all go away.”

“Even your beautiful Eleanor?”

“Well, maybe not.” Theo lowered his eyes. “Except that I am here to dance attendance on Ursula Elcester!” Something struck him then. “I’ve just remembered. There was a set of antlers in the stables. They were polished and rubbed with something herbal. I thought they were for May Day dancing because the maypole was there too, but now—

“The figure Gardner saw?” Conan broke in.

“Yes, although why anyone should dress up like that and appear in the middle of the road, I can’t imagine.”

“Nor can I, except ... Well, Taynton and his minions aren’t very happy about poor old Bran, are they? And my name seemed to affect Taynton himself. Come to that, I am still convinced I know him from somewhere. He says we’ve never met, but it’s niggling away at me.”

Theo reached for the jug of mead and filled his tankard again. “This is going to be my last. I’m fuddled and agitated enough, without making it any worse.”

“What are we going to do?” Conan ventured.

“Do? I don’t know. I don’t even want to think about it anymore. Maybe in the morning, when I’ve slept and sobered up.” Theo placed the tankard on the mantelshelf untouched. “Let’s face it. I must forget it all if I can.”

“Forget it? But—

“I must not err from my uncle’s straight-and-narrow path to Elcester Manor.” Turning on his heel, Theo strode from the room.

Conan gazed after him, and then at the roll of ribbon. Sober or not, everything would still be the same in the morning. Except that the caged squirrel would be free again. Or was it Eleanor Rhodes who would be free again ... ?

He leaned his head against the back of the bed. Theo was right about one thing—it
was
preposterous. All of it. Yet he, Conan Merrydown, knew he must accept it all as fact. Maybe it was his Welsh heritage, a spark of fatalism handed down to him from his distant ancestors. Whatever it was, he would let everything take its course. But he wouldn’t say anything more to Theo for the time being, for the poor fellow obviously found it all very upsetting. As well he might be, for his feelings toward the ethereal Eleanor Rhodes placed another great strain upon the intended match with Ursula Elcester. Perhaps an insurmountable strain. Heaven alone knew what Miss Elcester’s feelings were toward the union, but from the outset Theo’s attitude had left a great deal to be desired.

If Eleanor were singling Theo out, as certainly seemed to be the case so far, that gentleman showed every likelihood of straying from the all-important straight-and-narrow path to the mandatory marriage.

Later, when the inn was quiet, Conan was lying fully dressed on his bed, waiting for the right moment to slip down and attend to the releasing of the squirrel. He heard the church bell strike twelve, and then the longcase clock in the inn hall chimed as well. He had ascertained from a waiter that the last stagecoach of the night departed at half past ten, and there wouldn’t be another until five in the morning, when a by-mail would arrive. Outside the night was cold, with occasional clouds obscuring the moon, and down in the stables Bran had at last given up howling. But even as Conan noticed this, the wolfhound suddenly began to bark furiously, as if raising the alarm.