A PASSION SO STRONG
By
Chasity Bowlin
Copyright © 2016 by Seraphina Donavan/Chasity Bowlin
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
PROLOGUE
Huddled in her dark cell, she shivered from the damp and the cold. Clad only in a dirty shift, her hair shorn and no blankets or heat of any kind, she should have grown used to the cold by now. But it wasn’t simply the temperature of the room. The cold had seeped into her to her soul. A combination of fear and resignation filled her. He was not coming.
It wasn’t as if he’d promised. And wherever he was, there was little doubt that he had no idea what had happened to her. Why would he? His business was not in Penwickett at all, but at his family seat to the North. The arrest of a witch was so commonplace it hardly even warranted gossip.
There would be no daring rescue from her lover. She could only hope that her trusted servant would have escaped with her child.
The sound of metal grating against metal drew her up from the small pallet on the floor. She was on her feet. It was a show of pride and it cost her, but she’d be damned before she’d grovel on her knees before them.
As the cell door opened, the Squire entered, accompanied by the vicar and the constable. As acting magistrate, it was the constable who’d come to arrest her, but he’d done so on the Squire’s orders. Of that she was certain.
“Winifred Elliott, you stand accused of witchcraft. How do you plead?”
“I am not guilty of these crimes!”
The cry rang out in the small cell, echoing off the walls. On her feet, she could look out through the small bar covered window and see the scaffold. She would hang if she were found guilty.
If. She had already been found guilty, Winifred Elliott thought. The moment they’d called her a witch, hurling the accusation in the public eye, as if the entire village hadn’t knocked on her door asking for love potions and cures for the various ailments that plagued them. But she wasn’t alone. There were more folk in Penwickett that practiced than did not. She wasn’t on trial because she was a witch. She was on trial because she’d forgotten one very important fact—the depths of corruption of the local magistrate.
“Do you deny that you are in league with the devil?” the vicar shouted.
He was the devil, she thought bitterly. “I have never worshipped the devil, made a pact with him, or served him in anyway! I am a healer, skilled with herbs and medicines. I have never done anything but offer to help and aid the people of Penwickett in times of strife and trouble!”
The magistrate, standing next to the vicar, reached into a leather satchel and retrieved a small object which he held up accusingly. The crude doll fashioned from wax and straw was covered in black cloth with a bit of white around his neck. It was not hers. Such items were of a darker magic, a kind she’d always shied away from her in life. But someone had made a poppet of the vicar and they meant to lay it at her door. Few in town knew just how vile the Vicar was. Few recognized the evil sway that he held over the town as he turned neighbor against neighbor. But someone did. Someone was using magic against him and she would pay the price for it.
“Do you deny,” the Squire and acting Magistrate asked, “that you have cast a spell on our own vicar? That you have used magic and witchcraft to the detriment of a man of God?”
“He’s no man of God,” she spat. “If anyone here is in league with the devil, it would be the two of you! You’ve bullied, abused and extorted every man, woman and child in this village! I know what you do in the woods, Squire Alcott! I’ve seen you!”
The Squire blanched at the accusations, primarily because they were true, but more so because there were others gathered beyond the cell door who could overhear.“Lies! Filthy lies from the devil’s whore! You seek to distract the good people of Penwickett from your own wickedness by accusing others!”
“It’s a fair strategy,” Winifred replied. “It has certainly been effective for you…and for him.”
“Confess your sins, child, and be forgiven,” the vicar urged. He lisped his s’s, like the serpent from the Bible, she thought. If ever a man could be called devil, it was him. He’d been practicing the dark arts in secret, along with the magistrate, for years. It wasn’t her redemption he craved. No. He wanted her power. She was being punished because she’d refused to join them and because she had the ability to expose their wickedness to the world.
If she confessed she would hang. If she didn’t confess, they would torture her until she gave in or died from their abuse. There was no jury. No trial at the assizes. They were taking care of it all amongst themselves. Covering their tracks, she thought. “I have no sin to confess. If I do, it’s the very same sin that you and half the townspeople are guilty of. Penwickett is rife with witches, as you well know.”
The Squire sneered. “I accuse you, Winifred Elliott, of being in league with the devil. We have evidence in the form of a mark upon your body in the shape of a crescent moon… the devil’s mark! Sarah Hampton states that you gave her the evil eye in the village and then she promptly lost the babe she carried. William Bartwell states that you passed by his farm humming a tune and his milk cow went dry as a bone! There are others whom you have wronged with your wickedness.”
“His milk cow is ten years old and he barely feeds it enough to keep it alive! And Sarah Hampton, bless her, has lost three babes already… primarily because her husband beats her and works her like a dog in the fields!” He’d bullied the poor girl into making the accusation and the Squire owned the land that the Bartwells farmed.
