Free Patricia Veryan - [Sanguinet Saga 09] - Logic Of The Heart by Patricia Veryan

it?"
    "It? Ay! It what?"
    "I mean—did you ask if I admired your boots?"
    A haughty frown drew down those black brows. "Chew make the
funny thing, but Angelo laugh ha-ha no! Many time this we talk. Chew
say right. Now chew say it what. Theses I know about no much. Splain
pliss chew doing what in trees."
    'Saints preserve us,' thought Montclair. "I am walking through
the woods to visit someone," he said with slow and careful enunciation.
"May I be of help to you?"
    "Poor cove very bad chew English spoke. Meece, Angelo,
comprende
mucho
."
    Montclair gave a sigh of relief. "Ah!
Se habla
espagnol, senor
?"
    A thin hand was flung up autocratically. The dark head tossed
high. "
Ingles, por favor
! Angelo speak now goodly.
But better spress mices elves soon will." He grinned broadly and put
out his hand. "Angelo Francisco Luis Lagunes de Ferdinand is mices
elves. Service your hat."
    Preserving his countenance gallantly, Montclair shook his hand
and responded, "I am Valentine Montclair. At
your
serv—"
    Senor de Ferdinand whipped his hand back as if he'd been
stung. "
Bandido
!" he howled, thrusting his face at
Montclair's chin. He sprang back, lifted both fists in a prize-fighting
attitude, and began to dance around the astonished Englishman at great
speed, his head tilted far back, his legs fairly twinkling as he
advanced and retreated, his fists flailing madly about, and all the
time shouting variously, "Sapristi!"
    "El Diablo!" or similar uncomplimentary epithets. Abandoning
these aggressive tactics, he snatched up his hat, and flung it in
Montclair's face. "Chew dog dirtness!" he declared, and suddenly all
stately languor, stood very straight and still, his arms folded as he
enquired with a bored smile, "We with the pistolas shoot.
Mariana
—er,
threemorrow, chess?"
    "I think you have escaped from Bedlam," gasped Montclair.
"I've no least intention to fight a lunatic! And the word is tomorrow.
Not
three
morrow."
    Senor de Ferdinand's black brows rose and an eager light
brightened the dark eyes. "Ay,
bueno
!" He bowed
with a great many flourishes. "Tomorrow! Thankschew, senor! Mices hand
shoot it will true. Chew nothing feel very much!" He struck himself on
the chest. "Angelo he say theses!" He clapped the beaver at a jaunty
angle onto his head, and gave it a rap on the crown, whereupon it fell
off. He grabbed for it, juggled it an embarrassed second or two, and
then dropped it. With a rather guilty look at the fascinated Montclair,
he snatched it up and hurried off.
    "Well, I'll be damned!" Still incredulous, Montclair shook his
head, and went on his way.
    Not until later did it occur to him to wonder what the small
Spanish birdwit had been doing on Longhills land.
     
    The Montclair Folly had been built to house a madwoman. In
1362 Sir dePuigh Montclair, grandfather of the first baron, had stolen
the enchanting young girl who had dared to reject him, and dragged her
to Longhills to become his bride. The poor girl had been in love with
the man he'd slain while capturing her; shock and grief had caused her
mind to give way and her abductor had found himself saddled with a
raving lunatic. A belatedly awoken sense of guilt had kept him from
doing away with her. He kept her locked in an improvised suite in
Longhills' second cellar for a year, while he built a tower for her in
the deepest part of the forest. His wretched victim only dwelt there
for eight months, however, before escaping it and life by the simple
means of jumping off the roof.
    Years later, when the tragic story at length began to be
whispered abroad, the Montclair Folly became an object of curiosity for
lovers of the macabre, and inevitably with such a background came the
rumours that it was haunted. In 1624, when much of the tower was
destroyed in a lightning-caused fire, the superstitious villagers said
the devil had claimed his own, and after that even the family members
avoided the Folly. For over a century the windowless walls still stood.
But rain and mould