Bewitching the Baron (8 page)

“Not so much wine,” Eddie agreed. They were all feeling quite pleased with themselves. Ale was a regular part of their diets, but not one of their parents would approve of the luxury, waste, and ill effects of their sons drinking anything stronger.

With three-quarters of the jug gone, they were feeling cross-eyed and bold when Eddie lurched upright, bent over the log they leaned against, and vomited onto the rocks on the other side. When he raised his head and looked out over the bay in an effort to clear his head, he blearily made out Valerian digging her clams. “Now there is good female flesh wasted.”

Stinky and Johnnie crawled to their friend and poked their heads up above the log. Good female flesh was always worth a look.

“Who?” Johnnie asked.

“ ‘Er,” Eddie grunted, pointing with his chin. He propped his elbows on the log and tried to hold his head steady with his hands.

“Miss Bright?” Johnnie asked disbelievingly.

“Have you ever really looked at her?
Really
looked at her?” Eddie asked Johnnie.

“Why would I want to?”

“Ssshe is beautiful,” Eddie answered.

Johnnie was not buying it. “Not beautiful. But maybe she would be kind of pretty, if she were not . . . you know.”

Eddie belched, and wrinkled his nose at the taste of vomit, exhaling through his mouth. “What? You think she is going to turn into a badger and bite off your pecker the next time you take a piss in the woods?”

Johnnie colored. “You would not make such fun, if you had heard the things I have!”

“Aaaa, what things? A bunch of gossip. You have been washing too many dishes with your mother, Johnnie-boy.”

“My mum says there is plenty that goes on out at that cottage that we are better off knowing nothing of.”

“All I know is she has not ever done anything to me,” Eddie said.

“Well, I do not see you courting her, and you are the one lusting after her.”

Eddie shrugged. “Too old. But I tell you, she came into the smithy yesterday. I had not ever really looked at her. Was afraid to, I guess. She never seemed quite . . . I dunno. Friendly. Seemed like she would as soon whack you with a stick as talk to you.”

His friends nodded.

“But yesterday she was different. I caught her looking at me. You know. Looking at me like she wanted me.”

“Miss Bright?” Stinky asked incredulously.

“I think I could have had her right then and there if I had said anything.”

“I think your da’s been using your head for an anvil,” Stinky said.

“She was staring at me, her eyes all over my body. It was like I could feel them on me. And her face got all soft. She was pretty. And she has nice titties.”

“Do not let Gwen hear you say that,” Johnnie warned.

Eddie scrunched his face. “Gwen.”

“I thought you liked her?” Stinky asked.

“Sometimes she seems like such a child.”

“Oh,” Stinky said, rolling his eyes. “I understand. She won’t let you touch her, will she?”

Eddie rolled a shoulder in reply, and his friends hooted.

“So now Miss Bright,” Johnnie said, taking a swig from the jug. “To teach Gwen a lesson.”

“
I
did not start it with her.
She
was the one looking at me.”

“Sure. We believe you,” Stinky said. “Right, Johnnie? No question but she is lusting after him, making love potions to pour in his drink. Miss Bright! Hoo hoo!” The two of them rolled onto their backs, laughing, punching each other in high humor.

Eddie glared at them. “You do not believe me?”

“Aww, sure we do. Why, I bet if you went out there right now she would not be able to keep her hands off you,” Johnnie said, laughing. “She would have you down in the mud before you knew what hit you, stripping off your clothes, moaning for you, Eddieeee, Eddieeee, take me, Eddie, take me. . . .”

Eddie’s face went crimson. “Shut up! She would, I tell you! She looked at my crotch like she was drooling for it!”

“Eddieeee. . . .” Johnnie crooned.

“Touch my titties, Eddie, my lovely titties,” Stinky said, holding his palms up to his chest and making squeezing motions.

“Want me to prove it to you?” Eddie hollered at them.

They stopped their teasing to look at him in hopeful glee.

Valerian tossed another clam in the bucket with a wet “plurp,” then straightened up to stretch the muscles in her back. She peered into her bucket. Her clams were ajar, siphoning salt water in and out. She would give them clean water before leaving, so they could wash the sand out of their own bellies.

