Lord of the Beasts
Susan Krinard
The time has come to face his destiny… Enchanted blood flows through vet Donal Fleming’s veins, but life among mortal kind has left him wary and he secretly hungers for the freedom to live unrestrained by civilised society.Until Cordelia… Cordelia Hardcastle has always played by society’s rules…Until Donal introduces her to a passion she’s never dreamed of and a world she never imagined. But Donal’s attraction to Cordelia has unleashed his most primal instincts and he must face the consequences of an impossible choice – between human love and the powers that, to him, are life itself…
Praise for Susan Krinard
and her books
“A poignant tale of redemption”
—Booklist on To Tame a Wolf
“Its compelling characters and the universal nature of their
underlying conflicts should guarantee an across-the-board
appeal to general fantasy fans and other readers.”
—Library Journal on The Forest Lord
“A master of atmosphere and description”
—Library Journal
“Readers … will be pleasantly surprised at the depth and
breadth of this novel. Character-driven, enhanced by plenty
of adventure, it encompasses a far wider scope than a romance.”
—Romantic Times BOOKclub on Shield of the Sky
“The standard for today’s fantasy romance.”
—Affaire de Coeur on Shield of the Sky
“Krinard is a bestselling, highly regarded writer who is
deservedly carving out a niche in the romance arena.”
—Library Journal
“Susan Krinard was born to write romance”
—New York Times bestselling author Amanda Quick
Also available from Susan Krinard
HALFWAY TO DAWN
BRIDE OF THE WOLF
LUCK OF THE WOLF
CODE OF THE WOLF
Lord of the Beasts
Susan
Krinard
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To the Animals
‘I think I could turn and live with animals, they
are so placid and self-contain’d,
I stand and look at them long and long.’
—Walt Whitman
Acknowledgement
Thanks to Kathy Flake, who hosted my first trip to the
beautiful Cotswolds. She is a true friend to the animals.
CHAPTER ONE
London, 1847
THE WOMAN WAS BEAUTIFULas no earthly creature could be, flawless in form and carriage, her hair cascading over her shoulders like Fane gold spun by a master weaver. The world of men had names for her kind: Fairy and Daoine Sidhe and Fair Folk among them—but no such description could begin to capture her radiant perfection. Her ivory face shone with a stern radiance that no mortal could gaze upon without recognizing that he was nothing but a low, wretched brute in the presence of divinity.
Donal wasn’t afraid, though Da had left him alone with the Queen of Tir-na-Nog. The man known by humans as Hartley Shaw—the Forest Lord, stag-horned master of the northern forests—had been cast out of the Blessed Land, driven away by his own mother because he would not give up his love for the mortal Eden Fleming. But now Queen Titania gazed down at her grandson and spoke, smothering the little spark of defiance Donal nursed in his six-year-old heart.
“Your father has made his choice,” she said, her voice sweeping over Donal like a blast of cold north wind. “But you are young, and your blood may yet serve your people.”
Donal had heard those same words a hundred times before, and always he gave the same answer. “I want to go home, with Da.”
“Home.” Titania flicked her slender fingers, and silver leaves shook loose from the stately tree beneath which she stood. “The vile sty mortals have made of the good, green earth. That is what you return to, child.”
Though Donal knew there were many bad things in the world, he knew it was not as terrible as his grandmother said. Animals still ran free in the forest beyond the Gate. Ma and Da had seen to that. No matter what happened anywhere else in the land called England, Hartsmere would always be safe.
“But not for you,” Titania said. “Never for you, grandson. You will find no peace at your mother’s hearth. You will always be torn between two worlds, and your father’s choice will haunt you for as long as you live among mortals.” Her lovely face darkened as if a cloud had passed over the ever-shining sun of Tir-na-Nog. “Hear me, and remember. If ever you should love as my son loves … if ever you fall into the snare of a mortal female’s wiles … you will lose the gift that lifts you above the People of Iron. The voices of the beasts will vanish, and you will be alone. You will have nothing … nothing….
DONAL FLEMING WOKE with a start. The voice in his mind faded, and in its place rose the clamor and din of morning at the Covent Garden market.
Only a dream, he thought. Not a memory, real as it seemed … at least not his own. But Tod had been there on that terrible day twenty-five years ago, and the hob had told Donal the story so many times that Titania’s threat had become unquestionable fact.
Donal flung aside the coverlet and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He massaged his temples, seeking in vain to quiet the incessant noise that was inescapable in the vast metropolis called London. With a groan he set his bare feet on the faded carpet and staggered to the washbasin to splash his face with the tepid water that remained from the night before. The few drops that passed his lips tasted of the smoke and coal dust and grime that hung in the London air. He scrubbed his skin with the towel so thoughtfully provided by the hotel staff, but no amount of washing would remove the city’s taint.
He draped the towel over the back of his neck and went to the window overlooking the square below. The competing cries of vendors—sellers of vegetables and fruit, meat pies and bread and sausages, flowers of every variety—mingled with the clatter of cartwheels and hoofbeats, penetrating the thin glass as if it were tissue. Swarming humanity ebbed and flowed between the stalls and shops, kitchen maids bumping elbows with waifs buying violets to sell on street corners and bleary-eyed dandies gulping coffee after a night of theater and tavern.
It was an alien world to Donal. He closed his eyes and thought of the moors with their deep silences and broad, clean skies. At this hour, the farmers would have long since been up milking cows, feeding chickens and mending walls, going about the same business they did every spring morning. And he would be out visiting Eliza’s new litter or helping Mr. Codling and his fellow farmers through the lambing season. He might not utter a word all day, for the taciturn husbandmen of the Dales had little use for idle chatter, and the beasts spoke without need of human language.
With a sigh of resignation, Donal selected an oft-mended shirt and his second-best coat from among the few garments he’d brought from Yorkshire. He was aware that his clothes were sadly out of date, if only because his mother had brought it to his attention on more than one occasion. Lady Eden laughingly despaired of her eldest son, and of his ever finding a wife who could overlook his stubborn refusal to accept his proper station in life.
The station of the bastard child who had been given everything the son of an earl could desire, and cast it all aside. All but his love for his parents and brothers, his memories of Hartsmere and the distant family connections that brought him so far from home.
Donal replaced the towel around his neck with a slightly frayed cravat and worked it into a simple knot at his throat. He glanced in the mirror just long enough to run dampened fingers through the unruly waves of his hair. Surely the August Fellows of the Zoological Society of London had better things to do than critique the appearance of a country veterinarian.
He considered and discarded the notion of a visit to the hotel dining room before setting out for Regent’s Park. He doubted his stomach would tolerate even his usual light breakfast, and he had no desire to see greedy, overfed tourists stuffing their mouths with slabs of beef and rashers of bacon. Instead, Donal unwrapped a hard roll left over from yesterday’s journey and broke it into small bits, wishing he had a friend to share it with.
As if in answer to his thoughts, someone scratched at his sitting room door. The sound came from very near the floor. Donal hurried to the door and opened it, meeting the bright brown eyes of his unexpected visitor.
“Well, now,” he said, squatting to offer his hand. “Have you come to share my bread?”
The parti-colored spaniel cocked his head and gravely regarded Donal’s crumb-dusted fingers. He was no street cur to go begging for his meals; his red and white coat gleamed with the luster of frequent grooming and good health, and he wore his handsome, studded collar as if it were the crown of the Cavalier King who had given his breed its name.
Donal set the roll on the ground and listened. For all his well-bred dignity, the spaniel’s thoughts were clear and honest in the way of his kind, and he gazed at Donal with absolute trust. The dog’s natural intelligence had warned him that something was amiss when his human would not rise from his bed to take him for his morning walk. When his friend only groaned at the patting of a paw and an encouraging lick, he had set aside good manners and barked until another human had come to investigate the uproar. Then he had dashed between the startled woman’s feet and run as fast as his legs would carry him, straight to the one place in all London where he knew he would be understood.
“I see,” Donal said, resting his hand gently on the spaniel’s broad forehead. “Of course I’ll do what I can.” He stuffed the roll in his pocket, rose and followed the dog into the hallway and around two corners to a door indistinguishable from his own. He knocked, but there was no answer. The spaniel whined anxiously.
Donal turned the knob, and the door gave at his push. Immediately his nostrils were assaulted by the smell of sickness. The sitting room was far more luxurious than his own modest suite, with thick Oriental carpets and furnishings that a wealthy nabob might find acceptable.
Donal strode to the bedchamber, took one glance at the rumpled bed’s motionless occupant and gave a sigh of relief. For all the signs of recent illness, the spaniel’s master was neither near death nor in urgent need of a physician’s care.
He dampened a towel at the washstand and sat beside the stout, middle-aged object of the canine’s adoration. The man had the look of prosperity about him, but he had clearly behaved with intemperance and paid the consequences. He mumbled an irritable query under his breath and subsided back into sleep.
“It’s nothing to worry about, Sir Reginald,” Donal said to the dog as he bathed the florid, mottled face and listened to the steady pulse beating in the man’s bejowled throat. “He’s only drunk more than is good for him.”
The spaniel jumped onto the bed and intently studied his master’s face, silky ears lifted.
“What he needs now is rest,” Donal said, rinsing the towel and laying it across the man’s forehead. “He’ll wake when he’s ready.”
Sir Reginald hesitantly wagged his tail. Donal tucked the bed’s coverlet under his master’s chin and clucked his tongue in invitation. After a last glance at his human, Sir Reginald followed Donal from the room.
No one paid any heed to a respectable guest and his dog as they strolled casually from the hotel lobby. Sir Reginald liked the hubbub of the market no better than Donal, so they beat a hasty retreat to the dining room, where Donal ordered steak and water for the dog and plain eggs and toast for himself. A pair of severe business men at a nearby table cast disapproving glares at the spaniel, who crouched patiently between Donal’s boots.
The waiter returned a few minutes later with a harried-looking young man whose high collar points had scratched red welts into his cheeks. The young man scurried about Donal’s table, craning his neck to see under it, and came to a nervous halt just out of arms’ reach.
“I beg your pardon, sir,” he said, jerking his head very high, “but I have had complaints … it is my understanding that you have brought an animal into the dining room.”
Sir Reginald cringed, his naturally ebullient nature suppressed by the uneasy hostility in the young man’s approach. Donal quieted him with a quick pat and got to his feet.
“I have brought a friend to dine with me,” he said quietly, meeting the young man’s eyes. “I’m sure you can see that he is not inconveniencing anyone.”
The fellow looked pointedly toward the businessmen. “Are you a guest at this establishment, sir?”
“I am.”
“Then surely you will agree that it is our duty to see that respectable standards of decency and cleanliness are upheld. If you will kindly provide the direction of your room, I will send a porter to return the beast—”
A low-pitched growl sounded from under the table, and the young man shuffled a few steps back. Donal smiled. “Sir Reginald prefers not to be disturbed,” he said, “but I will personally attest to his good behavior.”
“You refuse to remove the animal?”
In answer, Donal resumed his seat and pretended interest in a neatly mended tear on his coat sleeve. The young man sputtered. “You leave me no choice then, sir.” He signaled to a waiter, who scurried off toward the kitchen doors.
By now the scene of dispute had attracted the attention of the other diners, who shook their heads as they continued to gorge themselves from overflowing plates. A waiter with a thatch of bright red hair sidled up to Donal and leaned close under the pretense of delivering a copy of the morning paper.
“I likes dogs, sir,” he whispered, smoothing the paper as he laid it on Donal’s table. “Thought you should know that they’ve sent for the constable.” He passed a wrapped bundle into Donal’s hand. “This’ll do for the little mite. You’d best make yerself scarce, sir.”
Donal concealed his surprise and accepted the package with a nod. Sir Reginald emerged from beneath the table and politely wagged his tail at the waiter, then set off at a purposeful trot for the door to the street.
Donal casually rose and followed the spaniel, ignoring the critical gazes of the men who awaited the drama’s denouement. He reached the door and opened it, admitting a rush of noise, dust and pungent odors from the market. He closed his eyes and cast his thoughts outward like a net. Here and there, like drifting bits of flotsam in an ocean of humankind, the questing sparks of intelligent animal minds searched for the means to survive another day.
Donal called out an invitation, and they answered. Sir Reginald fidgeted on his haunches and pricked his ears toward the silent tide gathering from every quarter of Covent Garden. The wave was lapping at the very shores of Old Hummums Hotel when the officious young waiter reemerged from the rear entrance with a tail-coated constable.
By then it was too late. Donal scooped Sir Reginald into his arms and stepped out of the doorway just as the first hungry mongrel skittered into the dining room. The head waiter stopped in his tracks, open-mouthed, and one of the businessmen rose to his feet. But the flood could not be stemmed. As the dog on point skirmished toward the nearest table, his company surged in after him, a wash of furry projectiles, large and small, in every imaginable color of dusty white, brown, red, black and yellow. Yapping with the joy of sinners facing the promise of salvation, the dogs leaped upon the feast—the largest hounds planting enormous paws on table tops as they wolfed steaks and loafs of bread with equal fervor, the smallest dashing beneath to collect the fallen scraps. Not one was left wanting.
There were no ladies present in this honorable bachelor establishment to swoon at the terrifying sight of filthy beasts pilfering meals intended for their betters. Most of the men had the sense to get out of the way. One fat gentleman struggled over a roast chicken leg with an equally stubborn mastiff, whose jaws proved more effective than plump fingers accustomed to counting money and lifting nothing heavier than a silver spoon.
In a matter of minutes it was over. The constable was vastly outnumbered, and had better sense than to try to control a score of overexcited canines whose only goal was to fill their empty bellies. No human being was injured in the melee. And when the dogs had cleared every plate and licked up every crumb from the floor, they took Donal’s advice and raced back out the door to scatter and lose themselves again among the two-legged folk who could not be bothered to take an interest in their welfare.
Sir Reginald squirmed with delight and licked Donal’s chin. Donal slipped out the door on the heels of the last stragglers. Someone shouted behind him. He closed the door and strode briskly into the milling crowds of the marketplace, losing himself as thoroughly as the four-legged thieves.
He knew he could find a way back to his rooms without attracting undue attention, and certainly no rational man could suggest that he’d had anything to do with an unprecedented invasion of street curs. Nevertheless, the waiter’s advice to “make himself scarce” seemed very sound at the moment, and once Donal had restored Sir Reginald to his human, he would lose no more time in visiting his mother’s acquaintance in Regent’s Park.
The hallway leading to his rooms was deserted. He went on to Sir Reginald’s lodgings and knocked on the door, hardly expecting a response. But the door opened to the sober face of a tall man in well-cut but modest garments who raised an inquiring brow and kept the door half shut against any intrusion.
“I beg your pardon,” Donal said. “I am seeking the gentleman who has engaged these rooms. I’ve been looking after his dog and wish to return him.”
The tall man glanced at Sir Reginald, comfortably ensconced in Donal’s arms, and shook his head. “I fear that will be impossible, sir,” he said. “Mr. Churchill has but recently passed beyond this mortal coil.”
“He’s dead?” Donal asked, stunned. “I saw him only an hour past, and he …”
“It was very sudden, I believe.” He bowed his head for a moment of respectful silence. “I am Doctor Tomkinson. The maid summoned me when she found Mr. Churchill fallen on the floor.” He frowned into Donal’s face. “You say you saw him alive?”
“He was indisposed, to be sure, but with a strong pulse and no indication of severe illness.”
“His death was due to complications of dropsy, a weakness in the heart. Are you a physician yourself, sir?”
“I am Dr. Fleming, a practitioner of animal medicine.”
“I see. Then you were a friend of the deceased?”
“We were never acquainted. His dog came to me in some distress, sensing his master’s illness.” Donal held the little dog more tightly, knowing the animal had not yet recognized his loss.
“A clever beast,” Tomkinson said without inflection. “Unfortunately, there is no one to care for it here. I understand that Mr. Churchill was a bachelor with no relations who might take the animal. You must have the means to see it humanely destroyed….”
With a wail as wrenching as any child’s cry, Sir Reginald launched himself from Donal’s arms and dashed between Tomkinson’s legs into the room. Donal didn’t hesitate to follow the spaniel to the sheet-draped form on the bed.
Sir Reginald crept onto his master’s motionless chest, rested his head on his paws and whined piteously.
“This is hardly appropriate …” Tomkinson began. Donal turned, silenced the man with a look and knelt beside the bed.
“He is gone,” he said gently. “I failed you, my friend.”
The spaniel made no response. Donal knew Sir Reginald would remain here with the body until he pined away from thirst and starvation, but neither Tomkinson nor the hotel staff would permit such a display of self-sacrifice. They would turn him over to the dog-catchers or put him out on the street to fend for himself.
Donal gathered the limp dog in his arms and tucked Sir Reginald beneath his coat. “Tomorrow we’ll leave London,” he said. “I have one obligation to fulfill, but if you wait for me, I’ll take you to a place that I believe will be to your liking.”
Sir Reginald sighed and closed his eyes. He would not be comforted now, but he was a dog; in time he would accept and find joy again. That was the way of the animals … to live fully in the moment instead of wasting the gift of life in regret, resentment and fear of the future.
It was not so unlike life in Tir-na-Nog.
Donal walked past Tomkinson to the door and paused when the physician cleared his throat.
“You don’t really believe that beast understands you?” Tomkinson asked.
“He understands far more than you can imagine. And he very much fears that if you continue to overindulge in hard drink, you will meet the same fate as Mr. Churchill.”
Tomkinson might have managed some affronted response, but Donal didn’t wait to hear it. He returned to his room, made a nest of blankets and pillows on the floor in a corner tucked behind the bed, and left the steak and a tin of fresh water for Sir Reginald. Once he was satisfied that the spaniel would at least be comfortable in his grief, Donal gave the dog a final pat and collected his bag.
He was almost out the door when a rush of warmth and unrestrained love washed over him like summer sunlight. It was enough to carry him through the grim, unhappy streets of London, and nearly enough to make him glad that he was half-human.
CHAPTER TWO
“IT IS QUITE BEYOND ANYTHING I had imagined,” Theodora said, brown eyes sparkling in her plain and honest face.
Cordelia Hardcastle squeezed her cousin’s arm and smiled, though she could not entirely share Theodora’s fascination with the many diversions available to the privileged visitors of the Zoological Gardens in Regent’s Park. She, Theodora and their friend Bennett Wintour, Viscount Inglesham—who had so amiably escorted the ladies on this sojourn to London—had already viewed the museum with its collection of stuffed birds, exotic skins and every conceivable sort of animal horn and tusk; admired the pleasingly arranged gardens and buildings; delighted in the antics of the beavers in their ponds and marveled at the Australian kangaroos, African zebras and South American llamas.
