Chapter Eight

A fter the concert for Her Grace of Winshire, Guy was besieged by requests for Tammie to sing at a variety of entertainments for a range of different hostesses, from top-lofty duchesses and marchionesses to the wives of the wealthy middle-sort.

He picked and chose between them, but even so, Tammie sang for four or five evenings a week and several times a week at afternoon entertainments. She enjoyed it. Not only was she happy when singing, but Guy had to keep her well and content, which meant frequent doses of the drugs she craved, carefully measured to keep her floating but not totally detached from reality. And no sexual favors for Guy or men that Guy wanted to influence.

Matters could change, and almost certainly would. Tammie was seldom so deeply in her dream world that she forgot Guy might change his mind at any time, especially if she behaved in any way that the toffee-nosed upper classes regarded as scandalous. Little did they know how scandalous Guy was! Or perhaps they did not care. He was, after all, an earl and a man!

And an elf king. That realization was lodged in Tammie's brain, and though the rational part of her mind wanted to argue that elves were imaginary, the rest of her knew Guy behaved exactly like the faery folk of the songs and the stories—and got away with it, furthermore. Anyone else, even an earl, would have been caught and punished long since. What was that, if not faery magic?

As if to confirm her suspicions, or perhaps to mock her, the dark fire of his aura had coalesced into a crown. He was an elf king.

Her perfect behavior was rewarded early in the second week of such engagements. Guy had a request for Tammie that he really wanted to fulfill, but it was at a time when he needed to be elsewhere. The boy he had given Tammie to a couple of weeks earlier was showing signs of cold feet, and Guy planned a drunken afternoon with trimmings that would take the poor boy's freedom of choice away forever.

Tammie didn't want to know the details, but she hoped Guy failed. The boy was a naive fool, but not naturally vicious. The consequence of his preoccupation, however, was that Guy planned to send her to an afternoon concert with only her maid, two footmen, and one of Guy's muscle-men as escort.

Perhaps Jowan would be there.

"At least that Cornish fool won't be there to bother you," said Guy, seeming to read her mind. Typical faery magic, she thought. "He has somehow managed to gain entree to the Marquess of Deerhaven's crowd, and Lady Bevan has nothing to do with any of those."

Tammie spread her hand and studied the back of it. As always, she was only one step away from the dreams in which she preferred to live. She had never noticed before, but the blue veins formed letters. A "B" and an "L". Or perhaps the second letter was a "V". How interesting. Be Valiant. Is that what her hand was telling her?

She kept her eyes lowered for fear Guy would read the rebellion she planned. She had been searching the ballads for clues to an escape and had found some stories where the person stolen by the faery managed to escape, so it was possible.

She did not think she would be able to persuade Guy to sleep on her lap or come swimming with her, as the maidens in two ballads did, one killing the elf knight with the dagger he intended to use on her and the other also visiting the fate the elf knight intended on her, and drowning him. But there was still hope in the ballads, for some escaped, with help.

Not all rescues were successful, and none of the rescued were ever quite the same. Still, better to be free and damaged, or to die trying, than to remain enslaved to Guy.

Jowan would help if only she could reach him and convince him. She did not know how she would manage it, but somehow, she planned to see Jowan. Lady Bevan's would be a good opportunity if he was there. She had looked for him at every entertainment, but Guy's explanation of how he chose where to send her explained Jowan's absence.

No matter. If not this time, then another.

"Go, then," Guy said. "I will see you at dinner this evening."

Lady Bevan was one of those who thought herself too important to bother with politeness to a performer. Tammie's carriage was directed to the back door and met by a butler who echoed his mistress's superior attitude.

He led them to a little room lined with cupboards. It had three uncomfortable chairs and no other furniture. "You will stay in this room until you are called, as will these others," he instructed. "You will sing four songs while the guests are eating luncheon. When you have finished singing, you will return to this room, and your carriage will be called. You will not mingle with your betters."