The back of the Vicar’s hand connected with her cheek, sending her sprawling onto the floor. With her hands bound behind her, she did not have the strength to get up again. It took everything she had simply to rise to her knees. It had been days since she’d slept. Longer since she’d had anything to eat or drink. They’d held her down and chopped her hair off, in places they’d cut it so close that her scalp had bled. They’d whipped her. Stripped her of her clothing and poked and prodded at her body. They’d applied thumbscrews to the point that her hands were mangled beyond repair. They’d used ropes to wrench her, trying to force a confession. She’d held firm then. But it had been four days. Surely in four days her servant had gotten her child far enough away to be safe? If she confessed, it would at least be an end to the torment. But confession or no, she wouldn’t give in so easy. They’d have what they wanted—her blood. But they would pay for it.
“You call me a witch… Then I will tell you that I am one. Never have I worked with the devil, but if I must call on him now, to curse you and all that accuse me, then I shall. This village will suffer. Every man, woman and child who resides here will know nothing but poverty and misery until my blood once again takes up residence at Evenwold. Because that’s what you wanted. Isn’t it, Squire Alcott? We’re not here because of my herbs and potions, or even because you fear that I can expose you and your own practices, you and the Vicar, the least likely man of God to ever walk this earth! We’re here because you want what I have… Take it then. And never know a moment’s peace!”
The constable gasped, and forgetting that he was a Protestant convert, crossed himself like the Catholic he’d been raised. The Squire appeared flinched from her as if struck, but the vicar rose up above her, towering over her like the bully he was.
“You dare to curse me?” the vicar shouted.
She straightened her spine, though it cost her dearly to do so. Every part of her hurt from the mistr
eatment she’d endured at their hands. “I dare. Neither you nor the Squire will ever be free of this village until I am free from what you’ve done to me. You may take ownership of Evenwold, but you’ll never reside within its walls… and as for my book, Squire Alcott, it is well hidden. So well hidden that you will never find it. Do what you will with me, for I haven’t the strength to fight you. Free me from this body that you have wrecked and know that I will haunt your every remaining day on this earth!”
“You’ll not hang for witchcraft,” the Vicar taunted with a cruel smile. “You’ll burn for it.”
***
Anne woke in the darkness with her heart beating furiously and sweat slicking her skin. It wasn’t the first time the dream had come to her, but it was the first time in a very long time that it had been so impossibly vivid.
She could feel the bite of the ropes against her skin, the sick fear clawing at her. And then the heat. The scent of wood and smoke seemed to permeate the room around her though the fire in the grate had long since gone out. It would be that way for some time, she knew. After the nightmare, her senses would be flooded with the memory of it.
Since her arrival at Evenwold, it had been thus. Dreams. Visions. The strange sensation of being watched, of not being alone. So many things had occurred, and yet she was unable to find any proof that these things were more than products of the overwrought imagination of a cast off relative.
In truth, she couldn’t speak out about such things. She, and her spinster aunts, were at Evenwold on sufferance. The truth was that she had no actual ties to the Ravenner family. She was a ward, a foundling that they’d taken into their midst as a child. But she’d never felt insecure in her position within the family until recently, until Lord Ambrose Ravenner had married Miss Penelope Stone and his new bride had made her feelings about an allegedly unrelated woman, even a spinster such as herself, living in the home quite clear. There was no room for compromise. So with her honorary aunts, Athena and Minerva, she’d been banished.
Evenwold had been one of the closest unoccupied estates that would provide enough space and enough income for the three of them to subsist. So there they were, cast off, banished to the wilds of Sussex. At first glance, Anne had been impossibly pleased by Evenwold. It was quaint and charming, lovely. But the longer they were in residence, the more aware she became of something sinister lurking just beneath the surface. She was not given to flights of fancy or to great leaps of the imagination. It was that which made it all the more frightening. Even now, in the dark of hours just before dawn, when her aunts were abed and she alone was awake within its stone walls, there was something more. It was as if the house itself were alive at times, breathing around her, watching her, alternately holding her close in shelter, but at other times in captivity.
Rising from the bed, she crossed the room to the window and looked out into the night. Gooseflesh still pebbled her skin and her breathing had yet to return to normal. A part of her wanted to flee, to simply run. But where could she go? She was without family, without funds, without recourse. It was only by the generosity of the previous Marquess of Blackraven that she’d been spared a life of servitude at best, of the most base and demeaning treatment at worst. She’d always been aware that her position was precarious. It was even more so now with the younger Lord Ravenner as Marquess and his new bride who had little charity in her heart for anyone.
She would make do at Evenwold, Anne decided. Whatever it took, whatever might be occurring within its stone walls, she would make do there. But she needed rest, she needed a good night’s sleep.
The nightmares that had plagued her since childhood were hardly proof of wrong doing. And while they had grown more frequent since her arrival at Evenwold, it could just as easily be blamed on the upheaval of relocation. But it was the nature of the dreams that had altered slightly, not just their frequency.