But perhaps Cordelia had not marveled quite so much as Theodora and the other men and women who strolled about the grounds on this bright spring morning. For she, like a few of the Zoological Society Fellows who had established this impressive display in the very heart of the world’s greatest city, had actually seen many of these beasts in their natural habitats. And the sight of such creatures displayed for the general amusement of the Fellows’ guests filled her with a certain discomfort.
“You can’t expect Cordelia to be impressed, Theodora,” Inglesham said, flashing his easy smile. “She has been twice around the world with Sir Geoffrey and has a menagerie of her own. I fear she may be finding this excursion rather tedious.”
Theodora searched Cordelia’s face. “Is it all frightfully dull for you, my dear? Shall we return to the house?”
“Certainly not.” Cordelia cast Inglesham a reproving glance and tucked her cousin’s arm through her own. “It was I who suggested this visit, after all.”
“And have you found the answers you sought?” Inglesham asked.
Cordelia suppressed a sigh and steered Theodora toward a bench under the spreading shade of an elm. “Lord Pettigrew was most generous with his time and advice,” she said. “But even he cannot suggest a reason for my animals’ malaise.”
“I do not see why they are unhappy,” Theodora offered shyly. “Edgecott is a most beautiful estate, and they have pens of ample size. No one could care for them more conscientiously than you, Cordelia.”
“One might even say that you devote far more attention to those beasts than you do your friends,” Inglesham said with a teasing grin. “A husband might object to such neglect.”
“Then it is fortunate that I have never remarried,” Cordelia said, folding her parasol with a snap. It was an old game between them, this sparring over his lazy but persistent courtship and her polite but firm rejections. They had been friends since childhood, and in spite of the game there had always been an unspoken understanding that one day the refusals might become acceptance. They got on tolerably well together, the viscount would never think of forbidding his prospective wife to make use of her fortune as she saw fit, and her father thoroughly approved of the match.
But Cordelia wasn’t ready to assume the duties of wedlock, however light they might be. She had loved her first husband with a young woman’s passion in the few brief months of their marriage. Such passion was no longer a part of her plans for the future, and she would have to accept the conjugal responsibilities of marriage even if Inglesham demanded little else of her.
She would know when the time was right. Until then, she had more than enough interests and responsibilities to keep her heart and mind thoroughly occupied.
“We have not yet seen the elephants,” she said briskly. “Unless you would prefer to rest a little longer, Theo?”
“I am quite ready,” Theodora said, adjusting her bonnet. “If it is not too inconvenient, perhaps we might also see the chimpanzee? I have heard … Oh!”
Theodora’s faint gasp called Cordelia’s attention to the broad avenue that ran through the center of the gardens. Top-hatted gentlemen and ladies in bell-shaped skirts suddenly scattered away from a high wrought-iron gate, abandoning parcels and parasols, and the breeze carried faint cries of alarm and shouts of warning.
The cause of the disturbance was not far to seek. Through the open gate charged a great gray behemoth, an ivory-tusked colossus flapping large ears like wings and moving with amazing rapidity as it bore down on the crowd.
Theodora clapped her hands to her mouth. “What is it?” she whispered.
“That, my dear, is your elephant,” Inglesham said, shading his eyes for a better look. “Gone rogue, from the look of it. And coming this direction.”
“Of the African species,” Cordelia added, her mind crystal clear in spite of the danger. “They are said to be far more aggressive than the Indian.”
Even as she spoke, the elephant paused, swung toward a nearby bench and upended it with a flip of its powerful trunk. A woman shrieked in terror.
“Perhaps it’s best if we move out of its way,” Inglesham said. He took Theodora’s elbow in one hand and Cordelia’s in the other. “If you’ll permit me, ladies …”
Cordelia planted her feet. “The animal has obviously been mistreated,” she said, “or it would not behave in this fashion. No matter its origin, any creature, when handled with firmness and compassion, must ultimately respond to—”
“Your theories are all very well, Delia, but now is not the time—”
Cordelia gently worked her arm free of Inglesham’s grip, set down her parasol and started up the avenue.
“Delia!” Inglesham shouted. Theodora echoed his cry. Cordelia continued forward, her eyes fixed on the elephant. The beast was still moving at a fast pace, but she was not afraid. Enraged the animal might be, but even it was not beyond the reach of sympathy, kindliness and reason.
The pleas of her companions faded to a rush of incomprehensible sound. Cordelia was vaguely aware of white, staring faces to either side of the lane, but they held no reality for her. The elephant barreled toward her, broke stride as it noticed the obstacle in its path and began to slow.
Cordelia smiled. That’s it, my friend, she thought. You need have no fear of me.
The elephant shook its head from side to side and blew gusts of air from its trunk. The small, intelligent eyes seemed to blink in understanding. The space between beast and woman shrank from yards to mere feet, and Cordelia drew in a deep breath.
She had scarcely let it out again when a blurred shape passed in front of her and set itself almost under the pachyderm’s broad feet. Cordelia came to a startled halt, and the elephant did likewise. The shape resolved into a man, hatless and slightly above average height. He placed one hand on the elephant’s trunk and stood absolutely still.
Cordelia’s heart descended from her mouth and settled into a quick, angry drumming. “I beg your pardon,” she said, “but I believe it is generally considered dangerous to step in front of a charging elephant.”
Still maintaining his light hold on the pachyderm, the man half turned. She caught a glimpse of raised brows and vivid green eyes in the instant before he spoke.
“And yet you apparently believed you could stop her, madame,” he said, his words crisp and patrician in spite of his slightly shabby coat and scuffed boots. “Did you perhaps believe that the thickness of your petticoats would protect you?”
Cordelia found that her mouth hung open in a most vulgar fashion. She closed it with a snap and looked the fellow up and down with a cool, imperious gaze.
“Were you under the impression, sir, that you were protecting me?”
A mischievous glint flared in his emerald eyes. “I have no doubt that you could bring an entire army to a halt, madame, but this lady—” he scratched its leathery skin “—requires rather more delicate handling.”
Turning his back on Cordelia, the ill-mannered rogue leaned against the elephant’s leg and whispered to the animal. The beast curled its trunk around his neck in something very like an embrace and gave a low, pitiful squeak.
Cordelia took firm hold of her patience and carefully moved closer. “You seem to be familiar with this animal,” she said.
“We have never met before today.”
“Yet she trusts you.”
He didn’t answer but continued to stroke the pachyderm’s trunk as delicately as he might caress a newborn baby’s skin. Cordelia took another step. “Is she hurt?” she asked.
Once more the man glanced over his shoulder, as if he found her question remarkable. “You seem more concerned for Sheba than any men she might have injured.”
“She would not have acted so without reason.” Cordelia frowned. “If you have never seen her before, how do you know her name?”
“She told me.”
“Indeed. And what else has she confided to you, pray tell?”
He turned fully and stood tucked beneath Sheba’s head, careless of her sheer weight and impressive tusks. “She has been mistreated in the past,” he said with perfect seriousness. “She was taken from her home as a child, and the men who bought her believed that only force and cruelty could compel her to obey.”
A look of black and bitter rage crossed his face, so intense that Cordelia almost retreated before the menace so thinly held in check. But then he smiled, and it was as if the sun had burst gloriously through the clouds.
“Sheba knows you mean well,” he said. “She would not have hurt you, and thanks you for your kindness.”
For a moment Cordelia was mute with consternation, torn between judging the fellow mad as a hatter or simply addled by some harmless delusion. Certainly he appeared sane in every other respect. His clothing, while worn and several years out of fashion, was clean and neat. His voice was cultured, his language educated and his manner—though it more than verged on the impertinent—was that of a man raised in a respectable household.
As for his face … Cordelia’s gaze drifted over the shock of russet-brown hair, its waves barely contained and in need of cutting, followed the intelligent line of his brow, paused at those startling eyes and continued over a strong, aristocratic nose to mobile, masculine lips and a firm, slightly dimpled chin.
His was a face most would call handsome, even if he lacked the artful curls and long side-whiskers favored by the most stylish gentlemen. At first blush, she would have thought him the son of some hearty country squire, well accustomed to brisk rural air, a horse between his knees and the feel of good English earth sifting through his fingers.
She emerged from her study to find him regarding her with the same bold stare, noting her well-cut but sensible gown, her plain bonnet and simply-dressed hair. What he thought of her features it was impossible to discern.
“Can it be, sir,” she asked, “that in spite of your intimate acquaintance with elephants, you have never observed a female of the species Homo sapiens?”
That imp of mischief snapped again in his eyes. “I have had occasion to examine a few in their natural habitats, but seldom have I had the privilege of beholding such an extraordinary specimen.”
“Extraordinary because I do not swoon at the first sight of danger?”
His face grew serious again. “Extraordinarily foolish,” he said. “If I had not—” He broke off, his gaze focusing on something behind Cordelia. A moment later she heard the tread of boots and Inglesham’s familiar stride.
“Cordelia! Are you all right?” He stopped beside her and took her arm in a protective grip. “The brute didn’t touch you? I came as quickly as I could, but when I saw you had the beast under control, I thought it best …” He paused as if noticing the stranger for the first time, and Cordelia sensed his confusion.
“I fear I cannot take credit for calming Sheba,” she said a little stiffly. “This gentleman reached her before me.”
“Indeed.” Inglesham gave the other man a swift examination and assigned him to a station somewhat beneath his own. “In that case, my good fellow, I owe you a debt of gratitude. Are you an employee of the Zoological Society? I will see that your courage is properly rewarded. If you’ll remove the animal to a place where it can do no further harm …” He favored Cordelia with a look of somewhat overtaxed tolerance. “Miss Shipp is quite beside herself. She feared for your life.”
Cordelia suffered a pang of guilt and glanced down the avenue. “I’ll go to her as soon as I’ve had another word with—”
She stopped with chagrin as she realized she had never learned her would-be savior’s name. When she turned to remedy the oversight, she found that man and elephant had already moved away, about to be intercepted by a small herd of uniformed keepers who carried various prods and manacles designed to subdue and restrain.
Whatever they might have intended, the auburn-haired gentleman clearly had the upper hand. The keepers kept their distance, and Sheba continued on her majestic way unhindered.
Cordelia considered it beneath her dignity to run after a man who so clearly had no desire to further their acquaintance, so she accompanied Inglesham back to the bench and spent several minutes reassuring Theodora that she had never been in any real danger. But even after they returned to the townhouse and enjoyed a soothing cup of tea, Cordelia could not pry thoughts of the stranger from her mind.
It was true that he had not done anything she hadn’t been prepared to do herself. But the casual ease with which he approached and touched the elephant, the manner in which it responded to him … all suggested a man with considerable experience in the area of animal care and behavior.
Unlike Inglesham, however, she was not convinced that he was merely a Zoological Society employee. It had occurred to her that he might even be one of the Fellows, a scientist in his own right. Her father was a cogent example of a titled gentleman who often dressed and sometimes behaved with no more sophistication than a common farmer.
So the green-eyed stranger remained a mystery. In a brief moment of fanciful abandon, Cordelia christened him Lord Enkidu after the legendary companion of Gilgamesh, who had been raised by animals and could speak their language. Several times during their last few days in London, Cordelia considered writing to Lord Pettigrew and asking him if he knew Enkidu’s name and direction. Each time she remembered his hauteur, and how he had simply walked away without as much as a goodbye.
In the end she allowed Inglesham to distract her with a few more London entertainments and resolved to dispense with all further speculation about Lord Enkidu. But when she retired to her bed in the pleasant comfort of her father’s townhouse on Charles Street, she was troubled by the strangely stimulating notion that she and Lord Enkidu were destined to meet again.
THE DREARY STREETS of London seemed to echo Donal’s mood as he made his way back to the hotel. The fine spring morning had lapsed into an evening thick with choking fog, a miasma that left Donal wondering how any creature could long survive with such foul stuff constantly seeping into its lungs.
But he had learned that the mere act of fighting for life was far more cruel in the city than in the countryside, where struggle was a natural and accepted fact of existence. Here he had seen ragged children selling wilted flowers for a few pennies, and hollow-eyed women selling their bodies for only a pittance more. Men beat their children and their wives and each other, their breath and clothes stinking of liquor. Starving dogs and starving humans scuffled over refuse even the hungriest wild scavenger would disdain to touch.
Donal could not hear the silent cries of the men, women and children in their daily suffering, but he heard the animals. He strode along broad avenues where the carriages of fine ladies and gentleman dashed from one amusement to the next, attempting to shield his mind from the wretched travails of overworked cart horses who might be fortunate enough to live a year or two before they broke down and were sent off to the knackers. The contented thoughts of pampered lap dogs, safe in their protector’s arms, slipped past his defenses, but he could not warn them that a dismal life on the street was only a stroke of misfortune away.
Once again his thoughts turned to last night’s dream of Tir-na-Nog. In the Land of the Young there was no stench, no starvation, no drunken violence. What men called hatred did not exist. Anger, like joy and thanksgiving and affection, was the work of a moment, quickly forgotten.
At times such as these he could almost forget why he had chosen to throw in his lot with mankind.
He stopped at a street corner to take his bearings, blinking as a lamplighter lit a gas lamp overhead. Behind lay Regent’s Park and Tottenham Court Road, and between him and his hotel at Covent Garden stood the filthy warren of tumbledown houses and bitter poverty known as Seven Dials. He had been warned by the staff at Hummums to avoid the rookeries at all costs, but he had little concern for his life or scant property. The wilderness of his own heart was a far more frightening place.
When he had traveled up to London at the request of Lord Thomas Pettigrew, an old acquaintance of his mother’s and Fellow of the Zoological Society, Donal hadn’t expected to face anything more arduous than the work of healing he was accustomed to doing in his Yorkshire practice. Certainly he had never before been asked to examine an exotic beast from beyond England’s shores; he had been content to limit his sphere to the common animals he had known all his life. But Lady Eden Fleming had too much pride in her children to hide their lights under a bushel, and so Lord Pettigrew had been convinced that her gifted son must give his expert opinion on several difficult cases that had defied solution by the usual string of local experts.
That was how Donal had come to see the tiger. She had been refusing food since her delivery at Regent’s Park, and her keepers feared she might starve herself to death. So Donal had sent all the other men away and listened to a mind unlike any he had touched before.
It was not that he had never entered the thoughts of creatures that survived by taking the lives of others. He had run with foxes on the moors, hunted with badgers among limestone grykes and ridden the wings of soaring falcons. But those familiar souls were simple and mild compared to that of a beast who had stalked swift deer in the teeming forests of India, undisputed mistress of all she surveyed.
Donal had shared the tiger’s memories and her deep, inconsolable grief for what she had lost forever. That joining had left its mark on him, but he might have come away unchanged if not for the others: the giraffes and zebras with their dreams of running on the vast African plain; the chimpanzees whose seemingly humorous antics had meaning no ordinary human could understand; and Sheba, who remembered what it was to bask in the mud with her kin and glory in a world of which she was an irreplaceable part.
The sights and smells and sensations of those “uncivilized” lands had reduced England to a narrow cage of ordered fields and hedgerows, shaped by man for mankind’s sole purpose, and the animals’ wild souls had awakened a yearning within Donal that hearkened back to his father’s ancient and unearthly heritage … feral blood that recoiled at the thought of returning to the sheltered, safe existence that Dr. Donal Fleming had believed would content him for the rest of his life.
He shivered and continued on his way toward the hotel, stepping into Crown Street with little awareness of the changing scene around him. In his imagination he crept through a dense and dripping jungle where only a few men had ever walked, breathing air untainted by civilization’s belching chimneys and grinding machines. His fingers sought purchase on the sheer side of a mountain peak while pristine snow lashed his face. His legs carried him at a flying run over a plain where the only obstacles were scattered trees, and the horizon swept on forever.
And sometimes, in the visions of freedom that possessed him, a nameless figure walked at his side. A woman with bold gray eyes, severe brown hair and a foolhardy fearlessness she wore as if it were a medieval suit of armor. A female of the type he thought he despised: meddlesome, supremely well-bred and absolutely convinced of her own infallibility.
But he couldn’t drive her from his thoughts, so he accepted her presence and set off across a sun-scorched desert, searching for the life that lay hidden just beyond his reach….
The scream shattered his pleasant illusion. He jerked upright, letting his eyes adjust to the darkness of the narrow, lampless street. The half moon crept behind him like a timid beggar, offering only the faintest illumination, but it was just enough to show Donal how far he had gone astray.
The rookeries of Seven Dials rose around him, unglazed windows and empty doors glaring like hollow eye-sockets and toothless mouths. The air was still and heavy, poised as if awaiting a single misstep from an unwelcome visitor.
Donal had no memory of how he had come to be in the very heart of the slum. Ordinarily he would have simply turned and walked away. But the cry of one in deathly fear still quivered in the silence, and he could not pretend he hadn’t heard. He listened, breathing shallowly against the stink of raw sewage and rotten food. There was no second scream.
The sagging walls of cramped tenements seemed to press in on him with the sheer weight of the misery they contained, and he almost chose flight over intervention. But he continued to linger, casting for the thoughts of the stray dogs that knew each corner of every maze of alleys and crumbling shacks.
Almost at once he found the source of the trouble. He unbuttoned his coat and followed the agitated stream of images that flowed through his mind like water over jagged stones, abandoning the illusory safety of the street for a dank, noisome passage between two dilapidated buildings. Slurred laughter floated out from an open doorway, and a man’s voice uttered a stream of curses in a hopeless monotone. Donal felt the dogs’ excitement increase and broke into a run.
The passage ended in a high stone wall. The sound of coarse, mocking voices reached Donal’s ears. He turned to the right, where the wall and two houses formed a blind alley, a perfect trap for the unwary. And this trap had caught a victim.
A child crouched amid a year’s worth of discarded refuse, her back pressed to the splintered wood of a featureless house. The dress she wore was no more than an assemblage of rags held together with a length of rope, and the color of her long, matted hair was impossible to determine. It concealed all of her thin, dirty face except for a pair of frightened blue eyes.
A trio of nondescript dogs stalked the space directly in front of the girl, facing an equal number of men whose manner was anything but friendly. It was their voices Donal had heard, and they were far too intent on their prey to notice Donal’s arrival.
“’ere, now,” a fair-haired giant said, wiggling his blunt fingers in a gesture of false entreaty. “Don’t be so shy, love. We only wants to show you a good toim. Ain’t that roight, boys?”
“’at’s roight,” said the giant’s companion, a skinny youth whose jutting teeth were black with decay. “Yer first toim should be wiv true gents like us. We won’t disappoint you.”
“Maybe you’ll even be able t’ walk when we’re done,” the third man said, wiping the mucus from his nose with the back of his sleeve. All three broke into raucous laughter, and the girl shrank deeper into the rubbish while the dogs bared their teeth and pressed their tails between skinny flanks.
“You come wiv us now,” the first man said, “and maybe we’ll let yer doggies go. ‘R else—” He nodded to Rotten Teeth, who drew a knife and slashed toward one of the dogs. The animal darted back, shivering in terror but unwilling to abandon the girl.
