The Rose Garden (14 page)

I sat up to listen.

And then I heard whistling and booted feet climbing the stairs, and the whistle altered from a tune into a sharper blast, the way Mark whistled up the dogs when they were running wild, and from the hall a stranger’s voice called, ‘Are you yet in bed? You’ve let the fire go nearly out. And why the devil did you lock the doors?’ He had grabbed the handle of my own door now and swung it open as he talked. ‘’Tis hard to think that my own brother is now turning into an old…’ Then he saw me sitting up in Daniel Butler’s bed, so that his last word, ‘…woman,’ trailed away unsure.

Jack Butler—because from the look of him and what he’d said he could be no one else—shifted in the doorway to a steadier position, his expression changing gradually from pure surprise to something that reminded me of how a man might look when he had seen a friend perform a feat that he had thought impossible. With a slight shake of his head he flashed a quick lopsided smile and said, ‘Good morrow to you, mistress.’

I was not supposed to talk, I knew. According to the plan that Daniel Butler had decided on with Fergal, Jack was meant to think that I was Fergal’s sister too. I could still hear Fergal saying, ‘Jack can never keep his mouth shut, and he’ll never be convinced she came the way she says she did.’ So I just nodded in reply.

‘And is my brother in the house?’

I shook my head.

‘Can you not speak?’ He asked that jokingly, as though the situation still amused him.

When I shook my head again he looked surprised at first, since it was not the answer he’d expected, then the faintest light of envy touched his eyes. ‘A woman with no voice.’ He swore a cheerful oath and said, ‘My brother always had the better fortune.’

He leaned one shoulder on the doorjamb, not as tall as his brother nor to my eyes as good-looking, but with an easy charm that made it plain to me why all the mothers of Polgelly locked their daughters up whenever Jack came home. ‘Well then, can you cook? For on my way here I did stumble on some mutton that was longing to come join me for my dinner, though I’ve no idea myself what I should do with it. Do you?’

My nod was somewhat less than certain, but it satisfied him. ‘Good. Then let me give you back your privacy. Unless you do intend to wear that today? No? A shame, in my opinion.’ And he left me with a friendly nod and one last smile.

Alone, I closed my eyes and raised both hands to hold my forehead for support as I exhaled a sigh. I may not have been relishing the thought of spending one more day alone here at Trelowarth, and having Jack Butler around would indeed make my life that much easier, but he wasn’t quite the kind of company I’d wished for. He was going to be another complication.

Dressing quickly, I went downstairs where I found the joint of mutton waiting for me in the kitchen, on the table by the window that Jack Butler had apparently come in by. He had knocked a chair down in the process, and I set it upright while I tried to figure out how people in this time cooked mutton. I had no clue. In the end the only thing that I could think of was to roast it in the same way I’d seen Fergal roasting fowl, though forcing the spit through the mutton proved harder than I would have thought, and the spit and meat together were a heavy, awkward burden to try hanging in the hearth.

But at least Jack had got the fire going again and set new wood on top of it, and in the cupboard that the constable had smashed open I found the tin of honey I’d seen Fergal use before, and if I copied Fergal’s trick of basting roasting meat with honey, then I couldn’t go far wrong.

And since Jack had also left a bunch of carrots on the table with the soil still clinging to them, I decided I could add them to the porridge I’d already made and thin it down to something that approximated Fergal’s vegetable and barley broth, if I could find some water.

That problem solved itself a moment later when Jack Butler came in through the back door with a sloshing pair of buckets. ‘We’ve no water in the house at all,’ he said, as though I wouldn’t know it. ‘So I went and fetched us some.’ He set the buckets down and took a seat himself, with an approving glance towards the mutton. ‘’Tis as well that you were here. That would have gone to waste had I attempted it.’ And then he said, ‘I did not mean to hurry you.’

He must have seen I didn’t understand, because he made a gesture at his own head and explained. ‘Your hair. You could have taken time to dress it, I would not have minded. You’ll find me not so difficult,’ he promised, ‘as my brother.’