Always vague and elusive in the past, the details were becoming more clear. It was no longer just being captured, being tied down and tortured for confession. She could see the faces of her tormentors now, could recall their names, their scents. And she understood in those uncomfortable moments where sleep and wake met that this was not simply a fantasy, some elaborate production of her mind to encompass random fears. She knew, beyond shadow of doubt, that these were memories. Whose memories they were and from whence they came she could not say, but the certainty of that knowledge was undeniable for her.
Pushing the dream memories from her mind, Anne glanced at the clock on the mantle. From the first faint light streaking the sky, she knew that dawn was approaching. The thought of going back to bed, of succumbing to sleep and risking another dream was more than she could bear so Anne elected to dress instead. The chores of the day would take her mind off everything else.
Wearing a simple day dress and boots, Anne donned her cloak and left the house. The barn was only a short walk. While it was typically not the auspice of any lady to feed livestock, she found it to be the least onerous of the many tasks that had fallen to her since her arrival at Evenwold. She’d always had an affinity with animals, preferring their company to people.
Her guardian, Lord Ambrose, the Marquess of Blackraven, understood that about her. Allowing her to remain at a country estate, giving her the running of a small farm, had been a kindness to her in the face of his new bride’s demands.
Easing the doors to the barn open, Anne stepped inside the barn and was immediately assailed by the familiar scents of hay and animals. Entering the far stall, Anne smiled at the bleating sheep that awaited her. The last of the lambs, they weren’t quite big enough to be out in the elements yet. Reaching down, she stroked a fuzzy head and smiled as the animal nuzzled her hand in response.
After replenishing the food and water for them, Anne left them to their breakfast and stepped back out into the main area of the barn. Immediately, she stopped.
It was an unmistakable sensation—the irrefutable knowledge that one was not alone. It wasn’t the animals. The truth was, beyond the sound of the sheep munching happily on their breakfast, the building was eerily quiet. Nothing stirred, and that alone was reason enough to be wary. The animals were always active at such a time, waking up and starting their day. But they remained still and watchful in their stalls and pens.
“Who’s there?” she demanded. She wouldn’t be cowed. Showing fear was simply not in her nature.
There was no response, but then she hadn’t expected one. Just as she was prepared to dismiss the feeling as paranoia brought on by exhaustion and isolation, a noise to her left startled her. Several tools hanging from the barn wall rattled as if someone had brushed against them.
Anne swallowed convulsively. Her heart raced in her chest and sweat dampened her palms as she peered into the darkness. “I know you’re there! Show yourself!”
It happened to suddenly that she had no chance to prepare, no chance to raise a counterattack. A dark figure rushed her, knocking her backwards. She stumbled, her head connected painfully with the timber she crashed into. The blow had been so sharp and so stunning that she literally saw lights dancing before her eyes.
The intruder, whoever it was, did not leave immediately. Even in her stupor from the blow to her head, she was ware of that. Whoever it had been stopped, pausing in the doorway, silhouetted against the first faint light of dawn. They watched her from there, their identity concealed as much by light as by darkness.
Real fear was a new experience for her. In that moment, Anne understood just how vulnerable they were at Evenwold. It had seemed a lark in the beginning. The three of them living on the small estate, attempting to make a go of it independently without the trappings of the affluent and gentrified life of the nobility. But now, the lack of servants didn’t simply mean she had to cart her own water for washing. The lack of servants meant that, while she was alone in the barn, there was no one to hear her scream. There was no one, save her aunts who were still fast asleep and would be for hours, to come rushing to her aid shoul
d the intruder who studied her so carefully elect to do more than simply push her to the ground.
“Go on then,” she said, brazening it out to the bitter end. Whether it meant for the intruder to leave or to finish her off, she couldn’t even be certain herself.
The villain simply inclined their head and fled into the light, disappearing from her view before she could scramble to her feet to follow. By the time she cleared the barn doors, they were long vanished into the deep woods that bracketed the estate. Those woods had charmed her initially. Now they seemed sinister and forbidding. They were simply a place for the villains to hide, a place that shielded everything that was dangerous to them.
Anne reached up and touched her head, pressing the heel of her hand to her temple. It came away wet with blood. The gash wasn’t too deep, she was certain, but it would give the aunts a fright. It had certainly given her one. Thinking of Athena and Minerva and what might have happened to them had they been the ones alone in the barn, Anne knew that she couldn’t postpone the inevitable any longer.
“No more,” she whispered. “I’ll have to ask Ambrose for help… whether I like it or not.”
CHAPTER ONE
“The answer is no,” Lord Sebastian Strong said firmly. The words might have been more convincing had they not been slurred from the copious amounts of brandy he’d just consumed.
Lord Ambrose Ravenner, the newly named Marquess of Blackraven, eyed the near empty decanter on the table next to his friend as he seated himself. He didn’t wait for an invitation as he was fairly certain that one would not be forthcoming.
“How much of this swill have you consumed?” he asked.
Strong eyed the decanter curiously. “Not enough to kill me… yet. I’ve another bottle waiting when that one is done.”
“If you can trouble yourself to crawl out of that bottle… I need your assistance, my friend,” Ambrose implored.
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