Bewitching the Baron (2 page)

Annoyed by his friend, and subtly disturbed by the knowing look in the bird’s eye, Nathaniel nudged his mount to where he could reach the end of the branch where the raven sat, and jerked on the limb.

“Rrrawww!” the bird protested, wings spreading and flapping as he sought to hold tight to the branch. Nathaniel shook the branch again, harder, and at last the raven gave up, dropping toward the ground before his yard-wide wingspan caught the air, and he beat his way up, passing close enough that Nathaniel could feel the rush of air on his cheek.

“Eee-diot!” the raven screeched, and flapped his way off toward town.

Stunned, Nathaniel watched it go, his jaw slack. “Did that bird just call me an idiot?”

When no answer came, he turned to look at Paul and the others. One and all, their eyes were round, their jaws agape.

“You heard it?”

Paul finally spoke. “I am suddenly not so eager to see this ancestral hall of yours.”

Nathaniel shrugged, trying to shake off the eerie occurrence. “The bird called me as he saw me. If I were not a fool, I would not be here now.” And there was truth to that statement. It was an unexamined sense of guilt over his recent actions that had made him willing to submit to the punishment exacted by his disappointed family: exile to the remote estate he had recently inherited from his maternal great-uncle.

Damn the raven. It had probably only sounded like it had spoken, and it had been their own imaginations that had given meaning to the cawing. Ravens did not speak.

Valerian lifted the hot compress from the back of Sally’s neck and examined the boil, gently testing the surface with her fingertip.

“Will you be lancing it?” Sally asked with a tremor in her voice, tilting her head so she could see Valerian’s face. She was sitting on a stool outside the front door of her small cottage, where the daylight allowed Valerian to better see the boil.

“I think that might be best. It will heal more quickly, and you will not be in such pain, what with your collar rubbing against it all the time.”

Sally stared down at her hands clasped tightly between her knees and nodded, a few strands of lank brown hair falling against her cheek, shielding her face.

Valerian tucked a few of the strands back behind Sally’s ear, her other hand resting lightly on the woman’s shoulder. “You will barely feel it,” she reassured her. “It will not take but a minute to do, and I will put something on it that will help it to heal quickly.”

“I have been through worse.”

Valerian silently agreed with that. Sally had three sons living, and had given birth to four other children. The woman knew something about pain. Lancing the boil would hardly compare, but Valerian had come to expect people to dread any form of medical care. Most put off any treatment at all until their condition grew so terrible that they were forced to it.

She dipped her rag back into the small kettle of steaming water at her feet, then gently pressed it once again against the inflammation, drawing the infection to the surface. She took out her small case of knives and made a selection, then paused. Best to give Sally something else upon which to concentrate. She dug into her basket and pulled out a small wooden carving of a bird with two shiny black stones as eyes.

“Here, hold this.”

Sally looked up from under her brows, then down at the carving Valerian had thrust into her hands. She chuckled softly. “It looks like Oscar.”

“It does rather, does it not? It is more than a mere carving, though. Hold it tightly in your hands, and let only the eye show. Now, I want you to stare into that eye. Concentrate on it. Think only of the bird in your hand, and the eye watching you.”

As Sally obeyed, Valerian finished preparing. She heard and sensed movement nearby in the lane, but ignored it as the usual activity of village life. She was as intent on her task as Sally was on the carved bird. “See only the eye, you are aware of nothing but the eye,” she murmured, and with a swift, short stroke she lanced the boil. Sally did not even flinch.

“The eye is watching you, watching over you, protecting you,” Valerian continued softly, and proceeded with draining the boil, using scraps of clean cloth to catch the discharge. When she was finished, she took a small pot of salve from her basket and began to dress the wound.

Now that the worst of it was over and little concentration required, her senses shouted that she was being watched, and she turned. Her breath caught at sight of the mounted figures, who had paused to observe her. They were a mass of rich cloth riding high on fine horses, and for a moment she could not distinguish one from the other. She had never seen such a collection on the muddy street of Greyfriars.

“By God, Nathaniel, I declare that was by far the most revolting scene I have ever witnessed. I am of a mind to leave you to your fate. Derogatory birds from hell, bursting pustules—what further pleasures await?”