He was definitely chattier. Some people might have found it awkward spending time with somebody who didn’t speak, but not Jack Butler. While I cooked he rocked his chair back on two legs and, shoulders to the wall, kept up a mostly single-sided conversation, asking questions that he answered for himself. ‘So did he tell you all about me, then? Of course he did, or else you would have feared me as a stranger, though I doubt he would have thought I would be home before him.’

From the track his conversation took I gathered he’d concluded that his brother was still off aboard the
Sally
, which to me made perfect sense. It explained too why the constable had seemed so sure that no one would be in the house.

‘And so you’ve been here all this time and on your own?’ He would have answered that himself as well, I think, except he saw my face. He stopped. ‘Have you then had a visitor?’

I nodded, once.

His chair came down, but slowly and controlled, and when he spoke again his voice had changed, no longer lightly teasing but more serious. ‘A welcome one?’

I shook my head and knew from how his eyes had altered that he didn’t need to be told who, any more than he needed to have anything spelt out for him when I showed him the smashed cabinet lock in the scullery.

He was quick enough putting the pieces together.

‘The constable came on his own? Did he search the whole house? Did he find anything?’

Here, instead of a nod, I was happily able to shake my head ‘no’.

Jack Butler said, ‘That must have spoilt his temper.’ He seemed pleased by that, until another realization crossed his mind and he looked down at me. ‘Did he then do you harm?’

I shook my head, but he had seen my moment’s hesitation.

‘Are you certain?’ He was looking at me clinically, not trusting what I’d told him, when I saw his face change once again, as though he’d just this minute noticed what gown I was wearing.

Though he obviously recognized it, he did nothing more than raise his gaze to mine a moment before going on without a comment, ‘Good, for Daniel would have gutted him.’

I hadn’t thought of that. I had forgotten that in this age men still felt an obligation to defend a woman’s honor. Having lived so long where men were more likely to push their way past me than open a door for me, I hadn’t even considered the fact that if I
had
been harmed, Daniel Butler might well have responded with violence. I gave silent thanks that the constable had only struck me with words, not his hands, even though I felt sure that he’d wanted to.

Thinking of it now, I wasn’t certain what had stopped him, since it would have been another way to try provoking Daniel into action, if that had in fact been what he had intended. I remembered how the constable’s dark gaze had raked my gown. It made me wonder if he’d seen a ghost himself when he had looked at me, and she had stayed his hand.

Whatever the reason, I was thankful for it, just as I was glad I’d taken time last night to tidy up the rooms before Jack had a chance to see them, for I knew there was no chance of keeping anything from Daniel if Jack knew it. Fergal might have been exaggerating when he’d said Jack Butler couldn’t keep a secret—after all, a man who made his living smuggling had to keep a secret now and then—but I could understand what Fergal had been getting at. Jack Butler liked to talk.

About himself, mainly, but he was good-natured about it and in spite of my earlier misgivings, after having been alone in the house I found him welcome company. Besides, I felt better with someone around for protection, and I had a feeling Jack Butler was good in a fight. Not as good as his brother, I guessed, because Jack seemed like someone who didn’t have much self-control, but he likely fought dirtier.

Still, he was not without manners. The mutton I’d roasted came out a bit charred, and my barley and carrot broth didn’t have even a bit of the flavor that Fergal’s had had, but Jack ate them without a complaint, and then ate them a second time, cold, for his supper.

It was not until afterwards, when twilight settled outside on the hills and Jack lit the candles on the table and the atmosphere inside the kitchen grew close, that he showed a small flash of his mischievous nature.

‘So, mistress,’ he asked, ‘shall I help you to bed?’

I probably wouldn’t have dignified that with an answer in any event, whether spoken or otherwise, but as it turned out I didn’t have to give him a reply. The answer came out of the dimness behind us, surprising us both.

‘’Tis a kind offer, Jack.’ Daniel Butler had settled himself in the doorway that led to the corridor, arms folded over his chest. ‘But I think that would be my prerogative.’

Fergal was having none of it. Shouldering his way past Daniel Butler he said dryly, ‘You can both of you behave yourselves, or do you need reminding in the way of it? My sister has the wit to see herself to bed without the aid of either of you.’

I heard Jack say in surprise, ‘Your sister?’ and I was aware that Fergal answered him, but the bulk of my attention was still focused on the tall man in the doorway and the warmth within his eyes.

