Mally : Signet Regency Romance (9781101568057) (9 page)

Chapter 13

Llanglyn dreamed in its Welsh march valley, a sleepy market town which for centuries had guarded the shallow ford over the rushing waters of the Afon Glyn which in this one place widened and lost its tumbling force. The dark gray houses and cottages huddled on the eastern bank, ringed here and there still by the remains of the medieval walls and crowned by the tall spire of St. Crispin's. The river sparkled in the sunlight as the landau swayed along the road from Hereford, passing beneath a tracery of autumn trees which dropped dark, clean shadows on the dusty track.

Away to the west, across the river and high on the breast of Long Mountain, rose the silhouette of Castell Melyn, and beyond that the wild, beautiful ruggedness of the Black Mountains themselves, cloud-shadowed and bright against the blue skies. The yellow castle rose above its park of trees and browsing deer, a muddle of towers and battlements which still, even now, looked sturdy enough to withstand any attacking enemy. Mally followed the line of the curving lane which led down from the castle, the only way in and out of the fortress. It vanished at last into the thick trees of the lower woods, but Mally knew that it meandered toward the town, deep between its high banks and hedges until it joined the road by the ford, and by the ivy-covered walls and buildings of Llanglyn Court. She leaned to look across the ford and at last she saw the old courthouse, standing alone and splendid on the rising land beyond the meadows edging the river.

“There it is, Annabel. Journey's end.”

“And not before time. Sweet Lord, I ache everywhere—would that I could fall asleep as easily as Lucy and your mother.” She nodded at the two sleeping shapes opposite.

Mrs. Berrisford's head wobbled from side to side with each lurch the landau made on the rutted road, and occasionally she gave an indelicate snore which caused Annabel to grit her teeth. But at least it was preferable to the cannonade of excited chattering with which Mrs. Berrisford had assailed them on the first day of the journey. Lucy's head nodded on her chest, her mobcap falling forward over her face so that Mally knew that when she awoke she would not be able to see a thing.

Annabel watched the golden-leaved trees through the window. “Everything out here seems more colorful, doesn't it? The green is greener and the blue bluer, if you know what I mean.”

“Yes, everything is more out here. The winter is colder, the weather worse, the snow deeper, earlier, and longer-lasting.”

“Don't spoil my enjoyment, Mally—at least, what's left of it.” Annabel glanced slyly at her. “I hope it snows on the fifteenth of December, I hope it snows and snows and snows.”

“Thank you.”

“Don't mention it. Damn you. Oh, why is it my lot in life to love Chris? All I can assume is that in a previous life I must have had one long and exquisite a time of it. Would that I could only remember it!”

“Reincarnation as well as ghosts? You will never cease to surprise me.”

“Well, why not ghosts? Mm?”

“You'll tell me next that you believe in fairies too. And werewolves, and bugaboos.”

“If I knew any itinerant bugaboos I'd whistle them over to dispose of you, Mrs. St. Aubrey.”

Mally laughed. “That's what I like about you, Annabel, you're such a
friend!
When you cease to say such dreadful things to me then I shall
know
you're up to something devious.”

The landau turned on the edge of the town and splashed across the ford toward the courthouse. Ivy covered the ancient walls, the leaves flapping in the breeze which swept down from the mountains. The small slit windows facing out toward the town looked unfriendly, like tiny, sharp eyes peering from a shaggy face; on the inside, windows overlooking the enclosed courtyard were elegant and latticed, more homely and welcoming.

The coachman steered the tired team beneath the gatehouse and into the shadows. The hooves and wheels clattered on the cobbles, the sound echoing around the gallery surrounding the entire courtyard, and two grooms ran to attend to the horses as Mally climbed down to stand looking fondly around at her old home.

The pigeons stirred in the dovecote over the gatehouse, the sun falling on their feathers and making them almost unbearably white. Rooks grumbled in the elm trees lining the lane beside the house, rising in a black cloud as something disturbed them. Their angry, raucous voices were sudden and grating. And well remembered. She looked up at the gallery and the soft-colored stonework. Nothing ever changed here; surely a fourteenth-century nobleman could step out from the great hall at any moment—

But it was no fourteenth-century nobleman who emerged from the first-floor room, it was a thin, red-headed woman in a clean white apron and gray dress.

