Bewitched

by Cullman, Heather;

  It took a moment for the meaning of her words to sink in. When they did, Mercy’s glum face brightened and she again smiled, this time revealing a set of white, albeit slightly crooked teeth. Clasping her hands together in her excitement, she exclaimed, “Oh, aye, yer grace. Aye! I was born ’n’ raised near Newleycombe, so I know everything there is to know ’bout Dartmoor. I also went to the village dame’s school, so I can read ’n’ write a bit.”

  “All the better,” Emily replied, deciding that Mercy Mildon would do very well indeed. “It appears that you are exactly the sort of maid I had hoped to hire. How very lucky for the both of us that you are already at the abbey.”

  “Do ye mean it, yer grace? Truly?” Mercy expelled breathlessly, looking as if she hardly dared to believe her own good fortune. “Do ye really want me fer yer maid?”

  Emily rotated her shoulders, which were impossibly stiff, grimacing at the resulting pain. “I shouldn’t wish anyone else.”

  Apparently Mercy also possessed the qualification of having excellent eyes, because she exclaimed, “Is somethin’ amiss, yer grace? Are ye feelin’ ill?”

  Emily smiled at the genuine concern in the servant’s voice. It appeared that she had indeed chosen wisely. Reaching up to rub the aching muscles, she replied, “No, not ill. Just”—another grimace as she kneaded a particularly sore spot—“stiff. I am afraid I didn’t sleep very well last night.”

  Mercy made a clucking noise behind her teeth. “Well, ’tis hardly a wonder, what with the wutherin’ ’n’ all.”

  “Wutherin’?” Emily paused in her massaging, frowning at the unfamiliar term. “What is wutherin’?”

  “’Tis what the wind does when it blows o’er the moors,” the servant informed her, returning to the coal-blackened hearth to finish her sweeping. “There’s more wutherin’ that goes on here in Dartmoor than anywhere else in England, ’n’ it wuthers worst of all at the abbey. ’Tis why it’s called Windgate Abbey.” She glanced up then, her blue eyes wide. “Surely ye’ve heard the legend?”

  “Legend?” she prompted, though she wasn’t so very certain she wished to hear the tale. If it was anything like the other English legends she had heard, it was bound to be macabre.

  Nodding, Mercy dumped a shovel full of soot into her empty coal scuttle. “’Tis said that the sort of wind ye heard last night, the wutherin’ kind, isna wind a’tall, but the souls of sinful people condemned to blow ’bout the moors. ’Tis their penitence, ye see, to wuther. Come Judgment Day, they’ll be pardoned fer their wickedness ’n’ let into heaven. ’Til then, they have to wuther.”

  “How awful,” Emily murmured, shivering at the notion of evil spirits howling at her windows.

  Mercy nodded, her expression grave. “Oh, aye. ’Tis a dreadful torment, bein’ the wind, ’specially since wind-souls aren’t allowed to rest except once every hundred years. That’s why they howl so, they’re terrible fagged. They howl worse in Dartmoor than anywhere else, ’cause they haven’a rested fer o’er five hundred years. They canna. They can only rest in a secret place deep beneath the moors, but they canna get to it anymore. The monks that built the abbey built it o’er the gate to the place.”

  “Hence the name ‘Windgate Abbey,’” Emily mused, speaking more to herself than to Mercy.

  “Aye. The winds rage ’round the abbey like they do, ’cause they’re tryin’ to tear it down. They’re desperate to go through the gate ’n’ rest.” Mercy stood then, shaking her head. “’Tis said that the wind’s fury was so bad when the abbey was first built that its howlin’ drove the monks mad. Some of ’em were so crazed by it that they hanged themselves to escape the wutherin’.”

  “What!” Emily ejected in shock.

  Mercy nodded. “They hanged themselves from the oak tree that used to stand in the courtyard of the cloisters. The cloisters are the ruins at the west edge of the grounds, in that forest of trees. Ye can still see the tree stump there.”

  “Oh, my!”

