Lady of Weeds, page 19
part #2 of Lady Series
A little while later, someone else walked in the garden on the other side of her hedge. She would have left her position, but there was no way of leaving it without either pushing through the bushes or pushing past the person who approached. To her relief, the other person stopped directly on the other side of the hedge from her, too soon to find the opening that led to her section of the garden. Through a thinness in the hedge, she saw a push chair rolled into place and then left there.
Unfortunately, the cause of such a thing didn’t occur to her until she caught the vague murmur of conversation, and a lady in white fell rather than sat in the chair, her back to Carys. The other voice, to Carys’ surprise, was that of Eurion.
“Push me,” said the lady’s vanilla voice.
A Scandian accent for sure, thought Carys, and wondered that she wasn’t surprised about it. She had the uneasy feeling, suddenly, that she had already had this thought and this realisation—that she had had it, and forgotten it, just as she had forgotten the lady.
“Why is she so hard to remember?” she said softly, but there was no one to answer, and her question fell into silence. She mustn’t have spoken loudly enough to be heard by Eurion, because although his voice was wary to the point of prickliness, he answered the lady without calling out to Carys.
“Where am I to push you? I thought we were to walk the coastal road.”
“I’ve made you uncomfortable,” said Clovis.
“I think you make most people uncomfortable,” Eurion said huskily. “I don’t think you can help it.”
Carys saw Clovis Ma’s languid shoulder move up and down beneath the lace of her dress. “That much is true,” she said. “But perhaps you’re not uncomfortable because of what I am, so much as because of what I can see.”
Eurion shifted, stirring leaves, and Carys saw the flutter of colour through the shrubbery. “Where is my lady?”
Carys wondered if she imagined the smile in Clovis’ voice; if she were so uncomfortable at this turn of events that she imagined the world to be laughing at her.
The woman said, “Your lady is safe and whole. What do you want with her?”
“What do you?” asked Eurion, and Carys would have thought him rude if it wasn’t for the rigidity she could hear in his voice. Eurion, for whatever reason, was now very, very frightened. “My lady says you wanted to see me to be sure I wasn’t your half-brother, and when you knew I wasn’t, you wanted to see me to ask if I knew anything; but you seem more interested in her.”
“Will it help if I tell you that I am truly searching for my half-brother?” There was a brief, thoughtful pause, after which Clovis added, “Will you believe me?”
“Yes,” said Eurion. “But I also wonder what else you’re searching for. I think you’re not just searching for your brother.”
“Perhaps not,” said Clovis Ma.
“Don’t bother my lady with it.”
Clovis, her vanilla tones more vanilla than before, said, “I’m simply offering to try and help you regain your memories.”
“I don’t need your help,” said Eurion.
“Do you not? Your lady seems very intent upon making sure you recover those memories.”
“That’s between me and my lady.”
“I see,” said Clovis, and Carys wondered exactly how much the lady saw. Exactly what she saw. “Then as I suggested earlier, perhaps you should try kissing her again.”
Carys froze, hot and then cold all the way to her fingers. What exactly had Eurion and Clovis Ma been discussing before they wandered within her purview? This wasn’t a conversation she wanted to be overhearing.
To her relief, Eurion said, “I don’t dare.”
“You slept in the sand happily enough once,” Clovis pointed out. “What’s one more time?”
“You don’t understand,” Eurion said. “If it was just being locked out of the house—well, that’s not so bad. I can sleep in the sand. But what can I do if she locks me out altogether?”
“I see,” said Clovis Ma, her voice considering.
Carys, quite certain that this was a conversation she did not want to hear to its conclusion, rose silently and slipped painfully through the shrubbery on the other side of the garden, willing rather to risk discovery than to stay and hear what she would prefer not to hear.
She went back by a different way than she’d come, too, hoping to avoid any reoccurrence of the situation she’d just experienced by likewise avoiding the rest of gardens. Thus it was that Carys found herself walking along the ocean road, where the familiar scent of salt wafted high on the breeze and calmed her agitated heart. She looked down more from habit than from any other reason, her eyes naturally falling on the section of coastline where her cottage could be seen, and as she caught sight of it, she caught sight of something else.
Someone was coming out of her cottage.
A small patch of flickering white with a speck of black to it that could have been dark hair but probably was, thought Carys, remembering the suit of cream in which she had most recently seen Ma Yong Hwa, a top hat, moved away slowly across the sand.
How had he gotten down the cliffs so quickly? More importantly, what was he doing in the cottage while she was not there?
Carys was less concerned about Yong Hwa being in her cottage than she had been about Steele making the same attempt, but in light of what she had just heard between Eurion and Clovis Ma, she did wonder exactly what he had gone in search of.
Mistress Ma really did seem to be in search of a brother, but as Eurion had mentioned, it seemed as if they also had some business with Carys. While that took away from her the fear that Eurion was somehow in danger, it left the troubling thought that she herself was of some unexplainable interest to the Mas.
Carys remembered Clovis’ cool gaze, and the delicate way Ma Yong Hwa had questioned her on the beach, and drew her shawl a little closer around her shoulders. They were clever people, not something she was used to dealing with. People, in fact, were something Carys was not used to dealing with, and perhaps the Mas were cleverer than most, but she felt that she would have been out of her depth with any kind of interaction.