Valerian narrowed her eyes at the speaker, a slender young man, perhaps a couple of years older than herself, with blond eyebrows. A wig of curls hid his hair, but his features were fine, with a thin straight nose. Her diagnostic eye took in the pained manner in which he sat his horse, favoring one buttock.

“If you find my activities so repulsive, sir, then I shall be most happy to leave the care of that sore on your buttocks to your own hand.”

The blond man’s eyes widened, and he shifted in his saddle, but it was his companion who answered her.

“My apologies for my friend. It has been a long journey, and as you correctly surmised, his hindquarters are not in their usual state of youthful health.”

Valerian examined this new speaker, taking in the breadth of his shoulders and his relaxed attitude in the saddle. His brows were dark brown, and a faint shadow of whiskers darkened his jaw. She could not see the color of his eyes, but they stared at her from a strong, symmetrical face that wore an expression of condescending amusement. He was a handsome man, but his air of entitlement annoyed her.

“Who are they?” Sally whispered behind her.

Valerian turned her head, frowning. Sally still clasped the carving, but obviously Valerian’s altercation with the strangers had broken the entrancement. Sally’s eyes were bright with a mix of nervousness and curiosity.

“A very good question,” the dark man said in his lightly mocking tone before Valerian could answer. “I must apologize again, this time for having failed to introduce myself. I am Nathaniel Warrington, the new Baron Ravenall, and this rude man is my friend, Paul Carlyle. Presently sans title, but if he lives long enough, he may yet see the day when he inherits one.”

Valerian gave Paul one of her notorious smiles, the smile that showed her slightly long, pointed canines, and made her look, she had been told, like a wolf salivating for the kill. The smile clearly expressed her doubt that Paul would live to see his inheritance. She was rewarded by his shudder.

“Welcome to Greyfriars, Baron Ravenall,” Valerian then said, turning to the man who, apparently, had every right to act entitled in the town he now owned. “Your great-uncle is mourned by us all. He was a good, fair man, and is sorely missed.” She tilted her head, and her voice took on a musing quality. “We have all been wondering if his successor would prove his equal.”

His eyes narrowed, sensing the challenge. “Are you the healer or midwife here, Miss . . . ?”

“Bright. Valerian Bright. My aunt and I share that honor.”

“Miss Bright. Will you do me the kindness of coming to Raven Hall tomorrow, to tend to my friend’s wound? I know that a healer would not hold the ill-tempered words of a suffering man against him.”

She opened her mouth to refuse, then shut it again, and gave a bare nod. He was right: She would not let personal aversion stop her from helping anyone. Which was rather a pity in this case, she thought.

“Splendid. I shall expect you at noon.” With a nod to her, he nudged his horse, and the whole troupe continued down the street, turning at the crossroads onto the road that lead to Raven Hall.

Valerian watched them go with her lips pressed tightly together.

“What did you do that for?” Paul wailed, once they were out of earshot. “I am not going to let her touch me. Did you see the way she smiled at me? Did you see those teeth?”

“They did look remarkably healthy. Do not tell me she frightened you, a poor country girl like that?” Nathaniel mocked.

“Damn right she did. Probably a witch. Probably will poison me as soon as look at me.”

“A week away from London, and already you fall prey to the superstitions of country folk. Really, Paul, I am surprised. Where is the harm in having her check your wound?”

“Do not tell me it was concern for my bodily person that made you do that. Why did you ask her to come?”

“She looked like she knew what she was doing, and you were less than complimentary of her skills. It would be good to make it up to her. I do not wish to alienate my people my first day amongst them.”

Paul narrowed his eyes at him. “Is that all there is to it?”

Nathaniel affected a look of surprised innocence. “Certainly. What else do you expect? I would not ask her to come purely for the entertainment of watching her prod your hairy backside with her sharp little knives. I have no desire for revenge on you for the last fifty miles of whinging and complaining, and your ceaseless yowling for ale.”

“God knows I do not compare to the bright ray of sunshine that you have been this past fortnight. I have been blinded by your good humor on many an occasion, truly I have.”

“Careful now,” Nathaniel said. “You shall sour your stomach with that bile.”