  “Aye.” Another nod from Mercy. “The tree’s been gone fer centuries now—it was cut down after the monks hanged themselves—still, on nights when the moon is full ’n’ the wind is wutherin’, the tree is sometimes seen standin’ there again, with the ghostly monks hangin’ from its branches, their corpses swayin’ in the wind. Everyone avoids passin’ that place on such nights, ’cause seein’ the monks means that you’ll die ’fore the year is out.”

  “What a terrible tale!” Emily exclaimed, shivering again as she envisioned the tree in question. You could bet she wouldn’t venture anywhere near that place at night, full moon or no.

  “Aye. Terrible,” Mercy somberly agreed. “But then, there are all sorts of strange tales told here on the moors. Why, just ’bout every village ’n’ house has a ghost, or a witch, or a demon, or a pixie, or some other sort of uncanny bein’. ’Tis why many people call Dartmoor the most haunted place on earth.” Nodding, she picked up her hearth-cleaning tools. “Now then, yer grace. I suppose you’ll be wantin’ yer breakfast?”

  Emily merely stared at her. The most haunted place on earth? Heaven help her! She was even more cursed than she’d suspected.

  Chapter 7

  Her laughter drifted through the open dressing room window, merry and melodic, like joyous music floating on the warm morning breeze. Michael paused in toweling his freshly washed hair to listen. Emily’s laughter had become a familiar sound, one he’d heard almost daily for the past three weeks, ever since she’d discovered the water cascade and miniature Venetian canal, both of which just happened to be in the private garden that spread beneath the windows of his suite of rooms.

  Not that she knows I am near, he thought wryly as he resumed drying his hair. Had she known, he doubted if she’d have adopted the garden as her playground.

  True to her word, Emily had avoided him since their wedding day, taking the promised pains to stay out of his way. And he was grateful. For though he’d been unable to obliterate her beautiful face and luscious form from his mind, as would have been his preference, he at least hadn’t had to suffer the proximity of her alluring presence. Thus he’d resumed his peaceful, if humdrum, existence, passing his days as he had done before her arrival.

  Existence? A sardonic smile twisted Michael’s lips. Hmmm, yes. “Existence” was the perfect word for what his life had become. Indeed, no one in their right mind would consider his day-to-day continuation to be living.

  Living was going interesting places and meeting fascinating people. It was days filled with wonderment and diversity; it was the freedom to experience all the exhilarating adventures the world had to offer. Living was what made a person rejoice in waking up morning after morning; it gave their days meaning and made them thrill at being alive. To live was to seek love and to savor the heady rush of its discovery. It was the sharing of passion and the sweet, intimate murmurings of well-pleasured lovers. Living was feeling, really feeling … joy, sorrow, anticipation, regret, anger, and all the other richly complex emotions that made up the lush tapestry that was life.

  Existing, on the other hand, meant to breathe and endure, nothing more, which summed up his life to perfection.

  Infused with a sudden, bitter sense of futility at his dreary lot, Michael uttered a foul oath and tossed aside his wet towel. Picking up a fresh one, he stepped from the cooling bath in which he stood, and began drying his body in agitated swipes.

  When all was said and done, his days amounted to little more than a series of monotonously routine vignettes in which he read, played chess or cards with Eadon, walked near the old cloisters, surveyed the sky through his telescope, or sat brooding in his study, merely passing the time between Eadon’s rigid schedule of treatments. One day slipped into another, days melding into weeks, weeks into months, all without a single defining moment to distinguish itself from the others.

  True, there was the diversion of his grandmother’s sporadic visits, an
d Euphemia’s weekly letters did serve to amuse him for a quarter hour every Tuesday afternoon. Still, those moments weren’t exactly what he would call “defining,” for they failed to make a significant or memorable impact on his barren existence.

  Now dry, Michael stepped into his comfortably worn leather mules, then slipped on the burgundy, gold, and black paisley patterned silk dressing gown Eadon had left draped over the French chair beside his dressing table. As he tied the sash belt, another trill of laughter drifted up from the garden, followed by the sound of Emily’s voice gaily calling to someone.