Well, so long as it wasn’t Eurion they were interested in, it should be safe enough. There was nothing about Carys herself to sustain interest, so no doubt it wouldn’t be long before the Mas moved along to the next village in search of Clovis Ma’s brother.
Carys had no intention of letting Yong Hwa get away with his intrusion, but she didn’t think there was any need to be rushing down to the beach just yet, either. Instead, she returned to the inn and went in search of Eurion and Clovis, this time openly on the garden path, following behind one of the inn’s servants as a way to prevent herself from hearing any potentially embarrassing conversation.
Eurion rose from a seat beside the wheeled chair when they approached; they hadn’t moved very far from where Carys had recently overheard too much conversation.
“I need you to take the seaweed to Enfys,” she said to Eurion, without preamble. “Ask her—nicely, mind you—if she’ll allow us to store it there until the market. Come and find me here when you finish.”
Eurion made a slight gesture toward Clovis, but Carys said, “The servant will wheel Mistress Ma into the inn,” and the woman herself, smiling, nodded.
“All right,” said Eurion, his eyes running over her face. There was a faint frown on his brow. “Do you need anything, Lady?”
“Only that you do as I ask,” Carys said. She bowed briefly to Clovis Ma and strode back away down the path toward the inn without waiting to see that either Eurion or the servant did as she had required of them.
She settled herself on one of the small chairs at the front of the inn, and in contemplating exactly how best to approach Mr. Ma when he should arrive, almost missed his arrival completely. She became aware of his approach when the regular footsteps she’d heard approaching in some back part of her mind stopped abruptly just past the line of trees that shielded the inn from the village.
Carys looked up to see Ma Yong Hwa staring at her, his face still wearing the last remaining vestiges of startlement. She nodded in greeting, and for the first time that afternoon, felt a touch of amusement.
“Good afternoon,” Yong Hwa said, and hesitated. “Do you still wait on my wife?”
“No,” said Carys. “I’m waiting for you.”
“Ah,” he said. Almost, he sighed it.
Carys had the feeling that he wasn’t surprised when she asked directly, “Did you find what you were looking for in my cottage?”
A soft glow lit his eyes; amusement and ruefulness both. Ma Yong Hwa murmured something equally soft and rueful in his own language, and said in the common tongue: “What a shame. I hoped you would not see.”
“I was coming back to meet you,” said Carys, without mentioning the reason she had been so swift in returning. She was at this point unsure how much of that interlude she had just overheard was staged by the Mas. Eurion, she was certain, was as innocent as herself in the situation, but she not equally sure of the Mas.
“Ah,” said Ma Yong Hwa again. He looked around him and caught sight of the small, painted seat. “Perhaps—shall we sit?”
Carys nodded. “Very well. But you should begin to offer me some information before I approach the owners of the inn with a report of how you spent this morning.”
There was only curiosity in his eyes, not disbelief. “Should we be turned out?”
“Yes,” said Carys, without mincing matters. She was not liked in the village, but she was feared, and if she requested a thing, it would be done. It was one of the unspoken laws of the guardians of the shore.
“Very well,” he said. “I must take you some way into my confidence.”
“Some way?” asked Carys dryly, aware of all that was not being said.
Ma Yong Hwa’s eyes lit with a glow again, but he said, “Some things are not mine to tell.”
“What is it that you can tell me?”
“My wife does indeed search for her brother.”
“That much, I was aware of.”
“You have heard of the scandal from the headland?”
“The prince who was done away with?”
“Not done away with,” he said quickly. “At least, we hope the best.”
Carys frowned. If what she was thinking was so, the Mas were far better connected than she had given them credit for. “You’re looking for him?”
“Yes.”
“Did you think to find him in my cottage?”
“Not the prince,” said Ma Yong Hwa.
Carys had a sudden, terrible thought. Gold danced in her memory—a gold seal, a luxurious wrapping, itself wrapped again to keep it from the waves. What had Eurion done? What had he taken?
“What, then?” she asked, and she felt as though her voice was obviously shaken. “What are you looking for that could be in my cottage?”
Perhaps Ma Yong Hwa didn’t find it so. He said, without any special emphasis or meaning to his look, “Some princely things.”
“Then what do you want with Eurion?”
“My wife thinks there are some things he knows—”
“Eurion knows nothing about the prince,” said Carys, with finality. At least for now, she would not tell the Mas about the seal. “He washed ashore after a storm—from one of the shipwrecks. If it was from yours, perhaps he knows of your wife’s brother, but there’s no reason for him to know of the prince, who was killed out on the headland. Don’t make dangerous accusations. We don’t concern ourselves here with the succession issues.”
He looked at her curiously. “Do you not? Why?”
“There are always succession issues,” she said. “If we were to be concerned with them, we would never have a moment’s peace. You could have asked me if I had anything…princely.”
“I did not think you would tell me,” Ma Yong Hwa said, guiltily amused. “I was not sure you would tell me anything.”
“I have nothing princely for you,” Carys said. “Don’t abuse my hospitality again, or it will be very much the worse for you.”
