The Changeling Bride (21 page)

He excused himself and made to the next logical place. The saddles were all in place in the tack room, but Belle
was most definitely not in her stall. Bart, the stableboy, had seen Elle about an hour ago.

“She were looking at Belle, milord,” the boy said. “And I went and mucked out some stalls. She were gone when I come back to the front here.”

“And Belle?”

“I did not look, milord,” the boy mumbled.

“Not to worry, Bart. She did not tell us she wanted to go riding again, is all.”

The boy’s glance slid to the sidesaddle hanging unused.

Dusk was creeping across the stable yard by the time Henry rode out on his own mount. He had briefly considered asking others to join in the search but had rejected the idea. He could not have a servant find her and know that she had deliberately run away—although he was beginning to think that hiding that fact was a futile endeavor. They must all be suspecting that something was seriously amiss.

He cantered down the road they had taken that morning, trying to put himself in Elle’s mind and failing miserably. This made no logical sense. There was nowhere for her to go. Even if her former lover was out there, she must know she had little chance of reaching him traveling alone, bareback, and as far as he knew, penniless. She was not thinking clearly.

It was full dark when he emerged from the woods at the edge of the village of Brookhaven. An inner certainty told him that Elle would not have ridden through this hamlet, although he asked a farmer checking on his pigs anyhow.

“No, milord, not seen sight of a lady riding bareback, nor a white dog, neither, and sure it is that the missus would have told me if such a one had ridden through.”

Henry thanked him and turned back to the forest, thinking as his horse trod carefully down the dark road, trying to ignore the worry that churned inside. She would
not have ridden down the front drive, for fear of being seen, and would not have ridden overland for the same reason. She
must
have taken this road.

She was in the forest somewhere, on one of the paths that twisted through. He would never find her in the dark and could only hope she would be safe until morning. It had been stupid of him to come out here alone, without servants and torches. His thinking was as muddled as hers.

His horse suddenly whickered, to be answered by another in the trees to the left. There was a snapping of twigs, and then the dark shape of another horse spilled out onto the road.

Even in the faint light he could see that it was riderless. He rode close and snatched up the trailing reins. There was no saddle, either.

“Ah, Belle,” he said, stroking the mare’s neck. “What have you done with her, eh?” He tied the reins to the back of his saddle, new hope and new worries mingling in his mind. She might be close by. She might also be hurt.

He put his faith in his mount’s eyesight, and turned down the narrow path that was no more than a shadowy break in the undergrowth.

Elle tripped, falling to her hands and knees. “Wait!” she called to the bobbing light. It seemed to hear her and bobbed in place while she dusted off her hands and pulled herself to her feet again. They were not on a path, and this was the second time she had tripped on roots or fallen branches. She should have paid more attention to the warnings about wisps.

“Are we almost there?”

The wisp moved off, and she plodded after.

She followed it through a dense tangle of brambles, thorns snagging her skin and clothes, and stumbled at last into a small grassy clearing. The ground was blessedly
even beneath her feet, and in the center of the clearing grew a phosphorescent ring of mushrooms. The wisp bobbed above the center of it.

“A fairy ring,” Elle said. “Of course.”

She stepped into the center of it with Tatiana, and the moment they did the wisp vanished. “Wait! You can’t go yet, I haven’t had a chance to talk to you.”

The wisp blinked on several feet outside the circle, and Elle moved to step out of the ring. She couldn’t. Her palms tingled unpleasantly as she pressed against the invisible barrier. She sank to the ground, sitting cross-legged and trying to keep the panic from her voice.

“Okay, you want me to stay here. Fine. I’ve brought you snacks, though. Don’t you want them?” She untied the scarves and took out the slightly flattened bread and the jug of milk. The book had said that fairies could not resist such temptations. “I had honey, too, but it spilled. Sorry.”

The light bobbed closer, and Tatiana lept at it, jaw snapping.

“Tatia, no!”

The light bobbed to the edge of the clearing, and Elle reached after her dog, but the circle stopped her, her hand hitting that barrier.

