The Enchantress (Book 1 of The Enchantress Saga)

by Thorne, Nicola

  ‘I hope you are not ill,’ Stewart added, thinking of the outbreak of the pox that had occurred recently in Keswick.

  ‘No. Naught ails me at all. Maybe weary with the journey.’

  ‘Or nervous with excitement, I’ll swear,’ John said smiling broadly. ‘A bridegroom at last, eh, Brent?’

  Brent took a spoon to his soup. The nightmare showed no signs of ending; indeed it was worsening. Every moment Analee was getting further and further away. He put down his spoon and said with pretended calm,

  ‘Maybe we should seek the gypsies lest they have come to some harm in this light. ‘Tis dark outside.’

  ‘Aye,’ Stewart got up. ‘I do not think Analee would behave thus. I agree with Brent. Excuse us, Mary.’

  He grabbed a candle from the table and, followed by Brent, hastened through the hall up the stairs. The candle fluttered, lighting up the dark corridor as they passed along, throwing great shadows on the wall. The door of the room was open and, as soon as they entered, it was obvious that it was empty – it had that forlorn, deserted air such as a room does when the inhabitant has packed up and gone away.

  Stewart cast the candle into every corner, then went to the window.

  ‘No, they simply got up and left.’ He looked dejected. ‘I would like to have seen her again. Well ...’

  He turned away and went out of the room.

  ‘Shall we search the fell?’

  ‘Aye, if you like. But they have not come to harm, Brent. They have left of their own free will.’

  ‘We should just see.’

  Brent knew he had to keep moving; the one thing he could not do was sit still. Stewart shrugged and followed, noting how Brent preceded him to take the lead. In fact Brent had started to run ahead towards the stable not waiting for Stewart to light his way.

  Stewart, although puzzled and upset himself, was intrigued by his cousin’s behaviour, having observed his agitated manner at table. Could it be that Brent knew Analee ... or had he met her briefly in the house and become instantly obsessed by her? It was not impossible, having a mind to Analee’s looks and Brent’s reputation. He followed his cousin more slowly. He came to the stable door and stood behind Brent who feverishly seized the candle and held it above his head.

  ‘My nag has gone. The one I borrowed from Ambrose to ride here today.’

  ‘Then they are thieves,’ Stewart said, contempt in his voice.

  ‘Nay ...’

  Brent swung round, and saw the expression on Stewart’s face.

  ‘You know her Brent, don’t you? You know Analee. You’ve met her before?’

  Brent said nothing, turned away as though he had hardly heard.

  ‘She could ride well,’ he murmured, ‘we know not which direction she may have taken. Aye ...’ he looked despairingly at Stewart. ‘She is well away by now.’

  ‘You did know her, Brent?’

  ‘Aye.’ Brent looked towards the distant hills obscured by the dark.

  ‘There was talk of gypsies when you were injured ...’

  ‘Yes.’

  Brent met his cousin’s gaze. What was the use of concealment now?

  ‘She came here to see you?’

  ‘No! It was pure chance. I tell you I had forgotten about her. The memory of her was knocked out of my head by the blow. I swear to you Stewart I never recalled Analee again until today. I fell in love with Mary and wanted to marry her. And then today I saw Analee in the corridor. I thought at first she was a ghost and then, suddenly, I remembered. I remembered everything.’

  Stewart was staring grimly at his cousin trying to suppress the contempt he felt for him.

  ‘It is true what they say about you, Brent. You are an incorrigible womanizer. It ...’

  ‘Pray spare me, cousin, your thoughts on this matter,’ Brent said wearily. ‘It is not as you think.’

  He turned to go back to the house when he felt himself seized violently by the shoulder. Stewart spun him around and pressed him against the wall. Brent could feel the prick of steel at his windpipe and, by the faint moonlight, see Stewart’s face very close to his. He felt his warm breath and observed the whites of his eyes.

  ‘I’ll not have it, Brent – this womanizing. You marry my sister as soon as the priest comes or, by God, you won’t live to see Analee or any other woman again. I promise you ...’

  Brent gazed unflinchingly into his cousin’s eyes.

