Because You Love to Hate Me(65)

“Why, I just told you, Ise. The Erl-queen’s feasts. She lures the children with crumbs of seedcake, and once they eat, they are bewitched. That’s why she only takes girls, you see.”

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“A boy is far less likely to be tempted by cake. Boys think. Present a female child with something pretty or sweet, and she’ll take it without question.” He shook his head pityingly. “Did you notice that the Erl-queen always sends her son to make her bargains? She knows that sons can’t be so easily tricked.”

It must be true if George believed it, though Isaac had been fond of seedcake himself as a child and would probably have followed a trail of it anywhere. He had no sisters to measure himself against, but his mother adored purposeless knickknacks, and it was true that a boy had never been taken by the Erl-queen, and it had always been easy to soothe Marigold with little trinkets . . . When she had been most fretful, afraid that she would be ruined if he left her, a pendant or a comb would ease her mind. Girls, it seemed, were just like magpies.

Had the Erl-queen’s son offered her more than a comb—some treasure of the forest?

No, he must not think of Marigold with that beast.

“Still,” Isaac said, if only to divert his mind, “for the princess to say to her own mother—”

“Her Majesty was aghast, naturally, and has hardly looked at Alice since. Nobody dares speak of the Erl-queen in her presence, not even Prince Albert.” George chuckled. “If she remains as ill-disposed toward the elves as she is now, you might emerge from this with a knighthood.”

Other young men might have gloried in the thought, but for Isaac, it was painful. A knighthood would make it even more difficult for him to see Marigold. Every one of their trysts had been dangerous, both to his public dignity and to her reputation. George, who always kept watch outside, had protected them both.

“So might you,” Isaac said, affecting a jocular tone. “You introduced me to Marigold. Neither of us would be in this cab if not for you, George Beath.”

He allowed himself, briefly, to savor the memory of when George had brought her out from the Sinnetts’ house. How she had looked at him with such awe and uncertainty, her eyes ignited by the moon. He had whispered her name and looked into those eyes—such eyes, all darkness, promising a thousand secrets. He still dreamed of that first night they had spent together.

“Oh, all I did was put you in touch,” George said gently. “I would have been a poor brother if I had watched her waste away. All she wanted, from the moment she laid eyes on you, was to be your wife.”

This made Isaac rather warm under the collar. The only thing he had never given Marigold was a proposal.

It was not to be. It never could be. She was too far below him: an orphaned scullery maid, born to an officer of the East India Company and his Indian mistress. George was all that was left of her English family, and he was so poor now that he could not support her. Only the compassion of people he had helped had kept him off the streets. All he could afford was some squalid garret on Earlham Street. How unjust that such a kind fellow should live in such a wretched state.

Isaac rested his brow against the window. His mother wanted him to marry Anne Crowley, who came with a large dowry and a respectable name, but even if he married her, he knew he would not be able to let go of Marigold. She was all gentleness and innocence, and she knew when to be silent. Anne was handsome, but too cold and too forthright.

If only the Erl-queen had taken her instead.

The cab stopped when the woods were in sight. George banged on the roof.

“Drive on, man. What’s the matter?”

“I shan’t go any farther, sir,” the driver said. “The Erl-queen will see us.”

“Oh, the devil take you.” George clicked his tongue. “Come along, Ise. No time to lose.”

They took leave of the cab. Isaac paid the driver a pound, over twice what he was owed. He could earn far more if he sold the story of the eligible Isaac Fairfax breaking the law, but they would have to hope that he was a half-wit.

The woods were clad in bonfire gold and red, yet the colors were somehow cold—hollow and illusory, like rich clothes left to rot on corpses. Isaac had the sense that looking at them was what it must be like to be lost in opium, seeing things that were not quite there.

“Isaac,” George said, “remember what I told you. Don’t follow the music. Ignore any peculiar lights or sounds.” He placed a hand on the pistol at his side. “The Erl-queen steals little girls. She won’t be ready for men, now, will she?”

Isaac nodded. “God be with us, George.”

A wry smile curved George’s mouth. “God does not walk in the Forest of Erl.”

Together, the two men stepped toward the trees. As they crossed the boundary, a dark fog gathered around them and thickened in their throats. Isaac turned cold to his soul, but he pressed on. Marigold was waiting for them.

When a man entered any wooded place in England, he passed into one great Forest of Erl. So the tales claimed, in any case. Only Princess Alice had ever returned from the Erl-queen’s realm, and she had said nothing about her imprisonment. This forest existed in a kind of spirit country of its own, and if he wandered too far into it, he would never find the way back out. If he was fortunate enough to emerge, he might find himself somewhere miles away from the place where he had entered. One could make the crossing in Hampshire and stumble out in Galloway.