It seemed an age to Morwen before they all went to their own beds, and the cottage was finally hers. It always felt that way, when she had pulled her curtain across and the space inside it was hers alone. How wonderful to live in a house with a room for everyone, Morwen thought wistfully. Rich folk knew nothing of cramped cottages and the daily ritual of taking turns for the washing space and the privy. They knew nothing of the lack of privacy, especially for a young girl with special needs, and secrets…
Beneath her pillow was Zillah’s potion. Her fingers curled around it, trembling a little. Her Mammie would like none of this, and she knew it. She listened for a long time, until the creaks of the house quietened, then she slid from her bed and listened again. There was no sound. She was still fully dressed, and in moments she had slipped away from the cottage, scorning shoes to move more stealthily in the night.
Her heart beat painfully fast. Despite the huge moon casting its light, the customary ground mist swirled about the moors. She gasped as a hand suddenly seized hers, her senses rocking until she saw Celia move towards her.
‘I thought you weren’t coming!’ Celia said hoarsely, and her voice told Morwen they were both as scared as each other.
‘I had to wait for Matt to come home,’ Morwen spoke jerkily. ‘We’ve got more people to get settled, and my Daddy doesn’t come home half drunk every night so he doesn’t hear a thing after nine o’clock—’ She bit her lip furiously, not really meaning to sneer at Tom Penry’s penchant for the drink. She knew as well as anyone that it had got worse since Celia’s mother died and left him in need of forgetfulness.
‘I know,’ Celia said. ‘Though I heard that your Matt’s taking to the drink, Morwen. Folk are talking about un—’
‘Our Matt?’ Morwen echoed resentfully. ‘What are they saying? I’ve heard nothing—’
‘I daresay it was only gossip,’ Celia said quickly. ‘’Tis just that he frequents the kiddleywinks in St Austell a lot, instead of jawing wi’ the clayworkers, and you know how that causes talk among ’em.’
‘Mebbe ’tisn’t that at all. Mebbe ’tis a girl he sees, same as our Sam.’ Morwen was defensive of her brother.
‘Mebbe ’tis the same then,’ Celia agreed, sure that it wasn’t. She’d heard tales from her father, of the rough salty characters Matthew Tremayne had been associating with in St Austell. If Morwen didn’t choose to believe her, it was no concern of Celia’s. Besides, they had more important things on their minds that night than Matt Tremayne.
‘Did it ever seem so far in daylight?’ she muttered, when they had walked for what seemed like hours, and the Larnie Stone seemed as far away as ever. It loomed gaunt and ghostly in the distance. Lit by moonlight, the ground mist all around, it seemed to float on a sea of gauze.
Beyond it, the night was too dark to see the sea properly. In daylight, it glittered blue and silver. Now, it was a dim and hazily imagined shape that added to the unreality of the night. Beneath their feet, the moors were damp and cold, the soft turf spongy. Fronds of bracken snatched at their ankles like clawing fingers. They were both very afraid, and both tried not to show it.
The moors appeared wide and open in the daytime, but now they seemed to be peopled by watching shapes that were no more than bushes of gorse when they neared them, or the twisted gnarled trunk of a weathered tree leaning against the remnants of a stone wall, or a cluster of stones from a rotting derelict cottage. Neither was aware that two of the night shadows had real, living substance.
‘This is a fool’s errand,’ Ben said savagely as he and Jude watched the two bal maidens approaching the holed stone in the moonlight. ‘At best, we’ll scare them half to death. At worst, they’ll go screaming rape—’
‘Nobody asked you to come,’ Jude snapped. ‘If you’ve no stomach for the game, I daresay I can manage the two on ’em—’
‘You’ll manage neither,’ Ben snarled back. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying—?’
‘When I want a nurse-maid, I’ll ask for one,’ Jude retorted. ‘And keep your trap shut, or the wenches will hear you before they begin their ritual.’
Ben heard him snigger, and wished himself a thousand miles from here. This whole night was a farce, and he still didn’t know what he intended doing with it.
* * *
‘It must be near to midnight, Morwen,’ Celia stuttered.
