Chapter 8
By midday, the pain in Aaron’s head had gone from an agonizing roar to a dull ache. Compared with worry for his daughter’s whereabouts, the pain that frequently tormented him was but a minor nuisance. He limped across the room to the table where Beatrix frequently concocted her remedies, looking for the dainty white yarrow flowers that she would apply to wounds.
Rifling through her jars of remedies, he came across the one he sought and worked to crush a small handful of the leaves and flowers into a pile. Wetting the crumbs, he applied them to the wound on his leg before binding it with a fresh cloth from her basket. Then he sought another of her jars, the one which contained the valerian she always brewed into a tea when his head pained him as it did now.
Aaron went through his own ministrations numbly, his thoughts on his beautiful daughter. She had been the only source of constant joy in his life, his reward for surviving the loss of his wonderful wife, Tilly. When she breathed her last, Aaron would have willingly dug a second grave beside hers and cast himself down into the dirt, if not for Beatrix.
“Ah, Tilly. You were always the one to take care of me. Have I become such an invalid old man that I now make our daughter play nursemaid when my health fails me? Where is that damned jar?” he cried out, still looking at all of the medicines.
The girl had changed him from the moment he had first looked into her sleepy little eyes and held her close. He still plied the only trade he knew, the only one with which he had any skill, but his motivations and mechanisms had changed almost instantly upon cradling her in his arms. Gone was the greed, the cruel avarice in his efforts, and it had been replaced with a desire to set things right in the world.
He had struggled throughout most of her life to keep his true self a secret but Aaron still remembered the day his little Beatrix had learned the truth about him from some cruel village children. Beatrix had raced home to their apartments above an apothecary shop, tears streaming down her face. It had pained Aaron to no end to confirm what the children had said to her, but in the wisdom that she’d possessed since arriving on this earth, she immediately saw the good in him and in his men.
“There is none like her anywhere,” he’d always said, and those like Pencot—standing in dutifully as the jovial, adoring uncle in Beatrix’s life—had readily agreed.
Like any doting father, Aaron had worried ceaselessly about his influence on his child, about being an adequate parent. But his daughter had thrived in a situation that many would consider ill-suited for a family, and she remained the proudest achievement of his life.
“Put it behind you, old man, there’s work to be done!” Aaron muttered. “Tend to yerself, for once in yer miserable life!”
These thoughts did nothing to alleviate either his melancholy or his headache. After the tempest of rage he’d created yesterday at his men, he’d thrown them all out of the house and taken to his bed, sick with grief and worry. As usual, he arose in the morning with his usual pains amplified, which only served as a bitter reminder that Beatrix was no longer there.
“She always knows what to do,” he mumbled as he tried to get the fire started and fill the small black kettle with water from the pail. Though his motions were painstakingly slow due to his state, he somehow managed. While brewing the tea that might reduce the pain, he nibbled at a crust of bread, wondering what his child might have as sustenance that day.
“I’m coming for you, my dear girl,” he said out loud, staring into the low flames and letting his anger renew his strength. “Mark my words, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
No sooner was Aaron up and moving about than a knock at the door sounded, followed by Pencot opening it and walking in. Aaron felt a tiny prick of remorse when he spied a good-sized goose egg on Pencot’s forehead, but the other man seemed hardly to notice.
“Great news! The lot of us fanned out last night to see what we could find!” Pencot announced, smiling broadly. “We’ve not even returned to our beds yet, but I saw the smoke from your chimney and knew you had to be about.”
“What do you want?” Aaron muttered.
“I’ve found a washer woman who remembered seeing Beatrix!” Pencot smiled and Aaron rushed across the room as best he could manage to hear of it. “She was out on her business and saw quite plainly a ‘fancy man’ and some of his companions riding their horses, only there was a woman behind the man on the horse. That keeps with what we saw when the man bade us lie down. They’d bound Lady Beatrix and made her ride with them!”
“Where is this woman?” Aaron demanded anxiously.
Pencot grimaced. “She wasn’t from these parts so she didn’t know the name of the villages along the road. She’s visiting her dead husband’s sister since she’s taken ill and cannot work, leaving her poor children with nothing to eat. So she’s taken up the sickly woman’s duties and is making the rounds of the houses to launder their—”
“Pencot, I swear I’ll slit ya throat if you don’t talk less about a washer woman and her travels and more about my daughter!” Aaron stormed.
“Oh. Right.” Pencot looked flustered, then resumed the more pertinent part of his tale. “As I was saying, she does not know the names of the towns to give me a more accurate account, but she did know the direction she’d seen them ride. She said she clearly saw them turn from the road by the stone watchtower with the birds’ nest atop—she meant at Cavelshire—and head in the direction of the moors. There are not so many high-born families or lands in that part, so locating someone to inquire with should not be so hard!”
Aaron’s mood lifted only a speck, but it was enough for him to not want to wring Pencot’s head from his body with his bare hands.
“Send the men to those parts, not to retrieve my daughter unless they should happen to see her for themselves, but rather to inquire about the families. Find out what you can about which good lord might have committed the heinous act, and then bring me word at once.”
“Of course, Aaron,” Pencot said, confirming the order. “And Aaron? You know we are all so very sorry. Not a one of us would have allowed any harm to come to Lady Beatrix if we could have stopped it.”
“I know that,” Aaron sighed. “But sadly, your intentions don’t mean my daughter is safe. Until she is back with me, everyone is an enemy of mine.”
* * *
“My Lady, the Earl of Weavington and his son have arrived,” a butler stated softly. At the news, the older woman put aside the book she’d been reading and stood up, crossing over to the window and looking out. She smiled adoringly, her spirits lifting as always at a visit from her brother.
“Franklin!” she said when they were announced and led into the sitting room of her private suite. “And Peter, my goodness, you grow taller and more handsome every year!”
“Thank you, Aunt Miriam,” Peter said kindly, ducking down to kiss the woman’s cheek and take her hand.
“But come! Sit! Franklin, what would you like to drink?” she offered, but her brother—unused to such affection in his own household—refused with a polite cough. “I insist! You’ve both traveled so far to visit me, I must offer you some refreshment.”