  Or something, Michael added to himself, remembering the times he’d glanced out the window to see her romping with the gardener’s enormous black hound. Like the gray-striped stable cat, which he sometimes saw cradled in her lap as she sat reading high in the beech tree near his sitting room window, the hound seemed to have taken an immense liking to his young wife. As had Bennie, the coachman’s young son, whom he’d spied with Emily the day before, the pair of them companionably engrossed in building miniature ships from an odd assortment of twigs, flowers, and leaves.

  Closing his eyes as yet another arpeggio of mirth tickled his ears, Michael pictured his wife as she had looked then, sitting with Bennie on the lush green grass beside the water cascade.

  She wore a simple, but form-flattering day dress, one in a rich shade of crimson that suited her vivid coloring to perfection. Her hair, which was tied back from her face with a wide red ribbon, tumbled down her slender back, forming a riotous cascade of glossy jet curls. For a long moment Michael allowed his mind’s eye to linger on those curls, his fingers aching to caress them. Then he reluctantly pulled back to observe the entire scene.

  Of course she was smiling and laughing, as was Bennie, a sturdy, sandy-haired lad of eight, as they shifted through their treasure trove of foliage, searching for the ideal mast twig or a leaf to serve as a sail. Now they admired each other’s handiwork, both masterpieces of nautical whimsy; now they launched their creations upon the gentle water of the canal, shouting and cheering their triumph when the flower-bedecked boats remained afloat.

  It was a charming panorama, one that filled him with a sense of bittersweet longing that made him yearn to step into the picture and partake in the jollity. It was the same sensation he’d experienced of late every time he looked outside and saw Emily engaged in her merrymaking … something he did often these days, despite his initial resolution to remain dissociated from his all-too-tempting wife. In truth, he’d come to look forward to seeing her in the garden and enjoyed watching her lively capers. So much so, that he now suffered crushing disappointment that shadowed his entire day on those occasions when she failed to appear.

  Cued by a particularly gleeful shriek to commence in his spying, Michael wandered over to the small casement window, smiling pensively at the sight that met his eyes. She wore a green round dress today, a modest one with a lacy chemisette-tucker and long, puffy gigot sleeves. Like all the gowns he’d seen her wear, this one became her quite admirably. Then again, he couldn’t imagine any garment that wouldn’t suit her, not with her vibrant beauty. Even the silly creation she wore on her head, a newspaper which she’d cleverly folded to resemble a cocked hat, made a fetching frame for her perfect oval face.

  As he watched, she and Bennie, who wore a matching hat, bowed to each other, then launched into what appeared to be a mock duel. Each brandishing a long stick, which, knowing Emily’s fertile imagination she had declared to be swords of the finest Toledo steel, they thrust, slashed, and parried with sprightly ebullience, sometimes circling, other times chasing each other around the topiary pillars of Irish yew that defined the borders of the small garden. After several moments the gardener’s dog entered the melee, its yipping barks of excitement mingling with their happy shouts.

  For a brief, irrational moment Michael envied the animal and the ease with which it was accepted into the game. Lucky bloody beast! He could just imagine what would happen if he were to try to join in the fun. The reception he’d received from the ton after his disgusting display at Lady Kilvington’s picnic would no doubt seem warm in comparison to the welcome he would receive from Emily.

  Not that he would be able to blame her for her coldness. After the disgraceful way he’d behaved on their wedding day, he couldn’t expect any better. Hell, he didn’t deserve any better. He deserved to be treated exactly as she was currently treating him, to be despised and ignored … a state of affairs that suited him just fine. Indeed, he preferred matters as they stood and wished them to continue in a like manner.

  Or did he? Michael rested his head against the stone window dressing, taking care to remain out of sight as he shifted through his tangled emotions.

  While it was true that he still desired Emily—more than any woman he’d ever met—the overwhelming salaciousness of his lust had mellowed over the weeks. No longer were his thoughts of her the carnal visions of hot, naked flesh and animalistic couplings that had haunted him in the days following their marriage ceremony; no longer did the sight of her provoke the excruciating urgency he’d suffered on their wedding day and the first few times he’d seen her in the garden. No. Ever since he’d glimpsed the bright, buoyant spirit that possessed her luscious body, he’d begun to view her as a person rather than as an exquisite vessel upon which he wished to spend his lust.

