The Trials of Alaric (Twist Upon a Regency Tale #8)

Chapter Fourteen

B ea had the same idea as him. He could see it in her face as her eyes widened and a grin spread. “Narcissus,” she said, keeping her voice low. “He fell in love with his own handsome reflection. A victim, he, of beauty’s snare…Lost at a glimpse. Young man, beware…and then something about still water.”

Alaric nodded. He was grinning, too. It was the answer to the third clue. Now all he had to do was find the painting or statue or whatever it was that pictured the impossibly handsome young hunter of Greek mythology, who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool of still water.

“I know where it is,” Bea said. “I shall show you in the morning.”

“Your father doesn’t want—”

“Leave it to me. I will think of something.”

She would, too. My Bea can solve any problem put before her . His Bea? Not yet. He had to win the trials, or at least place in the top three. And he had to convince Bea that her future lay with him.

They were interrupted by Fairweather and Meadowsweet, the conversation became general, and then Alaric was assigned to take one of Beverley’s sisters into dinner. Even so, one part of Alaric’s mind kept thinking of ways to convince Bea he was the right consort for the Lady of Claddach. The kiss was all very well. No. That wasn’t it. The kiss had been amazing, spectacular, world changing. But Bea wouldn’t be swayed, he was certain, by further kisses, however exceptional. She was intelligent and focused, with a sense of responsibility for and to her people and her land. Kisses were nice, but hardly important to the running of an island. He would have to appeal to her mind—and especially to her sense of duty. Also, she wanted a partner. Not someone who would try to be earl in all but name, leaving her without an opportunity to use her knowledge and her acumen, but someone who would support her abilities while allowing her to be countess.

He’d rein his desire in, Alaric decided, and focus on how well they worked together. If he could, for his admiration and his desire seemed to set fire to one another—the more he respected her, the more he wanted to bed her. And that kiss had only reinforced his admiration for all her sterling qualities.

In the train of the British envoy to the royal court of Portugal in exile in Brazil, he had attended many a grand dinner. He could hold a pleasantly flirtatious conversation and handle successive courses without giving either his full attention. When it was time to turn to the lady on his other side, he did so.

In this case, she was the daughter of a man Lord Claddach called, “the biggest farmer on the island, apart from myself.” He had been introduced while they were in the line to enter the dining room.

“Are you having a pleasant evening so far, Miss Kewish?”

“Yes, Mr. Redhaven,” she answered, but more as if it was the polite response than with any enthusiasm.

Alaric set himself to find a topic that would relax her and encourage her to talk. “Were you at the fête, today? It was very crowded. I did not know the island had that many people!”

“I was,” she answered, and then confided, “I saw you there. I had a rose in the contest for best bloom.”

“Did you, indeed? Let me think. The lady who won was from the other side of the island. A neighbor, perhaps?”

“It was Mrs. Stean from our village,” she said. “Hers was very lovely, was it not? She was the one who first made me interested in growing roses, and she has been so supportive. I did not expect my rose to beat hers, but I am proud to have been a finalist.”

“That is why your name sounded familiar,” Alaric commented. “I heard it read out. I do apologize, Miss Kewish, for not remembering.”

“I daresay you heard a great number of names today, Mr. Redhaven,” she replied, making his excuses for him.

“Tell me about your rose,” he said. “Is it very difficult to grow them?”

That was all it took. She chattered away cheerfully, until she suddenly realized she had been doing all the talking. “But Mr. Redhaven, you cannot be interested in all this.”

“On the contrary,” he replied, honestly. “I love to listen to people who are truly knowledgeable about their topic. I have learned a great deal that way. Witness tonight. I had no idea that roses bloom more reliably on Claddach if they are grown on a certain root stock.”

He chuckled. “I cannot say when that will become useful, but if it does, I shall be sure to remember you, Miss Kewish, and be grateful.”

She gifted him with a sweet smile. “You are kind to say so. However, it is surely time for you to tell me about your driving passion. I am sure that you will be interesting, even if it is horses.”

Had Howard, who was on the lady’s other side, been prosing on about his horses again? “I do appreciate a good horse,” Alaric admitted. “I would not call it a driving passion, though. Perhaps I have not yet found mine.”

A fortnight ago, he would have said firmly that it was the land, and all the many skills and activities to do with getting the best from the land. Now, Bea Collister had moved to first place in his scheme of things. He wasn’t going to say that to a complete stranger, though.

“I have recently arrived at the Isle of Claddach,” he told her. “I was in Brazil learning how to be a diplomat, but I wasn’t very good of it.”

“Isn’t diplomacy about charming people?” she asked. “You seem charming to me.”

“Ah, but you are excellent company,” he replied. “Tell me more about Claddach. You live on the other side of the island, I believe.”

