Page 40 of The Curse of Penryth Hall
My dining companion turned to the voice. “Benedict!” He gestured to the empty seat. “Have a pint with us until the rain lets up?”
The other man nodded. He had a good-natured face. Older. Perhaps on the far side of fifty, but hale and straight. Slight with a gap between his front teeth—and unlike the two of us, he appeared to be dry as a bone.
“Miss Vaughn, this is Benedict Martin, he has a smallholding between my cottage and Penryth Hall. Some fifteen acres that he manages with his wife. Benedict, this is Ruby Vaughn. She’s here from Exeter bringing me some books and got tied up in all this Chenowyth business.”
That was one way to put things. “Martin? You don’t happen to be related to Alice Martin, do you?”
He nodded with a warm smile. “My wife. Why do you ask?”
“I met her this morning.” Had it only been this morning? “She was on her way to take a basket to Mrs. Penrose.”
“Ah, yes, we heard about what happened to poor Sir Edward and thought Dorothea could use a hand. They’re thick as thieves those two.” His expression shifted and he sighed. “I heard about what happened this morning, maid. I’m that sorry about—” He drew his hand to his jaw, mirroring the spot where I sported a ferocious bruise. “Freddy gets into the drink and he… there’s no excusing his actions. None. I’m glad you didn’t come to no serious harm.”
“Is that his name?” I asked with a graciousness I didn’t feel. “The one who resembles a mad dog?”
Ruan snorted.
“That’d be the one,” Benedict replied with a shake of his head. He clapped a hand on Ruan’s shoulder. “I am sorry about it, but with our Pellar here it wasn’t as if they could do any serious mischief to you.”
The back of my head cared to disagree, but Mr. Martin was kind enough, which was something I had seen very little of from the denizens of this town.
“Speaking of mischief…” Benedict said, shifting to face Ruan. He leaned over the table. “There’s a woman here looking for you.”
My ears perked up at this. “A woman?”
Benedict nodded. “A strange one that. I met her at the crossroads on the way to the village this evening. Offered her a ride as it looked like it was about to storm.”
I cast Ruan a curious look. A woman at the crossroads?
“What was her name?” Ruan asked.
“Wouldn’t say. Nor would she say where she was from or why she wanted you. Only that she’d some business for the Pellar.”
Ruan sucked in the air through his nose and exhaled slowly.
“Dark eyes. Sharp features. Truthfully I thought she was a ghost when I saw her at first, standing straight as a statue all in black. Odd. Terribly odd. But she was flesh and bone all right. Reminded me of the old stories. Remember ’em, Ruan? Like to scared me to death at first.” Benedict glanced out the window into the storm. “I need to get back before Alice worries too much, but it looks like we’re stuck here for a time.” He sat down and turned to Ruan. “Is it really as horrible as they said? There’s talk about the curse come back. And while I’m not sure as I believe that a demon got him… but the lads in town—the way they talk’d make even the vicar second-guess himself.”
The muscles in Ruan’s jaw clenched, and my own stomach knotted in response.
“What is it, lad…?” Benedict’s expression grew paler. “You don’t mean to say itisthe curse?”
He gave a noncommittal shrug and took a drink. “You know as well as I that Sir Edward wasn’t a particularly well-liked fellow. During the war or after. You don’t happen to know of anyone he’d crossed, do you?”
Benedict frowned deeply and settled himself in a chair beside me. “Not rightly. He wasn’t liked, that’s for certain—but I don’t know of anyone who’d want to kill him.” Ruan’s question quashed any more mention of the curse. Benedict ran his fingers around the edge of his glass. A roar of laughter emanated from the table behind us, wedging itself into my still-sore head. I’d been forgotten. Or at least, wedged between these two men, I’d been deemed no longer a threat. A small silver lining to an altogether wretched day.
Benedict smelled of the fields. Not in an unpleasant way, but of nature and grass and livestock. “Curse or no, it’s a terrible thing. And that poor wife of his,” the older man said with a shake of his head and gestured for another round.
My head grew lighter, most certainly the result of imbibing after having my brains bashed in earlier. But I welcomed the warmth it brought, and the way it subtly dulled the ache inside my chest. The one that had begun the instant I saw Tamsyn again, and every rotten memory of my life came flooding back. I drank down the heavy beer and listened to the two men talk, slipping deeper into their West Country accents. Leaning against the window, I closed my eyes. The cadence of their voices, Ruan’s slightly lower, lulled me to sleep. Odd, but after the day I’d had, I was grateful for the calm. For the oblivion. And I fell slowly into a dark and dreamless abyss.
The next thing I knew I was being shaken.
“Miss Vaughn.”
My eyes jerked open, fixed upon Ruan’s.
“The rain has stopped,” he repeated and I had the sickening thought that he had perhaps said that same thing several times. My hand drew to my mouth. Thank goodness I hadn’t been drooling. I glanced to the clock. It was late. Past ten, and the night was thick and clouded.
Almost everyone in the tavern was gone. Even Benedict, who had been here when I’d closed my eyes. I ran a hand roughly over my face, wiping away the last of the cobwebs.
