Elisabeth Fairchild (21 page)

“Larkspur!” she said. “Dear God, nary a wonder why they are all lambing at once. We shall be lucky if they live.”

Val’s lanky bulk darkened the doorway. “She is ill.”

“They are all ill,  and you stand in my light,” she said, no more than a glance in his direction, wishing him gone.

“They sent her home fevered and coughing.”

A chill ran down her spine, raising the hair at the base of her neck. She looked up from the suffering face of the sheep, at a Val more haggard than when last she had seen him, great dark circles under his eyes, his hair badly in need of a clipping. A somber and humbled Val.

“Felicity?” She rose at once, wiping her hands on her apron, the ewe rising as well,  her plaintive bleat voicing Penny’s inner anxiety.

He nodded. “She asks for you. Will you come?”
She was shocked into silence. Things must be dire indeed if he came to her with such a request.

The ewe lumbered a few steps, bleating in anguish.

“Hollings,” she said to the shepherd. “You must see to her.  Tell my father I’ve business at Wharton.”

Hollings nodded and made a grab for the ewe.

“Dr. Terrance?” She brushed straw from the apron, briskly loosing the strings.

“Come, and gone,” Val assured her. They stepped through the doorway, into the wind. He raked a hand through freshly tousled hair, eyes closed, expression melancholy. “Dosed her with all manner of powders and pills. But, she gets worse rather than better.”
“I will come at once. I have only to wash up and change clothes. Will you wait?”

“Yes,” He sounded impatient, and tired. “Do not tary. I do not like to leave her. Betty and Tess are next to useless when she frets.” He amazed her afresh in thinking to ask, “Shall I saddle a pony?”

“The dark one,” she called as she ran to the house.

He watched them ride away together, Penny and Val, the dog at their horse’s heels--a pair so unexpected he stood flabbergasted. When they had rounded the bend, never looking up the rise where he stood, hoofbeats fading, he turned, crestfallen, his first thought to go back to the King’s Head.

A glance toward the farmyard, and he changed his mind, curiosity and the power of his intent, getting the best of him.

The lambing barn was a battlefield, utter chaos: ewes staggering, bleating piteously, new lambs, still wet with afterbirth, struggling to rise. Dead sheep, they certainly looked dead, lay like piles of shorn wool amid bloody straw.

Alexander thought of the Waterloo battlefield, of his nephew’s little coffin.
Penny’s father failed to look up from the lamb he was wiping down with a bit of rag. “This one looks all right,” he said.

“A fine fellow,” Alexander agreed.

Bloodshot eyes turned his way in surprise. “Shelbourne! What do you do here?”

“I have come to speak to Penny.”
The old man sighed, and waved a weary, blood-streaked hand. “Gone to Wharton to see the child, who is as ill as my sheep it would seem.”

Alexander thought of his nephew, tossing and turning, delirious with fever, tender as the newborn lamb, just as wobbly on his feet.
“Here’s another one dead, sir,” cried one of the shepherds.
“What ails them?” Alexander asked.

She tried to stay calm on the way to Wharton Manor, their gait a quick trot, too fast for conveation, and yet she longed to urge the pony to gallop. Felicity was ill, poor darling, seriously so. She thought of Alexander Shelbourne’s nephew, and as quickly shoved the idea of him from her head.

Not
that
ill. Her heart raced. Oh, Lady Anne, please not that ill.

“Do you hate me?” Val  asked as he held wide the door that had so long held her at bay. “I would not blame you if you did.”
Penny paused, studying his face by clouded daylight, the face she had once loved, grown world weary. “I find hate, anger, even regret a waste of energy, Val. Where is she?”

At her feet, leaning hard against her leg, Artemis watched and listened.

Val motioned toward the stairs, and without another word she hastened up, the dog leaping the steps ahead of her.

The ewe rolled her eyes, and struggled a bit, but they managed to jamb the funnel in her mouth and poured in as much milk as she would swallow.

“You think this will work, do you?” Mr. Foster asked skeptically.

“The company physician used it on one of my men when poison was suspected. He said it doesn’t always work. I’ve no idea how sheep will respond.”
“Well, it’s something, lad. Better than simply watching them die. Do you mind going about with your funnel , seeing to the worst of them?”

“Not at all, sir. I only hope it helps more than it hurts them.”

The sheep vomited, as he had hoped. Mr. Foster nodded his approval.

