Bewitching the Baron (3 page)

The bodice laces were probably from Gwendolyn, the miller’s fifteen-year-old daughter, who had come seeking advice for winning the heart of her beloved Eddie. Eddie was the smith’s oldest son, nineteen years old, and Gwendolyn had been overcome by the passions aroused from viewing his muscled arms and chest at work, gleaming with sweat in the light of the forge.

Valerian had worked quietly in the background, crushing herbs under her pestle, as Aunt Theresa gave the girl both honest advice and warnings on the consequences of unbridled passion. Gwen had gone away without the love potion she had requested, but with a steely determined eye, much unexpected in a girl known for her vivacious frivolity. If he was not careful, Eddie would soon find himself with a wife.

Valerian gathered the offerings into her basket and descended the hill, regaining the path toward home. It was mostly women and children she and her aunt helped; the men usually sought out the services of the surgeon in the next town. Only in emergencies would she or her aunt be called in to help with an injury, even though she was certain she and Aunt Theresa did a better job than the surgeon.

Perhaps that was the reason Baron Ravenall kept intruding so rudely into her thoughts. She should be the last person he would ask to care for his friend. Why had he insisted she come to Raven Hall? It was baffling. Perhaps he had been impressed by her treatment of Sally’s boil.

She shifted the basket to her other hand. It was heavy now, and bumped against her leg as she walked. The path led through a cool, dark grove of trees in the dell between two hills, then emerged into a sloping meadow. A rocky stream tumbled its way through the meadow to the bay and thence the ocean, a wedge of which shimmered between the hills. The path crossed the stream via a narrow footbridge, then finally ended before the cottage that had been Valerian’s home since her parents died and Aunt Theresa had come and taken her away from the Yorkshire village of her birth.

The distinctive sound of a spade working the dirt came from the far side of the cottage, and Valerian followed it around the corner to the kitchen garden. The formidable figure of her aunt, tall and somewhat stocky with muscle and middle age, was bent toward the ground, one hand pulling at the remains of the weed that the spade had unearthed.

“I am back,” Valerian called to her.

Theresa Harrow straightened up, one hand going to the small of her back, massaging the muscles there. “Did everything go well? No problems?”

“None that you mean.” It was not just the healing that her aunt was asking about. There were certain dangers around being perceived as a healer or white witch, however inaccurately, even now that it was no longer legal to persecute witches.

Theresa tossed the weed onto the wilted pile at the edge of the garden and came to join her. “What happened?”

Valerian shrugged uncomfortably. “I met the new baron, Nathaniel Warrington. He rode through town and stopped to watch me lance Sally’s boil.”

Theresa leant the spade against the side of the house, and she dusted her hands on her homespun apron. “Let us have some tea, shall we, and you can tell me all about it.”

Over a cup of soothing peppermint tea, Valerian told her all that had transpired, and of the command to come tend to Paul Carlyle’s derriere.

“A good sign, I must say,” Theresa laughed. “He hardly seems likely to encourage our good neighbors to hang us if he is requesting your assistance for his friend.”

Valerian shrugged one shoulder, uncertain. “I think it more likely he is unaware of how things are in villages. He did not strike me as a man who would be aware of our concerns, or particularly care even if he were.”

“Neither did George Bradlaugh show much interest in the workings of the town.”

“But he cared enough about what happened to you.”

“Poor old fool.” Theresa’s lips curled in a fond smile. She rubbed her thumb along the rim of her heavy mug, musing, Valerian knew, on the former baron’s romantic tendencies. “I do not think we can count on this Warrington fellow to think me the stars and the moon. He sounds a trifle young for me.” She raised her eyebrows at her niece.

“Aunt Theresa, the man would as soon adore a pig as a poor village girl. And even if he did take notice of me in that way, which he would not, I would not return the interest.”

“It sounds to me as if he has taken notice of you already.”

Valerian’s cheeks pinkened slightly. “I do not think so.”

“And most certainly, he has made an impression of a certain strength on you, has he not? All this complaining— I think the lady doth protest too much.”

“Oh, really, Aunt Theresa!” Valerian cried, cheeks flaming to scarlet.

