Bewitched

by Cullman, Heather;

As always happened when Michael recalled his reversal of fortune, he raged against fate, the ton, and himself, looking to place blame for his misery and growing frustrated when doing so merely deepened his despair. It seemed so futile, this existence of his. Hardly worth the effort it took to breathe.

  At that moment Emily returned to life, laughing in a way that embraced his heart as she jumped up and began to chase Bennie around the garden. Despite his desolation, Michael smiled. Perhaps, just perhaps, his existence wouldn’t seem so hopeless if he had someone like Emily in his life. Someone gay and amusing to divert him from his torment, a companion to ease the loneliness that constantly plagued his days.

  Michael’s smile faltered. Emily … his companion? What the hell was he thinking? As much as he longed for her company, actually acting upon his hankering and befriending her were utterly out of the question. Why, the very notion was absurd … impossible even.

  Or was it? His brow furrowed in his consternation. The concept that he might be friends with a woman to whom he was so powerfully attracted was nothing short of astounding. Indeed, never in his life had he imagined doing such a thing. Then again, there had never been any reason for him to do so. Not when he’d always been so sexually vigorous and had had so many beautiful women eager to warm his bed. Now that all that had changed …

  Hmmm. Could he be friends with Emily, just friends? Could he ignore his baser instincts and simply enjoy her company?

  Standing there now, a distant spectator of his wife’s alluring beauty and seductive presence, he could honestly reply yes. He felt at least somewhat confident that he could bridle his lust and behave in a civilized manner. He was also certain that any discomfort he suffered in doing so would be well worth enduring, considering the color and texture her friendship was sure to bring to his drab life. She was a whole new world to explore, one full of whimsy, charm, and magic.

  With Emily by his side, he might learn to live again.

  The temptation of that hope made him long to dash out to the garden and—and—what? He might want her company, but she most decidedly did not want his. She loathed him.

  He raked his fingers through his hair, utterly disconcerted. After the contemptible way he’d treated her, was there anything he could possibly do or say to win her forgiveness?

  Before he could consider, there was a soft rap at the dressing room door, followed by, “Your grace? Is everything all right?”

  Michael cast the closed door an exasperated look. Eadon was worse than a mother hen with one chick when it came to leaving his charge alone, always fearful that he would have a spell and do himself damage during one of those rare unattended moments. He was especially apprehensive when Michael bathed, an ablution Michael insisted on conducting in utter privacy.

  Though he had once been like every other nobleman in England, never thinking twice about having his valet bathe him like a babe and attend to his most personal needs, his stint at Bamforth had left him jealous of his privacy and rendered him unable to bear the sort of intimate handling he’d once taken for granted. Thus, upon his release from the institution, he’d refrained from hiring a new valet, preferring to tend to himself and allowing the first footman or Eadon to help him only when absolutely necessary. It was a state of affairs that suited him splendidly, though Eadon had made it clear that he would have preferred his patient to adhere to a more traditional, hence less solitary, arrangement.

  “Your grace?”

  Michael sighed. Ah, well. As annoying as he found Eadon’s smothering, he had to acknowledge that the man was only doing his job. Having thus reminded himself of that fact, he injected a cordial note in his voice as he replied, “I am fine, Eadon. I shall be finished directly.”

  “Very good, your grace.”

  Taking one last glance at Emily, who now lay sprawled on her back, chatting with Bennie, he reluctantly moved from the window. So, would she ever forgive him?

  The only way to know for certain was to ask her.

  Chapter 8

  Vut! Vut! Vut!

  Emily gasped, her hands flying to her chest in her startlement. Oh, heavens! C-could it be … w-was it … elves? Her palms clasped yet harder against her heart, which thundered and raced in horror at the thought of encountering supernatural beings.

