The forests were darker in Yorkshire, the trees taller, and in the distance she could see the towering ruins of an old building. She liked it, more than she would have expected.
“I’ll be perfectly fine,” she assured him, wishing she were quite so certain. “The Durhams know I’m coming today, and I’m sure they’ll be here before long.”
“That’s all right then,” the coachman said. “You watch yourself, then, lass. There’ve been strange goings-on around here, or so they tell me. The Dark Man’s been on the prowl, and young girls have turned up missing.”
“Missing?” Elizabeth echoed in a slight squeak. “Dark man?”
“Nothing for you to fret your pretty head about. It’s two hours till dark, and you’ll be safe and sound by then. And they say the ghosts are harmless old souls.”
Elizabeth’s panic began to fade. Dark men and missing girls could get her far too lively imagination in an uproar—ghosts were carrying things a bit too far.
“I’ll watch out for the ghosts,” she said solemnly, suppressing a smile.
“You don’t believe me,” the driver said mournfully. “Just as well. I’ve never seen them. Few do. With any luck you won’t even know they’re around.”
“And who’s the Dark Man?’
The driver shook his head. “Old fairy tales, Miss. Nothing for you to worry your head about. You’ve never been to Yorkshire before, have you? They’re a superstitious lot, and who can blame them? But don’t let it trouble you. Like as not you won’t see a thing out of the ordinary.”
“Like as not,” Lizzie echoed with dubious cheer.
“Well, all right then,” the driver said, as if life had been settled to his satisfaction. “Just stay here, don’t wander off into the woods, and you should be fine.” And before she could think of one more way to delay him he snapped the reins with a decisive gesture, and a moment later the coach had disappeared over the hill, leaving Lizzie Penshurst alone at the edge of the forest.
She shivered, suddenly nervous. Old Peg would be sorely disappointed in her. All her life Lizzie had wanted nothing more than to escape into the forest, away from proper behavior and stifling clothing and disapproving eyes. Now she was at the very edge of the wildest forest she’d ever seen, and she was silly enough to be nervous. This was an adventure, the kind she’d longed for, and she wasn’t going to waste her time with regrets. Fate and her own scandalous behavior had brought her here; it was up to her to make the best of it.
She squared her shoulders, smoothed her skirts, and sat down on her abandoned trunk, humming softly beneath her breath. Not a hymn, which would scandalize her father, but an old tune that Peg had taught her, about faithless lovers and found love. She could hear the wind riffling through the new growth of leaves overhead. Her father’s living was a good one, but she’d spent most of her twenty years in the county of Dorset, a much gentler, milder climate. It had been warm with the blush of spring when her father and stepmother had packed her onto the mail coach with stern warnings and strained affection. Their dutiful daughter had disgraced them, and the Penshursts were both hurt and mystified.
This afternoon the wind across the dales carried the memory of winter on it, and the towering trees were like nothing she had ever seen. It would get dark in another hour or so, she suspected. Her father had warned her of outlaws and highwaymen and heartless seducers, all of whom might prey on a young woman traveling alone. Not that she was the sort of female to attract heartless seducers. She was only passably pretty, obviously devoid of any generous fortune, with a deceptively calm, nonsensical manner guaranteed to frighten away most importunate gentlemen. And the unimportunate ones as well. She’d grown accustomed to it. She had no interest in gentlemen. She had no interest in anything at all but what she found in the woods surrounding her native village.
She’d spent her entire life in the market town of Wickham, and it was rare that she’d managed to escape her stepmother’s watchful eye and find her way into the forest. It was on one of those occasions that she’d first met Old Peg and changed her life forever.
But the gentle woods of Dorset were nothing compared to the wilds of Yorkshire. And as Elizabeth sat and waited for the carriage to come and carry her to Hernewood Manor, she couldn’t rid herself of the notion that the driver’s warning, while obviously well-meant, was just slightly unnerving.
