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

Chapter Twenty

A laric and his party had been delayed in Birkenhead when Bebbington arrived, demanding the release of his sister. He had made such a fuss that those witnessing the altercation insisted on taking the matter before a magistrate. And the magistrate was out of town, and not expected back until after dinner.

They ate in a private parlor at the inn, none of them—except for the footmen—hungry. Alaric and Luke arranged for them to be fed in the public room, and when Alaric checked on them, they announced themselves well satisfied. Bebbington refused to stay, saying he would eat with friends and return later.

The magistrate, when he eventually arrived, dealt with the matter quite simply by asking Eloise. She immediately claimed Tarquin as her beloved husband and accused her brother of attempting to ruin her marriage for his own purposes. She even wept a little when she explained how much she missed her son.

Bebbington was clearly shocked. He left the magistrate’s house, muttering about ungrateful sisters and betrayal.

“He did not expect you to stand up to him,” Alaric observed.

“I never have,” Eloise said, simply. “But I love Tarquin, you see.”

“I am proud of you, my darling,” said Tarquin. “You were very brave.”

“Your brother will say too little, too late,” said Eloise, sneaking a peek at Alaric.

Alaric, who had been angry with Eloise for years, found he had no resentment left for her at all. He had never been in her shoes, but he could imagine that, if one had been abused and bullied since one was a small child, and told that it was for love, it would be hard to trust. “I say you were very brave, sister,” he said, and felt adequately rewarded when both Eloise and Tarquin beamed at him.

Back at the harbor, the fishing boat captain Sir Thomas had found to help them was itching to leave. “We’re cuttin’ it right close,” he said. “I dinna want to be out on the sea after full dark.”

“Too close?” Tarquin asked. “I know you need to return tonight, Alaric, but I don’t want to risk Eloise…”

“Neither do I,” Alaric agreed. “We are not going to make dinner, Tarquin. If we cannot get there safely tonight, we’ll have to go in the morning.”

Tarquin looked worried about that, too, and well he might. Who knew what Bebbington might try next?

“ Ee ,” said the captain. “We’ll do it right fine, good sirs. But mind you, we need to leave soonest.”

“We are ready,” Alaric declared. It remained only to be ferried out to the smack in a rowboat, and within fifteen minutes, they were underway. With the captain and a crew of two, Alaric, Tarquin, and Luke were also doing duty as deck hands, with the help of some of the footmen.

“If the wind holds,” said the captain, “I’ll have ye back in Bailecashtel well before sunset.” This close to midsummer, the sun was up until ten o’clock, which was in three hours.

The fishing smack held few comforts, but Eloise and her maid did not complain. They sat where they were told and tried to stay out of the way.

It was Eloise who noticed the boat that was following them.

“Just goin’ the same way as us,” the captain assured them, but Eloise was afraid it was Bebbington, coming after her. Tarquin didn’t mock her belief, and Alaric noticed that several of the sailors were also keeping a wary eye on the boat.

“They’ll not catch the Peggy-Rose , m’lady,” one sailor told Eloise. “She handles like a dream. Just a puff of wind, like we’ve got tonight, and we’ll fly all the way to Claddach. If the wind holds.”

The wind did not hold. In fact, it died entirely halfway through the journey, and then a fog came up out of nowhere.

“Isn’t that just like herself,” said the captain. “She’s a ticklish bit of sea, this one. One minute a storm, the next a fog and not a breath of wind. Keep a sharp look out, lads. Gents, I should say. We should be well clear of any rocks, but she’s a tricky one, and that’s for sure.”

Twice, a slight breeze came up—enough to ruffle the sails, but not to fill them even when the captain ordered this rope pulled and that one loosened. Each time, the fog cleared just enough to see the other boat. Each time, it was closer.

The second time the fog cleared, a man could be seen standing up in the prow of the other boat and shaking his fist. “It is my brother,” Eloise told Tarquin. Alaric was staring at the other sailors. One looked remarkably like Gorry. Then the fog rolled back between the boats, though the Peggy-Rose was afloat under a patch of sky, where the clouds were stained pink by the rays of the setting sun.

