Lady Knowe and her nephew began trading stories about Mr. Calico’s wagon as they drew nearer. To hear them tell it, he often had the one thing that you most desired, even if you didn’t know you wanted it.
“I gathered from your discussion of Egyptian hieroglyphs that you have no faith in magic,” Lord Alaric said to Willa.
“I believe!” Lavinia skipped forward. “I can’t wait to see what I find in the wagon.”
“What would you like from Mr. Calico?” Lady Knowe asked Willa.
“Actually, nothing,” she said, feeling somewhat apologetic, as if she were letting down the peddler. “I have all the ribbons I need.”
“Ribbons are the least of it,” Lady Knowe replied, grinning widely.
The peddler’s wagon was painted a lively green. Its lathwork sides were flipped out and up, so they rested against the yellow roof. The shelves exposed by the hinged sides were decked out in yellow, as were the gaily painted wheels.
Mr. Calico was a thin, white-haired fellow with a luxuriant mustache, wearing a weathered coat that glittered in the summer sun. He hopped down through the red door of the wagon as the group spread around its sides. “If it isn’t my favorite lady in all the north,” he cried, bowing. “The best of afternoons to you, Lady Knowe!”
In return, she dropped a deep curtsy, as if he were a courtier. “Please tell me that you’ve brought something wonderful from London!”
“Many things,” he said jovially. “I meant to make my way up to the castle later this afternoon, but here you are, come to find me. You have the pick of my goods, at least those which the good people of Mobberley have not already purchased for themselves.”
“Miss Ffynche and Miss Gray,” Alaric said, as seriously as if he were presenting the king himself, “may I introduce you to Mr. Calico, the proprietor of this fine wagon? As children, we would have been bereft without his visits.”
“I think Mr. Calico has a fair claim to have made you into the traveler you are,” Mr. Sterling said, joining them. “After all, Mr. Calico, you brought Alaric any number of things from foreign countries over the years, and now look at him, addicted to visiting strange places.”
“I was around eight when Mr. Calico offered me a curiosity box full of exotic objects,” Alaric acknowledged.
“Where did you find it?” Willa asked Mr. Calico.
“I travel about,” he said, with a smile that made his mustache seem bushier and more jolly. “People sell things to me in one place, and I sell them in another. As I recall, the curiosity box came from the attic at Rumpole House, in Sussex. I didn’t buy it; I traded it for …” His brow wrinkled. “I traded it for a pair of beautiful slippers that happened to be just the young lady’s size.”
“The curiosity box may have been a push toward your chosen occupation,” Mr. Sterling said to Alaric, “but the tiny, dried-up head was the key.”
“No!” Lavinia gasped, with a shiver.
“It was in reality a withered apple,” Lord Alaric said ruefully. “By the time Mr. Calico came back around this way and told me the truth, I’d made up any number of stories about an Amazonian chief who shrank the head of his greatest enemy.”
“The genesis of Lord Wilde,” Mr. Sterling said. “He terrified Horatius, North, and me out of our wits every night.”
“Mr. Calico,” Willa said, stepping forward. “Would you mind if I asked you a question about your shiny coat?”
“Pins, my dear. Pins of all shapes and sizes, with pearl heads, and diamond heads, and these new clever ones, all shiny, that come from Portugal. Pins made for all occasions: hair pins, hat pins, pins for a rip, or a tear, or a drooping chemise.”
Lavinia clapped her hands. “I should like a pin!” She circled him. “May I buy one of those sparkly blue ones?”
“These pins come to me, not the other way around,” Mr. Calico said, shaking his head. “These aren’t for sale. I have some lovely pins in the wagon, if you’d like to buy one.”
After Lavinia set off to find the basket of pins, Mr. Calico bent to greet the butcher’s fat cat, who was busy sniffing his boots. “You’re Peters, aren’t you? I know what you’re smelling.”
Willa crouched down and rubbed the cat’s head. Mr. Calico undoubtedly had nice things for sale, ranging from pretty inlaid combs to shiny pins, but she didn’t need anything. Or want anything.
Behind them, Lavinia was squealing over a book she’d found hidden under a stack of fashion plates.
