Lord of the Beasts

“And she will not do so if you are in the vicinity?” Cordelia asked, too sweetly.

He knew he had blundered, but the constant effort of making himself agreeable was wearing on his patience. “Mrs. Hardcastle,” he said, “it hardly matters how we attain our mutual goal as long as we achieve it.”

Her eyes snapped with annoyance. “I quite agree, Doctor.” She spoke to Croome, who signaled to one of the footmen and went inside the house. The footman set out across the park in the direction of the stables.

“I have sent for our head groundskeeper,” Cordelia said, “who will know if there is a cottage available. It may require a few hours to arrange. In the meantime, perhaps you will condescend to make use of your room to refresh yourself. You do wish to set Ivy a good example.” She started for the door and paused, glancing over her shoulder. “You will, of course, join us for meals. I would not like Ivy to think that I have banished you from the house entirely.”

With that, she marched into the house, and the last remaining footman closed the door behind her.

Donal stood staring at the door, feeling very much the fool. For one mad, impossible moment he had been ready to admit to Cordelia the real reason he couldn’t bring himself to stay in the house. In that moment he had desperately wanted her to understand.

But if she had ever felt the need to run untrammeled in the wilderness, to cast off all bonds and renounce the walls and bars and conformity of man’s civilization, she had long since judged such needs irrelevant to her life. And that would make her no different than a hundred thousand other English men and women who either denied the animal within themselves, or set it free to rend and devour their own kind. For most humans, there was no middle path.

With a sigh, Donal picked up his bag, turned on his heel and strode onto the neatly groomed lawn of the park. He tore his cravat loose and stuffed it in his pocket, finally able to breathe again. Soon he was walking beneath the high, arched canopies of oak, ash, elm and lime. He opened his mind and let it wander, brushing over the small, bright flashes of avian thoughts sparkling among the branches, sensing the horses in the stables and the sheep that kept the grass so well trimmed. Close to the earth he heard mice and voles and rabbits, all busy with the endless work of searching for food or raising the next generation.

But beyond those familiar souls, so like the ones he had known in Yorkshire, were others … far less penetrable minds, whose waking dreams were filled with harsher light and deeper shadow than any to be found in England.

Donal followed where the outland voices led him. He climbed a low hill, and on the other side he found the menagerie.

He had not known exactly what to expect, and had dreaded finding tiny, bare cages that would drive any sensible beast to madness in a matter of weeks or even days. But Cordelia’s facilities were spacious, well-furnished and separated so that no animal was too close to another.

Donal descended the hill, holding his mind receptive. The animals heard him well before he reached the first of the cages, but there was a stillness in them that told him something was wrong. He deliberately slowed his pace and imagined himself as a only another denizen of the park and wood, no threat to any creature, captive or free.

He needn’t have bothered. He felt no fear as he approached, and only the barest flicker of curiosity. The floor of the nearest cage, sand and gravel and rock, was so dappled with shadow from thick tree branches that he wouldn’t have seen the black leopard if not for his Fane senses.

The animal lay stretched out in the shade near a small doorway that led to the covered portion of its cage. Donal crouched close to the bars.

The roar of gunfire bursts in his ears. He presses them flat to his head, for the sound fills him with terror. But soon all he knows is pain. The bullet has lodged in his flank, and blood spatters on the earth, marking his path for all to see.

He falls back, his legs trembling with effort after so long a flight. They are drawing closer. His ribs heave as he struggles to suck in air. Heavy footfalls shake the ground behind him. He smells the acrid scent of his enemies. Their harsh, alien voices are like the roar of the sky in the season of falling water.

He can go no farther. He closes his eyes, shutting out what he cannot bear to see. The relentless footfalls come to a stop, and the net falls over him as the voices bellow their victory….

Donal gasped and tumbled free, his heart hammering with panic. He slapped at his left leg, certain he would feel the hot rush of blood and the ragged edges of a bullet wound.

But his flesh was whole, no tear in his trousers to mark a bullet’s passage. He bent his head between his knees and let the wash of dizziness pass. He had felt such fear in animals before, often when they were in pain and he was preparing to heal them. But never had any bonding struck him as vividly as this.

He straightened and looked into the cage. The panther must have felt his mental intrusion, yet the animal barely lifted his head. His golden eyes blinked once to acknowledge Donal’s presence. Then he laid his chin back on his paws, his elegant tail motionless against his flank.

Donal clutched the bars of the cage and got to his feet. His legs were still trembling as he moved on to the next cage. A pair of tailless monkeys—macaques, he guessed—clung to the uppermost branches of the small tree that had been provided for them. As soon as Donal offered his greeting, they leaped gracefully down and ambled toward him. Though they showed a more active interest than the leopard, their intelligent eyes were dulled with sadness.

Bracing himself for another painful memory, Donal opened his mind again.

He clutches his mate’s hand and tries to pull her away, but she will not leave the little one, who has already fallen to the raiders. The family scatters, their voices high-pitched with fear and anger. But it is too late to save the youngest; they cry and tremble in their captors’ nets. A few lie still among the rocks, never to stir again….

This time the apes themselves broke the contact. They were back up in the branches before Donal fully regained his senses. He wrapped his arms around his chest and heard the cries of his brethren fade away, replaced by the gentle chatter of birds in the wood.

“I am sorry,” Donal said, pressing his forehead against the bars. But he knew it was an empty sentiment. These creatures suffered not only from their unnatural imprisonment, but also from the shock of their captures at the hands of callous hunters. He might learn to refine his healing abilities to erase such terrible recollections from the animals’ minds, but he would have to work closely with them, live beside them just as he had warned Cordelia.

With weary resignation he moved on. The next cage held no sign of its inmate, but Donal heard the sluggish thoughts of the animal secluded in its den and formed an image of the cage’s occupant: a bear, born on another continent, whose memories drifted in lush, warm, green forests. It had chosen to live in its ursine imagination rather than accept the intolerable reality that surrounded it.

Unable to reach the bear, Donal passed to the largest cage. Three wolves paced among the large stone scattered across the enclosure. Two were female, and one, the male, kept watch from a higher vantage. He might have been magnificent save for the dull, patchy quality of his once-thick gray coat, and he stared at Donal for only a moment before dropping his gaze in submission.

Sing for the lost children. Sing for the mother, dead with life still growing within her body. Sing for the mountains and the rivers and the empty dens, ravaged and plundered by the two-legged killers….

Donal bent his head to the leader wolf in a gesture of respect and left them to their endless mourning. Half-blind with grief, he staggered up the hill back toward the house. He was nearly to the door of the manor when he collided with another man heading in the same direction. The man drew back, cursed under his breath and straightened his coat, all the while subjecting Donal to a thorough examination.

Donal came back to himself and met the man’s eyes, recognizing him at once. The handsome, fine-boned face was topped by a thick and fashionably curled head of blond hair, and the blue eyes were of the precise color to make ladies swoon with admiration. His tailcoat was designed to broaden his shoulders and nip in his waist, his trousers were snug enough to show a lean length of thigh muscle, and his black shoes had been buffed to a scintillating polish.

Lord Inglesham tapped his gold-headed cane on the drive. “Do I know you, fellow?” he asked with an air of condescending good humor. “Are you the new groundskeeper Mrs. Hardcastle spoke of employing for her menagerie?”

CHAPTER EIGHT

DONAL CONSIDERED his reply. He was quite certain that the viscount did remember him, in spite of the briefness of their previous meetings and the weeks that had passed. He touched the brim of his hat.

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