A mouse scampered along the baseboards and Mary hurled the pillow from her bed at it. “Get out of here, you pest.” The mouse disappeared into a hole and Mary picked up the pillow. “I don’t know if we’re overrun with mice or if the same one keeps pestering us. It’s not as though you can easily identify one from the other.”
“That one looked like it had a cut in its side,” Eleanore observed. “Maybe it had a battle with a cat. From now on you’ll be able to tell if it’s the same one.”
“Yes…well…sleep now, girls,” Mary said as she lay back on her bed fully clothed.
The light stayed on in Lord Liddington’s area. Eleanore peeked above her pillow and smiled at him again. She counted the minutes until Mary began to snore. The sisters knew Mary was a sound sleeper. Through the years they’d gone to her room to rouse her when one or another of them was sick in the night, and they had found it impossible to wake the snoring woman. They were counting on her deep slumber this night.
Once her thunderous snores became regular, Eleanore reached under her bed and found the jug of cider Ione had taken from the kitchen earlier. Into it, Eleanore had poured the contents of a silken packet containing a mix of some powder with finely chopped herbs.
The night before Eleanore had asked her stag escort for a concoction to induce deep, deep sleep, and he had gone away and returned with this packet. He had shown her how to mix it in a liquid-filled cup until it was totally dissolved.
Reaching under the bed again, she pulled out two goblets. She threw off her blanket and slid out of bed. With one deep breath to steady her nerves, she sauntered over to Lord Liddington and pulled the drape over the door closed behind her. “Hello, Lord Liddington,” she said.
“Call me Edgar,” he replied. He sat back in his chair and appraised her merrily. “What have you got there?”
“I thought we might share something to drink, Edgar,” she said, setting the goblets down on the nightstand beside the basin and pitcher.
“No wine for me,” he replied. “I must stay sharp and see what you bad women are up to.”
“It’s only cider,” she said, offering him the open jug to smell.
He took hold of her outstretched arm and drew her toward him. Wrapping his other hand around her waist, he pulled her down so that she was sitting on his broad leg, his eyes twinkling at her.
Eleanore couldn’t help but respond to him. She caught a scent of pine on his clothing and it stirred something within her. She found that she was inclined to lean up against him seductively, a move he gladly allowed.
He began planting small kisses along her neck as he stroked her collarbone. “Tell me, my lady, where have you and your sisters been going at night?” he murmured seductively to her. “Tell me so that I might marry you and we can do more of this in the privacy of our own home.”
Eleanore was enjoying his touch and his offer tempted her. She saw herself with him, alone, embracing and kissing, their bodies pressed against one another for endless moments without interruption.
Then she thought of what she would be losing: her nightly dances on the underground island with its mystery and luxury. She pulled away from him slightly. “Let’s have some cider,” she suggested. “My lips are parched.”
“We can’t have parched lips,” he agreed with a chuckle as he poured the tainted cider into the goblets. “You need lips that are moist and kissable.”
She took the cup and pretended to drink as he drained the contents of his goblet. “This is good cider,” he commented.
“Have more,” Eleanore offered, refilling his goblet. She noticed that a dull, unfocused look had developed on his face as he drank the second cupful in one long gulp.
After he’d finished, he grabbed her around the waist with both hands. “You are the most boo-ti-awful creature I haf ’ere seen,” he said, his words now badly slurred. “An’ ah mus haf ye.”
With surprising strength, he tossed her lightly onto the bed behind them and stood, regarding her hungrily with bleary eyes. In the next second, he lunged at her on the bed, knocking her flat against the mattress—and began to snore noisily.
Eleanore was pinned under his heavy, inert body, unable to free herself. “Sisters,” she hissed, afraid to wake him. “Sisters, help!”
She heard a scuffling of feet and her sisters appeared, giggling by the bedside. “I see that he found you irresistible,” Isolde teased.
“I think he’s cute,” Mathilde said.