Donal set down his bag and stepped forward. The dogs pricked their ears, and the girl’s eyes found him through the barrier of her tormenter’s legs. Her cracked lips parted. Fair-Hair’s shoulders hunched, and he began to turn.
With a flurry of silent calls, Donal shrugged out of his coat and tossed it on a slightly less filthy patch of ground.
“I regret to interrupt your sport, gentlemen,” he said softly, “but I fear I must ask you to let the child go.”
CHAPTER THREE
THE THREE BLACKGUARDS spun about, wicked knives flashing in their hands. Fair-Hair lunged, and Donal leaped easily out of his reach.
“Now, now,” he said. “Is this the welcome you give strangers to your fine district? I am sadly disappointed.”
Fair-Hair, Rotten-Teeth and Snot-Sleeve exchanged glances of disbelief. “’oo in ’ell are you?” Snot-Sleeve demanded.
“I’m sure you’re not interested in my name,” Donal said, “and I am certainly not interested in yours. Let the child go, and I won’t report your disreputable behavior to the police.”
Rotten-Teeth snorted. “Will you look at ‘im,” he said. “Some foin toff who finks ‘e can come ‘ere and insult us.”
“Oi remembers the last toim someone did that,” Fair-Hair said. “Not much left o’ ‘im to report to anybody.”
“‘at’s roight,” Rotten-Teeth said. “You lookin’ to ‘ave yer pretty face cut up tonoight, nancy boy?”
“That wasn’t my intention,” Donal said, listening for the scratch and scrabble of tiny feet, “but you are certainly welcome to try … if you have enough strength left after your daily regimen of raping children.”
Snot-Sleeve aimed a wad of spittle at Donal’s chest, which Donal deftly avoided. He glanced past the men to the circling dogs. They heard his request and made themselves very small, waiting for the signal to move. The girl remained utterly still.
“‘e must be crazy,” Fair-Hair muttered, peering into the darkness at Donal’s back. “‘E can’t ‘ave come ‘ere alone.”
“There ain’t no one else,” Rotten-Teeth insisted. “Let me ‘ave ‘im first.”
“Oi got a be’er idea,” Snot-Sleeve said. “‘ooever takes ‘im down gets first crack at the girl.”
“Oi don’t loik this,” Fair-Hair grunted. “Somefin’ ain’t roight….”
Without waiting to hear his friend’s further thoughts on the matter, Rotten-Teeth crouched in a fighter’s stance and advanced on Donal. The stench of his breath was so foul that Donal almost missed the subtle move that telegraphed his intentions. Rotten-Teeth’s hand sliced down at Donal’s arm, and Donal stepped to the side, grasped his attacker’s shoulder and twisted sharply. Rotten-Teeth yelped and fell to one knee.
Fair-Hair and Snot-Sleeve rushed to their companion’s defense, but they had taken only a few steps when the rats spilled from their hiding places. Rotten-Teeth gave a high-pitched whine as half a dozen dark-furred rodents swarmed over his feet. Another fifty rats and a few hundred mice raced in an ever-tightening circle about the other men’s boots, breaking rank only to nip at the humans’ ankles.
Fair-Hair swore and stabbed ineffectually at a bold male who sat on his haunches and mocked the human with a twitch of his whiskers. At the same moment the dogs sprang into action. They darted at the men, seizing sweat-stiffened woollen trousers in their jaws. The hiss of ripping fabric joined the squeaking of the rodents and the villains’ cries of fear and disgust.
The battle was over almost before it began. After failing to reduce the number of rodents by stamping his oversized feet, Fair-Hair chose the better part of valor and stumbled past Donal in a wave of terrified stench. His bare buttocks gleamed through the large hole in his trouser seat. Snot-Sleeve was hot on his heels. Rotten-Teeth came last, frantically dragging his twisted ankle behind him as if he expected to become the rats’ next meal.
A restless silence filled the little space between the walls. Donal gave his thanks to the rodents and sent them scurrying back to their nests. He retrieved his coat and casually shook it out, watching the girl from the corner of his eye. She had scarcely moved since his arrival, and her gaze held the same stark fear with which she had regarded her tormentors.
No, not fear. She had been frightened before, but now those blue eyes held far more complex emotions: suspicion, anger and a glimmer of hope swiftly extinguished. She held out her arms. The dogs wriggled close, licking her face as if she were a pup in need of a good cleaning.
They told Donal all he needed to know. He started cautiously for the girl, holding his hands away from his sides.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
She lowered her head between her shoulders and peered at him from beneath her dark brows. “Wot do you want?” she demanded.
Her directness didn’t startle him. A child left alone so young would have been educated in a hard school. She had probably been hurt so often that she regarded pain as a simple fact of life, like hunger and the casual cruelty of strangers.
“I mean you no harm,” he said, settling into a crouch. The dogs grinned at him in apology but remained steadfastly by their charge’s side. “I heard you cry out—”
“Oi never. You ‘eard wrong.”
Donal studied her face more carefully, noting the blue bruise that marked her right eye. “Did those men touch you?” he asked.
She hugged the dogs closer. The spotted, wire-haired male whined anxiously, striving to make her understand. She cocked her head and frowned. “You ain’t no rozzer, is you?”
“I am not a policeman.”
“Did you bring the rats?”
Donal considered the safe answer and immediately discarded it. “Yes,” he said. “They wouldn’t have hurt you.”
“Oi know.” She pushed a hank of hair out of her eyes. “Why didn’t you let ’em eat them nickey bludgers?”
Her hatred was so powerful that he felt the fringes of it as if she were more animal than human. “Rodents are naturally secretive creatures,” he said seriously, “and I already asked them to do something very much against their natures. Would you ask your dogs to eat a man?”
She giggled with an edge of hysteria and wrapped her arms around her thin chest. “They ain’t my curs,” she said. “But sometoims they ‘elps me, and Oi ‘elps them.”
“They’re very brave, and so are you.”
She shrugged, and the gesture seemed to break something loose inside her. “Wot’re you going to do now?” she whispered.
Her bleak question reminded Donal that he hadn’t considered anything beyond rescuing the child from her attackers. The smallest of the dogs, a shaggy terrier mix, crept up to Donal and nudged his hand. The animal’s request was unmistakable.
“What is your name?” Donal asked, stroking the terrier’s rough fur.
“That ain’t none o’ yer business.”
“Mine is Donal,” he said. “Donal Fleming. How old are you?”
“Twelve years,” she said sharply, narrowing her eyes. “Wot’s it to yer?”
Donal’s hand stilled on the terrier’s back, and the dog growled in response to his sudden surge of anger. “Where do you live?” he asked, keeping his voice as level as he could. “Do you have anyone to look after you?”
She concealed a wet sniff behind her hand. “Oi don’t needs nowbody.”
“What if the men return?”
Blinking rapidly, the girl scraped her ragged sleeve across her eyes. “Oi won’t let ’em catch me.”
But her efforts at bravado were hardly convincing, and the dogs knew how truly afraid she was. Donal got to his feet.
“You’d better come with me,” he said.
Her eyes widened, gleaming with moisture in the dim moonlight. “Where?”
“To my hotel. I’ll see that you have decent clothing and a good meal. And then …”
And then. What was he to do with a child? His thoughts flew inexplicably to the woman from the Zoological Gardens and skipped away, winging to his farm in Yorkshire. He hadn’t the resources to take the girl in, but there were a number of solid families in the Dales who owed him payment for his care of their animals. Surely one of them could be convinced to give her a decent home.
Relieved that he had found a solution, Donal smiled. “How would you like to come north with me, to the countryside?”
The dogs burst into a dance of joy, their tails beating the air. The girl pushed to her feet and brushed scraps of refuse from her colorless dress. “Away from Lunnon?” she asked in disbelief.
“Far away. Where no one can hurt you again.”
She stared at the ground, chewing her lower lip as she watched the dogs gambol around her rag-bound feet. At last she looked up, brows drawn in a menacing frown. “You won’t try nuffin’?”
His smile faded. “I have no interest in abusing children,” he said. “Your dogs know that you can trust me.”
“Oi told you, they ain’t my—” She broke off with an explosive sigh. “Can Oi takes ’em wiv me?”
Donal briefly considered the obstacles involved. “Perhaps we can sneak them in. I already have a dog there. His name is Sir Reginald.”
The girl snorted. “‘At’s a flash name for a cur.”
“But he isn’t puffed-up in the least. You’ll like him.”
“Well …” She kicked an empty tin and sent it spinning across the alley. “Awroight. Me name’s Ivy.”
Donal bowed. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Ivy.”
She made a rude sound, but her eyes were very bright. “Come on, then,” she said to the dogs. “Oi’m ready for a spot o’ supper, even if you ain’t.”
THEY ARRIVED AT HUMMUMS after midnight. The market was quiet, awaiting the arrival of the next day’s wagons, though a few coffee stalls accommodated fast gentlemen and women of the street trolling for their night’s business. There were no “rozzers” present to complicate Donal’s scheme.
He left Ivy and the dogs in a quiet niche around the corner from the hotel and retrieved his greatcoat and a blanket from his rooms. He threw the coat over Ivy and gave her the smallest dog to hold while he wrapped the other two in the blanket and bid them keep absolutely still. Ivy proved adept at moving quietly, and they passed through the lobby without attracting more than an indifferent glance from the night clerk.
Sir Reginald greeted them at the door to Donal’s rooms. He stiffened when he smelled the strange dogs and retreated to a safe place under the sitting-room sofa. Ivy set down the terrier, gazing about the room in silent appraisal as Donal released the other dogs from the blanket. He crouched near the sofa and coaxed Sir Reginald into his arms.
“Sir Reginald,” he said, “this is our guest, Ivy. Ivy, Sir Reginald.”
The spaniel wagged his tail but continued to regard the canine interlopers with suspicion. The three street dogs were on their best behavior, as if they recognized that they had been granted a privilege they must not abuse.
Ivy sat down on the carpet beside them and sniffed loudly. “It’s flash enough,” she conceded. “You said we could ‘ave some food?”
Donal set Sir Reginald on the sofa and brought out the basket of bread and fruit he had bought before he left for the Zoological Gardens. “I’ll purchase more when the market opens in the morning,” he said, “and I’ll find you a dress.” He surveyed her slight form, reflecting on how little he knew of women’s garments. Surely anything would be an improvement on her current wardrobe. “I think it best that you remain here when I go out.”
Ivy snatched the bread from the basket and broke it in half, dividing one part among the dogs and sinking strong, surprisingly white teeth into the other. “You ashamed o’ me?” she asked with studied indifference.
“Not in the least. But you will have to take a bath—”
Ivy shot to her feet, crumbs showering from her patched bodice. “I ain’t takin’ off me clothes!”
“I’ll have them send up a hip bath and hot water while you hide behind the bed,” he said patiently. “Then I’ll leave you alone. Only the dogs will see you.”
She thumped back down and reached for an apple. “I scarcely remember what it feels like to be clean.”
Donal glanced at her sharply, aware of a sudden change in her voice. Gone was the thick rookery accent; she had pronounced every word with the perfect diction of the educated class.
“Who were your parents, Ivy?” he asked.
She noticed his intent look and hunched protectively around the basket. “Oi don’t remember nuffin’.”
“Nothing at all?”
“You sayin’ Oi’m a liar?”
Donal sighed and sat on the nearest chair. “You’ve had a difficult day. I suggest you try to get some sleep.”
She glanced toward the door that separated the two rooms. “Only if you stay in there.”
“Wouldn’t you rather have the bed?”
“Ain’t used to ’em.” She grabbed the blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders. The dogs snuggled close. “Go on.”
Donal picked up Sir Reginald and started for the bedchamber. “You will still be here in the morning?”
“‘Course Oi will. You promised me a new dress.”
There was nothing else to be done but obey the girl’s command. Donal entered the bedchamber and closed the door, sending a last request to Ivy’s canine friends. If the girl attempted to leave, the dogs would warn him. In any case, he had no intention of sleeping until he and Ivy were safely on the train to York.
He stretched out on the bed fully-clothed, Sir Reginald tucked in the crook of his arm, and let the intoxicating scents and shrouded mysteries of the jungle close in around him. He stalked with the tigress, his ears twitching as he caught the movement of deer in the bush. She paused to meet his gaze, inviting him to join in the hunt, and her golden eyes turned the somber gray of a winter-bound lake.
“Can it be, sir,” she purred, “that in spite of your intimate acquaintance with tigers, you have never observed a female of the species Homo sapiens?”
Donal snapped awake to the sound of scratching on the door. Daylight streamed through the window. In an instant he was on his feet, his head ringing with the dogs’ sorrowful apologies. He flung open the door.
Ivy was gone. She had left the blanket neatly folded on the sofa beside the empty basket.
Sir Reginald trotted up behind him and pawed at the leg of his trousers. The mongrels tucked their tails and whined. They were as disconcerted as Donal, for somehow the girl had got past them in spite of their vigilance. Not one of them remembered the moment of her departure.
Ivy was clearly no ordinary child. Donal had severely underestimated her, and miscalculated her trust in him. He had made entirely too many errors in judgment since coming to London. This world left him as addled as a sheep with scrapie, and he would begin to question his sanity unless he were quit of it soon. Quit of men and all their troublesome works.
But he had made a commitment to Ivy. Even if she had chosen not to trust him after all, he wasn’t prepared to surrender her to the streets.
“We will find her,” he assured the dogs firmly. “One of you will come with me.”
The little terrier gave a piercing bark and leaped straight up in the air. Donal set out a bowl of water for the dogs and made a hasty change of drawers and shirt, leaving his jaw unshaven and covering the tangle of his hair with his black top hat.
A few minutes later he squared his shoulders and plunged into the forbidding wilderness of Covent Garden.
MIDMORNING IN LONDON’S biggest market was a riot of color, sound and utter confusion. Theodora took in the sights with the same wide-eyed fascination that she had viewed the Zoological Gardens, the Tower of London and Buckingham Palace, while Cordelia thought of home and Inglesham kept himself busy shielding his charges from jostling or any other annoyance. Here costermongers and fishwives rubbed elbows with ladies in extravagant layers of petticoats and gentlemen in velvet-collared frock coats and tight woollen trousers, all of them shopping for bargains in a place where nearly anything could be had for the right price.
Theodora caught sight of a flower stall overflowing with bouquets of every variety of flower and stared at it wistfully until Inglesham recognized her longing and steered her through the crowd. Cordelia lagged behind, her senses strangely on the alert, and so she was perfectly positioned to observe the next sequence of events.
She saw Theodora cradling a spray of primroses, absorbed in their scent as the flower-seller haggled with Inglesham over the price. Inglesham half turned toward Cordelia, an indulgent smile on his handsome face. And just as he turned, a figure in the remnants of a faded dress darted from between a pair of chattering kitchen maids, slipped behind the viscount and dipped her hand inside his coat.
The thief had no sooner relieved Inglesham of his purse than he spun about and caught her wrist, nearly jerking her off her feet. Theodora dropped the flowers, her mouth opening in shock. Cordelia glimpsed the pickpocket’s face—a piquant visage that might once have been pretty—and pushed her way to the viscount’s side.
“You little mongrel,” Inglesham was saying, shaking the girl from side to side. “Thought I’d be easy prey, did you? Once I have you up before a magistrate—” He noticed Cordelia’s approach and set the girl back on her feet. “Mrs. Hardcastle,” he said formally, “perhaps you should escort Miss Shipp to a place of safety while I deal with this cutpurse. I shall summon a constable—”
“Wait,” Cordelia said. She studied the girl’s face more carefully. She appeared to be no more than eleven or twelve years of age, and her eyes—when they flashed defiantly up at Cordelia—were a surprisingly fetching bright blue. But her hair hung in matted hanks about her shoulders, its color indistinguishable, and her feet were bound in rags instead of shoes.
“What is your name, child?” Cordelia asked gently.
“Her name is of no consequence,” Inglesham said. “She is a thief and must be punished.”
“But you have recovered your purse, Lord Inglesham,” she said, matching his cool tone. “The child is obviously poor and desperate, or she would not be driven to such extremes. Where is the harm in letting her go?”
“The harm lies in permitting her to continue her thieving ways. Surely you, of all people, do not approve of flouting the law.”
“Surely the law can occasionally err on the side of mercy.”
“I agree,” Theodora said. “I should hate to think—”
Inglesham shook his head. “Forgive me, ladies, but you know nothing of these things. I—”
“May I be of assistance?”
Cordelia turned to face the speaker and started in surprise. There, dressed in the same rather shabby coat and bristling with a day’s growth of beard, stood Lord Enkidu. His green eyes moved quickly from Cordelia’s face to Inglesham and then to the girl, assessing the situation in an instant.
“We require no assistance,” Inglesham said gruffly, “unless you would be so good as to fetch a constable.”
The girl stared at Lord Enkidu and suddenly dropped her gaze. “Oi’m sorry,” she muttered.
Lord Enkidu doffed his hat and offered a slight bow. “Forgive me for my presumption,” he said to Cordelia, “but it occurs to me that we have not been introduced. I am Donal Fleming.”
Inglesham stiffened at Fleming’s impertinence, but Cordelia spoke before the viscount could issue a scathing set-down. “I am Cordelia Hardcastle,” she said. “My companions are Viscount Inglesham and my cousin, Miss Shipp.”
Mr. Fleming bowed again and met Inglesham’s eyes. “I would be happy to take the child in custody, sir, if you wish to escort the ladies to a more congenial location.”
Inglesham’s immaculately shaven chin shot up. Cordelia again intervened. “As you see, Mr. Fleming, Lord Inglesham is of the opinion that the girl should be given over to the police. Would that also be your intention?”
Fleming held her gaze, and Cordelia lost herself in it just long enough to make the silence uncomfortable.
“I should not like to contradict the viscount,” he said softly, “but it seems that this child has suffered more than enough to atone for any small transgressions she may have committed.”
“Fortunately for the welfare and property of honest English citizens,” Inglesham said, “the matter is not in your hands.” He glanced around and fixed his eyes on some point beyond the opposite stall. “If you ladies will go on to St. Paul’s Church, I shall meet you there when this business is concluded.”
Fleming followed Inglesham’s stare. His eyes narrowed. Without another word to Cordelia he withdrew, neatly losing himself in the crowd. Cordelia was about to argue with Inglesham when a small, scruffy terrier trotted up to the viscount, lifted his hind leg, and relieved himself on Inglesham’s spotless black ankle boot.
Inglesham jumped, kicking out at the dog with a curse. The terrier evaded his foot. The little thief wrenched her arm free of the viscount’s hold. He snatched at her sleeve, and as she struggled a silver pendant at the end of a frayed cord swung out from beneath her torn collar. She shoved it back under her bodice, writhing wildly, and her sleeve gave way in Inglesham’s hand. She was off like a fox before the hounds.
