Chapter 11
June 18, 1851, Blaugdone Island, Rhode Island
“It’s our best choice.” Hulda spoke in her most monotone, authoritative voice. The one she usually pulled out for her daughters. “I’ve already confirmed it with her, besides.”
Owein managed to suppress most of his sigh, though it streamed from his nose like the last pump of a blacksmith’s bellows. It was so easy for people to mistake him for a child, even if this body was technically adult. He didn’t want to lend to the image. “I’ve stayed home before. I usually stay home.”
“It isn’t safe,” Merritt said at the same time Hulda glanced at Fallon, who perched, human, on the farthest dining room chair, and declared, “Absolutely not.”
Owein wanted to argue. He was good at arguing. Hulda had been an adept teacher. But he saw the strain in her forehead and the exhaustion shrinking Merritt and found he didn’t have the heart for it. Striking a compromise, he offered, “Beth, then. Can I go with her?”
He didn’t miss the flash of hurt in Hulda’s eyes. At least, he was fairly certain that’s what it had been—she schooled herself so quickly even a clairvoyant would have doubted herself. She glanced out the window, the same one Silas Hogwood had shattered right before pulling Owein’s spirit from the walls of the house, though the Babineauxs’ residence wasn’t easily viewed from there. Beth, Baptiste, and Henri weren’t traveling with the Fernsbys, and no one could blame them. They hadn’t been Silas’s target, and it was better for them if it remained that way. The three were going to Delaware, to stay with Beth’s parents. “Of course, if that’s what you want.”
He nodded, but just then, Hattie screamed upstairs. Pattering feet immediately followed, and Mabol shouted down, “She chewed on my dress! Daddy! She chewed on it!”
A wail punctuated the exclamation. Rubbing his eyes with his right hand, as Blightree had mended the break in his collarbone, Merritt pushed off the wall he’d been leaning on and started for the steps. “I’ll go check on the girls.”
“I’ll come to Cambridge with you,” Owein amended, meeting Hulda’s gaze before glancing once toward Fallon. He didn’t like spending time with the Tanners, but this was his family, and the Fernsbys needed him more than the Babineauxs would. Hopefully, this would all be over in a fortnight and they’d be together again, same as always. “We’ll both come with you, unless you’d rather go home, Fallon.”
Fallon snorted. “And leave you to get yourself killed?”
He hated the hope that leapt within him at her refusal. It would be better for both of them if she went home, however much he wanted her to stay.
Hulda bit her lip, but whether her uneasiness was from the idea of Fallon coming with them or the reminder of the threat on their lives, Owein wasn’t sure. Regardless, he set a hand on Hulda’s shoulder, meaning to comfort, before jogging up the stairs.
Lord Pankhurst emerged from the girls’ bedroom as Owein reached the top. He pushed Mabol ahead of him; she was red-faced and had her short arms folded tightly across her chest. “I offered her a different dress,” Pankhurst tried, looking out of sorts. His hair was mussed on one side of his head. “I’m trying to move them quickly. Merritt went off to see to the babe.”
Owein managed a tight smile. “I think you might be better suited to the watchmen.”
The Queen’s Leaguer nodded gratefully and hurried down the stairs and out the door, eager to get away from the mess. Owein wondered if he had a family. And if he did, if he usually left looking after the children to his wife and a nursemaid.
“We can wash your dress.” Owein picked up Mabol, took her back into her room, and sat her on her bed. Hattie was already playing with blocks in the corner, the confrontation forgotten.
“I want to wear it today .” She sniffed.
“But if you wear it today, you’ll only get to wear it for a few hours.” Owein picked through the girls’ half-packed suitcase, counting the clothes there. “If you wait until tomorrow, you’ll get to wear it all day, and your cousins will get to see it. By the time we get to Aunt Danielle’s tonight, they’ll be asleep.”
Mabol considered this as Owein selected two comfortable dresses and another set of undergarments to pack in the suitcase. For Hattie, he just grabbed the first things in her drawer. She wasn’t old enough to care yet, thank God.
“Okay,” the three-year-old agreed shakily. “I had a vision. I wear the dress tomorrow.”
Owein didn’t believe her, but he nodded just the same. “Excellent choice.”
Merritt came up then, Ellis on his shoulder and clean diapers in his hands. Owein left the rest to him and headed to his own room. He didn’t want to leave Blaugdone Island. It felt like retreat. But if leaving kept his loved ones safe and saw Silas Hogwood behind bars—or better yet, dead—then he’d gladly sleep in Danielle’s house for the rest of the year.
