“Yes, because we’ll be sent home to recuperate. Everyone else who’s gone down with it has begun by feeling tired.”
“You and Bysshe do not seem too tired to indulge in all manner of disagreeable experiments,” she pointed out, aware that she was diverging from the point of her visit.
He looked down at her a little guiltily. “We didn’t mean any harm.”
“Nevertheless, harm is what you caused.”
“I know.”
“Where is the unfortunate duck now?”
“Sir Francis?”
“Sir Francis?”
Marigold looked blankly at him.
Perry tutted, “Oh, come on, Mama! Sir Francis Drake!”
She had to smile. “How very slow of me.”
“Indeed. Anyway, we think it’s a good name. He seemed to think so too, because when we told him that’s what he was going to be called, he got quite excited, and kept nodding his head up and down. Anyway, he’s gone. Bysshe took him down to the Thames. He was going to put him on the stream here, but then decided— Oh, no!” Perry straightened and ran out of the shade of the willow to look skyward in dismay as a distant quack carried on the air.
“What is it?”
He pointed as a mallard drake flew down to the stream. “It’s Sir Francis, I’d know that quack anywhere!”
As they watched, the drake swam to the bank, and after clambering ashore to shake its tail and have a short preen, it waddled up through the daisies toward them. To Marigold’s astonishment, it then settled down beside her, quacked once or twice in an amiable tone, rattled its bill a little, then buried its gleaming dark green head under its wing, and went to sleep.
Perry came over and gave a huge sigh as he looked down at the bird. “What am I going to do? Dr. Bethel will think we didn’t get rid of it!”
“There’s nothing you can do, short of shooing it away, and that seems a little unkind.” Marigold put out a tentative hand, and touched the drake’s glossy feathers. Sir Francis raised his head, gave her a cross look, then muttered as he pushed his bill under his wing again. She drew her hand back, and then looked up at Perry again. “You really must behave, Perry. Lord Avenbury has extricated both of you this time, but I pray you will not give further cause for concern.”
“We won’t, truly.” Perry gave her a quick smile, then changed the subject. “Anyway, you said you have something to tell me. Does it concern Lord Avenbury?”
“Well, yes.”
“I knew something was up the moment you called him by his first name,” he replied knowingly.
“Before I get to that, I think you should know what happened at the reading of your father’s will. Sit down too,” she urged, removing her gloves and then patting the grass beside her.
Perry obeyed, and then looked in astonishment at her left hand as he noticed her new ring. “Mama, are you and Lord Avenbury ... ?”
“To be married? Yes, Perry, we are, but please don’t leap to conclusions, for once you hear about the will, I’m sure you will understand. At least, I hope you will. Will you hear me out?”
He put his hand quickly on her arm. “Mama, you know how much I love you, and how much I despised my father and all the Arnolds for the way they treated you. Of course I will hear you out, but there is just one thing.”
“Yes?”
“Isn’t Lord Avenbury connected with ... ? I mean, aren’t he and Aunt Alauda... ?” He colored and fell silent.
Marigold felt herself go a little pink too. “Well, yes, I believe they are, but that has nothing to do with this.”
“Aunt Alauda won’t see it that way,” Perry replied shrewdly.
“No, she probably won’t, but that is Lord Avenbury’s concern, not mine, or yours.”
“She’s a true Arnold, and therefore not someone to cross. I’m an Arnold too, but not through and through like the rest of them.”
“I should hope not, for you are my son too,” Marigold replied with a smile.
He grinned. “Anyway, tell me everything, Mama.”
Taking a deep breath, she related all that had happened that dreadful day at Castell Arnold. Perry’s eyes at first widened, and then grew steadily more stormy. “I—I am declared illegitimate?” he interrupted, shock widening his eyes and draining his face of color.
Her hand still rested over his, and she squeezed his fingers in an attempt to reassure. “Yes, I fear that for the moment you are, just as I am branded a fallen woman, but your Uncle Falk admitted to me in private that the will Mr. Crowe read out was not genuine. Lord Avenbury is to instruct his own lawyer to make every possible investigation. If it is possible to prove their villainy, it will be done, I promise you that. In the meantime, my marriage to Lord Avenbury will offer us both protection. You do understand what I’m saying, don’t you?”
“Yes, I—I believe so.”
