The Spinster and the Earl Read online

  He told them, “I want to die in peace. I’ve already made up my mind as to who shall inherit my place on this earth.” And with that remark, the vultures abruptly stopped. With offended sniffs and grumbling huffs about their ungrateful brother, they left him alone. None of his sisters knew his choice and he adamantly refused to tell.

  “You’ll have to wait until my last will and testament is read,” he said, and with a dismissing wave of his hand, bid them a final farewell.

  “Merciful hour!” Beatrice muttered, her eyes widening in surprise. “For sure now, and what be the old gentleman after in this uncertain weather?”

  Then, another figure made its unexpected appearance. This form was much smaller, it appeared to be in the shape of a small diminutive person standing beside the bent form of the much taller old lord. Goose-flesh prickled up and down her arms and an uneasy feeling settled in her chest. She drew the long ends of her heavy, wool shawl more closely about her for comfort.

  ’Twas said in the village that leprechauns once lived beneath the hill long before the castle had been built, in a network of mystical caverns full of riches beyond anyone’s wildest imaginings until the invading Drennan clan, a warring tribe of barons and earls, dared to build their own fortified keep directly on top of the wee people’s sacred home. The old story went that in a quest for revenge, the fairies placed a powerful gessa, a dooming curse, upon the entire clan. From then onward, a slow and certain decline occurred about the castle, as bit by bit, decade upon decade, the once great keep began to crumble after one disaster or another be it by fire or flood. In one more decade, nothing would remain of the castle but a pile of stone and rubble.

  “Aye,” said Beatrice half-aloud to herself. “And when the old gentleman dies, the daoine sidhe’s, the fairies’ revenge will be complete. For there were no offspring from the old lord.”

  She shivered and berated herself for her own grim fancies. “But don’t you start believing any of those fanciful tales or you’ll find yourself as witless as the rest of them. Why ’tis pure superstitious nonsense, nothing more.”

  The intriguing question as to the true identity of the second silhouette did cause her to stop and look back at the ancient castle. It was queer that the old earl was out in this dreadful weather, ill as he was.

  And to what purpose would a small village lad and an old ailing lord be about on a day like today, she frowned, pondering to herself, with the heavens on the verge of tearing wide open?

  But, faith now, mightn’t the old lord have called out to a passing lad to aid him in returning to the relative safety of the intact part of the keep? Only, why was he outside in the first place? But even as she posed these worrisome questions to herself, she pushed through brambles and twigs in an effort to find a way up to the castle keep.

  She reached the stone wall marking the castle’s boundaries after taking one last slippery step. She stood at the same spot where she had last seen the two silhouettes. To her chagrin, she saw neither hide nor hair of the lord of the castle, or for that matter, his mysterious companion. Standing in the damp mist she looked miserably down at the ground hoping no one would spot her.

  “’Tis intolerable enough to be uncomfortably soaked and wearing mud-filled shoes,” she told herself. “It would be even more dreadful if I were to appear before the earl’s household like some bedraggled creature that’s been lost in a storm.”

  She maneuvered carefully around the wall and as she did so a shiny, round object lying on the ground caught her attention. It blinked enticingly up at her. Bending over, she palmed it.

  Rubbing the splattered dirt off the smooth surface of what now appeared to be the face of a gold coin, she wondered who might have dropped such a valuable item? In the middle, a square hole had been bored, elegant Gaelic words were etched around the rough edges. The script read, “Where there be gold, there be the shee.”

  Swallowing, she finished the translation with sinking dread, “And with gold there be the fairies!”

  Whirling around as if a thousand tiny eyes were observing her, Beatrice’s heart leapt to her throat. And for the first time in her twenty-four years, she found herself shamelessly afraid of the unknown. An unknown that was so uncertain and frighteningly otherworldly that it made her tremble.

  “Musha, musha, ’tis the curse of the Drennans I’ve clasped in m’hand!” She gasped in horror.

  She ran over to the wall of the castle that overlooked the foaming sea below. She drew her hand back and pitched the coin in. Drawing her shawl protectively about her, she then flew down the castle hill as if the hounds of hell were snapping at her tender heels.