They conversed amiably until Lady Claddach stood to signal the end of the meal, and Lord Claddach stood too. “Dear guests,” he announced, “we gentlemen shall not take our port here at the table tonight but shall accompany you ladies to the ballroom. I, and I might add, my wife and my daughter, expect every gentleman to do his duty. And, you will be pleased to know, port shall be served in the ballroom. Onward, ladies and gentlemen.”

It was a pleasant evening, Alaric mused as he readied himself for bed, much, much later. He would have preferred to have been less tired when it began, but he thought he had acquitted himself well enough.

His experience in the diplomatic service had included dancing with every available wallflower and flirting with every elderly matron. He had practiced both skills tonight, until his feet were sore, and his face hurt from so much smiling. But he had been rewarded. Bea had granted him a dance and had gone in with him to supper—for which he had been well and truly ready after several hours of dancing.

And tomorrow morning—this morning, rather, for it was hours after midnight—she was meeting him in the garden to show him the statue of Narcissus. During supper, she had whispered his instructions for the morning. He was to meet her just outside the inner gatehouse, early, once the sun was above the horizon, but no later. He hoped the statue was in a private place. He would love to steal another kiss. While keeping a tight rein on his appetites, he ordered himself, sternly.

*

Bea walked through the garden with Alaric in the early morning light. Long ago, when Cashtal Vaaich had been the refuge for the whole island, what was now garden had been kept bare of everything except blades of grass. Any invader who made his way past the outer wall would find himself exposed to every archer and spear thrower on the walls above.

Cashtal Vaaish in those days had earned its name—Castle Death—for it had been death to approach it with hostile intent.

Vikings, Irish, Scots, Welsh—all had tried their luck, not once but many times. The Lords of Claddach and their warriors sat in their high castle, and in the hill fort that preceded it. They left the invaders alone, until one of the notorious storms of the Irish Sea swept through. Then, under cover of the rain and wind, the men of Claddach would attack and win back their land. Any who lived would be given a choice. Swear fealty to Claddach or die.

Only two men had ever taken the island, and both by marriage to the only child of the Lord of Claddach. The first had been a Norman knight, Turstin Fitz Waundrile. He had persuaded his wife to swear fealty to William II of England in return for being named countess, with her sons to be earls after her. From that day on, any invader risked facing English might, as well as Claddach’s own men and the temperamental weather.

The second was Jamie McAllister, who’d married the second Lady of Claddach in the fifteenth century. His surname, anglicized to Collister, remained the family name today. If Bea became Lady of Claddach, she would be the third countess in the seven-and-a-bit centuries since the first.

“The gardens were laid out in the seventeenth century,” Bea told Alaric, “after the restoration. There were gardens in Stuart times, but they were ripped up and the trees chopped down when the thirteenth earl feared invasion during the civil war. During the wars with Napoleon, we had plans to strip the grounds again. I am glad they were not needed.”

“I am, too,” Alaric agreed. “Your gardens are lovely.”

“Papa and some of the earls before him brought back statues from Greece and Rome after their grand tours. It is one of those we are going to see.” They were making their way around the castle. The path wound through trees on the edge of a sunken garden that bordered the inner wall. And here were the steps that led down into the garden.

“Was this the moat?” Alaric asked.

“A dry moat. My nurse said bears were kept in it, or sometimes, she said, wolves. Papa said it was more likely to be guard dogs.”

“A pack of hungry guard dogs would do a good job, I imagine, if anyone made it up the hill this far.”

“We investigated flooding it,” Bea told him. “If the French invaded. The spring further up the hill, on the other side of the castle, would fill it in a couple of days, Papa calculated. But the head gardener said the ground drains too freely, which is why it is not a pond instead of a garden.”

She turned a corner into the little garden within a garden she was looking for. “In spring, this garden is full of narcissus. The flower, that is. But I think that is what you are looking for.”

She pointed. The statue was of a naked man. He was leaning over to peer into a pool, with a knee on the pool’s wall, and the opposite foot on the semi-circle of paving that bordered the wall. The pool was against the outer side of the dry moat, and water trickled down through ferns, lichens, and mosses to fall into the pool, but the disturbance was all on one side. Directly beneath the statue’s marble gaze, the water was still.

The garden was still in shadow, since the sun was not high enough to shine its rays into this declivity, but in broad daylight, Narcissus would be reflected against the background of the sky. “Echo is peeping around the rock at the back of the fountain,” Bea told Alaric. “There. See?” The rocky backdrop to the pool was even darker than that pool itself, but she could just pick out the shape of the poor nymph who wasted away to just her voice, yearning for the man who could not look away from his own reflection to discover she existed.

“How on earth,” Alaric asked, “did your father expect us to find this statue hidden away here in the dry moat? Or have we got the wrong answer? No, this is it. It all fits, Bea. The trap of beauty’s snare. Love can kill. That might be a number of stories. But still waters?”

