Page 77 of The Curse of Penryth Hall
I furrowed my brow. “How?”
Ruan looked as wretched as I felt. Unchained, lost, and scared to death. “You were calling for me.”
I tugged the wool blanket up over my chest and took another sip of the water, letting it run pleasingly down my raw throat. “The way you can hear what I’m thinking?”
“It was worse. I’ve never had anything like it happen before. I don’t know how or why you of all people. You…” His rough fingers grazed their way along my forehead. “What was it you called me? The seventh son of a miner with a pocket full of parlor tricks.”
I leaned my head against the brass bed frame, stretching my neck slightly. “Penchant for them, I believe.” The faintest hint of a smile crossed my face. “I do have a rather elegant turn of phrase, don’t I?”
He snorted. “I’m glad you’re alive, Ruby Vaughn. So very glad.”
I am too.Inordinately so.
Another snort. This one of the cynical variety. The man could likely carry on a conversation with the sounds he made.
“I do appreciate you saving my life.”
“Again.”
His strange eyes burned brighter than normal as he watched me. As if they had their own ability to shine.
“I may not put any stock in curses, but I’m beginning to believe in you, Pellar.”
He shifted in the chair. “Then you’d be the only one of us.”
“I’m sorry for the things I’ve said to you.”
“No need.”
There was need. I’d have to prove my sincerity to him eventually. “Yes, well. Whatever you’ve done, I am starting to feel rather fine now.” It was strange, but the longer he touched my brow and I sat here talking to him, the more I began to feel myself again—and I desperately needed to feel alive. To be alive. To remember how I wound up wandering Bodmin Moor. “But as much as I appreciate your skill at poking around in my brain, couldn’t you read the thoughts of people who might actually have killed someone? That’d be a far sight more useful at this moment.”
His laugh came again, slow and low. “You are the most confounding woman I’ve ever met.”
“Most troublesome, probably.”
“Without a doubt.” The flicker of amusement returned to his face. Perhaps things would be right now and we’d solve this puzzle. Just as soon as I remembered where I’d been and why I’d been there.
THE NEXT TIMEI woke, Dr. Heinrich was at my bedside wearing the very same expression he’d had that time I’d thrown thatAntigone-themed costume party and he’d missed that minor detail in his invitation and showed up in the parlor halfway through the party dressed as Napoleon. He was not amused then, nor now it seemed.
Evidently, Ruan had gone into town earlier, leaving me alone with Mr. Owen, who had in turn summoned Dr. Heinrich to fuss and worry over me lest I expire on the spot. Why he trusted my initial care to Ruan rather than a very fine surgeon, I still couldn’t comprehend. “You’re lucky to be alive, you know that, don’t you, Miss Vaughn? Do you recall anything at all from before you woke?”
I shook my head, taking a cool sip of water, struggling to wash away memories of the ragged child, lest I start prattling on about him to the doctor. Or was the child a girl? Already I could scarcely recall its features. It was bad enough I’d admitted my hallucinations to Ruan, but a girl did possess a bit of pride. “I was going somewhere. To Penryth Hall perhaps? Though I don’t know if I ever made it? Surely not if I was all the way to Bodmin, don’t you think, since it’s in the other direction.”
Dr. Heinrich sniffed. “Perhaps you were pixie-led?”
“That’s what Ruan said as well.” Odd that both men would come to the same conclusion. “I don’t believe in curses. Or pixies, thank you. Though I believe they call them piskies in this part of the world.”
The doctor gave me an exasperated look and leaned back in the chair.
I tugged the woolen blanket higher up my legs, settling myself deeper into Ruan’s mattress. “Where is Ruan anyway?”
“Seeing after Miss Smythe. Did you hear about that?”
I shook my head. There was something faintly familiar, as if Ioughtto know but had forgotten. “What happened?”
“You must be feeling a great deal better if you’re lookingto catch up on village gossip.” He touched my brow with the back of his hand. Whatever he found seemed to reassure him.
I flashed him a brief smile. “I’m really fine. I don’t know what Ruan did, but I applaud his efforts because I feel at this moment like I had a bit of hashish and half a bottle of cognac.”