  Unbeknownst to her, Beatrice’s life had suddenly changed in a magical way she would never in a million years have imagined.

  Chapter 2

  One week later, Beatrice stood at her market stall selling her spun wool. She had been selling her wares by the village harbor since she was old enough to have her own flock of sheep. The sun shone down on her from a cloudless sky. The warmth suited her mood as she gave a friendly nod to several traders she knew. The market was filled with people ready to make a bargain. It was going to be a profitable day.

  A fisherman with missing gaps in his smile approached her.

  “I’d like to buy some of your finest wool, my lady,” he said smiling at her. “I hear you sell the best there is t’ be had in Urlingford. And me wife, well the fine woman wants to knit me a shirt to keep me warm, she does. And as I’ve just come into a bit o’ luck, I thought I’d oblige her and buy the wool from you, ma’am.”

  “They say I have the finest, do they?” she asked, pleased. “Well then, I hope your wife’s fingers are nimble enough to work with these soft beauties, because they may glide right off her needles.”

  “Aye, have no fear on that account,” the man said, nodding. “She’s one of the best knitters here about and no wool has been known to slip out of her quick grasp.”

  Obligingly, she showed the seasoned fisherman her wares.

  He chose the very finest wool that she had to offer, a lovely angora fleece carted and dyed a becoming shade of dark red. He then reached into his tin fishing kit and produced a coin, the exact same cursed gold coin she’d tossed away. Quite obviously, the fisherman could not read the script.

  Eyes wide with surprise, she stared at the small bit of metal in the rough callused hands of the old man.

  “How . . . how did you come by that coin?” she asked, not daring to believe her eyes that it was the very same coin she had discovered that stormy night on the grounds of Drennan Castle, and shortly thereafter tossed into the sea.

  “I caught it.” The fisherman grinned with relish. “Cut it out from the belly of a fish! For sure ’twas like the miracle of Jonah, the finding of it, my lady.”

  “Aye, it was,” repeated Beatrice in a murmur and numbly took the coin without another word.

  All that day she tried to rid herself of the coin. At first she thought to be rid of it quickly by dropping it into the begging cup of a poor man, but it was not to be that simple. The beggar took it and rented himself a room for the night from the local innkeeper, ordering a big meal to be sent to his room. The innkeeper’s wife, upon spying the coin in the till, scooped it up and handed it to her wastrel son. His father, the innkeeper, had disowned his son when the young scoundrel almost drove them to ruin with his gaming and wenching ways—and them with three young lasses to wed! Ah, but a mother will always forgive her son.

  “Take it before your Da sees me . . .” she whispered. “You’re as thin as a twig. Haven’t you been eatin’, Brian?”

  He shook his head and said, “No, I’m starvin’, M’ther.”

  She sighed the sigh of a long-suffering woman, and drying her tears on her apron said, “Take this then . . . go and buy yourself some food. I’ll not let you fade away before me eyes.”

  She handed the magic coin over to him. He kissed his mother on the cheek in gratitude and cheerfully walked towards the market. But befo
re he reached the stalls, he quickly spent it on his knees, gambling on dice.

  The coin was snatched up by the gambler, a local sheepherder, who brought it home. Upon hearing coins clanking in her husband’s pocket, the sheepherder’s wife plucked it out to pay the back taxes due on their small cottage. The king’s tax collector then passed it over to the regiment’s captain to buy supplies.

  The captain in turn handed the coin over to his requisitions officer to buy new wool blankets for their horses. The officer took it and headed straight for Lady Beatrice’s booth to buy the best to be found. And since she could not refuse the English officer his request, she took the coin into her hand with a pasted smile on her face. Blasted coin! She would have to try again.

  At accounting time, when she came home from market, there it sat on the very top of the stack. It gleamed up at her, the stamped letters shining magically on its face, mocking her efforts

  “The devil take it!” she softly swore upon espying the coin. The servant, Ian, who was helping her load the wares onto the cart gave her a queer look.

  “Where did this come from, Ian?”