He found a bag and started shoving shirts into it, not caring that they’d be wrinkled by the time he got to Cambridge. His packing proved easy; he didn’t have any special toiletries or petticoats to worry about, though he did stuff Frankenstein into the side of his bag before cinching it closed.
A creaking floorboard announced Fallon’s arrival.
“You don’t have to come.” He glanced at his desk, but the Tanners had writing implements, should he need them. He snatched up Cora’s letter and pushed it under the stack in his wardrobe before securely shutting the doors.
“Are you trying to get rid of me?”
Shoulders slumping, Owein turned toward her. “Hardly. You’ve only just gotten back.” He ran a hand through his hair. “But it’s dangerous. And I don’t think you’re comfortable here.”
Fallon glanced into the hallway before stepping into his room and gingerly shutting the door. “I don’t think that’s really why.”
Owein paused. “I ... We need to talk.”
Nodding, she stepped away from the door. “Hulda treats me like I’m a woman of the night.”
“She doesn’t think that.”
Fallon shrugged.
Owein lowered himself to his bed. “I want you to have options.” He wiped a hand down his face. “I’m sorry. This is just ... it’s a lot.”
She perched delicately beside him. “I know, mo ghrá . I’m sorry.”
“I don’t know that one,” Owein said. Fallon often called him a chara , meaning “my friend,” but he knew so little Irish he couldn’t begin to piece it together.
“ That one is what we need to talk about.” She squared her shoulders. “I’m not sorry I did it, Owein. And you shouldn’t be sorry, either.”
“I’m not,” he answered, cupping his hands around his knees. “I am, but I’m not.”
Fallon combed back his hair with her fingers. “They only want you as a breeding stud, you know.”
He flinched. “Please don’t say that.” Cora, her letters ... It wasn’t like that at all. At least, not anymore.
“I’m sorry.” And she sounded it, too, withdrawing her touch, though Owein leaned into it even as she did. “I’m just ... making my case.”
“You don’t need to make a case.” Reaching over, he clasped her hand in his. “If it weren’t for that ... I probably would have a long time ago.”
He knew he would have. Every time Fallon had left the island to fly back home, he’d wanted to sweep her into his arms, beg her to stay, kiss her lips. But he never had.
“You said it wasn’t absolute.” Clacking footsteps in the hall announced Hulda had come up the stairs. Fallon lowered her voice. “The contract, I mean.”
“There’s a mercy clause. Cora can end the betrothal if she chooses someone else her family approves of,” he explained, his own voice going raspy. A wizard, it meant, who could add to the family bloodline. “She hasn’t told me either way.” He’d learned that aristocrats had a hard time saying what they meant; they preferred to talk wide circles around a topic and leave everyone guessing. Cora didn’t seem like that—not with him, not in her letters—but there was simply no way of knowing.
Guilt swirled in his chest. He didn’t know what he wanted the answer to be. If Cora were here , this would all be so much easier. She’d feel real. He would be able to see her and touch her and understand his own feelings, his trepidation. But Cora wasn’t here, and Fallon was, and Fallon filled up so much of his heart and brain he couldn’t think clearly.
“Do you like me?” Fallon asked.
Owein sucked in a deep breath and let it out all at once. “Very much so.”
She touched his chin, coaxing him to look at her. When he did, she planted a whisper of a kiss on his mouth, sending shivers back through his jaw, down his neck, and across his shoulders. “Then just like me, Owein. It’s as simple as that.”
Was it?
Hulda’s feet strode by the door again, toward the stairs. Time to go.
Owein stood. “Don’t turn back. You’ll exhaust yourself.” Now that Fallon’s secret was out, she stayed human around the family, but she still shifted into a hawk to survey the island multiple times a day. Owein didn’t point out the circles under her eyes.
She stood as well, sweeping hair off her shoulders. “I’ll bird up when it’s time to go so I don’t cost a fare ticket.”
“Blightree is covering it.”
“I don’t mind.”
Owein masked a frown, searching her green eyes, looking over her high cheekbones and smooth skin. Just like me. As if it were hard. As if it were even a choice to make.
He crouched and found a second, smaller bag under his bed. “Where’s your other dress? I’ll pack it.”
“I’ll get it.” She turned for the door, then hesitated. “What did Cora send you?”
