Elmwood #3
Yes, walking was necessary, and even had it not been, there was the dog to think of.
On the first night, Elmwood had ignored the dog, who then shat on his rug.
At that point, Elmwood had asked Nimsby to take care of the creature, but Nimsby had snorted, left the room, and then disappeared for two days, during which time Elmwood was forced to fend for himself.
He couldn’t get the beast of a kitchen hearth to do anything except smoke, so he and the dog ate their way through a massive jar of pickled carrots and were half-starved and frozen by the time Nimsby turned up again, acting as though he’d never left.
Elmwood didn’t think either of them would survive another abandonment, so he didn’t broach the topic again.
So, walks it was. Each day, Elmwood forced himself out of bed, then he and Rollo wandered through the shabby brown gardens behind the house and past the unused stable, carriage house, and other outbuildings until they came to a little trail through the woods.
Spring was slow to start, so the ground underfoot remained a dreary carpet of dead leaves.
If he looked at it for too long, it reminded him of the grim roads that ran endlessly through his dreams at night, torn to ribbons by countless hooves plodding and carts dragging and men marching.
Almost a week after his arrival at Merewyth, he set out with the dog for their daily walk. It was a much warmer day than the one before, and he noticed that little white flowers had bloomed across the forest floor like a small miracle. The dog immediately urinated on one.
“Stop that,” said Elmwood. “You’re pissing on nature’s glory, and I won’t have it.”
The dog tilted his head to one side.
“Yes, I mean you.”
Rollo barked once, then dashed away.
“Come back here!” shouted Elmwood, to no avail. “Come back at once, or there will be no more walks for you!”
He hurried after the dog as quickly as he could manage, rounding a bend in the trail in time to see the dog totter along the edge of a steep ravine.
The little beast seemed to have spotted something in the trees beyond it—a badger, Elmwood supposed—and Elmwood was about to try to reason with him and recommend stepping back from the edge when the dog jumped forward, tumbling headlong over it and directly into whatever lay below with a little remorseful yap.
Winthrop was going to banish Elmwood himself, or possibly worse, if Elmwood allowed all his grand plans to die in a heap at the bottom of a ravine. With this thought in mind, Elmwood crept as close to the edge as he dared and peered down.
“Yip!” barked the dog, delighted to see Elmwood—though Elmwood could not imagine why.
The dog was not dead. He had managed to land unscathed a good ten feet down upon some jagged rocks. Now he was wagging his whole body enthusiastically.
Relief flooded Elmwood. It was not, he thought, that he had any fondness for the inane creature. It just would have been so unpleasant telling Winthrop he’d accidentally killed the beast.
He did still have a problem. There was no way the dog would be able to climb back up to Elmwood, and there was most certainly no means by which Elmwood could descend to retrieve him.
Perhaps if he went far enough along the edge, there would be a spot where it grew less steep?
The very thought of it made his hip ache and his spirits disconsolate.
Perhaps he ought to fling himself down onto the rocks and have done with it.
“Is something amiss?”
Elmwood turned and saw a woman approaching him.
No, he corrected himself immediately. This was not a mere woman, but rather a vision of delights.
She was almost as tall as he, with the promise of a luscious figure hidden beneath her tucked-up petticoats.
Her thick black braid was wound round and round her head and made him immediately imagine uncoiling it slowly and then running his hands through the waves of her hair.
Her skin was a shade of brown a bit darker than sun-burnished, and with her little laced-up waistcoat and a large wooden bucket slung over her arm, she looked for all the world like a milkmaid from a lusty broadside.
Though there was nothing girlish about her; this was a woman grown—around five-and-thirty, he would guess—with knowledge and wit in her eyes.
Those eyes: they were huge and dark and had little lines at the corners.
Most people would characterize Elmwood as a rake, and they were more or less correct.
It was true that he had been something of a wayward lover to an excessive number of people.
Though he had received no complaints from anyone who merited the right to an opinion, he would be the first to admit that while he excelled at matters of bodily pleasure, matters of the heart had eluded him for some time.
In his youth, it had been a different matter.
Back then, he couldn’t meet a beauty of any sex without offering up his heart to them, along with his libido.