“Oh!” Theodora exclaimed. “Are your boots quite ruined, Lord Inglesham?” But her eyes met Cordelia’s in a flash of almost mischievous satisfaction.
Inglesham took himself in hand, dropped the filthy scrap of cloth and straightened his hat. “I beg your pardon, ladies,” he said. “I have obviously failed in my duty to protect you from such unpleasantness. Perhaps it would be best if I return you to the house.”
“Of course,” Cordelia said. “I believe Theodora has had her fill of the market … haven’t you, cousin?”
Theodora paid the flower seller for the blossoms she had dropped. “Indeed. It has been a most trying day.”
“Then let us put this incident behind us,” Cordelia suggested. “We shall be on our way home tomorrow, and the country air will soon put us to rights.”
Inglesham smiled, offering an arm to each of the women. “A very sensible suggestion, my dear Mrs. Hardcastle,” he said. “What would we do without you?”
His words were light, dismissing their recent quarrel. It seemed impossible for Bennet to hold a grudge; he could be quick to anger, and just as quick to forgive. His sincerity was beyond question.
And yet, as Inglesham hailed a hackney cab to take them back to Russell Street, Cordelia found herself watching for Mr. Donal Fleming, wondering why he had come and gone with such mysterious haste. She thought of the little dog who had appeared so fortuitously after Fleming vanished into the crowd. A very peculiar coincidence indeed. And what an exceedingly trying and vexatious gentleman, with those unwavering green eyes that seemed to judge and challenge her at one and the same time….
As the cab rattled away, Cordelia could have sworn that she saw Fleming with the girl, deep in conversation while the little terrier trotted happily at their heels.
She resolved then and there that Donal Fleming would not remain a mystery much longer.
THE GIRL WAS ALIVE.
Béfind paced across the silver floor of her crystal palace, her slippered feet beating a muted tattoo that shattered the morning’s perfect stillness. It had been many long years since she had felt such blinding rage. Life in Tir-na-Nog provided little cause for the primitive emotions that so consumed the lives of mortalkind; Fane might quarrel over a pretty trinket, or play spiteful tricks upon each other for the sake of an hour’s amusement, but such minor conflicts were as quickly forgotten as one’s latest love affair.
No, Béfind had not felt so since she had left the human world forty mortal years ago. She had never had any desire to return. The passions that ruled mankind—love and hate, joy and sorrow—were like some foul disease, defiling everything they touched.
Even a great lady of the Fane who had lived three thousand years.
With a whispered curse, Béfind went to stand between the fluted columns that framed a flawless view of the emerald lawn. The sun shone like a vast jewel in a cloudless sky, reigning over unblemished meadow and forest, lake and stream. Deer and horses of every hue grazed among the flowers. A sweet, warm wind ruffled the grass with playful fingers.
A female halfling, great with child, wandered among trees heavy with fruit and blossoms. She strolled beside a dark-haired Fane, laughing at his jests as if she enjoyed her pitiful condition. A mortal visitor to Tir-na-Nog might never realize that the girl was little more than a broodmare … an exotic, captive creature pampered and petted for one reason only: to save the Fane race from extinction.
Humankind had but one advantage over the Fane: their blood was strong and hearty while that of the Fair Folk grew thin and weak. Few pure Fane matings produced children, but the spawn of Fane and human were extremely fertile. For as long as Béfind could remember, it had been the duty of each and every Fane to seek a mate among the humans and return to Tir-na-Nog with a halfling child whose own offspring would buy the Fane another few centuries of existence.
Béfind had done her duty. She had forced her body to endure months of ugly thickening, sacrificing her beauty to the thing growing in her belly. Idath had been beside her on the day she delivered the half-human brat. High Lord Idath, who had been her lover for a hundred years and more, had informed her with seeming regret that her babe had died upon its birth.
How the gossips had enjoyed telling her, all these years later, that Idath had lied.
Béfind hissed between her teeth and watched Fane men and women ride ivory steeds in a hunt for the stags of the golden forest. The hunters’ arrows would bring no suffering to the beasts when they died, only a swift and gentle sleep. Pain was banished from Tir-na-Nog. Regret had no place here. But there was still room for vengeance.
Béfind lifted her hands and called, summoning the hobs and sprites and lesser Fane who served her in her splendid isolation.
“No matter how long it takes,” she told them, “you will find her. Find the girl and report to me.”
The hobs and sprites knew better than to utter cries of dismay at the task she had set them. They scattered and vanished, flying swiftly for one of the last remaining Gates that connected Tir-na-Nog and earth.
Béfind turned away from the window with a smile and idly changed the color of her gown from glossy amber to flaming scarlet. Tonight she would summon young Connla to her bed and see how well he pleased her. Tomorrow she would choose another. Let Idath enjoy his victory now; he would soon see who played the cleverest game.
Sooner or later, the girl would be hers.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE ROLLING HILLS and peaceful fields of Yorkshire should have filled Donal’s heart with welcome relief after his sojourn in London. Perched on the seat of old Benjamin’s farm wagon, he could see the outbuildings of Stenwater Farm as the road curved into the dale. Flocks of sheep grazed on the fells, and the beck tumbled cheerfully between limestone outcroppings thick with wildflowers.
One would never believe, looking at such a peaceful scene, that a mad place like London could exist, or that a belching, roaring locomotive had carried Donal and his new charges all the way from the world’s greatest metropolis to the equally ancient but far less pretentious city of York.
And yet, for all the sense of unreality that had accompanied Donal on the journey home, he could not deny that his life had already undergone a profound alteration.
He had almost been able to forget how much had changed while he and a cleanly-washed, cleanly-dressed Ivy shared the small, private world of the railway car. During the long hours rattling through the countryside of the Midlands, he and the girl had come to a kind of understanding, and Ivy had expressed regret for the mistrust that had led her to flee the hotel and resume her previous occupation as a purse snatcher.
Donal wasn’t sure if the fact that she was caught in her thievery contributed to her remorse, but she seemed sincere enough in her desire for a new start. Her three mongrels—christened Billy, Jack and Daisy—had infected her with their enthusiasm, and Sir Reginald honored her by falling asleep in her lap. She spent every moment of daylight with her nose pressed to the window, devouring the sight of fresh grass and hedgerows and spring-green trees as if she were on her way to heaven itself.
Donal’s thoughts had taken other directions. Again and again he drifted into dreams of the wilderness, lost in the memories of beasts born in lands that called to him more urgently with every passing day. And only one human being invaded those dreams: the gray-eyed Athena named Cordelia Hardcastle.
It was a strangely appropriate designation for her. She was no delicate beauty; her gaze was direct, her speech without coy flattery or empty pleasantries. “Hard” was too strong a word for her determined manner, and yet she was not unlike the castle in her name: sturdy, uncompromising and completely impregnable.
A man of her type and class … like Viscount Inglesham, perhaps … might be tempted to breech her defenses and scale her walls. Even Donal had not been immune to her obvious intelligence and compassion for those weaker and less privileged than herself. And if he were honest, he would be compelled to admit that something deep inside him had responded to the undeniable, lush femininity she held in check beneath those layers of corsets and petticoats—no more or less instinctively than the way a stallion responds to a mare.
But, encroach on his dreams though she might, Miss Hardcastle belonged to a world in which he had no part.
Donal tried to push such speculation aside as the wagon rolled up the last rise to Stenwater Farm. He had plenty of business to attend to when they reached the farm; there were animals to be visited, accounts to peruse and neighbors to consult regarding Ivy’s future. The girl sat with the dogs in the bed of the wagon, her blue eyes wide with excitement, still ignorant of his plans for her. He didn’t look forward to explaining how she would be much better off with a good farming family, who had children close to her age and could provide a growing child with a conscientious upbringing.
And I may soon be gone, he thought, gazing up at the cloud-dappled sky. Taking leave of his animals would be difficult enough without the additional burden of a child. There were a few humans he might trust with the dogs, cats, sheep, cattle, horses and pigs—men who would not consign his friends to the cook-pot—and Benjamin would gladly remain at Stenwater as caretaker for as long as he was needed.
And what of Tod? The little hob had been his closest companion for a quarter of a century, a constant playfellow and wise advisor throughout Donal’s awkward childhood and youth. But Tod was bound to England as surely as if he wore shackles of iron on his swift brown feet. He was a part of the woods and fields and streams of this island, and there was no telling if he could survive being separated from it. Even though Tod would always find a welcome at Hartsmere with his former master, the parting would be painful for man and hob alike.
The wagon rolled to a halt. Ivy was out before Benjamin could set the break. Daisy, Jack and Billy scrambled out of the wagon, quivering with joy at the myriad scents and sounds, while Sir Reginald patiently waited for someone to help him down.
Donal scooped the spaniel up in his arms and gently set him on the ground just as a half-dozen farm dogs barreled around the corner of the byre. Sir Reginald dived under the wagon, but the street curs held their ground, legs and tails stiff. Soon enough they had determined the vital matters of status and rank, and the entire pack dashed off together.
Ivy twisted a handful of her skirts between her hands and bit her lip. “It’s so big,” she said. “I ain’t never seen so much …”
“Space?” Donal offered, briefly resting his hand on Ivy’s shoulder. “You’ll become used to it in time. The air is clean here. You’ll have fresh-baked bread, eggs from our chickens, potatoes and carrots right out of the good earth. You can run as far as you like without fear.”
She sniffled, pressing her knuckles to her nose. “But wot will Oi do?”
If it were up to him, she would be free to do whatever she liked … help Benjamin with the chores, wander the moors, spend days reading the books in his library. But of course she probably couldn’t read at all, and would have to be taught by whichever family agreed to take her in.
“There is something you can do now,” he said. “Sir Reginald is a bit frightened by so much change. If you could care for him until he has settled in …”
Ivy blinked, emerging from some inner world of her own, and nodded. “O’ course. I’ll look after ‘im.” She bent down and coaxed the spaniel from under the wagon. “You stick wiv me, Reggie, and you’ll be just foin.”
Donal nodded to Benjamin, who led the horse and wagon off to the stables. Still murmuring to Sir Reginald, Ivy followed Donal up to the house, passing the border of flowers Benjamin had planted along the path. He opened the door to the cozy kitchen and let Ivy look around.
“We live simply at Stenwater,” he said. “Benjamin and I share the cooking duties, and we have a cleaning woman and laundress come in once a week. Benjamin cares for the larger animals … we have several horses and a pony you might ride, if that suits you.”
“‘Ow many animals ‘ave you?” Ivy asked, her gaze moving hungrily about the room with its hanging pots and massive box stove.
“Oh, a score of dogs, and as many cats … most live in the byre and stables … several milch cows, a small flock of sheep and a dozen cattle up on the fells … six horses and the pony … ten pigs, at last tally. Perhaps forty chickens.” He cocked his head, surveying the farm in his mind. “Sometimes we have a fox or a badger visiting us, if they need tending. I’ve never tried to count the mice.”
Ivy giggled, a burst of nervous sound that seemed to relieve some internal pressure. “D’you eat ’em … the sheep ‘n’ cows ‘n’ pigs, Oi mean?”
“Since I consider them my friends, it would hardly be fair, would it?”
“Then ‘ow d’you keep from starving?”
“You would be surprised how much nutrition one can derive from the fruits of the earth,” he said. “Our chickens are willing to provide us with eggs in plenty, and our cows are happy to supply all the milk we can drink.”
Ivy considered this for several moments. “Oi guess Oi’d rather not eat yer friends, either.”
Donal laughed, took her face between his hands and kissed her forehead. She jumped back, regarding him with something akin to shock.
Donal sobered instantly. “I’m sorry, Ivy. I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s awroight,” she said, glancing away. “You just surprised me, is all.”
Of course he had surprised her. She’d likely received far more blows than kisses in her short lifetime. And he was not in the habit of doling out caresses to any creature whose skin was not covered in fur or feathers.
Nevertheless, though Ivy would not be with him long, he must remember that she was human. Whatever affection he might hold for her or any other person, the communion he enjoyed with the animals could never be shared with a member of her species.
After he had shown Ivy the kitchen and parlor, he led her through the hall to the bedchambers. The room he kept for guests had a window that looked out on the informal garden, and it was furnished with a brass four-poster adorned with a hand-quilted coverlet.
“This will be your room,” Donal said. “If there is anything it lacks, you must tell me.”
Ivy crept through the doorway and slowly set Sir Reginald down on the braided rug. “This … is fer me?”
“Yes. I’m sure you will want things … suitable for a young girl. What we can’t purchase in the local village we will surely find in York.”
Ivy scarcely seemed to hear him. She approached the bed warily, ran her hands over the coverlet, and cautiously sat down. Sir Reginald jumped up beside her and immediately made a comfortable nest out of one of the pillows. He sighed in complete contentment.
“Mine,” Ivy breathed. She rubbed her fist across her eyes, shot from the bed and hurled herself at Donal. Her thin arms closed around him with desperate strength.
“Thank you,” she whispered into his waistcoat. “I don’t know … how I can ever repay you.”
Once again her rookery accent had vanished, but Donal was too startled to give much thought to the transformation. He patted her back awkwardly.
“You owe me nothing,” he said. “But I do think you have had enough stimulation for one day. If you and Sir Reginald would care to rest, I’ll fetch your luggage and see what I can find in the kitchen.”
She pulled back and studied his face. “You won’t leave me?”
“If I leave the farm, it will only be for a short time, and Benjamin will be here.”
“I want you to show me the animals. Your friends.”
“After you’ve rested.”
Her lower lip jutted with incipient rebellion, but she thought better of it. With a final sniff she returned to the bed and drew back the coverlet. She crawled under the sheets, holding very still as if she feared her mere presence might sully such luxury. Sir Reginald tucked his body against her, one long, fringed ear draped across her chest.
“Sleep,” Donal said, backing out the door. “I’ll wake you in time for dinner.”
But her eyes were already closed, and she didn’t stir again. Donal shut the door and walked silently back down the hall. He met Benjamin in the kitchen, checked the contents of the larder, and asked the old man to prepare a simple but hearty meal. Then he left the house and began his rounds.
The old gelding and the pony in the stable greeted him with whinnies of welcome, telling him of the new litter of kittens born in the loose box. The proud mother cat put in an appearance and allowed Donal to examine the babies. He cradled each tiny, blind body in his hand and felt the new seeds of consciousness beginning to awake.
His next stop was the byre, where the elder cows chewed their cud and gossiped in their bovine way about their youngest sister and her knobby-kneed calf. A quintet of canines followed Donal to the home pasture and maintained a polite distance as he called upon the other horses and cattle, checking hooves and eyes and ears and assessing the gloss of sunwarmed coats. He climbed alone up the fell, standing quietly while the sheep gathered about him and nuzzled his coat and trousers.
Nothing had changed in his absence. All was as it should be, the animals absorbed in the continual “present” of their lives, altering little from one hour, one day, one year to the next. They trusted in the natural order of the universe. And like Nature herself, moor and fell and beck would persevere for a thousand generations, their metamorphoses measured not in decades, but eons.
No, Donal’s world had not changed. Only he was different. With every step that he walked across the rolling pastures or scaled the low stone walls, he felt it grow—the strange, undeniable sense that the unnamed thing his life had always lacked lay beyond this spare, immutable landscape, somewhere in the sweeping veldt of Africa, the high desert of Mongolia or the jungles of Brazil.
And what of Tir-na-Nog?he asked himself. What if that is what you truly seek? Endless beauty and freedom from responsibility in a land humanity can never taint with its madness …
A land that had banished his father for daring to be “human.” A country Donal had rejected in favor of the challenges of a mortal existence, the chance to do good where it was most needed. To return to the Land of the Young was to surrender his humanity.
And would that be so terrible a price?
Donal descended the fell as twilight settled over the dale and the farm buildings. The scent of cooking drifted up to him on the breeze. Soon the comfortable routine he and Benjamin shared, sitting at the kitchen table in their customary silence, would be broken. Ivy would be there. And tomorrow he must go to the local farmers and learn which family was best suited to caring for a bright but troubled child….
The fox darted under his feet, nearly tripping him into a tumble down the fell. He righted himself quickly, his mild oath turning to laughter as the fox began to chase its own bushy tail, leaping and gamboling like a red-furred court jester.
“Tod!” Donal said, easing himself onto the grass. “Are you trying to do me in?”
The fox came to a sudden stop, cocked its clever pointed head, and jumped straight up into the air. It landed on two small feet and grinned at Donal from a face neither child nor man, nut-brown eyes dancing with merriment.
“My lord is home!” Tod said, dancing nimbly just above the ground, his tattered clothing fluttering about him. Even at full stretch, he reached no higher than Donal’s waist. Like all his kind, lesser Fane of wood and wildland, he was shaped to hide in the forgotten places men tended to ignore. And no human saw him unless he wished it.
Donal returned Tod’s grin to hide his sadness. “You would think I’d been gone a year,” he teased. “You couldn’t have missed me so very much, busy as you were at Hartsmere.”
Tod flung himself onto his back and gazed up at the twilit sky. “Tod always misses my lord,” he said, spreading his arms wide. “The mortal world is dreary and dull without him.”
Donal passed his hand through his hair and sighed. “What news of my parents?”
“They are well, but yearn for my lord’s company.” His mobile mouth twisted in a scowl. “The Black Widow was there.”
The “Black Widow” was Tod’s nickname for the woman with whom Donal had shared an intense and harrowing affair. She was indeed a widow … or had been, when Donal broke off the relationship.
“My brothers?” Donal asked, eager to change the subject.
“Both prosper. They, too, would call you back.” He hopped up, balancing on one bare foot. “Shall we return, my lord?”
Donal gazed down at the grass between his feet. “Not now, Tod. Perhaps not for some time.”
Tod leaned forward to peer into Donal’s face. “What troubles my lord?” he asked. “Did the Iron City do you ill?”
Donal shook his head. He acknowledged to himself that he was unprepared to admit the truth: that his trip to London, and his time with the animals in the Zoological Gardens, had finally convinced him that he had no place in a world ruled by humankind.
“I saw much cruelty in the city,” he said. “I did not return alone.”
“Tod met the new dogs,” Tod said eagerly. “They praise my lord with every breath.”
“Not only dogs, Tod. There is a girl … a child from the worst part of London. She’s come to stay in Yorkshire.”
Tod went very still. “A female?”
“A young girl. She’s seen much sorrow in her life, and I wish to give her a brighter future.”
Tod was silent for a long while, frowning up at the emerging stars. “She stays here?” he said at last.
“Only until I can find a suitable home for her.” He gave Tod a coaxing smile. “You’ll like her, Tod. She has spirit.”
The hob hunched his shoulders, his face hidden beneath his thick shock of auburn hair. “As my lord says.”