They rode a bit in silence, then Paul spoke again. “I worried that you might have had something else in mind with her.”

Nathaniel felt a spurt of resentment, and did not resist the urge to goad his friend. “She did have a clean face, after all. When she is finished with you, perhaps I shall impress her with the baronial armature, eh? Give her a taste of the master’s rod. After all, no one in London will ever hear of it, or care if they did.”

Paul stared at him, aghast. “You cannot mean it, after all that has happened! And not with
her
, surely not. A muddytoed peasant girl?”

Nathaniel kept his expression bland. “I believe she was wearing shoes.”

“Nate—”

Nathaniel gave an exasperated sigh. “I am but jesting with you, Paul. For God’s sake, I of all people know better than to involve myself with the likes of her.”

Nathaniel could feel his friend staring at him for a long moment, sifting his words for truth. “Well,” Paul said at last. “So you should.”

Nathaniel chose not to answer, having neither the energy nor the heart for the argument, especially as Paul’s suspicions were not entirely off the mark. In his mind’s eye he saw Miss Bright’s curved figure as she bent to her disagreeable task over the woman’s neck. He saw her red lips, pulled back in that grimace of a smile that she’d used to terrify Paul. And those eyes, bright enough to pierce him from a distance, looked startlingly light set amidst her thick black lashes. She had not shown him a hint of subservience, not even the required curtsy.

Yes, she had caught his attention, there was no question of that, but he would have to be a fool to seek anything more from her than her doctoring skills. He would like to think he had learned his lesson about entanglements with those of the lower classes.

A breeze rustled through the woods along the lane, and somewhere a branch snapped. Nathaniel scanned the waving leaves, light green with new spring growth, and saw only trees. Ahead loomed the grey stone wall that fronted the estate, and just as they reached the gate, with its twin stone sculptures of ravens on either side, he thought he heard a rough voice calling from the forest.

“Eee-diot,” it said.

Idiot, indeed.

Chapter Two

Valerian kept to the grassy verge to the left of the footpath that wound through the hills to home. Her shoes were in her basket, now that she was beyond the filth of the street of Greyfriars. The grass was cool and slightly damp beneath her callused soles, and welcome after the sweaty confines of the leather. The hem of her dull purple skirt was just high enough to keep from the damp ground. She hummed under her breath, swinging her basket, and tried to regain her usual sense of calm, so rudely disturbed by the baron.

Halfway home she took the left fork in the path, following it to the low hill with the standing stones, from which the small bay that emptied onto the Irish Sea could be seen, and the hump of the Isle of Man in the distance. The skies had cleared somewhat, and the sun had begun its descent and was low enough to cast a yellow light upon the water and through the green vegetation of the hills. She stood silent, soaking in the tranquil beauty, but the peaceful oneness she usually felt here eluded her today. Nathaniel Warrington’s mocking features imposed themselves before her mind’s eye.

“Arrogant peacock,” she muttered sourly, and went to examine the goods that had been left on the Giving Stone.

“The Giving Stone” was what she and her aunt, and the villagers as well, called the fallen stone on the north side of the circle. No one knew who had built the circle, raising the huge slabs of granite in two concentric rings, but it and hundreds of others like it dotted the countryside, along with the mounded cairns of long-buried Britons. This circle was far from complete, several of the stones having disappeared into the fences and foundations of farms, or having been buried in fits of paranoia.

The fallen stone was the place where those Valerian and her aunt had helped with their healing or their water-divining left their payment. It was considered harmful to the healing or magical process—not to mention extremely bad manners—to pay a healer directly, and so the villagers followed the age-old custom of anonymous donations, left a discreet interval after seeking and receiving aid. Of course, in a small village such as Greyfriars, it was not hard to determine which offering had come from whom.

Valerian smiled to herself. The crocks of honey, butter, and preserves, those had most likely been from Mrs. Hubert, who lived with her husband and brood of children on a farm a couple miles from Greyfriars. Aunt Theresa had given her a tonic for her colicky baby, and ointment for rashes. She had also suggested that the tonic might do the digestion of Farmer Hubert a bit of good, a suggestion for which Mrs. Hubert was apparently grateful, judging by the generosity of her gift.