“That’s my American sable you’re smelling,” Mr. Calico told the cat. “You’ll not have met her like, as her relatives live far from here, over an ocean and even further.”
Willa straightened. “What is a sable? I read a book about the American continent’s animals, but a sable wasn’t mentioned. Unless I’ve forgotten.”
“Somehow I doubt it,” Mr. Calico said, beaming at her.
“Perhaps not,” Willa allowed. She forgot very few things she read.
A hand touched her shoulder, and a shiver went down her spine. She went rigid with embarrassment, but Alaric seemed not to notice. His ungloved fingers spread on her shoulder blade in something perilously close to a caress.
When had she started thinking of him simply as Alaric, rather than Lord Alaric? She jerked her attention back to the conversation.
“ ‘American sable’!” he scoffed. “That’ll be a skunk, plain and simple, Mr. Calico. You know it as well as I do.”
The peddler shrugged, eyes twinkling, utterly unrepentant. “I bought it as an American sable, my lord, and that’s what it will remain.” His gaze moved to Willa. “Until I can find a good home for it.”
“I’m afraid I am unable to care for an animal,” Willa said politely. “I reside with Miss Gray’s mother, who doesn’t care for domestic animals, let alone exotic ones.”
“My sable’s no more than a baby,” Mr. Calico said. “Once she’s grown, she’ll make a fine tippet. Better than a fox, really. More exotic. Everyone will ask you where you found it.”
Willa flinched. She didn’t wear fur of any kind, and the idea of raising an animal solely to make it into a neck scarf was abhorrent to her.
“Mr. Calico, you haven’t changed a bit,” Alaric said. “Do you remember how you talked me into buying that withered apple?”
The peddler tilted his head to the side with a frown. His coat flashed in the sunlight. “No,” he admitted.
“You told me it wasn’t for sale because your next stop was the rectory, where the minister would bury it in the churchyard.”
“He would have,” Mr. Calico said promptly. “A nice apple tree would have grown in its place.”
Alaric grinned. “In short, Miss Ffynche is now as curious to meet the American sable as I was to own that dried-up apple.”
“No, I am not,” Willa stated. The very mention of a baby animal whose future was being a neck ornament made her feel slightly ill.
Alaric put a hand on her back again, as if he didn’t notice what he was doing. Nor how improper his touch was. “Better luck elsewhere,” he said to Mr. Calico.
“Everything finds its place in time,” the peddler said, clearly unperturbed. “No doubt I’ll stop by a house where the lady of the manor fancies the idea of a tippet the exact length of her neck.”
As he turned away, Willa focused on the absentminded caress of Alaric’s fingers on her back. “Stop that!” she whispered fiercely.
“What?”
He appeared honestly surprised. She cleared her throat and moved away. “You are touching me,” she said, walking over to the wagon. The shelf before her held two peacock feathers, a linen cloth embroidered with a prayer, an oddly shaped rock, and a silver bowl full of thimbles.
Alaric followed and touched her back with one finger. He looked down at her with a lazily innocent expression. “Like this? I was merely guiding you to the wagon.”
Willa noticed from the corner of her eye that Mr. Calico was opening the back door and helping Lavinia up the narrow wooden stairs.
<
br /> Before she could come up with a response to Alaric, she saw Lavinia reel back, handkerchief clapped to her face, and throw herself off the wagon with a little shriek.
She might have landed on her own feet, but Mr. Sterling lunged forward with remarkable speed and caught her in his arms.
“Mr. Calico, I fear for your health!” Lavinia cried. “Your wagon is not a salubrious place.”
“My chambermate is rather fragrant,” Mr. Calico agreed. “I’ll admit to taking a room in an inn this evening. I was told that her scent glands had been removed, but I begin to suspect that was a falsehood.”
Willa found herself scowling, and never mind that a lady was supposed to be placid at all times. “Her scent glands were removed? So the poor creature is unable to smell anything?”
“The other way about,” Mr. Calico said. “She is now able to make us smell, although she would do so only if she felt threatened.”
“May I?” Alaric stepped forward, gesturing at the stairs.
“Please do, my lord! My house is your house,” Mr. Calico said.
With a bound Alaric disappeared into the wagon.
