Bewitching the Baron (6 page)

Hoof beats caught her ear, and she cast a glance over her shoulder. He was coming down the path, mounted on his horse. She stepped to the side to make room for him to pass her, but he stopped when he reached her, and slid gracefully from the horse’s back.

She kept walking, forcing him to lead the horse by the reins. He made as if to grab her arm, and she swung the shovel around in a defensive gesture, letting him know that he had better think twice about trying it.

“Valerian—”

She flicked her eyes at him in warning.

“Miss Bright. I do apologize. I have offended you once again. Life is . . . somewhat different in London, among those of my set. Can you possibly give me a second chance? I will be staying at Raven Hall indefinitely, and I see I have much to learn about the ways of the country. Could you not find within yourself the patience to tutor an outsider?”

He looked soulfully at her, imploringly. Valerian wondered if he practiced the look in a mirror, perhaps modeling it after a favorite spaniel. “I do not see why I should, as I have a suspicion that your purposes in asking me to do so are purely selfish.”

“I can hardly blame you for seeing me in such a light. Do you truly believe there is not a shred of hope for one such as myself? I cannot think that you feel there is no hint of decency to be found in my character.”

That is
exactly
what she thought, she wanted to say. “Stop looking at me like that. No, I do not believe there is anyone who is entirely evil. Permanently, irrevocably damaged, perhaps, but not that there is a complete dearth of good.”

“You will give me another chance?”

“No. Go away.”

He was silent, keeping pace with her. After some minutes during which she tried to ignore him, he spoke again. “I think I would like to meet your Aunt Theresa. I have heard a good deal about her during my short time here.”

Valerian stopped short, shoved the blade of the shovel into the ground, put her hands on her hips, and glared at him. “Why are you doing this? I cannot be so interesting as to be worth the bother. Are you bored already, is that it? You are like a little boy, tormenting a helpless animal for his idle amusement.”

“You, my dear, are anything but helpless.”

Valerian gave a disgusted grunt of futility and tossed her hands in the air. “Fine. Do as you please. Follow me home, harass my aunt, make a general nuisance of yourself.”

He grinned at her. “You almost sound pleased.”

“Argh!” She glared at him a moment, then gestured towards the shovel. “At least you can make yourself useful and carry that.”

He gave her an elegant bow, one stockinged leg forward. “At your service, Mademoiselle.” He plucked the shovel out of the ground and propped it against his shoulder. It looked like a toy rifle against that broad shelf. He made a “lead on” motion with his hand, and inclined his head.

Valerian tightened her lips, and without another word resumed walking down the path. He kept pace at her side, and every inch of her skin felt alive with awareness of his presence. Her mind wanted to flit back to when he had his wet mouth on her ear, but she clamped down on the traitorous thought. She wished he had gone away after she rejected the bracelet. She wished he had gone away after the first time she saw him.

Nathaniel smiled to himself, glancing occasionally at Valerian’s head of dark curls beside him. She came to just above his shoulder, and looked extremely cross, putting a little marching stomp into each footstep. He had badly bungled this encounter, but although he was presently in her bad graces, he suspected that she was already on her way to forgiving him.

Although, perhaps, she would be best off if she did not. He had privately sworn not to involve himself with her, but obviously he could not trust himself. Ten minutes alone together, and he had been unable to keep his hands off her. It had sounded so sad, her lonely insistence that she did not need frivolities, that he had felt impelled to reach out and touch her. And then, when he had felt the silk of her cheek, and seen the way his touch affected her. . . .

Of course, if his intention was to behave, he should not be following her home, but he was enjoying himself too much to leave her just yet. He had spent a week learning about her from others as he tried to figure out how he had managed to offend her, and none of the information he had gathered seemed to bear any relation to the woman he saw before him.

Most everyone in Greyfriars was afraid of her and her aunt. Yes, there had been those who thought well of her, but even they could not hide their nervousness in speaking of her. His curiosity was piqued, and the mystery was a welcome distraction from his own troubles. This was no ordinary village girl. No ordinary healer, either. There was something special about her, beyond her lovely face, something that begged him to intrude upon her life.

