A Dangerous Collaboration (A Veronica Speedwell Mystery) Deanna Raybourn (books to read for self improvement .TXT) 📖

“Were they happy?” I wondered.

“Happy as a mortal can be when wedded to merfolk,” she said sagely. “The little mermaid gave him a son in due course, and wealth, just as she promised. And with the wealth, the poor fisherman built a castle upon this island, which he gave in time to his boy, the mermaid’s son, and so it was that the Romillys came to live upon this island, with the blood of the merfolk in their veins. They want to be better than they are, but we who have lived here for all the centuries in between and share their blood, we know the truth. The castle folk are sprung from a fisherman’s son and his mermaid mother.”

“Share their blood? Then you are related to the Romillys?” I asked.

“Why, everyone on this island is related to the Romillys,” she told me. “Most from the wrong side of the blanket. But we are all bound by the pellar blood of the mermaid who began it all, and it is from her that the sight comes.”

“Does everyone on the island have the sight?” I asked, goggling at the idea of an entire island full of clairvoyants.

She gave a comfortable chuckle. “That would be a fair thing, would it not? No, miss. The sight used to be a common gift, but it is not so anymore. In my mother’s time, only she and my auntie had it, and I am the last pellar witch on the island.”

“Has no one else in your family the sight?”

Her expression turned faintly disgusted. “Not a single one of my children has it. They take after their father, and him a fisherman from over Pencarron way. I ought to have known better than to marry an outcomer, but I loved him and who can argue when love will have its way?”

“Who indeed?” I mused. I finished my cider and rose. “Thank you for a most interesting visit.”

She put aside her tatting and gathered herself slowly to her feet. “It was good of you to come, miss. Mind you come again. And mind you mark my warning,” she said, coming so close I could see the faint flecks of black in the grey of her eyes. “Rosamund Romilly does not rest easy. Take a care for yourself and any you love.”

“I will,” I assured her. I emerged from the little inn into a patch of sketchy sunlight, my head fairly swimming with stories of mermaids and ghosts and pellar witches. The boy Peter was sitting outside, pitching conkers, but he scrambled to his feet when he saw me.

“Are you going back to the castle, miss?” he asked.

“I am. It must be getting on time for luncheon, and I should hate to miss it.”

“Indeed,” he said longingly. “Mrs. Trengrouse runs a proper kitchen, she does. Sometimes she gives me a bit of apple tart when I’ve done a job or two for her. Did you have a nice chat with Gran?” he asked politely.

“I did, thank you. She is a most interesting woman. She was telling me about the mermaid who founded the families on this island.”

“Oh, aye? That’s fine for girls, I reckon,” he said soberly. “But mermaids are not a thing for boys.”

“How frightfully limited you are in imagination if you think so,” I told him with a smile. “A boy might properly love a mermaid story.”

“I don’t think so,” he replied. “You see, a boy wants a sort of heroic story, and mermaids are fine if all you want to do is loll about in the sea, but I want stories about people who do things.”

“Ah, like the Spanish conquistadors who washed ashore?”

“And pirates,” he said, rolling his eyes ecstatically. “I love pirates.”

“Of course. I had quite a fancy for them when I was your age.”

He blinked. “You, miss? You liked pirates?”

“Naturally. Boys are not the only ones who want to sail the seven seas in search of plunder,” I assured him. “In fact, that’s rather my vocation.”

“You have been to sea? Actually to sea,” he said, waving his arms to encompass the horizon. “Not just the bit between Pencarron and here?”

“Not just that bit,” I said. “I have been as far as China and back again.”

“That,” he told me seriously, “is all the way.”

“It is indeed.”

“Did you ever fight anyone with a sword?”

“I regret to say, I have not. But I was caught in the eruption of a rather nasty volcano and shipwrecked, so I have had rather more than my fair share of adventures.”

His eyes shone in admiration. “I say, that is good. But you ought to know how to fight with a sword. Shall I teach you?”

“What a gallant offer,” I replied. “Do you know how to fight with a sword?”

“Not yet. But I met a pirate just now, and I mean to ask him to teach me.”

“A pirate! Well, we are living in interesting times indeed. Did he sail up under the banner of a skull and crossbones?”

Peter’s expression was painfully tolerant. “Well, of course not, miss. A pirate would not want folk to know he’s a pirate, would he?”

“I suppose not,” I admitted. “But you were clever enough to penetrate his disguise?”

“I was. I told him I knew him for a pirate and that if he didn’t want me to tell folk, he would have to teach me to use a sword properly.”

I gave him a thoughtful look. “It is a dangerous business to blackmail a pirate, young Peter.”

“I am not afraid,” he told me with a stalwart air. He put his hands into fists at his hips. “When he has done and I have mastered it—which I think will be in a week or so—I will teach you.”

“That is a most excellent plan. I shall look forward to it.” I paused and put out my hand. “Thank you for escorting me to the gate, Master Peter. You are a true cavalier.”

He swept off his cap and made a low bow, as graceful as any Stuart courtier, as