To Beguile a Beast

Page 10

Sir Alistair tilted his head toward the boy, his eye gleaming. “Sparrows have solitary nests, but you are quite correct, lass. Some birds and animals do congregate together and even raise their young in a group. For instance, I am writing my findings on badgers at the moment, and they like to live all together in a mass of burrows called a sett.”
“Can you show us a badger, too?” Jamie asked.
“They’re quite shy,” Sir Alistair said as he cut into his slice of meat pie. “But I can show you a sett nearby, if you like.”
Jamie’s mouth was full of peas, but he nodded enthusiastically to show he’d like a trip to a badger sett.
“Is that what you do up in your tower?” Helen asked. “Write about badgers?”
He looked at her. “Yes, among other things. I’m writing a book about the animals, birds, and flowers of Scotland and England. I’m a naturalist. Didn’t Lady Vale tell you before she sent you to me?”
Helen shook her head, avoiding his gaze. The truth was, there hadn’t been much time for Lady Vale to tell her anything. When Helen had gone to Melisande, she’d been fleeing Lister and had feared she was being followed. Melisande had suggested Sir Alistair because he lived in Scotland—far away from London—and Helen had jumped at the idea. She’d been desperate.
“Have you written many books?” She felt foolish that she hadn’t thought about what he might be doing up in his cluttered study.
“Only one.” He sipped his wine, watching her. “A Brief Survey of the Flora and Fauna of New England.”
“But I’ve heard of that.” She looked up at him in surprise. “It’s all the rage in London. Why, I saw two fashionable ladies nearly come to blows over the last copy in a bookseller on Bond Street. It’s considered de rigueur for a complete library. You wrote that book?”
He inclined his head ironically. “I confess it.”
Helen felt strange. The book in question was very elegant, a portfolio-sized volume filled with full-page hand-colored illustrations. She would never have dreamed in a thousand years that Sir Alistair could write something so beautiful.
“Did you illustrate the book as well?”
“In a way—the engravings are based upon my sketches,” he said.
“It’s lovely,” she said truthfully.
He raised his glass but didn’t comment, his eye watching her.
“I want to see the book,” Jamie said.
Abigail had stopped eating. She didn’t echo Jamie’s plea, but it was quite obvious she was curious as well.
Sir Alistair inclined his head. “I suppose there must be a copy about somewhere in the library. Shall we go see?”
“Huzzah!” yelled Jamie again, this time fortunately having swallowed the food in his mouth.
Sir Alistair looked across the table at Helen, cocking the eyebrow over his eye patch at her. It looked very much like a challenge.
ALISTAIR ROSE FROM his newly polished dining room table and walked around it to help Mrs. Halifax from her chair. She stared up at him, suspicious at his courtesy, so he held out his arm just to flummox her.
She laid her fingertips on his sleeve as if touching a hot pot. “We don’t wish to take your time. I know you’re busy.”
He cocked his head to better see her. She wasn’t getting away that easily. “Alas, I have no pressing matters at the moment, ma’am. Take a candle.”
She didn’t reply but merely nodded, though a small frown played about her mouth. She picked up one of the candles from a sideboard. Alistair led her toward the library, the children trailing behind. He was conscious of her fingers so lightly pressed against his arm and of her warmth as she walked beside him. Women, especially beautiful ones, didn’t often venture so near to him. He could smell the soap she’d used to wash her hair—a light lemon scent.
“Here we are,” he said as they made the library door.
He opened the door and went in. Mrs. Halifax immediately separated herself from him, not surprisingly really, but he felt the loss. Maudlin idiocy, that. He should be used by now to women running from him. He didn’t comment but took her candle and began lighting the ones in the room.
This had been his father’s library and his grandfather’s before him. Unlike many great house libraries, this one was actually used and the books read and reread. It was a rectangular room on an outside wall with some of the largest windows in the castle. The windows were hidden behind long, dusty curtains that hadn’t been drawn for years. All except the one curtain that had fallen, letting in Lady Grey’s afternoon ray of sunlight. The remaining walls were covered, floor to ceiling, with bookshelves, each crammed to overflowing with volumes. At one end of the library was a small fireplace. Two decrepit chairs and a small table sat before it.
He finished lighting the candles and turned back. The children and Mrs. Halifax were still clustered by the door. A corner of his mouth kicked up. “Come in. I know it isn’t as beautifully clean as the dining room now is, but I don’t think you’ll come to actual harm.”
Mrs. Halifax muttered something under her breath and frowned at one of the chairs by the fireplace. The chair was lopsided; it had a broken leg and was propped up by two books. Abigail was running her finger along a bookshelf and inspecting the dust collected on her fingertip.
But Jamie ran to a globe of the world and peered at it. “I can’t see England.”
The globe was nearly obscured by dust.
“Ah.” Sir Alistair took out his handkerchief and wiped off the globe. “There. Now England’s revealed, and so is Scotland. Here we are.” He pointed to the area north of the Firth of Forth.
Jamie squinted at the globe and then looked up. “Where’s your book?”
Alistair glanced about the library, frowning. He hadn’t had occasion to look at his own writing in quite some time. “Over here, I think.”