“If that other man should ask—”
Carys gave him a very direct look. “I’ll tell him the same thing. I think it would be best if your wife didn’t bother Eurion again.”
“Is it your job to be his protector?”
“Yes,” said Carys. “Everything that washes up on that shore is mine. Don’t attempt to take it.”
Ma Yong Hwa sighed faintly, but he only said, “Perhaps it will seem good to you to allow it again at a later time.”
“Perhaps,” Carys said, but her voice was forbidding, and he knew how to read it. “I’ll take my leave of you now.”
“Will you not eat with us?”
“There’s no need,” said Carys. While she waited for Ma Yong Hwa, and then while she talked with him, the afternoon had become evening around them, cool and late. Eurion should have returned well before now. “I’ll walk into the village. I’ve to visit Enfys—there’s food enough with her.”
He bowed, but if she had been inclined to guess his feelings, she would have said he was uneasy. She felt his eyes on her until she rounded the trees, and was glad for the falling darkness of evening as well as the cover of the trees.
She felt lighter for the escape, though her thoughts still troubled her. What exactly had Eurion done? What had he become mixed up in?
And what, Carys wondered, stopping abruptly at the well-lit milliner’s window, was Eurion doing with Miss Allen? She hurried on again in search of Enfys before she had to see more of Miss Allen’s expert head-tipping through the window, no longer surprised that Eurion had taken so long to return to the inn.
Enfys, unfortunately, was nowhere to be found; neither at her shop nor at her house, and Carys gave up her search irritably, aware of the lateness of the evening. If Eurion was not now at the inn, she would leave him behind. Fortunately for him, he was there when she returned.
He greeted her with a bright smile of relief, and said, “Lady! I thought I’d lost you!”
“You were gone for some time,” said Carys, turning down the coastal path without stopping properly before the inn. He had probably been visiting with Miss Allen since she sent him with the seaweed. “I went to the village and came back.”
Eurion trotted after her, a warm presence in the cool evening air. “I talked with Enfys.”
“Did you?” That was not unusual. Eurion, for a boy who had begun their acquaintance by disliking Enfys, now seemed to spend a good deal of time talking to the old woman. “I thought you were speaking with Miss Allen.”
And there, thought Carys, was another odd thing. She had been inclined to look with favour upon Miss Allen and her attentions to Eurion, but she was now becoming less certain that it was a good thing for Eurion. Perhaps if Miss Allen were a thought more pleasant…
Carys found herself frowning, and hurriedly smoothed the frown away.
Eurion said, “I was talking with Miss Allen, too. It was earlier that I talked with Enfys—as soon as Clovis let me go.”
Clovis, thought Carys, her brows rising momentarily as they path began its first descent toward the beach. Certainly Eurion and Clovis Ma had discussed a great many things. She didn’t feel as though she were prepared to ask questions about that, so instead, she asked, “How goes Miss Allen’s search for a hat?”
“She bought two,” he said. “Lady, I’ll go to see her tomorrow while you’re out, if you don’t mind.”
“Why should I mind?” Carys said. “You can do as you please while I’m not here. Just stay away from the rocky shore.”
“She said we could walk up to a lookout on the cliffs.”
“I’ve said it’s none of my business,” said Carys. “You’ve no need to tell me your plans.”
“Yes,” said Eurion, “Only—”
“Did you ask Enfys nicely if she would allow me to use the space?”
“Yes,” he said again. “Lady, I really did spend most of the time with Enfys. I only looked into the milliners because Miss Allen called me in. I had some things I needed to ask her, so I went.”
“What was it about Enfys’ conversation that was so alluring?” Carys asked.
Eurion’s brown eyes roamed her face. “We talked about you.”
Carys rounded on him, her voice as sharp as a shard of wet slate, and said, “Don’t discuss me with Enfys.”
“You’re trying to find out everything you can about me,” said Eurion, surprising her. “Why can’t I do the same about you?”
“There’s a difference,” said Carys, aware that while she had gotten used to treating Eurion as a child, it was now dangerous to continue on thus. She turned on her heel again and strode ahead, wishing that she could leave him behind altogether.
“Because you’re only trying to find the memories you need?” called Eurion, from behind, again trotting to catch up. “That’s all right. I know that. But I want to understand why you won’t let yourself love me, and I think Enfys knows.”
“Enfys knows a lot less than she pretends to know,” said Carys harshly, without turning, without looking, without stopping. “And if you fancy that every woman must be in love with you because Miss Allen is, then—”
There was a scuffle of sand beside her, and Eurion darted in front of her, panting. Carys stopped abruptly to avoid walking into him.
“I don’t think that,” said Eurion, one hand stretching out to catch her wrist. “But I think—I think you’re someone who can’t help loving, and I think you’re fighting very hard not to love me. Is it because of the husband that left? Why do you still keep a place set for him?”
“The places I set are none of your concern,” said Carys, fighting against the swell of the sea beneath her feet though she stood on land. “Nor whom I love, nor what I do. If you’ve a fancy to sleep elsewhere tonight, the village is behind you. Otherwise, leave your questions at the door.”