“Have you found anything you wish to buy, Lavinia?” Willa asked.
Mr. Sterling said mockingly, “She’s a young lady, isn’t she? Naturally she has.”
“I’m certain you didn’t mean that remark to be as impolite as it sounded,” Lavinia said, showing laudable restraint, to Willa’s mind.
He shrugged. “In my experience, women are insatiable when it comes to fripperies, and if you’ll forgive me, Miss Gray, you almost ripped a pin from Mr. Calico’s coat.”
Lavinia narrowed her eyes. “I wonder if it’s better to be insatiable about money or pins,” she hurled back. “Is it better to ask for a pin, or ask for a mansion and when refused, burn it down?”
Willa blinked. Lavinia obviously knew something about Mr. Sterling that she hadn’t told her about.
With that, Lavinia turned her nose in the air and twirled, skirt flying around her ankles. She marched to the other side of the wagon where she joined Lady Biddle.
Mr. Sterling’s face was indifferent. “It seems my reputation precedes me.”
“Did you indeed burn down a building?”
“I unsuccessfully attempted to buy an estate near here. Two years later, after the mansion burned to the ground, I was offered the land. But I had nothing to do with that fire.”
“Then how did the rumor start?”
“North and I were up to no good as boys,” Mr. Sterling said, his eyes glinting with amusement. “It was the work of a moment for the locals to decide that I must have been at fault.”
“Lord Alaric was not a member of your naughty tribe?” Willa said, incredulity leaking into her voice.
“We were far more reckless than he ever was.” He hesitated. “I’m surprised that Miss Gray brought up that rumor. It wasn’t a strictly ladylike comment, was it?”
“Ladylike is a matter of tone of voice,” Willa told him. “If you had offended me, I might have mentioned a fact that I remember reading in the Times: Sterling Lace employs children, but I would say it in a pleasant tone of voice.” She met his gaze without allowing a shade of condemnation to enter her voice. “If you were to make an unkind comment about ladies’ fondness for pins, I mean.”
“Damn it, that’s—” He cut the words off. “Very kind of you to forewarn me.”
“Hopefully, we shall have no opportunity to discuss it,” Willa said. She gave him a cordial—entirely ladylike—smile and moved to Lavinia’s side.
“Thank you,” Lavinia murmured, leaning forward. “Look at these adorable baby dolls, Willa! Perhaps we should buy some. Sometimes I miss being five years old.”
A stifled noise, like a snort of laughter, came from behind them.
Just then Alaric appeared in the wagon door.
“You are right,” he said to Mr. Calico.
“Taking her, are you? I’ve grown fond of her, but it will be a pleasure to have the wagon to myself again.”
“I imagine it will be,” Alaric replied, jumping down. His hands were empty.
“By ‘her,’ do you mean Mr. Calico’s fragrant companion?” Willa inquired.
Lavinia shuddered. “The entire castle isn’t large enough to contain that stench.”
“A harsh judgment,” Alaric said. “I think she merely needs a bath and a larger box.”
He reached into his pocket and brought out a tiny creature, only half the size of his hand. It had a white fluffy tail and a black head with a stripe between its eyes.
It poked up its head and looked straight at Willa with shiny black eyes that looked like little currants.
“Yes, I’ll take her,” Alaric said to Mr. Calico. “I can’t allow her to be made into a tippet, as you bloody well knew, you old reprobate.”
“I don’t know why not,” Lady Biddle said, coming closer. “That tail would frame a lady’s face quite nicely if it grew long enough. How long will it become?”
“You might buy her as a gift,” Mr. Calico suggested to Alaric, completely ignoring Lady Biddle.
Willa tore her eyes away from the baby. “I cannot own a pet … but may I hold her?”
Alaric placed the animal into Willa’s outstretched hands, where she promptly curled her little claws around Willa’s forefinger, using it to balance herself.
“Ugh,” Lavinia said. “She reeks, Willa.”
Lady Biddle pressed a handkerchief to her mouth and backed away, suggesting that she might faint. Willa rather hoped she would, but wishes like that never seemed to come true.
She raised her cupped hands closer to her face and the animal looked back at her fearlessly. After a second, the baby stretched forward and brought her nose close to Willa’s.
