Once Upon a Winter's Eve (Spindle Cove #1.5)(3)

Rycliff frowned. “What language is that? Not English. Nor French.”

“Violet will know,” Susanna said. “She knows every language.”

“That’s not true,” Violet protested. “Only a dozen or so.”

“Pish. You once learned Romany in an hour, when that baby was sick.”

“I truly didn’t.”

She hadn’t learned Romany at all. She’d learned, through trial and error, that one of the women spoke a bit of Italian, and they’d translated back and forth—with a great deal of hand gestures and pantomime added to the mix. It hadn’t been elegant translation, but it had been effective in the end—enough to help a frightened mother and her feverish babe.

Language was a vast, complicated tapestry. The key to communication was finding a common thread.

To that end, Violet pushed aside her emotions and concentrated on the man’s words. “It’s…some sort of Celtic dialect, from the sound of things. Not my particular area of expertise. Perhaps he’s Welsh?”

She lifted a hand to request silence. She willed even her heartbeat to stop its pounding, so she might better hear his words.

Definitely a Celtic language of some sort. But on further listen, it didn’t sound like Welsh after all. Much less Gaelic or Manx.

“Here.” Sally returned with a steaming cup of mulled wine. “Have him drink this.”

With help, Violet lifted the man’s head and put the cup to his lips. He sipped and coughed, then sipped again.

“I’m listening,” she said in English, hoping the reassuring tone would translate even if the words did not. “Tell me how to help.”

He rolled onto his back and looked up at her.

Violet’s breath caught. A jolt of recognition struck her so hard, it set the whole ballroom spinning.

His eyes. Good heavens, those eyes. They were the rich, layered brown of spice and tobacco. They held an intelligence that belied his coarse, simple garments. They conveyed desperation, a plea for help.

But most of all, those eyes looked…familiar.

It couldn’t be, she told herself. It made no rational sense. But the longer she stared into those spice-brown eyes, the stronger her sense of affinity grew. Violet felt as though she were gazing into a face she’d seen before. A set of features more familiar than her own looking-glass reflection. The face that haunted her dreams.

“It can’t be,” she whispered.

His hand seized hers. She gasped at the sudden contact, and the painful chill of his flesh.

The flow of his words narrowed. He began to repeat one phrase. Just the same chain of syllables, over and over again. Violet listened hard. Once she caught the seam of the phrase and followed it a few times, she was able to unravel its meaning.

“Can you understand him?” Lord Rycliff asked.

“A little. I think he’s speaking in…” She paused and listened again. “Well, it’s almost Cornish. But not quite. I think it’s…Breton.”

“Breton?”

“I’ve never studied it, so I can’t be sure. But I’ve heard some Cornish, and I know Breton is its closest lingual relation. They’re so close, you see—Cornwall and Brittany. Only separated by a small stretch of sea.”

“Brittany,” Rycliff echoed. “As in Brittany, France.”

Violet nodded.

“The same France with which we are at war.”

“Yes.”

Everyone in the ballroom went on alert. Violet saw the alarm in their eyes as the uniformed men looked from one to another. A Frenchman, washed up on the beach in Spindle Cove? As a militia, they were organized to prevent this very occurrence.

“Ask him where he’s come from,” Rycliff said. “Are there others?”

A footman returned with blankets. But as he moved to heap them atop the shivering man, Lord Rycliff stayed him with an open hand.

“What is it he’s saying, Miss Winterbottom? We must know if the Cove is under attack.”

“He’s only saying one thing that I can understand. It’s the same phrase, over and over.”

“What’s that?”

She touched her fingertips to the man’s cheek. “Nedeleg laouen,” she repeated. “Merry Christmas.”

Chapter Two

She was an angel.

His very own angel.

He had thought he would die, staggering through the cold night. Blood trickling down his neck. Seawater trickling everywhere else, freezing his clothes to his body. As he’d trudged over meadows and fields toward the bright, shining star of this place, he’d been so certain he would perish.

He’d fallen. He’d despaired. But he’d struggled to his feet and continued, because there was nothing else he could do. And when he’d almost reached the doors of this glittering warmth, he’d spied her—a vision of emerald silk and golden hair. Standing in the corner, as though she were waiting there for him. She gave him strength to drag his numb limbs forward, telling himself… If he died tonight, he would die holding that beautiful girl.

Or, as it happened, he would die with the beautiful girl holding him.

“Nedeleg laouen,” he stammered once more through frozen lips.

Her mouth curved in a little smile. Soft fingers caressed his cheek once more. “Nedeleg laouen.”