Chapter 26

Festoons of crepe paper crisscrossed High Street from opposing building roofs, fluttery above Nylander's head, striking stark white against the placid, blue sky that indicated no memory of the storm that had raged the night before. Spontaneous strains of lively fiddle and competing scents of freshly baked treats swirled around him, while children ran and wove through the adults, whose strides were only slightly more measured.

This was festival day, and no one could remain unmoved by its unmoored and easy gaiety for long. Upper Wyldcombe Lacey was a town transformed.

Again, Nylander scanned the sea of heads stretching up and down the length of the street, looking for her.

He hadn't spoken to her since last night, since they ambled back to the Grange together and he'd left her in her bedroom, alone. The hardest thing he'd ever done in his three and thirty years. He'd wanted nothing more than to lie with her, wake up next to her.

This morning, she'd been completely absorbed in preparations for the festival, and he'd left her to it while he made himself useful delivering last year's cider to the public houses and stalls lining High Street. On this day, there was to be free cider for all, courtesy of Wyldcombe Grange.

That wasn't to say he hadn't caught a few glimpses of her. He had. And once he'd even discovered her watching him, silently, even shyly. A woman, a lady, had never looked at him the way she had. It warmed him through his skin clean to the marrow in his bones.

Today was the autumn festival.

Tomorrow, possibly a future.

He dug his hands into his pockets and felt the slender missive. His sense of optimism faltered. It had arrived by special courier from London at daybreak. In it, Jake confirmed the sale of the Grange. Then he'd gone on to say he'd taken steps toward resolving the "other matter." Excise men weren't far behind the missive, if not ahead of it. The law was coming.

Bloody hell.He should've known better than to mention Jack Le Grand's name. At least, he'd kept Callie out of it. She'd waded too far out of the shallows. Now a riptide was muscling in. He wouldn't let it pull her under.

Jack Le Grand, on the other hand, deserved everything coming to him.

"Why if it isn't the Viking sea lord come to pillage and plunder," grated an overfamiliar voice behind him.

He pivoted and confirmed that it was Liza Bickle, radiating mischief. "Mrs. Bickle," he said, his indifference impossible to mask, "I take it you're enjoying the festivities."

She cast a malevolent eye about and shrugged a shoulder. "Never did care for apples." She snaked an arm through his and snugged close into his side, the smell of her strong enough to peel the paint off the prow of a ship. She stretched up to speak directly into his ear, her breath somehow worse than her body's odor, as if a small rodent had died in her mouth. "If ye come along with me, I'll show ye what I do care for. It involves a bit o' pillage and a whole lot o' plunder. I think ye'll like it." She winked. "Or yer money back."

Nylander opened his mouth to express his deepest regret that he wouldn't be able to take her up on her offer when Mrs. Jane Smith strode into view, a storm cloud on her face. "There you are, Captain Nylander. I've been searching the street high and low for you." She claimed his other arm and tugged in the opposite direction.

Liza Bickle wasn't about to concede the ground she'd staked. "Oi! Ye can't march in 'ere like the Queen of Sheba and claim another woman's man."

Nylander's brow lifted, but again Mrs. Smith spared him from speaking. "Liza Bickle, I've heard about you." With the air of a general on the march, she puffed out her considerable chest. "This man is spoken for."

"By 'oo?" Liza Bickle sputtered. "You? Yer a married woman."

"The who is none of your concern."

"Speakin' o' pillage and plunder," Liza Bickle trailed. Her head canted to the side, and speculation entered her eyes. "Ye've been makin' yer recovery at the Grange. I reckon there's been a bit o' plunder 'appenin' on the regular."

Mrs. Smith gasped and shooed the other woman away. "Back to London with you, Liza Bickle. You've overstayed your welcome in Devonshire."

Liza Bickle cast one last knowing smirk over her shoulder and slinked into the crowd, a saunter in her step, leaving behind a scandalized Mrs. Smith and a bemused Nylander. It wouldn't do to admit to the upright Mrs. Smith that Liza Bickle hadn't been entirely, or even mostly, wrong.

"My savior." He gave a slight bow. "I'm in your eternal debt."

"Of course," Mrs. Smith said, the fading remnants of a bristle in her matter-of-fact tone.