“Perhaps you wish he had taken even more notice of you, hmm? But at any rate,” Theresa continued before Valerian could protest yet again, “you know how important it is that we remain in his good graces. The town will follow his lead in their treatment of us. If the baron shows disapproval, it will be more than our lives are worth the next time some farmer has a cow die on him, or his wife miscarries.”

Valerian turned her eyes away, staring out the open door at the twilight settling over the meadow. The fluttery shape of a bat crossed her field of vision, chasing insects. “I know.”

In those two words were fifteen years of awareness that she and her aunt were outsiders, for all that the townsfolk and farm wives sought their aid. They were respected for their knowledge, and both despised and feared for suspicion of whence that knowledge had come. That fear, while keeping them somewhat safe in their isolation, could turn destructive with a change in the wind. The witch hunts of the past century were long over, the witch laws recently repealed, but the countryfolk found more truth in their own beliefs than in the letter of the law. She who was a healer and midwife today might tomorrow be denounced as a poisoner in league with Satan.

It was not a fate to wish on anyone, much less oneself. If being nice to the baron would do anything to prevent it, nice she would be.

Chapter Three

“You are not going to wear that, are you?”

Valerian turned from the small silver mirror at her aunt’s critical tone. “What is wrong with it?”

“Really, Valerian.”

Theresa’s exasperation spoke for itself. Valerian tightened her lips for a moment in defiance, then loosened them as she gave in, and she began to yank at the laces of her work-a-day bodice.

“I know, I know, my foolish pride,” Valerian muttered, removing the bodice and pulling on her best black one over her chemise. It had elbow-length sleeves, and was both stiff and tight enough to provide support for her breasts. It was her best more by virtue of newness and quality of material than because of any decoration, although with the purple laces that matched her skirt it had a certain attractiveness to it. “I did not want him to think I had dressed up for him.”

“Come here, let me fix your hair.”

Valerian flounced down onto a stool with an exaggerated sigh. Theresa pulled a few wisps of hair from her braid to frame her face, then squinted at her critically. “You need something more.”

The cottage had a high roof, steeply peaked, and thatched with heather. In the dark recesses above their heads hung line after line of drying plant matter, from herbs to flowers to lengths of root. The cottage forever smelled of a combination of wood smoke and sweet dry greenery, punctuated with touches of scents both more spicy and more noxious. Theresa dragged out their ladder, and she quickly retrieved a spray of dried purple statice from where it had been hiding in the shadows above.

Ignoring her niece’s fierce frown, she twisted the papery flowers into Valerian’s braid. “There. It goes against human nature to think a witch would wear flowers in her hair.”

“More likely he will think I am trying to attract his attention.”

“And so what if he does? If he thinks you like him, he will be more inclined to be kindly disposed towards you. The last thing we want to do is antagonize the man.”

“I do not want him to take it as an invitation.”

Theresa shrugged. “I know you will be careful. And it might not be so bad, if you decided he was not so disagreeable. . . .”

“Aunt Theresa!”

“Hush, child. I am not trying to sell you into prostitution to secure our safety. But you are twenty-seven years old, and you have never had a sweetheart. They are all afraid of you. If the baron shows an interest, I see nothing wrong with experiencing a little of what life has to offer.”

Valerian pulled out from beneath her aunt’s hands and quickly gathered up her things, her movements jerky. “When I do decide it is time to ‘experience’ things, it will
not
be with the baron. The very idea repulses me.”

Valerian hurried out of the house, eager to escape her aunt’s knowing smile. Sometimes becoming a hermit and living in a cave sounded like a very good idea.

The path she would take to Raven Hall was no more than a deer path through the hills and woodland. Raven Hall was between her own home and the town of Greyfriars, and the path she normally took to town made a wide circuit of the estate. Today she took the shortcut that would lead directly into the Raven Hall orchard, and thence to the gardens and the house.