“Don’t be idiots,” Eleanore scolded. “Roll him off me.”
They were able to lift him enough so that Eleanore could slide out from underneath. He didn’t even sputter as they shoved him, and they had no fear that he would awaken. Eleanore covered him with a blanket and left him there to sleep.
She put on her slippers and grabbed a lantern as the others pushed the bed aside. One by one they descended into the opening in the floor. Looking wistfully over her shoulder at Edgar, Eleanore followed them down into the dark tunnel below.
She could not stop thinking about Edgar, Lord Liddington. Although he was a nobleman, there was an earthy quality about him that had strongly appealed to her. He’d said he’d marry her too. It flattered her that she was the one he would have chosen and made her like him even more.
All thoughts of Edgar flew out of her mind, however, as they came into the glowing cavern and Morgan’s enchantment once again took hold of them. Her nightgown transformed into an opulent, jeweled ball gown and her long hair twisted itself up into an elaborate coif of braids and ringlets.
The six golden barges appeared in the middle of the glittering lake and silently approached. With their minds clouded by Morgan’s enchantment, the sisters welcomed the sight of the stag princes, seeing them only as dashing figures who would usher them off to a night of dancing and frolic. They were liberators, come to free the girls from the drudgery of their daily lives.
After they had enjoyed another night of fun, they returned at dawn and cautiously approached the opening in the floor.
Isolde was at the head of the line. She raised her head over the floor, peering around the room, then she ducked it back under. “Mary is still snoring, but I don’t hear Lord Liddington.”
“Do you see him?” Eleanore asked.
Isolde checked. “No,” she reported.
Eleanore wondered what they should do. If the sleeping potion hadn’t held and Edgar had managed to rouse himself, she didn’t want him to catch them coming up out of the floor—although now that the effects of the enchantment were wearing off, she realized that she wouldn’t have minded entirely if that happened.
“Blow out your lights,” she instructed her sisters in a low tone. “Go up quietly and check if he’s still in his bed.”
Nodding, they doused the lights and proceeded to climb out of the opening. Moonlight pouring through the bedchamber window made it possible for them to see where they were going.
Eleanore was just lifting herself over the floorboards when she heard Isolde’s terrified yelp. She, along with her sisters, hurried to Isolde’s side.
Edgar lay on the bed, flat on his back and no longer snoring. His ruddy face had grown unnaturally pale. “He’s dead,” Isolde whimpered.
Eleanore shoved past her and shook Edgar’s shoulder violently. “Edgar!” she shouted frantically. “Wake up!”
She thumped his chest with her fists. “Wake up, Edgar!” she shouted more loudly into his ear.
When she still received no response, she jumped back, her hand over her mouth in horror.
Isolde had been right. He was dead! She’d killed him!
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Rowena Objects
Rowena was standing by the bedchamber window when two man servants carried Lord Liddington out on a pallet. When they had awakened Mary and told her that the man was dead, she’d hurried off in a panic to inform Sir Ethan.
Sir Ethan had returned to the bedchamber with Mary and, upon examining Lord Liddington, determined that he still m
anifested a faint heartbeat.
“Thank God!” Eleanor had gasped.
Their father had looked at her sharply. “Do you know what has befallen this man?” he challenged suspiciously.
“No,” Eleanore had lied quickly. “I’m just glad he lives.”
“He is barely alive,” Sir Ethan had grumbled. “I will bring him to rest in a spare bedchamber and summon a doctor.”
“Now will you cancel this absurd contest?” Mary had asked him, wringing her hands anxiously.
“Not at all,” he’d told her. “It is more important than ever before to discover what is going on in my very own home.”
“Very well, sir,” Mary had agreed obediently. “Shall I have the girls line up their slippers for your review?”
He glanced around the room and saw the ruined slippers scattered about just as dirty and torn up as they were every morning. “Don’t even bother!” he’d grumbled angrily as he left.
