Witchfog

by Isobel Robertson

  “We cannot go on like this,” I told Daniel. “It’s foolish and ridiculous. We need a better plan, and more assistants, or we’ll work ourselves into the ground with no result. Besides, I have invitations to answer and friends to visit.”

  He sighed, gazing blankly down at his hands.

  “You’re probably right. But I can’t give up.”

  I left him in the study, sorting through papers he had already read a hundred times over, and I retreated to the quiet of the upper floors. I stood for a moment in front of an elegant portrait of my parents, idly wondering what they would have thought of Theo. No. I should not be thinking about him.

  A tingle shot up my spine unexpectedly, as if someone watched me. I spun around, but the portrait gallery was empty. Still, I could not shake the feeling. It seemed as if the eyes of the paintings stared down in silent judgement. Shivers still rippling across my skin, I retreated to my bedroom. The shadows loomed longer than before, and the darkness grew a little deeper. I had never before felt afraid in my own home. Although I knew that the danger was all in my mind, that I was home and safe, I could not help but wish that Theo was with me.

  An Unexpected Guest

  To my pleasant surprise, my study was empty by the time I rose the next morning. Daniel had evidently decided to return home. I hoped that he had finally abandoned his ridiculous quest. For reasons I could not quite decipher, the idea of resurrecting Monsieur Lavelle seemed increasingly wrong to me. Thinking of him gave me a sense of discomfort, as if there was some dark truth left unacknowledged.

  Setting the dead firmly from my mind, I settled down to a hearty breakfast. Today, I intended to launch back into my normal life. My old friend Irene McKenzie, an artist, had sent a card inviting me to a salon at her home. It sounded like an excellent way to pass my afternoon.

  “Lily! I didn’t think you would be up yet!”

  Daniel pushed the door open, favouring me with one of his sunny smiles.

  “I’ve only just begun to break my fast,” I said, smiling in return. “Would you care to join me?”

  “It would be our pleasure,” he said, stepping inside the room. I saw to my delight that Alexandra had accompanied him this time. They settled into chairs either side of me, then fell silent. That one heartbeat of time told me they had some purpose for their visit.

  “What is it?” I asked, looking from one to the other, fighting back the sudden tremble that touched my fingers. Their faces seemed so solemn.

  “We had a visitor this morning,” Alexandra said, glancing nervously at Daniel. “He asked to see you, but… we were not sure if you would want to see him.”

  I felt my mouth drop open. Utterly unladylike, yet my face seemed frozen, out of my control. Could it be…?

  “The Earl of Seafield paid a call on us at the crack of dawn,” Daniel said, his face grim. “He told us everything that happened and demanded permission to marry you.”

  “It was rather more of a request than a demand,” Alexandra put in, but I had already stopped listening.

  Theo.

  Theo was in London. He wanted to marry me.

  “Why did he not come here first?” I asked, my voice a rough croak.

  Daniel looked a little embarrassed.

  “I’ve had a guard outside your door since we returned. I don’t entirely understand what happened to you in Yorkshire, but I don’t want to take any chances with your safety. The man wouldn’t let Amberson so much as knock on the door. So he came to us.”

  “And what did you say?”

  Daniel shrugged, but I could tell that the nonchalance only went skin-deep.

  “I told him I would speak to you. I made no promises one way or the other.”

  “I want to see him.”

  I stood up, dropping my napkin and cutlery onto the table.

  “I will change and meet you in a moment,” I called over my shoulder as I left the breakfast room - and walked straight into Theo.

  He caught me by the elbows to steady me, then held me there, gazing down into my eyes. I couldn’t look at anything else, couldn’t tear myself away from him. We stood frozen, suspended, barely breathing.

  “Perhaps you would like tea?” Alexandra said politely, her soft voice behind me causing me to jump in sudden alarm. I had not even heard her leave the breakfast room.

  “Yes, of course,” I said, fanning myself in a desperate attempt to cover my confusion. “Some tea for you, Theo? I mean, Mr Amberson. No, Lord Theodoric.”