She’d never met a Dark Man, though she could assume the driver hadn’t been speaking of a dark-skinned foreigner. She knew far more than any minister’s daughter should know of legends, stories of woodland creatures and sprites and piskies and even the Green Man himself, thanks to Old Peg. She’d never run across any magick creatures in the boring confines of Wickham, unless you counted Old Peg, who was reputed to be a witch.
But if one were to meet magic anywhere, this green and brooding place would be the spot to find it.
The light was fading now, and the wind had picked up, stirring the folds of her sensible merino cloak, tugging at her tightly coiled hair. She was very careful to keep it pinned close to her scalp, subduing its wild waves even if she couldn’t subdue its flame red color. She had brought only her plainest, dullest clothes. She was pinned and starched and tucked and covered, and no one would ever believe that one week earlier she had been caught dancing in a forest grove in the moonlight, barefoot, her hair rippling down to her hips, clad only in her shift.
She sighed. The scandal had shaken the entire town, and she knew whom she could blame for it. She’d always been very careful not to be seen when she ran off into the woods, but Elliott Maynard, who should have been in London, had watched her with a solicitude that made her ill. He had followed her, watched her as she shed the stifling layers of clothes and danced in the moonlight. And he had brought her father and a crowd of disapproving parishioners to bear further witness.
The scandal had been appalling. Mr. Penshurst had thundered, her stepmother had wept, her five half-brothers had alternated between outrage and amusement. And wicked Lizzie Penshurst had been sent away, banished to distant relatives of her poor, dead mother, as far away from Upper Wickham as could be managed.
Lizzie sighed. She had every intention of improving her wicked ways. She didn’t know what it was that called her to the woods, but she fully intended to ignore that call. She would be a quiet, helpful guest at the Durhams. She would be meek and subdued, and when it came time for her to return to Dorset, people would marvel at how docile she was.
However, she had no intention of being docile enough to marry Elliott Maynard, despite her father’s fondest hopes.
The wind was picking up a bit. Perhaps she was foolish to sit here in the middle of nowhere and wait. She couldn’t very well drag her luggage around the countryside, but she was young enough and quite strong and used to walking, even in the tight boots and layers of wool. She could follow the narrow road into the darkening afternoon—sooner or later she’d have to come to a village, or at least a farmhouse where they might send word to the Durhams.
But what had the coachman said, in the midst of his dire warnings about Dark Men? The nearest pub was no place for a young lady, and as the night grew darker she might very well lose her way. At least the market cross was a well-known landmark. Someone would have to pass by, sooner or later, and it was getting to the point where Elizabeth would have gladly welcomed an outlaw or a heartless seducer. And her father’s worst fears would be confirmed.
They had never thought that she would take after her mother, the wild and impractical Guinevere de Laurier. Elizabeth had always suspected it had been a relief when her beautiful mother had died of a wasting fever right after Elizabeth was born. William Penshurst had worshiped his well-bred, mysterious wife. He’d also been totally bewildered by her.
Adelia was a good, sturdy woman and loving stepmother, dutiful wife, wise counselor, and solid trencherwoman. She was perfect for Elizabeth’
s sober father. For nineteen years Elizabeth had done her best to belong. It was neither of their faults that deep inside she had always felt like a faery changeling in their neat and practical house.
It would have been better for everyone if she’d never run into Old Peg during one of her solitary rambles. If she hadn’t stopped to talk, only to have Old Peg fix her sharp eyes on her and announce in mysterious tones, “You’re one of the old ones.”
Considering that Old Peg was ancient and Lizzie was only just past her fifteenth birthday at the time, it seemed like a strange thing to greet her with, but Old Peg would never explain. Instead she told Elizabeth the tales of the woods, the old legends of Herne the Hunter, stories going back to the time before Christ, and Lizzie had listened, her determinedly dutiful, fettered soul enraptured by a world long gone that somehow felt like a lost memory she had lived in ages past.
