From Fairies and Creatures of the Night, Guard Me Page 16

A thin mouth quirked in amusement, and Helen caught a reflection of her gaze in his a moment, before it slipped away.

  “Not at all! I own it is I who must beg your pardon – for I seem to have invaded your hiding place.”

  Helen blinked and permitted herself to laugh.

  “Then you’ve seen right through my ruse, sir, for I was pretending only to admire the flowers. But you are quite right – I am hiding from my youngest brother. He seems in a particularly odious mood tonight and if he should catch me, he will surely talk fustian and we’ll quarrel. I find I do not wish to ruin the evening with silly bickering. ”

  “Then I am very much at fault for outing you. Perhaps you will permit me to make amends by asking if you would care to dance the Miss Giroux’s Reel? I shall bring our good hostess to introduce us in all propriety.” He seemed to be greatly diverted by the notion.

  Helen was momentarily astonished that so dignified a gentleman cared to take part in a country dance, and more so that he wished to dance it with her, but she smiled with great delight and accepted. Mrs Greene was produced, looking a little dazed.

  She introduced the gentleman as Alveric, Lord Fitzroy and Helen wondered vaguely if she had seen him somewhere before – which was silly for she had never set foot more than two miles outside Hillbury and was well acquainted with every respectable gentleman thereabouts.

  Rowland spotted her the moment she took her place in the line with Lord Fitzroy and shot her a distinctly disapproving look. Rowland was never very gracious to gentlemen who dared solicit Helen to a dance, unless they were one of the two of which he approved. These were his Corinthian friend, the supercilious Lord Gransby, and Mr Tunwich, the vicar , who was unbearably dull. Furthermore, this night Rowland also disapproved of her gown, which he considered too modish and daringly cut to ever be acceptable in polite society, no matter what the fashion plates said.

  He had waxed lyrical on the subject all the way to the ball until their Papa had put an end to the conversation.

  Helen’s middle brother, Francis, had evidently sensed the beginning of a much greater disagreement in the air. “Well, I think you’ll surely cut a dash, Ellen. In fact, I daresay we both will!” he’d said jovially.

  He had worn his splendid red coat for the occasion. Francis was on furlough and enjoying the attention garnered by his uniform and rank, particularly that of the blue-eyed Miss Tabitha Greene.

  “I wonder, could your brother be the fellow over there near the orchestra? The one looking rather thunderous just at present.” Lord Fitzroy seemed even more amused at that.

  Helen had no need to check to know that that was so. “I daresay. He seems determined to cut up my peace, I’m afraid. He is only two hours older than me and feels that he must make his seniority felt at all times. But I never mind him.”

  The trouble with Rowland, she reflected grimly was that he always meant well, but his idea of meaning well was to behave like a meddling fribble. Rowland had always been the most righteous of the Eversley children and the only one to take to heart the Children’s Morality Tracts, which their governess had been excessively fond of reading them.

  “I have always thought, and my other brothers agree, that Rowland’s trouble comes of being named after the French hero – Papa was always very fond of The Song of Roland. I think my brother feels he must live up to the name, even here in Hillbury where nothing much ever happens.”

  Rowland even scribbled his own extremely heroic tales in verse, though he believed his siblings unaware of his poetic aspirations. As it was a safe assumption that nothing heroic had ever taken place in Hillbury, Helen suspected Rowland’s heroics would likely forever be consigned solely to paper.

  Though sometimes people did claim to catch glimpses of strange towers in the sunset or hear voices in the rain, and her grandmother’s beautiful pearls, which Helen had worn that night, were said to contain a witch’s wild magic.

  The dance went on. They broke up and circled the other couples, then met again and Helen was struck by Lord Fitzroy’s strange enigmatic eyes.

  “Nothing happens!” the gentleman exclaimed, as they led down the middle of the row. “But I have heard such marvellous tales – they say that Hillbury sits on the very border with realms magical and perilous.”

