Adam let Bronwyn go, and she turned to the woman. “My sister was ill. Mab will be along later, and for this brief visit I decided to trust Lord Keane.”
“Did ye now?” The woman examined Adam with a critical gaze. “No doubt ye could trust him with yer life. But with yer virtue?” She twisted her thumb down and turned profile in the doorway. Her belly, swollen and waiting to be delivered of its burden, gave a visual warning more potent than words. “Don’t let yer trust carry ye too far.”
Nudging his wife behind him, John sputtered and apologized. “Ye’ll excuse Gilda, m’lord, she’s in th’ last stages an’ taking advantage o’ me soft nature.”
Adam grinned again and without words invited Bronwyn to share his amusement. She couldn’t help herself. She responded. In the radiance of his pleasure, she realized Gilda’s warning came too late. Bronwyn would trust Adam. Trust him with her life, trust him with her virtue, for no better reason than an instinct that claimed him as hers.
“Look at the flames licking out of those barrels.” Standing on the top of the knoll, on top of a rock, Bronwyn clapped her hands like a child given a sugar plum. “Why do they roll them down the hill?”
Adam stood below and watched her excitement in the flickering light of the bonfire. “It’s a tradition,” he said, as he’d said so many times this evening.
“Have they always done so?”
Smiling faintly, he said, “I suppose. You’ll have to inquire.”
The idea was parent to the action. Holding her skirts, she leaped from the rock. Adam thought he heard a ripping sound, but, unperturbed, she bounded to the fringe of the bonfire. Giving way good-naturedly, the villagers closed behind her. They’d come to like her as she cheered the marbles and the wrestling. She’d laughed until she cried as the boys struggled to hold a greased pig, and she’d not taken offense at the curiosity of the villagers for Adam’s betrothed. She’d drunk ale with them, chatted with them, thanked them for inviting her, and she’d made them her adoring disciples.
Now she had to yell to have herself heard above the roar of the conflagration, and Adam moved closer to hear her say, “You make a bonfire. You fill barrels with flame and send them down the hill. What other things do you do at Midsummer?”
To his surprise, the villagers laughed in a knowing fashion.
One of the men, well fortified with liquor, said, “Well, this is a great time t’ drink ale.”
“How so?” she asked.
“’Tis church ale, an’ all th’ profit from th’ brewing goes t’ th’ church.” His bushy eyebrows wiggled. “’Twouldn’t be reverent t’ refuse a drink.”
He staggered sideways. “I can see you’ve done more than your share to support the church,” Bronwyn teased.
One of the unmarried girls pushed forward. “M’lady, see that moon?”
Bronwyn stared up at the round globe lifting just above the horizon.
“That’s the Midsummer moon, an’ it brings a turrible madness,” the girl explained. “A love madness. Any girl seeking t’ know her future husband should place a garland o’ flowers under her pillow. Whoever she conjures will be th’ man.”
The villagers laughed and clapped as she removed her garland and placed it on Bronwyn’s head.
Adam pushed forward to his betrothed and settled the flowers closer against the itchy wig. “It gives me pleasure to know you’ll dream of me.”
Bronwyn’s eyes fell beneath his gaze; the villagers snorted and coughed. John presented them with two tankards. “This round of ale’s on me. Come down th’ hill now, m’lord an’ lady, an’ start th’ dance fer us.” He pulled his forelock. “When ye want t’, a’ course.”
Adam looked at Bronwyn inquiringly, and she nodded. “Let’s go,” she agreed, accepting the ale. “I’ve never been to a Midsummer’s Eve dance before.”
“Nor I.” He offered his arm, and she took it without hesitation. She stumbled and would have tumbled down the hill, and he noted that his lady seemed the worse for the drink. Mentally he tallied the tankards and asked, “Bronwyn, would you like to refresh yourself?”
“Take me to the inn,” she answered instantly, and grinned at him.
How could he have ever thought her homely? That smile of hers lit her face like a fairy light. Her body moved with a grace that made a man think of long, slow loving. When he’d been beside her in his office he’d been unable to keep himself from touching her. As he’d expected, her shape had been augmented by stuffing, but not totally. Above the wad of cloth dwelt a breast, round and sensitive, and he’d liked its shape. Finding it had ignited his curiosity, and now he wondered what other mysteries his fiancée concealed.
