Husband and wife glanced at one another.
‘Aye,’ the old man agreed. ‘Year by year it’s got worse. Nobody goes there now ‘cept those bully-boys he hires now and again, and they don’t stay long if they can help it.’
Coe raised his brows and said, ‘Mmph.’ He puffed his pipe for a contemplative moment or two. ‘Must have been a grand funeral,’ he said.
Once again the old couple exchanged glances.
‘I believe she was buried in Land’s End,’ the old woman said.
‘Mebbe even got shipped back to the court she came from,’ her husband suggested.
‘What about the baby?’ Jimmy asked. ‘What ever happened to it?’
The old couple looked at him in surprise as though they’d forgotten his presence. Jarvis looked enquiringly at them.
‘Well,’ the old woman spluttered, ‘we’ve, uh, we’ve never seen him.’
‘Did the child survive?’ Coe asked quietly.
‘We never heard that he didn’t,’ the old man snarled, his eyes flickering to his wife.
‘He’d be about eighteen now,’ his wife said dreamily.
‘I ask because no one in Land’s End ever mentioned him,’ Jarvis said. ‘So I’m surprised to hear the Baron had a child.’
‘He must have been sent away to be fostered,’ the elderly midwife suggested. ‘The nobility do that you know.’ She gave an authoritative nod.
Coe said, ‘Mmph,’ again. Then, ‘The house looked to be in reasonable repair,’ he commented. ‘Though I was still on the road when I saw it.’
The old man grunted. ‘The lord must be having those bast—’ he glanced at his wife, ‘—mercenaries look after the place. Not one of us has been near there for near eighteen years. And I’ll tell ye true,’ the old man stood and knocked his pipe out on the fireplace, ‘ye couldn’t bribe me t’ go there now.’
Me neither, Jimmy thought. But you could threaten to cry and wheedle and appeal to my better nature. He wondered bitterly if he would always be so susceptible to the blandishments of women. Or was it that he enjoyed making the occasional grand gesture?
I just hate it when said grand gesture turns out to be bloody inconvenient and more like suicide than heroism.
Rescuing the Prince and his lady would have been a wonderful grand gesture, and a bonus besides since his real purpose had been to rescue his friends. But rescuing some sprat he’d never met because Flora expected him to felt like being put upon and he didn’t like it a bit.
And yet, as soon as he was certain his hosts and Coe were asleep he was going out to that house of horrors to see if he could find the boy and get him out. After all, if a load of low-life bashers could stand to be in that place then so could he, by Ruthia.
Then the rain started in earnest, and Jimmy muttered, ‘Maybe I’ll go out tomorrow night.’
The Baron tossed in his bed, clutching the soaking sheets as he did no less than one night in three. The dreams were always the same, the hunt, the cliff, the laughing face of the youth. The storm, the dark man arriving, all came and went, in different order each time. Sometimes it was a fleeting glimpse, sometimes he watched himself as if standing a short distance away, while at other times he relived the past. Sometimes he knew he was dreaming, while at other times it was as if he were young, and trying to grapple again with the love and hate which gripped his soul.
For days Bernarr had sought an opportunity to deal with the young man privately. The laughing jackanapes had preoccupied a disproportionate amount of Elaine’s time. She seemed willing to suffer the fool’s attentions, but not only was she shirking her responsibility to her other guests, she had virtually ignored Bernarr since Zakry’s arrival.
The opportunity had finally presented itself in an unexpected fashion. He had organized a hunt to entertain his guests, and all but Elaine joined in with pleasure. She was once again ill. This time he sent the chirurgeon to her with stern instructions to examine her and not take ‘no’ for an answer.
The rest of them were quickly swept up in the excitement of the chase, the cool crisp air of autumn, the raucous note of the horn. Beaters and hounds flushed a magnificent buck and they tore through the woods with a will. The hounds baying, the beaters sounding their ram’s-horn instruments, the stylish riders dressed in every colour and flashing with gold and jewels even brighter than the leaf-cloak of vineyard and tree. It was a magnificent sight.
As they rode Bernarr’s quick eye caught sight of a thrashing in a thicket.
Boar! he thought, catching a glimpse of the low-slung body, the massive bristly shoulders and long curved tusks. And wily, too, to be heading away at right-angles rather than attracting the attention of the hounds by running.