He led the way to a corner in which several oversized volumes were piled on the floor.
“These ought to be put on a shelf,” Mrs. Halifax muttered. “I can’t believe you keep your own book on the floor.”
Alistair grunted before rummaging in the pile with Jamie. “Ah, here it is.”
He laid the book out on the floor and opened it. Jamie promptly threw himself down on his stomach to peer closely at the pages, and Abigail sat by his side to look.
“You must have spent many years in New England.” Mrs. Halifax was standing behind her children, looking at the book over their shoulders. “Mind the pages when you turn them, Jamie.”
Alistair strolled to her side. “Three years.”
She looked up at him, her blue eyes startlingly bright in the candlelit room. “What?”
“Three years.” He cleared his throat. “I spent three years in New England recording the information in that book.”
“That’s a very long time. Did not the war interfere with your work?”
“On the contrary. I was attached to regiments in His Majesty’s army the entire time.”
“But wasn’t that dangerous?” Her brows were drawn together in concern.
For him.
He looked away. Her eyes were too beautiful for this dingy room, and he regretted the impulse to bring her and the children in here. Why lay himself open like this, let them see into his life, his past? This was a mistake.
“Sir Alistair?”
He didn’t know what to say. Yes, it’d been dangerous—so dangerous that he’d left behind an eye, two fingers, and his pride in the woods of North America—but he couldn’t tell her that. She was merely making conversation.
He was saved from having to reply by Jamie looking up suddenly from the book. “Where’s Lady Grey?”
The deerhound hadn’t followed them into the library.
Alistair shrugged. “Probably fell asleep by the fire in the dining room.”
“But she’ll miss us,” Jamie said. “I’ll go get her.”
And he hopped up before anyone could say a word and scurried from the room.
“Jamie!” Abigail called. “Jamie, don’t run!” And she was off as well.
“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Halifax said.
He frowned at her in surprise. “What for?”
“They can be so impetuous.”
Alistair shrugged. He wasn’t used to children, but these ones were rather interesting to have about.
“I—” she began, but she was interrupted by a single shrill scream.
Alistair was out the door without waiting for Mrs. Halifax. He ran down the hallway. The scream wasn’t repeated, but he was sure it’d come from the dining room. Perhaps Abigail had seen a spider. But when he rounded the dining room door, he knew it was something else entirely.
Lady Grey lay by the fireplace as he’d predicted, but Jamie knelt over her, frantically patting her side, and Abigail stood still and pale with her hands pressed to her mouth.
No.
He slowly walked to the fireplace, Mrs. Halifax trailing behind. Abigail simply stared at him, silent tears running down her face.
But Jamie looked up as he neared. “She’s hurt! Lady Grey is hurt. You must help her.”
Alistair knelt by the old dog and placed his palm on her side. She was already growing cold. It must’ve happened as she slept, while they ate supper, as he’d shown Mrs. Halifax his library, completely oblivious.
He had to clear his throat. “There’s nothing I can do.”
“Yes!” the boy cried. His face was red, tears glittering in his eyes. “Yes! You must!”
“Jamie,” Mrs. Halifax murmured. She tried to grasp her son’s arm, but he wrenched it from her grasp and threw himself on the dog.
Abigail ran from the room.
Alistair placed a hand lightly on the boy’s head. It quivered under his palm as the child sobbed. Lady Grey had been a gift from Sophia, many, many years ago, before he’d left for the Colonies. He hadn’t taken her with him; she had been a young dog back then, and he feared that the long sea voyage would prove too cramped for her. But when he’d returned home, broken, his life no longer what he’d thought it would be, Lady Grey had been here. She’d galloped down the drive to greet him, had stood with her paws upon his shoulders as he’d rubbed her ears, and she’d grinned, tongue lolling. She’d walked by his side when he’d wandered the heath, lay by the fireside as he’d written his book. Come to nuzzle his hand when he’d woken in the dark of night, drenched in sweat from hideous dreams.
Alistair swallowed with difficulty. “Good dog,” he whispered huskily. “That’s a good lass.”
He stroked her side, feeling the rough, cooling fur.
“Help her!” Jamie reared up and hit at the hand that had touched his head. “Help her!”
“I cannot,” Alistair said, choking. “She’s dead.”
Chapter Five
The beautiful young man led Truth Teller into the courtyard of the castle. An ancient knot garden lay here, formed of yew shrubs and decorated with statues of knights and warriors. A small cage of swallows was at one corner, the birds beating their wings hopelessly against the bars. In the center of the knot garden was a great iron cage. Dirty straw was scattered in the cage, and in the back huddled a large thing. It was a dull black color with rotting scales and stringy hair. It stood eight feet tall and had huge horns that curved down to its great shoulders. The thing’s eyes were yellow and bloodshot. At the sight of the young man, it leapt at the bars and snarled with a mouth filled with dripping fangs.
The beautiful young man merely smiled and turned to Truth Teller. “Are you afraid now?”
“No,” said Truth Teller.
His host laughed. “Then you shall be this monster’s guard.…”
—from TRUTH TELLER