“Good lad,” he said warmly.

Penny opened the door to the darkened nursery. Artemis paused on the threshold, growling low. For a moment Penny thought of the lambing barn’s chaos, of the trouble she had abandoned her father to. The nursery had something of the same odor, and dear Felicity, poor lamb, sat propped in a tumbled bed, sniffling, watery-eyed, her hair a tangled cloud round her highly flushed face, teeth clenched against the spoon one of the maids tried to force.

“Artemis!” the child cried weakly. The dog raced to her at once, growl deepening as he neared the maid, his defensive posture frightening the woman.

“Artie. Lie down,” Penny chided as the woman spilled medicine, a blotch of brown on Felicity’s rumpled, white bedclothes.

“Penny!” Felicity’s features brightened briefly before she saw the stain and burst into tears.

 “Dearest. Hush now, “ Penny crooned as she enfolded Felicity in her arms, and waved away maid and spoon.

“But she must take her medicine.” The maid fretted almost as much as the child.

Penny nodded as she loosed her hand gently from Felicity’s hot clutch, and slipped the ribbons on her bonnet.

“Of course she must, as soon as she is calmer, and the room set to rights. It smells as if the chamber pot need to be removed. The bedclothes have now to be changed, and a warming pan must be brought up. Will you be so good as to send for the housekeeper? I require a bowl of broth, some calves foot jelly and tea with honey and a lemon if they are available.”
“The housekeeper is gone, miss, but Betsy will fetch them, if you please.” The girl set down bottle and spoon and hurried to the bell pull.

Penny wrapped Felicity in her shawl, and going to the window, opened it a little for fresh air. Then she took Felicity in her arms and cradling her fever-sweated brow against her breast, sat in the rocking chair, and crooned nursery songs. When Betsy brought the tray, amidst the bustle of the bed being cased in fresh linens, spooned broth into Felicity’s mouth, and when she coughed, encouraged her to drink weak tea with honey and lemon.

Felicity soon dropped off to sleep in her lap. As Betsy came to take away the tray, Penny asked, “When is the housekeeper expected to return.”
Her question met with silence, and an uneasy exchange of glances between the maids. Artemis lifted his head to stare past them, and Val spoke, detaching himself from the shadows at the  doorway, saying, “Scared her away.”
Penny rose, the child in her arms, and as she tucked her snugly into the bed, the dog like a shadow, always at her side, Val crossed the room, murmuring, “You are very good with her. I should have called for you at once.”

Artemis made another low rumbling noise. She bade him be still, though in truth she was as uneasy as the dog with Val’s presence, his compliments. “How did you scare her away?”

“Come,” he said, voice low. “We will wake her.”

The level of his concern for the child surprised her. She followed him downstairs, Artemis padding at her heels. Supper awaited them in chafing dishes in the dining room, and three of the staff ready to serve them, even Artemis to be accommodated.  One of the footmen lured him to the kitchen with meat scraps and the promise of a bone.

When the soup had been served, Val answered her question.

“Mrs. Olive . . .” he began, and when she looked at him brows raised, he clarified, “the housekeeper, did not care for drunkenness. Two of the downstairs maids and a footman have also lately left Wharton, vowing never to return.” He slurped a spoonful from his steaming bowl. “Mother will be miffed. She liked Olive.”
Penny noticed that the soup was served with only water to drink, that the second course arrived with syllabub, no wine to be seen. The decanters on the sideboard stood empty.

Val looked up from buttering his bread, and noticed the direction of her gaze. “I have thrown it all away,” he explained. “Every drop, save what my father keeps locked in the wine cellar.”
“You surprise me,” she said, the soup rendered tasteless by shock.

“Yarrow has the only key.” He blurted the words, as if anxious to further impress her with the seriousness of his intent. “I have instructed him not to give it to me, no matter how piteously I beg, no matter if I threaten his job. I would stop this madness, you see. Put an end to it.”
“Good,” she said. “Very good, Val. “

His gaze locked on hers a moment, as if her praise moved him, as if he were incredibly hungry for approval, and then he looked away, the moment passed, and she wondered if she had imagined the change in his features, the wolfish need. The rest of the meal passed in small talk, and as a fruit compote and strong, hot coffee was served with a wheel of white cheese,  she smiled and said, “And now I must check on Felicity  again, before riding home. Do you mind if I return in the morning?”