‘We must wait for the church chimes. The charm won’t work unless we follow Zillah’s instructions exactly,’ Morwen said. Her palms were damp, the bottle slippery in her grasp, but her mouth was dry and it was hard to swallow. The potion would be a welcome drink…
‘Listen!’ Celia exclaimed.
They heard the distant clock chimes, and Morwen took the stopper from the bottle with shaking hands. She drank half the fiery liquid, then Celia did the same. Morwen’s head spun, but whether from fear or excitement she wasn’t sure.
‘Begin circling,’ she said. She thought she spoke quickly, but the words seemed to emerge with ponderous slowness. Her lips and tongue felt thickened, and not part of her.
They began circling and counting, moving on leaden feet, yet at the same time feeling peculiarly light. Morwen felt as though she skimmed the earth without feeling it beneath her. She felt disorientated from her body. She was ice and fire, drawn to the Larnie Stone like a moth to a flame, and through the hole the distant sea danced like a mirage.
If the charm failed, they would weep or laugh… if it succeeded, the thought burned in Morwen’s mind that it was Ben Killigrew’s face she wanted to see. Ben Killigrew, and no one else for her destiny…
‘We’re nearly there, Morwen,’ Celia mumbled as they counted on. ‘I wager it won’t be our John that you see—’
Morwen felt her heartbeats quicken as the sky seemed to press down on her. The moon was huge and full, directly overhead, benign and friendly. At the rate her head spun, she doubted she would see anything by the time the twelve circles were done!
They didn’t see the two shadows move towards the stone as they finished counting. Celia saw a face first, her scream loud enough to waken the dead. The face was whitened by moonlight, grinning through the hole at her, and Morwen stumbled against her friend as Celia stopped dead.
‘Hold fast, my pretty,’ Jude Pascoe’s voice chortled at her. Morwen saw Celia pick up her skirts and run hell for leather back the way they had come, with Jude lumbering after her. Then she heard another voice, swivelled round to look straight through the Larnie Stone, and into the eyes of Ben Killigrew.
He came towards her at once, seeing the fright in her face. Her eyes were even larger than he remembered them, and he cursed himself for allowing Jude to talk him into this. He cursed the old woman on the moors, and the two gullible bal maidens for believing her tales. His anger at himself and everyone else made him curt, and he gripped her arms tightly as she swayed against him.
‘The girl will be all right, Morwen. Jude’s all talk. He’ll give her a chase and no more—’
‘You guarantee it, do you, Mr Killigrew?’ Morwen said shrilly, humiliated at realising they must have somehow known about tonight, or why would they be here instead of in their comfortable beds…?
Ben wasn’t at all sure of his words, and his silence made her look sharply into his face. She was suddenly struck dumb, all the anger dying away as her heart beat sickeningly fast. Her thoughts were jumbled like driftwood on a beach. Was he real or a dream? Had old Zillah’s potion sent him here to torment her? She felt so strange and weightless, as though she would slide to the ground if his arms didn’t hold her. She tingled all over as she felt his heartbeat, so close it seemed to merge with hers. The warmth of his skin seemed to melt with hers, and then she sensed a brief anger in him.
‘Was it John Penry you saw through the stone, Morwen? Was it his face you saw first?’
Her face was tipped up to his, the long fall of black hair around her shoulders. Ben caught a handful of it and held it tight, as though to hold her captive. A wild exhilaration
filled Morwen’s mind. He was jealous. Ben Killigrew was jealous!
All other thoughts vanished. It seemed she could only think one thought at a time right now. Celia and Jude Pascoe… the potion and stone circling… all were diminished compared with the glorious magic of this moment. Ben Killigrew was jealous! She forgot his Miss finelady as the wonder of it possessed Morwen’s mind.
‘Would you care?’ she taunted him. ‘Did you think it would be your face, Ben Killigrew? Is that what you thought I wanted to see?’
He pulled her to him, furious to be playing this idiotic game. He was not inexperienced, but he was at a loss in handling this delicious young woman with the looks of an innocent and a wanton at the same time, especially since all the differences between them decreed that they should stay worlds apart.