Wanton in every conceivable way, Elmwood had fallen for anyone who seemed inclined to be kind to him with every morsel of his dubious soul and body.
Experience and time had eventually schooled him to keep his heart, if not his hands, to himself.
Then there had been Relance. Now he sincerely doubted that there was enough of his wizened heart left to love even a badger hound. To be honest, he was not even entirely certain he retained the adequate humanity to be a good bedfellow.
But for this apparition of a woodland milkmaid, his dead heart gave a little stutter. No, that was a romantic fancy. It was only his cock waking up for the first time in an age.
“Have you lost something?” she said, and he noticed that her voice was low and melodic.
He wanted it to whisper things into his ear.
He wanted to write her terrible, sincere poems that perhaps she could keep tucked away in her bosom while she…
milked her dryad cows? Or whatever it was forest milkmaids did.
He marveled then at how good it was to feel something other than pain, regret, disillusionment, or despair.
“Yes,” he said, attempting to dazzle her with one of his more alluring smiles. “As a matter of fact, I seem to have misplaced a dog.”
She walked over to him and peered down over the edge.
“Ah, yes, I see. Your badger hound is stuck in my crevasse.”
His neck grew hot. Was she…flirting with him? By means of bawdy innuendo? When was the last time someone had made him blush? This required him to make an effort. He quirked an eyebrow.
“In truth, I don’t think my badger hound is stuck in your crevasse, precisely. I think he dove into it willingly and is reluctant to withdraw.”
How would she respond? He took a step toward her.
How was she managing to maintain such a serious expression while toying with him?
She even frowned at him a bit as he drew closer.
She’d be excellent at cards. Did forest milkmaids know how to play cards?
He’d like to teach her to play. Preferably in bed. Wearing as little clothing as possible.
“Perhaps I could help you pull him out,” she said dryly. “Unless you’d prefer to leave him in there?”
He chortled, and she seemed surprised by it. Well, not everyone could keep a face as straight as hers while engaging in such banter.
“As reluctant as I am to withdraw anything from your lovely crevasse, there is no one I would rather have assist me in pulling him out.”
She was beginning to look…confused? Oh, no…had he been misreading their exchange?
“Let me see if I can lure him into my pail,” she said, and he was afraid that he had indeed heard innuendo in her words when there had been none intended.
Then she said, “Here, hold these, will you?” and extracted several absolutely enormous, phallic mushrooms from the bucket she carried and waved them in his face.
“There won’t be an inch of room for your badger hound in here if it’s full of these.
” Thank all the saints and kings, the game was on! He hadn’t misunderstood after all.
“With pleasure, lady, though I’ll admit, I was rather hoping you’d hold mine instead of the other way round.”
He was pleased with that one, but she seemed not to have heard and was already stepping over to the edge of the ravine again.
She unbuckled her belt, which was long and wrapped twice around her waist, and there was a heady, buzzing second where he thought she was disrobing here and now in front of him.
He was about to toss her mushrooms to the ground and tear his own clothes off when she stopped after the belt, and instead attached it to the handle of her pail.
Oh. She was actually helping the dog. Well, quite right. Rescue first!
He watched intently as she got down on her knees and bent forward to lower the bucket over the ledge.
“Name?” she said.
“Elmwood,” he replied, indulging in the fantasy that, soon, she’d be moaning it.
Her head shot back up and she frowned.
“The dog’s name.”
“Oh. Um, Rollo.” He should have realized that was what she meant.
He also shouldn’t have given her his real name.
Winthrop had told him to lie low, after all, but Winthrop hadn’t known that Elmwood would meet a flirtatious, forest-dwelling milkmaid.
Surely, he would grant Elmwood a dispensation for lust-induced stupidity, given the circumstances. But one thing irked him.
“How did you know the dog’s name wasn’t Elmwood?” he asked.
“Rollo!” she called down into the ravine. “Hop in! Get in! That’s a good boy! Hop in! Yes!”
Then she was pulling on the belt, the bucket breached the edge, and the badger hound tumbled out beside her.
Rollo jumped on her, showering her with sloppy kisses.