“You are a darling,” Willa breathed.
“As a gift,” Alaric was saying, behind her back.
Willa and the baby looked at each other. Then, with a graceful twirl, the little animal turned and curled into a ball. Her fluffy white tail draped over Willa’s wrist and her head rested against Willa’s finger.
Her eyes closed.
“My mother is going to have spasms,” Lavinia groaned.
“I have never asked for anything,” Willa said, meeting her friend’s eyes. “Never. If Lady Gray won’t allow my American sable, I’ll set up my own establishment.”
“No, you won’t!” Lavinia retorted. She reached out one finger and drew it down the baby animal’s back. “Perhaps Lord Alaric is right and a bath will help. She is very soft.”
“What do I do now?” Willa asked. She didn’t dare move her hands.
Willa hadn’t noticed Mr. Calico retreat into his cart, but now he stepped down, carrying a basket. “This is her bed,” Mr. Calico said, “along with her favorite blanket, a list of food she likes to eat and, importantly, her soap, Miss Ffynche. Bathe her once a week and she will smell as fresh as a daisy. If you wish, you may give her a bath in chamomile in between.”
“Do you know how old she is?”
“Something over four weeks,” Mr. Calico said.
“I shall call her Sweetpea,” Willa decided.
Sweetpea opened one eye and looked at her. Then she made a chuffing noise, closed her eye, and lapsed back into slumber.
“She’s nocturnal, by rights,” Mr. Calico said. And then, to Alaric, “If you would be so kind as to inform Mr. Prism that I shall arrive at Lindow Castle in the late afternoon, I would be most grateful.”
Lavinia was holding an armful of things she wished to purchase: some French fashion plates, two books, a few lengths of sprigged muslin, and a baby doll. Her two suitors were bickering over which of them would pay her bill.
“Bloody hell,” Mr. Sterling said, handing Mr. Calico a note. “That should cover it. Can you deliver the lady’s trinkets to the castle, along with those prints?”
Mr. Calico bowed, just as Lavinia realized what had happened. “I shall pay you back,” she said to Mr. Sterling.
“
As you wish,” he said, making it absolutely clear that he didn’t give a damn.
Lavinia huffed and swept past them, a suitor on each arm, toward the lane that led back to the castle.
Alaric took Sweetpea from Willa and put her into her basket, his hands so gentle that the baby animal scarcely stirred. “If you’ll allow me, I’ll carry Sweetpea, but first I must pry my aunt away from Mr. Calico’s enticing wares.”
Sure enough, Lady Knowe was adding a couple of books to a stack on the steps of the carriage.
He slung Sweetpea’s basket over his arm—and against all the laws of nature, he just looked more manly. Willa couldn’t stop herself from looking at him from head to foot, cataloguing his tousled, unpowdered hair—no wig and no hat—broad shoulders, a body made to do things.
Not just to dance.
Mr. Sterling fell in beside Willa and they wound their way up the hill in silence. Ordinarily Willa had no difficulty making small talk, but now she was at a loss. The notorious Sterling Lace Factory employed children. One child had been found dead in his factory, but likely there had been others.
So she remained silent until he said, out of the blue, “The report wasn’t true.”
Willa had been wondering whether it would be bad for Sweetpea’s fur to give her a daily chamomile bath. Chamomile was so delicate that it wouldn’t sting her eyes.
“Ah,” she said, pulling her attention back to her companion. “You are referring to the report in the Times?”
“The newspaper claimed I employed children, one of whom died on my premises. I didn’t, and I don’t. I ended the practice immediately when I bought the lace factory, and all of those children are safely housed in the country.”
Parth Sterling had the look of a soldier: dangerous, a bit wolfish around the eyes. Not a man who would bother with lies.
“All right,” she said.
Silence.
“You’re not asking me for details? For proof?”
She shook her head. “I believe you. Lavinia might be harder to convince.”
Mr. Sterling glanced ahead at the figure of her best friend. “I have no interest in convincing her.”
Right.
Alaric was wild in the way animals were wild. You could see a need in him for open windows and wide expanses. In contrast, Mr. Sterling was dangerous, like a trapped animal, a large predator.