But they were not worlds apart. They were here, beneath a great yellow moon, beside a standing stone with magic powers. A trysting-place… and this was Cornwall, where anything was possible. And ancient ways were stronger than the laws of etiquette at that moment…
He covered her mouth with his, demanding her response as though to impress on her that no other kiss could match it, before or later. Morwen felt her passion soar to meet his, her arms winding around him as though to make him hers, here on the moors beneath the moon and stars, halfway between his world and hers.
Neither knew nor cared how they sank together on to the cool mossy ground, arms still entwined, mouths still clinging, still part of each other. It was a continuation of the strange magic that possessed them both, as though the potion Morwen had taken had flowed into Ben. And the sweet torment that had existed in him since he first steadied her in St Austell town, at last found fulfillment in covering Morwen Tremayne’s lovely body with his own.
‘God, how I’ve longed to hold you like this,’ he uttered, his voice husky with passion, drugged by his need of her. He felt her warm and yielding beneath him. He caressed the curves of her breasts and felt their quick response to him. He ached to cover each rosebud tip with his mouth, and he moved his hand inside her bodice with gentle exploration. Her heart throbbed beneath his fingers as the milk-white contours were exposed to him, and the longing wouldn’t be eased until his mouth moved over each one and he tasted its sweetness.
Morwen’s mind could only accept the new and exquisite sensations racing through her, beautiful and erotic and exciting. The sudden coolness of night air on her body, followed by the warmth of Ben’s lips on her breasts… it was ice and fire again, a mingling of pleasures too acute to be put into words.
There was only the powerful knowledge sweeping through her, that this was the man she desired, wanted, loved, above all others in the world. There was only the tightening of her throat and the relaxing of her limbs as the sweet lethargy of submission coursed through her veins like warm honey.
‘I feel strange, Ben, as though I’m possessed,’ Morwen whispered through dry lips. His hand moved softly downwards over her flat belly, to begin a circling, palming movement that made her catch her breath with the sweetest kind of anguish. Only the thin fabric of her dress separated them, and despite its covering, Morwen felt that he must already know every intimate part of her body. She should feel shame, and yet shame was oddly absent.
She was not unaware of a man’s body. Two of her brothers were young enough to have been bathed and dressed by her at different stages of their childhood. She knew the way even a small boy could experience those dreams that resulted in the almost magical erection of that small tender finger of manhood… had felt almost humble at this evidence of man’s perpetuity, even in a young child…
But there was nothing of the child in Ben Killigrew’s hard male need of her, and she was unafraid at knowing it. Ben was the lover she would choose if she had the choice of the whole world, and her every nerve-end was aroused, yearning to possess and be possessed. She felt those marvellous questing fingers inch upwards beneath the hem of her dress, and gloried in the knowledge that it was Ben’s hands, caressing her where no other man had ever touched her. It felt so right, so gloriously right, that this night that had begun with old Zillah’s potion should end with the finding of her soulmate, and in their belonging.
‘I want you so much, Morwen,’ Ben said thickly against her flesh. ‘I’ve wanted you from the first moment—’
‘And I you,’ she murmured into his shoulder, hardly willing to speak or move, just wanting to hold this moment for ever, while she left the realms of girlhood and became a woman… Ben Killigrew’s woman…
* * *
Out of the night came a frenzied scream, and the fragile moment was shattered like splintering glass. The two figures locked in a close embrace on the ground, froze for an instant, then broke apart, two separate entities once more.
‘What in God’s name was that?’ Ben said harshly, wrenched from Morwen so fast that his loins ached appallingly. Before he could think properly, Morwen was leaping to her feet, still swaying from the potion and the near-seduction, but with the flush of passion already vanishing from her face as she staggered back against the granite stone.
‘It was Celia!’ Her voice was suddenly shrill and accusing. ‘She’s with that bastard cousin of yours. Is this what you planned – to separate us, and sport with us—?’
He shook her furiously, his tenderness gone. Even in his fury, he knew that where Morwen Tremayne was concerned, his feelings would always go to extremes, fury or passion…
‘Don’t you know the difference between Jude and me—?’