Owein pressed his lips together to hide the tight emotion climbing up his throat. “Only a letter, in the box. And all the help she could muster.”
Fallon nodded. She’d never asked him for the private details of Cora’s letters. Never asked much about her period, for which Owein was grateful. Then again, perhaps she didn’t stay away from the topic for his sake, but for her own.
She slipped into the hallway.
Owein let out a long breath and steeled himself. Part of him wanted Fallon to go home, where Silas couldn’t touch her, but another part of him was grateful she’d be with him, helping him sort through the thoughts he couldn’t bring himself to share even with Merritt. He didn’t want to burden his family with more worry than they already carried. And because he did like her, and wanted her, regardless of how much it hurt to like and want her.
Quietly thanking the Lord for Fallon, he grabbed the bags and hurried downstairs to leave instructions on his dogs’ routines and say goodbye.
Then, they’d sail for the mainland.
The sun was setting by the time they crossed the bay, giving the world enough light to clearly see them. But Viola Mirren had a very particular set of skills that had landed her in the Queen’s League—specifically bred, which she freely admitted when Owein had asked. She was an elementist of water and a conjurist of storms, or specifically the pressure that caused one. Owein had previously had no idea such a thing existed. Even Hulda appeared impressed.
Mrs. Mirren reached into a pouch and pulled out a handful of things: a few iron orbs, a small string of pearls, beads of snowflake obsidian. “An offering.” She held them out in her palm. Owein understood as soon as Mirren ignited her spells, creating a heavy fog. The water spell would claim moisture from Mirren’s own body, but conjury claimed something the ether, or perhaps God, deemed equal to the cast. Owein watched, fascinated, as two of the iron orbs and two pearls from the string faded into nothing.
The fog would conceal their passage, should Silas Hogwood, or anyone working for him, be watching. Owein doubted the man had lackeys—he’d approached the house alone, and in such disarray. He’d pointed out as much. Merritt had merely stated, “Better to be safe,” and remained quiet the rest of the journey.
From Portsmouth, they crowded onto the kinetic tram for Boston and then hired a carriage—courtesy of Blightree—for Cambridge. They arrived near ten o’clock, but the Tanners’ windows were alight with candles. Danielle, still dressed for the day, rushed out of the house the moment the carriage pulled up.
“Oh, my dears! How absolutely dreadful!” She clasped Hulda by the shoulders, then patted Ellis’s soft hair. “I hope the travel wasn’t too dreary.”
“Softer, for the children,” Hulda murmured as Merritt approached with a drowsy Mabol in his arms. Owein shifted Hattie’s weight against his shoulder and searched the darkness for Fallon’s hawk form, but didn’t see her. “But thank you,” Hulda finished.
“Oh, the poor dears.” She squeezed Mabol’s ankle before spying Owein and hurrying over. “Owein! You’ve grown yet again!”
While the Fernsbys visited the Tanners about twice annually, Owein had managed to avoid Cambridge for a year and a half. “As one does.”
He tried not to grimace as she pinched his cheek, then whipped her hand back. “Oh my. You even have whiskers.”
Stifling a groan, Owein started for the house. Merritt, covering for him, said, “Puberty was thorough with him. We so appreciate your hospitality, Danielle. Where would you like us to put the children?”
“Oh. Oh! Of course. You must be exhausted from the trip. And your collarbone!”
“Healed by a good friend,” Merritt assured her.
“Truly? I want to hear everything.” She gestured toward the house. “Let me get you some tea and a soft chair. Come in, come in.”
She took Hulda by the elbow and guided them inside, where her husband, John, wearily greeted them. Owein didn’t mind John; he was quiet and only spoke if he had something relevant to say. He said nothing now. Owein took Mabol in his other arm before following a maid to the nursery. Mabol went down like a doll; Hattie stirred, but Owein rubbed her back until she settled.
Only then did he notice their father standing in the doorway.
Merritt sighed as Owein stepped into the hall. “I hate this.”
“We all hate it. We’ll hate it together. At least you’ve got your arm back.”
Merritt rubbed his eyes. “At least that.” Lowering his hands, he glanced down the hall. It remained empty. “We need to talk about Fallon.”
Frowning, Owein leaned against the opposite wall and folded his arms. “What is there to say, Merritt? I’m aware.”
“I know you are. Hulda ... is concerned.”
“Hulda is always concerned. She wouldn’t know what to do with herself if she didn’t have something to concern herself over.”