  Mercy had said that these ancient woods were populated by elves, wickedly mischievous ones, who danced among the cloister ruins at night and slept in the tree trunk hollows by day. She’d also cautioned that the creatures were jealous of their sleep and had related several local legends that detailed their vengeance against humans foolhardy enough to disturb their rest. Though skeptical about the existence of elves, bitter experience had taught Emily not to dismiss the threat of curses out of hand, so she’d tread carefully along the derelict path, taking care to avoid stepping on the many fallen twigs and dry leaves, or anything else that might produce a noise sufficiently sharp to awaken the spiteful woodland denizens. She thought she’d been successful but—

  Vut! Vut! Vut! But apparently elves had far keener hearing than she’d imagined … well, they did if an elf were indeed the perpetrator of that queer call … which she very much d-doubted. Her hands still clutching her chest, despite her dogged determination to dismiss the notion of fairy folk, Emily anxiously searched for the source of the sound, her apprehensive gaze shifting from tree to tree, all of which sported the glowing tints of early autumn.

  Yellow tinged the beech, birch, and elm; the maples flaunted orange. The great spreading oak trees, most of which appeared to be as old as England herself, wore tawny mantles edged in bronze. To her right grew ash and elder, dotted with plump fall berries; to her left flourished larch, spruce, and pine, their scaly cones ripening with the season. Across the sun-dappled ground splashed purple saw-worth and pale crimson betony, bright shocks of color against the muted carpet of nature’s mulch. Emily was suspiciously eyeing what appeared to be a fairy ring when—

  Vut! Vut! Vut!

  She jumped, then whirled around, her wide-eyed gaze flying in the direction from which the babble had come. The oak tree. Yes, whatever had voiced the noise was most definitely in the gnarled oak just behind her.

  Though common sense told her to flee in the face of possible danger, to run as far and as fast as her feet could carry her, she didn’t move. She couldn’t. Her curiosity, which was every bit as potent as her imagination, warred with her prudence, and at the moment it was winning the battle. Thus she remained rooted to the spot, goosebumps tiptoeing up her arms as she uneasily surveyed the tree.

  There! Yes. Something moved … around at the back of the tree trunk. Fearful of what she might see, but now too inquisitive not to investigate, she took a cautious step nearer. Oh, she knew she was being reckless, stupid even, but—but—

  Helpless to stop herself, she took another step. Then another, and another—

  Vut! Vut! Vut!

  An involuntary scream escaped her lips and she froze. There followed the scraping sound of scurrying feet, then a plump red squirrel scampered into view. Its plumed ears cocked and its bushy, foxlike tail bristling, it clung to the fissured side of the tree, scolding her fiercely around the nut in its cheek.

  Emily gaped speechlessly for several beats, her mind scrambling to process what she was seeing. Then her shoulders began to shake and she doubled over, laughing helplessly.

  Elves indeed! What a widgeon she was to take such nonsense to heart. The squirrel, looking insulted at being laughed at, bound up the tree, discharging a final vut! vut! vut! as it disappeared into the autumn-bronzed foliage.

  Still chuckling and shaking her head at her own folly, Emily wiped her mirth-dampened eyes with her kid-gloved hand and resumed her pilgrimage to the cloister ruins. Goodness! She really must stop listening to Mercy’s wild tales. They were fueling her already overactive imagination and not in a manner she found agreeable.

  Why, just last night she’d
been certain that she’d heard the chanting of the hanged monks’ phantom funeral procession, which Mercy claimed paraded down the ancient stone hallway of the abbey and into these very woods on dark, moonless nights. As it turned out, the music was just the tuneless humming of Ralph, the fourth footman, whose duty it was to tend to the wall lanterns in the hallway in question. Unfortunately for the both of them, she hadn’t discovered that fact until after she’d worked herself into a panic and had almost caused the house to be burned down.

  Emily cringed at the memory of the mortifying episode. It had occurred around nine o’clock, an admittedly early hour for a haunting, as she had returned from the library with the book she’d selected to read in bed. Upon hearing what at the time had sounded like eerie chanting, she’d remembered Mercy’s ghostly tale and had panicked. After all, as with seeing the hanged monks, encountering the phantom funeral procession, too, portended death. And so she had run, tearing blindly down the hall in her desperation to escape the uncanny cavalcade. When she’d come upon Ralph, she’d screeched her irrational terror, making him drop the taper he carried, the flame of which had ignited the carpet runner.

