Dawn Thompson (25 page)

“Do you fancy something?” Jon said, leaning close.
“Well, of course you must. Your own frock is quite ruined. Forgive me. Here, let me buy it for you.” He reached to take the blue voile from her, but she arrested his hand and rummaged deeper into the pile to produce a yellow muslin round gown, a white muslin frock, and a bottle-green spencer. Putting them down again, she grabbed his arm and led him away, out of earshot of the vendor tending the table, who was trying to convince the woman with the sprigged muslin that the gown would fit her.

“I don’t understand,” Jon said. “Don’t you want one? You seemed so taken with them—”

“Shhh!” she warned him. “They are mine, Jon!” she said in a whisper. “See there . . . beneath the table? My trunk! The coachman made off with our things when they found me out at that inn. I saw him ride off with the trunks still strapped up top. How has it come here?”

“I don’t know,” Jon said, clearly nonplussed.

“Suppose some of those villagers are here—the ones who meant to beat me to death and burn me in that bonfire. Oh, Jon! Suppose someone recognizes us!”

“Be still. If that were so, someone would have come forward and accused us by now, I should think. But all the more reason for us to buy something from that table. I shall do so, then we shall find Milosh and be on our way.”

“What? Buy my own things? You can’t be serious.”

“Just so. What better way to take suspicion off ourselves, should someone be watching. Besides, you cannot go about as you are. That alone is cause for suspicion. You look like a Liverpool street urchin. Come, follow my lead. Pretend you’ve never seen those frocks before. Trust me.”

Cassandra stayed close beside Jon as he strolled back to the table. Giving her arm a reassuring little squeeze, he began rummaging through the garments.

“Which one has struck your fancy, my dear?” he said, lifting up the blue frock. “This one, I think, wasn’t it?”

Cassandra nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak. The vendor had left the fat woman’s side and come at once to theirs, fussing over the wares on the table.

Jon continued to look over the selection. “Here’s a nice one,” he drawled, snaking out the yellow muslin round gown. “On second thought, no,” he said, holding it up to her. “A bit outdated, I think, and a bit too large for you as well.”

As he moved to return it to the table, Cassandra’s hand took his. “I don’t mind that it is outdated,” she said. “I love the color, and it should fit well enough. It looks large, but that is the style of it.”

“These are the latest London fashions,” the vendor said, bristling as she straightened the frocks they had mussed. “Straight off the ship from Gdansk, the peddler assured me.”

Jon draped the yellow over his arm along with the blue, then reached into the pile again. “I shall take these as well,” he said in his best Romanian, complete with sign language, taking hold of the sprigged muslin the fat woman had discarded as well as a white muslin morning frock and an indigo cloak with a hood. “By the look of that sky, this might come in handy,” he observed of the cloak.

Cassandra voiced a mock objection.

“No, no, I insist,” Jon said, then to the woman: “It is our honeymoon, you see,” he claimed, “and there wasn’t time to choose a proper trousseau before we sailed. Not if we would take advantage of fine sailing weather.”

The vendor’s eyes brightened. “My lady is fortunate indeed to have such a generous bridegroom,” she said.
Wadding the frocks in a bundle—all but the cloak, which Cassandra slipped over her shoulders—the woman chattered on while Jon paid. Still chattering, she wrapped the rest in brown paper and tied the bundle with string just as the first fat raindrops began to splatter down.

Cassandra scarcely heard much less understood what the woman was saying. She stared down at the dark pattern the drops were making on the wrinkled paper—one, two, and then a flurry that made a hollow sound.

“There, then!” Jon said, tucking the bundle under his free arm. He gestured toward the clouds boiling and thickening overhead. “We had best be on our way before we take a drenching.” And he steered Cassandra away from the table as the vendor swept the rest of her wares into the open trunk at her feet.

The rain worked to their advantage. Everyone was running helter-skelter, protecting their wares from ruin in the downpour and seeking shelter from the storm. Few took notice of them as they made their way to the stables behind the public house in search of Milosh. Thunder rumbled through the foothills, amplified beyond by the mountain peaks—Cassandra felt the vibration through the soles of her Morocco leather slippers. Lightning speared down in snakes and flashes, streaking across the fields, while the rain sluicing down in slanted sheets broke the wildflowers’ backs and sheared off their colorful heads.

