The Lady of the Storm - 2 by Kathryne Kennedy Page B

with was Hugh.
    “Ach, now, don’t be looking that aways. It’s not that I don’t like either of ye. It’s just… ye two are not for the likes of our little village. Ye belong in the world that made ye.” He stepped out of the doorway of his cottage, holding out a hand knobby with age and hard work. “I’ll miss ye, though, Mister Giles Beaumont.”
    Giles shook the dry hand.
    Hugh let out a cackle. “Lud, don’t ye think I know that blade of yers is destined to protect more than this humble village?”
    The devil-sword shivered in its scabbard, as if it knew it was the object of discussion.
    “You see more than most, Old Man. More than I had thought.”
    “That I do.” Hugh stepped closer and lowered his gravelly voice. “I’m naught but a worn-out fisherman, son, but sometimes I see things—there’s a bit of elven blood in me own line. So heed the advice of this old man, for I’m given it to ye in good faith. Ye may not get what ye want, but it will be more’n ye ever thought to have. So be patient. With yer ambition, and the girl.”
    One of the injured cried out from within the dark recesses of the cottage and Hugh turned to answer.
    “Wait,” said Giles, his fear for the old man overriding his confusion about the advice he’d been given. “Come with us. When the soldiers return, they may not feel like talking. It’s dangerous to stay.”
    “And who will take care of the injured?” asked Hugh. “Besides, I no more belong in yer world than ye do in mine. Naw, get on with ye, boy. And use the elven blood in yer veins to help the human part of ye. For freedom is worth any cost.” He scrambled back into his cottage, throwing his parting words over one strong, bony shoulder. “Good luck to ye, Beaumont, and may the Good Lord bless ye.”
    With that parting benediction, Giles left the village for the last time, following the small pathway that led to Thomas’s cottage. The honeysuckle that usually surrounded the front of the little house had been torn away, straggles of blossoms releasing a strong aroma as he tread upon them to knock at the door.
    She answered it within a heartbeat, her gaze quickly skimming past him to the waiting horses. “I’m more at home in the water than on the back of a beast.”
    “I know. But Belle is a docile mount.”
    “It’s the sidesaddle,” she continued, stepping back from the doorway and allowing him in.
    “I know,” he said again.
    She huffed. “I suppose you know a great many things about me, after spying on me all these years. And I suppose I will have to become adjusted to who you really are… and not who I thought you were.”
    Giles shrugged, surveying the homey cottage. “I’m the same person and so are you. Only our circumstances have changed.”
    “Perhaps.” She hefted a rather large valise.
    He shook his head. “We travel light.”
    She sighed but didn’t argue, setting the bag on the bedstead and sorting through it. “I shall have only one change of clothes, and no hoops. The prime minister will think I’m a country bumpkin… ah, faith, that’s what I am. I just hope he takes me seriously.”
    Giles purposely looked away from her smallclothes and examined a shelf laden with an assortment of seashells, coral, and some items he could not identify. Cecily’s ocean finds often traded for large sums, and more than once, had fed the village through a lean winter. They should have been grateful for her contributions, but instead it had served only to set her even further apart from them.
    Indeed, in the same way his gift with steel had made the young men only more distant from him.
    “You’ve only to twiddle your fingers at water,” he finally replied, “and I’m sure Sir Robert will take you seriously.”
    “And I will nick my finger, and your sword’s hunger for blood will make him take you seriously when he realizes the power of the magic it holds.”
    He turned with a smile. “Well met. It seems we are a pair of magical