‘I know the difference between love and lust!’ Her eyes brimmed with sudden tears, bright and brittle and hurt in the light of the moon. Obviously it wasn’t love he felt for Morwen. He saved that for his Miss Finelady from Truro. But she couldn’t think of that now. There was time for that pain later. It was Celia who needed her now. She twisted out of his grasp.
‘Don’t follow me!’ she shouted. ‘If that lout has hurt Celia, I swear I’ll kill you, Ben Killigrew. Don’t ever come near me again, you hear?’
She tore past him, the sobs tearing at her throat. She had to hit out at someone, anyone, and she felt so guilty that she had let Celia go off alone, knowing that Jude was after her, while she and Ben… she and Ben… she swallowed the hurting lump in her throat, because if only he had once said he loved her, things would have been different. Even if it had been a lie, she had so ached to hear the words, and she hadn’t even realised it until now.
He shouted after her, and she ignored him. She knew these moors better than he did. The mist had lingered, aiding her now in swallowing her up in its gauzy haze. She heard the dull thud of horses hooves, and guessed that Jude would be getting out of here as fast as he could. And Ben too, Morwen thought bitterly. Killigrew men wouldn’t need to run barefoot over the moors the way the bal maidens did…
‘Morwen, is it you?’ she heard a quavering voice call from a huddle of stones nearby. Morwen moved towards the sound, and dropped down when she saw the crouching figure there. She felt a sawing fear at seeing Celia’s bedraggled state, hair awry, tear-stained cheeks, as unkempt as old Zillah herself. Morwen folded her in her arms and held her tight.
‘What’s happened?’ she said huskily. ‘Did he hurt you?’
She bit her lips at Celia’s wild laugh, cursing herself for the stupid question. Why else would she have screamed so violently in the night?
‘Yes, he hurt me, Morwen,’ Celia said croakily. ‘I thought it was a game at first. He’d been drinking, and he was a tease, and he was fun, and he made me feel wanted. Do ’ee know what I mean?’
Morwen nodded, for didn’t she know only too well that soaring of the spirit at feeling so wanted, so needed?
‘He was still funning wi’ me, Morwen, and there seemed no harm in it, rolling on the ground and kissing and touching – and then he pinned me down and he was as strong as a bull, and he said we must be quick, because he didn’t want his poxy cousin appearing on the scene and spoiling things—’ her voice was jerky and choked. ‘An
d then he hurt me, Morwen. He near to split me in two, making me bleed, and he didn’t care. And if that’s what ’tis like to lie with a man, then I’ll die before I let it happen again. I’ll kill myself first—’
‘Celia, stop it!’ Morwen snapped, as her friend’s voice rose fearfully. She held Celia’s hands, and wished it was Jude Pascoe’s throat she squeezed so hard. ‘You know damn well it can’t always be like that. There wouldn’t be any babies born in the world if it was always so hateful—’
Celia jerked away from her, eyes huge and black in the pallor of her face, her lips bloodless.
‘God help me, Morwen, if Jude Pascoe has put a babby in me, what will I do? My father will turn me out, and I’ll be disgraced—’ She finished with a small scream as Morwen slapped her face to stop the torrent of words.
‘Don’t even think of it, ninny! It doesn’t always happen, and you were so unwilling, it’s hardly likely, is it?’
She wasn’t certain at all, and the horror of it was in Morwen’s mind too. The potion’s power was at last leaving her, and she was seeing a lot of things more clearly now. And what she saw was that somehow Ben and Jude had learned of this night, and both had had the same intent. She felt betrayed and bitter, knowing how she had so nearly succumbed to his seduction. The pain of it washed over her in waves of sheer misery.
With a great effort, Morwen pushed down the feeling. Celia was the most important one now. But for fate, it might have been her who was lying here instead of poor silly Celia, who couldn’t tell a rogue from a gentleman. She hated herself for ever having felt superior to Celia, she with her pit captain father and her seamstress mother, because she hadn’t been able to tell the difference either.
They held each other for a long time, until Celia’s shaking subsided, and she felt able to walk home.
‘Morwen,’ she said huskily. ‘If I’m not at the pit tomorrow, tell them I was feeling unwell today. I can pretend as much to our John and Daddy, but I may not feel able to face people—’
Killigrew Clay Page 9