“Stay the night.” For a moment the look returned to his eyes. “I will have a room prepared.”

She frowned uncertainly at her spoon. “I do not think . . .”
“I will send word to your father.”
The troubled blue of his eyes startled her. He wore the look of a man tossed by an unruly sea, who gazed upon his only anchor.

Artemis, who had slipped into the dining room as desert was served, rose from his spot at her feet, a high-pitched whine leaking from his throat.

She rose as well, shaking her head decisively. “Unless she is worse, you can well manage on your own. Father needs me. Besides, it will be best if she learns to rely on you for comfort.cp>

He looked surprised, a trifle panicked. “But . . .”

She smiled, and took his hand. “You do well by her, Val. I am glad of it.”

“Penny.” He followed her, reaching for the door that he might open it , and as she passed he grasped her hand, and despite Artemis’s growl, stared deep into her eyes, reminding her of the way he had once looked at her, long ago. The clock in the corridor chimed. He looked down, let go her hand. “I am sorry . . . about Eve . . . about  everything. I should never have taken her from you.”

She gave his arm a brief squeeze, and thinking of Alexander and the dreaded accusation of self-sacrifice, replied, “Perhaps it is best, after all. She ought to know her father.”
He laughed, and closed the door to the dining room behind them, shutting off the light and warmth of the fire. In the sudden darkness, he said with bitter sarcasm, “He is a fine fellow, when not in his cups.”

She found the farm much quieter than when she had left it. The lambing barn wore a horrible stink, but the sheep had settled for the night, new lambs huddled close for warmth.

Her father and two of the shepherds, sat hunched over cups of tea in the kitchen,  trenchers of bread and cheese fast being reduced to crumbs between them .

“I am sorry not having returned in time to fix you something hot,” she said as she went in, pulling the bonnet from her head,  pouring a cup of tea to join them.

“How is she?” her father asked.

“Feverish. Coughing. Settled for the night. I go back in the morning. How is the flock?”

The shepherds avoided her eyes.

Her father sighed. “Five dead. Some of the lambs too early, not likely to survive, but we might have lost more had it not been for Shelbourne.”
“Mr. Shelbourne was here?” She dropped a lump of sugar in her tea.

“Aye. Came looking for you. “Her father leaned back with a yawn, stretching his back until it made a cracking sound. “To wish you farewell.”

She flinched, spoon clinking the side of the cup. “He is leaving?”
“Aye. In a few days, he said. Kindly lent a hand.”

“A canny one, that,”  Hollings said. “Who would have thought to give them milk?”

Her father nodded. “May have saved half the flock. We owe him dearly, lass.”

The following morning came too soon. On the heels of a restless night, Penny made a point of riding through the village on her way to Wharton Manor. She did so that she might purchase horehound drops and an elixer of hyssop from the local apothecary. As she passed the King’s Head,  she found herself looking for Alexander Shelbourne, hoping for, and yet dreading an encounter. She must thank him for what he had done. She must tell him he had been right, about Val.

She did not see him, indeed she had given up hope of it,  and was passing over the old wooden bridge, her mind now fixed on Felicity, and how the poor little dear might have passed the night, when a man called out, “Miss Foster!”

Her heart lurched. For a moment she imagined it must be him, but the voice was wrong, not Alexander but Oscar scrambled up from the riverbank fishing pole in hand, hat bristling with feathery hooks.

“How do you do, Miss Foster?”

“My father’s flock suffers. And Felicity Wharton. Not I,” she said.

“I had heard,” he said. “From Cupid, that the child was sent home ill.” He wore a worried look, and for that she silently blessed him. “How does she?”

“I am on my way to sit with her now.”

“Valentine relents then, and allows you in the door?”

“He does. He is, in fact, a changed man, Oscar.”

“How so?”

“He has stopped drinking.”
“Sober? I should like to see that.”

“Do you care to come with me then--to pay your respects?”

“Ah, not at the moment. Rather bad timing, you see.” He waved his pole. “The trout are biting and I smell rather fishy. I do believe we have rain on the way. But the child? No chance she will end up . . . like Cupid’s nephew, is there? He would never forgive himself.”
She sighed. “He ought not burden himself with even the beginnings of guilt. Will you tell him that? He could not have gotten her here any faster. She was on her way home when Val . . .” she sighed. “At the time of the shooting match.”