“It’s a lie… If I continue this, I’ll be living a lie.”
“No, you’ll be saving me from taking on a role I’m utterly unsuited for. And since I am married to Frances, the child she carries, if it is male, would be my heir. She wanted it to be the heir… She intended to usurp the Llewellyn's from Montkeith and I’m disinclined to give her what she wanted.”
Eldren sighed. “There are greater complications related to Frances and her unborn child than you can even begin to imagine. But this is not the place to discuss them.”
“Then by all means, let us be off to whatever clandestine activity you have planned for us,” Warren agreed with resignation.
Adelaide stared at the small work area they’d set up on the beach. The sky was blue but there were clouds in the distance. “Let us hope, now, that it doesn’t rain,” she said.
Madame Leola smiled as she looked at the large salt circle they’d cast. They’d spread out several blankets there where they could work without getting the charges damp. “Fate did not bring us here for a bit of rain to interfere now.”
Adelaide smiled. “I told Eldren that it was fate that brought me here. Is that wishful thinking? Or is it true? I want it to be. But perhaps it is simply a series of coincidences.”
“You are the only living descendent of Igrida. Your mother, a poor shop girl with gypsy blood, manages to marry one of the wealthiest and most influential men in New York City who happens to be business partners with a nobleman living in the house that Igrida, for lack of better word, haunts? Your ship sinks and you are struck with such fear at the thought of crossing the ocean, you remain here, marrying a man you barely know when you are the only one who has the ability to end the curse on his family? Can you honestly think that is coincidence?”
“When you put it in those terms, then yes, I suppose it is a bit far fetched to assume there was not some divine intervention in all of it,” Adelaide agreed.
“And did you all resolve your difficulties last night?” Leola asked.
Adelaide could feel herself blushing. “We did.”
“He fears for you,” Leola said. “He is afraid that he cannot protect you and also that he will lose you.”
“And I’m afraid of losing him,” Adelaide admitted. “But until this darkness is no longer looming over us, we’ll never really have each other anyway.”
Leola’s eyebrows lifted. “I think your husband would beg to differ. The way he looks at you implies that he will have you at any moment.”
Catching the other woman’s sly tone and double entendre, Adelaide glanced up to see Eldren traipsing through the trees carrying two stacked crates of greenery. Warren was at his heels and Lord Mortimer, who’d been watching for them, brought up the rear with the remainder.
“There are a few more crates,” Warren said as he deposited his boxes inside the circle. “I’ll go back for them.”
“Wait and I’ll go with you,” Lord Mortimer insisted. “None of us should go anywhere alone for the next twenty-four hours. They are crucial, after all.”
“Yes,” Madame Leola said. “More so than anyone here knows. It’s imperative that we act now and end this before she grows any stronger.”
Warren looked at all of them as if they were mad. “Isn’t it a bit presumptive to be speaking about all of this here? And what do you mean her?”
Adelaide realized just how far behind he was on all that they had discovered. Until Frances was removed from the picture it had been too dangerous to tell him anything. “Eldren you and Lord Mortimer go and retrieve the remaining crates while Leola and I fill in the gaps in your brother’s knowledge.”
“An excellent plan,” Eldren agreed.
When they had gone, Adelaide pointed to one of the blankets and had him sit there. She began taking the bits of woven greenery from the crate. The wives of the miners had done an excellent job crafting the lovely decorations of pine, yew and holly. “It’s rather a shame to destroy them.”
“It’s the salt,” Leola said, coming to sit beside them. “Just as the salt circle protected you last night, the salt that is here, in the sand and the sea, in the very air itself, weakens her and so she does not come here.”
“Who is she?”
“Igrida,” Adelaide said. “She was a witch in the small village that existed here outside the keep all those centuries ago. The moor was their holy place. When Alwen laid siege to the castle and claimed it for his own, she seduced him. She offered him power and the ability to be undefeated in battle, but there was a cost.”
“And what was that?” Warren demanded.
“He would have to make her his wife and he would have to murder every single man, woman and child who lived in her village. History has said it was otherwise, that he killed the villagers during the siege, but it was only at her behest.”
“Why?”
“She needed a blood sacrifice to cement her power,” Leola said, and from the basket at her side drew out some of the notebooks that Mr. Barton had given them. “It’s all recorded here. Adelaide found her book… her grimoire and he translated it from Old English into something that even we could understand.”
“So you’re telling me that all the stories I heard as a boy, about our house being haunted by a medieval warlord were false? And it was actually his witch of a wife all along?”
“Precisely,” Adelaide replied.
“And the daughter she supposedly killed because they had no value to him and he only wanted sons?”
Adelaide let out a heavy and deeply sad sigh. “The females of her line are her weakness. She cursed the Llewellyn blood so that anyone who had it could pose no threat to her. But even then, she knew that a female of her line could bring about her destruction and that is why the female children have always died so terribly young… and why she hurled her own daughters from the battlements. She killed them and absorbed their energy.”
Warren shook his head. “Heaven preserve us. If that is what we are descended from then perhaps we deserve to suffer!”
