Kissed by Starlight by Cynthia Bailey Pratt Page A

excitement.”
    William the Footman made a noise too quiet for a cough, too emphatic for a mere clearing of his throat. Felicia and Mr. Varley looked at him. Without meeting either pair of eyes, he said, “I know.”
     
    Seen through the windows of Hamdry Manor, the day had seemed both bright and warm. The wind whipping down off the moor was determined to prove it otherwise. “Aie!” Mary exclaimed, huddling herself into her shawl. “T’wind’s too lazy to go ‘round me; it’s goin’ raight through!”
    After yesterday’s propositions, Felicia had felt most uneasy going anywhere alone with a man. Even a bashful jackstraw like William the Footman who, as it was said in the servants’ hall, hardly dared to breathe without asking permission, might turn out to be hoarding some secret lust. Felicia still was not sure why she should have had the doubtful honor of being the receiver of those outpourings from two men on the same day. Midsummer madness, she’d have guessed, were it not the cusp of spring.
    Feeling as she did, she was delighted to find Mary dusting the hall as she went upstairs to collect a hooded cloak. Acquiring her services as chaperon had taken merely a request and the gift of two shillings, which Mary accepted only with the understanding that some ribbon and a packet of pins would be added later.
    William the Footman led them out past the cedars that guarded the border of the garden and over a fallen slab of stone that served to bridge the deep peat-brown water of the stream. The ice that had scummed the water all winter was gone.
    “Oh, where are we going?” Mary demanded.
    “Told her,” William said, hooking his thumb toward Felicia. Not all Varley’s training had yet eradicated William’s accent, nor had it lessened his tendency to treat his betters as equals while off duty. “They be goin’ to look at them rabbits up the moor.”
    The wind sounded like the sea, roaring down over the empty hills. The winter-brown grass showed the tracks of the wind’s passing, as the nap of velvet is changed when a hand is run over it. High above the swelling hills, falcons rode the currents, masters of what harried the humans far below.
    Mary’s hair was whipped into a froth in seconds, while Felicia felt as though her cloak had come malevolently to life, determined to wrap around her more securely than a spider would a fly. William the Footman’s short-cropped hair ruffled like the grass and the worn coat he put on in place of his livery flapped behind him. There was no use in trying to speak—the words were snatched from their mouths and blown to pieces.
    The women trudged on behind the younger man, who seemed to have legs of steel. The hill appeared to run right up into the thin blue sky. Moor and sky seemed the same size, unendingly vast, not only unexplored but incapable of being explored.
    The moor had looked so smooth from a distance, as though it had been shaped in wet clay. On closer acquaintance, however, it was as lumpy and uneven as an old mattress. Felicia had every reason to hurry. It was maddening that the rough ground slowed her down so much. Having to help Mary over the unexpected hillocks, the maid clinging to her arm like a dead weight, tried Felicia’s patience exceedingly.
    William the Footman stopped and held up his hand. He pointed off at a distance and shouted something. Felicia stepped to his side, looking eagerly for Clarice. She saw only a bright green place between a couple of knolls. It looked like a little piece of spring dropped down in the midst of the dormant season.
    The young man shouted again and a word blew to Felicia’s ear. “Sink .. .”
    Suddenly, the green place didn’t look wholesome anymore. Though Devon was by no means as famous for its sinkholes as were the great mires of the Yorkshire moors, it had its share, especially in the wettest months. Some said that Hamdry was protected by its bogs; others claimed they resulted from a curse laid down centuries