  ‘Do not distress yourself, cousin. I will wed Mary tomorrow. I have given my word and I will do it. That was what Analee intended by leaving me. She wants me to do my duty and tells me so in her own way. I will wed Mary because I have given my word; but as for loving her ... that I can never do!’

  Stewart pricked Brent’s flesh gently with his knife, so that a rivulet of blood went onto his shirt.

  ‘You ... will ... love ... Mary ... and ... make ... her ... happy. Do you hear Brent Delamain? You distress my sister, who has suffered so much already, and I will kill you with my own hand. You hear?’

  Brent said nothing. He was not afraid of Stewart. Indeed his knife could have provided an end to his ills, for he no longer felt like living. With Analee gone he wished death would come soon.

  Mary lay quietly in the bed not knowing whether Brent slept or not. She stared into the dark and tried to understand; to lie with a man and yet not with him. She knew this was not what had been meant by marriage; what had been promised her by Brent in the chapel that morning: ‘With my body I thee worship.’

  What had happened to Brent? What had come between them? Ever since the gypsy had left, Brent had not been the same as before. Yet he swore he didn’t know her. Mary didn’t know whether to believe him or not. Only that his attitude had changed after he had entered the house, and soon afterwards Analee and her companion had apparently left. Had she cast a spell on the house? Had she been a witch? To bring more evil and misery to the Allonby family?

  They had gone through the ceremony, through the family meal afterwards, with a stiffness and formality that was so different to what Mary had dreamed would be the case. Her ardent wooer had become like a man who walked in a dream.

  ‘Brent. Are you asleep?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘If it is not the gypsy, is it that you did not want to be tied down? Did not want to marry me after all?’

  ‘No.’

  He groped for her hand in the dark. He wanted to love her, to keep his promise to her; but all he could think of was the tilt of the proud gypsy head, the gleam in the dark eyes. When he’d looked at his bride it was to see again a cousin, a familial, not a mistress. Someone he wanted to protect and love but could not adore as he adored Analee. He didn’t want to sink his flesh into hers and make her his as he did Analee. He had tried but he couldn’t do it.

  He had lain upon her and kissed her and tried to desire her and to be a husband to her, but it hadn’t happened. He had felt her flesh stirring, quivering under his, her legs open with anticipation, her back arched for him ...

  It had been terrible. Terrible for him and terrible for Mary. She had felt humiliated and unwanted, spurned by her husband, her lover, unable to arouse him. He had given up and, instead, had taken her tenderly in his arms trying to soothe her weeping, explain to her that sometimes it didn’t happen. It was not always possible for a man to behave in that way; if he was tired, or upset ...

  But still she couldn’t understand. She didn’t know that his mind was miles away galloping from Furness Grange – whither? To Keswick or Borrowdale, or Carlisle, or South to Windermere? How could he know which way she had gone? And why, why, hadn’t she spoken to him, just one last time?

  In the dark he was aware that Mary had started to weep again, her face pressed into the pillow. He yearned to take her as she wanted, just to soothe her, to please her; but he could not. He let his hand caress her breasts, feel her slim waist, her rounded thighs, the cavern between her legs ... all things that in the past would have been enough to drive him mad with desire. He would have moun
ted the maid and ravished her ten times over. But nothing happened.

  It was the first time he had failed a woman, let alone such a nubile desirable one, lying by his side. Mary stopped weeping while Brent’s hands ran over her; she turned her mouth to his to kiss, her slender body quivering with desire. She held her breath, hoping that ...

  His hands ceased their exploration and she was aware that he leaned over her in the dark his face gazing down on hers, his expression abject. He was teasing her, tormenting her! She flung herself on her face and, pressing it into the pillow, gave herself once more to a torrent of silent weeping ... for she did not want her sorrow, her shame, to be known through the house.

  ‘It will be all right tomorrow,’ Brent whispered, and he tenderly stroked her wet face.

  How could she know that the fault did not lie with her or her beautiful body? That he, Brent Delamain, had been bewitched by a gypsy?