Donal got to his feet and held out his hand. “Walk with me,” he said. “Tell me all my mother’s gossip from Hartsmere.”
TOD PERCHED on the windowsill and watched the girl sleep. She did not look so terrible now, her small form smothered in blankets and her face relaxed against the pillow. But appearance could so easily deceive. No one knew that better than Tod himself.
Since Donal’s childhood he had been the boy’s closest friend and companion. Together they had wandered the ancient woods of Hartsmere, running with the red deer and conversing with the badgers in their setts. The Fane gifts Donal had inherited from his father had made him an expert healer … and kept him forever apart from those of his mother’s human blood.
But Tod had made certain he was never alone. Wherever Donal went, he followed … except when his master ventured into one of the cities of Iron, which few Fane could tolerate. Only once before had anything or anyone come between them, when the Black Widow caught Donal in her web.
Now there was another.
Tod closed his eyes, almost longing for the tears no true Fane could shed. For the first time in the many years he and Donal had lived at Stenwater Farm, Tod had been banished from the house during the evening meal. “Ivy wouldn’t know what to make of you,” Donal had said. “Perhaps you’ll meet her later, when she’s accustomed to her new life.”
But Tod had taken no comfort in his master’s promise. He had listened to their laughter as they sat at the table, sharing bread and cheese in the warmth of the kitchen. Ivy had gazed at Donal with such a look of gratitude and admiration in her eyes that made Tod’s skin prickle and his hair stand on end. Donal had smiled at her as if she had earned the right to his affection. And Tod had known then that if he were not very, very careful, she would take his place in this small, sheltered world he had learned to call “home.”
Tod glared at the girl, wondering what arcane powers she might possess. He was certain she did not know what she was, and neither did Donal. Perhaps it was his mortal blood that made him blind. Perhaps it was instinct that had drawn him to rescue her, though the gods knew how she had come to be living in the streets of the Iron City.
Whatever the nature of her past, the danger now was very real. Tod was no High Fane to place a curse upon her. All he could do was watch, and wait. And if she did not go to live with some local human family, he would find a way to drive her from Donal’s life.
THE LETTER ARRIVED at Edgecott the evening after Cordelia’s return. Half-dressed for dinner, she dismissed Biddle and sat down at her dressing table. With deliberate care she slit the envelope and removed the neatly folded paper.
When she had finished reading, Cordelia remained at the table and gazed unseeing in the mirror, oblivious to the passage of time until Biddle discreetly tapped on the door to remind her of the impending meal. She let the maid button her into her dress and work her hair into some semblance of order, but even Biddle noticed that her mind was elsewhere.
She and Theodora ate alone, as usual, while Sir Geoffrey dined in his rooms. After Theodora had retired, Cordelia changed into an old dress she reserved for work outdoors and walked across the drive, past the kennels and stables and over the hill to the menagerie.
The animals were often at their most active at dawn and dusk—restless, perhaps, with memories of hunting and being hunted. Othello, the black leopard, paced from one end of his large cage to the other, his meal of fresh mutton untouched. The two Barbary macaques pressed their faces to the bars and barked at Cordelia before scrambling up into the leafless trees that had been erected for their exercise and amusement. The Asian sun bear, Arjuna, lifted his head and snuffled as he awakened from his day’s sleep, but showed no inclination to rise. The North American wolves lay on their boulders and twitched their ears, golden eyes far too dull for such magnificent creatures.
Cordelia sat on the bench facing the pens and rested her chin in her hands. She had done everything Lord Pettigrew recommended when she had set up the menagerie upon her final return to England. The cages were generous and consisted of both interior and exterior shelters, and Cordelia had added tree trunks, branches and boulders collected from the surrounding countryside to lend interest to the enclosures. Each animal had a proper diet carefully prepared by a specially trained groundskeeper. The cages were kept scrupulously clean. The fearful conditions under which the beasts had once lived were a thing of the past.
I want only what is best for you, she thought as the twilight deepened in the woods at the crest of the hill. Why can you not understand?
The animals could not answer. She knew she was mad to hope otherwise. And yet there was a man who talked to such creatures as if they were people, a man who could quiet a rampaging elephant and believed that it spoke to him….
Cordelia rose and walked slowly back to the house. She was absolutely convinced of her own sanity, and perhaps that was part of the problem. She seldom found occasion to ask for help in any of her affairs. Perhaps, for the sake of those dependent upon her, she would have to set aside her pride and seek the assistant of one afflicted with just the very madness she required.
CHAPTER FIVE
STENWATER FARM, A MILE on poorly graded roads beyond the village of Langthorpe, was almost exactly what Cordelia had expected. It had something of the slightly rough and yet unpredictably charming qualities of its owner, and the moment the carriage pulled up in the yard, a round dozen dogs of mixed parentage charged around the farmhouse corner.
Before the horses had a chance to shy or bolt at the unexpected assault, the dogs stopped and sat in a ragged line like schoolboys who had just remembered their manners. The coachman descended from his perch and let down the step, and as Cordelia climbed out she saw the horses twist their necks about to stare at the farmhouse door.
Theodora stepped out after her, pausing to take in the scene. “Are you quite sure that Dr. Fleming will welcome such an unexpected visit?” she asked.
“I do not know if he will welcome it,” Cordelia said, “considering his failure to respond to my letters. However, he is a doctor of veterinary medicine, and as such I assume he is available for consultation.” She followed Theodora’s gaze. “I assure you, the dogs are not vicious.”
“They certainly do not appear to be. I wonder if Dr. Fleming sends such a welcoming committee to greet every guest?”
“I rather doubt he has many guests.” Taking Theodora’s arm, Cordelia started up the flower-lined path. The dogs melted out of her way as she approached, a few wagging their tails while the others looked on solemnly and fell in behind her.
“I feel as if I am being examined like a ewe at market,” Theodora whispered.
“Doubtless Dr. Fleming intends such an effect,” Cordelia said. She strode up the flagstone steps to the porch, smoothed her skirts, and knocked on the door.
It went unanswered for several minutes, though Cordelia was quite sure that she heard noises within the house. Finally the door swung open and an old man, slightly stooped but still of vigorous appearance, peered at the women with raised brows.
“Good morning,” Cordelia said crisply. “I am Mrs. Hardcastle, and this is Miss Shipp. We have come to see Dr. Fleming on a matter of some urgency.”
The old man blinked and let his gaze drift from Cordelia’s feet to the top of her bonnet. “T’ doctor is oot o’ t’ ‘oose at t’ moment,” he said.
Cordelia quickly translated the man’s thick dialect and nodded. “Can you tell me when he will return?”
“‘E’s with t’ coos in t’ byre yonder.”
“I see.” Cordelia suppressed a sigh and smiled patiently. “Perhaps you would be so kind as to tell him that he has visitors who wish to consult with him in his professional capacity?”
The old man grunted. “Weel, noo. ‘Appen Ah can fetch ‘im. If thoo’ll bide ‘ere …” He closed the door, leaving Cordelia staring at peeling blue paint.
“What did he say?” Theodora asked. “I didn’t understand a word.”
“He said he would fetch the doctor.” She shook her head. “Like master, like man. One can hardly expect courtesy from Dr. Fleming’s servants.”
“Perhaps it is simply the way of the people here.”
“Perhaps.” Grateful that she had worn sturdy boots, Cordelia lifted her skirts and set off across the somewhat muddy expanse of trampled earth between the farmhouse and the outbuildings scattered in a rough semicircle sheltered by rocky hills. A hay meadow stretched out to the east where the little valley was widest, and there were several fenced pastures between the byre and what appeared to be a stable. Drystone walls marched up the hills, undulating with the curves of the landscape.
She saw no other farmhands or laborers on her way to the byre, but of animals there were plenty. Chickens and geese wandered at will, snapping up grain and other tasty morsels spread out for them, and a pair of pigs had made a wallow where the mud was several feet deep. Horses in the pasture trotted up to the fence and poked inquisitive heads over the railing. A cat and five kittens paraded toward the meadow, tails twitching. Cows lowed and sheep bleated. Cordelia doubted that she would be surprised to find an elephant among the farm’s residents.
The servant’s gravelly voice floated from the byre, followed by the familiar, educated accent Cordelia had heard twice before. Lord Pettigrew had been somewhat vague when he had written of Dr. Fleming’s background; Cordelia suspected that he knew more than he was willing to tell, but he would surely not have dealings with a man whose past was less than respectable.
The social position of Dr. Fleming’s family was irrelevant to Cordelia’s purpose so long as he could provide the services she required. She turned to make certain that Theodora was behind her and picked her way to the byre’s doors.
“… did you tell her I was in, Benjamin?” Fleming was saying. “I’ve already received three letters from the woman, each one more demanding than the last. I haven’t time to cater to some fine lady’s pampered pets. The very fact that she has come all this way proves that she won’t be dissuaded unless she can be convinced—”
“Convinced of what, Dr. Fleming?” Cordelia said, stepping over the threshold. “That some gentlemen are so averse to human company that they will do anything to avoid it?”
Fleming shot to his feet from his place beside a spindly, spotted calf, and the flare of his green eyes stole the breath from Cordelia’s throat. He opened his mouth to speak, stared at Cordelia’s face, and seemed to forget what he was about to say.
“Ah told ‘er ta bide at t’ ‘oose,” Benjamin said mournfully, sending Cordelia a reproachful look.
His words seemed to shake Fleming from his paralysis. “I have no doubt,” he said. “Mrs. Hardcastle,” he said with a stiff bow, glancing past Cordelia to Theodora. “Miss Shipp. I trust you have not been waiting long.”
Cordelia matched his dry tone. “No longer than expected,” she said. “Have we interrupted you in your work?”
He looked down at the calf pressed against his leg and idly scratched it between the eyes. “Nothing that cannot wait.” He turned to Benjamin. “Put the poultice on his leg as I showed you, and I’ll see to him later.”
“Aye, Doctor.” Benjamin gave Cordelia a final, appraising look and knelt beside the calf. Fleming brushed off the sleeves of his coat—which, like his waistcoat, trousers and boots, was liberally splashed with mud—and started toward the door. Cordelia noted that he wore no cravat, and his shirt was open at the neck, revealing a dusting of reddish brown hair.
His face was as she remembered it, handsome and bronzed by a life spent outdoors. His brown hair was windblown and still in need of cutting. But he could barely restrain a scowl, and Cordelia felt that his slight attempts at courtesy were more for Theodora’s sake than her own.
“I apologize for my appearance,” he said, sounding not at all apologetic, “but I didn’t expect guests. I fear I lack adequate facilities to entertain ladies.”
“We are not here to be entertained,” Cordelia said.
He stopped, gestured the women ahead of him, and followed them out of the byre. “Have you come far this morning, Mrs. Hardcastle?”
“From York,” she said. “And previously by train from Gloucestershire.”
“A long journey.”
“Since I did not receive a reply to my letters,” Cordelia said, sidestepping a puddle, “I feared they had gone astray. One can never be sure of delivery in the countryside.”
Fleming cleared his throat and offered his arm to Theodora when she hesitated at a muddy patch. “I have been … much distracted since my return from London,” he said. “I am not a practiced correspondent.”
“Then you have read the letters.”
He released Theodora at the foot of the flagstone steps and faced Cordelia, his hands clasped behind his back. “Yes.” He glanced away. “Have you breakfasted this morning?”
“We have. Dr. Fleming …”
“Would you care to come in for tea?”
“I would not wish to put you to any trouble, Doctor.”
His eyes acknowledged her feint, and his lips curved up at the corners. “No. You would only have me abandon my practice and attend to your private menagerie in Gloucestershire.”
Theodora stifled what might have been a gasp. Cordelia returned Fleming’s smile. “Perhaps we shall accept your offer of tea, Doctor, if it will allow us to have a civilized conversation.”
Fleming bowed again, far too deeply, and opened the door to the house. “Please regard my humble kitchen as your own,” he said.
Humble the kitchen and house might be—certainly they bore no signs of luxury or a woman’s refining touch—but at least they were orderly and clean. Donal seated his guests at the long kitchen table and set about preparing the tea himself. As water heated on the massive stove, he disappeared and returned with a tray holding a pot of honey, a pitcher of cream and a plate of scones.
“We were fortunate to receive a fresh basket of scones from Mrs. Laverick this morning,” he said, deftly placing the pots and plates on the table. A moment later he set out a fine china teapot and dainty cups and saucers.
“How lovely,” Theodora said, unable to conceal her surprise.
“An inheritance from my mother,” Fleming said shortly. He completed the preparations in silence and strained the grounds into the teapot with the same grace he had shown in stopping a charging pachyderm. “Will you pour, Mrs. Hardcastle?”
She accepted his invitation and served the tea, which Fleming took absolutely plain. Once they had all spent a suitable time savoring the tea and scones, Fleming set down his cup and fixed his direct stare on Cordelia.
“It is not my intention to be rude, Mrs. Hardcastle, Miss Shipp,” he said, “but it is impossible for me to accede to your request.”
In spite of her previous meetings with him, Cordelia discovered that she could still be taken aback by his bluntness. She placed her cup on its saucer and folded her hands in her lap.
“Surely, since we have come so far, you will allow me to elaborate on the subject before you dismiss it,” she said.
He sighed. “Perhaps I misunderstood. Did you not suggest that I travel to your father’s estate in Gloucestershire to examine the animals in your private menagerie?”
“I did.” She held his gaze. “When we met at the Zoological Gardens, I was most impressed by your dealings with the elephant. I made inquiries based upon the assumption that you had some connection with the Zoological Society. Lord Pettigrew is an old acquaintance of my father, Sir Geoffrey Amesbury. He told me of your profession, and that you had come to London at his request. He said that you were able to improve the health of a tigress and several other exotic animals within only a few days.”
Fleming rose from the table and paced halfway across the room. “I went to London only because my family are also acquainted with Lord Pettigrew, and he presented his case as a matter of life or death for the animals concerned.”
Cordelia also rose. “Perhaps I was not clear enough in my letters. My case is also urgent.”
He came to stand at the opposite end of the room, pressed near the wall like a cornered animal prepared to fight for its life. “You wrote that your pets are suffering from a general malaise. This is hardly surprising in creatures forced to endure unnatural captivity.”
She held onto her temper. “You can hardly judge what you have not seen, Doctor.”
“I have seen cages,” he said, his voice growing distant and strange. “One is little different from another.”
“I do not agree. I, too, have seen cages, all over the world, and beasts nearly starved or beaten to death.” She swallowed her anger. “My animals receive care equal to that of the Zoological Gardens. Expense is no object where their well-being is concerned … and that includes generous compensation for an expert practitioner such as yourself.”
He emerged from the grip of memory and made a sound not unlike the snort of an irritated horse. “Sir Geoffrey Amesbury,” he said. “A knight?”
“My father is a baronet.”
“And your husband, Mrs. Hardcastle? Does he take an equal interest in your hobbies?”
She stared at him, abruptly realizing that she had never clarified her marital status. “My husband, Dr. Fleming, is deceased. I am a widow.”
Fleming gaped at her and then had the grace to look embarrassed at his faux pas. “I am sorry,” he said, tugging at his cravat. “I had not realized … When we first met in London, I had thought you unmarried. But your letters …”
“Were not perhaps as clear as they might have been,” Cordelia finished. “My father is often indisposed, and has left the administration of the estate in my hands. So you see, I possess all due authority to request your assistance at whatever price we both deem reasonable.”
Dr. Fleming was silent for several moments, regarding her as if she had confounded all his expectations. He collected the tea tray and carried it to a scarred sideboard. “You must be very comfortably situated, Mrs. Hardcastle,” he said at last. “My circumstances must seem extremely limited by comparison.”
“If I have judged you in any capacity,” Cordelia said, “it has not been by your family—of whom I know nothing—your profession, or your residence.”
“But you have judged that I must be in need of money.” He clasped his hands behind his back and gazed out the large kitchen window. “Do you believe that is my chief motive for the work I do, Mrs. Hardcastle? Are you attempting to bribe me with promises of fees I could never earn in such a backward place as this?”
Cordelia strode to join him, her skirts hissing like a goaded serpent. “It seems I remain most ignorant in matters of your character, Doctor. Pray enlighten me. Why does a man of your obvious skill, whose abilities are lauded by a personage such as Lord Pettigrew, choose to hide himself in the wilds of Yorkshire? Why does he so discourteously reject a respectable offer of employment to heal the very creatures whom he so obviously prefers to humankind?”
He turned on her, the color of his eyes shifting like leaves dancing in and out of shadow. “Tell me, Mrs. Hardcastle,” he said, “why can you not bear to be refused? Have you never met a man who declines to tremble in awe at the force of your indomitable will?”
His words hung in a sudden, shocked silence. Cordelia took a step back, her fists clenched at her sides, and tried to remember the last time any man had spoken to her with such contempt.
No, not contempt. She gathered calm about her like an Indian shawl and considered him with cool deliberation. She had been correct in her assessment of him: he was hiding, here among his animals, and anyone who might drive him into the open must be considered a threat. A threat to be chased away by any means necessary.
“You must have been hurt very badly,” she said, softly enough so that only he would hear. “I pity you, Doctor. I pity you more than I can say.”
Fleming blanched. For once he seemed unable to think of a suitably cutting response. Cordelia’s heart clenched with a pang of regret. Had she not spoken too rashly, out of pride and anger? Had she not sworn to herself a thousand times since returning to England that she would never again allow passions of any kind to rule her life?
She had opened her mouth to offer some sort of apology when a furious scratching began at the door. A moment later the door burst inward, and the dogs from the yard rushed toward Cordelia like a pack of wolves.
She braced herself, half expecting the pain of fangs tearing at her flesh. But the dogs, all nine or ten of them, simply ran around her and pressed against their master, licking his hands and whining as they milled about him. It was if they had sensed his distress and responded to it in the only way they could.
Their devoted attentions freed Fleming from his preoccupation. He met Cordelia’s eyes for only an instant and then walked past her to the door.
“Forgive me for this disturbance, ladies,” he said. “The animals of Stenwater Farm are accustomed to an unusual degree of liberty.” Something in his voice, and in the halftwist of his lips, suggested that he counted himself among the fortunate beasts. “May I offer you anything else before you return to York?”
The dismissal was gentle, and absolute. Theodora rose, her fingers pinching the folds of her skirt. Cordelia smiled at her reassuringly and led her toward the door. The time for apologies was past.
Dr. Fleming showed them the courtesy of escorting them to the road and summoning the coachman. The dogs watched from the porch, ears pricked and bodies quivering. The cat and her kittens leaped up on the drystone wall bordering the road and regarded Cordelia with haughty disapproval. Even the pigs heaved out of their wallow, complaining like old men grudgingly roused from a sound sleep.
Fleming’s expression was mild and disinterested as he handed the women into the carriage and wished them a pleasant journey. It was as if he and Cordelia had never exchanged a single barbed comment or harsh word. Cordelia brooded for all of a half-mile before she signaled the coachman to stop.
