“Good!” Raven exclaimed, his cup rattling into the saucer. “We’ll make a long evening of it, then. Music, a little dancing, a late supper. I warn you: half of Sealey Head will be there to meet you. And we can even surprise you with an acquaintance of yours from Landringham.”
“From Landringham?” she echoed. “Someone I might know in Sealey Head?”
“Mr. Ridley Dow,” Daria explained, laughing at her perplexity, and Gwyneth saw Miranda Beryl’s face turn oddly mask-like, still dimpled with the tilt of a smile, while all expression faded from her eyes.
“The scholar in Sealey Head?” Mr. Moren wondered. “I thought he had left Rurex to travel abroad. He must have had a book under his nose and gotten lost.” He added with a faint chuckle, “No doubt, when he finally looked up from his reading, he thought he had reached a different country.”
“Sealey Head is very much a part of Rurex,” Daria protested warmly. “And anyway, Mr. Dow is far too intelligent to mistake where he is in the world.”
“Mr. Ridley Dow?” Mr. Moren queried her lightly with a raised eyebrow. “Who can spend a good hour trying to separate you from your ear with the subject of damselflies?”
“He has never mentioned damselflies,” Daria said staunchly, “and he found his way on purpose to Sealey Head.”
“Did he now? Ah, well, then, a different Mr. Dow.”
“No, no; he has mentioned being in Miss Beryl’s company in Landringham. Didn’t he, Raven? In fact, he is staying at the inn on the cliff with the rest of your party. I’m surprised you have not met him there, Mr. Moren. And, Miss Beryl, I am sure he will be delighted to see you.”
Gwyneth watched their eyes meet over the tea table: Mr. Moren’s blandly questioning, Miss Beryl’s fading toward boredom on the subject.
“Perhaps a certain type of fossil in the cliffs drew him,” she suggested, and rose abruptly, smiling charmingly upon them without quite seeing them. “We shall all anticipate your party, I’m sure. Let us know which evening you want us. We have no plans.”
Her visitors left half a teacup later, scattering pleasantries across the threshold.
“A fascinating, admirable woman!” Raven exclaimed, as they waited for their horses.
“So beautiful,” Daria murmured, clasping Gwyneth’s arm. “Oh, I can hardly wait for the party. Can you, Gwyneth? Though I am not sure that I quite liked her friend, Mr. Moren, did you, Gwyneth?” She watched her brother pawing the gravel like a steed, his eyes on a flock of warblers flitting overhead, and whispered, without waiting for Gwyneth’s opinion that, indeed, she found Mr. Moren unsettling, yet somehow intriguing, “Raven seems a bit smitten. But don’t pay any attention to it. Men get this way. I’ve read about it. It’s like a rash. They wake one morning, and it’s gone. Now,” she said aloud, as Miss Beryl’s stablers brought their horses up, “let us go over to the inn and find Mr. Dow, who is spending entirely too much time without us.”
They continued their journey back downhill and around the harbor, where Gwyneth’s thoughts strayed to her mysterious ship, anchored, surely, just in that brilliant splash of light rippling across the bay. Not pirates, she determined, nor faery, nor from any earthly realm. But what then? And from where?
Beyond the town, they rode abreast up the headland, Raven in the middle, where he veered randomly between discussing the details of the party with Daria and extolling the remarkable qualities of Lady Eglantyne’s heir.
“Such grace and composure in her time of trouble. Not only must she tend to her great-aunt, but she must keep her friends amused as well. We must help her in that as best we can.” He cast a solemn look at each of the young women beside him. “I expect you will be able to come up with suitable ideas to entertain her. I can think of nothing better than a brisk ride every morning. Perhaps along the waves. The sea air would do her good.”
The sea air was busy tying Gwyneth’s hair in knots and trying to push them all out of their saddles. Daria clamped her hat, a straw confection wreathed in pale green tulle, on her head with one arm; its broad brim flapped, tried to fly. Down the cliff, the waves boomed like cannon fire against the rocks and broke with frothy glee. A pair of seals dived effortlessly in and out of the tide. Gwyneth watched them, envying their grace, their composure in the wild waters.
Seals, she thought. Selkies. Sea people.
Princes of the sea.
Come to Sealey Head for...
“Sealey Head,” she said aloud, involuntarily. She felt the Sproules’ eyes on her, and turned to meet them, smiling. “Sorry. I was lost in my story.”
“The pirate story?” Daria asked eagerly.
“No. Not pirates,” she said firmly. “Better than pirates.”
“What an extraordinary thing to be thinking about after visiting Aislinn House,” Raven remarked. Gwyneth, glancing at him, wondered why his uplifted profile seemed more parroty than usual. Exaltedly beaky.
“One must think of something,” she said, amused. “Presumably Miss Beryl is thinking enough about death and its awesome responsibilities for us all.”
“Yes, but pirates?”
“It’s the way my mind works. I doubt that any chiding or lecturing will change it, since I feel most comfortable this way.”
Raven found nothing to say to that, which he said with significant silence the last quarter mile to the inn. Daria chattered for all of them. Gwyneth’s thoughts rode ahead to the inn, where the innkeeper would come out smiling to welcome them to his suddenly bustling establishment. Or not smiling, she remembered abruptly, if he had not found a decent cook for the crowd.
And crowd there seemed to be, judging from horses saddled in the yard, awaiting riders, from the carriage being readied, from neatly, soberly dressed underlings venturing out to the cliff edge to marvel at the sea. Were they all leaving so soon? she wondered with concern. Had the worst occurred already: Mrs. Quinn had cooked them breakfast?
But the innkeeper, helping Mr. Quinn with the carriage, smiled with pleased surprise upon them as they rode into his yard.
“Welcome,” he called. Raven, surrounded by horses, dismounted quickly, and, with one of his unexpected and charming gestures, went to help with the very handsome matched set of four grays being harnessed to the carriage. Judd relinquished the task to him and came to greet the ladies.
“You found a cook,” Gwyneth guessed immediately, and he laughed.
“An exceptional one came to my door in the nick of time. He spent the last twenty years at sea, cooking for any number of people; he was completely undaunted by the impending throng from Landringham and cooked an amazing supper for them that brought praise even from Mrs. Quinn. But what brings you here on such a boisterous day?”
“What, indeed!” Daria exclaimed, dismounting with a sigh. “I thought the wind would blow us out among the gulls. We have come to recapture Mr. Dow’s attention; he has been neglecting us all, and we miss him.”
“Oh.” Judd’s smile vanished. “You haven’t seen him, either, then.”
“He’s not here?” Daria said incredulously. “After we rode all this way?”
“You don’t know where he is?” Gwyneth asked, surprised. “When did you last see him?”
“Several days ago,” Judd said slowly. “He said he was going to ride into the woods to look for Hesper.”
“Hesper?”
“Why Hesper?” Daria demanded fretfully. “What could he want with the wood witch?”
Judd shook his head. “Something about that bell and Aislinn House. That’s all he said.” He glanced down the cliff toward the shadowy trees on the hill behind the harbor. “I haven’t seen him since.”