He glanced down and found her cheeks vermillion with a blush. He cleared his throat politely. "A nice day for a festival."

The weather was the safest course of conversation with a blushing woman.

"Oh," Mrs. Smith exclaimed, "do you have the time?"

He craned his neck to get a good look at the sun's position in the sky. "I'd say we're approaching noon."

Blushes gave way to an all-business tone. "We must hurry!" Her feet were already scurrying into motion, pulling him up the hill. He only now noticed the entire town was proceeding this direction, and they were simply entering its tide. "I want to see how Calpurnia's costume looks in the full sun."

"Ah." He had difficulty envisioning Callie wearing anything so frivolous as a costume. He rather liked that about her. Her utter lack of frivolity.

"Oh, yes," Mrs. Smith continued, "as head of Wyldcombe Grange, 'tis Lady St. Alban who is Master of Ceremonies." She gave her head a little shake. "Mistress of Ceremonies. This is her first year in the role since the past few years she's allowed the mayor to fill it. I still can't believe she's doing it herself this year. You've got to admire the woman for that."

"For what precisely?" What was all this talk about costumes and roles?

Mrs. Smith's eyebrows lifted. "That's right. You've never witnessed the Baptism of the Duke of Muck. Well, no matter, you'll see later. You're in for a treat." A bemused smile poked a dimple into life at the center of one round cheek. "Her Ladyship just can't help defying tradition at every turn. Such is the lot of a woman who wants a say over the running of her life."

"It was my impression that the wilds of Devon must breed a new sort of woman."

His comment provoked a laugh. "Captain Nylander, surely you jest. If rumor is to be trusted, you're a well-traveled man. Is there a single society in the world who lets a woman have a say over her life?"

"Well, there were the Amazons of Greece."

"An ancient society that is no longer in existence, may I remind you," she pointed out, smug in having proven her point.

"Captain John Nylander?" he heard behind him.

Before he faced the man, or men, more like, Nylander scanned what he already knew. London accent. A bit of education. Steel-edged. Pugnacious.

Excise men.

Mrs. Smith had already turned and exhaled a soft, "Oh."

When he pivoted and squared up to the men, his suspicions were confirmed. Officious thugs in suits. Excise men.

"Aye," he confirmed, equally hard.

Another soft, "Oh," escaped Mrs. Smith, whose eyes had gone round as saucers.

"A matter has come to our attention," began one. "About Jack Le Grand," finished the other.

Bloody hell."You won't make much headway today." Nylander indicated the tide of bodies jostling around them with a jut of his chin. "It's festival day."

The excise men looked about, as if they'd only just noticed that they stood in the midst of a jubilee.

"I suggest," Nylander continued, "getting yourself a glass of cider and an apple tart. This can wait until the morrow."

The men glanced at each other, then back at Nylander. "All right," said the one. "Tomorrow," said the other.

As their backs disappeared into the crowd, Nylander released a breath that was two parts relief and one part foreboding. Those men had a job to do, and they wouldn't leave until they'd done it. Tomorrow.

"What on earth?" Mrs. Smith asked, the question rhetorical.

If she only knew. Tomorrow.

"Now, we must hurry." Determination in her step, she pulled him onward and upward.

They reentered the flow of the increasingly dense crowd and reached the summit of the hill, where they stopped dead center in the squirming mass of humanity, a raised dais not fifty yards beyond. Distant figures bustled back and forth across its hollow boards, clearly preparing for a speech.

"Calpurnia's costume is a bit of a departure from tradition, but I couldn't seem to help myself," Mrs. Smith said, brimming with delight, hands clasped before her.

Nylander squinted into the distance. Where was Callie anyway? The only people he could make out on the stage were three rather elderly men and a woman in an emerald-green dress.

"Couldn't help yourself?" he only just thought to ask.

A sly smile formed about Mrs. Smith's mouth. She nodded toward the figure clad in the emerald dress, who was now stepping up to the podium and clearing her throat to address the crowd.

His mouth went dry. Callie. But the fact it was her wasn't what startled a thin sheen of sweat along his spine or made him stumble over an exposed root.

She stood before the entire town clad in her costume. Comprised entirely of emerald silk, the gown gathered in all the right places to accentuate the elegant length of her arms and legs, the undulate curve of her waist, the gentle rounding of creamy breasts above deep, square neckline. Hair twisted in a loose braid over her shoulder, wisps of flame red hair quivering in the light breeze, completed this perfect vision of poised femininity.