His own curiosity had brought him too many sleepless nights.
Mimicking his thoughts, although she didn’t realize it, she said, “You’ve fulfilled a great curiosity of mine.”
“In what way?”
“I had read about Midsummer Night and the Irish celebrations in the Gaelic manuscript I was translating, and—”
“Translating?” He recalled the tale Northrup had told him. “You mean reading.”
Her hand flew to her mouth, her gaze to his face. She looked the picture of guilt, and she agreed, “Reading! I meant reading.”
She lied. There was no doubt. He’d questioned enough cabin boys and seamen to know shame when he saw it. Lesser men than he could decipher her gestures, but what did it mean? Surely his little noblewoman couldn’t read Gaelic. Elaborately casual, he asked, “Where were you reading such a thing?”
“In Ireland,” she answered. “Look at the stars. They’re big and bright, without a cloud to hide them.”
Trying to distract him, and none too cleverly, he diagnosed, “That’s right, you lived in Ireland as a child. That’s one island I’ve never visited.”
With the mood swing of the tipsy, she twirled around, laughing. “You should go. It’s the most beautiful place on earth.”
Without exerting his imagination, he could imagine the urchin she had been. “Did you run free during your time there?”
“No. No, no.” She shook her head so hard that her wig slipped, and a bit of moonlight gleamed close by her hairline. “We had a governess, a Miss O’Donnell. In that lovely brogue of hers, she called herself a distressed noblewoman and made it sound like an honor. Da paid her to teach us, and teach us she did.”
Homing in on the information he sought, he put a foot upon a boulder and propped his arm against his knee in a nonchalant gesture. “What did she teach you?”
“Everything. I thought my head would burst before she was done stuffing it.”
“Embroidery? Harp? Deportment?”
“Miss O’Donnell? Not at all. Well, deportment,” she allowed. “Miss O’Donnell believed in deportment. But mathematics, languages, history mostly.”
“Languages?” He slid her a keen glance, but she had turned her face into the breeze and didn’t see it. “Is that where you learned to read Gaelic?”
“No, that’s where I learned to read Latin,” she corrected, not suspecting how she betrayed herself. “The manuscripts were at the convent where we—Olivia and I—went to learn harp and embroidery. I found one old manuscript written in both Latin and Gaelic. I’d heard the peasants speak Gaelic, of course, but this wasn’t the same kind of Gaelic. This was”—she struggled to define it—“archaic. I would have never battled through, but the text was interesting.”
“About Midsummer Night?”
“About Druids, bards, and a world long vanished.” Solemn, she shook her head. “Gaelic is difficult.”
“What did Miss O’Donnell think of such a thing?”
“She’d had brothers, you see, and learned everything they’d learned. But she said if I were to get an education, I’d have to do it myself. She said as soon as I came to England, all I’d learn is how to dance and simper and use a fan.” She drooped. “She was right.”
He wrapped his arm around her waist and started them back down the hill. “Is th
at such a dreadful thing?”
His touch seemed to wake her to her circumstances, and she tensed. “Not at all,” she said.
She sounded silly and feminine, but her own natural intelligence made it a parody. Tomorrow he would worry about it, about her intelligence and how it clashed with his own needs. For now, satisfaction struggled for dominance. Another bit of the mystery surrounding this Edana changeling had been solved.
At the inn, Gilda greeted Bronwyn with another tankard of ale. “Havin’ a good time, m’lady?”
“Marvelous.” Bronwyn sipped the rich brew and queried, “Have you got a room where I can repair a little of the damage this good time is inflicting?”
“A’ course. Give way fer m’lady. Don’t crowd m’lady.” Gilda pushed through the throng of curious, thirsty revelers to an upper-level hall. Opening a door, she asked, “Will this do, m’lady?”
“It will do nicely, I’m sure.” Bronwyn glanced around at the simple decorations. “What a homey place.”
Pleased, Gilda said, “It’s our room, John’s an’ mine.”
“I recognize your light touch,” Bronwyn praised. “I could use a little help, too, if you would?”