  Though the damage had been minimal, the incident had served to illustrate how dangerously out of control her imagination was in regards to the Windgate legend, thus prompting her to take her current course of action: She was visiting the scene of the alleged tragedy, hoping to exorcise her fear by removing the mystery of the place from her mind.

  Her father had always said that the only way to banish one’s fears was to squarely face and explore them, and that once the unknown became known, it inevitably ceased to be frightening. It was a theory that had proved correct in all instances … save that of her curse. The more she’d explored it, the more alarming it had become.

  Lifting her now dusty skirts, Emily stepped over a moss-mottled log that lay rotting across the path, sighing at the thought of the curse. The only good thing she could say about her marriage to the master of Windgate Abbey was that it had alleviated her fear of the curse. It was, after all, impossible to fall in love with a man she never saw, especially one whose very memory prickled and galled her.

  As always happened when she thought of her husband, Emily’s ire kindled. He really was a bastard, tricking her as he had done. And the way he’d spoken to her after the wedding … o-o-o! How dare he woo her into a marriage he’d never had any intention of honoring! Why, when she thought of how deceptively pleasant he’d been during their introduction and the way he’d played upon her sympathy with his candor about his condition … o-o-o! Hateful man! If anyone deserved fits, it was he.

  Though Emily knew she should feel shame at thinking such an uncharitable thought, she couldn’t help herself. He had wounded her far too deeply for her to muster the slightest bit of compassion for his suffering. Indeed, after all the wretched things he’d said and done, he could fall into a thrashing, foaming heap at her feet, and she doubted if she would feel anything for him but a bitter sense of justice. She most certainly wouldn’t lift a hand to help him nor would she comfort him in the aftermath of his fit, as she would be inclined to do for anyone else. No. Were he to be overcome in her presence, she would simply walk away.

  Well, not without first summoning help, she amended. He might be a bastard, but she couldn’t in good conscience leave him alone at such a moment. After all, were he to choke to death or suffer some other grievous damage because of her neglect, she would be forced to feel guilt. And the last thing she intended to do was spend her life plagued with guilt over the demise of a man she disliked as much as she did the duke of Sherrington.

  She also had no intention of wasting any more thoughts on him, a resolution she found easy to honor as the woods came to an abrupt end and she caught her first glimpse of the ruined cloisters.

  They looked much as she’d imagined, jaggedly fragmentary and overgrown with vegetation. The feeling they invoked in her, however, was utterly unexpected. Instead of being clutched with dread, as she’d anticipated, she felt an odd sense of serenity. Surely a place where the sun shined so brightly and where the birds sang with such gladness couldn’t be so very evil?

  Careful not to trip over the scattered rubble, Emily slowly advanced forward, her gaze moving over the crumbling remains of the foundation and walls, trying to gauge the size and arrangement of the time-ravaged buildings. That the cloisters had once been expansive was clear from the dimensions of the groundworks; that they had been splendid was evidenced by the segments of green and yellow mosaic flooring she spied between the thick patches of encroaching weeds.

  With almost every step she took, Emily found something new to arrest and intrigue her. Thus, as had happened in the woods, her curiosity quickly overrode her wariness and she was soon engrossed in her exploration.

  It was a fascinating place, sprinkled with all sorts of clues to the mysterious lives lived there so very long ago. There was what she guessed to be a stone altar, carved with strange symbols and letters. And the hand of a white marble statue, which clasped the shattered remains of what she decided had once been a cross or a staff. Then there was the immense hooded fireplace, still blackened by ancient fires, and the enchanting assortment of illustrated wall fragments that, while faded and scarred by the elements, provided evidence of a once great mural.

  Now coming to what appeared to be the heart of the ruins, Emily carefully wound her way down the debris-littered remnants of a long corridor and through an arched doorway, stopping when she entered what had once been the courtyard.