  14

  Stewart Allonby looked into the face of his cousin Emma and remembered the gypsy’s spell. But although Emma’s eyes were bright and welcoming there was no expression in them of love such as Stewart had half hoped to see. It was too fanciful. And yet he had done as the gypsy had bidden him and put his blood on one side of a leaf then on another, repeating their names. Then he had cast the leaf on the water and watched it float towards Keswick.

  How long ago it seemed, that foolish day in late September when he had gone stealthily to the water’s edge to practise the magic love rite prescribed by the gypsy. As he looked at Emma he realized that, despite its foolishness, he had hoped that in the intervening month the magic had had time to work. Then as he looked he smiled at her, aware of his folly. Emma, who always found her Allonby cousin very worthy but dull, was unexpectedly intrigued by the smile and wondered if, after all, he were maybe not as dull as she had supposed. She’d never noticed it before – perhaps because one was conditioned to think of the Allonbys as poor, unsuccessful and not likely to enhance the fortunes or awake the emotions of a pretty young girl.

  Unlike many of the young men she had met recently who had pale complexions, well-kept hands and elegant bodies fitted out in the latest fashion, whose hair was concealed in a light periwig or who, if they wore their own, had it beautifully waved about their ears, Stewart Allonby’s body was thick-set and sturdy and his face browned by exposure to the elements. He was a smaller, stockier version of her brother Brent. Suddenly Emma thought he was attractive. Really the elegant young men wearied her with their small talk and self-absorption. They danced beautifully and they were not lacking in wit or fine manners, but ...

  ‘How well you look, Stewart.’

  Stewart had seen the change in, Emma’s expression from a rather bored indifference to a quickening of interest and involuntarily preened himself, realizing that she was looking at him in a more intimate and particular kind of way to the one he was used to.

  ‘And you Emma, a young lady now. Changed since I saw you last, a year ago I think.’

  ‘Yes, it was when we came over to Furness for the betrothal of Brent and Mary. How sorry I was to miss the wedding; but it was so sudden and I was in London staying with Henrietta’s parents. How go my brother and his wife?’

  ‘Well ...’ Stewart began guardedly, but Emma was not deceived by the inflection in his voice.

  ‘You seem uncertain.’

  ‘Well, they are in Whitehaven. After the wedding Brent and Mary left for the coast where Brent works for Ambrose Rigg. I reason they are well enough.’

  Emma decided that Stewart’s lack of enthusiasm was due perhaps to shyness in discussing the relationship of a newly married couple. On the other hand the Allonby brothers had never really approved of Brent. Had they not insisted on a long courtship so that he could prove himself worthy?

  Stewart had arrived at Delamain Castle earlier in the day on his way to Carlisle to join the Prince. Because of the nature of his mission Stewart had realized it was unwise to stop over at Delamain, but the presence of Emma was too much of a draw as he made his way towards the city where the Prince was expected any day.

  Now he was glad he had come; something in Emma had changed towards him. And she was a beauty, grown more imperious perhaps, taller certainly and, yes, voluptuous, why not admit it? Stewart was no connoisseur of women, but to him Emma Delamain outshone any of his acquaintance, but what chance had he got, an impoverished first cousin? A Catholic, a Royalist? Her brother would be looking for a finer match for his only sister than Stewart Allonby. The only chance was a Royalist victory ... then let George see which way the wind blew.

  It was nearly dusk and servants were running through the castle lighting candles and fixing lights in brackets on the walls. From the kitchen came the smell of roast meat and Stewart realized that he was hungry, having left Keswick at dawn. He had yet to meet George and his wife. The bailiff had greeted him on his arrival at the castle and given him a room in the wing reserved for guests. His first thought had been to stay with his aunt, but she was not prepared for him and he felt awkward intruding on her hospitality.

  Now Emma had entered the drawing room just as he was standing admiring the view from the window of rolling dales and tree covered hills. Why as far as the eye could see the land belonged to the Delamains and George grew more prosperous and important every day.

  ‘You have not met my sister-in-law have you, Stewart?’ Emma said as the drawing-room door opened and a woman of medium height stood looking at Stewart in some surprise.