  Helen felt surprised delight flood her, for no one ever mentioned such interesting things at balls. It was not considered good ton. “I grew up hearing that. And my father’s home, Arbour House, is said to be the very last outpost of mortality before the hill beyond.”

  “And is it really?”

  “I am very sorry to tell you, sir, that in all my years at Arbour House, I have never once seen any such thing. Papa is a man of science you see – perhaps it is what has scared away the magic!”

  The Eversley children had grown up playing on the hill and wandering over it and sometimes boldly lying on the grass and watching the sky, but never had they encountered anything truly out of the ordinary, though the cats did sometimes bring in strange, iridescent things from the garden – which quickly vanished like rainbows.

  “Or perhaps you have simply not had the good fortune to see any yet! Tell me, are your other brothers men of science too?”

  “Francis is not – he is in the king’s navy and he says it is only expected of him that he should be superstitious. But he is not interested in magic – his only true passion has always been the sea. He had studied at the Royal Naval Academy at Portsmouth, and is in expectation of being made captain within the year. We hardly ever see him now! He has been to the Mediterranean and even the China Seas.”

  “An adventurer then,” Lord Fitzroy murmured approvingly as they circled round with the other couples, and then back again. For a moment, as they went anti-clockwise, Helen felt a little lightheaded and she imagined that Lord Fitzroy’s neat hair grew long and wild, his velvet coat, a midnight cloak. It was like looking at a smeared watercolour. But then they returned to their rows and he looked perfectly ordinary again, if more fashionable than the country gentlemen.

  “My eldest brother, Tom, is my father’s heir and he usually delights in putting me to the blush – though we are rarely at crossed swords. At university, he’d had a habit of making appointments at dawn, when a trifle disguised, but he has grown dull and responsible since coming back. He has a much milder temper than Rowland, though he tends towards a dreary kind of primness generally only observed on turbaned dowagers,” Helen sighed feeling every inch the put-upon sister.

  Tom took his responsibility as their father’s heir very seriously and almost never frequented the races or gaming halls at which Rowland and Francis were such regular visitors. He was betrothed to be married in a month to a Miss Jane Dalby of Bath, who would have four thousand pounds a year and was clever and lovely besides. Tom was too preoccupied by far to give infamous looks to young men who danced two sets with Helen.

  “Such a delight it must have been, growing up amongst so many siblings,” Lord Fitzroy said, wistfully.

  Helen realised that he had eyes of a colour she could not seem to place, and the proud well-born bearing of a duke. What was he doing in a village?

  “From this I can only deduce that you do not have any siblings of your own. You will recall the lilacs?”

  “Ah, indeed!” When he laughed it seemed to send sparks about the room, only no one else gave them a second glance. Lost in her musings, she suddenly found the dance over and hastily dropped a curtsey with the other ladies. Then, Lord Fitzroy was good enough to accompany her to the refreshments room.

  It was a novelty to dance with someone who did not seem to know that she was simply the plain Miss Eversley of Arbour House, known for little more than her fanciful temperament, boisterous siblings and generous marriage portion. She had none of the polish of Miss Greene, who lived mostly in Town, she was a mediocre driver and even worse when it came to managing a household.

  And yet the gentleman talked to her and did not seem to find her tiresome.

  It was suddenl
y terribly warm and she produced her painted grisaille fan, borrowed from her mama.

  “Will you drink?” Lord Fitzroy said, offering her a glass of orgeat as though it were an enchanted goblet in a fairy tale.

  He had such strange mannerisms, she thought in puzzlement, but then he smiled at her and it didn’t matter in the slightest. There was something about his eyes that drew Helen in – a wordless wild thing that was terrible and somehow also wonderful. It was like lightning.

  They spoke for a while more, and when he mentioned the hills and the trees, and asked her the stories of her childhood, it was as though he spoke to her in something more than words. Again she felt that strange sense of recognition, of familiarity, which was startling, improper and utterly compelling at once.