Elizabeth had learned by then not to mention such things to her father if she wanted to keep the peace. She had helped take care of her five little brothers, assisted Adelia in the household duties, attended church with pious regularity, and kept her long, unsuitably red hair tightly coiled and her troublesome eyes chastely downcast. Except when she escaped the house, the watching eyes, and her confining life, and ran free.
All would have been well, and she would have slipped into the satisfyingly peaceful life of a spinster, had it not been for the Reverend Penshurst’s weasely curate. Elliott Maynard was a pale, soft-handed, wet-lipped man eager to rise in the world. While the Penshursts had little money, the daughter came from good stock, with a respectable portion. Certain physical drawbacks could be overlooked. Elliott’s courtship commenced immediately.
Unfortunately Mr. Penshurst approved the match. His dreamy daughter had always been a worry to him, and placing her in the care of another Man of God seemed the best way to assure her moral well-being. Mr. Penshurst considered it his duty to see the best in all of his fellow creatures, and he was serenely unaware that Elliott Maynard was a lecher, a bully, and a narrow-minded creature concerned less with his flock and almost entirely with his own betterment in society. He was also inordinately stupid.
When Elizabeth’s polite demurrals had given way to stern refusals, Elliott had simply presented his suit to Elizabeth’s father. And been warmly welcomed into the family.
Old Peg had been her only support. “Don’t marry him, lass!” she’d said in a hushed voice. “He’s not the man for you. He’s waiting for you.”
“Who is?” Lizzie had demanded, but Old Peg had refused to answer, closing her eyes and looking deep into the strange places where she always seemed to find the answers.
“The Dark Man,” Old Peg had muttered finally. “You have to face the Dark Man. It’s Him you’ll be wanting.”
That had been six months before, and her parents had kept on at her, determined that Elliott Maynard was the answer to her future. She might have been worn down, eventually, if she hadn’t gone to the woods one morning to find Old Peg still and silent, lying amidst the leaves, her long life finished with her secrets taken with her. And the next time, when Lizzie went to dance in the woods, Elliott had followed her.
Elliott Maynard hadn’t given up, despite Elizabeth’s shocking fall from grace. He considered her visit to her second cousin Jane in North Yorkshire to be a minor setback, and he was prepared to wait. After all, there were few men willing to marry an ordinary young woman with such strange and pagan habits. It didn’t matter that she had too clever a tongue and nothing more than a respectable portion. He could be patient.
He could be patient till hell froze over, Elizabeth thought with uncharacteristic violence, shivering in her thin cloak. She’d prefer the mysterious Dark Man to Elliott’s soft-handed bullying.
And here she was, at a crossroads, and nearby a Dark Man lurked in these ancient woods. A spawn of Satan or something else. Old Peg, for all her adherence to the Old Ways and the Old Religion, wouldn’t have sent her to the devil, would she?
She hadn’t heard a sound, only the ripple of the wind through the thick bower of leaves, the faint scurry of a small woodland creature. But she looked up, torn from her brooding thoughts, and saw him standing there, watching her.
He was no Dark Man, of that one thing she was absolutely certain. It had to be a mere trick of nature that sent one solitary shaft of late-afternoon sunlight down to gild his tall, silent form.
For a moment she thought he might be the coachman from Hernewood Manor, but there was no comfortable conveyance, no horse nearby. He was dressed in rough clothes—a coarse shirt, open at the neck, and dark breeches that might have been leather or wool. His hair was far too long, as if he hadn’t bothered to have it cut in years, but his face was clean-shaven. He tilted it to get a better look at her, and her breath caught in her throat.
His hair was a sun-streaked brown, his face tanned from the outdoors even this early in the year. His eyes were curiously light in his face, though she was too far away to see what color they were. His face was narrow, a watchful, clever face, and she wondered who he was. And if he knew about the Dark Man.
Her father had told her to beware strange men, and this still, silent creature who stood watching her was very strange indeed. But the darkness was closing in around them, and she couldn’t very well pretend not to see him.