  He smiled at me, and my own lips curled up in response, even as the trembling threatened to knock me off my feet. I sucked in a deep breath. What had happened to the girl who set off alone to defeat an entire coven of witches? This was ridiculous.

  We perched awkwardly on opposite ends of a settee, making stilted small-talk about the weather and Theo’s journey from Yorkshire. He told me that Elspeth was well. I told him that I was well.

  After a few moments of watching us in silence, Alexandra murmured a polite excuse and slipped from the room. I should not have been left unchaperoned with a gentleman, of course, but we all knew that it was far too late for such scruples.

  As soon as we were alone, Theo turned to face me directly. His eyes were achingly uncertain, his teeth worrying at his bottom lip for a moment before he finally spoke.

  “Lily, I am so sorry that I did not come sooner. Most of all, I am sorry that I did not tell you the truth about my identity. You deserved to know everything. The best comfort I can give you is that I never lied, although there was much I omitted.”

  “Explain,” I said. My anger had long since faded under the weight of missing him, but I was not quite ready for him to know that.

  “My ancestors were awarded their title two centuries ago, for services to King James VI of Scotland and I of England,” he said quietly. “You can no doubt imagine the nature of those services.”

  A family of witch-hunters, awarded their title by a notoriously witch-obsessed king? I had something of an idea.

  “So you truly do descend from a line of witch-hunters?”

  He nodded. “That was all true, I swear to you. And most of us have worked in disguise at some time or another. It is often the only way to discover covens without anyone recognising the Seafield name.”

  That made a certain degree of sense, but there were still gaps in what he told me.

  “And Elspeth? How did the sister of an earl come to be proprietress of an inn?”

  “That cottage did belong to my grandfather. He spent a great deal of time there, tracking the coven and eventually defeating its queen. When the time came for Elspeth and I to train, as is the family tradition, it was decided that we should go to stay with him in Yorkshire. Elspeth met Richard Drake and decided not to return home. After my grandfather’s death, I spent more and more time at the cottage. Between the fondness people have for my sister, and the memories of my grandfather, no one has ever questioned my presence in Yorkshire. There are few passing travellers who would recognise the Earl of Seafield.”

  His story appeared, at least on the surface, to contain as much sense as reasonable in a tale of a witch-hunting dynasty. But I had not yet asked the hardest question of all.

  “Why did you not tell me?”

  That question brought the hesitation I had feared. The silence stretched out between us, my heartbeat pounding as my nerves set my body on edge.

  “At first, I did not want to break my cover,” Theo said slowly. “I expected that you would come and go quickly. You were just a complication in my plan to uncover the coven. But I found myself afraid to leave you alone, afraid of what harm might come to you. And then, as we spent more time together, I did not think that my identity mattered so much. If you cared for me as a servant, why would you not care for me as an earl?”

  “I would have cared more for a man who spoke the truth.”

  He flinched as if my words had cut him. I could not sit calmly for a moment longer. I rose to my feet, turning to pace up and down, focu
sing on the Persian rug beneath my feet rather than on the man who I knew watched me.

  “I made a mistake,” he said, his voice low and soft. “But by the time I knew I could trust you, I was in too deep.”

  I still could not look at him. I paced, one step after another, as if the movement might somehow change the truth.

  “I was afraid, Lily!” he burst out, flying to his feet and grabbing my shoulders. “I was so afraid that you would hate me for lying to you, and so I kept avoiding the truth. What can I do to atone?”

  Afraid? The great witch-hunter earl, afraid?

  How could I trust a man who had lied to me for so long? But how could I reject the man I loved when I knew that he truly loved me too?

  Slow-moving, like the gentle drip of thick blood, like the fog creeping across the moors, I felt the truth creep up on me.

  I was afraid.