Statuesque, striking, she was a queen.

Except, she was so very much a woman.

And she was his. Or was she? How could it be true?

Mayhap he'd interpreted last night all wrong. For how was it possible that the lady standing above him, about to address this multitude like the queen she was, had gazed upon him the way he thought she had this morning?

It couldn't be.

She opened her mouth to address the assembled mass. Then her eye snagged on his, and she went mute. Even as the crowd grew restive, Nylander refused to surrender her gaze and what he found there. Could it be?

It couldn't.

A shy smile curled about her lips, and a pretty blush pinked her cheeks. Darkness gave way to light.

It could.

An officious elderly man shuffled forward and spoke a discreet word into Callie's ear. Still, her eyes remained locked onto his. Hushed whispers began swirling through the crowd as people took note of the recipient of her gaze. A jocular elbow cut a light jib into his ribs. Her blush deepened into embarrassed scarlet, and her gaze darted away. It was as if the summer sun had slipped behind a black cloud.

She cleared her throat. "Righteous seekers of the Duke of Muck," she called out, eliciting a few wry chuckles from the crowd. "Today we celebrate not only the bounty of this year's exceptional harvest, but all the work that made it possible. From the picking of the apples to the churning of the butter and to the baling of the hay. Every person gathered here makes today possible, year after year." She spread her arms wide. "This is your festival. This is your day. Make merry and celebrate, 'tis well-deserved. Let the festivities begin, and may the fleetest of foot win the day!"

"Is that a challenge, milady?" a man called out, the question playful.

An enigmatic smile played about Callie's lips. The crowd went dead silent. "Aye," she said, "that it is."

The assembled erupted into raucous laughter. The official who had whispered into Callie's ear rushed to the podium as fast as his elderly legs would carry him. "Mind you, pace yourselves!" he called out to the already dispersing crowd. "That's right, I'm looking at you, Harry Broadbent!"

His words of warning fell on deaf ears as the townspeople scattered and parted for the children's parade already on the march, drummer boys at the lead, followed by girls clad in white linen dresses pirouetting in twirls and loops, tossing fall leaves into the air, showers of orange, yellow, and red swirling about their heads in fluttery wisps.

"I believe you know how to proceed from here," Mrs. Smith tossed cryptically over her shoulder. She strolled away to the beat of the parade.

Alone, Nylander set his trajectory toward the stage and the woman still upon it, her back turned to him as she spoke with the men who remained. "A nice day for a festival," he called up to her.

Her head startled around, presenting her strong profile, and her body followed a beat behind. Eyes bright and shining, she smiled down at him. "A perfect day." A pause. "I love it."

Like that, last night was between them. The confessions. The connection. And it was good. Better than good. "You love the weather?"

She broke into a broad smile, and his heart lifted. "Mm-hmm."

He extended a hand. "Are you finished up there?"

She placed one hand in his—a jolt of lightning might have fired through him—and gathered her skirts in the other before jumping from the stage on a short hop. She gave a small wince on the landing.

"Is it your ankle?" he asked.

She nodded. "A little stiff is all. Nothing a little movement won't work out. It'll be right as rain by dusk."

"Will you walk with me?"

"I have a little time for a stroll."

"Do you have another pressing engagement?"

"You could say that." Her smile turned cryptic.

There was something about this festival that everyone but him understood. He held out his arm for her. "I'll take what time you'll grant me."

A sudden and charming shyness came over her as she threaded her hand through his crooked arm. Again, last night charged between them, the air vibrating with their bodies' memory. The breath held in his lungs, the feeling of having too much and not enough at once. The feeling of green youth lost, regained. Optimism for the day, for the future, flowed through him on a happy wave. Humbled, proud, that was how he felt to have this woman on his arm.

Wordlessly, they entered the flow of the crowd, their gazes fixed on its scene of merry, boisterous revelry. "Your dress," he began, "is most becoming."

Becoming?

"Thank you," was her demure reply.

"Why don't you wear dresses more often?"

"They're highly impractical for the work I do. Besides—" She hesitated.

"Besides?" he prodded.

"I don't know of any men who would like to see me dressed so."

"I can think of one."