“Hullo,” she said, and to her annoyance her voice wavered a bit.
He didn’t say a word. He simply moved closer. She stared at him in astonishment. He didn’t move like a peasant. He was the most graceful creature she’d ever seen and the most silent. He crossed the rough ground until he came very close to her, and she saw his eyes were a clear, golden brown in his cool, still face.
His voice was the biggest surprise of all. She’d been expecting the flat, broad Yorkshire tones she’d already learned to interpret. His voice was low, warm, beguiling. And she knew, instinctively, the voice of a gentleman.
“Who are you?” There was nothing rude in the question—he simply seemed curious to find a young woman perched on her luggage in the middle of nowhere.
“I’m waiting for someone from Hernewood Manor to fetch me. I don’t suppose you’ve seen anyone nearby?”
“Hernewood Manor,” he murmured. “That explains it. And would you be visiting Jane?”
He didn’t say Miss Jane, and Elizabeth wasn’t fool enough to correct him. Whoever this strange creature was, he didn’t fit in any of the normal, rigid social levels she was used to.
“Miss Durham is a cousin.”
“Indeed?” He sounded doubtful.
“Yes, indeed.”
“And why have we never seen you in these parts before?”
The conversation was beginning to make her as uncomfortable as the mysterious man. “And who’s to say I haven’t been here before?” she countered in a practical voice. “You might have just missed my presence.”
He shook his head. “I would have known,” he said simply. He glanced around. “It looks as if they’ve forgotten all about you. That’s not like them—the Durhams pride themselves on details and minding their manners.”
“I’m sure they’ll show up any moment now.”
“I could see what’s keeping them.”
She was frozen to the bone, and all her father’s warnings vanished with a shiver. “Would you?”
“There’s only one problem,” he said. “I don’t know your name. Shall I just tell them a mysterious young woman is waiting at the market cross?”
“Miss Penshurst,” she said. “Miss Elizabeth Penshurst.”
He tilted his head to one side, a strange expression in his golden eyes. “Miss Elizabeth Penshurst,” he repeated it, as if he were tasting the words. “Welcome to Hernewood, Miss Penshurst. Do you believe in magic?”
Stranger and stranger. “Not for an instant,” she said flatly. She wasn’t
going to believe in magic any longer, she’d promised her father, promised herself.
His faint smile was ever so faintly unnerving. “You will, Miss Penshurst. Hernewood will make you believe.” There was nothing she could reply to such an extraordinary statement. He moved back. “I’ll find someone and send them for you.”
He walked away—she knew he did—like any other normal human being. But it still seemed to her overtired, overactive brain that he melted back into the dappled sunshine, vanishing from view as the darkness grew deeper and thicker around her. She wondered if she was a complete fool to trust him. She wondered if she’d imagined the entire encounter.
Less than ten minutes later the jingling of a horse bridle set her mind at ease. The small pony cart came racing down the roadway, pulling to a stop in front of her with a great flurry of dust and stamping horse.
The young driver was almost as surprising as her previous encounter. Tall and lanky, dressed in an enveloping coachman’s coat, he jumped down and pulled off his cap, exposing a head of cropped black curls that was most definitely feminine.
“Dreadfully sorry!” she said in a breathless voice. “We thought you were coming next week!” She stuck out a large, well-made hand. “It’s Elizabeth, isn’t it? I’m your cousin Jane, you know.”
Elizabeth had risen, and she looked up into her cousin Jane’s plain, pleasant face. Her eyes were a warm brown, her black hair hacked off midway to her shoulders with a singular lack of style. But those eyes were the kindest eyes Elizabeth had ever seen in her life, and her smile was equally welcoming.
“Call me Lizzie,” she said. “You can’t imagine how very glad I am to meet you.”
“Yes, I can,” Jane said cheerfully. “This place is a wee bit strange for those who aren’t used to it, and here we were, forgetting all about you. My father will have my head for this.”