The Dragon of Despair (32 page)

Sighing slightly—for she’d much rather have curled up with the book of New Kelvinese verse she’d been working through—Elise had one of the manservants set up a straw-backed target in a little-used alley alongside the house. The enclosing walls would serve two purposes: Her arrows couldn’t go too far astray on a wild shot and no one was likely to cross her field of fire.

Dutifully, Elise plunked her way through her first quiver, missing the target entirely as often as she hit. Ninette insisted on gathering up the arrows while Elise manufactured a makeshift headband from her spare handkerchief, then drank sparingly from the pitcher of chilled fruit juice the cook had supplied.

When Ninette was safely back in her seat well behind the line of fire, Elise set arrow to string once more. She tried to remember her father’s instructions, tried to forget the budding throb in her shoulders and arms. The first arrow flew fairly true, coming within a finger’s breadth of the dark spot at the target’s center. The second arrow went so badly astray that the shaft shattered against the alley’s stone wall.

Elise gave a ladylike stamp of her foot and muttered a very unladylike curse. The third arrow flew true, burying itself in the target’s heart. She was setting a fourth to the string when the clatter of horse hooves in the courtyard distracted her.

She lowered the bow, listening as the deep voice of the head groom addressed someone who—maddeningly—replied in a voice too soft for her to recognize. That is, her ears could not claim to recognize it, but her inner self knew the cadence and her heart started pounding far too hard.

Idiot!
Elise chided herself.
What are you so excited about? So it’s Doc, at last. So what? Didn’t you tell him yourself just last winter that there could be nothing between you?

It seemed, though, that the well-thought-out words of last winter meant nothing to this summer’s heart. Elise started to put another arrow to her bowstring, then realized she was being a fool. She would go to welcome any other new arrival, so why not this one?

Because no other new arrival would be Doc.

For a moment Elise regretted her sweaty face, her hands reddened despite the archer’s gloves she wore in obedience to her father’s instructions. Then she gave an inner shrug. Sir Jared Surcliffe had seen her exhausted, blood-smeared, terrified, and even with her head shaved in the very unflattering New Kelvinese style. Through it all he had persisted in his fondness for her. Besides, didn’t she want to discourage him in what was probably a vain hope?

Elise told herself that she did, but she didn’t believe herself. Last winter she had told Doc that he could hope for nothing more than her affection. Her duties to the rank she would inherit meant that she must carefully consider any marital alliance. Even so, Elise knew she would be irrationally heartbroken if Jared took a second wife. Indeed, Elise knew herself to be vaguely jealous of Jared’s first wife, a woman who had died years before in childbirth.

It’s all impossibly stupid!
Elise told herself as she unstrung her bow, leaned it against the alley wall, and went out to meet the new arrival.

Ninette followed, a trace anxious. Normal and usual protocols fell apart when the people meeting were, effectively, comrades-in-arms, due to serve together again soon. What was a chaperon to do? Insist on keeping form or skip the fuss?

Elise, knowing exactly what had drawn those worry lines on her companion’s face, smiled reassuringly and was rewarded by seeing Ninette relax and offer, if somewhat tentatively, an answering smile.

As the two young women rounded the side of the building, Doc was handing the reins of a rather nondescript grey riding horse to the groom. Sir Jared Surcliffe was a man of middle height and middle build. His black hair was drawn back into a queue from which a few wisps had escaped. His features, like those of his cousin Norvin Norwood, were aquiline rather than handsome, but unlike Norvin, whose grey eyes seemed to hold something of a raptor’s fierceness, Jared’s similar visage was mild.

Yet Doc was not a soft man, nor a cowardly one. He had earned his knighthood on the battlefield, and possessed more than most men’s fair acquaintance with bloodshed and pain. These were his enemies, more so than for most. A talent for healing had repeatedly brought Sir Jared into conflict with death and suffering. Elise suspected that she was one of the few outside his circle of colleagues who realized how much using his gift for healing drained Jared.

They had known each other since Elise was a girl, but then Jared—some eight years her senior—had seemed a distant, very grownup figure. Later their paths had crossed and recrossed, for Earl Kestrel was a good patron to his cousin and frequently made him one of his party on visits to the capital. However, not until both had become friends of Firekeeper had they been much thrown together.

