Carola Dunn (17 page)

 Reynata stepped out onto the track and turned towards the nearby town.

 Middlecombe was a small town, a large village really, but in this corner of England cut off by forest and moor and the Bristol Channel, its weekly market was important and always busy. Here country-folk mingled with town-folk, and the local gentry were often to be seen. Even the Earl of Androwick, the preeminent local landowner, frequently came down from Wick Towers to greet his tenants and browse the stalls.

 Lord Androwick was a passionate collector of rarities. Up at the Towers, he had cabinets filled with curious objects: tiki gods from the South Seas, an iridescent dragon’s scale as hard as iron, fossilized fish and ferns, a harpy’s egg, a piece of Merlin’s cloak with strange patterns which changed before one’s eyes, even an Egyptian mummy. In his aviary dwelt among others an archaeopteryx, a parrot who recited Homer in Classical Greek, a blue-footed booby, a gryphon, and a pair of pink flamingos. His walled gardens and conservatories sheltered such novelties as the giant marigolds of Peru, rhododendrons from the high Himalayas, passion-flower vines with intricate blooms and juicy purple fruit. He had an ash grown from a cutting of Yggdrasil, the Norse world-tree, and a hawthorn grafted from the tree planted at Glastonbury by St. Joseph of Arimathea, which blossomed every Christmas Day. Prized above all others was a persimmon tree from the mysterious Asiatic empire of Japan.

 “Grown from a seed of the golden apples of the Hesperides,” he was wont to tell visitors. “This year it has set fruit for the first time, four of them. Like medlars, they must be eaten very ripe. How I long to taste them!”

 For fear of thieves, the eccentric earl allowed no strangers to approach Wick Towers. Pedlars of curiosities brought them to Middlecombe market, where his lordship condescended to inspect their wares.

 With him, as often as not, came one or more of his four sons. Today, as she filled her baskets with flour, salt, yeast, and yarn, Reynata saw the fair heads of all four tall young gentlemen passing through the crowds.

 Lord Drake! Would he recognize her as the girl he had waltzed with three nights ago?

 She concentrated on watching the weighing of two ounces of raisins, a treat Grandmama dearly loved. The stall-holder hastily threw in a few extra, though the measure was good. Gammer Gresham had never been known to harm anyone with her spells, but it was just as well to be sure.

 The purchase completed, Reynata moved on, and came face to face with Lord Androwick’s two middle sons.

 “Good-day, Miss Gresham,” said Master Damon, with a bow made insolent by the sneer on his otherwise handsome face. He looked her up and down in a way which made her wish she had not thrown back her hood and unfastened her cloak in the increasing warmth of the sun. “Finished your shopping? Come along to the Green Dragon. We’ll take a private room and I’ll treat you to something special.”

 His insinuating tone betrayed his meaning, confirmed by his brother’s snigger.

 Meeting his sly eyes with a stony look, Reynata bobbed a curtsy. “I have not finished my errands, sir,” she said firmly, fastening her cloak as she turned away.

 Master Damon grasped her arm. “Not so fast! We’ll go with you, to make sure none of these louts offers to lay a hand on you. Come along, Basil.”

 They fell in on either side of her. Reynata racked her brains for a way to escape their mischievous attentions. None of the market people would come to her aid, for the earl’s known power far outweighed the wise-woman’s reputed abilities.

 She started at a fast pace towards a stall selling lamp-oil.

 “Ha,” exclaimed Master Basil, “she’s in a hurry to find out what you have to give her, Damon.”

 “Since she’s so eager, you’d better give her a little something, too.”

 “Damon! Basil! Father wants....” Lord Drake came to a halt before the three. “Reynata! Miss Gresham, I should say, for you are quite grown up now, are you not?”

 He bowed, with a smile which made her heart turn over. Despite his words, however, it was the sort of smile a young man gives to a favoured child. Aldwin, Lord Drake, still saw her as the little girl who had joined in his and his brothers’ games in the King’s Forest. She had played Maid Marion to his Robin Hood, captive princess to his Sir Galahad, Flora Macdonald to his Bonnie Prince Charlie.

 Was it because Master Damon had always been cast as the Sheriff of Nottingham, the ogre, or Butcher Cumberland, that he had turned out such a bully?

 Reynata curtsied to Lord Drake, with a shy smile. If she was still a child to him, he was more than ever the hero of her dreams. If his face had not the near-classical perfection of Master Damon’s, how much pleasanter it was to look upon!