  What if Theo and I married and it marked the end of my freedom? What if he wanted my money after all, but had kept his intentions an even deeper secret? What if he tired of me in a year or two, and I found myself trapped and alone? My fear paralysed me, left me grasping for excuses to turn him away even as it hurt to leave him behind. I had been miserable every moment since I had left him standing there in the inn courtyard. I had just refused to admit it to myself.

  But I was no longer a sheltered society heiress. I had hunted witches, faced down a wolf, spent the night with this man in an isolated moorland cottage, watched my cousin brutally killed. What fear could stop me now?

  “I forgive you,” I said, the words flying out so quickly that I hardly believed I had said them.

  I heard the sudden gasp of Theo’s indrawn breath, but he did not speak or move toward me.

  “I love you, Theo,” I told him. “Stay with me.”

  He moved then, rushing forwards to grasp my hands and lower himself to one knee.

  “Marry me, Lily.”

  Reconciliation

  Daniel and Alexandra were full of congratulations and loving embraces. Alexandra kissed me hard on the cheek, wrapping her arms around me.

  “He’s a good man, Lily,” she whispered into my ear. “You won’t regret this decision.”

  Daniel offered Theo a room in his townhouse, but Theo politely declined.

  “I have my own London residence,” he said, sliding a glance at me. With a tingle of awareness, I knew he did not plan to leave me that night.

  We ate a luxurious dinner, accompanied by bottles of fine champagne that my smiling butler brought from the cellar. Even the staff congratulated me, and I could not keep a broad smile from creeping across my face at each earnest well-wish. I had such good people in my life, and I had never before so much as noticed them.

  As Daniel and Alexandra prepared to return home, Theo made a great fuss of readying himself, pulling on his hat and coat. He declined Daniel’s offer of a carriage ride home.

  “On such a fine night, how could I choose other than to walk?” he asked. Daniel refrained from mentioning the driving rain that pelted down outside, splashing hard on the paved road and cascading off the house’s porch.

  Of course, Theo did not step through that door. As soon as Daniel’s carriage had disappeared around the corner, I dismissed my butler and slammed the door shut myself.

  “Well, fiancé,” I said, turning to Theo. “Would you like a tour of the rest of the house?”

  He laughed, stepping forward to slip his arms around my hips.

  “Can the full tour perhaps wait until tomorrow? I find myself rather… tired.”

  He kissed me hard and deep. Behind me, I heard the scandalised gasp of a maidservant, but I could not bring myself to tear my lips away from Theo’s. We made our way up the stairs, half-stumbling as we kissed and touched, giggling from all the champagne and the sheer joy of finding ourselves together again. I almost fell through the door to the bedroom, Theo catching me at the last moment and pressing another hard kiss onto my lips.

  We slowed for a moment, Theo fumbling at the tiny buttons of my dress. Still giggling, I pulled away from him.

  “Patience, Theo! You must give me a moment.”

  First, I locked the door to my dressing room. Deborah might be surprised that she couldn't help me prepare for bed, but I suspected that she would quickly guess the reason. Next, I seated myself at the dressing table and began to slide the pins from my hair, letting each strand slip down to curl around my shoulders.

  Behind me, Theo groaned.

  “Quickly, Lily. I’ve missed you so much.”

  I laughed at his reflection in the mirror, his tortured expression utterly adorable. Slipping the last pin from its place, I rose to my feet, my gaze fixed on his face as I smiled seductively.

  He reached me in a heartbeat, his arms around me, his lips on mine. When he fumbled with my buttons again, I did not stop him, letting my dress fall from my shoulders. Next came my petticoats, then my stays. I lay sprawled on my bed in my chemise and stockings, laughing at Theo as he frantically tried to rip all of his clothes off at once. And then he joined me on the bed, his lips hot and demanding, and I sank into a haze of wonder and pleasure.

  We slept side by side, our bodies curled around each other. It soothed my heart to have him so close, to hear his heartbeat matching mine. I awoke more refreshed than I ever remembered feeling before, every inch of my body humming in pleasure as I stretched and sat up. Theo awoke a few moments later, murmuring in adorable confusion as I stroked his hair from his face. He smiled up at me sleepily, catching my hand to pull it against his face and lay a gentle kiss upon my fingers. He looked beautiful.