  ‘Henrietta, may I present our cousin Stewart Allonby? Stewart, Lady Delamain.’

  George’s wife. Well, she was no beauty as he’d heard; distinctly plain, Stewart thought, as she advanced slowly into the room and gave him her hand. She was plump, not comely but fat. Decidedly fat and because of the fashionable dress she was wearing, which allowed a fair amount of décolletage, her short neck and round stumpy head reminded him of a squat toadstool. In some ways she had a good face, large green eyes and a retrousse nose; but her mouth was small and pursed, as she looked at him now, into a tight little bow as though she did not altogether approve of what she saw. No smile lightened her features as he bowed to kiss her hand; instead he was aware of her bright eyes calculatedly appraising him.

  ‘Stewart Allonby,’ she said at last. ‘Emma’s mother’s side of the family. She is dining with us tonight and will be joining us shortly. George did you know to expect your cousin, dearest?’

  George Delamain strode into the room and also paused in some astonishment at the sight of his cousin; an unwelcome sight.

  ‘This is unexpected, cousin,’ George said, not trying to conceal his displeasure. ‘Did you send word of your intention to honour us with your company?’

  ‘No, George. I was riding to Penrith when I realized I should not get there before nightfall, so I took the liberty of begging your hospitality.’

  ‘Penrith?’ George said sharply. ‘Pray, have you business in Penrith?’

  ‘Yes, cousin. I am buying saplings for re-forestation of our woods.’

  ‘Ah,’ George looked instantly suspicious. Everyone knew of the impending invasion of England by the Prince. He himself was taking a leading part in the local militia and permitting them to train in his courtyard. ‘Your business has nothing to do with that ruffian Charles Edward Stuart?’

  Stewart, who found it almost impossible to dissemble or conceal his true feelings, had expected this question from his cousin and knew that on this occasion it was essential to lie.

  ‘How can that be, George? His Highness as far as I know abides in Scotland.’

  ‘His Highness indeed! Scoundrel is what he is, with a price of £30,000 on his head.’

  ‘And I believe he put the same price on the Hanoverian Elector,’ Stewart said mildly. ‘You know, George, we differ ...’

  ‘Aye and a mighty difference it is,’ George said threateningly. ‘You realize you could be hanged for joining the rebels? Like your uncle in the ‘15. I’ll wager you are hell bent on the same path
Stewart Allonby.’

  ‘You should not discuss this,’ a tired voice said in the background. ‘When families foregather it should be in friendship not enmity.’

  Stewart turned to greet his aunt who, he thought, had aged in the past year. Her hair was now almost completely white and she walked with difficulty. He knew she was not old and her appearance distressed him.

  ‘Aunt Susan,’ he went up to her and kissed first her hand and then her cheek.

  ‘Do you bring news?’

  She took a chair and gazed eagerly up at Stewart.

  ‘News?’ He was aghast, did she imagine they could openly discuss the Prince in this house? She saw his bewilderment and nodded understandingly.

  ‘Of Brent and Mary.’

  ‘Oh ... No. I have not seen them since the wedding.’

  ‘But have you heard how they are? Sarah must write, someone must keep in touch. Certainly Brent does not write to me, his own mother.’

  ‘I imagine he has a lot on his mind,’ George said darkly. ‘I hear he is working hard for his wife’s brother-in-law. A fishing hand!

  Imagine, Henrietta, did you think to marry into a family where your brother-in-law worked on the deck of a fishing smack!’ Henrietta tittered at her husband.

  ‘Thank heaven you have your own pursuits dearest, or I wager I would not be received at court.’

  Sir George and Lady Delamain giggled together, apparently unaware that those in the room were unamused by their derision of another member of the family.

  Stewart however was relieved. This scorn of Brent seemed to indicate that George did not really know what Brent was up to. So far the secret had remained safe.

  ‘I daresay Brent would not distress you ma’am if you met him,’ Stewart said stiffly. ‘You would not find him unworthy as a brother-in-law.’

  ‘Well that’s as maybe,’ George said extending an arm. ‘Mother, shall we dine? Stewart would you give your arm to my wife? Emma, would you follow us?’