Content for the moment to let her stew in silence, he followed her lead down the path and through pockets of woodland, always staying a little closer to her than was strictly polite. The set of her shoulders revealed her tension, and he was pleased she could not ignore him.

They emerged from the woods into the meadow, and he stopped a moment to take in the bucolic scene. He had seen enough of the countryside to know that dirt and malnutrition were the norm for most countryfolk, with nary a picturesque scene where man had laid his hand. This meadow, though, with the footbridge over the stream, and with the thatched cottage, freshly white-washed, was a marked exception to that rule. The meadow felt magically enchanted, removed from the world, and the cottage not at all the dingy little “witch’s hovel” he had imagined after his talks with the villagers.

He tied his horse to the limb of a tree and followed Valerian to the cottage. She called out for her aunt, who appeared in the open doorway, drying her hands on a stained work apron. The woman cut a formidable figure, the impression made all the stronger by her aura of calm, omniscient confidence.

With an undisguised look of distaste on her face, Valerian made the required introductions. Nathaniel leaned the shovel against the side of the house, then bowed over Theresa’s hand. A bitter green scent tickled his nose, and he wondered what she had been doing. Mixing potions, perhaps?

“Let me offer my condolences, my lord, on the death of your great-uncle,” Theresa said as he straightened. Her eyes met his own, and in that moment he felt her perception reach down to his very soul. “I know that he would be pleased that you are here now, looking after Raven Hall and Greyfriars. He was quite fond of you. I know he had great hopes for the kind of man you would turn out to be.”

Nathaniel was struck by the irrational certainty that this woman knew of the disgraces in his recent past. “Thank you, Mrs. Storrow,” he finally managed to say, unbalanced. “I in turn have heard a good many things about both you and your niece since my arrival. It does sound as though between you, you keep the local population in good health.”

“Good health and good spirits, I like to think. Come, let me fix you some tea. Valerian? Do bring out the biscuits from yesterday.”

He followed them into the cottage, the heels of his boots sounding hollowly on the wooden planks of the floor, loud in contrast with the silent movements of the women.

He had but once or twice been in the homes of the lower classes, and so the interior of the cottage surprised him with its open space, having never been divided into rooms. There was a large canopied bed to one side, the draperies half open, and a loft with a well polished ladder leading up to it. The rest of the space was dominated by an enormous worktable, black with age, looking as if Merlin himself could have prepared his elixirs upon it. The large fireplace was surrounded and occupied by an astonishing assortment of kettles, pots, bottles, bowls, and items whose use he could only guess.

Overlying all was the combined scent of wood smoke and the vast assortment of herbs that hung in mysterious clusters above his head. The cottage was plainly as much workshop as it was home, and he wondered at the uses the women knew for all those herbs, and how effective their cures were.

Theresa indicated he should sit on the bench at the clear end of the table nearest the fire. Valerian was busy taking dark brown biscuits from a jar and arranging them on a plate. Theresa began making the tea. They both appeared to ignore him as they went about their business, which gave him a further chance to gawk at the assorted collections on the shelves lining the walls.

The lighting was dim—the day was overcast, and the windows not overlarge to begin with. The daylight that reached inside was augmented by the orange flickerings of the fire, the light of its flames caught and refracted from dozens of intriguing sources. Dark humps revealed themselves as carvings of animals, their jet eyes shining in the firelight, watching from their aeries on the shelves. White shapes became bones as his eyes adjusted, the skull of a sheep juxtaposed with that of a man. There were pewter dishes and candlesticks, leather-bound books, several shelves packed with opaque jars, and baskets heaped with unidentifiable sundries.

A flutter and swoosh announced the arrival of Oscar, who landed gracefully upon a perch attached to the mantel. “Poor hungry bird!” he cried.

“Nonsense, Oscar,” Valerian chided, and set the plate of biscuits on the table. “You have been out foraging all day.”

