Home From The Sea: The Elemental Masters, Book Seven (31 page)

“Are those scones?” asked Robin, poking his head in the window. Despite the fact that it was the first day of September, the weather was still as warm and pleasant as it had been when they first arrived, and the windows were, as a consequence, wide open. They had gotten used to Robin showing up out of nowhere—usually when there was food about. Nan was glad of it; it was good to be able to discuss Mari with someone besides Sarah, and Puck was always good company, not to mention his occasional, timely intervention. Bearing in mind that the Fair Folk didn’t like to be
thanked
for help—since thanks implied obligations—she just made sure to be extra generous with whatever of their treats took his fancy.

Nan shook her head as Grey bobbed and Neville quorked a welcome. “You have the most uncanny ability to be right where you are wanted, when you are wanted,” she said.

He smirked. Today he was dressed all in moleskin and leather, like something out of a child’s book about Old England. “That shouldn’t surprise you, pretty maid,” he said. “I am what I am. And are those scones?”

“Yes they are, and yes, I have clotted cream, and yes, you are invited in, but you must be serious, Robin,” Sarah told him, her tone earnest. “We need some good advice. We just realized that we have been here much longer than we thought we would, very much longer than we had intended to stay, and now… well, Lord Alderscroft has still not said that we should come back. It was all very well to play at holiday-making while it was summer, but…”

Her voice trailed off.

“Practically speaking, for one thing, all we have are our summer clothes,” put in Nan. “For another, we don’t know what the winter will be like here—Neville will do well enough, but Grey needs to be warm! We don’t even know how snug this cottage is against winter storms. Even I have heard about winter storms on the coast, and how terrible they are. For all we know, this place is a sieve for drafts. And—”

“Wait, wait, let me come in!” Puck did so by way of the window, not so much climbing in as leaping in. He took his place at the table, and reached for a scone as Nan got another cup and poured him tea as well. “Firstly, my pretties, the storms are bad here, but the winter itself is mild. And you know I would never let our Grey Girl suffer.” He put out a finger to Grey, who nibbled it in thanks. “Now, I’ve been keeping my eye on things—you know, betwixt the Prothero girl and the Selch—”

“I thought you had,” Nan said shrewdly. “I’ve got my guess, but honestly, she and they are being mightily secretive about—well—the courting and how it is going. And ordinarily I would say it is none of our business, but Lord Alderscroft has made it our business.”

Puck nodded, spreading cream, then jam, on his scone. “This is what I think is the situation with the Prothero maid. When all this began, she was reckoning to stretch out her time before she made a decision as long as she possibly could.” He shrugged. “Who could blame her? Out of nowhere she finds herself saddled and bridled with that bargain! She was going for a year, if she could get it; I doubt the Selch Clan Leader would have put up with more than that. And, of course, because she is a practical wee thing, she was making very sure she would not find herself burdened with a lad who’d bully her, or who she misliked.” He wagged his head from side to side a little. “And I know all the arguments, how she
could
have found herself marrying some fellow she didn’t know because of her father’s say-so, and all that, but a maid has a right to think she has some
choice
in a lad, if you ask me.” He heaved a great sigh. “But there, I’ve hobnobbed with you mortals for a long time now. We-ell as it happens, now things have got a bit more interesting. Because, and I
might
be wrong, but I
think
I’m not, she’s gone and gotten all love-lorn over that teacher of hers. And he over her.”

“I
told
you so!” Sarah exclaimed to Nan in glee. Then her face fell. “Oh, but that complicates things, doesn’t it…”

“Not so much as you might think,” Puck replied and ate half a scone in a single bite. Grey begged shamelessly at him, and he
broke off a little piece and gave it to her. She held it in one foot and ate the cream and jam off first. “The Selch are as mortal as you daughters of Eve. Plenty of ’em have chosen to come home from the sea and live on shore. He’s a clever fellow, and he knows this. Even better, he wouldn’t be a captive, since she’s not likely to hide his skin from him. So he
could
choose to stay with her, they could still let half their children go to the sea, and all would be well. Better than well, really; they could have an entire tribe of children and be able to feed them all handily, and that would certainly please the Selch.
But!”

