Page 71 of The Curse of Penryth Hall
“You suggest knocking on his door.” Ruan grunted as his blade slipped on the tree and he nicked his thumb again. At this rate he’d soon be out of fingers.
Tree 2—Ruan 0. Today was not his day.
He shot me a cross look.
“Yes, yes, I do suggest doing something of the sort.”
“Won’t work,” he mumbled over his second wounded appendage.
“Why won’t it?”
“He’s gone.”
“Gone?” The birds chittered cheerfully in the brush nearby while I waited for him to elaborate.
“Until morning. Was called away to London, I’m to understand he’s fetching the new curate.”
I opened my mouth and shut it again. “Did you suspect the vicar and not even bother telling me?”
“No. I told you I was in town all night trying to find that bloody woman.” He paused, weighing his words cautiously. “I overheard.”
Ah. Well, that would make sense. “What are you doing out here anyway?”
“What do Iappearto be doing?”
“How would I know? I never know what you’re doing, what you’re thinking…” I blew out an irritated breath. He turned his back again and headed deeper into the woods with me storming after him. “Well, what do you suggest we do until the vicar returns?”
He went back to his terse tree-mutilation, or whatever it was he was doing in this dark and lonely wood.
Very well, I clearly was getting nowhere with him in this foul mood. Instead of banging my head against the proverbial tree trunk of a man, I turned on my heels and walked back to the cottage. Surely Mr. Owen would prove better company.
WHATEVER ILL SPIRITpossessed Ruan earlier this morning had abated by the evening. He remained sullen, but at least we were comrades again, of a fashion. The low sound of Mr. Owen’s snore emanated from an oversized armchair. Fiachna, the fink, was curled up on the old man’s lap. Occasionally lifting his oversized head to look at me, blinking slowly, as if to say,You really thought he’d leave me in Exeter?
The only creatures in my whole dismal life who never once failed me were an overly fluffy black house cat and an eccentric Scottish bookseller. I peered into the empty tin cup in my hand, willing it to be full again.
Ruan was stooped over that ancient Cornish grimoire. One hand along his brow, tangled in his hair, the other making careful notes in pencil in a hidebound journal. Notes he refused toshare. Something was bothering him, and whatever it was had everything to do with that woman’s warning. He hadn’t been the same around me since. He glanced up at me curiously as if trying to convince himself of something, but then turned back to his books—knowing good and well I was watching him. I’d had far too much whiskey by now to bother disguising it. I picked up the rather uninspiring demonology in my lap and snapped it shut, walked over to the half-empty bottle of whiskey, pulled the cork, and refilled the cup before returning to where Ruan was working. While he was not an overly educated man—at least not formally—he was by far one of the cleverer specimens of his sex that I’d ever encountered.
I threw my head back, letting the amber liquid burn its way down my throat. Not my preferred drink, but it did the trick.
“You drink too much.”
I narrowed my gaze at him. “You don’t drink enough.”
He let out an irritated grunt in response. Infuriating man.
“Honestly it’s the only thing helping me endure your charming little village.”
“You don’t like the country?”
“I don’t like being accused of things. I don’t like people being murdered and attacked every time I turn around. I don’t like some woman coming and claiming that I’m going to somehow kill you. And I especially don’t like that you know what it means and are hiding it from me.” I poked him hard in the chest. Wobbling a bit on my feet.
He let out a low rumble of laughter, steadying me with a hand to my elbow. “Ah, Miss Vaughn, you don’t particularly enjoy being a spectacle?”
There was a double-edged meaning in his words, which stung more than they ought. I’d thought him my friend, and now he was… distant. Worried. “I won’t harm you, you know… that woman… she…”
Ruan sighed, running a hand over his stubbled jaw, clearly not wanting to discuss the witch’s warning further. “You should go to bed, Ruby.”
I stifled a yawn with my fist and eyed the impossibly tall ladder leading to the loft.