Now, as the door slammed shut behind the departing servants carrying away the comatose Lord Liddington, Rowena turned toward the window. She could see Bedivere below her, gazing up at her window. A shiver ran through her as she wondered what she would have done if it had been him that they’d poisoned with their sleeping potion.
She crossed the room to where Eleanore lay on her bed, deep in thought, and sat on the end of the bed. “It’s over, you know,” she said.
“What’s over?” Eleanore asked, propping herself up onto her elbows.
“We can’t poison another man,” Rowena pointed out, a note of incredulity in her voice. Wasn’t this fact obvious to Eleanore?
“We didn’t poison him,” Chloe disagreed, joining them on the bed.
“He’s just still sleeping off the effects of the potion,” Helewise added as she came closer along with the remaining sisters.
“His heart was barely beating,” Rowena reminded them. “We couldn’t even see any breath coming from him.”
“But he didn’t die,” Bronwyn insisted.
“I’ll add water to the potion,” Eleanore said decisively. “It will weaken it so that the next man will wake up in the morning.”
“But what if he doesn’t?” Rowena argued. “It’s a huge risk to take.”
“He will,” Eleanore snapped at her irritably.
“Of course he will,” Ione said, and the rest of the sisters murmured their agreement.
Rowena scowled at them angrily and returned to her own bed. What was wrong with them? How could they gamble with a man’s health like that? What if they put the next man in the same sort of living death as Lord Liddington? What if they actually did kill the next man to come through?
What if the next man was Bedivere?
Just as her sisters did, Rowena knew the lure of the island, the pull to go toward it, no matter what. It was a strong urge offering the reward of instant pleasure, the powerful feeling of being attractive, and the thrill of the dance. Her sisters, though, seemed more powerfully caught in its thrall than she.
Right from the start, she’d hung back; she’d had reservations and misgivings. Perhaps, she considered, it was because her need for the things the island offered was not as great. She, of them all, was the only one who knew what it was to be kissed by a man, to feel herself desired and even loved. She did not need a fantastical stag prince to spin her around a dance floor. She would have much preferred to dance with Bedivere.
Still…there was a need that compelled her to go with them through the trapdoor each night. She had been staring into the bowl she’d found that day in the forest, the one in which she’d seen the figure Eleanore had said was their mother.
The island had made her sisters forget about finding their mother, but she hadn’t forgotten. Every time she went through that opening it was with the intention that she would not go to the island. Instead, she would search the cavern and underground passageways for her mother. But each time she got into the cavern, the enchantment would pull her like some hypnotic spell and she would forget her quest just as her sisters did.
Rowena took the bowl out from under her bed and stared into it. It began to glow. She was tempted to alert her sisters but instead she kept her concentration on the light, resolved to discover what it might reveal.
The woman appeared again.
Leaning closer, Rowena saw that she appeared to be floating, her long hair dancing at the side of her face, her gown flowing around her. She reached out and gathered together a handful of small lights. Cupping them between her hands, she reached out, presenting the twinkling lights.
The lights…could they be…the sparkling lights in the lake?
As the golden glow faded from the bowl, Rowena looked up and was faced with her sisters who had been observing her curiously. “What did you see?” Brianna asked.
“I think our mother is trapped below the lake,” she told them.
“For all these years?” Bronwyn questioned doubtfully.
“Wouldn’t she drown?” Cecily added.
Rowena recalled what Bedivere had told her. He was searching for a magical figure in a mystical lake. “Our mother wouldn’t drown if she were the Lady of the Lake,” she said as the truth struck her.
“Our mother?” Mathilde questioned with a small laugh of disbelief. “Are you saying that our mother is the Lady of the Lake?”
Rowena nodded. “Yes. I have come to believe that she is.”
“Has someone told you this?” Eleanore asked suspiciously.