  Constructed in a square of the same grayish-brown stone that dominated Windgate Abbey, three of the four courtyard walls remained erect, two of which spanned three stories with one still retaining a portion of its graceful tracery window. Judging from the fractured pillars and the fingers of rib vaulting protruding from the walls, it was clear that the courtyard had once boasted a covered walk, beneath which still sat several remarkably well-preserved stone benches. After pausing a beat to pick up and examine a shard of thick, crude ruby glass, a souvenir from the tracery window, no doubt, Emily reluctantly surveyed the once grassy, but now weed-choked center court.

  According to Mercy, it was here that the legendary oak tree had once stood. Now clutched by the dread she’d expected to feel upon her first glimpse of the ruins, Emily scanned the rubble-strewn grounds, forcing herself to search for the stump that her maid claimed still remained.

  Hmmm. There was what looked to be the shattered remains of an enormous, elaborately carved font; several thick slabs of granite, the purpose of which she couldn’t even begin to guess; an abandoned well; and—and—

  Her heart plunged to the pit of her belly. There it was, the tree stump.

  Though she wanted nothing more than to flee, Emily forced herself to move forward, determined to prove to herself that the stump wasn’t any more sinister than the one upon which she’d often sat in the yard of her Boston home. Nervously wadding the skirt of her violet French merino pelisse in her trembling hands, she slowly approached the object of her nightmares, trying to talk herself out of her fear as she went.

  It was ridiculous, really, the very notion of a ghost tree … absurd to the extreme. Why, just because there happened to be a tree stump here, exactly as described by the legend, didn’t automatically authenticate the tale. Besides, if Windgate was really as haunted as Mercy claimed, no one would want to work there. And as far as she’d been able to ascertain, most of the servants had been at the abbey for many years and were perfectly content to remain there. Then again this was Dartmoor, the most haunted place in England, so the servants, nearly all of whom were Dartmoor natives, were no doubt used to ghostly goings-on.

  Not particularly comforted by that last thought, Emily came to a stop before the stump. Her hands still worrying her skirts into rumpled balls, she peered down at it.

  Judging from its diameter and the numerous growth rings still evident in its center, despite
the wood’s darkening with age, the tree had been ancient when it had been cut down. That meant that the cloisters had been built around it. She paused to consider her discovery, then removed her gloves to touch it. Touching was an essential part of the facing and exploring process, the part she had been dreading most in this particular instance.

  Her breath catching in her apprehension, she tentatively brushed her trembling fingertips across the exposed heartwood, half-expecting to be struck down where she stood. Nothing happened. After waiting several more beats, she released her breath on a sigh of relief and forced herself to touch it again, this time allowing her fingers to linger for a moment. When all remained calm, she bit her lip and flattened her palm against the chopped surface, which felt smooth and hard from centuries of weathering. Again nothing happened. Slowly she smiled. It was just a stump, a perfectly ordinary one. Why it was no more menacing than—

  Crack! A sharp snap splintered the silence behind her.

  Emily froze. Oh, heavens! No squirrel could have made that noise. Jolted by a surge of panic, she jerked her hand from the stump and whirled around, her already wide eyes almost popping from their sockets in her dismay at what she saw.

  The duke of Sherrington. And of course he was scowling, the recipient of which was the piece of rotting wood beneath his boot, the apparent culprit of the noise.

  A soft groan escaped her. Either there were truly elves and this was their revenge for her disturbing their rest, or the stump possessed some sort of evil power that brought a plague upon those bold enough to touch it. For several seconds Emily simply stared at her plaguesome husband, too taken aback by his unwelcome presence to do more. Then her hostility pierced her surprise and her spine instinctively stiffened.

  As if sensing her sudden change in demeanor, he glanced up. When he saw her staring, his strong jaw tensed perceptibly and he jerked his head in a curt nod of acknowledgment.

  She bristled. O-o-o! Wasn’t he the polite one, deigning to spare her a nod? The tyrant and her bosom-bow could certainly be proud of the job they had done of drumming manners into his aristocratic little brain. Thoroughly despising him, she turned away, flagrantly snubbing him. Well, to hell with manners. She’d be damned before she would return his dubious courtesy and acknowledge his presence. He didn’t deserve to be recognized, the arrogant bastard! Besides, wouldn’t acknowledging him qualify as going against his wish to be left alone—a wish she had vowed to honor?