He looked as pleased to see me there as I was glad to have him back, and if we’d been alone I would have told him so, but I could only let my smile speak for me.

‘…and that will be my only warning to you, so you pay it heed and mind your manners,’ Fergal finished off to Jack.

‘Would I do otherwise?’ Jack’s voice was mild. He’d turned to look at us. ‘And I do fear you may be warning the wrong Butler in this instance.’

‘Ay, I’ve said the same to him and all,’ said Fergal. He had noticed the remains of what I’d cooked, an eyebrow lifting at the blackened meat. ‘Where did you find this mutton?’

‘I did meet with it upon the road on my way home,’ said Jack, ‘and in so sad a circumstance that pity moved my hand to see it liberated.’

Fergal’s sideways glance was dry. ‘And what else did you liberate?’

‘Only the mutton. ’Twas all I could carry.’

Daniel, lounging comfortably within the doorway, asked, ‘And who now has gone hungry by your hand?’

‘None but a lazy merchant who was fool enough to leave his wagon unattended while he slept.’

‘You’ll try your luck one time too often,’ was his brother’s comment. ‘You are fortunate you did not meet the constable upon the road. He would have had you taken for a thief.’

Jack shrugged. ‘I am well liked by juries in these parts; they would have voted me my freedom. And in any case, the constable had other things to occupy his time.’ His tone had sobered. ‘He was here. He searched the house.’

I saw the narrowing of Daniel’s eyes as Fergal, who’d been tearing off small chunks of mutton, tasting what I’d done with it, turned round with sudden fierceness. ‘Christ’s blood, Jack, and did you never think to stop him?’

‘I had not the opportunity, he came and went before I did arrive. Your sister could not tell me what occurred, of course, but it appears she faced him on her own, and even had she had a voice she would have had no chance of stopping him herself. He must have been in a rare temper from the treatment he did give that cupboard standing in the scullery.’

While Fergal went to check the cupboard, Daniel studied me with quiet calm, the kind of calm that sometimes silences the winds before the weather takes a turning for the worse, and it appeared to be a warning sign to Jack who quickly said, ‘I asked her if the blackguard used her ill, and she assured me in her way that he did not.’

Daniel said nothing, but his eyes moved briefly past me as behind me Fergal stepped out of the scullery and said, ‘He used the axe.’

The calm of Daniel’s face grew deeper, settling over his whole frame, and Fergal said, ‘Jack, come and help me take a look around the stables, will you? God alone knows what he might have done out there.’

‘But—’

‘Shift yer arse.’ The terse instruction left no room for argument, and Jack made none.

Daniel moved from the doorway to let them go past, but he waited until they’d gone out to the yard and the back door had swung shut behind them and they had moved well out of hearing before he asked quietly, ‘Are you all right?’

‘He didn’t lay a hand on me.’

‘That was not what I asked.’

‘I’m fine.’ I half-turned away from those steady eyes that I suspected saw more than I wanted them to. ‘It rattled me a bit, that’s all. I mean, I’d just come back and all of you were gone, and it was raining, and I couldn’t start a fire, and then I turned around and there he was…’

‘You did not let him in?’

‘He let himself in. I don’t think he expected to find anybody here. He seemed to know you were away.’ I paused and glanced back. ‘Were you off on your ship?’

‘Yes.’ He didn’t elaborate. ‘What did he do when he found you at home?’

What I told him was an edited account of what had happened, from the constable’s starting the fire to his smashing the lock on the cabinet and going to search the upstairs. ‘I’m fairly sure he didn’t find what he was looking for,’ I finished.

‘No more would he. There was nothing here for him to find.’ From his tone I could tell that he wasn’t protesting his innocence, only saying he had better sense than to leave any evidence lying around. ‘So he came back downstairs. And what then did he do?’

‘Nothing, really. He drank some of the wine that I’d brought him,’ I said very carefully, ‘and then he left.’

‘And only that.’

I nodded, and I saw a flickering of warmth behind his eyes. ‘You must ask Jack to school you in the art of telling lies, for plainly you have not yet learnt the trick of it.’