  It was as though in her eyes he read the things she didn’t say aloud – hours of wandering the hills and the little wood beyond, hoping to catch a glimpse of a world that was a little more than the one she knew. Hours of playing among the old gowns and furniture in the dusty attics, of imagining fanciful tales when she ought to have been listening to her governess talk of history of the real world. As though he knew of the needle magic her aunt and her mama had taught her – one of the few magics permitted ladies of quality.

  “I must go,” he said, just before the clock struck the midnight supper hour. “But perhaps I might call on you, come morning?”

  There was a strange note in his voice when he asked that, which caught her attention like a candle in the dark. His words were filled with a gravity that put her in mind of enacting ancient barrow rituals rather than of asking to call on a lady, as was only proper.

  His eyes told her that he did not wish to go, and that he must.

  “Yes,” she said, suddenly short of breath. “Goodbye then?”

  “For now. Goodbye for now.”

  His looked long at her face and his hand twitched as if for a moment he considered reaching out and taking hers. She knew somehow that, whatever happened, he would be at Arbour House in the morning – and he would be in her thoughts, as he had been from the moment she’d caught the reflection of her gaze flitting through his.

  There was something about Lord Fitzroy that did not seem quite right, even aside from that strange light of another world that clung to him and pushed away the

  ordinary candlelight. Francis had told her once about icebergs – that one could only ever see a tiny part of them above water, but that there was so much more that one couldn’t see hidden in the icy depths and that was the part that was truly dangerous.

  Lord Fitzroy put her instantly in mind of icebergs – there seemed to be a doom in him, and a mystery. It might even have been her doom, only Helen knew that it was very bad ton to come to a sorry end because of a man, no matter what one happened to see in his eyes.

  And, furthermore, she was not about to grow suddenly silly over a dance and some pleasant conversation no matter how fanciful people thought her. She knew that if only she were to look the right way, she might just catch sight of the truth of him. That truth her heart knew already but wouldn’t share with her mind just yet.

  Lord Fitzroy bowed and took leave, and then some other gentlemen came forward to speak to her, and Miss Susan Mallory, who lived two miles from Arbour Hall and was one of Helen’s dearest friends.

  In the carriage on the way home, Rowland wasted no time expressing his disapproval, brows creased darkly.

  “Now, Ellen, who was that strange fellow you danced with? I’ve never seen him before – he can’t be from Hillbury.”

  “Don’t call me Ellen, Rowland,” she said sharply, irritable at his boorish intrusion into her good mood. “You know how much I dislike it. And that was Lord Fitzroy, of London.” Though, of course, he could not possibly have been of any London she could ever visit upon this earth.

  “Did Helen dance?” asked their mama, who had spent most of the night chatting amiably with her own friends and indulging in a few rounds of whist.

  “She did,” supplied Francis. “With a tall, dark-haired fellow. I’ve never seen him before, either. Must be one of Miss Greene’s friends.”

  “There was something uncanny about him.”

  “Stuff and nonsense, Rowland. He was the very picture of well-bred civility. I am certain that he would not be a nuisance to his sister as you are being now. I don’t wish to spoil a good night by pulling caps with you. Furthermore, Lord Fitzroy means to call on me tomorrow, and I warn you that if you are a beast to him, I shall make you very sorry.”

  Rowland had grown up with his sister, and as such knew just what inventive forms her vengeance could take. And that was before he considered that she might take it into her head to let slip to their father that he currently found himself with pockets to let, thanks to an unfortunate night of Faro at university just before he came down to Arbour Hall for his holidays. Helen, he knew, had never been the sort to tell, but it would not do to make her angry, because there was always the possibility that this time she would.

  Helen wondered vaguely how much Rowland actually saw of who she was, and how much he imagined in his head and ascribed to the delicate sister she had never been.

  *

  The next day, Fitzroy came to call as promised. Helen found herself astonished.

  He arrived on a large, sleek horse that was more silvery then grey and wore a bridle of silver bells. He brought Helen a red and yellow tulip – a quaint gesture. He smiled when he presented her with this unusual offering, and she was greatly touched.