“Cap’n, look at they clouds,” said one of the sailors, indicating the skies to the left of the direction they were heading.

“Damn me,” said the captain, then bowed to Eloise. “Beggin’ yer pardon for me language, marm.”

“Is it a problem, captain?” Tarquin asked.

“I’ll not lie,” said the man. “I’d be right happy to be in Bailecashtel, with a mug of beer in one hand and a pie in the other, but there. If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride, as the saying goes. Here’s the thing. That’s a storm, or at least a squall. It’ll bring us a wind, coming straight at us from Bailecashtel. Now I’m not sailing straight into a squall, but I can use the wind to take us out of trouble and bring us safe to Dara, and that’s what I plan to do, not being wishful to risk the Peggy-Rose or your lady.”

He pointed in the direction of the other boat. “If they’re wise, they’ll do the same.”

Even as he spoke, a gust of wind buffeted the boat and set the calm sea tossing. The captain shouted some commands so fast that Alaric had no idea what he’d just been ordered to do. Fortunately, the sailor next to him told him which line to grab and pull, and in moments the boat had turned and was speeding at perhaps a seventy-degree angle from its previous direction.

For several minutes, Alaric had no time to look for the other boat, and when he did, it was not visible. The wind had whipped the fog to shreds, but the fast-gathering clouds, the setting sun, and the rain that came with the wind meant the patch of sea they could see around them grew smaller by the minute.

There followed a tense, scrambling, clawing, tugging interval of time, filled with the groan of ropes, the howl of the wind, and the slapping of waves on the fast moving, bucking hull of the boat. Alaric did what he was told and tried his hardest not to think about the last time he’d experienced one of the Irish Sea’s storms.

Then one of the sailors let out a glad shout. “The signal fires on Dara Sea Wall!”

The captain corrected their course and sailors did complicated things with the lines and sails, until Alaric could see, through the gloom, a fire on either side of them as they sailed into Dara Harbor.

“Any sign of Bebbington and the other boat?” Tarquin asked. But the boat did not follow them into the harbor, nor did it appear in the time it took for them to anchor, come ashore, and arrange for the anchorage with the harbormaster.

Things nearly turned pear-shaped again, when the harbormaster sent for the justice of the peace, for the Peggy-Rose had been reported stolen. However, when Alaric introduced himself and explained how they came to be bringing the stolen boat back to Claddach, the justice said, “I thought I recognized you, Mr. Redhaven. You did a grand job running the contests at the fête. Shouldn’t you be at the castle, wooing our Lady Bea?”

Which led to more explanations and ended with Alaric, Tarquin, Eloise, and Luke being invited to spend the night at the justice’s house. “And we shall give you a good sendoff bright and early in the morning, and so we will,” said the justice.

Tarquin escorted Eloise to the justice’s carriage, but Alaric and Luke took a moment to say farewell to the crew, and to thank them again. Alaric pressed a pouch of coins on them, glad that Tarquin had thought to share what he had brought with him.

“Sir, we’ve been paid for the voyage,” the captain protested. “And for our ferry fare home in the morning.”

“But not for your costs at the inn tonight,” Alaric pointed out. “Have a good meal and a drink or two on us and thank you again.”

“Aye, we’ll drink a blessing on you, sir,” the captain agreed.

“We would be grateful for it,” Alaric said. He was not sure whether their trip had been cursed—since so much had gone wrong—or blessed—since they had avoided disaster over and over.

The thought occurred to him again the following morning, as he stood on the bank of a swollen river, looking at the ruins of the bridge they had intended to cross.

“It was meant to be a simple journey there and back again,” he commented to Tarquin.

“It has turned into a bit of an odyssey, hasn’t it?” Tarquin replied.

Alaric stared at him. That was it!

“She keeps the hearth, defends the home.

“He far across the seas does roam.