I raised my chin. ‘It’s not a lie. He didn’t touch me.’

‘I am close enough acquainted with the constable to know that he has other means of doing harm.’ He didn’t press the point. Instead he said, as though he meant it, ‘I am sorry that I was not here.’

‘It’s just as well you weren’t. You might be up now on a charge of murder.’

‘Yes, I might at that.’ And with his smile the deadly calm that had been hanging round him broke and fell away. ‘And do I have to call my brother out, or has he been behaving like a gentleman?’

‘He’s been behaving.’ Mostly, I suspected, because of where he had discovered me, in Daniel’s bed. Jack Butler might be reckless, but that didn’t make him fool enough to trespass on what he would have believed was ground belonging to his brother.

‘I would find that most unlikely,’ Daniel said. ‘And you forget I have the evidence of my own ears against it.’

I’d forgotten what he’d overheard as he came in—Jack’s offer to escort me up to bed. And Daniel’s answer. I surprised myself by blushing. I had lived so long in Hollywood I’d thought that there was nothing anymore that could embarrass me. I covered it by saying it had only been a joke. ‘He was no more serious than you were.’

‘Was he not?’ The smile held, and in that moment while he looked at me, I swore that I could feel the air between us as though it had come alive. Perhaps it had.

But then he looked away again and everything was normal. ‘You have done well with Jack. It does appear that he accepts you in your role and does believe you cannot speak.’

‘Yes, well, it wasn’t all that difficult. Your brother talks so much himself I doubt I could have got a word in edgeways if I’d wanted to.’

I had never heard him laugh. I liked the sound of it. He asked, ‘When was it he arrived?’

‘This morning. Through that window, actually. I’d locked the doors.’

‘And if you should be here and on your own again, I trust you’ll do the same, and keep them bolted fast till one of us returns. Nor should you hesitate to use the hole to hide from an intruder.’

‘What hole?’

‘The priest’s hole.’ With a glance at my uncomprehending face, he asked, ‘Is it not used in your own time?’

I shook my head. ‘We don’t have any need to hide our priests.’

‘No more do we. But such a hiding place does still have uses. Come.’ He took a candle from the table and led me from the kitchen, through the hall and halfway up the staircase to the broad half landing with its paneled walls. ‘The tale is that the building of Trelowarth happened not long since King Henry had defied the Pope and set aside his queen to marry Anne Boleyn. The times then were as troubled as our own, and men who kept to the old faith were forced to say their prayers in secret and to hide their priests whenever the King’s agents came to call.’ His fingers found the corners of a panel with a sureness born of practice and he gave a single push, and with a quiet click the spring gave way. A length of panel nearly my own height, hinged like a door, swung neatly outward.

In the space behind, a man could stand—or sit if he grew tired—but he couldn’t do much more than that. It would be dark and close, but safe.

‘You pull it shut with this, when you are in,’ said Daniel, showing me the metal ring attached to the inside, ‘and none will find you.’

‘Have you ever had to use it?’

‘On occasion.’

It would be an uncomfortable place for a man of his height, and I said so, but he only shrugged.

‘I had rather stoop here for an hour than be stretched at the end of a rope.’

It was not the first time he’d implied he earned his living in a way that wasn’t legal, and I called him on it. ‘Is the law so merciless with free-traders?’

He took the question in his stride. ‘The law, in my experience, is more strict in its word than in its practice. And the constable does line his pockets well by his arrangements with the free-traders who choose to make their harbor in Polgelly, and does please himself to look the other way while we unload our cargoes. No,’ he said, ‘’tis not my free-trading that so concerns the constable. He would see me hang for something far more heinous in his view.’

‘For treason.’

Daniel swung the panel shut with a decided click, and turned. ‘Is that what he did tell you?’ He seemed curious, not angry, but I didn’t have the courage to repeat the words the constable had said to me, however much they resonated in my mind.

I didn’t need to. Daniel said, ‘And did he tell you that you would be damned yourself for comforting a traitor to the Crown?’ He smiled slightly without waiting for an answer, and a hardness touched his eyes although I knew it wasn’t meant for me. ‘I can but guess what words he used when he did phrase that speech. I am no traitor, Eva.’ With a level gaze and even voice he faced me. ‘I am loyal to the rightful King of England, as my father was before me, and will be so for as long as I do live.’

