“Let us see how he is with the stable dog before pronouncements are made, Roland.”
“How are you getting along with your runny-nosed girl? Has she recovered her looks?” Roland said.
Instead of being provoked, she laughed. “You know she is a beauty and that any man, especially a man with a stallion and a dog, will be ripe for her.”
“What does having a dog have to do with anything?”
“He is a man who has all that a man treasures, everything but a wife.”
“You sing the same tune relentlessly.”
“Do I? Perhaps if I sing it long enough, you will learn it as well as I.”
“I cannot be taught this piece.”
“You cannot be taught anything!” she snapped, her hair rising like a veil behind her.
Hal Mort, Viscount Blackwater, stroked the white blaze down his stallion’s face, whispering soft words, and looked up at the ceiling where Roland hovered over him and where Nell had drifted in her fury.
Hal could sense them. Not everyone could.
“He is here! Can you not feel his presence, Rory?” Mary said, running into the stable. Nell rolled her eyes, again.
“I am occupied with his lordship, Mary,” Rory said, and he rolled his eyes in pure exasperation.
Hal looked at the girl, scowling at her in displeasure. He might have a ridiculous name but the man was a good judge of character.
“Who is here?” Hal said, looking at Mary, then at Rory when Mary stood with her mouth hanging agape, then back to Rory. Rory was Mary’s maternal uncle, Nell recalled. Poor man.
“She is only a silly girl, m’lord,” Rory said. “You must pay her no mind.”
“Are you a silly girl, Mary?” Hal asked, still calming his stallion. The whites of the horses eyes were plain to be seen. “You don’t look silly to me.”
Mary pressed her lips together and looked at her uncle, then at Hal, then in the general direction of Roland, who gave the appearance of ignoring her. But he hadn’t ignored her, had he? Mary was too attuned to Roland’s presence for him to have been ignoring her.
Nell, in a surge of fury, materialized behind the open stable doors and terrorized a brute of a black dog to run, barking, into the stable block. Mary, screaming, as was her wont, said, “He’s set the dog on me! He wants me dead, with him!”
“Is she referring to me?” Roland asked the air above him. The dog continued to bark, Nell laughed, Mary screamed, Rory sighed, and Hal kept his stallion calm and steady. He truly did have a fine way with a horse. Just imagine what he could do with a skittish virgin.
Nell was having such a fine time. It had been too, too long since they’d had guests at Keyvnor.
“Was this the dog you had in mind?” Hal asked over his shoulder, his face close to Keystone’s, breathing his scent upon him. It was actually very sweet to behold. “I might have chosen another, one less combustible.”
“Mary!” Rory said. “Go back home at once!”
Mary, torn between screaming and crying, sure only that she was being misunderstood, looked at the living men, cast a glance upward toward the general vicinity of Roland, and ran out of the stable. The dog did not run after her. Nell was capable of some mercy, after all.
“I apologize, m’lord. My niece is . . .”
What word was there beyond the obvious idiocy?
“Combustible?” Hal said with a small smile.
What a lovely man he was, so understanding, so patient, so forgiving. So unlike Roland. Hal would make Morgan the most magnificent husband.
“You’re very kind, m’lord.”
To which Hal did not reply though Nell could sense him silently denying the statement.
“The dog seems fine now,” Hal said. The dog lay sprawled in the hay at Rory’s feet, panting, a spent force. She could make him charge again but as Mary was gone from the place there was no fun in it for her. “Any thoughts as to what got into her?”
“He’s a calm-natured dog, m’lord. I can’t say what got into him,” Rory said.
Roland laughed and dropped down to the floor, standing not two feet from the dog. The dog sat up and gave all his attention to sniffing the air. He gave a single bark that had more curiosity than aggression to it, a whining yelp of a bark.
The stallion, not five feet from the dog, pricked his ears forward, nostrils quivering. Hal Mort, Lord Death, studied the animals, blew out his breath, saw it appear as white fog in front of his face, and looked again at Rory.
“Can’t say?” Hal said. “Say something, man. I’ll not judge you for it.”
“‘Tis best that I hold my tongue, m’lord.”
“A wise practice in nearly every circumstance,” Hal said, scratching the horse between the ears. “Still, there is something to be said about the atmosphere of Keyvnor Castle.”
“You’ve heard the rumors?”
“I’ve heard nothing,” Hal said. “I merely observe.”
Rory snorted and ducked his head, avoiding eye contact with Hal. Hal gave Keystone a final pat on the head and then faced Rory fully, commanding his complete attention wordlessly.
“You see how he commands?” Roland said to her, snapping his fingers. The dog dropped to his belly and crawled a few feet toward Roland, hackles raised, yet coming nonetheless. “That is a man. You’ll not see him beg for any woman, least of all a Banfield. She shan’t manage him.”
“Oh, really?” she said. Nell walked behind Hal, trailing her fingers across the breadth of his shoulders. He was a most fine looking man, so muscular, so fit, so broad across the shoulder and narrow at the hip. Hal scowled, cast a quick glance behind him and suppressed a shiver, unsuccessfully. “Morgan,” she said into his ear, tickling him with her cold breath. “Morgan Hambly is the woman for you.”