She went on, but when he learned how she had been forcibly ejected from Castell Arnold, it was too much. He leapt angrily to his feet. “Uncle Falk did
that
to you? I will call him out! I will make him pay for treating you so foully!” he cried, his hands clenched into furious fists. He startled Sir Francis, who awoke with a surprised quack.
Marigold put a soothing hand up to her son. She could see how he trembled with emotion, and her heart surged with pride and love. How fine a son he was to want to defend her. “It’s all right, Perry.
Please
sit down again, so I can tell you how things have arrived at their present situation. Oh, be quiet, you foolish duck!” she added as Sir Francis continued to register protests at being awoken.
The mallard clacked its bill, but subsided once more into the daisies, and after a moment tucked his head under his wing again. Then Perry resumed his place beside her as well, and she went on with her extraordinary tale. At last she finished. “There, now you know why I am about to become Lady Avenbury,” she said.
Perry plucked at the daisies. “But you don’t really know why
he
is entering into it?”
“No.”
“Isn’t that a little risky? I mean, you hadn’t even met him before last night, and it seems to me he should be on Falk’s side, not ours.”
“I wondered that, but I trust him completely.” She did, although when she had stepped over that particular threshold, she really didn’t know.
“Do you love him?” Perry asked.
She was aware of hesitating before answering. “No, of course not. How can I possibly love him in so short a time?”
“So you’re only doing it because of me?” Resolve suddenly blazed in his eyes. “I cannot let that happen! I will leave Eton and provide for us both!”
She smiled. “Oh, Perry, how fierce you are, but there is no need, for I really
want
to marry Lord Avenbury.” The words slipped out so naturally that she hardly realized she’d said them. But it was the truth, she
did
want to marry Rowan. Heaven help her, she wanted it very much indeed.
Perry was confused. “In spite of Aunt Alauda?”
“Yes.”
“Bysshe says—”
“Perry, I don’t place great faith in Bysshe. With your dubious assistance, he attempts to raise devils,” she said, interrupting quickly in case he was about to mention the Avenbury curse, which she didn’t wish to discuss until she’d had a chance to speak to Rowan.
Perry flushed. “It wasn’t a devil, it was Taranis,” he corrected.
“Who or what is Taranis?”
“The old Celtic god of thunder. Bysshe read about him in that Stukeley book he mentioned.”
“Who
is
this Stukeley person? I’ve never heard of him.”
“He was a famous historian. He—and Aubrey before him—researched and mapped in detail all the standing stones in the Salisbury Plain area, including the ones at Avenbury. They called them British druidic temples. Did you know there were standing stones at Avenbury?”
“No, but go on. Why did you want to raise Taranis?”
Perry colored a little. “Because there’s a cricket match this evening, and neither of us wants to play. We thought a good thunderstorm would do the trick. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter now, because all we managed to conjure was Sir Francis.”
“I hardly think you
conjured
anything,” she replied firmly.
“I swear it, Mama. We were telling the truth to Dr. Bethel when we said Sir Francis just appeared from nowhere. We didn’t bring him into the house ourselves, truly we didn’t. We made the demonic circle, lit the blue flames, and said the correct incantations, but all we got was this stupid mallard!” The boy looked daggers at the slumbering drake.
“Oh, that can’t be possible! If you didn’t take him into the house, then he must have flown in through the window,” she declared.
“If he did, he was very quiet about it. Ducks make a noise when they fly, but one second there was nothing, the next he was on the floor right in the middle of the circle. And he wasn’t in a very good mood, I can tell you. He certainly made a noise after that, quacking at the top of his odious lungs. We were so shocked that we forgot Bysshe’s other experiment, which suddenly burst into flames. Dr. Bethel came to see what was going on, and the rest you know.” Perry plucked at the daisies again. “I won’t be raising Celtic gods again, and that’s a fact.”
Marigold was hard put to hide her mirth, for it was clear he and Bysshe really believed they had raised a demon duck!
Perry cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Anyway, I’d prefer it if you forgot I told you, Mama. Do you promise?”
“I, er, yes, I suppose so.”
He gave her a quick smile. “Bysshe isn’t mad, you know, he’s very clever.”
“He’s a menace,” she replied.