“He is a shameless beggar,” Theresa said, pouring tea into a set of delicate china cups, incongruous in this practical household. She sat down across from him. Valerian dawdled for a moment, petting Oscar, then sat on the stool at the end of the table.

For a brief moment he saw himself as if from the outside, sitting in this peculiar cottage with two eccentric women, a talking raven on the mantel. He could almost believe that a sort of magic inhabited this cottage in the meadow, and that these two women were witches, as the townsfolk more than half suspected.

“Now then,” Theresa said, “I am sure you have heard countless rumors about us, so if you have questions, feel free to ask them.” Her green eyes met his with friendly mischief.

Surprised again by the sense that she read his thoughts, he glanced at Valerian and saw her lips quirk before she hid them behind the rim of her teacup, taking a sip. He smiled at her and followed suit, in the hopes of buying time to compose a suitable query for her aunt.

The moment the liquid hit his tongue he jerked, and spluttered the stuff back into the cup. “Good God!” he cried. “What is this stuff?” He squinted at the liquid, trying to make out the color, too startled by the unidentifiable taste to apologize for the gross faux pas he had just committed.

“It is Valerian’s own blend,” Theresa said, laughter in her voice.

He looked at Valerian, and saw her frowning at him, a biscuit almost to her lips. He gave her a strained smile, gathered his courage and his manners, and took another sip. After letting the hot liquid sit in his mouth for a moment he decided that it was not quite as awful as at first taste, as long as he did not try to think of it as tea.

“Rosehips, lemon balm, orange, and a few other things,” Valerian finally explained.

“Delightful,” he murmured, setting down the cup.

“Biscuit?” Valerian asked, holding out the plate.

“Pooooor hungry bird,” Oscar wailed from the mantel.

Nathaniel took one of the dark biscuits and chomped off a bite. An explosion of peppery spices filled his mouth, and his eyes widened. The hard little cookie was enough to make his eyes water.

“Spice biscuit,” Valerian said.

He coughed as a crumb of the potent pastry lodged in his throat, and quickly took a sip of tea, thankful now for its harmless fruitiness. “So I gathered.”

“You know, we are not actually witches,” Valerian said. “We do not poison people.”

A startled bark of laughter escaped his throat. “I never thought you were.”

“Your friend Mr. Carlyle did,” Valerian said.

“Paul is a man with a mind better suited to the imagination than to reason. No, I share the view of the courts of England on the the existence of witches,” he said, a bit relieved to have something to say off the topic of the fare. “Hysteria and ignorance cause the simple to believe they exist, and those who believe themselves to be witches are either deluded or charlatans. If deluded, they are to be pitied. If charlatans, then they deserve to be prosecuted, as the law allows.”

“I am pleased to hear that you hold such a sensible view,” Theresa said.

“But are you so certain that witches do not exist?” Valerian asked, looking at him from the corner of her eyes with the slyness of a fox. “What seems farfetched in London becomes easier to believe when there are no city walls between you and the night.”

“You may as well ask if I believe in ghosts and fairies, or the fortune-telling of gypsies.”

“A man of pure reason,” Valerian said, and he heard the hint of mockery in her voice.

“How else are we to know the world? Superstition is but a pap to quiet ignorant minds, fearful of what they cannot understand. While it comforts, to hold the comfort is also to reject the search for truth.”

Valerian rolled her eyes at him, and he was suddenly aware of how pompous that had sounded.

“And do you view God with the same detachment?” Theresa asked.

He had not expected that their conversation would so quickly take such a serious turn, and wondered what reason they had for it. “I do not know if there is a place in science for God and religion,” he said more carefully. “For many it is a habit more than a faith.”

“And just more superstition, I suppose,” Valerian said. “But have you never felt that all the science and reason in the world could not help you, could not succor you in your need? That there must be something more than this physical world, something that had the power to save you or to damn you?”

He considered his words before he answered. “I have felt my limitations, and seen my follies, but ultimately I do not think it is for any being but myself to save me or to damn me. Any crisis of faith has been in myself, never in science. I do believe that one day men will find in science the answers many now find in God.”