"Miss Lind," Tammie said, in her most aristocratic accent.

The butler reared back in offense. "I beg your pardon?"

"Not granted," Tammie snapped back. "I find your tone offensive. If you are relaying your mistress's instructions, then I find Lady Bevan offensive. Henry, will you send for my carriage, immediately please."

Henry bowed. "Yes, Miss Lind." He turned towards the door, but the butler moved to intercept him.

"See here," said the butler. "Lady Bevan is expecting you to entertain her guests. She has told them you are coming."

"You may inform Lady Bevan that I am an artist, and I do not sing for those who do not give my art the respect it deserves. Singing while people are eating, indeed! You might also tell her that an insult to me is an insult to the Earl of Coombe."

The butler backed away. "Wait here," he said.

"No," said Tammie, and she led the other four from the room, turning along the passage in the direction away from the door they'd entered by. The butler grabbed her arm, but Guy's brute put his massive hand over the butler's thin one and the butler fell back, wincing.

"You cannot go out there," said the butler, as Henry the footman opened the green baize door.

Tammie ignored him. Lady Bevan was in the entrance hall, directing footmen who were moving vases of flowers according to the lady's direction.

"Henry," Tammie said, "my carriage."

"Yes, Miss Lind," said Henry again, and negotiated a path across the room through the chaos of flower movers. Tammie seated herself in a comfortable chair and the rest of her minders gathered nearby.

"You!" Lady Bevan shrieked, pointing a finger at Tammie. "You cannot wait there. The butler will show you where you can wait."

Tammie smiled serenely. "No, thank you. I am comfortable here. But do not be concerned, Lady Bevan. My carriage will arrive shortly, and I shall be gone before your guests arrive."

Lady Bevan gaped at her, then, frowning, said, "Gone? But you came here to sing. I paid the Earl of Coombe." She flapped her hands as if shooing hens. "Go with my butler. He will show you where you are meant to be."

"Lady Bevan, I have performed before the crowned heads of Europe, before princes, dukes, and others who trace their blue blood back to the time of Charlemagne. Never have I been expected to prepare in a china pantry and to sing while people masticate their food. I will not remain to be so insulted."

Bewilderment and temper fought for supremacy in Lady Bevan's face and temper won. "The Earl of Coombe shall be hearing about this," she threatened.

"Yes," said Tammie, "for I shall tell him. An insult to my music is an insult to Lord Coombe." The one true thing about Guy was his love for music. In every other respect, he would do whatever advantaged him, even if that meant tramping all over his dependents and anyone else in his way.

"But… I have told my guests you will be singing," Lady Bevan complained.

That statement did not need a comment. Tammie ignored it.

"You have to sing," Lady Bevan declared.

Tammie glanced at her and went back to contemplating the footmen. That one near the door was going to drop his vase if he did not put it down soon. He was turning all sorts of interesting colors, his jaw was set, and his knuckles were white.

"Miss Lind! I am speaking to you!" Lady Bevan shrieked.

Tammie turned her attention to the lady. "Lady Bevan, I suggest you take any complaints to Lord Coombe. I will leave as soon as my carriage is ready."

The lady deflated. Tammie could almost see the bombast spurting out of her in red puffs. "What can I do to convince you to stay?" she demanded, pouting.

"All I need, my lady," Tammie replied—humbly, for she had won and did not need to crow about it—"is a parlor to wait in and a time to sing. Before or after the luncheon, whichever suits you. But not during, while your guests are busy with something else. Other than that, I need to speak with your musicians to ensure that they have the music to accompany me. That is all. If your ladyship can see your way to providing me with what I need to do justice to your good reputation and my own, then I would be happy to stay."

" Hmmph! " said Lady Bevan. She barked at the butler. "Bishop! See to it that Miss Lind has what she needs." She turned her back on Tammie just as the struggling footman gave up and the vase slipped from his grasp with a loud crash.