  “My mother brought it, my lady,” he said. “She wanted to pay you back for the help you gave when my sister’s baby was born. It was a miracle, the finding of it. She said she was scraping off mussels below the harbor wharf when it struck her on the head. Someone had tossed it away. Can you believe it, my lady? Why would anyone throw a gold coin away?”

  She could not give him a reply, for she had been the one who’d tossed it. She held the coin in front of her face and said, much to the lad’s astonishment, a very bad word in Irish.

  Angry, she spoke to the coin, “You little bugger you . . . Imigh leat. Clear off . . . ye’ll not get the better of me! I’ll be rid of you yet!” She would have melted the coin and given it away, but she was afraid of the uncertain power that lay within its golden form. Eventually, she grew weary of tossing, throwing, and spending it. The cursed item became a simple meddlesome trick played upon her by the wee folk. One she was unfortunately stuck with for the time being.

  And the fey, she doubted not, were watching and having a jolly good laugh over her sudden bursts of colorful language.

  * * *

  It had been almost six Sundays since that fateful night when she’d found the magic coin at Drennan Castle. The old Earl of Drennan had died the next morning and she’d been stuck with that terrible bit of magic ever since.

  She now crouched by the stone wall dividing her property from that of the late earl’s, taking steady aim at a plump grouse, the coin clanking noisily against her shot pouch.

  “Faith, ’tis almost as irritating as using this useless bit o’ metal,” she said aloud, grimacing contemptuously down at the ancient flintlock she’d been forced to use for hunting. The ancient relic in her hands had been used in combat long ago, when her father, as a young man, had been a merchant sailor in his majesty’s service.

  The flintlock had a long, narrow barrel, and a heavy, metal-tipped butt, which had served oftentimes as a club when the pistol was unloaded and required for immediate defense. The firing-arm was difficult to use, its weight heavy and cumbersome in her small feminine hands. Her father, Lord Patrick O’Brien, refused to entrust her with a decent weapon, ignored her pleadings by saying, “Ladies have no business handling weapons in the first place, lass. ’Tis dangerous to entrust one with one.”

  To which she’d retorted tartly, “Then I won’t be one, Da. Treat me like you would any other young gentleman in your household.”

  He’d heartily laughed, told her she was a scheming hellion, and sent her on her way with this ancient relic of a blunderbuss.

  “The unfeeling rascal,” she mumbled as she re-loaded the pistol. Her father knew she would not be able to take a decent shot with this outdated bit of metal. It’d be a minor miracle if she hit anything.

  She crouched now by the edge of a marsh. Mist rose up from the water, obscuring the landscape, which bordered the property of Drennan Castle and Brightwood Manor. Tall weeds hid her from view as she spotted another prey, a large, speckled pheasant, roosting but a few meters to her right in marsh reeds. It would be lovely to have some fresh game on the table tonight and this bird looked to be nice and plump, perfect for basting over a peat fire.

  Taking careful aim over the musket, which had no sights, she fired.

  To her amazement, the rusty hammer sprang forward the first time she pulled the trigger, igniting the flint in the powder pan and miraculously sparking to burst forth the shot with a smoking ka-bang! She felt the gun tremble as the musket ball cannoned out of the barrel. Her hand kicked backwards as the weapon sprang forward. Powder smoked the air around her, creating a cloudy haze.

  “Oh, hell and damnation!” a deep male voice bellowed out into the mist as the frightened neighs of a startled thoroughbred peeled in the air.

  She looked up in time to see a wall of shiny black horse flesh and spurred boots flash in front of her surprised eyes. Muttered angry curses could be heard over the horse’s panicked whinnies as both rider and steed galloped towards a nearby stone wall. Abruptly, the animal stopped, bolting away from the solid obstruction placed in its path.

  The hapless rider, who’d miraculously been able to keep his seat till then, was effectively tossed, his mount kicking up its hooves at the obstruction. He, the unfortunate master, continued to sail over the stone impediment landing with a solid splash into a nearby bog.

  “Merciful heavens!” She gasped, and ran to the edge of the pond where sat the thrown victim.