Elmwood wanted to do the same and was about to hop right to it when she turned to him, rising to her feet, and said, “I knew that Elmwood was your name, not the dog’s.
I’m afraid I have you at a bit of a disadvantage. We are neighbors, you see.”
Neighbors? “Do you mean you’re my tenant?” he said, hoping this wasn’t the case. Tenants were much like staff, in that one couldn’t be sure if they were fucking you because they liked you or because they didn’t want to find themselves evicted.
“You haven’t got any tenants at Merewyth,” she said.
This gave him pause. He supposed he had known that, but then…
“Who are you?” he asked, with a sudden sense of unease creeping over him.
“Lady Hildegarde Croft.”
Croft. Croft? Oh no.
The name sent him tumbling headfirst into a memory: the image of a man sneering down at Elmwood from atop a charger. Elmwood clung to it desperately, lest he slide from there into even worse recollections. Duke Engelbrooke. The Western Harrier.
He forced his attention back to the present with every ounce of will he had.
Surely this vision of beauty couldn’t possibly be married to the Harrier? Surely fate would not be so unkind—either to her or to Elmwood.
“Croft?” he managed.
“Lord Thorgoode Croft is my husband, my lord,” she said. “Though I don’t know that the two of you have had occasion to meet.”
Well, thank fuck for that. Thorgoode must be the youngest of the brothers Croft, not the elder one who died and irresponsibly made his horrible brother a duke.
Regardless of which Croft was her husband, he ought to make his excuses and flee.
She was exactly the sort of person he was supposed to be avoiding at all costs.
In his experience, ladies wielded gossip as power—rightfully so—and the last thing he needed was news of his whereabouts being spread around.
Though perhaps word of his situation had not yet reached these parts?
In any case, there was no use pretending, as she already knew who he was.
“My lady,” he said, doing a half bow. “Lord Elmwood, at your service.”
“Yes, I know. Will you be visiting the neighborhood for long?” said Lady Croft, not returning the bow. Well, perhaps it was silly to be formal when she’d been flirting with him shamelessly mere moments before.
“Only a short visit,” he said.
“Well,” she said, visibly weighing something in her mind before continuing, “do you think you might do me the honor of joining me for dinner at Croftholde during your visit?”
That was an encouraging sign. She’d hardly ask him to dine if she knew he was a filthy Charmer on the run from the law.
Though it was quite brazen of her to ask him like this.
She ought to send someone to Merewyth with a formal invitation, and he ought to decline it with a polite excuse.
Winthrop would want him to decline—insist upon it, even.
Would it really be so unwise for Elmwood to accept?
The fact was, the thought of dining with her had caused a strange sensation to bloom somewhere beneath his ribs. It felt remarkably like looking forward to something.
“Will Lord Croft be joining us?” he asked.
“No,” she said, lowering her eyelashes. “He’s away, I’m afraid.”
“Away, you say?” Wait, was she flirting with him again? She certainly had been before, and now she was spontaneously inviting him to come to her home while her husband was away. In Neck, that would almost certainly be flirting. Not to mention the mushrooms.
“Are you free tomorrow night?” she said.
So soon? Definitely flirting.
“It would be my pleasure to dine with you at your earliest convenience, Lady Croft.”
He reached out and took her hand, intending to kiss it.
Instead, when he touched her, a strange sensation ran through him like the static from a wool blanket on a dry winter morning.
She had a Charm. Touching someone else with a Charm was the only thing that felt like that.
In Elmwood’s life, he had encountered only a handful of other Charmers, as far as he knew.
Most of them had been killed off by order of the king five hundred years prior, and the Charm thrill was the main way they’d been hunted down.
For one Charmer to catch out another with a touch was beyond intimate.
It was very rare, and still very dangerous, even if it was no longer a death sentence by law.
He tried to school his surprise. She didn’t manage to control hers, her mouth forming an adorable circle of shock.
She pulled her hand out of his abruptly, stepping back.
“Until tomorrow night, Lord Elmwood,” she said.
It was only after she’d disappeared into the forest that Elmwood realized she had forgotten her mushrooms.
Winthrop and good sense be hanged, Elmwood would dine with her if it was the last thing he did.