As if she’d been waiting for the invitation, Gilda stepped inside and shut the door.
“Do you have a pin?” Bronwyn lifted her skirt, revealing a silk petticoat beneath. “I stepped on my hem and it ripped at my waist. Look.” She stuck her finger through the hole and wiggled it.
Gilda giggled and opened a drawer in the dresser. “I can sew it on ye easier than I can pin it. I was a seamstress before I married John, an’ I’m handy with a needle.”
“A fortunate circumstance for John.”
“I sew his shirts better than he’s ever had them sewed before, an’ I stitched all th’ clothes fer th’ babe,” Gilda agreed, placing a stool beside Bronwyn and kneeling on it. “Since John got t’ keep th’ inn, it’s been a happy time fer us.”
“Keep the inn? Were you about to lose it?”
Gilda pinned the hole firmly before she answered. “Last year’s Midsummer celebration wasn’t nearly as cheerful, I’ll tell ye.”
“Why?” Bronwyn asked.
“All th’ lands had just been sold t’ Lord Keane, an’ we didn’t know what kind o’ landlord we were getting. Everyone was afraid they’d have no homes.” She glanced up and winked. “I got married because o’ His Lordship.”
“Why do you say that?”
“We wanted t’ get married, John an’ I, but we couldn’t do it until we knew if we’d have a way t’ feed our babes. Why, His Lordship could have been one o’ those men who don’t want a village cluttering up their lands.” Gilda threaded the needle. “A lot of these merchantmen who buy a manor don’t understand about families who’ve lived in one place fer generations. They just say th’ village is wrecking their view, or some other silliness, an’ throw everyone out without a by-your-leave.”
“How frightened you must have been when you heard the manor had been sold,” Bronwyn sympathized.
Gilda waved the needle and thread through the air. “An’ how relieved we were when we found Lord Keane wasn’t one o’ those high an’ mighty gentlemen.”
Bronwyn remembered the formidable lord who’d greeted her on her first day. In surprise, she agreed, “He’s been very pleasant tonight.”
“Pleasant?” Gilda snorted. “Pleasant’s not th’ word I’d put t’ him exactly, but he’s a doer all right. Soon as he started t’ build that big house, he had th’ road improved. Ye can imagine th’ difference that made t’ th’ inn.”
“He did it to hurry the construction,” Bronwyn said.
“A’ course, but he didn’t have t’ improve it clear down here, did he?”
Bronwyn watched as Gilda’s nimble fingers whipped through the material. “No, I suppose not. What else has he done?”
“Him an’ his mother are building a school, right here in th’ village, t’ teach th’ little ones until they’re ten. Doesn’t even matter whether they’re poor folks, he says, th’ boys are not t’ work until they’re eleven an’ got their growth. Have ye ever heard o’ such a thing?” Gilda shook her head in wonder.
Impressed, but not wanting to show it, Bronwyn agreed, “Quite radical.”
“Quite scatterbrained, if ye ast John. But me, I like it.” Patting her belly, Gilda said, “This child will go far with such learning.”
“What if it’s a girl?” Bronwyn asked.
Gilda pulled a face. “Then I’ll teach her t’ sew. No use her learning anything else.”
“We wouldn’t want the girls to improve themselves,” Bronwyn said sarcastically.
Sensing Bronwyn’s disappointment, Gilda insisted, “Even fer girls, Lord Keane says th’ little ones aren’t t’ be apprenticed until they’re eleven.”
“I suppose he has a care for his people.”
Gilda finished with her stitching and bit off the thread. “That he does, an’ there isn’t one of us who wouldn’t lie down an’ let him drive his fine carriage right over us.”
Bronwyn helped Gilda to her feet. “I doubt he’d ask so much of you.”
“A’ course. That’s why we’d do it.”
Much struck, Bronwyn thanked her.
Adam waited in the taproom, chatting with the men pressed close against him. Yet something brought his head up, and he watched her descend the stairs. Their eyes locked; the intensity of his gaze burned her, and all around the noise died. She reached his side without being aware of it, gave him her hand without knowing why. “My lord,” she whispered.