“Here, girl.” Tatiana stepped back within the ring. “Sit.” Elle picked up Tatiana’s paw and pressed it into the air above the mushrooms. It went through where her own hand could not. “Huh.”

The light bobbed a little closer and lower, and Elle could almost feel it looking at the bread and milk. Then Tatiana barked, and the wisp zipped up into the air, into the branches overhead, and then became a meteor streaking across the forest ceiling and vanishing into darkness.

“Many thanks, Tatia,” Elle grumbled. “Now what do we do, my wise friend?”

Tatiana lay down and put her nose between her paws. Elle wrapped her cloak around herself and snuggled up
beside the dog. Tatiana had a point. There was nothing to do now but sleep and wait.

Henry smelled wood smoke, and coming around a bed in the path saw the source of it up ahead. A small fire burned off to the side of the path, and hunched beside it sat a weathered old man in a misshapen high-crowned hat. There was a patch over one eye, but the other was bright and friendly, looking up at Henry without the caution that one would expect from one lone man in the forest meeting another.

“Good evening,” Henry said.

The man smiled, half his teeth missing, and gestured to his fire. “Come. Sit.”

“I thank you, but regret that I cannot. I am searching for a woman lost in these woods. Have you seen her?”

“Ahh.” The old man nodded and took a drink from the tin cup in his hand.

“You have seen her, then?” Henry asked, hope quickening.

“Drink?” The man offered his cup up to Henry.

Perhaps the man was some manner of simpleton. Henry dismounted and squatted down by the fire. The old man rummaged in his pack and brought out another cup and a jug, pouring out a generous portion and handing it to Henry.

“Thank you,” Henry said, accepting. “The woman has a white dog with her. Has she passed by this way?”

The man tapped his finger at the corner of his good eye and nodded, then lifted his cup towards Henry before downing the contents.

Henry examined the contents of his cup—it was some dark liquid that smelled heavily of spices. He took a tentative sip, and his mouth filled with gentle warmth, his head becoming intoxicated with the scent of flowers. “Extraordinary,” he murmured, and took a larger drink,
losing his balance and falling back onto his rump on the ground.

He stared at the old man, then at the fire, watching the flames leap and fall as if they had been slowed by the hand of time. “Extraor . . .” he tried to comment again, but his tongue would not work in his mouth, and he forgot what he had been trying to say. He had never seen such fascinating flames.

His brain slowly began running again, and he shook his head to clear out the last vestiges of the wine. With a shock he saw that the fire was no more than ashes now, and there were birds singing to the dawn. The man had packed his things and was ready to leave.

“Green path,” the man said, and pointed to a narrow swath of dense green grass leading into the forest. “Woman, dog.”

“Thank you,” Henry said and pulled himself to his feet, blinking around at the grey light of early morning. He could scarce believe he had spent the night drinking beside a fire while Elle was out alone in the forest.

The old man pointed to the grass again, nodded, then turned and hobbled down the regular path. He disappeared into the forest within a dozen steps.

Still slightly muddled, Henry led his mount and Belle down the narrow trail, the swath of grass no more than a few inches wide. His head was completely clear by the time he emerged into the small clearing.

Elle lay snuggled against her dog, asleep in the center of the clearing. Tatiana raised her head and gave a cheery woof. Elle raised her face from her arms, her eyes widening when she saw him.

“Henry!”

He dropped the reins and ran to her, knelt down and dragged her into his arms, crushing her against his chest. He had not known until this moment just how frightened for her he had been.

She began to struggle against him, and he reluctantly
loosened his hold enough for her to lift her face from his chest.

“You’ll get stuck, Henry. The ring!”

“Shh, you are safe now.”

“The fairy ring, Henry! You’ve stepped into it.”

He loosened his hold further, and she pulled away and pointed frantically at the circle of mushrooms around them. He followed the circle with his eyes, then lifted one of his knees to examine the crushed fungus underneath.

“Ooh, you’ve destroyed it,” she said.

“Apparently so.”