“I’m just as bad, so you mustn’t blame him. Actually, he’s great fun to be with, and I like him very much.” He looked at her. “He does have Stukeley’s book. It’s called
An Account of the Avenbury Curse.
Mama, you do know about the curse, don’t you? Only, when Bysshe blurted it out, I thought it came as a complete shock to you.”
“Perry, I’d rather not discuss—”
He interrupted, looking intently at her. “Bysshe says it’s true, Mama.”
“The writing of a book on a subject doesn’t make it true. You know what I think of superstition, Perry.”
“Yes, you dismiss it as nonsense. But I believe in magic and the supernatural.”
“Oh, Perry.”
“And so does Bysshe. He’s
always
reading books about that sort of thing. He says that every Lord Avenbury is destined to die young because in 1534 the first lord deliberately broke up a sacred druidic rite at the stone circle that encloses the village of Avenbury. It’s the largest circle in the whole of England,” Perry added.
Marigold had to look away, for she could hear Rowan by the Druid Oak. My name is Rowan, and I am the thirteenth Lord Avenbury ... The only other things you need to know about me are that I am wealthy, and completely at liberty to offer marriage. Oh, and that I would regard it as an honor to protect you and your son.
Perry spoke again. “It’s all in Stukeley, Mama. If you ask Lord Avenbury, he’ll have to admit it.”
Footsteps sounded on the grass, and Bessie hurried up. “Begging your pardon, madam, Master Perry, but Lord Avenbury says it’s time to leave.” Perry got up quickly, and assisted his mother to her feet. Sir Francis stirred as well, shook his feathers, then waddled after Perry, who ran toward the house.
Marigold paused beneath the willow to smooth her skirts. There was a flutter of little wings overhead, and Marigold was so attuned to the sound that she knew it would be the robin. He hopped along a branch and then cocked his head to look down at her. She saw immediately that he wasn’t alone, for a tiny brown wren was at his side. They perched together, so like sweethearts that Marigold almost expected the robin to put his wing around his diminutive companion. Robin Redbreast and Jenny Wren, she thought, for in times gone by the two birds had always been spoken of as a pair.
The wren sang a few sad, sweet notes, then both birds flew off again. Marigold’s eyes filled with tears as she watched them disappear, for there had been something desperately sorrowful about the brief little song.
Two days later Marigold and Rowan were married by special license at the Grosvenor Chapel in Mayfair. The midday sun was shining brightly as Rowan greeted the fine town carriage conveying his bride and her son. He wore the bridegroom’s traditional brass-buttoned royal blue coat, and white waistcoat and breeches, and was accompanied by two strangers, a country gentleman and his lady who happened to be passing by, and who had gladly agreed to be witnesses.
As her bridegroom kissed her on the cheek, Marigold was immediately conscious of a change in him, and for a dismayed moment she wondered if he was about to cancel everything. It was a fear that had lurked at the back of her mind ever since the visit to Eton, and was entirely due to the so-called Avenbury curse, about which she had tried on several occasions to speak to him. But he had resolutely—even angrily—refused to discuss it. The atmosphere between them had become tense because she found it as hard to leave the matter alone as he did to speak of it. Now as he handed her toward the chapel steps, she was afraid her persistence had proved too much.
She paused in the doorway, nervously arranging her skirt and then toying with her posy of marigolds. Marigolds were said to be for marriage, but right now she felt they must be the opposite! She almost turned back to the carriage before he could shun her at the altar, but then common sense took over, and she relaxed a little.
He was dressed as a bridegroom, he had secured two witnesses, and he had greeted her with a kiss; none of which he was likely to have done if he no longer intended to marry her. Nor would he have settled Perry’s fees, acquired a fine suite of rooms for her at the luxurious Pulteney Hotel in Piccadilly, arranged for their departure for Avenbury Park in the morning, or sent a fashionable couturier to show her a dazzling new wardrobe of the most stylish clothes imaginable.
The Pulteney was acknowledged as the finest hotel in London, and the couturier, who was the most sought-after, had supplied the prospective Lady Avenbury with a number of clothes that had been cancelled at the last minute by a notoriously fickle duchess who happened to be Marigold’s size. The gown chosen for the wedding was part of this elegant wardrobe. It was made of pearl-stitched cream silk, and showed off her red-gold hair and the marigolds in her posy.