The Merchant and the Rogue by Sarah M. Eden
by Mr. King
Installment VIin which Time runs short and our Heroine is faced with unfathomable Danger!
The damage to the confectionery shop was significant enough that Tallulah had not the time to resume her candy making or baking despite the passage of three days. The villagers had been remarkably kind and generous. They had begun cleaning while she’d been in the pub learning the horrible truth of their situation. They’d continued their efforts for hours afterward and into the next day. Given time, she’d have the means to replace the glass in the front window. For now, the town had kindly supplied her with enough greased paper to fill the gaping hole left by the squire.
A fear dearg of all things. And in England rather than Ireland. The Fae could, of course, travel, but didn’t usually go so far afield. Had she encountered in her homeland what she had in Chippingwich, she would have recognized the signs, would have known much sooner what they were facing. Then again, were she in Ireland, everyone would have realized what they were facing, and she wouldn’t be struggling with the enormity of defeating the monster on her own.
“There are many reasons the Fae avoid the mortal realm, iron being chief among them.” She could hear her gran’s words in her mind. “Iron bends the Fae. It twists them about, interferes with their magic. The most dangerous among them can only be felled by weapons of iron.”
Heaven help them all if Kirby and Royston were unable to obtain an iron axe or sword. Fear dearg grew bolder with every bit of mischief and torment. They came to enjoy the misery they caused, yet quickly found it insufficient. They grew worse and worse with time, and this fear dearg had been at his current mischief for nearly a century. That the village suspected their monster-turned-squire had killed the last shop owner to push back against him didn’t surprise her, but it did worry her. The squire would soon grow quite bold in that respect as well. Chippingwich would move from being tormented to being decimated.
The door, splintered but still functioning, opened. Her heart hammered on the instant but settled when Royston stepped inside.
He sauntered toward her, the same dandified gait he’d employed when first they’d met. It was a disguise; she could see that so clearly now.
“What news have you?” she asked once he’d reached her.
“My shipment of fabrics arrived today,” he said. “Only the fabrics.”
She rubbed at the back of her neck. “Without the remainder of that shipment, we are in dire straits.” They simply had to have an iron weapon.
“I do believe Kirby secured what we were looking for. It simply has not reached us yet.”
She sighed. “Let us hope we receive that shipment in time.”
“And with no indication of what’s inside,” he added.
Saints, that’d be a disaster. “We cannot risk raising a certain . . . person’s suspicions.”
He tugged at his lace-edged cuffs. “Tosh. I meant only that it’s far more enjoyable to open a packet when one has no idea what might be inside.”
How was it she hadn’t seen through these antics sooner? He had managed to fool the fear dearg but had also pulled the wool over her eyes. “If you have no idea what is inside the packet we are anticipating, then I have concerns about your intelligence.”
He chuckled. “Let us hope the squire harbors those same doubts.”
“About both of us,” she said.
Royston took her hand and raised it to his lips, pressing a warm kiss to the backs of her fingers. “I do not believe I have ever met your equal, Tallulah O’Doyle. You are brave and kind and, yes, intelligent.”
“And you, Royston Prescott, are showing yourself to have excellent taste.”
Again, he lightly laughed. With obvious reluctance, he slipped his hand from hers and stepped toward the door. “I will watch for our delivery. In the meantime, take care.”
“I will say the same to you.”
He dipped his head in a flourishing bow. A moment later, he was gone, and she was, once more, alone. Before the squire’s destructive visit, her shop had seldom been empty. The villagers, bless them, had continued to come by, to look in on her, to offer what help they could. She loved the people of Chippingwich, and she was determined to free them from the grip of the dangerous monster in their midst, one they could not fully see for what it was.
“What a shame all your customers have fled.” A whoosh of red and a waft of putridity accompanied the sardonic observation.
“Mr. Carman,” she said, keeping her tone as calm and disinterested as ever. It wouldn’t do to tip her hand before they were ready to truly do battle with the monster. “I have not yet begun replacing the candies and sweets and baked goods that were lost when the window broke. I do not know how soon I will do so.”
“I only came to offer a friendly greeting.” He turned his head toward her as he spoke, a shaft of light spilling across his face. It appeared as a double, both the human visage the villagers saw and the rat-like face of the fear dearg beneath. Each face faded in and out, repeatedly replaced by the other. His disguise was breaking down.
“You’ve offered your greeting,” she said. “Now, I need to get back to the matter of repairing m’ shop.”
Squire Carman made a slow, dramatic turn, eyeing the room with a mock expression of concern. “A shame what happened.”
As he turned, his cape rustled, and a rat’s tail became momentarily visible. Why was it she was seeing so much more of the monster beneath the disguise? What had changed?
Perhaps knowing what he was made it more difficult to be fooled.
Or, perhaps, just as his mask had first cracked in her presence when he’d grown angry with her, the disguise fell to bits the more upset the fear dearg was. And if she was seeing him so clearly, then he was not as calm as he appeared.
“It would be a true shame if more damage occurred here,” Mr. Carman said.
“Yes, it would.” She held her ground, watching him warily and closely. Heavens, that tail of his wasn’t hidden in the least. How odd that only she and Royston could see it.
“And yet, it seems unavoidable.” The squire turned back slowly. His eyes glowed as they had before. His human face had grown nearly transparent. His disguise was all but gone.
“What makes it unavoidable?” she asked.