Bishop, the butler, looked at the chaos of the broken vase, flowers, water, and his mistress taking out her anger on the hapless footman, and crooked a finger at another footman who was not currently burdened. "See Miss Lind to the green parlor, and ask the leader of the musical quartet to visit her there."

"Bishop," Tammie said, "When you have a moment, please let Henry know to send the carriage back to the mews and to join me in the green parlor. Thank you."

She followed the footman away as Bishop began to try to restore order in the entrance hall. Poor man. He might be a pompous idiot with a stick where the sun did not shine, but he had her sympathies.

The green parlor was acceptable. Tammie asked the footman for a large jug of fruit juice or lemonade or some other cordial, and sufficient glasses for them all. Once he left on that errand, she invited her entourage to sit. "Good job with the lady, Miss Lind," said Guy's muscle.

Tammie smiled, vaguely. The muscle had a flask with her next dose of laudanum, which made it all the more important to have his approval.

The footman must have found the quartet before he fetched the lemonade, for the violinist who was their leader turned up just before Henry reappeared with a tray containing the requested jug and glasses. Nothing to eat, Tammie noted.

She discussed music with the violinist, and it was as well she did, for he was not familiar with one of the pieces she had chosen. It gave her the opportunity to ask if he knew "The Ballad of Tam Lin".

"No, Miss Lind. I haven't heard of that one."

"It is from Scotland's borderlands, I believe," she said.

"My cellist might know it," said the violinist. "Mac is from Dumfries."

"Never mind," Tammie said. "I shall sing ‘Sweet Nightingale', without accompaniment. We shall make it the last song, and you and your colleagues can take a five-minute break. I fear Lady Bevan might expect you to play straight through, otherwise."

They had settled the program just in time, for a footman came running to say that the guests had started to arrive, and Lady Bevan wanted to know why she only had a trio and not a quartet. The violinist scurried away.

After that, there was nothing to do but drink her dose of laudanum, wash it down with lemonade, and wait. Guy's muscle played cards with one of the footmen and Tammie's maid took out some sewing. Tammie sat idly watching the sunbeams that infiltrated the windows, splintered by the imperfections in the glass, and further distorted by the surfaces they struck: a mat, the legs of a table, the parquet floor.

When she was called for her performance, she drifted towards the door. Henry tugged on her arm. "Miss Lind, I shall order the carriage for forty-five minutes from now, so you do not need to wait after the performance." In an undertone, he added, "Sir Jowan Trethewey is in the audience."

That name penetrated the daze. She blinked a couple of times while she tried to remember what she wanted to say to Jowan. "The ballad." That was it. "Tell Jowan The Ballad of Tam Lin . Tam Lin. Remember that."

"Miss Lind?" The muscle had turned back in the doorway and was looking at her with suspicion.

"One moment," she commanded, putting on her imperious persona. "Henry, yes. Your suggestion is excellent. Henry is going to order the carriage now so it will be ready in forty-five minutes."

The muscle's face cleared. "Yes, Miss Lind," he said. "Run along, Henry. This way, Miss Lind."

There was something else. Tammie could not remember it. Oh yes. "Your message will be welcome, Henry," she told the footman. "Mac knows."

But for the life of her, she could not remember who Mac was. She could only hope that Jowan knew.

*

For once, Jowan and Bran had gone in different directions. They had bribed a street boy to keep up with the movements of the coach Tammie used, and the urchin had arrived with news of her arrival at the house of a Lady Bevan just as the brothers were about to join David Wakefield, whose agents had been watching the Earl of Coombe on behalf of Wakefield's other client.

Apparently, the uncles and former trustees of a viscount new to his majority were concerned about the company their nephew was keeping. Bran had gone to join Wakefield, and Jowan had searched through the invitations that had accumulated in their little sitting room since the Duchess of Winshire had noticed them to find the one that gave him entry to this, one of the most boring garden parties he had every attended.