 “I am sorry to deprive you of your escorts, Miss Gresham,” he said. He had never believed Damon and Basil intended to distress or hurt her, putting down their nasty tricks to overexuberance, even as he rescued her from the effects. “My father wishes to show them a cockatrice he thinks of purchasing.”

 “A cockatrice!” said Basil in horror.

 “Otherwise known as a basil-isk,” Lord Drake quizzed him. “I daresay you’d be immune to your namesake’s deadly gaze—but it’s dead and stuffed, never fear. Miss Gresham, pray tell Mistress Gresham I mean to call upon her sometime in the next few days.”

 “Grandmama will be very pleased to see you, my lord.”

 “Come along, fellows.”

 A summons from the earl was not to be disobeyed. Sulkily Damon and Basil went off with their eldest brother.

 Watching, Reynata saw them join Lord Androwick and John. John was Reynata’s age but seemed to her much younger. A good-natured youth, he too had always been prey to his middle brothers’ tricks, which he fell for much more easily than she did, being not overendowed with common sense.

 Common sense dictated to Reynata that she complete her errands as swiftly as possible and leave for home before Damon and Basil were free to harass her again.

 Half an hour later, she turned off the cart-track onto the bridle-path which led through the woods to Grandmama’s cottage. She walked on in human shape, for the baskets were now too heavy and awkward for a fox to carry, even if she could have set them as panniers on her own back. The path wound uphill and down, the slopes so easily covered on four feet now a wearisome trudge.

 Growing hot, Reynata took off her cloak and stuffed it into the lighter basket. When she came to a brook, she put down her load and knelt on the bank, to dip her handkerchief in the cool water and wipe her face.

 The stream’s chuckkling drowned the muffled beat of hooves on leaf-mould until the riders were nearly upon her.

 “Another minute and we’d have caught her bathing!” cried Basil as Reynata sprang to her feet.

 “No matter.” Damon swung down from the saddle and pounced. “It won’t be a minute’s work to strip her. Well met!” he went on with an ugly grin, his grip tightening painfully on her upper arms. “There’s a nice, soft bed of moss over there will suit us to perfection.”

Chapter III

 Aldwin Drake moved through the marketplace, greeting his father’s people, flattered by their evident pleasure in his return. At twenty-six, he had never been away from home before for more than a few days.

 Though Aldwin had not won a bride, a Season under the aegis of his cynical, worldly uncle, followed by summer visits to several noble houses, had taught him to regard humanity with a discerning eye. Affectionate amusement replaced the dutiful reverence he had always felt for his father. His new appraisal of Damon and Basil was less pleasant.

 He had always thought his middle brothers’ manners at fault rather than their intentions. Now he was not so sure. He suspected Damon had a vicious streak, taking a positive pleasure in tormenting others, and Basil was all too ready to follow his lead.

 So, as he strolled, Aldwin watched for Reynata Gresham. It was up to him to shield the child if Damon had some mischievous prank in mind. He would do the same for any female, of course, but he was deucedly fond of Reynata.

 No sign of her. She must have gone home already. But no sign of Damon or Basil either, Aldwin realized. He frowned.

 John panted up to him. “Aldwin, thank heaven I’ve found you! They’ve gone after her. After Miss Gresham. And they were talking....” He hesitated, blushing vividly. “They said....”

 Aldwin’s fears filled in the words all too easily. Crowds parted before him as he strode towards the Phoenix Inn, where his horse was stabled. “They told you what they were about?” he demanded of John, scurrying alongside.

 “Oh, they pay me no heed. I don’t suppose they even noticed I was there. I didn’t know what to do, except come to you.”

 “You were quite right, lad. I’ll deal with this.”

 “I’d ride with you, only I came with Father in the carriage.”

 Aldwin forebore to point out that the inn had mounts for hire. If it came to a fight—surely it would not come to a fight, with his own brothers!—young John was more likely to get in the way than to help.

 He saddled Amiga himself. In his haste, his fingers fumbled with the fine Spanish leather, patterned with inlaid silver and mother-of-pearl. The golden mare with mane and tail of silver stood still, her dark eyes rolling, aware of his disquiet. She was a palomino, of a rare Spanish stock derived from Saracen and Moorish ancestors, which seldom bred true. Aldwin had bought her at Tattersall’s in London, from a wounded soldier returning from the Peninsular War. The earl coveted her, but his son managed to persuade him a menagerie was no place for a proud, spirited horse.

