Page 14 of The Dreaming Beauty
“Very good. Send word if you should need anything.”
“We have everything we require, sir.”
Mr. Taylor tipped his hat. It was the same conversation he had had with Mr. Treaver over and over again. He would not even recognize the dowager’s appearance if it weren’t for the occasional glimpse of her through the window or on her balcony. A wave of curiosity washed over him, as it often did when thinking of the strange but regal lady. Was it grief or fear or perhaps guilt that had led her to seclude herself? What other reasons did a person have to hide from the world? But she was not someone he needed information about in order to aid their country, so he shook the endless questions from his mind. Whatever her purpose, he would let her conceal herself in peace.
Back on his horse, he pulled his reins toward the Kemps’ tenant house. Several hours later, as the sun peaked in the sky, Marcus finished clearing the downed tree. He had chopped half the wood and would return again the next day to finish. The work was slow, but he found he enjoyed physical labor as a way of clearing his mind instead of his usual long hours spent cooped up in the library. He washed his hands in a bucket of water at the side of the house, rubbing the soft lard-based soap over his hands. He’d used working gloves but had still managed to dirty his forearms.
Mrs. Kemp invited him in to eat, but when he declined, she brought out a bowl of stew for him. “Thank you, Mr. Taylor.” She pushed a few stray hairs of silvery black back into her mobcap and gave him a grateful smile. The color had altered since last summer. He noted the dark circles under her eyes too. Did many masters of estates notice such minute details? Marcus often did, and how could anyone ignore such things? Each time it incited in him an urge to do more, to be more generous.
“You should have sent word, and I would have come sooner.” He took the bowl, ate a few bites, and moaned in a show of pleasure. “This is quite good.” It was nothing to the stew prepared by the cook at Ashbury Court. There was hardly any meat or potatoes, but he knew it was a generous offering considering the circumstances of this widow.
Mrs. Kemp smiled. “It’s a simple fare, but you worked up an appetite. Though, you know Jon would have taken care of it eventually.”
“I have the time.” Her oldest son, Jon, was only a few years younger than Marcus’s six and twenty years, but he worked in the fields from sunup until sunset and had little time for the maintenance around the home. Marcus finished his stew quickly, eager to be on his way to Rose Cottage. “I will be back tomorrow to finish, so do not bother Jon.”
He tucked his working gloves into his saddlebags and swung up onto his horse, pulling the reins in the cottage’s direction. An image of Tansy asleep on the library hearth drew his attention off the road. Why wasn’t someone so beautiful married? She wouldn’t have the best options in the small town of Whitfield. He tried to think of someone he might introduce her to, but the pickings were few with more women than gentlemen in the area. Not that it was his place, but as her only connection to the society here, he at least ought to help her and her aunts find a few more friends.
Somehow he managed to direct his horse to the cottage, even while his thoughts had been wrapped up in how he could help his new neighbors. The sight of the timeless little house made him bring his horse up short. He might have holes in his memory, but he knew this place well. The first time he had ridden past it, he had stopped his horse and stared, much like he was doing now. The others in town might think it haunted, but he had always imagined it the sort of place that made a man want to retreat to the country and never return. Why did he not dream of this place? He noted the freshly trimmed rosebushes and the heaps of branches piled on the side of the lawn, ready to be burned. The place had been vacant for far too many years, but it seemed the new tenants had been busy. It needed a family to live in it again, if only to resurrect its former charm.
He swung down and tied his horse to the old picket fence. After he finished Mrs. Kemp’s tree, he should come fix the lean in this fence and bring some whitewash over. He let himself in the gate and made his way up to the house.
The cottage door swung open when he was only halfway across the yard.
“Good morrow, Mr. Taylor!” Mrs. Wood called, holding the door with one arm. “Tansy and Daisy are in the back. If you fetch them, I’ll ready some tea and refreshments for your... what is it you are doing again?”
“Just a simple interview.”
“Oh yes.” She shooed him off as if he were a boy seeking a playmate.
He grinned. Her casual manner refreshed him. Most friends of his family were far too formal or stuffy for him to ever truly relax in their company. That happy musing stayed with him as he made his way around the house. The back lawn was empty, but he could hear voices where the hedge lining the end of the yard met a cluster of overgrown white willows.
Stepping past the hedge, he parted the willow branches cascading like a waterfall and sweeping the ground, only to find the Misses Whites—Tansy and Daisy—on their hands and knees. He came up behind them, curious about what would have grown women playing in the dirt. “Did you lose something?”
Both women shrieked at the sound of his voice.
Tansy leaped to her feet when she saw it was him. “Mr. Taylor, you frightened us!”
He opened his mouth to apologize, but the other Miss White crawled to her feet and latched on to his arm, pulling him sideways. “You cannot be here.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
Miss White released him after she’d dragged him a few feet. “You are lucky we are not finished here, or you would have died.”
He laughed, a sound he did not often hear from his own mouth these days. “I would have died? I hope you were not setting a trap for me.”
“I assure you my aunt would never harm a fly,” Tansy said with a hint of an obligatory smile. He had yet to see a real one from her and wondered how it would change the shape of her face. She was already so different from when he had found her, with her light-golden hair pulled back at the nape of her neck and her nightgown exchanged for a muslin dress of robin’s-egg blue. The only thing unchanged was her rare beauty.
“I am glad your aunt means no harm to me, but what about you, Miss Tansy? You are not hatching plans to rid the world of me? After all, I cannot share my scones with you if I am dead.”
The elder Miss White jumped in before Tansy could respond. “The threat was not in jest, Mr. Taylor. It was in reference to the fairies.” She pointed to the white rocks forming a semicircle in the dirt. “We’re making a fairy circle. And had it been finished and claimed by the sprites, you wouldn’t have lived to speak of it.”
Ah, the fairy talk again. This one was quite the enthusiast. Tansy cast him a worried glance before putting a protective arm around Miss White and pulling her back. He might think superstitions illogical, but she had nothing to worry about. He would play along so as not to embarrass her aunt. “Is that so? Might I ask why you are building one if it is so very dangerous?”
Miss White wiped her hands on her already dirt-strewn apron. “So we might see them, of course. I have waited my entire life to prove their existence to the naysayers, and this will do the trick. One must lure and coax them properly, you know.”
“Unfortunately, I know little about fairies. You might have to educate me.”
“You mean you’ve never heard any fairy legends? Not even as a child?” Tansy bent down and shifted a few rocks back into place that Marcus must have moved unintentionally with his feet.