He lifted her hand to his lips, and she felt the expiration of his breath as he said, “My lady.”
She couldn’t maintain eye contact at such close quarters, and when she glanced about her she saw grins and nudges. They should have mortified her, but they didn’t. It just seemed pleasant that these people who thought so much of Adam should approve of her.
John interrupted the mutual admiration society. “We’re ready to start the dancing, m’lord.”
“Our signal to proceed, my dear.” Adam offered his arm.
When she laid her hand on it, he captured her fingers in his. He held her hand like a man with his sweetheart, fingers curled, palms together. The simple contact brought her gaze to his again. Again she found herself unable to breathe, to move, to think. Something about this man made her common sense collapse like a house of cards.
“The dancing?” John urged.
Adam drew her outdoors, into the heated darkness. A great bonfire leaped in the middle of the square, answering the flames atop the hill, calling in the summer. On a platform, a swarm of instruments—violin, flute, and harmonica—squalled. The players cajoled off-key bits of melody, then whole bars of music, and at last, inspired by the occasion, a rollicking song. Although Bronwyn had never heard it before, its concentrated rhythm set her foot to tapping.
With a tug of his hand, Adam had her in the center of a circle of clapping villagers. “I don’t know how to dance to this,” she warned.
“Nor do I,” he answered, placing his hands on her waist. “Have a care for your toes.”
She had no need to care for her toes, for Adam led with a strength that compensated for his limp. He kept his hands on her waist as he lifted her, turned her, swung her in circles. Under his guidance, she relaxed and began to enjoy the leaping, foot-stomping gambol. The community cheered, not at all distressed by the innovative steps, and the whole village joined them around the bonfire.
Girls with their sweethearts, men with their wives, old folks with their grandchildren, all whisked by as Adam twirled Bronwyn around and around. Bronwyn laughed until she was out of breath, and when she was gasping, the music changed. The rhythm slowed, the frenetic pace dwindled.
She saw Adam’s amused expression change as he drew her toward him. His heavy lids veiled his gaze, and she knew he’d done so to hide his intention. She wondered why, then felt only shock as their bodies collided.
; Shutting her eyes against the buffet of his heated frame against hers, she breathed a long, slow breath. The incense of his skin mated with the scent of the burning wood, and beneath the shield of her eyelids fireworks exploded. She groaned as her own body was licked by the flames.
Before she was scorched, he twirled her away, then back, in accordance to the rules of the dance.
There were people around, she knew, but she pretended they weren’t watching their lord and lady. She pretended Adam and Bronwyn were alone.
Ignoring the proper steps, Adam wrapped himself around her, one arm against her shoulders, one arm at her waist.
Her hands held his shoulders. Her fingers flexed, feeling the muscles hidden beneath the fine linen. She could hear his heart thudding, hear the rasp of his breath and his moan as she touched his neck with her tongue. She only wanted a taste of him, but he mistook it for interest, for he scooped her up.
Her eyes flew open. He’d ferried them to the edge of the dancing figures, planning their escape like a smuggler planning a landfall. A whirl and they were gone into the trees. Looking back, she could see the sparks of the bonfire, like a constellation of stars climbing to the sky.
This was what she wanted, what she dreaded, what she longed for. Since she’d met Adam, she didn’t understand herself. His gaze scorched her, and she reveled in the discomfort. His hands massaged her as if he found pleasure in her shape; they wandered places no one had touched since she’d been an infant, and it excited her. Even now, as he pulled her into the darkest corner of the wood, she went on willing feet.
He pushed her against the trunk of a broad oak and murmured, “Bronwyn, give me your mouth.”
She found his lips and marveled at their accuracy. His arm held her back, his hand clasped her waist; all along their length they grew together, like two fevered creatures of the night.
He exalted at the explosion of heat. This little virgin kissed like a dream. Willing, whimpering just for him, she created impulses he’d believed stifled by maturity. He wanted to pull her onto the grass and lift her skirt and plunge into her. He wanted her breasts in his mouth, his hands on her thighs, and a long night ahead. Was this midsummer madness, as the villagers claimed? No doubt, for madness pounded in his veins and brought him pushing at her like a stag with a doe in heat.