Movement caught her eye, and she squinted against the glare of the sun. Who was that coming toward her? The figure slipped, arms windmilling, then righted itself and continued toward her, feet moving gingerly on the uncertain ground, arms held out for balance.

As he came closer she recognized Eddie, and pursed her lips in concern. What did he want? This did not have anything to do with yesterday’s encounter, did it? She saw two other figures stumbling around closer to shore, but did not have a chance to identify them before Eddie was upon her.

“Good morning,” he said, stopping beside her bucket.

She caught the stench of alcohol and vomit. “ ‘Morning.”

His eyes shifted down to her bodice, lingered, then found their way back to her face. She frowned disapprovingly at him.

“Uhhh . . . Digging clams, are you?”

“Yes.” She paused, waiting. “Is there something I can do for you, Eddie?”

“No, no. . . . just saying hello.” His eyes searched her face, skittered away over her shoulder, to the bucket, and finally alit on the shovel. “So! Is the shovel working well for you, then?”

“You did an excellent repair . . .” Valerian trailed off as she noticed the two figures, vaguely recognizable now as Stinky and Johnnie, horsing around and shoving each other as they wended an irregular route toward her and Eddie. They were wandering near the place she had encountered the quicksand. It was not dangerous, as long as you kept your head about you. If Eddie was any indication, though, they none of them were particularly rich on wits today. They had probably been stealing liquor from the inn again.

Valerian waved her hands in the air, and shouted at the two young men. “Johnnie, Stinky, stop! Go back!”

Eddie looked over his shoulder. Seeing his friends, he nodded at them, and waved. Valerian grabbed his shoulders and tried to turn him all the way around. “Send them back, or they will get caught in the quicksand!”

Eddie grinned stupidly, and he tried to shoo his friends back with his hands. After a few flicks of his hands, he turned back to Valerian. He swooped forward and wrapped her in a bear hug, knocking foreheads with her, then planting a sloppy wet kiss on the side of her mouth.

Valerian let out a sound like a stepped-on mouse. She tasted alcohol and bile in his saliva, the fumes filling her nose. His arms were warm and strong, his chest hard against her breasts, but all she felt was repulsion as his lips crept like slugs over her mouth, leaving a slimy trail, and she struggled to break free.

A terrified howl echoed across the mud, breaking Eddie’s amorous concentration. He loosened his hold on her, and she squirmed out of his grip.

A hundred yards away, Stinky was flailing madly in a welter of quicksand, and Johnnie, shouting ineffectually, was trying to reach him. Valerian took in what had happened in a moment, grabbed her shovel, and began to run as best she could over the slippery mud.

By the time Valerian reached them, with Eddie bringing up the rear, Stinky was up to his shoulders and wild-eyed with terror. Johnnie was weeping, lying in the mud, still trying to reach his friend.

Valerian tested the ground, then lay flat at the edge of the quicksand. She pushed the spade end of the shovel out to Stinky. Johnnie screamed.

“Stop her, Eddie! She is trying to kill him!”

Eddie jerked, and made a move to obey, but then Stinky’s hand lashed out of the liquefied sand and grabbed the metal blade. Eddie threw himself to the mud next to Valerian, his longer, much stronger arm reaching out and taking the handle of the shovel.

Stinky practically climbed up the shovel in his desperation, and Eddie pulled him to the edge of the quagmire with his powerful blacksmith’s arms. When he was close enough, Valerian grabbed one of Stinky’s arms and helped haul him out of the muck.

“I told you to go back,” she chided, both angry at his foolishness and relieved he was all right.

Stinky lay gasping, covered in mud, staring wildly at Valerian and Eddie. Other clammers had heard the commotion and finally reached them, gathering round, voices raised in excited questions that the three young men tried to answer all at once, suddenly realizing they were the center of attention.

The press of bodies and the jabbering of voices made her uncomfortable, and reminded her that many could have seen Eddie kiss her. People would blame her for that somehow, and part of her felt they would be right to do so, after the way she had looked at Eddie yesterday. She did not want to hear their accusations.