“Miss Mally! Oh, Miss Mally, how good it is to see you again.”

“Hello, Pattie. Mother? Lucy? Come on, wake up, we've arrived.” She leaned in through the door again and shook her mother's arm.

Pattie's shoes sounded loud on the old wooden staircase leading down from the gallery, and she was blinking back the tears as she ran to hug Mally. “Oh, Miss Mally, you look grand, truly you do! Did you—?” Her voice died away as she saw Annabel stepping down. “Oh,
Duw,
for a moment I thought it was Miss Maria.”

“No, Pattie.”

“Well, come on inside and I'll make a good pot of Pekoe. I've been baking and baking all day since your letter arrived this morning, and I've been making jam with the late blackberries. Oh, there's been such a crop this year.”

Mally remained in the courtyard when the others had gone up to the gallery and into the great hall. The team had been unharnessed and the landau stood alone, its doors still open. She took a long breath. There was a hint of dampness in the air, dampness and bracken. And blackberry jam. She crossed toward a narrow arched alley through which she could see the sloping lawns sweeping up from the back of the house.

Bright-berried rowans lined the edges of the grounds, darkened here and there by glossy dark green holly bushes. The ash tree had shed most of its leaves and they still lay on the grass where they had fallen. Shielding her eyes against the slowly setting sun, she looked up toward the castle. It was three miles away, black and solid against the skyline, and she was conscious of a quickening of her pulses as she looked at the stark shape. Why was Richard Vallender so anxious to keep her away?

The sun was dazzling and she had to look away. She crossed the lawns toward the crumbling wall which bordered the narrow lane to the castle. An uncontrolled bramble hung over from the grounds, trailing its thorny strands almost to the rutted mud where recent wheels and horses had passed. Sheep bleated in the fields on the other side of the lane, although she could not see them for the wild clouds of old man's beard draping the hedge in drifts of gray and white. As Mally sat on the low wall, the rooks were just settling back in the elms again, grumbling together in that way rooks have.

There was a robin on the sundial by the lily pool. She had sat here, in this very place, all those years ago when Daniel had proposed to her. And the water lilies had been so fine that year— Would she ever know such happiness again? Was it even possible to love again like that?

She jumped as someone put a hand on her shoulder. “Annabel! Don't creep up on me like that!”

“Creep? I strode across that grass like an infantryman! I have been dispatched to bring you to your good hot Pekoe.”

“I marvel that anyone had the
temerity
to dispatch you anywhere.” The past was slipping away again. The robin had gone from his perch, and the October breeze was rippling the dark waters of the pool.

Annabel leaned over to look at the lane. “Does this lead up to my nest of ghosties and bugaboos?”

“Yes. The only way in and out of Castell Melyn.”

“That doesn't seem very clever planning on some warlord's part, does it? I mean, one narrow way like this? Ideal for ambush. Or siege.”

“It wasn't always the only way. The last owner before Mr. Vallender enclosed the huge park you can see, and he closed all the other lanes except this one. He built a very impressive gateway and lodge, you see, and was determined that all his guests should drive through and marvel at it. Lucy told me all about it—her husband used to be the gardener up there. It's a few years ago now.”

Annabel shivered. “It's getting colder with each minute. Let's go in.”

As Mally stood, she heard a horse coming slowly up the lane from the bottom road, and she turned to see who it was. An old man on a skewbald mare came into view. He was huddled in a voluminous woolen cloak and had a wide-brimmed hat pulled down as far over his ears as he could manage. He looked puzzled as he stared up the winding lane which led away into the trees ahead. With some difficulty he doffed the hat and looked up at Mally.

“Noswaith da,”
he said politely.

“Good evening, sir,” replied Mally.

“Forgive my impertinence in addressing you, but I think that this cannot be the road to Hereford. Turn right at the Llanglyn ford they said, but this seems too narrow and little used.”

“You turn after crossing the ford, then you will be right for Hereford.”

“Thank you, thank you kindly. But I have traveled too slowly, I fear, and there is little chance that I will reach my destination today. Is there a reputable hostelry in Llanglyn?”