“The way you look at me.” The fear dearg inched closer, his demonic gaze unblinking and hurling actual physical heat at her. “You hide it well, bean.” That he called her by the Irish word for woman worried her. He understood that his origins in her homeland had offered her insights none of the others had. “You know what I am.”
“Irish children are taught young the dangers of the Fae.”
“And, yet, you’ve stumbled right into that danger.”
Newly repaired shelves began to rattle. The paper in the window ripped. All the while, the fear dearg didn’t look away from her, didn’t take another step.
“I’ve a good arrangement here,” the monster said. “I’ll not let you destroy it.”
“I’ve good friends and neighbors here,” she said in return. “I’ll not let you destroy them.”
“I’ve not eaten any of them.” His mouth turned up in a sinister smile, revealing sharp, jagged teeth. “Yet. But I’m running out of ‘distinguished visitors.’”
Once a fear dearg discovered a liking for some bit of cruelty, he never lost his taste for it.
If only the iron weapon had arrived! What was she to do?
“Now”—the Crimson Man took a single step closer—“how to rid myself of both you and that ridiculous haberdasher at once.”
“What has that rogue to do with anything?”
“He knows what I am, just as I know what he is.” The fear dearg flipped back one side of his cape. “I suspect I’ll have to invite him to cook dinner.”
Invite him to cook dinner.She knew what that meant. Every Irish child knew what that meant. Any human invited to cook dinner for a Crimson Man found themselves roasting a fellow human over a spit. And if Royston were invited to cook, she’d no doubt she would be the unfortunate main course.
The new position of the squire’s cape revealed something Tallulah had not seen him carrying before: a burlap bag. She ought to have known he had one. All fear dearg carried them. Always. And always for the same purpose: kidnapping and hauling off their human victims. If she was seeing it now, then she was moments away from being stuffed inside.
“I’ve delayed this bit of mischief for a long time.” Mischief. Not a strong enough word for what she knew would come next when that burlap sack appeared.
There was a means of preventing it, though. She had been told there was. But what was the method? It didn’t stop fear dearg entirely, but it prevented being kidnapped. Heavens, what was it?
“You played me a dirty trick sending off the little ones.” His hand inched back toward his bag. “I do know that children are delicious.”
It was something she was meant to say. Her gran had told her. ’Twas a particular phrase.
He came closer, reaching for the bag.
What was it? What was it?
His free hand reached for her. Once he caught hold, there would be no escape.
Across the years, the voice of her gran whispered to her. Tallulah spoke her words as they entered her thoughts. “Na dean fochmoid fàin.”
He froze, his expression turning putrid with anger. “That will save you from the confines of my burlap bag, but you may very well wish you were there.”
The chairs at the table flew at her. She dove out of the way, only to have something else deal her a blow. She could hear the heavy, scurrying footsteps of the Crimson Man. He couldn’t abduct her, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t kill her.
She groped around until she found something heavy that could fit in her hand—a shattered chair leg. Tallulah rolled enough to lean on her opposite hip and swing the leg with all her might at the fear dearg. He nearly toppled but managed to remain on his rat-like feet.
The stumble was enough to grant her time to scramble to her feet, the chair leg—now cracked—still in her hand.
He spun about with a jerk, eyes glowing so brightly the entire shop was lit in red. “I am tiring of these games.”
“Perhaps we ought to stop playing.”
He shook his head, no longer bearing even a shadow of human shape. “My games end only one way.”
“With me on a spit?”
A grotesque grin grew on his rat face. “I will enjoy that. I’ll have to continue playing after you are gone.”
Once fear dearg had a taste for something . . .
Royston stepped into the shop. “I propose, rather, we continue playing after you are gone.”
“You will be easier to defeat,” the Crimson Man declared. “You haven’t the fire of this one.”
“Perhaps not, but I do have this.” He raised a mighty axe.
The monster was unconcerned. “‘Though blade of stone or axe of steel, the Crimson Man you’ll never kill.’”
Royston’s face filled with pity. “How very misinformed you are.”
With a chuckle that sent ripples of dread through every inch of Tallulah, the fear dearg threw his rodent head backward in amusement.
“I need him within swinging distance,” Royston mouthed.
She circled back, holding her pitiful chair leg with as much confidence as she could muster. The monster eyed her doubtfully, amusedly. She swung the leg with no intention of actually hitting him.
“How very pathetic,” their enemy said. “And how very futile.”
“I am protected from your bag,” she said. “I must protect him.”
Realization filled those glowing red eyes. Tallulah swung more frantically, more wildly. With annoyance, he stepped farther from her, but not near enough to Royston.
The supposed rogue held the axe firmly in both hands, eyeing his target with a firmness of purpose that belied his assumed character.
“He is not safe from my bag.” The fear dearg cackled and turned. “Abandon your pathetic axe. It will avail you nothing.”
“I like it,” Royston said, securing his grip. “It is unlike any weapon I’ve yet yielded.”
Claws on his burlap bag, the Crimson Man began to close the gap between him and Royston. “And you and your unique weapon can both turn over a fire.”
“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Royston said. “Iron can be difficult to digest.”
The fear dearg stopped, frozen to the spot.
Tallulah took a giant step forward and swung the splintered leg hard against his back, sending him reeling forward. Royston did not miss his opportunity.
A swing of the axe.
An otherworldly cry.
The shaking of the very ground.
Then all was still, and dark, and quiet.