 
Amiga del Viento
, Friend of the Wind, was her full name, for she had Barb and Arab blood in her and she ran like the wind.

 Aldwin sprang to her back and turned her head towards the King’s Forest. Out of town they galloped, up the track and into the woods. Her hooves beat a muted tattoo on the winding path, like muffled drums sounding a hasty funeral march.

 It was not a matter of life and death, Aldwin assured himself. But from a woman’s point of view, was not rape considered a fate worse than death? And Reynata had scarcely left childhood behind her! His heart pounded in time with Amiga’s stride as he urged the mare onward.

 The path curved downhill around a fallen elm, half buried in brambles. Recalling the brook just beyond, Aldwin slowed Amiga’s pace a trifle.

 He leapt from the saddle before he had fully taken in the scene opening before him. On the bank of the stream, Reynata struggled in Damon’s arms as he strove to pull her away from the water. Basil hastened towards them from the bush where he had tied their horses.

 All three stilled suddenly as Aldwin burst upon them.

 Basil dithered. Reynata, with a desperate lunge, twisted away from Damon, falling to the ground. Damon put up his fists and swung at his brother.

 Dodging, Aldwin feinted, then connected with a left to the jaw. Not for nothing had he frequented Gentleman Jackson’s Bond Street boxing saloon. Damon toppled backwards and landed with a great splash in the stream.

 Aldwin turned to Basil, who backed away, shaking his head. “Not my notion,” he mumbled. “Never laid a finger on her.” He hung his head in shame at his own cowardice.

 Damon floundered in the stream, his face a mask of humiliated hatred. “I’ll get you for this,” he spat.

 Aldwin ignored him, giving Reynata his hand as she scrambled to her feet. “You’re not hurt?” he queried. She shook her head dumbly, lustrous brown eyes huge with some unidentifiable emotion. “Come, I’ll see you home.”

 He stooped to pick up her baskets.

 “Let me.” She reached for them. “It’s not fitting for a gentleman....”

 “I expect I can tie them to Amiga’s saddle somehow.”

 Reynata glanced at the mare, standing patient and watchful, and her eyes widened again. “She’s beautiful! A gold and silver horse should not carry such a common burden.”

 “She’s proud, but docile and willing. Clever, too. She answers to her name. Amiga!”

 The mare’s ears flickered and she nodded twice.

 “See? She won’t mind playing the beast of burden for once.”

 “The baskets are made to fasten together as panniers.” Reynata hesitated. “But they would be in your way when you mount.”

 “I’ve no intention of riding. She’ll follow, even without a lead rein when it’s someone she knows,” he boasted. “Show me how to fasten the baskets.”

 Her hands trembled as she complied, he noted. Though her voice was calm, her nerves must be all aquiver at her narrow escape.

 He slung the panniers over Amiga’s withers. As he looped the reins out of the mare’s way, he saw Damon crawling soggily out of the brook with a helping hand from Basil. He said nothing to them, hoping against hope that they had learnt their lesson.

 The bridle-path was just wide enough for Aldwin and Reynata to walk side by side, with Amiga following. Neither of them spoke until they had put a few windings of the trail between them and the others.

 Then he said, “I’m sorry.”

 “You’re sorry?” She sounded startled.

 He could not look at her, shunned meeting her eyes. “They are my brothers. Their behaviour reflects on me. In fact, it dishonours the whole family. I must consider whether my father ought to know what his sons were about.”

 “Oh no! Pray don’t tell Lord Androwick. I suffered no h-harm.”

 “I can only be deeply thankful that I arrived in time to preserve you. If John had not found me quickly....It doesn’t bear thinking about.”

 “N-no. P-pray....” A sob swallowed her voice.

 Turning towards her, Aldwin saw tears trickling down her face. He put his arm around her shoulders to comfort her. She swung towards him, burying her face in his cravat, and he dropped the reins to hold her close.

 Reynata was no child, he discovered. The playmate of his youth had vanished. In her place was a warm, soft, gently curved woman, altogether desirable, who fitted into his arms as if she had been created especially for them. He hugged her to him, his cheek against her silken, fragrant hair. It gleamed like copper in the dappled sunshine filtering through the leaves above. A sudden longing swept him to see it falling loose about her naked shoulders.