Not that he was an aficionado of garden parties. He could count on one hand those he'd been to, and that included three in Cornwall over the past four years. Still, if he had been to two a week for four years, he could not imagine any of them would have been more stultifying.

This one had a string quartet providing background music, and a lot of people he would normally not be interested in meeting chatting loud enough to drown out the music. He didn't know anyone else at the party. The hostess introduced him to one gentleman and then abandoned him to the victim's increasingly desperate attempts to discover whether Jowan knew anyone who, as the man put it, mattered.

Once the man was satisfied that Jowan was hopelessly provincial and disastrously ill-connected, he wandered away to better company, leaving Jowan to sip at the wine he had been given, and to wander from group to group, listening in on what other people were saying.

Fashion, horses, scandal. Nothing momentous. Nothing interesting. Only overheard mentions that confirmed Miss Lind would be singing this afternoon kept Jowan from leaving.

At last, his patience was rewarded. Tamsyn appeared from the house, flanked by a couple of hulking footmen and with a maid scurrying behind. Lady Bevan stood on the platform of the little open summerhouse being used as a bandstand and tapped a teaspoon on a glass to attract attention.

"Ladies and gentlemen," she nearly shouted. "For your pleasure, I have brought the Devon Songbird to sing for you."

Tamsyn stepped up into the bandstand, curtseyed to Lady Bevan, and curtseyed again to the guests. A man standing near Jowan commented, "She can pleasure me, anytime." Which brought a chuckle to those with him and had Jowan forming fists of his hands and picturing the blood spurting from the idiot's nose all over the snowy lace of his cravat.

If you make a scene, you will be ejected , he reminded himself urgently, but nonetheless, he was breathing heavily when someone tapped on his shoulder, and he whirled ready to defend himself. It was the footman from Coombe's house, the one who had given Jowan Tamsyn's note. He gestured with his eyes and headed to the shelter of a nearby shrub.

Jowan followed him, realizing that the shrub masked him from the view of the singer and from those nearest to her, including her maid and her minders.

"Sir Jowan, isn't it sir?" checked the footman.

"I am," he agreed. "And you are Coombe's footman." He couldn't keep his disdain for the man from his voice.

The young man blushed. "Miss Lind's footman, sir. I have a message for you, from Miss Lind, sir."

"I hope to speak to her myself," Jowan told him.

The footman shook his head. "We have been instructed to keep Miss Lind from meeting with you, sir. I am sorry. It is as much as my job is worth not to obey. The other men will obey Coombe, anyway. And Miss Lind will suffer if she manages to speak with you. Please don't get her into trouble, sir."

"Is that your message?" Jowan asked, his anger at the thought of Coombe hurting Tamsyn making it hard for him to keep his voice to a low mutter.

"No, sir. The message is…" the footman frowned as if bewildered, "the ballad of Tam Lin."

Now Jowan shared the sensation. "The ballad of Tam Lin? What the hell does that mean?"

"I don't know, sir. I hoped you would. ‘Tell Jowan the ballad of Tam Lin.' Oh, she also said, ‘Mac knows,' sir." He shook his head as if that might dislodge some more information.

"I must fetch the carriage, sir. That is the whole message."

"Thank you," Jowan said, accepting that the young man knew nothing more. "Please let Miss Lind know I stand as her friend."

"I will, sir."

The footman faded into the crowd and Jowan moved far enough out from the shrub to be able to see Tamsyn. The ballad of Tam Lin? What on earth could that mean?

Tamsyn held the audience in the palm of her hand. Even the men in Coombe livery could not take their eyes off her as her rich voice soared over the garden. Jowan, too, truth be told, but he retained enough sense to keep close enough to cover that he could step sideways to be out of sight of Coombe's servants.