I knew that he was saying he was loyal to James Stuart, still across the sea in exile, and I could have told him that there was no future in that loyalty because the Stuarts never would regain their crown, and all their dreams of restoration would be killed on battlefields and paid for with the blood of countless Jacobites. But if I told him anything, I’d interfere with what was meant to happen, maybe change what was to come, and that might have a far more devastating consequence.

He must have seen the conflict of emotions on my face, but he misunderstood their cause. ‘I promise you,’ he said, ‘I will let no one do you harm.’

I couldn’t hold his gaze. I looked away.

I hadn’t realized he was close enough to touch me, but he did. He reached out a hand to lightly take my chin and turn my face back round so that our eyes met, and he said again, more quietly, ‘I promise.’

I couldn’t speak.

Which probably was just as well, because at that same moment I heard Fergal coming back with Jack, and making noise enough to let us know it.

Daniel smiled and let his hand drop. ‘Damn the man,’ he said, without an ounce of violence. ‘Even now he is developing the instincts of a brother.’

He was right. For it was Fergal, in the end, who saw me safely up the stairs that night and checked in all the corners of my room before he left me, and stood waiting in the corridor until I’d put the key into the padlock he had given me and turned it to secure the latch.

And next morning it was Fergal and not Daniel who instructed me on how to do my hair.

He brought a looking-glass and pins into my bedroom, sat me down beside the window, and with hands that were surprisingly adept and gentle, showed me how to wind the strands in curls and pin them into place.

I asked him, ‘Is there anything you can’t do, Fergal?’

‘Likely not.’ He’d moved to stand behind me and I saw him now reflected in the looking-glass that I was holding, with his head bent, concentrating. ‘Though I’ll have to warn you this may not be in the latest fashion. I’ve not done this for some years, and even then I doubt I did it well. Ann used to say I made her look more like an ill-made bird’s nest than a lady.’

‘Ann?’

He’d caught himself, and in the mirror his eyes briefly flicked to mine, then down again. ‘Ay.’

‘Daniel’s wife?’

‘Ay.’ Silence for a moment, then, ‘When she grew too ill near the end to attend to her own hair I helped her, for she was determined that he would not see her as less than she wanted to be.’

I was holding the hairpins. I fingered one thoughtfully. ‘Was she ill for long?’

‘Ay, for some months. It started as a cough that would not leave her, and it wasted her away, and by the summer’s end we’d lost her.’

I was silent in my turn, because essentially that was how I had lost Katrina too. I knew the pain of it.

‘He’ll have my head for telling you,’ said Fergal.

‘Fergal?’

‘Ay?’

‘Could you… could you do my hair a little differently than you did hers?’

His hands stopped, and again his eyes met mine within the mirror for an instant and he nodded understanding. ‘I was thinking that myself, I was. Come, put that glass down and I’ll teach you how to do this back part, for we’ll not be fooling Jack for long if I’m here in your chamber every morning doing this.’

‘Where is Jack?’

‘He’s gone to fetch the horses back. Whenever we’re away we loose the horses in the paddock at Penryth where there’s a farmer who can see they’re fed and watered.’

I hadn’t even thought of the horses. They might have been starving in their stalls within the stable, and I wouldn’t have known. But when I confessed as much Fergal just said, ‘Well, you had other worries, I expect. And no harm done.’

I barely recognized myself when we had finished. All my hair had been piled up and fastened daintily, making a circlet on top of my head with a few curls escaping as though by pure chance. ‘I’ll never be able to do this myself.’

‘Ay, you will,’ Fergal told me. ‘’Tis nothing to facing down Constable Creed. Now then, put your pinner on your head,’ he said, handing me a modest-looking cap of soft white linen, ‘and we’re done with this fussing and on to the next of your lessons.’

‘What next lesson?’

‘’Tis sure any sister of mine should know how to cook mutton without setting fire to it, and at the least, how to season a stirabout. Our ma,’ he informed me, straight-faced, ‘would be scandalized.’