“Which is her lord? The bow’s the test—

“Revealed, triumphant, still the best.”

Odysseus and Penelope. Surely. Clue solved! When he returned from his long voyage to find his wife besieged by suitors, and she agreed to marry the one who could draw her husband’s mighty bow. Odysseus, in disguise, was the only one to succeed.

Now all Alaric had to do was return to Cashtal Vaaich and find the image of the pair of them.

*

Bea’s sleep had been restless and disturbed. She woke heavy-eyed to the news that the suitors were attending the horse fair in the village of Duncarrick today, with instructions to buy a carriage horse for a lady and a horse suitable to pull a plow for the home farm.

“The ladies are not required to attend, my lady,” Eunys told her, “but can if they wish.”

A horse fair. It might be better than drooping around the castle all day, waiting for news of Alaric.

“My riding habit, please, Eunys. And let the other maids know to tell their ladies I will be going to the horse fair, and they are welcome to ride with me or come by carriage, if they wish to attend.”

An hour later, they all rode out—the four remaining suitors, Bea, Ellie, and the Hetherington sisters on horseback, and Mrs. Howard and her daughter, Lady Dashwood, Aunt Joan, Reina, and Christina in two curricles, one driven by Mr. Maddrell and the other by Mr. Whittington.

Papa and Lord Lewiston must have been up early, for they were already at the fair when the castle party arrived, as were servants from the castle, who were setting up a tent to provide shade, and in it chairs and refreshments.

The men went immediately to examine the horses on offer. The fair had also attracted peddlers, and Bea led the ladies toward the area where they had set up their stalls. Time enough to admire the horses when the auctions started.

Buying a horse was nearly the last trial. The very last was an interview with Papa.

Alaric and Luke had missed the horse buying. They had missed moving the bulls and driving a carriage, too, but Papa had decreed they had completed the first task on the day of the fair, and they had driven a carriage to Dara yesterday, so that would count, as well.

Papa had been testing the suitors for courage, common sense, prudence, and teamwork. That had been easy enough for Bea to work out. What did buying a horse tell him about the suitors? An eye for a good horse, she supposed. An even better test than the steeplechase of the sense not to be taken in by a showy animal with more flash than substance. What else? The ability to negotiate? A sense of ethics?

Alaric would pass, she was certain, if he were here. But he was not. Would Papa disqualify him from the trials because he was not back when he said he would be? Surely not without listening to him. But that was if he came back. Would he?

Did she want him to?

Her heart said yes, and it also said no. No, because he had hurt her by leaving. But surely, he had had a good reason?

The debate continued in her mind as she chatted with her friends, admired ribbons with her cousins, and exchanged commiserations with Ellie, who was as worried about Luke as Bea was about Alaric. Worried, only. Ellie did not seem to be beset by the same doubts as Bea. She was certain Luke would return and was imagining all the dire circumstances that might have delayed him.

“Luke loves me,” she told Bea in an undertone, though the others were totally absorbed in the antics of a monkey that was dancing to the tunes played by a man with an accordion. “He wants to marry me. He is coming back.”

Does Alaric love me? He kissed me. He wants to marry me—or, at least, so he said. But does he love me?

And when had Bea decided that she wanted love? She had agreed to the trials—had told her father she would choose one of the successful contestants who met with his approval. “Love will come,” Papa had promised her. “Marry a suitable man, and love will come.”

I want what Ellie and Luke have—what I think Reina and Maddrell are developing, but I want it with Alaric .

There. She had thought it, and now it could not be unthought.

“Of course, he will come back,” she told Ellie, remembering how Luke looked at Ellie when they were together.

“And Alaric will be with him,” Ellie assured her.

Neither of them mentioned that perhaps something had happened to both men, especially with the storm the night before, but Bea could see that knowledge in Ellie’s eyes, and Ellie must have understood that Bea was thinking it, too. She squeezed Bea’s hand. “Come,” she said. “The auctions are starting. Let us go and watch.”