To Beguile a Beast (Legend of the Four Soldiers #3)(22)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

“Whoa, there.” Sir Alistair caught Jamie easily in both hands.

“Let me go!”

“Certainly.”

Sir Alistair raised his hands and Jamie was free. But having gained his freedom, he didn’t seem to know what to do next. He stood in front of the castle’s master, his head bowed, his lower lip protruding.

Sir Alistair watched him for a moment, and then looked at Abigail with one eyebrow raised. His hair was about his face, his scars shone dully in the sunlight, and his jaw was still stubbled, but he wasn’t nearly as terrifying as Mr. Wiggins.

Abigail shifted from one foot to the other, still holding the broom. “We were beating the rugs.” She gestured weakly to the line of rugs behind her.

“So I see.” Sir Alistair looked back at Jamie. “I was going to the stable to fetch a shovel.”

“What for?” Jamie grunted.

“I’m going to bury Lady Grey.”

Jamie hunched his shoulders and kicked at the cobblestones.

Everyone was silent a moment.

Until Abigail licked her lips and said, “I-I’m sorry.”

Sir Alistair looked at her from his one eye, and his expression wasn’t friendly at all, but Abigail gathered all her courage and blurted it out before she let her fear and embarrassment freeze her. “I’m sorry about Lady Grey and I’m sorry that I screamed.”

He blinked. “What?”

She took a deep breath. “The first night when we came. I’m sorry I screamed at you. It wasn’t very nice of me.”

“Oh. Well… thank you.” He glanced away then and cleared his throat, and there was another silence.

“May we help you?” Abigail asked. “Bury Lady Grey, I mean.”

Sir Alistair frowned, his brows drawn together over his eye patch. “Are you sure you want to?”

“Yes,” Abigail said.

Jamie nodded.

Sir Alistair looked at them a moment and then nodded. “Very well, then. Wait here.”

He went into the stables and then came back out with a shovel. “Come on.”

He set off toward the back of the castle without another glance toward them.

Abigail put down her broom, and she and Jamie trailed him. She darted a look at Jamie. He had tears at the corners of his eyes. He’d cried for quite a long time the night before, and the sound had made her chest hurt. She frowned and watched the path. It was rocky and bumpy; Sir Alistair was leading them down through the old garden toward the stream. It was stupid because they hadn’t known Lady Grey all that long, but Abigail felt like crying, too. She didn’t even know why she’d asked to come along to help bury the dog.

Below the gardens was a bit of a grassy meadow. Sir Alistair tramped through it and as they neared the stream, Abigail could hear the rush of water. Farther up, there were some rocks in the stream and the water boiled about them, frothing white. But below the garden, the water had calmed, pooling in the shade of some trees. At the base of one was a lump bundled in an old rug.

Abigail looked away, feeling her throat ache.

But Jamie went right up to the bundle. “Is this her?”

Sir Alistair nodded.

“It seems silly to waste a good rug,” Abigail muttered.

Sir Alistair looked at her out of his one light brown eye. “She liked to lie on that rug before the fire in my tower.”

Abigail glanced away, feeling ashamed. “Oh.”

Jamie squatted and stroked the faded rug as if it were the fur of the dog beneath. Sir Alistair set his spade and began digging beneath the tree.

Abigail wandered closer to the stream. The water was clear and cool. A few leaves floated lazily on the surface. She knelt carefully and looked at the rocks at the bottom. They seemed quite close, yet she knew they were a yard or more away.

Behind her, Jamie asked, “Why’re you burying her here?”

She could hear the sound of the spade scraping against earth. “She liked to ramble with me. I’d come here to fish, and she’d take a nap under that tree. She liked it here.”

“Good,” Jamie said.

Then there was only the sound of Sir Alistair digging. Abigail leaned over the pool and trailed her fingers in the water. It was shockingly cool.

Behind her the digging stopped, and she could hear the rug sliding. Sir Alistair grunted. She put her face closer to the pool, watching a water weed waving below. If she were a mermaid, she’d sit on those rocks far below and tend a garden of water weeds. The stream would flow all about her, and she wouldn’t be able to hear a thing from the world above. She’d be safe. Happy.

A fish flashed silver among the rocks and she straightened.

When she turned around, Sir Alistair was smoothing a mound of earth over Lady Grey’s grave. Jamie had a tiny white flower he’d plucked from the meadow, and he laid it on the grave.

Her brother turned to her, holding out another flower. “Do you want one, Abby?”

And she didn’t know why, but her chest suddenly felt as if it would burst from within her. She’d die if that happened.

So she turned and ran back up the hill to the castle, as fast as she could, with the wind against her face until it blew all the thoughts from her mind.

IN THE EARLY years, when she’d still been naive and in love, Helen had sat up many nights waiting in case Lister should deign to visit her. And many nights she’d finally given up her vigil to retire alone and lonely. She was past those nights of waiting now—years past them. So it was particularly aggravating that she found herself that evening at midnight pacing the dim library in her chemise and wrap and waiting for Sir Alistair’s return.

Where was the man?

He hadn’t appeared for supper, and when she’d made the climb to his tower, she’d found it deserted. In the end, after waiting until the roast duck was completely cold, she’d had to eat without him, just her and the children in the now-clean dining room. When she’d questioned the children over the cold duck and congealed sauce, Jamie had told her about burying the dog earlier in the afternoon. Abigail had merely pushed her peas about her plate and then asked to be excused early, saying she had a migraine. Her daughter was too young to have migraines, but Helen had taken pity on the girl and let her retire in peace. That was another concern entirely—Abigail and her secretive, sad little face. Helen wished she knew what she could do to help her daughter.

She’d spent the rest of the evening consulting with Mrs. McCleod about meals and refurbishing the kitchen. Then she’d made Jamie take a bath by the kitchen fire, which had resulted in a puddle that needed mopping up before she’d put him to bed. The entire time she’d done these chores, she’d kept an ear half-cocked, listening for Sir Alistair’s return. All she’d heard for her troubles was Mr. Wiggins stumbling to the stables drunk as a lord. Sometime after that, it’d begun raining.