Milosh had stretched a tarpaulin over the bed of the cart. He was tying it down underneath the stable overhang out of the rain when they reached him.

“To keep the straw dry,” he said. “We need it for the fire. The horses are ready. As soon as the storm slackens some we’ll be on our way.”

“We need to go
now,
” Jon whispered. “One of the vendors has Cassandra’s trunk. She was selling her things in the open market. That trunk didn’t get here by itself. The coachman who brought us from Gdansk drove off with it the night those villagers nearly killed her. I bought a few of the dresses so we wouldn’t look suspicious, but we should go. We aren’t safe here now.”

“That was a wise move,” Milosh said, “but we can’t ride off in
that
.” He gestured toward the horizontal rain and white lightning flashes dancing all around. “We will arouse suspicion. We shall go into the public house and have a meal while we wait. I told you, they know me here. They make a fine goulash. Then, when the storm breaks, we will be on our way with no one the wiser.”

Cassandra wasn’t convinced, but there was nothing for it except to comply. They were drenched before they reached the pub, and Milosh was right; it would have seemed suspicious had they driven off in such a tempest.

They weren’t the only ones who took shelter there. The pub was crowded and noisy, reeking of the stale brew that had ripened in the floorboards over time and dirty wet clothes on unwashed bodies. The only saving grace was the goulash. Milosh had been right about that as well. She welcomed the hot, salty gravy trickling down her throat, and since lamb was plentiful, it was overflowing with meat. They had nearly finished when the publican caught Milosh’s eye and jerked his head toward the ale barrels, signaling the Gypsy to join him there. He wasn’t gone long. Cassandra watched him glance in their direction several times while the man whispered in his ear. The look in his eyes bespoke caution, and though cold chills walked the length of her spine and the fine hairs on the back of her neck flagged
danger, Cassandra concentrated on the goulash as if she hadn’t noticed.

Jon was watching the conversation also, though he didn’t let on when Milosh swaggered back to their table. He didn’t bat an eye when the Gypsy took all three tankards in one hammish hand and started back toward the ale barrels.

“Steady,” Milosh warned, “while I fetch us more ale.”

“Something is wrong,” Cassandra murmured, her eyes fixed on the goulash. Her stomach turned suddenly, and bile rose in her throat. She could no longer abide it.

“Whatever it is, we must trust Milosh to handle things,” Jon said. “The storm will soon be over and we will be on our way.”

As if in contradiction, lightning lit their table, glaring through the dingy window above them as it struck a small fruit tree outside. A deafening thunderclap followed that shook the whole public house, rattling plates and tankards on the tables and in their niches on the wall. Cassandra reacted to that. It would have seemed odd if she hadn’t. A frightened response from all the patrons twittered through the common room as Milosh returned with the tankards.

“As soon as the rain gives, we will away,” he hissed. “And we must be off soon if we are to reach our destination before nightfall.”

“What did the publican want?” Jon queried.

The Gypsy hesitated. “Do not be alarmed,” he replied. “He wanted to warn me. Word has spread of what occurred at that inn the night we met. The townsfolk haven’t given up. You are still being hunted. I expected as much. I know these people and they are relentless. You two fit the description, of course, and he wanted to know
how well I know you. I put his mind at ease, so you must do naught to spoil that or we are all in danger. I told him that I am your travel guide, that you are devout Christians making a wedding trip visiting the Orthodox priories in the mountains.”

“And he believed you?” Jon asked.

Milosh nodded. “He knows I would hardly be in the company of those I am committed to destroy.”

“Did someone point us out to him?” Cassandra asked over the rim of her tankard. It was all she could do to keep her hand from shaking, especially when another thunderclap rattled the windowpanes.

“Yes,” Milosh said, “but they are gone now and I have put his fears to rest. I told him I was at the inn the night it happened, that I saw the fugitives, that the girl in question was older, and that her companion was dressed in the office of a clergyman. Now finish that. The thunder grows distant. Soon we will be on our way.”