Quite apart from her magical voice, her appearance captured the crowd, and the way her eyes passed over them, pausing on face after face, then moving on. Jowan waited for her to see him, and at last, halfway through her second piece, her eyes met his, widened, and moved on.

Had she recognized him or not? Yes, she had, for a moment later, when the operatic aria she was singing called for a smile, she focused on his face for the full stanza. So much so, that one of the men in Coombe livery, a great brute of a fellow, turned to see what she was looking at. But not before Jowan ducked his head so all the man would be able to see over the crowd was Jowan's hair.

She didn't let her eyes pause through the next piece. It was a rollicking popular song, "The Barmaid's Catechism", where a cheeky barmaid sings about getting orders mixed up or serving meat that was questionable. Tamsyn managed to persuade even this jaded fashionable crowd to join in with the chorus, where the barmaid explains how she dashes away at the first sign of a complaint:

"And, if told of the error, though ever sosmall,

Break off with—Dear me, did not somebodycall?

Lord bless me, where are all my peoplehumdrumming?

I must e'en go myself—coming, sir,coming!"

Jowan compared this polished performance to the Tamsyn he knew, the shy musician who could only perform if she pretended she was alone. What else had changed?

"One more time, and louder!" she called out as they sang the last chorus, and the musicians obediently played the tune again. The crowd bellowed the words this time and were laughing along with Tamsyn as they roared out the final line.

"I must e'en go myself—coming, sir, coming!"

By the time the applause for that song had died down, the musicians had crept away, and Tamsyn was alone. With no accompaniment, she sang an old traditional Cornish song, one Jowan knew well. It was another courting song, "Sweet Nightingale", where the maiden feared to go home through the shadows but was reluctant to accept the boyo's escort. As the couple marry, Tamsyn met his gaze again, singing, "She was no more afraid, to go in the shade," before letting her eyes drift away.

Another message? He had no idea. He joined the applause and made no attempt to get closer to her as she thanked Lady Bevan for her hospitality, curtseyed to the crowd, and was escorted away by Coombe's servants.

After that, he saw no point in staying. He headed back to the hotel to wait for Bran, but it was still early, and he had another thought. Perhaps a bookshop might have the words of the ballad to which Tamsyn directed him. A friendly passerby sent him to Finsbury Square, where he discovered the biggest book shop he had ever seen.

The Temple of All the Muses said the sign above the door to an enormous foyer. Jowan asked at the counter for the ballad and was directed to the music section, up several flights of stairs.

A sales assistant then took over the search, finding the shelves that held traditional ballads, and soon unearthed a copy of Scots Musical Museum , which held a poem by Robert Burns actually called "Tam Lin", and the second volume of Minstrelrey of the Southern Border , by Sir Walter Scott, which had the words of a song called "Young Tamlane".

The assistant showed him to a table and chair and left him to read. The songs were related—the same story told with a few unimportant changes. A girl had an encounter with either an elf knight or her childhood sweetheart who had been stolen by the queen of the fairies. When the girl found she was with child, she was determined to rescue and wed the child's father.

She discovered she could break the spell holding her swain on one night of the year, and that by pulling him from his horse and holding him as the queen turned him into one monster after another. At last, the queen had to give up, and the couple had their happy ending.

Scott, in his introduction to the tale, explained there were a number of versions, but with the same basic tale. Was Tamsyn seeing herself as the elf knight, the stolen sweetheart? If so, Jowan was Janet, the girl who outwitted and outlasted the fairy queen. He would, as Burns put it, hold her fast. At least, he would if he could once get his hands on her.

Jowan went looking for the assistant and asked for a pen, ink, and paper. He had to pay for them, but it was, after all, a shop. He settled back at the table with the books and wrote out the words of each song.

Was he fooling himself? He'd show the lyrics to Bran and see if his brother came to the same conclusion about Tamsyn's purpose in sending him to find the songs. The question remained, how could he get at Tamsyn when Coombe kept her so close? Also, who was Mac? And what did he know?