A Reckless Encounter

Marita’s eyes narrowed; she rode the horse with no saddle, bare brown legs sticking out from her bunched skirts, her feet clad in scuffed shoes. Now she slid from her horse to the ground, glaring up at Celia.

“Oh, you really are foolish! You are to wait for him, or did the note not say so? Yes, I think it did, but you are so used to your own lies, you think everyone lies.”

Celia stared at her. Rushing wind tugged at her skirts and hair, chilled her skin. She shivered. Overhead, a seabird made a piercing cry as it wheeled in the sky, and gray clouds seemed suddenly dark. Black thunderheads bunching on the horizon beyond the point of land marked a threatening storm.

“We should go back,” she said, “before it breaks.”

Marita reached for her horse’s bridle, shaking her head. “You are to wait. Or do you not trust him? Do you think he would lie to you as you have lied to him?”

Sudden premonition made Celia tense, and she turned her horse around. “No, but he should be here. He’s not, and I’m going back. Stay here or go with me, I don’t care.”

“Oh, you are so impatient!” Marita circled in front of her. “If you will only wait, you will see him soon.”

“No, I think I’ve had enough of your tricks for today, and I have no intention of letting you amuse yourself at my expense any longer.”

The small mare danced sideways as Marita snared the bridle with one hand, staring up at Celia with a scowl. “You have come this far. At least wait a few more minutes.”

Celia hesitated. Caution bade her flee, but logic told her that this girl couldn’t have written the note on Colter’s stationery or used his seal, nor could she have composed such a coherent, if terse, letter. Finally, against her better judgment, she dismounted rather clumsily when it began to rain.

“A few minutes more,” she said. “But if he doesn’t come soon I’m going back to your father’s camp.”

She tied the horse under the cursory shelter of a wind-twisted yew, then followed Marita to the tumbled-down stone granary behind the cottage. Weeds sprouted between fallen rock, and rubble shifted underfoot. A surprisingly solid door stood ajar, swinging slightly in the wind and rain.

Pale gray light darkened the inside of the round structure, and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. There was a strong smell of burnt wood, and she frowned as she saw the evidence of a recent fire on a ledge. Wall stones had been removed to form a window of sorts, and charred limbs and bits of brittle black charcoal were scattered about.

Celia crossed to peer out the opening at the gray wind-lashed sea. It stretched endlessly, though a curtain of rain moved across the surface like a creeping beast, stealthy and inexorable. She shivered suddenly, the wet air washing over her like a tide.

Was she being foolish to come here with Marita, who had made it plain how she felt? But even Santiago had expressed no reservations. After all, the note must be from Colter or there would be no seal, no recognized messenger from the estate. Yet she could not help the uneasy feeling that bored into the back of her mind, the premonition that all was not as it should be, that surely Colter would have made other, more suitable arrangements for them to meet. Why had he not come to the camp again?

Marita leaned against the far wall, arms crossed over her chest as she regarded Celia with what seemed to be a smugly satisfied expression on her face.

“Why do you stare at me like that?” Celia asked sharply when she turned to look at her. “You make me think you’ve another trick in mind for me.”

“Perhaps I have,” the girl said with a soft laugh. “But I would not be so foolish as to tell you if I did. Is it me you do not trust, or your fine gentleman? I did not write the letter to you, and you must know that.”

“Yes, it’s obvious you didn’t.” Irritated, Celia turned back to look out the window. Why had Colter sent this girl to bring her here? Surely Santiago, or even Mario, could have brought her so she would not have had to endure this insolent creature’s disdain.

Celia crossed her arms over her chest for warmth against the damp wind seeping through cracks and the tiny window, and suppressed another shiver. If only he would come. It was the anticipation, the not knowing what he would say or what she would say that kept her in torment. Would Colter believe that she’d not meant him any harm? Oh, but how could he, when she must tell him that she’d intended his own father a great deal of harm? Even when he knew what Moreland had done, he may not understand, may not even believe her until she showed him the documents that detailed the charge of murder.

When an eerie creak sounded behind her, Celia whirled, but it was too late. The heavy door slammed shut, and the sound of a grating bar was a dull, scraping thud. The granary was plunged into sudden darkness, the only light seeping inside through the small hole in the wall.

“Marita!” She dashed to the door, banged on it with her fists, shouted at the gypsy girl to open the door at once. “Damn you, stop playing your nasty tricks! Open the door or, by God, I’ll make you sorry for this. I swear I will, you stupid girl!”

Celia shouted until she was hoarse, until the gray light outside began to dim even more, and she had the horrified thought that this time Marita’s vicious trick might truly endanger her life.

But finally she heard a masculine voice over the noise of the wind and rain, and heard the bar slide back. At last! Colter had rescued her yet again, and he would deal with the girl, she hoped grimly, so that she’d never try such a trick again!

Then the door swung open. Silhouetted against the misty glow behind him, she glimpsed Marita’s gloating face, and her heart thumped in alarm. There was something triumphant in that expression. Her gaze moved slowly to the man who blocked the opening.

It wasn’t Colter.

26

Greasy smoke hovered in gauzy drifts that rose to the low, timbered ceiling of the public house. Green-tinged light filtered through leaded-glass windows, and the air was dense with the smell of wet wool, fish and the press of the Great Unwashed.

Colter recognized Tyler at the end of a long table; he lifted a pewter tankard but did not drink, the signal he was available.

“They took the bait,” Tyler said to his tankard when Colter elbowed a path through the crowd and took a place on the long bench next to him. “Edwards showed him the piece in the New Times.”