And even then I was betrothed to Jet Shield
, Elise thought.
Jared’s has always been an impossible fondness.

As they drew closer, Elise noted the saddlebags resting on the flagstones near Doc’s feet. He himself was attired for travel rather than a social visit, no waistcoat over his shirt, his hat a worn, slouch-brimmed item of stained felt that had clearly seen more than its share of weather, but if Doc felt at any loss he didn’t show it.

“Lady Archer. Mistress Ninette,” he said, bowing over each of their hands in turn while the groom led the grey off to the stables. I am delighted to see you both.”

He seemed to be, too. Elise saw none of her own fluttering feelings on Jared’s composed features.

Then again, he knew he was coming here and that when he arrived he would see me again. There is none of my being caught unawares.

She took some small comfort in the realization. The housekeeper had emerged by now and was calling for someone to come and take the doctor’s luggage.

“I believe I’m staying at the gatehouse,” Doc said to the housekeeper, “but my horse was so tired I thought to relieve him of his burdens.”

The housekeeper looked unconvinced. Elise suspected she thought Doc had been trying to thrust himself unwanted into Duchess Kestrel’s carefully arranged establishment. Meanwhile, Elise realized she’d done nothing but murmur some vague response to Jared’s greeting.

Knowing the housekeeper would be scandalized if she invited Doc inside while he was still covered in road dust, Elise said, “Perhaps when you’ve had a chance to change your clothes, you would come up to the house and have some refreshments.”

Oh, no!
she thought.
I hope he doesn’t think I’m condescending.

Doc’s smile was comfortingly casual.

“I’d like that,” he said. “I have apologies to offer for being so late on my arrival.”

“What happened?” Elise asked.

“I was on my way from my family’s lands…” The Surcliffes owned some rocky land somewhat to the south that they were turning into a winery. “…when a boy came from Widow Chandler’s holding. It appears his mother had fallen. The boy was frantic. He recalled I was at my parents’ and took the initiative to come after me, leaving his little sister—only six, I think—to look after their mother.”

“Oh?”

Elise found she was thinking very ungenerous things about this Widow Chandler and her enterprising son.

“Turns out,” Doc went on cheerfully, “that the widow had broken a leg. Clean break, thankfully, and I was able to urge it to mend more quickly. Still, I couldn’t very well leave them without a fit adult around the place. We sent a message off to Widow Chandler’s brother and when he came I took the road here.”

Elise was fighting down images of Doc handling this unknown woman’s leg. A lower-leg break, surely. And she must be fairly old if she had a six-year-old daughter and a son older than that. Couples weren’t encouraged to marry until they reached at least their majority at nineteen. That means this widow was at least twenty-seven….

“I’d have sent a message,” Doc said, apparently aware of something odd in Elise’s expression, “but I thought that the boy—he’s only nine—had taken enough risks.”

Twenty-nine!
crowed the uncharitable part of Elise’s mind.
That means this widow was at least twenty-nine.

Elise shoved these thoughts aside.

“Very reasonable,” she replied. “Will you stay for dinner? Grateful Peace has been dining with us most nights rather than putting the staff to the trouble of preparing separate meals.”

“If that’s the case,” Doc said, “I would be honored.”

He looked slightly puzzled as he took his leave and Elise didn’t blame him. Her attitude had been completely out of line. One moment she was greeting him informally as an old friend, then she was tongue-tied as a chit at her first dance, next she was getting frosty when all he’d done was his duty as a doctor.

I really have to get myself in line,
Elise scolded herself.
I’m the one who told him I can offer him nothing. It’s not right for me to act like a flirt.

Elise and Ninette retired upstairs so that Elise could change into something other than her archery habit. By the time Elise had washed off most of the grime and put on a clean summer frock, she thought she had her emotions under control.

Ninette had gone to tell Citrine that they had a guest and brought the child back with her. The girl’s hands were smudged with ink from her efforts at writing New Kelvinese and she willingly scrubbed them in a basin, turning the water bluish black.

“I like Doc,” Citrine confided, letting Elise button her into a clean frock while Ninette brushed out her mistress’s hair.