Once out in the late morning sunshine her mood lifted, and she managed to forget for a bit her aunt’s lewd suggestions. Her eyes scanned the greenery to either side of the path, taking in the first shoots of plants that had lain dormant through the winter. What should have been a ten-minute walk stretched to twenty, then thirty minutes as she repeatedly left the path to examine bits of flora, her mind cataloging locations and stages of growth. It was only when the path spilled her out into the edge of the apple orchard that she recalled with a start where she was headed and for what purpose.

A glance at the sun told her that she might be late, and she hoped that the baron was not too punctilious. Mr. Carlyle, on the other hand, was probably thanking God for each minute of her absence. She hurried through the orchard, caught in a false blizzard of color as the breeze brushed through the blossom-laden trees, the silky pink-white petals catching in her hair and dress, floating about her in a springtime snowstorm.

It was this vision of unexpected, almost magical loveliness that met Nathaniel’s eye when he reached the end of the gardens. Having grown impatient with waiting for Valerian in the house, he had come out to the gardens to walk and distract himself, and to silently chastise himself for caring whether she came or not.

He stood motionless, frozen with surprise and wonder as she seemed to float towards him through the natural gallery of arching trees. He knew the exact moment that she noticed him, for she stopped and stared, her eyes wide, her full lips slightly parted. They stood, eyes locked, for an endless moment, and then the wrath of hell descended on his head.

There was a scraping rush of wind and feathers, and then a great flapping blackness blinded him. He felt cruel claws digging through his hair, accompanied by a harsh and grating series of screams. He batted wildly at the demon, and was stabbed cruelly in the hand for his efforts, the creature’s hoarse and fiery cries of “Finders keepers!” barely penetrating his consciousness as he sought to rid himself of his assailant. Suddenly the weight of the creature lifted, and his hands touched his bare head, his hat gone, his hair snarled by the claws of the beast.

“Oscar! You bad bird! Bad bad bad!” he heard Valerian scolding, and dazed, he looked around and saw an enormous raven sitting on his hat some ten feet away, its beak ripping gleefully at the gilt braiding that lined his tricorn. The raven stopped long enough to tilt its head and eye the healer, then squawked out, “Finders keepers!” once more and resumed its destruction of what had once been a fine piece of haberdashery.

“Oscar!” Valerian hollered, clearly outraged. The bird hunched its head into its wings, and sat protectively over the hat. Valerian strode forward and yanked the hat away from the bird, who flapped his wings angrily and cawed in protest, then launched himself at her head.

Nathaniel lunged, pulling her out of harm’s way, his hat crushed between them as he sought to shield her from the satanic bird. The raven circled them once, then flapped his way to the top of an apple tree, landing with enough force to shake loose blossoms.

“Let go of me!” Valerian protested, startled. Her face was pressed into his chest. She struggled to free herself, to no avail. She had not realized he was such a big man.

“He is watching us,” the baron murmured into her hair. His arms all but squeezed the breath out of her, and he began to walk backwards, dragging her with him away from the apple tree where Oscar perched, grumpily observing them.

“Ees muh et, oo ee-ee-ut!” she said into his brocade vest, tasting metal as a silver button found its way into her mouth.

“What?”

He loosened his hold on her head enough for her to gain some breathing room, and she spit out the button and repeated what she had said. “He is my pet, you idiot!”

She saw now that his eyes were dark hazel, lined with black lashes, his brows slanting dangerously under a loose shock of deep auburn hair as he made sense of what she said. “You lay claim to that evil creature?”

“He is not evil. Mischievous and greedy maybe, but not evil.”

His arms around her loosened further, and she pushed herself free, then tried to beat some shape back into his tricorn. “Sorry about your hat. He likes shiny things.” She held it out to him, and he stared blankly at the mangled blue fabric and dangling gold trim before reaching out to take it.

“Do not give it another thought,” he said politely, and she could see his face begin to change as he drew on the same mask of arrogance he had worn in Greyfriars.

“Here, let me properly introduce you,” she offered, remembering Theresa’s cautions against offending him. “Oscar!” she called, and then whistled once, a short, high note.

Oscar launched himself from his branch and swooped gracefully down to where they stood, landing smoothly upon Valerian’s shoulder and leaning his head against her hair, camouflaging himself against the glossy locks that matched his own feathers.