A soft chuckle passed his lips. “True.” He sobered. “There’s nothing in the contract about fidelity, Owein—”
Something about that word clenched his gut. “I can’t be unfaithful to someone I haven’t courted, Merritt.” He dug a knuckle between his brows. “I don’t even know if it’s me.”
“You?”
“Victoria put in that clause.” He looked away, ignoring the trepidation, the uncertainty, the ache he didn’t understand.
“Ah.”
They stood there, across from each other, for a long moment. Danielle exclaimed something unintelligible downstairs. A floorboard in another room creaked. Owein tilted his head, listening.
“You still do that,” Merritt said.
“Do what?”
Merritt tilted his head to mirror him. “Little mannerisms, here and there. Very canine-like.”
Owein straightened his neck and shrugged.
“Do you love her, Owein? Fallon?”
He let out a long breath through his nose. Very quietly, he answered, “I’ve loved Fallon for a long time.”
Merritt nodded. “I thought so.”
And they left it at that.
The Tanners had graciously turned their eldest boy from his room to give Owein a space of his own—making this the first time Owein had come to Cambridge and not been relegated to the nursery. It was a narrow space with a narrow but elegant four-poster bed in it, and an equally narrow set of drawers against the wall. It smelled faintly of molasses and lavender. A small, circular window looked out onto a wooded area. Two unlit candles sat in a streak of moonlight. Owein ignored them.
He melted away the far wall with a touch of his hand and leapt down into a flower garden. He needed to get away from the mess of things. Needed a respite. The cool night air was a balm to his thoughts, and the steady thrum of crickets relaxed his nerves as he walked without any real destination, so long as it was away . There were neighbors to the north and south, so Owein ventured east. He’d been over these grounds before, but it had been a while, and it was dark. His dog eyes would have pierced the shadows better than his human ones, but those weren’t an option at the moment. Fortunately, the moon shined high and bright, and Owein soon found a path winding between sporadic copses of hemlock and white oaks. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he listened to the night, studying the sounds layered beneath the obvious ones—sounds his dog ears had always picked out easily. He heard no other footsteps, no other stirring besides that of a rabbit and a handful of squirrels. He’d only ventured about a quarter of a mile when he saw the silver orb of the moon reflecting off the still waters of a pond. He remembered this pond.
When he reached its bank, he unlaced his shoes and pulled them off. Stuck his socks inside, and his coiled suspenders with them. He only undid the top three buttons of his shirt before jerking it off over his head, folding it into a lopsided rectangle and setting it on a patch of clover. His trousers came off next. He didn’t bother folding those. His drawers stayed on.
Leaping from the bank, he dove into the pond headfirst. The cold shocked his skin, but his body adjusted by the time he resurfaced, shaking water from his hair and swirling his legs to stay upright. Moonlight rippled and warped off the top of the pond. He swam closer to the edge, to where his feet touched down to the silty mud, and dunked his head under again. He stayed in the murky darkness for as long as his lungs would let him before popping up and slicking back his white hair. He stared up into the night sky, emptying his mind, listening to the sloshing of water against the bank.
As he watched the twinkling of a particularly distant star, the first thought to emerge in his mind was Did Oliver know how to swim? If the boy were here with him now, would he have come in, or told Owein it’d be better to stay in the house with the others?
The thought immediately chilled him more than the pond did. Oliver had died from drowning.
A second splash erupted in the center of the pond, breaking through the haze of his mind. The sound startled him, but the presence didn’t.
Fallon’s head emerged some ten feet away, her long locks floating on the water’s surface. “You okay?” she asked.
Her voice sounded so eerily sweet, her Irish lilt joining the cricket song carried on the breeze. Like she was the Lady of the Lake from King Arthur’s time. Like she belonged here, and she was granting Owein a gift by letting him be this close to her.
“Not really,” he answered, picking up his feet and floating back until his butt hit an underwater rock. He half sat on it, cool water lapping around his shoulders, raising gooseflesh in its wake. “Are you?”
“Not really.” Her nose touched the pond’s surface as she swam forward, bronze arms pushing the water behind her. “I’m so sorry, Owein. For all of this.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It’s not that kind of sorry.” She hovered three feet from him now, water lapping around her chin. She swayed with the movement of it, like a lily pad. “There will always be a place for you with the Druids. For all of you.”
He pushed a water skeeter away. “I don’t think that’s a solution.”
“Maybe not now,” Fallon countered, “but it’s an option. You would do a lot of good with the Druids.”