“Unfair!” Roland shouted, charging her. Nell laughed and darted away.
“How unfair? I cannot make him think what he will not think. I cannot force a wish into his head, as you well know. He can only be encouraged, and so I encourage him to do what he already wants to do.”
“He only wants to do what any man wants to do with any comely lass,” Roland snarled. “‘Tis no special magic to desire this girl.”
“The only magic she needs is what every lovely girl possesses. I can work with that. Can you work against it? He is a man, a normal man with normal drives, as you say,” Nell said, laughing in Roland’s face, running her fingertips down Hal’s arm. Hal drew his hand back, crossing his arms across his chest. “Morgan Hambly. She is so beautiful,” Nell said. “Morgan is so desirable. Morgan is so available.”
“She shan’t manage him and neither shall you!” Roland said, grabbing her by the hair and hauling her away from Hal. Nell screamed and dug her fists into Roland’s hair, her face inches from his, her mouth inches from his.
“Shall I not?” she said, her mouth open beneath Roland’s. “Shall you stop me, my love? Shall you keep me prisoner?”
“God, if only I could,” Roland snarled, and then his mouth descended on hers in a fury of passion and familiar longing.
They swirled upward, merging, a twining of gray spirit, flashing silver, seen in erratic bursts of shimmering light in the physical world.
When both the dog and the horse had stopped making a racket of noise, howling and stomping and such, Hal looked at the head groom and said, “As I was saying, I merely observe. Is there some name you can put to what I have observed just now? That hint of reflected light where there is no candle? The cold blast of air in a closed room?”
Rory hung his head and groaned.
“Out with it,” Hal said.
“‘Tis the spirits,” Rory said. “They be strong at Keyvnor.”
“Spirits.”
“Aye.”
“Whose spirits?”
Rory shrugged.
“Surely a castle as old as Keyvnor has its history, its legends.”
“Aye,” Rory said on a sigh of defeat.
“Can everyone sense them?” Hal asked, abandoning one
line of questioning for another.
“I cannot say, m’lord.”
“I suppose that’s true enough,” Hal said. “I presume you are directed not to talk of these matters with outsiders?”
“Nor with insiders, m’lord,” Rory said ruefully. “‘Tis felt by all that ‘tis best left lay. Some sees ‘em. Some don’t. Those that don’t, don’t want to hear of it. Those that do, don’t want to speak of it.”
“That’s quite a system.”
“It works. The spirits don’t like to be talked of, I reckon.”
“If they don’t then they should be more discreet,” Hal said. “Spirits. In this day and age. I can’t quite lay hold of the idea.” Hal looked at Rory. “And I don’t expect you to talk to anyone about our conversation.”
“No, m’lord. ‘Tis the way of it,” he added, a sparkle in his brown eyes.
“I can see that,” Hal said. “Yes, it all works out quite neatly. I gather that your niece sees them or feels them regularly?”
“Aye. She fancies herself in love with one of ‘em, the traitor, Benedict,” Rory said. “A fool notion.”
“I should think being in love with a spirit would be . . . unsatisfying,” Hal said.
“She’s fifteen, m’lord.”
“Ah,” Hal said, nodding. That did explain much of it. “What of Benedict? Is that who . . . . The cold presence. You felt it?”
“Aye, some,” Rory said. “‘Tis the shame of my family that we’re as sensitive to it as we are. Back when my gran was a girl, ‘twas said was the witch blood that made it so.”
“Witch blood?” Hal asked. Rory hung his head and nodded. “You’re not the first family where ‘tis said the women are witches, man,” Hal said. “Buck up. My own gran was a hellion in her day, so it’s said.”
“Aye, m’lord. Thank you.” Rory did not sound soothed. Well, he had to live with the legend; Hal did not.
“This Benedict, he was a traitor to . . . ?”
“English King Henry the 8th it was, m’lord. Beheaded right here, in the castle courtyard. Haunted the place ever since, so it’s said.”
“One traitor ghost. It doesn’t sound so bad.”
“Aye, then there are the witches.”
“Witches, too?”
“Aye, o’course. My gran, you remember.”
“Oh, yes. Of course, of course.”
“Then there’s the boy, the lord’s son. He drowned. ‘Twas very sad. He’s still about, ‘tis said. A boy of just five years.”
“That is sad. Still, children die and not all of them become ghosts who haunt. I take it he does haunt?”
“Oh, aye, he does. ‘Twas not such a nice lad when alive, they say, so you can see where . . . ” Rory shrugged.
“There’s a certain sense to it, most definitely. That does make quite a crew of spirits.”
“Then there are the pixies. In the forest,” Rory said. He was quite warming to the subject. Once the dam was cracked, the flood did follow. “‘Tis well you keep out of the forest during the season, m’lord.”
“The season?”
“The witching season, m’lord. All Hallow’s Eve.”
“Oh, of course. We are upon that time, aren’t we?”