“No! You are not her… but Frances means to be. Frances means to sacrifice her own child so that Igrida can be flesh again. She’s made a pact with the witch to let her take the child’s body and be born into this world again. And she must be stopped… if she succeeds—.”
“What would happen?” Warren demanded.
Adelaide couldn’t finish. It was too terrible a thought.
Leola offered, “It would create a chasm in the veil that separates the living and the dead. Because she would become both. And such power, such destruction, would wreak havoc in this world, Mr. Llewellyn.”
Warren looked at Adelaide then. “And where do you fit into all of this?”
Adelaide shrugged. “I am the thing she fears most. I have her blood in my veins, but I am not of the Llewellyn line.”
Nothing more was said as Eldren and Lord Mortimer returned with the remaining crates. They made quick work of setting out the greenery. Eldren opened the last crate very carefully and revealed a stack of small paper wrapped sticks with long fuses.
“They look rather small and innocuous,” Adelaide said with dismay.
“Don’t let that fool you. Half this box will bring down the house. But I mean to use all of it to be sure.”
Eldren refused to let anyone else help with wiring the sticks of dynamite into the wreaths and garlands. He considered it too dangerous for anyone but himself.
“Well, while we’re here, we should take care of the other part of it,” Adelaide said and from her pocket withdrew two small glass bottles and a small knife.
“What the devil is that for?” Warren demanded
“Blood,” Eldren said. “Adelaide’s blood, as it is apparently the only thing Igrida must truly fear.”
CHAPTER NINE
Igrida moved through the corridors as nothing more than a flitting shadow. For now, it was taking far too much of her energy to manifest in any physical way and she would only do so when absolutely necessary. They wer
e planning something, the weak and pathetic mortals who were in her domain. But in her current form, other than an occasional shiver or a maid glancing nervously over her shoulder as if feeling watched, no one was the wiser of her presence. It gave her an opportunity to gauge her enemies progress. Listening, seeking. No one was there. They were all off plotting together. They had discovered one of her few weaknesses—salt. They had exploited it again and again by going down to the beach and conducting their clandestine meetings for their doomed bid to take her power. It angered her but there was naught she could do about it until Frances’ child could safely be born into the world. When she inhabited its body, she would not have to fear anything. Salt would not stop her, not would the blood of her descendants. She would be made new with that body, but more powerful than any other living creature on earth.
Thinking of Frances in her tiny cell, her once immaculate appearance now slovenly and disheveled, Igrida felt a deep sense of satisfaction. Of vindication. She had taught that ungrateful witch a lesson. Frances had tried to bribe the guard at her asylum to bring her an herbal concoction to force the babe from her womb. Instead, he’d taken her money and left her with nothing but rage as they’d restrained her to the bed for fear she would harm herself and the child she carried. Igrida had nudged him in that direction, guiding his actions with little more than a whisper in his ears. Most of the living were little better than sheep, easily led and easily controlled. Until the upstart countess had arrived, even the Llewellyn’s had been under her thumb, believing precisely what she wanted. For centuries, thanks to the sympathetic bride of one of their ancestors in the seventeenth century, the story had been twisted to paint her accursed husband as the villain of the piece. She’d had an inkling then that her power would one day be challenged and had hoped to camouflage her presence well enough to prevent a direct challenge to her power. Adelaide. She was the one who had discovered her true identity, who had threatened to bring all her plans crashing down. Who did she think she was to make such bold proclamations that she would bring an end to her reign?
Frances was no different. Always, the greedy little witch had thought herself special when in truth her powers were minimal. Glamours and the ability to sway people to her aid were simple enough tricks for anyone with a modicum of talent. Frances wasn’t worthy of the power Igrida had gifted her thus far and certainly was not worthy of what she was asking for. But Igrida needed a new form, once that would not share blood with Adelaide Llewellyn. Otherwise, all would be lost. In all the years she’d existed there, trapped between the world of the living and the dead, bound by her own hubris in crafting a spell so complex, she’d never encountered anyone who had the power to end her existence before. If Adelaide existed, others did as well, and that meant obtaining a new body and beginning again, one that would not be left vulnerable by her own youthful ineptitude in casting the spells and curses that had resulted in her current precarious state.
“I think she’s a witch!”
That statement made Igrida pause. Two maids were in one of the bedchambers, tidying up and stripping beds.
“Madame Leola?” The other maid scoffed. “Hardly a witch! I think she’s a nothing but a phony, just like the fortune tellers at the fair! She might have fancier clothes and put on airs, but a fake is a fake in my book!”
“No, not her! Lady Montkeith. I think she’s a witch!”
“Hush,” the second maid said sharply. “That’s the sort of talk will get us both sacked!”
“How do you explain all the strange goings on here since she arrived then?” The first one shot back, giving her companion a smug look.
“I don’t need to explain them. That’s not my job is it? My job is to make the beds, clean the floors and do whatever the housekeeper or Mr. Tromley tells me to do. And so is yours! If we’re caught gossiping about them that are above us—.”