  “Morning already?” he asked. “I suppose I should leave, so as not to scandalise your staff.”

  I laughed. “It is perhaps a little too late for that. But yes, you are probably right. We should see you off home.”

  He frowned, squinting to see my face more clearly in the faint early morning light.

  “But I will see you again soon? Maybe this evening?”

  “I would like that. Perhaps you can show me your house?”

  He laughed at that, rolling over onto his back and stretching.

  “You do not want to see my house in its current state, I promise you. It’s been a decade or more since any member of my family ventured to London. The place is a mess. I don’t even have any servants anymore.”

  I could not help but laugh along with him, somehow unsurprised that, even as an earl, Theo eschewed luxury and comfort. How different his life was from mine, despite our similar statuses.

  “Lily, there is something else we must discuss before I leave.”

  His voice had changed, suddenly tight and a little nervous. My stomach clenched in response. I tried to ignore how the shadows deepened around me. Surely he had nothing else of great importance to say.

  He swung his legs out of the bed and tugged on his breeches and shirt, then lifted his coat from where it lay on the armchair beside the fireplace. For a moment, he fumbled in the pocket, then pulled something out. He stood facing away from me for a moment, his shoulders set and his chest heaving. What was so difficult for him to tell me?

  “Here. I found it after all.”

  He stretched his hand out toward me, slowly opening his fingers.

  A stone, deep red, the size of his palm, decorated with tiny engravings that I already recognised. I stared down at it in stunned silence, uncertain of how I should react.

  “Where?” I finally asked.

  “The one place we did not think to look,” Theo said, his voice wry. “Do you remember the tapestry that hangs in the great hall?”

  I nodded. How could I forget that great tapestry with its dark story of blood and revenge?

  “The stone was woven right into its fabric,” he said. “It looked like part of the picture, just an optical illusion. It had been well hidden, placed carefully behind the image of the skull cup.”

  Stretching out my trembling hand, I took the stone from Theo. It was warm against my palm, and surpris
ingly heavy, as if it carried its power as a physical weight. Such a small thing to have caused me so much trouble. My skin crept and crawled at the thought of it associated with that hideous skull cup, that beautiful object made from body and bone.

  “How on earth did it come to be there?” I asked. “I thought the tapestry must be generations old. Surely the stone has not been there so long?”

  “Perhaps the tapestry was opened up and repaired. Perhaps it was not as old as Sir Philip liked to pretend. But it hardly matters now. What will you do with it?” Theo asked.

  I ran my free hand through my tangled hair. “I need to think.”

  I put the strange stone down on my bedside table, relieved to end the physical contact. It felt unpleasant against my skin, although I could not have said why.

  “I will leave you to think,” Theo said. He kissed me hard, then again, and again, his lips lingering as if he could not bear to leave me.

  “Dinner tonight,” I whispered. “Return here.”

  He smiled as if in relief.

  “Tonight,” he promised. With one last kiss, he left me.

  I sat in my bed amongst the crumpled bedsheets and gazed at that little stone. Where was the joy and excitement I had expected to feel? I tried to straighten my thoughts, to understand the heavy emotion that pulsed through my veins and set my vision blurring.

  I was afraid.

  Letting Go

  I spent the day in a haze of indecision, creeping about the house as if I had no right to occupy my own home. I gazed up at the dark eyes of my mother in her portrait and wondered what she would have advised. I thought of talking to Daniel, but I knew that he would urge me into a decision regardless of my own thoughts on the matter. He loved me, yes, but he was like a man obsessed. Neither could I speak to Alexandra; it was unfair to ask her to keep such a secret from Daniel.

  To raise the dead? Or to let them lie?

  I ordered my carriage readied and dressed myself in a smart red day gown. At the last moment, I pulled a rough woollen cloak around my shoulders to hide the fine fabric underneath. It did not pay to appear too affluent in the area I would be visiting.