He watched her dark silhouette a moment, the moonlight swaying on the water around her. “Is that why you came here, Fallon?” She’d brought it up enough over the years to make him wonder. “To recruit me?”
She hesitated a couple of seconds. “It’s not why I stayed.”
He nodded half-heartedly, then pinched the bridge of his nose. A headache was forming in the center of his forehead. He needed to take his own advice and rest, but resting felt ... counterintuitive, however much logic demanded it was not.
“What can I do?” she asked.
He lowered his hand. Studied her shadowed face. Wished he had a light to better see her by—the curve of her nose, the lines of her cheeks, the brown flecks in her eyes. The moonlight glinted off the whites, but cast her irises black. “Just be here.”
She smiled and lifted her arms. “Voilà.”
He laughed. She always could make him laugh.
She floated closer, and closer still. Owein merely watched her, basked in her, which was invitation enough. Her lips against his were a warm contrast to the cold water, as were the shivers they sent through his jaw and down his neck. He touched her face, tracing her cheek with his thumb, running his fingers down her water-heavy hair. She tilted her head and nipped at his lower lip, turning those shivers into sparks.
It was at about that moment that Owein realized she was naked.
But of course she was naked—she’d traveled here as a hawk. Her dresses were packed with Owein’s things, and she didn’t have undergarments to swim in. She would hate swimming in them, besides. Fallon was a free spirit. Part of nature, like a doe or a bee. And does and bees didn’t wear undergarments.
But his was all that separated them. That, and a few inches of pond water.
He grasped her shoulders and broke the kiss, though his heart physically wrenched when he did. A few more inches of pond water poured between them, which was a good thing, because Owein didn’t know how Fallon would react if she discovered all he was hiding beneath the pond’s surface. “Maybe we shouldn’t,” he whispered.
“This again?”
“This is an entirely different reason for why we shouldn’t.”
She raised an eyebrow and tilted her head in a very birdlike manner. “Do I make you nervous, Owein?”
“No.”
She floated forward and pressed a chaste kiss to his lips. Owein cemented himself to that rock, ensuring he wouldn’t do something he regretted. Still, when she pulled back, he leaned forward and kissed her again, tentatively exploring her the way she had done with him. She tasted the way the forest smelled, clean and alive and green.
She laughed against his mouth.
“Am I so bad at it?” he asked against hers.
“Hardly.” She licked the seam of his lips and pulled away. “You’re only contrary.”
“I’m being prudent. You are very naked.”
She barked a laugh. “So?”
“So?” he repeated.
She shrugged, forming new ripples in the water. “All of the Druids swim naked. We don’t care.” She paused. “Did you wear clothes when you were a dog?”
“No, but—”
“Then why should we?” She splashed him.
Wiping water from his face, he countered, “Because we’re not animals.”
“Aren’t we?”
Moonlight took a devilish gleam in her eyes. She sank into the water until even her hair disappeared. Seconds later, she resurfaced five feet away. Glanced back at him, then dove again, this time swimming the length of the pond.
Owein smirked as he watched her, but the lightheartedness of the moment slowly warped into guilt.
He cared for Fallon. Deeply. But his talk with Merritt niggled at his mind. He was supposed to marry Cora . He’d signed his name on the contract himself.
Fallon had argued before that it was only a piece of paper, but it was more than that, wasn’t it? Then again, as Merritt had pointed out, there was nothing in his marriage contract that had stipulated he needed to stay away from other women, or even stay abstinent. By all means, Victoria just wanted his seed to bolster the aristocratic line.
That thought sank the guilt deep into his chest, edging it with shame. Cora doesn’t want you for your “seed,” you idiot, a quiet voice in the back of his head chided him.
He thought of the letter she’d sent him. Of the honesty in it. She didn’t owe him any of that, but she’d given it freely. They both did.
But Cora wasn’t here. She was never here . Her life was so very different from his, and so very far away.
Fallon resurfaced again, and Owein felt a pull toward her like Odysseus must have felt toward the sirens. In that moment, the Druid woman could have asked anything of him, and he would have given it to her. But Fallon said nothing, merely skipped a rock across the surface of the pond. It bounced five times before sinking.
So Owein let it go—all of it—and swam in the moonlight, letting the water and the wood and the open sky absorb him until he was so weary he dressed in his trousers only and padded barefoot to bed, a dark-furred terrier trotting faithfully beside him.