“It ain’t gossip. And I weren’t saying it like it’s a bad thing! Really! I like Lady Montkeith… a lot better than I ever liked that Mrs. Llewelyn. She were a cold one right through to her bones.”
The second maid sighed. “If you want to know who is a witch in this house, my money would have been on her. I saw her do some things, and heard her say some things that just weren’t right. And I still don’t know what she ever did to poor Charlie. He weren’t that sort, you know? Not to be untrue and certainly not to fall into bed with whatever fancy trollop crooked a finger at him!”
“You were sweet on him!” The first maid accused. “I knew it! Did you ever tell him?”
“Aye, I did. And fat lot of good it did me… From the moment he stepped foot in this house, he was after me. We flirted and he even asked me to walk out with him on our half day. Then she sunk her claws into him and he were never the same after.”
The conversation continued as the maids drifted from the room carrying their bundles of soiled linens. As they passed Igrida’s shadowy form in the hallway, the younger of the two shivered and glanced about her nervously.
“Ignore it,” the second one advised her. “Any time you feel something like that in this house, you’d do best to pretend it didn’t happen.”
“And if you don’t?”
“Tromley will not put up with servants talking about ghosties and spooks below stairs and there’s some here you can’t trust to share such stories with. They’ll run to him quick as fire and tattle on you. The pay is good here and there’s enough servants that the workload doesn’t have you crying as you get into bed each night. I want to keep my job. If you’re smart, you’ll do the same.”
The first maid nodded. But as they made their way down the corridor to one of the many concealed passages, she glanced back over her shoulder. Amused at the girl and enjoying herself, Igrida made the curtain at the end of the corridor flutter as if someone had moved past them. The girl quickened her steps as her head swiveled forward. She would not look back again, Igrida thought, no matter what.
With the greenery all wired with explosives and repackaged in the numerous crates, Eldren and Warren left first. Lord Mortimer assisted them in carting the various crates back to the wagon. Adelaide watched them as they made their last pass with Leola at her side. It wasn’t foreboding so much that it overtook her, but Adelaide found herself suddenly overwhelmed with fear. Had they made the right choice? Was it possible that they could simply have run? Could they have made their way to America and somehow built a life there without the tormenting presence of Igrida’s curse and insidious influence? They would never know, Adelaide thought. She’d been so insistent that this was the way—the only way— that no other alternatives had really been entertained.
“Will this work?”
“It’s a sound plan,” Leola replied.
Adelaide spared her a sidelong glance. “I wasn’t asking abut the soundness of the plan. I am not asking what you think, Leola, but what you see.”
Leola smiled. “I know what you ask and I cannot give you an answer.”
“Can’t or won’t?” Adelaide demanded.
“I truly cannot. My own fate is now very much tied to yours and whatever happens here in the next two days. With that, I cannot look objectively at the future, I cannot see beyond what I want to see or what I fear will happen to know the truth.”
“Is there some way of divining an answer that is not entirely dependent upon your visions?”
“There are cards. I could read them for you if you like, but they are open to interpretation and may well be skewed by our own fears and desires.”
“Do it,” Adelaide asked. “Please.”
Leola moved toward the small bag she had carried with them. From inside, she withdrew a cloth wrapped bundle. “I carry them with me everywhere, not because I use them, but because they are a talisman I suppose. They were my mother’s, you see… and they remind me of the life I might have been living otherwise.”
“Was it so very terrible, then?” Adelaide asked. “Your childhood?”
Madame Leola smiled. “It was not terribl
e. It was, however, eccentric. I learned to read cards before I learned to read books,” she explained. “We were often poor, we often struggled, and there were many nights, now that I recall them as an adult, that I ate and my mother did not. In the end, for all her sacrifice, she managed to send me off to read fortunes and advise a wealthy, exiled royal from some tiny little principality destroyed by revolution. She was generous and taught me things my mother could not, how to dress, how to navigate social events, protocol and etiquette. I owe her a great deal.”
“And your mother? What became of her?”
Leola’s smile, sad as it was, faded. “She died before I could come back for her. I had already leased a little cottage by the sea where we could live together and where I could advise those who could pay my rather exorbitant fees. Like many things in her life, it was too little too late. But we’re not here to talk about my past. You want to know about your future.”
Adelaide seated herself on the blanket once more directly across from Madame Leola. “What do you need me to do?”
Leola placed the deck of cards in front of her. “Cut them into three stacks and set them aside. That is all.”
Adelaide did as she asked.
Leola tapped the first stack of cards. “Turn the first one over.”
Adelaide did so. There was an image of a beautiful woman in elegant robes wearing a moon headdress. “What does it mean?”
“It represents you, Adelaide,” Leola said. “She’s the empress… and she represents fertility.”
Adelaide stared at the card and felt such a deep sense of longing inside her that it took her breath. She knew that what had transpired between herself and Eldren the night before had changed things, that the possibility existed even in that moment that she could be carrying his child. While she wanted that more than anything, she also feared it. Until they were free of Igrida, it was too much to risk.
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