Bea considered his question. “He did not object to me helping you,” she pointed out. “Perhaps one of the tests is whether you gentlemen ask for help. I will say, before you ask, that you are the only one to ask me, but any Claddach servant—indeed, any number of Claddach’s people—will know the artworks as well as, or even better than, me.”

“I believe it,” Alaric agreed. “I’d swear the island folk were taking notes all day yesterday. During the steeplechase, too. Do you remember that your father arranged for us to come across a distressed woman and her cart?”

“Yes, and disqualified those who ignored her,” Bea commented. They shared a look of understanding. It seemed to Bea that Alaric leaned closer to her as if perhaps to kiss her but then he took a step back and looked down at the moat.

“I shall go to your father and name Narcissus as the answer to the third clue,” Alaric said. “Have you noticed that so far, they are all love stories, of different types? Unhappy ones. I hope that is not your father’s message!”

“We shall have to see where the other clues lead us,” Bea told him. He looked at her again and he seemed to struggle with himself before he stepped close once more.

“Bea,” Alaric asked, “May I kiss you again?”

She answered him by lifting her face to his and their lips met. It was even better than the last time, now that she knew what to do. The kiss—or rather, kisses—spun on and on, and she never wanted them to end.

During their first kiss, he had held her close to his body, but only his lips had moved. This time, his hands roved, sliding under the coat she wore to brush gently over her skin, to cup and stroke her breasts.

She knew where this was heading, and she wanted more. For long, exquisite moments, her body clouded her mind, and she could see no reason not to take what she wanted, but her mind was screaming at her about duty and Claddach. Perhaps Alaric had a similar struggle, for just as she managed to recapture the lost reins of her desire, he lifted his head and his hands stilled. Their eyes met and held. This time, she didn’t want to look away; she could stare into his gaze forever, she decided.

“We must stop,” he said.

“I know,” she told him.

He did not immediately release her. Just as well, for the strength only slowly returned to her legs.

“Just to be clear, Lady Beatrice Collister,” he said, “I am courting you. Trials aside, I can imagine no greater happiness than being your husband.” He kissed her nose.

Bea didn’t know what to say. She smiled instead and stepped away. “We should return to the castle,” she said. They walked back through the sunken garden, hand in hand.

It was all very well to say, “trials aside,” but the reality was she had promised to choose her husband from those who completed the trials. Of course, Alaric, to her mind at least, was one of the front runners. Still, she wasn’t going to break a vow over a kiss. She owed Claddach her responsibility and that meant choosing the right man to be her earl.

Bea had guessed at some of what the trials were meant to disclose. Organizing ability, courage, sportsmanship, determination, kindness, courtesy, ethics, imagination, the ability to work with others. All important qualities, she agreed. But would Papa find her a husband who could love her?

Which led to the question: Did Alaric love her? People, men especially, married for all sorts of reasons. And love might not be enough. She sometimes wondered if her own parents still loved one another. Her mother spent her time with other fashionable ladies, gossiping and carrying out light flirtations with idle gentlemen. Her father was absorbed in his duties to Claddach and to the House of Lords.

Even now, when Papa had been told that his time on earth was limited, Mama seemed more interested in being with her sister. Not that Mama knew about Papa’s illness. Papa had made Bea promise not to say anything, because he did not want Mama to worry, but surely, she could see for herself that Papa was not well?

Bea had never forgotten the conversation four years ago, when she was eighteen. Mama had been campaigning for months to have Papa force Bea to go to London for the Season. “The London marriage mart is no place to find a husband of real substance,” he had declared one day.

“But Claddach,” Mama had said, “I found you in London.”

Papa’s response had been a sigh. “Leave Beatrice alone, Mary,” he had said. “She is young yet. And when she is of age to marry, we shall find a way for her to meet men who will be up to her weight.”

“Up to her weight, indeed,” Mama had objected. “Men are not horses, Claddach.” But she had stopped bothering Bea about London and husbands, beyond the occasional wistful comment.

It would be easier if men were horses. One chose a stallion for a mare based on breeding lines, conformation, performance, temperament, and current progeny. Bea sighed.

“A penny for your thoughts,” said Alaric.

“A fleeting memory,” she replied. “Not worth repeating.” They were nearly at the door that would let them unobtrusively into the castle, and those were the first words they had spoken since he announced that he wanted to be her husband.

“The trials will be over in a few days,” she said. “I believe you will among those selected by my father as suitable for Claddach. I…” she hunted for words for a moment, settling on, “I am glad. I do not feel it right to make any commitments while the trials continue, but Alaric, I have helped no one else with their clues. I have allowed no one else to court me.”

There. But what would she do if he did not love her? For Bea was very much afraid she was falling in love with him.