Sweetbriar #2
We sent Jeremy for the surgeon, and the rest of us made our way up to the chapel.
Jack and Mr. Couch shared the task of carrying poor Dolly, who also had broken ribs and whimpered pitifully all the way.
They arranged her on the ground near the gap in the hedgerow, until Mr. Couch could come back with his pony cart.
The publican had hardly spoken three words since Goosevar was killed, and it seemed to me that he, too, was in a kind of shock. But he met my eye for a long moment before he left, and I knew he was remembering our conversation at The Wolf’s Head.
Though the weather had turned fine, a chill had settled within the stone walls, and Harker set Jack to building up the fire. Then the two of us went upstairs to make tea, and so that I could bind his ribs and hopefully give him some relief.
As Harker was removing his shirt, he said, “There is something I don’t think I can wait until later to tell you, Mina.”
The seriousness of his tone gave me a twinge of anxiety—even as I found myself transfixed by the baring of so much of his flesh.
“All right.”
At the tremor in my voice, he closed the distance between us and put his arms around me. I rested my hands on his rounded shoulders, and my heart began to hammer. I had liked touching him even when his flesh was cold. Now I thought it might be more than I could bear.
His chest expanded against me as he breathed. “Goosevar fed on the wife of my ancestor when she was with child.”
My own breath caught. “You’ve seen another of his memories.”
He nodded. “It seems the blood of a pregnant woman is especially potent. He nearly killed her and her child, but he made himself stop. He healed the wound with his own blood to hide what he’d done.”
A hard shiver went through me. “Was that what created the connection?”
“With her child, yes. Once I’d seen this, I kept sifting for more.
I knew it might be our last chance to learn the whole story.
He repeated this with each Tregarrick wife, using an enchantment, similar to the ones he used on you and Jack, to keep her from remembering the attack.
Do you understand what this means, Mina? ”
I swallowed over a tight place in my throat. “It means . . . it really is over?”
He smiled, reaching a hand to my cheek, and softly repeated, “It really is over. He’ll never threaten a mistress of Roche Rock again.”
“How can we be sure, Harker? I mean, we burned him. But he came back once before.”
“I have an idea about that.”
His thumb brushed my cheek, and I nodded. If I’d understood him, he was telling me we could truly be man and wife.
“You’re trembling, love.”
Again I nodded, because it was useless to try to speak, and he gently laughed.
Heat fountained in my belly as our lips touched.
His mouth moved over mine, hungry not for my blood, but for me.
His tongue slipped like silk between my lips, then out again.
His teeth—no longer sharp, but blunted like my own—took a gentle hold on my bottom lip, and I softly moaned.
He pulled me tight against him—and then gasped.
“Oh, Harker,” I laughed, stepping back. “Your poor ribs.”
I bent to examine them more closely. Purple bruises were already forming on one side of his rib cage. I could see the lines of bone below his skin, and I gently probed each with my finger.
“We should have the surgeon look, but they feel whole to me. I think the worst damage had time to be repaired before the end.” Goosevar’s end. “I’m sorry if I’m causing you pain.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever feel pain again,” he said in a coarsened voice. He covered my hand with his, stilling it against the plane of his abdomen. “But you had best stop now or we won’t be going back downstairs.”
My face and chest flushed hot. “Shall I bind them for you? If nothing else, it will remind you to be careful.”
He squeezed my hand before letting it go. “Thank you.”
My shift hung over a chair, from when I’d changed before the handfasting, and I found a pair of shears on his worktable. As I began cutting a long strip, he protested that he had a trunk full of clothing and linen that nobody was using.
To which I answered, “This shift is old and threadbare, and I’ll not mistreat any of your fine things to save it.”
“Then I shall buy you ten to replace it.”
As I knotted strips of cloth together, I said carefully, “When you went down to the water, it seemed you might have learned something about Ruby that gave you some peace.”
His eyes came to my face. “My father told me the truth. He dismissed her for her own safety. She didn’t take it well; I think she may have been in love with him. When he left her by the pool to recover, Goosevar killed her.”
My fingers stopped working as I gasped. “You saw the memory?”
“The complete memory of her murder to go along with the fragments I’ve been seeing the last sixty years.”
“I’m so sorry, Harker. But also glad that . . .”
“It wasn’t me? Yes. It’s taken a great weight from me.”
Once I’d bound his ribs, I made tea while he got dressed and dosed himself with an elixir of willow bark. We loaded a tray with cups, a teapot, and tinned biscuits and went down to join the others.
In the end, we told none of them anything of Harker’s affliction.
As Goosevar was responsible for the deaths, there seemed no reason to leave doubts in anyone’s mind.
It still bothered the constable that my own wound had been so different from the others, but again it was suggested that the attack might have been broken off early.
That I’d saved myself by wielding Mum’s cross, even if I didn’t remember it.
This was reasonable enough to be accepted by everyone.
Our talk of poor Mr. Roscoe made me wonder about him being left, ravaged, where anyone might find him, despite the fact Goosevar clearly understood that the killings placed him in danger.
I supposed there had been desperation in the attack, made in the open and so near the road.
My approach might have caused him to flee before he could cover what he’d done.
All of which reminded me how easily it might have been me.
Mr. Hilliard declared that he was obligated to tell the more senior policing authorities the truth of what he’d witnessed, and I didn’t envy him that.
I also didn’t like that it would probably mean we’d all be answering more questions.
But I thought as long as we told them no more than we’d told Mr. Hilliard, we’d be all right. Let them make of it what they would.
Harker would have to talk about Ruby, but here, too, the truth (or almost the truth) would likely serve.
She was his long-missing boyhood tutor, whom he’d recognized by her necklace.
The timing of things might be cause for concern, except that the constable seemed to think the fact of her remains being long in the water would make further investigation difficult.
The way Jack kept eyeing me during the questioning in the chapel told me he knew that I was hiding something.
I particularly felt his gaze when Mr. Hilliard made a teasing mention of “Tregarrick’s heroics to save his fiancée.
” Jack would not have forgotten Harker’s unnatural quickness.
My twin must also have been wondering about the nature of our strange bargain with Goosevar.
Thankfully he raised no questions in front of the others.
But as the two of us walked home together later—with Goosevar gone, there was no reason to invite scandal by living at Roche Rock before the wedding—Jack asked me, “Will you be safe with him, Mina?”
I remembered when Harker had asked me the same question about Jack.
“Anyone can see that he cares for you,” he continued, “but I know there’s something not quite right about him.”
“There was something not quite right about him,” I admitted. “But that changed when you killed Goosevar.”
He blew out a sigh. “I’m not going to ask how that can be. I don’t actually think you’d tell me. But if you’re certain . . .”
I met his gaze. “I’m certain. Can you accept that?”
He laughed and hooked his arm through mine. “I’m finished trying to control you, sister. I almost lost you over it, and it never worked anyway.”