  Thus, what he felt now when he saw her was a lonely, almost desperate desire to befriend her—an emotion accompanied by an effervescing sensation of warmth that stirred not his groin, but his heart. He yearned to talk and laugh with her, to play her silly games, and yes, even listen to her queer nonsense about curses. In short, he wanted to be a part of her exhilarating life; he wanted to be energized by her vivaciousness and inspired by her joy of living.

  Michael smiled ruefully at that last. Unlike himself, Emily had chosen not to simply exist in her isolation at Windgate Abbey, she had elected to live. She had taken what was an admittedly less than auspicious situation and had found countless ingenious ways to brighten and enrich not just her life, but those that touched it.

  And it seemed that she had touched many lives at Windgate. Judging from what he’d seen and heard … the way the gardeners all smiled and greeted her when they happened upon her in the garden … the pleasure in both Grimshaw and Mrs. McInnis’s voices when they uttered her name … the chambermaids’ praise of her kindness and generosity … well, it was apparent that Emily had quite won over the household staff. Raking his fingers through his damp hair, Michael had to admit that she had inadvertently won him over as well. So much so that he often found himself wishing that he’d met her before his illness.

  Back then he’d been a worthy match for her … strong and handsome and charming. And he had no doubt whatsoever that she would have been every bit as taken with him as he currently was with her. She would have been thrilled to be courted by him, the rich and desirable duke of Sherrington, and he would have felt honored by the privilege of her allowing him to do so.

  Michael swallowed hard, his heart contracting painfully at the thought of wooing Emily. How very splendid it would have been to court her. How perfectly wonderful to whisper in her ear all the sweet romantic nothings that so delighted the female heart. What pleasure to steal kisses from her ripe, red lips. They would have been perfect together, quite the most dashing couple London had ever seen. And when they finally wed, they would have done so with love and joy, forming a blissful union from which would have sprung all the beautiful babes Emily so desired.

  But, of course, such a dream was impossible now. He was no longer the man he’d once been.

  As he bleakly contemplated that dispiriting fact, Bennie playfully jabbed Emily in the side with his stick, to which she responded by dramatically clutching her middle and slowly crumpling to the ground. When she finally lay still, pretending to be slain, the boy began hopping around her prone form, spinning and whooping in what appeared to be a harum
-scarum victory dance.

  Michael smiled wistfully at the sight. Once upon a time he’d loved nothing more than a good romp. Indeed, it had often been remarked upon in the ton that nobody could turn a dull affair into one of gaiety and excitement quite as handily as the duke of Sherrington. The remembrance of those occasions made his chest feel suddenly taut and achy.

  How he missed the ton! He’d thrived on society, nurtured by the noise, gaiety, conversation, and intrigue provided by the endless round of entertainment. Having been crowned as London’s most desirable bachelor, he’d naturally been invited everywhere, which meant that he’d hardly spent a moment alone during his reign. Indeed, if he weren’t being pursued by the virginal misses at Almack’s, or being tendered ribald invitations by older, more worldly women everywhere else he went, he was enjoying the sensual pleasures of his mistress or one of the many alluring members of the demirep.

  And when he wished to escape the constant female fawning? He could always take refuge in one of London’s many temples of manly amusement: White’s, Tattersall’s, the boxing school on New Bond Street, the fencing rooms in Haymarket, the gambling hells in St. James, or any of the other numerous places where he could bask in the camaraderie of his sometimes envious but always admiring peers. It had been a marvelous life, a full and exciting one …

  One from which he’d been banished, much as Adam and Eve had been cast out of the paradise that was Eden. Unlike Adam and Eve, however, his eviction came not from any sin on his part, but from a weakness he had never courted and was now powerless to control.

  And it hurt. Dear God, how it hurt! Nothing in his previously blessed life had prepared him to endure the devastation he had suffered at being ostracized by the people he had thought to be his friends. Nor had it left him with the grace to bear his lot without soul-shattering shame and bitterness.