She reached her hand out over the mushrooms, then brought it back inside the ring and looked at him. He noticed the squished loaf of bread and the jug, and picked up the book, reading the title and then opening it to the dog-eared page in the middle. After a moment he looked up at her.

“You came out here to commune with fairies?”

She shrugged and looked down at her hands.

She had not been running away
, was all he could think. She had not been trying to find an ex-lover. She had not been running from him. She had gone to the woods to talk to fairies, had been thrown from her horse and gotten lost, that was all.

He combed his fingers into her hair, cupping her head in his hands and turning her face up to his. “You silly, silly wench.” He kissed her on the forehead, then moved his hands down to her shoulders and gave her a hard shake. “You have no idea of the fright you gave me. You should not ride out alone, even in the daylight, and most especially not without telling anyone where you have gone.”

“I think I learned my lesson well enough.”

He pulled her to her feet, then pushed aside her cloak. Those were his clothes she was wearing, smeared with
dirt and marked with small spots of blood around the tears in the cloth.

“I didn’t want to ride astride in a skirt,” she explained sheepishly.

“Are you hurt?”

“Bruised, maybe. And scratched. That’s all.”

He heard the weary defeat in her voice and decided she had spoken the truth when she said she had learned her lesson well enough. There was no point in his belaboring the point. It could not have been pleasant to spend the night alone out here. He wanted to shake her, he wanted to hold her, but above all he did not want to upset her further. She was calm and coherent and unharmed, and for the moment that was enough.

Elle mounted Henry’s horse at his insistence, as he took the saddleless Belle. She watched him, looking for more anger than the little he had shown. All she could see was relief and concern, and he had not even bothered to question her on why she had wanted to talk to the fairies. In fact, he was ignoring the fairy issue completely. It was quite peculiar.

This night she had learned that the fairies would not willingly bring her home. She would have to accept that, for now.

Later, she would find a way to force them to give her what she wanted.

Chapter Sixteen

Elle surveyed the conglomeration of animal parts, food items, and noxious potions that she had accumulated on the table in her dressing room. She had sheep intestines, she had bits of leather, she had vinegar and oil, lard, assorted herbs, a lemon, scraps of cloth, metal rings, flour, bread, a needle and thread, a half-empty bottle of what might or might not be gin, and several dusty bottles of unknown, oily substances.

She had asked Marianne to arrange to have the worktable brought in here, and the pot of water put over the fire. It had also required Marianne’s help to lay her hands upon the majority of the items. Elle had been a coward and had the maid go ask the gardener for the lemon: She did not feel up to the stress of dealing with the crotchety man herself.

“Will there be anything else you will be needing?” Marianne asked, her brows beetling in perplexity. Elle knew she was having a hard time making heads or tails
of her mistress’s behavior. Henry had told the staff that she’d been lost in the woods overnight and left it at that. His mask of composure back in place, no one had dared to ask the dozens of questions that begged an answer. Marianne, Elle was sure, was fairly bursting with curiosity.

“No, I think this should do it. I’ll call for you if I think of something else. You’ve done a wonderful job.” Elle gently steered the woman towards the door of her dressing room.

“Are you sure you do not need any help?”

“Quite sure. I need to do this alone.”

Marianne started to walk through the bedroom, then stopped abruptly, turning around for one last try. “You know I am good with my hands, milady. I like to help, truly I do, and if it is something private you are doing—well, I can keep quiet. A lady’s maid knows how to hold her tongue.”

Elle seriously doubted the veracity of that last statement. Marianne liked nothing better than to hear the sound of her own voice. She hadn’t told Marianne what she wanted with her odd assortment of items and had no intention of doing so.

“I know you can be trusted, Marianne. You know what you could do, that would be a big help, though?”

“What, milady?” She was all eagerness to be involved.

“Take my dresses and let out the bodice seams. I know it’s a big job and may take quite a bit of time. Do you think you can handle it?”

“You want them made bigger?”

“Yes, I do.”

A slow smile spread across Marianne’s face, puzzling Elle. She’d never known a woman so glad to be given a tiresome task.