“But?” Nan asked, suspiciously. She didn’t care for that word.

“Welladay, there’s your Elemental Master of the White Lodge to be satisfied by all this. He might not take to having a Water Master bound permanent-like to a half-Elemental, magical creature, no matter how mortal he is.
And
there’s all your mortal laws and what-all to be dealt with. A lass can’t just up and say ‘oh, I’ve got married,’ and think things will go on smooth in these degenerate days when every man jack has his nose in your business. People will want to know from where he’s jumped up from and all. There’s churchly nonsense that must be done. And writings and recordings. And like as not that snoopy constable will think Idwal’s another malcontent, some sort of organizer from the mines, hiding with them. That’s a pother; it was better in the old days when a man and a maid could jump over a broomstick and hey presto! They were wed.” He ate another scone while they thought about that.

Nan grimaced. “We talked about that a little. She said when she first told us about the bargain that she was going to say he was a sailor, and they’d been married on a ship, and he would come and go a great deal to make it look like he still was. Then she’d get word he’d drowned, so when he didn’t come back, there’d be no trouble. But that was when she was planning on staying with her Selch for no more time than it took to have two children.”

Robin nodded. “Well, unless things change, I don’t believe she’ll be staying with that plan now. And then, there’s the Master of the White Lodge who, if he is approving of this mortal-fae alliance, will
likely want to know that all goes well over the babies, which means, I think, he’ll be wanting to keep you here over winter, to keep an eye on things and summon help if it’s needed.”

They exchanged a sober glance. “Do you really?” asked Nan.

“I won’t be putting words in the Master’s mouth, nor thoughts in his head, but I do believe that is where his plans are tending,” Robin replied shrewdly.

“But—clothing—the birds—” faltered Sarah.

“Explaining our staying to the squire,” Nan added glumly. “That could be… difficult… and I don’t know that we’d be welcome here.”

“Ah, now… the explaining part? Not so hard as all that.” Puck grinned.
“You
may have your morals and misgivings, but I’m Puck, and I do as I like. If you can’t come up with a simple way to stay, I shall make all smooth. You just wait until you know whether you are to go or stay, and the next time the old man takes his hounds out for a stroll, there’ll be a bit of a wind and a scattering of leaves, and it will be that you are welcome as welcome to stay, always were, for as long as you please, and Lord Alderscroft is ever so grateful that he’s leasing the cottage to you.
And
he himself will be ever so pleased to have the rents in the winter.”

“Which he will be,” Nan said dryly. “Or rather, his wife will be. The other day, Delyth said over tea that she was going to miss the extra income. Not in so many words, because that would
hardly
be polite or correct, but…”

“Well,
she
gets the rent of the cottage as pin-money, and the squire asks no questions of how it’s spent,” Sarah giggled. “But
oh
, the
hats!
I am not sure I want to be responsible for the creation of more of them!”

Squire’s wife had a weakness for hats, and a lack of taste that was as strong as her weakness, and the two of them broke into a fit of the laughter they had not given vent to when the hats had been displayed for their admiration. Puck looked at them in bewilderment, then shrugged.

“Look you,” he said finally. “You be getting an answer with some
backing to it from yon Lodge-Master.
You’ll
be giving the Selch an education in what must be done so that interfering man-milliner you lot call a constable don’t make trouble for them.”

His tone was so sour, Nan looked at him in surprise. He made a face. “That mortal meddler makes me so bitter I’ll have to eat more jam to sweeten my temper,” he said, and suited the deed to the word, spooning it onto his plate and eating it as if it was a bit of pudding. “I don’t like him, my creatures don’t like him, and my people don’t like him.”

“Village doesn’t like him and Squire doesn’t like him, either,” Nan offered. “He wanted Squire to build him a jail, the cheek! Squire told him he could have a jail built out of his own pocket; jails were none of his business, nor did he intend them to be his business, even though he’s the magistrate here. He told the man that Clogwyn had never needed a jail until now, and he still saw no good reason for there to be one. Then he told Squire he’d got the money from his chief, but it wasn’t enough for a whole jail, so he wanted to put a cell at the back of the cottage! Squire told him no, but it seems he had to let it happen. Oh! He was hot!”