“This will not do,” she said. “This will not do at all.”
Theodora touched Cordelia’s arm. “Perhaps it is for the best,” she said quietly. “Surely you can find another veterinarian for the menagerie, one who is more congenial.”
Cordelia frowned. “Did you find him so unpleasant?”
“Not unpleasant. Unusual, perhaps.” Two vivid spots of color rose in her cheeks. “He does not seem to need anyone.”
“You notice more than you admit, my dear.”
“I noticed that you did not dislike him as much as you pretended.”
“Oh?”
“Forgive me, but it is true that you are not used to being refused. If that is the only reason you would … I mean …” She sank into the seat, avoiding Cordelia’s gaze.
Cordelia tapped her lower lip and stared out the window. Green, rolling hills marched away from the road, dotted here and there by clusters of sheep. She opened the carriage door and hopped to the ground without waiting for the coachman to let down the step.
“I think I’ll take a turn about that meadow,” she told Theodora. “The wildflowers are quite lovely. I shall only be a few minutes.”
Theodora offered no protest, and so Cordelia started at a brisk pace for the wall at the side of the road. She found a stile and entered the meadow, her skirts brushing the petals of cow parsley, yellow celandine and buttercup, blue forget-me-not and speedwell. Bees filled the air with their droning. Cordelia climbed to the top of the hill, letting her mind wander between the remote beauty of the Dales and the vexatious puzzle that was Dr. Donal Fleming.
She saw the figure in the white dress while it was still some distance away. At first Cordelia couldn’t judge either age or appearance, but as the girl came nearer it became apparent that she was no shepherdess or farmwife going about her daily chores. The young woman’s black hair fell loose about her shoulders. She wore no gloves or bonnet. Her gown was simple but well-cut, adorned with lace at bodice and sleeves, and the ruched skirts were too full for those of a working woman. She was walking directly toward Stenwater Farm, and a small brown-and-white spaniel trotted at her heels.
Curiosity aroused, Cordelia descended the hill to intercept the stranger. The young woman saw her and stopped, her slender form frozen as if she were considering flight. The spaniel pressed against her skirts.
“Good morning,” Cordelia said.
The girl, whose soft and pretty features proclaimed her to be no more than seventeen or eighteen years of age, performed a brief curtsey. “Good morning, ma’am,” she said. Her voice was cultured and held no trace of the local dialect that had been so distinct in Fleming’s servant.
“I hope I have not disturbed your walk,” Cordelia said. “I am a visitor to this county, but I have seen no one since I left Stenwater Farm.”
The girl’s bright blue eyes flew to Cordelia’s face. “Stenwater Farm?”
“Yes. Do you know it?”
“Yes. That is, I …” She stammered in confusion, lifted her chin, and thrust out her lip in defiance. “I am a friend of Dr. Fleming.”
“Are you indeed? I have just spoken with the doctor about his traveling to Gloucestershire to treat the animals in my menagerie.” She noted the dismay that briefly crossed the girl’s face. “What a charming little dog. What is his name?”
“Sir Reginald.” She looked to the west. “I beg your pardon, but I must—”
“How remiss of me,” Cordelia interrupted, offering her hand. “I am Mrs. Hardcastle.”
The girl’s grip was a bit too firm for strict courtesy. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Mrs. Hardcastle,” she said without sincerity. “I hope you will enjoy the remainder of your visit, but I must be on my way.” She had taken several steps before Cordelia caught up with her.
“Are you going to Stenwater Farm?” she asked. “I would be more than happy to conduct you there in my carriage.”
The girl cast Cordelia a frowning glance. “I often walk across the fells,” she said. “It is no trouble to me.”
“But you will ruin your lovely dress.”
Once more the girl seemed flustered, almost as if she had been caught in a lie. Without another word she rushed off, the hem of her skirts already stained green from the grass.
For reasons even she did not understand, Cordelia hurried back to the carriage and instructed the coachman to return the way they had come. Once the coach was within a few hundred yards of the lane to Stenwater Farm, Cordelia called another halt and climbed one of the hills that circled the farm to the east, moving as stealthily as her confining garments would allow.
She crested the hill just as the girl and her dog were approaching the byre from the rear. The young woman looked this way and that, obviously afraid of being seen, and entered the byre.
Cordelia weighed propriety against instinct, and for once she gave instinct its head. She half slid down the hill, watching for Fleming or his servant, and reached the bottom undetected. She found the back door to the byre and entered cautiously.
There was no immediate sign of the girl, but a flash of white in the darkness caught Cordelia’s eye. She found the grass-stained gown draped over the edge of the hayloft. When she was satisfied that the young woman had left the byre, Cordelia crept through the front door and looked across the yard.
It appeared that every one of Fleming’s animals had deserted the area, even the somnolent pigs. The silence was so complete that Cordelia could hear the sound of voices from the house … those of Dr. Fleming and a young girl. She lifted her skirts and dashed to the side of the house, keeping her body low.
“… must return to the Porritts, Ivy,” Fleming said, his words carrying distinctly out the half open window. “They will be worried.”
“Oi won’t go back,” the girl said. “Oi don’t loik them farmers. Oi wants to stay ‘ere, wiv you.”
Cordelia leaned against the wall to catch her breath and wondered how she had sunk so low as to sneak about like a common housebreaker and eavesdrop on a private conversation. And yet she sensed that there was something peculiar going on … particularly since the girl’s voice, apart from the thick London accent, was almost identical to that of the young woman she had met in the meadow.
“You don’t want me anymore,” the girl accused. “You brought me all the way up ‘ere, and then cast me off loik an ol’ pair o’ shoes.” She sniffled. “You’re cruel, Donal. Cruel ‘n’ mean.”
“No, Ivy. It isn’t that I don’t want you here. But you are better off with children your own age, and I don’t know how much longer I will be at Stenwater Farm. You have Sir Reginald—”
“Oi won’t go back!” She began to cry with great, gulping sobs. “Oi’ll jump roight off Newgill Scar, just see if Oi don’t!”
The thump of running feet was followed by the creak of hinges, and Ivy burst out the front door. Her gaze immediately fell on Cordelia.
“You!” she cried, and backed away so quickly that she almost stumbled on the flagstones. Cordelia absorbed the girl’s appearance in a heartbeat: the colorless dress, the bare feet, black hair swept up under a man’s frayed straw hat. But the shapeless frock could not quite conceal the womanly curves of her figure, and the dirt-smudged face was instantly familiar.
Ivy was not only the young lady with the white dress, but she was also the ragamuffin who had attempted to steal Inglesham’s purse in Convent Garden.
CHAPTER SIX
IVY GLANCED AT THE DOOR and then toward the byre, catching her lip between straight white teeth. The little spaniel planted itself in front of her and growled softly.
“Ivy,” Cordelia said, extending her hand. “You have nothing to fear from me.”
Fleming chose that moment to step outside. He looked from Ivy to Cordelia, his brows drawn low over his eyes, and folded his arms across his chest.
“Mrs. Hardcastle,” he said. “May I ask what you are you doing here?”
Cordelia had always believed that the best defense was a swift offense. “I might ask, Dr. Fleming,” she said, “what a certain young thief is doing in your house when she was last seen snatching purses in Covent Garden.”
Fleming stared at Cordelia, searching her eyes, and let his arms drop to his sides. “The answer is simple enough,” he said. “I found this child in Seven Dials, being assaulted by grown men, and did not consider it fitting to abandon her to such a life of squalor. I offered her a home in Yorkshire—” he shot a narrow glance at Ivy, as if he expected her to protest “—and that is why you find her here. The matter of your viscount’s purse was an unfortunate misunderstanding.”
“I see. A most admirable act on your part, Doctor, one that not many would emulate. It seems that not only the animals benefit from your compassion.” Cordelia caught Ivy’s gaze. “Do you agree with this description of events, Ivy?”
The girl hunched her shoulders but refused to speak. Cordelia nodded, unsurprised. “You helped her to escape in Covent Garden,” she said to Fleming.
“I had no intention of seeing a child go to gaol for such an insignificant offense.”
A child. There was no irony in Fleming’s voice, no sign of awareness that his protégée was anything more she seemed to be—as, indeed, she had appeared to Cordelia in London.
Cordelia briefly wondered if Dr. Fleming was capable of an outright lie regarding such a matter. If he were—and given the young woman’s beauty and older appearance when she was properly cleaned and dressed—it was not such a leap to imagine that he might steal her from the streets of London and set her up as his …
Good God, what was she thinking? Fleming might be unpolished and discourteous, but he was no debauche. Clearly he had never seen Ivy in the white dress or any garment like it, and Ivy intended to keep it that way.
“Do I understand,” Cordelia said, “that Ivy has been living with a neighboring family?”
Fleming sighed and rubbed the crease between his eyes. “Yes. The Porritts are good people, well-regarded in this part of the Dales. What is your interest in Ivy, Mrs. Hardcastle?”
“I could not help but overhear that she seems unhappy where you have sent her. It must seem a very drastic change from the rookeries of London to the life of Yorkshire farmers.”
“Ivy has everything she needs … good food, a warm bed, fresh air and the company of young people. What else could she require?”
What else indeed. Cordelia made a quick and admittedly impulsive decision. “Will you allow me to speak with Ivy privately, Doctor?”
He bristled rather like the little spaniel who so fiercely guarded his mistress. “You will not expose her to the law—”
“Certainly not. As you may recall, I was against turning her over to the constable in London.” She met Ivy’s gaze. “My feelings on that score have not changed.”
Fleming’s shoulders sagged in defeat. “Ivy, you have nothing to fear. Speak to Mrs. Hardcastle, be honest with her, and then we’ll decide what is to be done.”
Ivy shot an uneasy glance toward the byre and reluctantly followed Cordelia into the house. Cordelia closed the door behind them. “Would you like some tea, Ivy, or scones?” she asked. “There were still a few left when my cousin and I departed the farm earlier this morning.”
Ivy slumped in a chair, arms shielding her breasts. “I ain’t ‘ungry.”
“Then perhaps you won’t mind if I prepare some for myself.” The tea things were still lying out from that morning’s service, so Cordelia began heating water, moving about the kitchen as if it were her own. Ivy’s sullen defiance reminded her far too much of another unhappy girl, only a little younger than this one, and she was grateful to have something to occupy her hands.
“I hope you will allow me to ask a few questions,” she said with forced lightness. “I’m a little bewildered at what I have seen and heard today.”
Ivy shuffled her feet under the table. “You followed me ‘ere, di’n’t you?”
“Yes, Ivy, I did.”
“Why?”
“Because I … I wished to learn more of Dr. Fleming, and since you claimed to be his friend—”
“You di’n’t recognize me from Lunnon when Oi had on the dress,” Ivy said suddenly, “but you knew roight away ‘oo Oi was when you saw me ‘ere.”
“And you recognized me at once when we met in the meadow,” Cordelia said, “but you did an excellent job of concealing it.”
Ivy gnawed on her lower lip. “You di’n’t tell Donal about the dress.”
Cordelia paused in her preparations. “It seems obvious that Dr. Fleming did not give it to you. Where did you acquire it?”
Ivy shuffled her feet under the table. “I … borrowed it.”
“From the Porritts?”
“Sometoims Oi loiks to dress up.”
“Have the Porritts seen you ‘dressed up’?”
“Not them.”
“Nor, I venture, has Dr. Fleming.” She took the kettle off the stove. “I presume that you have pretended to be a child since London?”
Ivy nodded shortly.
“You must have a very good reason for hiding your true age from your benefactor. But I suspect that you have been playing the child since long before you met Dr. Fleming.”
Ivy looked away. “‘Ow d’you know so much?”
“I have seen Seven Dials, and places much worse. To survive under such conditions requires great courage and resourcefulness.”
For the first time Ivy met her gaze. “Why should you keep moi secrets, when Oi troi to steal from yer gen’l’man friend?”
Cordelia smiled. “It is certainly true that someone fitting your description attempted to steal Lord Inglesham’s purse. But it seems that I have met two Ivys today—one who is quite grown up, speaks gracefully and is obviously of good family, and another who flaunts the vernacular of the rookeries and pretends to be an unlettered child. I have been quite unable to decide which one is real.”
Ivy squirmed and stared at the table. “Why d’you care?”
“Is it so astonishing that others besides Dr. Fleming might take an interest in a promising young woman … particularly when she has been denied the advantages she so clearly deserves?”
“You don’t even know me. ‘Ow d’you know wot Oi deserves?”
“From the time I was a young girl, I traveled all over the world with my father. I had to learn quickly how to understand many different kinds of people. It has always been my desire to help those in need, whether they be men, women or animals.”
“You loiks animals?”
“Very much. At my father’s country house in Gloucestershire, we have horses, dogs and wild creatures few Europeans have ever seen. That is why I came to visit Dr. Fleming, because of his fine reputation as a veterinarian.” She sat down across from Ivy and smiled. “May I speak frankly, as between two women?”
Ivy nodded warily, but her blue eyes took on a sparkle of interest.
“I cannot pretend,” Cordelia began, “to guess what kind of situation compelled you to live by such desperate means in a place like Seven Dials, but I can surmise why you chose to disguise yourself as a child. You had hoped to avoid the sort of salacious attentions you were suffering when Dr. Fleming rescued you.” She paused. “He did rescue you, did he not?”
“Yes.” Ivy rubbed at a bitten fingernail and almost smiled. “‘E ran them blodgers roight off, ‘e did.”
“And when he brought you to Yorkshire, he had no idea that you were older than you had made yourself appear.” She stopped to fetch hot water and the teapot, then laid out the cups and saucers in the center of the table. “When I saw you in Covent Garden, you deceived even me. Did you bind your breasts, Ivy?”
Ivy flushed. “Oi ‘ad to. When Oi first got to the rookeries, most blokes left me alone.”
“How old were you then?”
“Twelve.”
Cordelia poured a cup of tea, added a dollop of honey and gently pushed the saucer toward Ivy. “I know that drinking a good cup of tea in a civilized setting is not unknown to you, Ivy. The young woman I met in the meadow wore that gown like one who remembers fine things and better days.”
Ivy pulled the steaming cup toward her and clenched her fingers around it. “Oi …”
“Can you tell me where you lived before you went to Seven Dials?”
“Wiv me muvver. She died.” Ivy lifted the cup to her face, closed her eyes, and breathed in the scent as if it were the ambrosia of the gods. “I don’t remember much from before,” she said in accentless English. “I just know that I lived in a house with a garden, and I had books and pretty dresses.”
Cordelia released a slow breath. She hadn’t been sure if she would be able to gain the girl’s trust, and she had desperately wanted to. Perhaps it was because Ivy reminded her so much of Lydia. Certainly she needed no better reason than common decency to help the girl, and her persistence had pierced at least one layer of Ivy’s formidable defenses.
“You can read and write?” she asked.
Ivy snorted indelicately. “Of course.”
“What of your father?”
Ivy jumped up from the chair and began to pace the room, her motions abrupt as if she were resisting the urge to run away. “I don’t remember him at all,” she said. She reached inside the neckline of her shapeless bodice and drew out a silver pendant hung on a worn leather cord. “He left me this.”
“It’s lovely,” Cordelia said. The silver emblem seemed to be a complex Celtic knot set with a vivid blue stone, but before she could examine it further Ivy pushed it beneath her dress again.
“I think he must be dead,” Ivy said. She stopped to stare out the window, her fists clenching and unclenching at her sides.
“And you had no other kin to take care of you,” Cordelia said.
“None that I ever met.”
Cordelia rose and went to stand behind the young woman. “Whatever happened to your father and mother, they must have loved you very much. They gave you an education, and the spirit to go on living when it must have seemed … almost too much to bear.”
Ivy shook her head sharply. “I didn’t need anyone.”
“And yet you came with Dr. Fleming when he offered you a home.”
Ivy’s voice softened. “He was the first one who was ever kind to me. And the dogs loved him …” She pressed her hands flat against the window pane. “But ‘e di’n’t give me no ‘ome,” she said, lapsing back to rough rookery speech. “‘E sent me off to live wiv them farmers….”
“Surely he did so only because he wanted what was best for you,” Cordelia said. She reached out but let her hands fall before she could touch Ivy’s rigid shoulders. “He saw only one part of you, Ivy. He couldn’t guess that you might be destined for something better than life on an isolated farm.”
“I won’t go back,” Ivy said, low and intense. “They took me in because they owe Donal a debt, but they don’t like me. They think I’m a low, filthy thing.”
“Did not Dr. Fleming provide you with a … suitable history so that the Porritts would be willing to accept you?”
“You mean did he lie to them?” Ivy asked. “Of course he did. He made sure I was clean and had new clothes, and he told them a story that made Mrs. Porritt weep into her teacup. He paid them to treat me like one of their daughters.”
“But you refused to play your part.”
“Why should I have done? I hated it there.”
“You did not reveal your true age.”
“I didn’t want them to think that Donal misled them. And I didn’t want him to know.”
“Why not, Ivy?”
The girl scraped her fingers down the windowpane, drawing a frightful squeak from the glass. “I was afraid he would turn me away,” she whispered.
“You know that he must be told.”
“Yes.” Abruptly she spun on Cordelia, a wicked smile curving her lips. “I can’t go back to those silly farmers, anyway. I stole that dress from Porritt’s eldest daughter.”
Cordelia swallowed her instinctive reproach. Thievery was quite likely the very least of what Ivy had been compelled to do in order to survive. Whatever misfortune had led to her fall from respectable life and her apparent loss of memory, her father had almost certainly been of the merchant class, perhaps even a banker or lawyer. Yet Ivy faced a long and difficult climb to regain the state of mind and appropriate behavior that distinguished a well-bred woman. Even the smallest criticism might destroy the fragile truce she and Cordelia had made between them.
“It does not seem a good idea for you to return,” Cordelia agreed. “But perhaps there are alternatives.”
“I want to stay here, with Donal.”
Once again Cordelia suppressed her arguments. It would be unfortunate if Ivy had developed a tendre for Dr. Fleming, though not entirely unexpected. He had been kind to her, and he was not without attractions for a girl who had been living among the dregs of humanity for five or six years.
At least Cordelia didn’t have to contend with an inappropriate attachment in the other direction. Dr. Fleming showed no signs of regarding Ivy as anything but a child. But before the girl could be made to accept her own best interests, Dr. Fleming must be brought to recognize the complexity and delicacy of the situation.
“I know we do not yet know each other well,” Cordelia said, “but if you will trust me, Ivy, I believe I may be able to convince Dr. Fleming that it would be best for you to find a more agreeable home.”
Ivy turned and regarded Cordelia through narrowed eyes. “At Stenwater Farm?”
“That I cannot promise. But you may be sure that I will hold your concerns very much in mind.”