She slipped out of the group and went back to get her bucket of clams. As she headed back to shore she made a wide detour around the milling group, but then remembered the shovel. She hesitated a moment, then continued toward the dry sand. Doubtless someone would leave the shovel for her at the Giving Stone, she told herself. She would rather trust that to happen than have to explain to anyone her part in what had just occurred.

At the top of the beach she stopped to slip off her shoes. The front of her clothes were soaked through, and were heavy and cold against her skin. Looking down the beach, she could see Stinky being led away, concerned arms around his shoulders, and suddenly she wished someone were there to comfort her.

She watched disconsolately as the last of the group drifted away, leaving her shovel lying in the mud. Then one of the women, Gwen judging by the color of her hair, turned back and got it, then did a quick little jog to rejoin the others.

Most likely someone had seen Eddie kiss her, and sooner or later that news would get back to Gwen. She sent a prayer heavenward that Gwen would not hear of it, but that had about as much chance of happening as she herself did of waking tomorrow as a duchess. She might as well go ahead and count Gwen on the list of people who hated her and wished her dead.

In the Raven Hall greenhouse, Theresa snipped away dead leaves and tested moistures with her finger. The air was warm and humid, scented with that unique hothouse combination of dirt and foliage. She usually enjoyed coming here, but today her mind was uneasy.

Her psychic abilities, such as they were, were impressionistic and vague, and did not reach beyond the near future. She sometimes thought that the immediate past and the near future somehow became jumbled with that moment of time that was the present, and that it was that confused mix of events that she was somehow able to hear better than most others.

What her psychic ears were hearing was change and turmoil, and Valerian was at or near the center of it. Or maybe it just felt that way, as the girl was so important to Theresa’s own life. She had faith in Valerian, and believed she would come out all right in the end. She just wished she could
know
it, for certain. And she wished, too, that she could be certain of the role the baron would play in the coming tempest.

Unaware that she had even sensed his approach, she set down her shears and looked toward the glass doorway. A moment later the baron appeared. He was bareheaded, and his clothes were more subdued than yesterday’s finery. He probably did not realize that these simpler clothes made his masculinity all the more apparent and appealing.

“Good day, Mrs. Storrow. I saw Daniel out in the gardens. He told me you were here.”

Theresa inclined her head. “Good day. I was hoping that I might see you during my visit.”

“Indeed?”

“To thank you again for the offer of your greenhouse, among other things.”

Nathaniel looked around, as if seeing the place for the first time. He noticed the shears on the table in front of Theresa, and the vigorous growth of plants that were not seedlings. “You have been using it for years.” It was more statement than question.

“Your uncle was good enough to show the same generosity that you have.”

Theresa led the way through an archway, into the more decorative part of the greenhouse. The glass roof was high enough to allow for the growth of a few scraggly orange trees. A bench sat near a raised bed filled with the spiky fronds of pineapple plants. The fruit, the size of a large fist, was a delicacy that few had ever tasted.

Theresa sat, relieved to get off her feet. She was tiring more quickly these days. The baron remained standing, idly examining the sickly leaves of the orange tree.

“You will have to pardon me for being a forward and presumptuous old woman. I find I no longer have the patience to wade through niceties when there are issues of deeper interest I could be discussing.”

“I do not know whether to be alarmed or intrigued by that, if it is a prelude to what you are about to say.”

Theresa gave him a small smile. “You do not have to worry that I am going to lecture you about Valerian, and your intentions towards her,” she said. And truly, his attraction to her niece was more a source of happiness for her than of worry, not that he would understand that. “What I would like to know most is why you came to Greyfriars.”

“Surely that is obvious.”

Theresa waved that answer aside. “Your uncle’s death, the inheritance. That is the excuse. You need not have come here yourself. Indeed, I do not believe you would have unless there were another reason.”

“Whatever my reason may have been, I do not see how it concerns you,” he said stiffly, and she knew she had touched a nerve.

“Oh, come now. Do you think your private life has no effect on the lives of the inhabitants of the town you now own? This is not like London, where actions have no consequences other than causing tongues to wag a little faster. Like it or not, you are the patriarch of this village now. I would like to know what type of father figure you will be.” She allowed her voice to soften. “I have no intention of judging you. Tell me what brought you here. Whatever it is you have done, I assure you I have heard worse. Or done it, as the case may be.”