The gelding and the sorrel mare were no less skittish in their company than those in Jon’s stable at Whitebriar Abbey. The trio excused the phenomenon to the hostlers, however, as fright due to the storm, and made their departure from the public house as soon as the rain lessened to a misty drizzle. There was no hope of it stopping altogether. Sinister, black-rimmed clouds stretched from horizon to zenith, bold testimony that the foul weather had just begun. It seemed more like twilight than mid-afternoon.

Steam rose from the path they took into the forest at the foot of the mountain, where the cool sluicing rain had met the hot ground. The music of a gurgling stream, swollen and overflowing its banks since the rain, echoed
from within the forest, and farther in, the roar of a waterfall that fed it rumbled in the distance. Cassandra closed her eyes and imagined that cool flow washing over her, soothing her tired body, reviving her spirit. All around them the pungent forest smells rode the rain-washed air. Pine and fern mingled with the scent of ripe berries and wild mushrooms. The camphoric aroma of purple myrtle growing wild on the forest floor and the woodsy essence of rosemary and bark blended with the heady scents of moss and mold. They all came together in an evocative explosion that took her breath away.

All at once, Milosh reined Petra in and raised his nose, sniffing the multifragranced air. At first Cassandra thought he was singling out all the layers of nature’s scents just as she was, then he began sweeping the forest with his eyes.

“What is it?” she said.

Milosh laid a finger over his lips. “I hear . . . something,” he whispered. “I have since we left the village. We aren’t alone in the woods.”

“Vampires?” Cassandra murmured.

“I am not certain,” the Gypsy replied.

Jon raised himself in his saddle, his eyes snapping in all directions. “Should we turn back and see if they follow?”

Milosh replied, “We need to cover ground to reach our destination in time. As it is, we are behindhand because of the storm, and another downpour is on the way. It often happens at this time of year. One storm will follow another . . . sometimes for days.” He climbed down from the cart. “Give me your horse,” he said. “Guard the cart well. Everything you need is in it. Follow this path. It will lead you to a cave in the hills behind the waterfall. It is a small cave, fed by a mineral spring at an upper level, but
it will suffice. There is a narrow approach that will accommodate the cart. I have used it many times; this fits nicely inside. You will be safe there. The vampires will not cross the water.”

Jon gave a skeptical laugh. “Sebastian had no difficulty crossing a stream when he stalked us in Scotland.”

“How deep was that stream?”

“It wasn’t deep. He stepped right in it.”

“He will not step in the falls, believe me. Now go! Do as I’ve said. If all goes well, I will join you shortly. If not, you still know what you must do.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” Cassandra said, watching Jon glance over his shoulder as Milosh walked the gelding into the thick of the wood and disappeared. “If you didn’t have me to contend with, you might be able to help him.”

“That isn’t fair,” he argued.

“Maybe not, but it’s true.”

“Something has been troubling him since we left the public house,” hedged Jon. “Milosh is a vampire hunter. His instincts are excellent, his senses extraordinary. If he feels a presence, believe me, there is one. If it is a vampire, it is of the sort that can go about in daylight. But I do not think it is. More than likely, it is those who have been searching for us. They have picked up our trail.”

Cassandra gasped. “Jon, we cannot stand against a mob!”

“No, we cannot. That is why Milosh stayed behind; I would stake my life on it. We must do as he says. We must find the cave and wait.”

Cassandra said no more, though her mind was reeling with questions that unfortunately only Milosh could answer. She and Jon were both too new at the condition to puzzle things out, and conjecture only led to anxiety. It
was bad enough agonizing over whether after all their preparations rain clouds might obscure the blood moon; now one of their number might well be facing mortal danger. Making matters worse, they were very visible in the cart, but they needed the conveyance nonetheless.

They spotted the waterfall just before dark. Just as Milosh said, there was a cave behind it, and a narrow path gouged in the rock barely wide enough for the cart. The rain had held off, though the stormclouds had summoned an early twilight. The rocky approach was slick with algae, and Petra complained when she nearly lost her footing on the slippery path. Cassandra went first. She had nearly reached the falls when the heart-stopping howl of a wolf turned her. Frozen on the brink of the cave, both she and Jon stared. Behind, the eerie green darkness of the forest was dotted with the flickering light of moving torches—dozens of them—moving straight toward them.