Rowena could not tell them about Bedivere, how he sought the lady who so perfectly fit the description of their missing mother. But the more she considered it, the more certain she became. “No one has said anything to me,” she lied to Eleanore, “but it makes sense. It explains why I seem to see her in water—why I am seeing her at all. She is contacting me through her magic.”
“Or perhaps you are contacting her through inherited magic of your own,” Bronwyn offered seriously. This sobering thought made Rowena draw in a slow, quavering breath. She supposed it was possible, recalling her visions of Bedivere.
“If that’s so, how do we free her?” Brianna asked. “We swam in the lake. We even dove below the surface, and we didn’t see her.”
“I don’t know,” Rowena admitted.
At that moment Mary entered with a basket of fresh, new slippers. “How is Edgar?” Eleanore asked her eagerly.
“Who?” Mary asked.
“Lord Liddington,” Eleanore explained.
Mary began distributing the slippers to each sister. “The physician has come to see the poor man. He’s doubtful that Lord Liddington will awaken any time soon, if ever.” She stopped and looked at them searchingly. “Girls, what happened? I was awake all night, and I didn’t see or hear anything.”
The sisters would have laughed at this had the situation not been so dire.
“Maybe he had an illness before he got here,” Eleanore suggested.
“Well, then heaven knows what this next man will bring in with him,” Mary muttered.
“What’s he like?” Chloe asked.
“He’s a poor, coughing madman,” she told them. “Just the other day he came begging at the front gate, wanting a meal. I sent one to him, but he didn’t even have the sense to wait for it.”
“Why did father give him a number?” Brianna asked, complaining.
“He turned him down but someone must have given a ticket to him,” Mary said. “You girls better hope he doesn’t get to wed one of you, though I dare say that he’d be quite handsome if he wasn’t such a mess.”
Rowena’s hand went to her throat as she realized who Mary was talking about. Bedivere! Her beloved would come in and be the next to fall prey to the poisoned goblet her sisters would insist on offering him.
Should she tell them about Bedivere, explain to them this was the man she loved more passionately than life itself?
She waited for Mary to leave and then spoke to her sisters. “You cannot hurt this man,” she insisted. “It’s wrong!”
>
“What’s he to you?” Eleanore asked. The subject seemed to make her irritable now and her voice was sharp.
“I have seen him from the window,” she said cautiously, still deciding how much to tell. “He seems like a good man.”
“What did he do, wink at you and win your heart?” Chloe teased.
“And what if he did?” Rowena replied.
“The beggar?” Mathilde questioned.
“A person’s fortunes may rise or fall as the wheel of fate spins,” Rowena answered. “But a person’s character remains constant.”
Eleanore got off her bed and approached Rowena in a bullying, dominant manner that Rowena didn’t care for. “I will dilute the potion as I said I would, but I will not have some beggar exposing our nightly pleasures to our father.”
“And what if I tell him where we go?” Rowena countered boldly.
“If that is your intention I will tie you up and shove you in the closet,” Eleanore threatened.
“Let’s not fight,” Isolde intervened. “Rowena, the man will be all right. Eleanore will dampen the potion and he will awake in the morning as he should.”
Rowena walked toward the window and gazed out. If she did reveal their secret to Bedivere, their father would seal up the opening and she would have no chance of searching for their mother.
There was a possibility that her father might take up the search himself. But what if he didn’t believe her?
She wished she could be sure of what to do, but at the moment her mind spun with indecision.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Bedivere Takes His Turn
Bedivere tied a hammock he’d made from a discarded horse blanket between two trees, and tried to sleep. He managed to slumber for brief moments, but he was too anxious to give in to completely unconscious sleep. He had to know if the first man to enter, a strapping, well-dressed fellow, would come out of the manor.
At dawn he opened his eyes and saw a physician entering through the front gate with a servant from the house. He worried that something had happened to Rowena and could sleep no more. He began to glance anxiously up at the window for a sign of Rowena but didn’t see her.