  Rowland would later insist that he had seen neither horse nor rider approaching the house, though he had been sitting right on the window seat, brooding over the poor weather. But Lord Fitzroy was certainly there when Helen came down to the parlour. She had just been thinking about going riding in the park when a footman had come in to announce the visitor, presenting her with a cream card on a polished salver.

  Lord Fitzroy sat a very genteel half hour with Helen and Mrs Eversley, who had come in to greet the gentleman. Then, he rose to take leave and promised to call again. His eyes met Helen’s just before he dropped a bow and somehow she read words in them, while admiring their colour, which she still could not discern. An invitation, a challenge. It was an infamous thing to do, no doubt, yet within twenty minutes of His Lordship taking his leave, she called for her horse and endeavoured to go riding.

  The park surrounding Arbour Hall was a wild place and the site of many childhood games. They had been highwaymen, ghosts, Bonaparte and even ancient pagan cults in those woods. They had certainly taken the classics to heart, and local tales, and came up with savage games of their own which had not been at all what their governess had told then civil children ought to play. They had climbed trees, fallen out of them, and thrown wild apples at each other with an almost uncanny aim.

  It was odd to be riding along the familiar twisty paths alone. The woods were a world so far-removed from the polite ballrooms, picnics and cotillions of society that Helen could not imagine the elegant Lord Fitzroy there, and it was very tempting to conclude that she was being ridiculous, and to turn back home. Yet the wood drew her, and she knew that though her brothers had grown up and left it behind them in some ways, her heart was still there, in the trees.

  Then suddenly he was there too, materialised out of a bit of beech-wood as though he had always been there. His horse looked at her with sharper eyes than it rightly ought to have had. He travelled, it seemed, like many wizards did, by ether and ectoplasm.

  “You came,” he said, as thought that somehow sealed a future Helen had no way of knowing

  “Yes,” she replied. Though what she really meant was Yes, of course, because not matter how many worlds there were beyond hers, magical and plain alike, she knew that there was not one in which she could have kept out of the wood. No world in which she stayed home and worked her silk needlework and kept to the good polite magic it was suitable for ladies to know.

  They rode through the wood a while, and then they dismounted
and walked. Speech flew back and forth, and understanding flowed through them like a river. Helen was bold and asked him about magic. But far from being appalled as such a question, he answered her and showed her a flimsy cantrip with leaves and light. It shimmered a moment in the air, like a dream. She told him of the gentle magic of embroidery, of the school at which young ladies may learn this handy skill. She mourned that they were never permitted to use it to do anything worthwhile, because using magic for anything serious was shocking and gauche.

  Lord Fitzroy had looked at her then as if she’d told him that breathing was considered ill-bred or looking up at the sky. For his part, his conversation implied more than he ever said outright and Helen wondered if it was because he could not speak plainer, or because he chose not to.

  Helen followed him through parts of the wood that should not have been there. She tried to understand how it was that she had wandered out of the plain world of Hillbury and into another, without ever having encountered any borders or the barest glimpse of magic. But there were more shades of green in this new wood, and the smell of summer hung in the air like mist.

  There were tales, of course, of white harts that often led the hero away into the forest during a royal hunt. There he would find danger, adventure, true love or a magic lyre than would help him become more than he was: more than anyone could ever be. Lord Fitzroy seemed to read her thoughts though she hadn’t the words to voice her strange musings.

  She had known nothing of his world, she realised, despite all her dreaming and wondering. And now it unfurled before her like a flower, and Helen wondered why he’s bothered with her of all people, when there had been so many brighter faces, sharper wits and prettier smiles at Mrs Greene’s ball.

  But he was at her side as though he had always been there, as though he was always meant to be there and it had merely been a matter of waiting for the right second to strike before he could appear.

  Perhaps, the very moment when he’d found her in the lilacs they’d been brought to point non plus and now there was no other way but forward.