  A stranger glared up at her. His dark blues eyes, the same sparkling shade as the marsh lake on a cold day, silently accusing her.

  She stood as motionless as a statue, her pale, oval face unflinching at the sight of blood gushing down his leg. Her own green eyes, the color of the hills behind her, blinked back at him. Brushing aside long tendrils of black hair, which had escaped out from under her hunting hat, she observed him.

  She made not the least sign of distress by either crying torrents of remorse, or attempting a delicate feminine swipe of the fevered brow. She merely lifted one of her dark, perfectly arched eyebrows and stared.

  Although she wore a fetching hunting jacket of dark red wool, the same outfit, in fact, she’d ordered from Dublin with its matching tartan hat, she could tell by the stranger’s sour expression he thought her some sort of monstrous creature.

  “Sir, are you well?” she dared to ask, trying to remain calm while her insides tumbled nervously about, secretly relieved to see that he was alive.

  “No, the devil take it. I am not!” he spat out wincing. “Demme, my leg is throbbing dreadfully. And you, madam, are clearly some sort of half-witted, featherbrained female to think otherwise. Indeed, if I felt any worse, I’d no doubt be lying completely unconscious at your feet!”

  “I better help you up, then,” she said, biting nervously down on her lower lip, while secretly dreading getting any closer to him. She knew from past experiences that the English were not a good-natured people. And this one apparently was not about to become an exception to the rule. And what would ordinarily have been a perfectly tranquil day of hunting was now ruined.

  She sighed to herself as she drew closer. She knew immediately that her first assumptions about him were correct. He was indeed English. There was no question about his nationality. And just to make matters more disagreeable, undoubtedly some sort of well-titled English gentleman. A fact that clearly evinced itself by the well-clipped, cultured accent she’d heard when he spoke, and by his top-lofty manner towards her, his supposed inferior, an Irish gentlewoman.

  His impeccable attire, although now thoroughly mud-stained, clung damply to his masculine form like a second skin. The tailoring of the riding outfit was evidently the workmanship of an expensive London tailor, such as Schweitzer and Davidson, or perhaps even that newcomer, Guthrie, she’d been reading about. Indeed, no good Irish tailor worth his name would have considered using such superfi
ne material for a common riding jacket. A good Irish country tailor wisely knew that during a fast-paced canter across the damp, green hills, the suit would become irreparably soiled. “Why waste good material?” a tailor would argue with his clients. When good, sturdy wool and leather are plentiful on the isles, why not simply put them to good use?

  Aye, she nodded. And this stranger’s clothes were better suited for the more sedate gentlemanly pleasures of a calm dry trot in a fashionable London park. Slim chance of a healthy mud-splattering there.

  But it was not his stylish clothes, nor the fact that he was probably a powerfully titled Lord Somebody or Other, which troubled her. It was the manner in which his right leg sat at an unhealthy angle. It denoted a serious injury. He could, she knew, become permanently crippled from such a tumble if his leg were not properly tended.

  “Do you intend to assist me, or are you planning on standing there awaiting this muck to bury me?” he asked with dry humor. “For if you must know, ’tis dreadfully wet and cold.” He indicated the bog, which surrounded him, raising one muddied hand for her inspection. “And as for its fragrant bouquet . . . well, I do believe only a swine would denote it as pleasant to the finer senses.”

  He had not been gilding the truth, she decided moments later, her own pert nose wrinkling at the putrid smell of various decaying elements, which created the bog. Because he was by all accounts badly wounded, she waded in, not wishing to risk his catching some deadly wasting sickness brought on by a sudden inflammation of the lungs. She had enough laid at her doorstep as it was. She needed no further trouble, such an English nobleman becoming seriously ill, to add to it.

  Carefully balancing herself with her shillelagh, a long, polished, walking stick made from the branch of an ancient oak tree, she checked the depths. It was not unknown for bogs to turn into unexpected deathtraps. Bogs often acted as sinkholes and many an unwary traveler was known to have been suddenly sucked down by them. Fortunately, the stranger had landed in a rather shallow one. There appeared to be no imminent danger of any unexpected sinking.