“The Three Feathers, in the market square. You cannot miss it. Jasper Turney is the landlord and he keeps an excellent house.”

He pulled the hat on again and began to turn the mare, and suddenly Annabel caught Mally's arm. “What's that? Listen.”

It was the thundering of hooves, followed by the violent splashing of the ford as whoever it was rode at such a rate that they set the angry rooks flapping and wheeling again.

“They're coming up the lane!” cried Mally, hearing the definite slowing of the hoofbeats as the riders negotiated the sharp turn. “They're going too fast!”

“Arglwydd mawr!”
whispered the old gentleman, looking apprehensively in the direction of the sound as he tried to urge the placid mare to safety. But she remained where she was, stubbornly across the narrow lane. The three horsemen barely had time to rein in, the excited horses capering and plunging, sending dust spinning around them.

“Jasper Turney and Brew Darril,” murmured Mally to Annabel, “and the young one with the freckles is Jasper's brother Jacob.”

“Mine host of the Three Feathers would seem to be in a fine fury,” said Annabel, shaking a little as she realized how close the old gentleman had come to being ridden down.

“He's very opinionated and loud-mouthed, considers himself to be the spokesman for the whole of Breconshire on every conceivable subject.”

Young Jacob had difficulty with his horse. He was only seventeen and his face was pale and nervous, his tongue passing quickly over his lower lip. “It en't 'im, Jasper! It en't 'im after all!”

“I can see, our Jacob!”

Mally leaned over the wall. “What is the meaning of all this, Mr. Turney?”

He glanced up in surprise, snatching off his dusty top hat. His bearded face was broad and sly and his blue eyes clear and sharp. “It en't nothing, Miss Mally.”

“That is not how it seemed when you careered so dangerously up here a moment ago, nearly killing this gentleman in the process. Incidentally, he is a prospective customer for your inn—which
I
wouldn't be now in his shoes!”

The old man looked uncomfortable.
This
ruffian was the landlord of the Three Feathers? He cleared his throat.

Brew's thin, dry face was surly. “I thought as it was the same 'orse.”

“An' you knowed what thought done, an' all!”

“Well, there en't that many colored 'orses as comes up this way, now, is there, Jasper?” Brew prepared to defend himself.

Mally was curious. “Are you in the habit of pursuing every rider of skewbald horses, Mr. Darril?”

“Only them as comes this way.”

“Why?”

“Brew!” Jasper spoke shortly. “Time en't right.”

Annabel stepped closer to the wall. “On the contrary, Mr. Turney, it would seem to me that the time is perfect for an explanation. After all, it is hardly the done thing, is it—galloping like fiends after innocent passersby? One would imagine pursuit of that kind to be the prerogative of those outside the law.”

He stared up at her, his mouth open. “And who might you be, then?”

“I am Lady Annabel Murchison, daughter of the Earl of Hartmore, and I am awaiting your reply, Mr. Turney.”

Jacob Turney's eyes widened. “ 'Ere, Jasper—”

“All right, all right, Jacob. Well, my lady, we chases after one particular colored horse. The one as belongs to the murderin' devil as killed poor Mrs. Harmon in her bed some weeks back. That Jamaican killed 'er, right enough, no matter
what
Towers do say. Him and Vallender stands together and looks all innocent as says that there feller couldn't 'ave done it—well, we knows different.”

“Then I suggest, Mr. Turney,” said Annabel, “that you point out these matters to someone in authority rather than take the law into your own hands.”

“The law's blind and deaf to justice round 'ere, my lady. That Jamaican was seen, seen by more'n one, an' all. But when folks like Vallender says otherwise, then there's no one will thwart 'em. But we'll get en in th'end, don't you fret. That old biddy will be revenged.”

He turned his horse and kicked it savagely. Brew and Jacob followed him and the lane was quiet again but for the old gentleman on his patient horse. He cleared his throat again. “I believe—on reflection—that perhaps I will ride on a little way yet. Yes. Indeed.
Nos da.”
He doffed his hat and then persuaded the mare to move on again. “Come on, Esyllt, that's my girl.”