Ivy weighed Cordelia’s offer as if it were a question of life or death. Indeed, it must be against her inclinations to trust any stranger, however well meaning. And yet Cordelia couldn’t help but believe that she could offer the girl something she must yearn for with all her heart: comfort, stability, and the constructive discipline that would restore her to her rightful place in society.
“Very well,” Ivy said. Without another word she spun and ran for the door, light-footed as a fawn. Her spaniel raced after her.
Cordelia gathered her composure as she collected the tea things and carried them into the kitchen. Something quite remarkable had occurred in the hour since she had followed Ivy to Stenwater Farm. Of course there were perfectly rational reasons behind her decision to involved herself in Ivy’s life; she firmly believed it was the duty of any decent person to assist those less fortunate. But there was also an element of irrationality in the situation that disturbed Cordelia, and all she could do was push such thoughts aside as she went to find Dr. Fleming.
WHEN MRS. HARDCASTLE EMERGED from the house, Donal could see that something significant had transpired between her and Ivy.
He had seen a hint of that change in the girl as she’d rushed out the door, flying past Donal with hardly a glance. But Mrs. Hardcastle’s face seemed to hold a kind of light he could not remember noticing before, a peculiar and exotic beauty that that had nothing to do with her rather ordinary features. And her eyes … those eyes he had seen in his dreams … revealed a hint of vulnerability that had a startling effect on Donal’s heart.
He rose from his seat on the flagstone steps and held her gaze as she descended to meet him. He did not understand the unprecedented sense of familiarity that assaulted his nerves and turned his mouth too dry for speech. He knew Mrs. Hardcastle no better now than he had an hour ago, and yet she might have been an old and dear acquaintance, a friend in whom he could confide his deepest yearnings. He could share with her his visions of distant wilderness, his need to run in those faraway places, and she would understand. She would even shed those confining, torturous garments and run at his side.
But she came to a sudden stop, almost as if she sensed his thoughts, and her eyes hardened to tempered steel.
“Dr. Fleming,” she said, “I wish to discuss a proposal regarding Ivy’s future.”
Donal shook off his daze and offered his hand to assist her down the remaining steps. “May I ask, Mrs. Hardcastle, what you and Ivy discussed?”
She took his hand with obvious reluctance, her gloved fingers small and firm in his, and broke away as quickly as courtesy allowed. “We discussed her unhappiness with the current arrangements, and I offered to help her find a more suitable situation.”
“I see.” Donal paced a little distance away, concealing his anger. “You will forgive me if I speak frankly, madame. I am surprised that you consider the judgment of a twelve-year-old girl of greater reliability than my own.”
“If she were indeed twelve years of age and a simple child of the streets,” Mrs. Hardcastle said, “I might consider your judgment sufficient. But you have been deceived, Doctor. Ivy is at the very brink of womanhood, and it is not too late to mold her into the lady she was doubtless born to become.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It is not overly surprising that you were taken in. It is human nature to see what we wish and expect to see. Ivy is an excellent actress, and she had an extraordinary motive to play her role well. Even I did not penetrate her disguise until I met her again, here at Stenwater Farm.”
As Donal listened with growing chagrin, she recounted her meeting with the young woman in the meadow, Ivy’s transformation and the girl’s admission of her masquerade. She asked Donal to accompany her to the byre, where she revealed the soiled white gown that Ivy had stolen from the Porritt’s eldest daughter.
“Ivy maintained her disguise at the Porritt’s,” Mrs. Hardcastle said, “but she could not resist the chance to be her true self for a short while, even if no one would see her.”
“Her true self,” Donal repeated slowly. “If she does not remember her life before the rookeries, how does she know what that is?”
“I am fully convinced that she is of good family, and received at least some education. It may be possible to learn more through my father’s connections in London.”
Donal sifted the fine material of the gown between his fingers and shook his head. “Why was she afraid to tell me the truth about her age?” he asked. A wash of sickness curled in his belly. “Did she think I would abuse her?”
Mrs. Hardcastle walked up behind him. He felt her breath on his shoulder, and for a moment he thought she might touch him. His muscles tightened in anticipation.
“You should not blame yourself, Dr. Fleming,” she said briskly, her skirts brushing his boots as she moved past him. “Only a fool would believe such a thing of you.” She turned to meet Donal’s gaze. “Ivy does not know her own mind, but it is clear that she will not remain with the Porritts.”
Donal went to the door of the byre and looked out at the fells, thinking of the preparations he had already begun to make, the arrangements for the farm and animals he was putting in motion. There was no question of taking Ivy with him on his travels. If she refused to remain with anyone but him …
He had never thought to have the simple things that most humans took for granted: courtship, marriage, a wife and children. He had too little interest in the ways of human society, and human society had no place for a man of his eccentricities. But he had made a choice in taking Ivy from London. He had made himself responsible for a human life.
Mrs. Hardcastle implied that Ivy ought to become a lady like herself, that the girl would be happiest wearing beribboned dresses and flirting at balls and fetes like the ones Donal’s mother loved to give at Hartsmere. Donal had met many such young women before he had left his parents’ estate, and he knew the sort of life they desired: a youth of frivolous pleasures followed by a staid and expedient marriage to a man of excellent prospects. There was hardly an ounce of true spirit, honesty or sincerity amongst any dozen of them.
But Donal had seen something in Ivy that Mrs. Hardcastle had not. He had watched her running on the fells, her feet bare in the grass, her arms spread wide and her face rapt with the beauty of nature. He couldn’t imagine her laced into a corset and weighed down by horsehair petticoats. Whatever Ivy’s true age or parentage, she had a love of freedom that would not be suppressed.
“I would … appreciate your advice in this matter, Mrs. Hardcastle,” he said, keeping the despair from his voice. “It seems that I made a mistake in sending Ivy away. I know little of the needs of young ladies, but I believe she can be happy here. If there is anything in particular you feel she requires, I will make the necessary provisions to—”
“She cannot remain with you at Stenwater Farm,” Mrs. Hardcastle interrupted. “Surely you understand that an unattached and unchaperoned young woman cannot share residence with a bachelor unless she is prepared to sacrifice her reputation.”
Donal flinched. “I am aware that your society is unforgiving of the smallest breach of its nonsensical rules,” he said, “but surely Ivy has already put herself beyond the pale …”
“Not at all.” Mrs. Hardcastle maneuvered herself so that Donal could not avoid her eyes. “The only people who might recognize her from London are you, myself, my cousin and Viscount Inglesham. When she is decently clothed and in an appropriate environment …” She took a deep breath. “Dr. Fleming, what Ivy requires above all else is loving care that includes firm discipline and thorough instruction in the skills and comportment that will secure her future. I believe that I can provide that care.”
Donal heard her words with dawning comprehension and bitter realization. “You?” he said. “You wish to take Ivy into your home?”
“Yes.” She clasped her hands at her waist almost like a supplicant, but Donal wasn’t fooled. “I have the resources to give her what she needs at Edgecott. She will have more than adequate chaperonage there, as well as congenial surroundings and pleasant country society.”
Donal strode out of the byre, scarcely waiting to see if Mrs. Hardcastle followed. “Has Ivy agreed to this … proposal?” he asked.
“I have not told her,” she said behind him. “I knew I must speak with you first.”
He turned on her, nearly treading on the toes of her sensible half-boots. “So my opinion is still of some value, madame?”
“Naturally, since it was you who saved her.”
“But I am not fit to keep her.”
Her nostrils flared with annoyance. “Dr. Fleming, I think you would find your free bachelor’s life, as well as Ivy’s reputation, much compromised if she were to stay.”
“But your life will not in the least be affected.”
“I can provide you with any number of references, Doctor, if you require them. I do not believe you will find any cause to object. I have had considerable experience in seeing to the welfare of the people of our village. I am accustomed to having dependents—”
“Perhaps you consider Ivy another addition to your menagerie.”
She flushed, and her eyes struck his like hammers on an anvil. “You may regard animals as people, but I most assuredly do not subscribe to the reverse view.”
“Humans would be far better off if they recognized their kinship to animals,” he retorted. “What if Ivy does not agree to your scheme?”
“I am confident that Ivy and I have established a certain rapport,” she said stiffly. “If you place no obstacles in her path … if you encourage her to recognize the benefits she will enjoy at Edgecott, I am sure she will be reasonable.”
Reasonable. Donal clenched his jaw. “And what benefits do you gain by this, madame? What payment do you expect for your selfless generosity?” Before she could reply, he rushed on. “Is this all a convenient ploy to acquire my services for your private zoological gardens?”
“What?”
“Your interest in Ivy is most timely,” he said, refusing to relent before the shock in her eyes. “You must know that she finds it difficult to trust anyone, and she’ll never go with you unless I accompany her.”
Mrs. Hardcastle’s small fist clenched, and Donal entertained the absurd image of the woman raising that fist to strike him in the jaw. She was certainly angry enough to attempt it; her usual air of cool self-possession had deserted her, and a tigress crouched behind her outraged stare.
“How poorly you must think of your fellow men and women if you ascribe such motives to me,” she said. “I require nothing of you but your permission to help a young person in need.”
For all his previous certainty of her ulterior motives, Donal was the first to look away. His breath came quickly, but not out of anger; his senses had turned traitor, making him painfully aware of the woman’s body beneath the stout cage of Mrs. Hardcastle’s corset. He could almost taste her scent, a subtle blending of soap, lavender and warm skin. And the blaze of her temper only ignited the long-banked fire he had worked so hard to extinguish.
She brought out the worst in him, the very strength and stubbornness of her character provoking his passions as no other human had done in many years. He should not find her in the least attractive, yet he did. And it was all because of the tigress in her eyes.
God knew that he should do anything but allow himself to be drawn more deeply into Mrs. Hardcastle’s sphere of comfortable, self-satisfied English society. But she had spoken no less than the truth where Ivy was concerned. And if he were honest with himself, he would admit that the lady had offered him a reasonable alternative to surrendering his dreams.
All he need do was spend a few weeks in Gloucestershire to see Ivy well established in her new home. And then, once he had completed the arrangements for Stenwater Farm—and made Tod understand why he must leave England—he would book his passage from Liverpool and be on his way.
He eased the tension from his shoulders and essayed a smile. “What is your name?” he asked.
Mrs. Hardcastle had clearly expected another round of sparring, and his mild question took her aback. “I … beg your pardon?” she stammered.
“Your given name. Your Christian name.”
She perched on the edge of indignation, but she must have recognized that such a minor breach of etiquette was a small enough price to pay for peace between them.
“Cordelia,” she said.
“Cordelia,” he repeated. “King Lear’s loyal daughter.”
“You know your Shakespeare, Dr. Fleming.”
“Donal,” he said. “My name is Donal.”
“Irish, I believe?”
“I spent my early childhood in Ireland.”
The wariness in her eyes gave way to curiosity. “Is Fleming also Irish?”
“English,” he said. “My parents live in Westmorland.”
“I have heard the Lakes are very beautiful.”
“Yes.” He glanced over her head toward the road, searching for a change of subject. “Where is your cousin? She might wish to join us for luncheon, if simple fare meets with your approval.”
Cordelia touched her lips. “Oh, dear. I did not intend to leave Theodora alone in the carriage so long. I shall go at once and fetch her …”
“That will not be necessary.” Donal closed his eyes, picked out the carriage horses’ minds from among the other equines in the vicinity, and sent them a brief message. “I believe they are already on their way.”
“But how could you know that?”
“Any good doctor—even an animal doctor—must rely on instinct as well as science,” he said. He whistled, and his dogs came to him, prancing with delight at the newfound goodwill they sensed between him and his visitor. Cordelia gamely patted a few bobbing heads, but Donal discouraged them from licking her hands or leaping up on her full skirts, and they raced off again to find Ivy.
“I expect Benjamin to arrive any moment with fresh bread and cheese,” Donal said. “When Ivy returns, allow me to speak to her alone.”
“Then you no longer have any objections to my proposal?” Cordelia asked.
“Not if Ivy is willing to try.”
Cordelia quickly looked away, and once more Donal caught a glimpse of the vulnerability he had seen after she had spoken with Ivy. “Thank you, Dr. Fleming,” she said, her voice not entirely steady. “You shall not regret it.”
“IT WILL ONLY BE for a few weeks, Tod,” Donal said, crouching beside him in the loft of the byre. “Mrs. Hardcastle—the lady I met in London—wishes to give Ivy a permanent home. I know you’ve never had the opportunity to know her, but this may be her best opportunity for happiness.”
Tod kicked his feet over the edge of the loft, hiding a scowl behind the fall of his hair. “Why must my lord go with her?”
“I’ve taken responsibility for Ivy. I must make sure this is the right course for her future.” He patted Tod’s shoulder. “You’re welcome to accompany me, of course. You’ve never been to the south of England; there are more humans there than here in the north, but Gloucestershire is filled with hills and woods where you can run in freedom.”
“The Fane left those lands long ago.”
“That may be true. But I wouldn’t be surprised to find that a little Fane magic still lingers, even so.”
Tod sighed, knowing he could not win this battle. He had thought himself rid of the girl, and still she’d returned; now there was a good chance that she would be out of Donal’s life forever. Tolerating her presence for a few more weeks was a small enough price to pay.
“When we come back,” he said, tossing hair out of his eyes, “it will be as it was before. My lord and Tod, together.”
Donal looked away, and his voice was strange when he spoke. “Only in Tir-na-Nog does everything stay the same,” he said. “In this world, change is inevitable.”
“Tod never changes,” Tod said, touching Donal’s hand. “Tod will always be here.”
Donal smiled, but Tod felt his grief. It was these females who brought him such pain. But soon they would be gone.
“Tod will go with my lord,” he said firmly. “And it will not be long before my lord has peace again.”
Donal only bowed his head and gave no answer.
“SHE IS FOUND, MY LADY!”
“She is found!”
“Found!”
The incessant chatter of the sprites clanged like raucous bells in Béfind’s ears, but she did not chastise her servants. She smiled indulgently as they darted about her head, crying out their victory until even they grew weary and settled to the glistening floor at her feet.
It was one of her hobs who gave the report. He related how they had searched high and low, seeking over the mortals’ island until they had sensed Fleming’s presence in a place far from the humans’ cities. There they had watched and listened, learning much that could amaze even one who had lived three thousand years.
Donal Fleming. It would have been a stroke of astonishing coincidence had the players in this drama been human. Fleming, son of the exiled Forest Lord, had found the girl living in squalor in the mortal’s great Iron City and taken her to live with him on his little farm in the north. It was clear to Béfind’s servants that Fleming had made himself her guardian and accepted his new responsibility with a mortal’s tedious gravity. It was equally clear that he didn’t know what she was.
Béfind called for a cup of mead and idly tapped her fingers on the arm of her chair. Everyone in Tir-na-Nog knew Hern’s story: how he, one of the last of the High Fane to linger on earth, had fallen in love with a human woman and surrendered his Fane powers in exchange for a mortal life as Cornelius Fleming, Earl of Bradwell. Donal was the bastard offspring of his first, illicit union with his beloved, Eden Fleming, six years before he had returned to the mortal realm to woo and win her as his wife.
It was well-known that Donal, whom Queen Titania had sought to claim for Tir-na-Nog, had chosen a dull existence of isolation on earth rather than enjoy a life of ease and eternal pleasure in the Land of the Young. But he kept one companion to remind him of his Fane heritage … a hob called Tod, who had once been his father’s servant.
Béfind accepted the glass of mead from the hands of a sprite and sipped the honeyed beverage thoughtfully. It should have been a simple matter to reclaim the girl Ivy, but there were a few small complications. Perhaps she could dispose of one of them here and now.
Idath kept her waiting, as she had known he would. He strolled into her palace with a lazy air of indifference, his eyes hooded as he took in her entourage of hobs and sprites, each and every one still drenched in the smell of the mortal realm.
“Béfind,” he said, inclining his head. “To what do I owe the honor of this summons?”
She smiled and offered him a golden chalice of mead, which he refused. “Why must we quarrel, my friend?” she purred. “It has been too long since we have lain in each other’s arms. Is it so strange that I would ask you to attend me?”
Idath returned her smile with equal warmth. “What do you want, Béfind?”
“I have found the girl.”
“Oh?” He yawned behind his hand. “What girl is that?”
She bared her teeth. “I know the truth, Idath. You took my property. You told me the babe was dead and delivered it to your mortal paramour to raise as her own.”
“Ah, yes. I begin to remember.”
“How could you have forgotten? You believed you could wound and confound me with your lies.”
“As you believed you could prove your indifference to me by casting me aside and remaining with your mortal lover for a full year.”
Béfind laughed. “Ah. You finally admit your motive—simple jealousy. How petty. How very human.”
Idath’s expression didn’t change. “You have always found it amusing to mock the blood of my halfling mother,” he said, “and yet I learned much from her that you will never understand.”
“Such as love?” she sneered.
“Once, perhaps. There was a time when I cared enough to punish you for making sport of my devotion and cleaving to your mortal for no reason but to show how little you felt for me, even after a hundred years.” He gazed out at the lawn. “It was all a game to you, Béfind. I only decided to play by your rules.”
“By handing my child over to one who would corrupt her as your mother did you.”
“If I had believed any real harm would come to the girl, I would have left her with you. But you did not deserve the acclaim you would receive by bringing a healthy child to Tir-na-Nog.”
Béfind burned with fury. “Perhaps you did not know that the child was found living alone in the worst part of the Iron City, hunting her food in the gutters like a beast.”
Idath leaned against the nearest column and smoothed the scarlet silk of his tunic. “I am grieved to hear it.”
“Unfortunate indeed that your lover is dead.”
He couldn’t quite hide the flash of sorrow in his eyes. “Mortals die. It is their nature.”
“But the girl lives. None other than the son of Hern has discovered her.”
“Hern’s son?” Idath cocked his head. “What does he want with her?”
“His mother’s blood taints him with what mortals call ‘compassion,’” she said. “He pitied her. And now he intends that she shall have a life among humans.”
“She has already lived among humans.”
“And suffered because of your spite,” Béfind said. “That is over. I will bring her back to Tir-na-Nog.”
“I wonder how you will manage that, a mhuirnín?”
She stepped away from her chair and came to stand before him. “You cannot stop me.”
“It is not I who will stop you.” He glanced about at Béfind’s servants. “Did they not tell you of the amulet?”
Béfind bristled. “Idath, if you do not—”
He raised a languid hand. “I gave it to her when she was yet with Estelle,” he said. “As long as she wears it, none who is Fane may touch the girl or carry her through a Gate to Tir-na-Nog.”
“What?”
“I knew you would find her eventually, a chuisle.”
Béfind was momentarily speechless. “You … you would go so far—”
His eyes grew cold. “Perhaps I judged her better off away from you.”