Elise hid a sigh of relief. Citrine was reacting to the news of their guest’s arrival far better than Elise had dared hope.

“Doc helped me when my hand was hurt,” Citrine went on, pausing for a moment to stare at the maimed member. “He helped Peace, too. Peace says Doc saved his life.

“You know,” the girl added thoughtfully, “I don’t think I was hurt too bad. I lost only two fingers. Peace lost a whole arm, his right one, from the shoulder down. He was an artist before. Now he’s learning to write all over again, like he’s a baby.”

Elise hugged her.

“You’re very brave, Citrine.”

Citrine frowned.

“I don’t know if I am. I’ve cried a whole lot and I still hate Baron Endbrook.”

“I would, too,” Elise replied, taking Citrine’s maimed hand in her own. “Let’s go down and see Doc.”

“I’ll come down a bit later,” Ninette said, taking advantage of Citrine as a replacement chaperon. “I’d like a moment to put on a clean dress.”

Elise nodded, knowing that even sitting and watching was sweaty work in this oppressive summer heat.

“Take your time,” she said. “Citrine and I will guard each other’s honor.”

Citrine giggled at the idea and nearly skipped down the hallway.

Jared was chatting with Edlin when they entered the parlor. Edlin wore his kennel clothes, which were covered with a wealth of fine white hairs.

“We’re bottle-feeding the pups cow’s milk,” the young lord was saying, “since the bitch’s milk dried up, but I think we need to get them on something more solid. The pups are shitting…”

Edlin stopped in midphrase when he heard them enter, coloring slightly. Elise noted once again that when Edlin was talking about something he was passionate about—like his dogs—he lost some of his verbal ticks.

He recovered quickly from his momentary embarrassment and beamed at them.

“I say, pretty ladies, all dressed in flowers! Here I am in my grubbies. The housekeeper’s been glowering at me since I came to give the glad cry to Cousin Jared here. Excuse me while I go make myself respectable, what?”

He bowed his way out and Elise gave a fond shake of her head.

“He’s hopeless,” she said with a sigh. “I wonder if we’d do better to leave him here.”

“Maybe so,” Doc replied ambivalently. “Is that Citrine hiding behind your skirts? Come out and say hello—or don’t you remember me?”

He looked so hurt that Citrine giggled.

“I remember you, silly,” she said, advancing and offering an embrace.

Once again, Elise noted that lately the girl seemed more ready to trust men than women—though earlier the opposite had been true. Was it because though Citrine claimed to hate Baron Endbrook—who was a man—in her heart of hearts she was coming to terms with the fact that her mother’s indifference had been the real reason for her injury? Elise didn’t know and she wasn’t about to ask lest she trigger another of the hysterical fits that, thankfully, were becoming less and less frequent.

The housekeeper brought in the refreshment tray herself, doubtless so she could get a look at how much dirt and dog hair Edlin had tracked into her spotless parlor. Elise dismissed the woman with thanks but did not accept her broad hints that she could send a maid in with a broom. If Elise could live with dog hair and a bit of mud, so could the housekeeper. For now, Elise wanted to learn how much Doc knew about the situation.

She asked directly, feeling some anxiety about how Citrine might react. Sometimes the girl took the hints that they might be going into New Kelvin quite calmly. Other times she grew hysterical or creepily silent. This time Citrine only bit into an oatmeal-raisin cookie.

Doc’s reply was equally frank.

“I know everything Norvin did when he wrote me. The king wants some of us to return to New Kelvin to check out which of these rumors are rumors and which hold some truth. I am glad to go—eager even. Given the injuries some of us suffered last time, I would not wish you to be without my talent.”

“Thank you,” Elise said with honest fervor. “You’ve taught me a great deal about treating injuries, but I have no talent for healing.”

Citrine grinned and there was something unsettling about the way she drew her lips back from all her teeth as she did so.

“Doc doesn’t have talent enough to heal me,” she commented, her words underlaid with a ripple of shrill laughter. “No one does. My fingers are gone, gone forever and ever and ever.”

Elise stiffened. On some inner level she felt responsible for Citrine’s injury, as if she should have foreseen all the details of Melina’s plan instead of just grasping the barest outlines.