Squire had, in fact, taken most of a week to cool down again, for most of the cottages in the village actually belonged to him, and he leased them on long terms. The only thing that mollified him was his wife pointing out that once Constable Ewynnog had been sent packing, the room could be turned into something useful. That would make it a two-room cottage instead of a single room, and the fact that the police had been forced to pay for the new room eased his temper the rest of the way.

“Well, he’s been tossing harmless old drunks in there overnight,” Puck said crossly. “Which
nobody
likes, not the drunks, not the wives of the drunks, and not the neighbors, who get to hear the drunk shouting until he falls asleep. If he was any good at being a constable, he’d simply see ’em to their own doorstep and no harm done. What he’s about, I don’t know. It’s a sad day when a man can’t walk home drunk from a pub without being molested and thrown into a bare cell.”

“I think I know what he’s doing—or thinks he’s doing,” Sarah said, surprising both Nan and Puck. “I think he’s been sent here to find subversives and anarchists, and he thinks if he listens to drunks in their cups, he’ll hear something useful. Why he should keep doing it after he doesn’t, though… I can only think it’s because he’s horribly stupid.”

Puck snorted, and pointed his chin at the drawer in which they kept their letter-writing gear. “You go write to your Lodge Master, make sure he knows there could be some hardship here over-winter and you’ll be needing some extra help if he wants you to stay, then borrow the squire’s trap, take the letter to Criccieth and post it yourself. That’ll be the fastest way. You make it sound urgent enough, you should get a quick answer. If he brings you home, well, you leave the Prothero maid to me; I’ll keep her out of trouble. Unlike the Sea-Ward,
I
know a raven from a writing-desk, and I come and go and look and know in the mortal realm.” He laid a finger alongside his nose. “There’s always her sailor idea, or she might get accepted into the Selch clan, and then we can say they’ve gone to America.”

“And if he bids us stay?” Nan asked, anxiously. “There are still so many problems—”

“Then it’ll be on him to make it no hardship on you.” Puck nodded with authority. “If I don’t misjudge, you twain are comfortable here? You’re liking this place?”

Nan, child of the London streets, would never have dreamed this could be so, but she nodded. “It’s peaceful. It’s easy to get books and things, and really, I don’t miss shopping. It’s rather lovely to be playing house like this when there’s a maid coming over to do all the rough work. It might get difficult when winter comes, if there are a lot of bad storms, but if we don’t absolutely have to go out every day, and the cottage can keep warm, I think I’d like being all cozy and reading and sleeping late. I’m even learning how to cook things I had no notion of. I don’t miss London. I thought I would, but I don’t.”

“I miss the music,” Sarah said wistfully. “And the plays and museums and operas and things… but we didn’t get to go out to plays or operas that often, and the Welsh
do
sing so beautifully!”

Puck laughed, reached out, and ruffled their hair as he used to do when they were children. Nan supposed that to him, they still
were
children… she hated to think how old he was. “Oh, ask yon Selch to be singing!” he exclaimed. “Or Daffyd Prothero. You’ll not miss the fat geese in London with their caterwauling through their noses. Every Brunnhilde I’ve ever seen would have crushed her horse beneath her, I trow! Now let’s put this in motion, while things can still be done.”

Nan had not mentioned the Selch Rhodri as one of the things that kept her here, even though it had become quite obvious that, as Sarah had claimed, he fancied her. For one thing, while she did enjoy his attention, she was not at all certain he actually
meant
it, not in the way that Idwal meant his attentions to Mari. For another… she was not, absolutely not, going to give up the exciting and fulfilling life that Lord Alderscroft offered. Especially not for a half-human creature who, while he was handsome and exotic and had very charming ways, was not much of a person you would think of as a husband. What could he bring to such a union? That he could turn into a seal and she would never lack for fish… that would be useful if she were like Mari, a fisherman’s daughter and content with that, but she had plans, and she didn’t want to change them. This life had been all very well for—oh, say—a year. But for the rest of her life? No. Then she
would
miss London, but more than that, she would go mad without something to do—just as she and Sarah had nearly gone mad trying to think of what they could do with their lives before Lord A had made his offer.