Béfind turned away and composed herself. She faced him again with a smile. “An amusing trick, Idath. But surely the game has gone on long enough.” She stroked his sleeve. “Remove the enchantment, and I shall give you whatever you desire.”
He looked her up and down. “You possess nothing I desire.”
She tore his sleeve with her nails and let him go. “You will not win this battle, Idath. I shall go to the mortal realm myself. I shall tell her who she is, and then—”
“Tell her who she is?” Idath chuckled softly. “Alas, the charm on the amulet does more than forbid any Fane to touch her. None may reveal her true nature. You may speak the words, but she will not hear them.”
“You hate me so much?”
“Hatred is a mortal curse, leannán.”
“So is jealousy, mighty lord.”
“And blind ambition. You want the child only because your pride has been wounded and she is proof of your fecundity, a valuable object to be paraded before the Queen and High Fane like a pretty bauble. Perhaps you will not find the prize worth the effort.”
“It shall be more than worth it to lay your pride in the dust.”
He bowed. “As you wish, Béfind. The battle continues.”
He swept from the room, scattering the lesser Fane from his path. Béfind shrieked in rage and snatched a delicate crystal sculpture from its stand, shattering it against an ivory column.
“So he thinks he shall win?” she hissed as the hobs and sprites cowered at her feet. “He dreams that he can best Béfind?”
She threw herself down into her chair and coiled her hair between her fists. So she could not tell the girl what she was. That was not quite the defeat Idath believed. There would be ways to approach the child and groom her for her rightful future, all without challenging the amulet’s enchantment. Béfind would not leave such an important task to inferiors. She would go through the Gate herself. She would learn how best to handle Donal Fleming, if he should prove to be an obstacle to her ambitions. And she would have what was rightfully hers, once and for all.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THERE WAS NO PART of England, Donal reflected, more thoroughly English than the Cotswolds.
The view from the carriage window was one of gently rolling hills dotted with clouds of grazing sheep, low stone walls turned golden in the clear sunlight, homely farmsteads and quaint cottages with thick thatched roofs. Westmorland and Yorkshire still had their shares of wilderness in crags and sills, heaths and moors, becks and forces and lakes—hidden sanctuaries where patches of ancient woodland and unsullied mountains crouched just beyond the fringes of civilization—but Donal doubted he would find such places here.
He leaned back in the seat and pinched the bridge of his nose. The minds of the animals he had heard along the winding road to Edgecott had been largely contented ones that knew neither worry nor anticipation of the future. Even Sir Geoffrey Amesbury’s matched bays were well fed and glossy of coat, never asked to push beyond their endurance or forced to suffer the brutality of the bearing-rein. In the amber sunshine of a bright spring morning, it was almost possible to forget the cruelty and indifference that seemed so much a part of human character.
Donal did not forget. But he allowed himself to be distracted by the look on Ivy’s face as she craned her neck to absorb every detail of the neat little village that gave the Amesbury estate its name. Round-faced children and prosperous cottagers waved from the verge of the cobbled lane that passed through the center of the village, and Ivy waved back.
Once she had made the decision to visit Edgecott, her hard shell of defiance and suspicion had dropped away like the halves of a ripe walnut. Soon after she and Donal had boarded the train in York, she had cast off her fears with the impulsiveness of youth and wholeheartedly embraced the excitement of the journey.
Her enthusiasm eased Donal’s mind. Seventeen years old she might be, but her childhood had been robbed of so many simple pleasures that she devoured each new experience with innocent delight. Sir Reginald, who had chosen her as his new lifelong companion, perched on her lap and laughed with a lolling tongue, sharing her joy.
Neither girl nor dog had been in the least constrained in Donal’s presence. He had no interest in enforcing arbitrary rules of conduct, and ignored the occasional pointed stares and whispers aimed at “that wild young woman” by starchy matrons and stiff-rumped gentlemen who resembled exotic fowl escaped from their pens. Ivy had not yet been introduced to corsets; her blossoming figure was now quite apparent to Donal’s previously ignorant eye. Yet he had no desire to cut short her last days of freedom before Mrs. Hardcastle applied the shackles of rigid morals and genteel hypocrisy.
He prayed that Ivy’s courage and adaptability would enable her to accept the world Cordelia intended to make for her.
The carriage rattled out of the village and past fields and pastures bordered by light gray dry-stone walls. Soon it reached the high iron gates that guarded Edgecott’s stately park.
The gates stood open in welcome, but Donal regarded them with a shiver of foreboding. They were merely symbols of power and prosperity, harmless in themselves, but to Donal’s mind they resembled nothing so much as a cage. A part of him believed that once he passed through them, he would be caught in the snares of civilization forever.
“Look at the trees!” Ivy said. “I never saw such tall ones in Yorkshire!”
The woods of Edgecott’s park were indeed impressive. They reminded Donal of the ancient forest of Hartsmere, where his father had roamed for millennia as guardian and protector of every living thing within it. Yet most of these trees had been grown, not by nature, but by Amesbury ancestors who had planted the wood to enhance their prestige and shield their property from the eyes of lesser mortals.
Donal was so lost in thought that he didn’t see the great house until Ivy drew his attention with an exclamation of approval. She had good reason for her admiration. The main house at Edgecott was built of the fine native stone, and while it had obviously been altered over several centuries, with a classical wing and ornamentations added well after its original, Elizabethan construction, it was a handsome building as such things went.
Standing in a neat row at the foot of the stairs were several male and female servants, including footmen, maids, an older woman who must have been the housekeeper and a tall man of impeccable dignity whose demeanor declared him master of the household staff. As the carriage rounded the gravel drive, one of the footmen broke ranks and hurried up the stairs.
The coachman eased the horses to a stop before the stairs, and the footman leaped down to lower the steps. Ivy hopped out, ignoring the footman’s proffered hand, and stood gazing up at the massive limestone facade.
Donal descended more slowly, not in the least eager to deal with a bevy of servants whose only purpose was to wait hand and foot on their employers. He avoided them by going directly to the horses, thanking them for their work and examining their legs and hooves while the coachman watched curiously.
Ivy inched up beside him, Sir Reginald in her arms. “They’re all staring at me,” she whispered, glancing back at the servants. “Where is Cordelia?”
Like Donal, Ivy had taken to referring to Mrs. Hardcastle by her given name, and Donal had not discouraged her. “I’m certain she will wish to welcome you herself,” he said, giving the horses a final pat.
Ivy gripped his sleeve. “Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to come here after all,” she said. “I don’t belong in a place like this.”
“How do you know, when you’ve scarcely seen any of it?” he said. But she gave him a narrow look that suggested she knew he was every bit as nervous as she.
“You really are going to stay?” she demanded.
“As long as you need me.”
Her shoulders relaxed, but her gaze remained fixed on his face. “You like Cordelia, don’t you?”
“Of course I do, Ivy. She has been nothing but kind to you, and the animals—”
“No. I mean you like her.”
He reminded himself again that she was no child, and that her very survival in London had depended on the keenness of her observations. He pretended a sudden interest in the knot of his cravat.
“I admire her, certainly,” he said. “She is a formidable woman.”
Ivy snorted. “You’re no good at lyin’, guv. I seen ‘ow you watched at ‘er at the farm, roight enough.”
“And how did I watch her, pray tell?”
“The way ol’ Rooster Tom looks at the ‘ens after ‘e’s ‘ad ‘is fill o’ crowin’.”
“Ivy!” Heat rushed to his face, and he steered her away from the avid ears of the footman who lingered nearby. “It would be best if you abandon rookery speech at Edgecott, since Mrs. Hardcastle hopes to give you the advantages of a lady.”
Ivy thrust her nose in the air and performed a deep curtsey. “As you wish, Your Majesty.”
He sighed. “Also, consider what you say. I have no objections to your frankness, but you’ll find that it may be advisable to think before you speak.”
Ivy’s playful demeanor melted into seriousness. “It sounds like a lot of work.”
“It is work to be grown up, Ivy, no matter where you are. Whatever you may face here, it will be nothing compared to London.”
Ivy pressed her face into Sir Reginald’s warm coat. “Do you think I could be a lady, Donal?”
“I think you can be whatever you choose.”
“Then if I work hard and wear pretty dresses, will you look at me the way you look at Cordelia?”
Donal heard Ivy’s words with amazement and consternation. His cravat seemed to tighten like a noose. As he struggled to find an answer, a footman emerged from the house and held the door open for the one who followed.
Cordelia Hardcastle swept down the stairs in a rustle of deep blue skirts, a smile animating her resolute features. She walked past the servants and extended her hands to Ivy. There was no mistaking the warmth of her greeting.
“Ivy,” she said, “Dr. Fleming. Welcome to Edgecott.”
Ivy took Cordelia’s hands. “It is a beautiful house,” she said with uncharacteristic shyness.
“Thank you, my dear.” Cordelia glanced up at Donal. “I hope that your journey was a pleasant one?”
Donal inclined his head. “We found it most enjoyable.”
Her gaze lingered on his face. “I am so glad that both of you have been able to join us.”
The rote courtesies expected on such occasions flew out of Donal’s mind. Somehow he had forgotten a few small details of Cordelia’s features in the two weeks since she had left Stenwater Farm: the clean arch of her brows, the tiny dimple in her left cheek, the fullness of her lips that hinted of sensuality kept under strict control.
Those lips parted, and Cordelia’s breath sighed out as gently as the breeze stirring the leaves overhead. How easy it would be, how scandalously improper, if he were to lean down and catch her mouth with his own….
“Donal?” Ivy said.
He shook his head and looked away. Cordelia casually put another several feet of distance between them. “I’m certain you must be famished,” she said to Ivy. “Cook has prepared a grand luncheon fit for the Queen herself. It will be served at one. You will wish to rest, and change into fresh clothing. Your boxes are already being taken up to your rooms.”
“I hadn’t much to bring,” Ivy said. “Only the dresses you and Donal bought for me.”
“Of course, my dear. But we shall soon remedy any deficiencies in your wardrobe, I assure you.” She turned to Donal. “Our butler, Croome, will escort you to your chamber, Dr. Fleming. Mrs. Priday, our housekeeper, takes a personal interest in seeing to the comfort of our guests.”
Mrs. Priday, who was blessed with the round, pleasant face and stout figure that seemed the very hallmarks of an English country housekeeper, took Ivy under her ample wing. After a brief backward glance, Ivy went with her. Croome stood waiting while Cordelia hesitated.
“I trust that Miss Shipp is well?” Donal said to fill the silence.
“She has a slight ague, Dr. Fleming, which is why she was unable to greet you. I shall tell her that you inquired after her.”
“Yes.” Donal glanced across the park. “You have a fine wood here, Mrs. Hardcastle.”
“Thank you. The Amesburys have always appreciated nature.” She paused. “Perhaps you would like to come in?”
Donal looked from the gaunt-faced Croome to the wide, heavy door. A rush of panic caught at his throat. “I should be happy to look at your animals now, if it is convenient,” he said.
“Dr. Fleming, I certainly do not expect you to work after such a tiring journey. That can wait for another day.”
“Nevertheless, I … Do you perhaps have an empty groundskeeper’s cottage, or a room above the stables? I believe I would be more effective in working with your animals if I lived closer to them.”
She stared at him with raised brows, doubtless wondering whether or not to take offense at his apparent rejection of her hospitality. From her perspective, she must be doing a simple country veterinarian considerable honor by inviting him to stay in her titled father’s country manor.
“There is another reason it might be best if I lodged outside the house,” he said quickly. “You and Ivy will naturally spend more time together without the distraction of my presence. It is, after all, to our purpose if we encourage her to prefer your company over mine.”
“And she will not do so if you are in the vicinity?” Cordelia asked, too sweetly.
He knew he had blundered, but the constant effort of making himself agreeable was wearing on his patience. “Mrs. Hardcastle,” he said, “it hardly matters how we attain our mutual goal as long as we achieve it.”
Her eyes snapped with annoyance. “I quite agree, Doctor.” She spoke to Croome, who signaled to one of the footmen and went inside the house. The footman set out across the park in the direction of the stables.
“I have sent for our head groundskeeper,” Cordelia said, “who will know if there is a cottage available. It may require a few hours to arrange. In the meantime, perhaps you will condescend to make use of your room to refresh yourself. You do wish to set Ivy a good example.” She started for the door and paused, glancing over her shoulder. “You will, of course, join us for meals. I would not like Ivy to think that I have banished you from the house entirely.”
With that, she marched into the house, and the last remaining footman closed the door behind her.
Donal stood staring at the door, feeling very much the fool. For one mad, impossible moment he had been ready to admit to Cordelia the real reason he couldn’t bring himself to stay in the house. In that moment he had desperately wanted her to understand.
But if she had ever felt the need to run untrammeled in the wilderness, to cast off all bonds and renounce the walls and bars and conformity of man’s civilization, she had long since judged such needs irrelevant to her life. And that would make her no different than a hundred thousand other English men and women who either denied the animal within themselves, or set it free to rend and devour their own kind. For most humans, there was no middle path.
With a sigh, Donal picked up his bag, turned on his heel and strode onto the neatly groomed lawn of the park. He tore his cravat loose and stuffed it in his pocket, finally able to breathe again. Soon he was walking beneath the high, arched canopies of oak, ash, elm and lime. He opened his mind and let it wander, brushing over the small, bright flashes of avian thoughts sparkling among the branches, sensing the horses in the stables and the sheep that kept the grass so well trimmed. Close to the earth he heard mice and voles and rabbits, all busy with the endless work of searching for food or raising the next generation.
But beyond those familiar souls, so like the ones he had known in Yorkshire, were others … far less penetrable minds, whose waking dreams were filled with harsher light and deeper shadow than any to be found in England.
Donal followed where the outland voices led him. He climbed a low hill, and on the other side he found the menagerie.
He had not known exactly what to expect, and had dreaded finding tiny, bare cages that would drive any sensible beast to madness in a matter of weeks or even days. But Cordelia’s facilities were spacious, well-furnished and separated so that no animal was too close to another.
Donal descended the hill, holding his mind receptive. The animals heard him well before he reached the first of the cages, but there was a stillness in them that told him something was wrong. He deliberately slowed his pace and imagined himself as a only another denizen of the park and wood, no threat to any creature, captive or free.
He needn’t have bothered. He felt no fear as he approached, and only the barest flicker of curiosity. The floor of the nearest cage, sand and gravel and rock, was so dappled with shadow from thick tree branches that he wouldn’t have seen the black leopard if not for his Fane senses.
The animal lay stretched out in the shade near a small doorway that led to the covered portion of its cage. Donal crouched close to the bars.
The roar of gunfire bursts in his ears. He presses them flat to his head, for the sound fills him with terror. But soon all he knows is pain. The bullet has lodged in his flank, and blood spatters on the earth, marking his path for all to see.
He falls back, his legs trembling with effort after so long a flight. They are drawing closer. His ribs heave as he struggles to suck in air. Heavy footfalls shake the ground behind him. He smells the acrid scent of his enemies. Their harsh, alien voices are like the roar of the sky in the season of falling water.
He can go no farther. He closes his eyes, shutting out what he cannot bear to see. The relentless footfalls come to a stop, and the net falls over him as the voices bellow their victory….
Donal gasped and tumbled free, his heart hammering with panic. He slapped at his left leg, certain he would feel the hot rush of blood and the ragged edges of a bullet wound.
But his flesh was whole, no tear in his trousers to mark a bullet’s passage. He bent his head between his knees and let the wash of dizziness pass. He had felt such fear in animals before, often when they were in pain and he was preparing to heal them. But never had any bonding struck him as vividly as this.
He straightened and looked into the cage. The panther must have felt his mental intrusion, yet the animal barely lifted his head. His golden eyes blinked once to acknowledge Donal’s presence. Then he laid his chin back on his paws, his elegant tail motionless against his flank.
Donal clutched the bars of the cage and got to his feet. His legs were still trembling as he moved on to the next cage. A pair of tailless monkeys—macaques, he guessed—clung to the uppermost branches of the small tree that had been provided for them. As soon as Donal offered his greeting, they leaped gracefully down and ambled toward him. Though they showed a more active interest than the leopard, their intelligent eyes were dulled with sadness.
Bracing himself for another painful memory, Donal opened his mind again.
He clutches his mate’s hand and tries to pull her away, but she will not leave the little one, who has already fallen to the raiders. The family scatters, their voices high-pitched with fear and anger. But it is too late to save the youngest; they cry and tremble in their captors’ nets. A few lie still among the rocks, never to stir again….
This time the apes themselves broke the contact. They were back up in the branches before Donal fully regained his senses. He wrapped his arms around his chest and heard the cries of his brethren fade away, replaced by the gentle chatter of birds in the wood.
“I am sorry,” Donal said, pressing his forehead against the bars. But he knew it was an empty sentiment. These creatures suffered not only from their unnatural imprisonment, but also from the shock of their captures at the hands of callous hunters. He might learn to refine his healing abilities to erase such terrible recollections from the animals’ minds, but he would have to work closely with them, live beside them just as he had warned Cordelia.
With weary resignation he moved on. The next cage held no sign of its inmate, but Donal heard the sluggish thoughts of the animal secluded in its den and formed an image of the cage’s occupant: a bear, born on another continent, whose memories drifted in lush, warm, green forests. It had chosen to live in its ursine imagination rather than accept the intolerable reality that surrounded it.
Unable to reach the bear, Donal passed to the largest cage. Three wolves paced among the large stone scattered across the enclosure. Two were female, and one, the male, kept watch from a higher vantage. He might have been magnificent save for the dull, patchy quality of his once-thick gray coat, and he stared at Donal for only a moment before dropping his gaze in submission.
Sing for the lost children. Sing for the mother, dead with life still growing within her body. Sing for the mountains and the rivers and the empty dens, ravaged and plundered by the two-legged killers….
Donal bent his head to the leader wolf in a gesture of respect and left them to their endless mourning. Half-blind with grief, he staggered up the hill back toward the house. He was nearly to the door of the manor when he collided with another man heading in the same direction. The man drew back, cursed under his breath and straightened his coat, all the while subjecting Donal to a thorough examination.
Donal came back to himself and met the man’s eyes, recognizing him at once. The handsome, fine-boned face was topped by a thick and fashionably curled head of blond hair, and the blue eyes were of the precise color to make ladies swoon with admiration. His tailcoat was designed to broaden his shoulders and nip in his waist, his trousers were snug enough to show a lean length of thigh muscle, and his black shoes had been buffed to a scintillating polish.
Lord Inglesham tapped his gold-headed cane on the drive. “Do I know you, fellow?” he asked with an air of condescending good humor. “Are you the new groundskeeper Mrs. Hardcastle spoke of employing for her menagerie?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
DONAL CONSIDERED his reply. He was quite certain that the viscount did remember him, in spite of the briefness of their previous meetings and the weeks that had passed. He touched the brim of his hat.
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