“Aye, m’lord, not a week away from it now. The spirits have more energy now, the door opening to the other side.”
The dog, a black hulking male, lay curled at Hal’s feet, breathing heavily. It was quite comforting. He hadn’t had a dog since his boyhood, and Pip had died whilst he was at Eton. He missed having a dog at his side. He was quite glad he had one again, even as a pet for his horse. Hal looked back at Keystone. He was calmly alert, as if listening to the dangers of pixies in the forest with a deeply scholarly interest in the subject.
“Does the dog have a name?” Hal asked Rory.
“Not so he’d notice, m’lord.”
“No master?”
“No, m’lord. Just a stable dog, born somewhere on the place.”
“He’s a fine looking animal. Though he does need a thorough washing.” At that, the dog lifted his head and looked at Hal accusingly. “Perhaps deworming as well.” The dog stood up and moved to sit directly outside Keystone’s stall, looking nearly insulted.
“I’m sure no one would mind if you wanted to keep him, m’lord, taking him away from Keyvnor. He and the stallion seem to have formed a bond.”
“They have at that,” Hal said. “I shall name him Companion, for that is what he shall be.”
“For the stallion,” Rory said, his eyes sparkling.
“Of course,” Hal said. “Nothing is too good for Keystone.”
“Aye, m’lord,” Rory said. “Were you wanting to know anything more about the spirits of Castle Keyvnor?”
Hal looked at the man. Surely two ghosts and three witches, and an assortment of pixies, was enough. “There’s more?”
“Some say there is a sailor who died at sea and washed up on these shores. I have my doubts about it.”
“Only about the sailor,” Hal said, biting back a smile.
“Not many have seen the sailor, and he’s a stranger to Keyvnor, ain’t he? A body would think he’d want to be back among his own.”
“A logical argument.” About a ghost. Hal could not believe he was standing in a stable in Cornwall discussing ghosts and spirits with a groom. He’d not tell Michael of it, nor Jack.
“There are some,” Rory went on, clasping his hands behind his back, “who think there may be a woman.”
“The witches.”
“No, a ghost woman, who found her way here and can’t find her way away,” Rory said. When Hal simply stared at him, Rory added, “My lord.”
“Is that so?” This was getting . . . well, he didn’t know what it was getting. It was farcical from the start. If one ghost, why not five? If witches, why not pixies? It was time someone added a ghoul to the legend of Keyvnor. Perhaps he’d work something up this evening, after supper. “Have you seen this woman?”
“I have not, m’lord.” Hal did not know what to say. This conversation had begun reasonably enough; he had felt the cold and he’d seen the silvery sparkles and he could also almost swear he felt vibrations, something like tumbling air currents, at certain times. “I am only trying to give you a complete answer to your question. About the occurrences.”
“Very good,” Hal said. “I think you’ve done more than enough. Now, as to Companion, he’ll need to be fed, and bathed. You’ve a boy to see to it?”
“Yes, m’lord.”
“Very good. Thank you, Rory,” Hal said, walking out of the stable. The day had clouded over, dark clouds tumbling across the milky sky, the scent of rain in the air. A very normal weather event and nothing supernatural about it, he was entirely certain.
Chapter 4
Morgan saw Lord Blackwater at dinner. She saw everyone else at dinner, but she was, for some odd reason, paying more attention to Lord Blackwater than she should have done. Certainly her sisters noticed it. She only hoped Lord Blackwater did not notice it.
He was a very handsome man. Yes, however, it was not as if he was the only handsome man she had ever seen. As to that, he wasn’t even the only handsome man in the room. She really could not explain her fascination with him. It almost felt as if a hand plucked at her elbow, whispering his name at the odd moment. She could hardly eat her dinner for the distraction.
Gwyn noticed her meager appetite and put it down to Morgan being ill.
Perhaps she was ill. She could not explain her behavior and she did want an explanation.
He was very handsome.
After dinner, when people were finding their own amusements and Lord Blackwater’s friends seemed to be coupling up rather alarmingly, she found herself standing next to him in the grand foyer outside the dining room. She could have sworn she’d been dragged there.
“Did I hear correctly, Lord Blackwater, that you have gained a dog today?” she said, looking at him pleasantly.
He was very tall.
/> “Yes, Lady Morgan, I did,” he said. “A companion for my stallion, in fact. They get on quite well.”
She had no idea what to say to that. She was staring into his eyes, tipping her head back to do so, and she was not a petite woman.
His eyes were so very blue.
“The dog is black, a male,” he said, staring down at her. “I have named him Companion. Because he is. A companion.”
“Yes. Charming,” she said.
Really, their conversational skills were painful. This was disastrous.
“Do you have a dog?” he asked.
“I did. She died recently,” she bit out.
He had the most beautiful mouth, a luscious looking mouth.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “Losing a pet is always disastrous, on a personal level.”
He looked horrified. Yes, well, losing a pet would never be a disaster on a national level, would it? She must salvage this conversation.
He did have the most luscious mouth. She knew that never before in her life had she ever paired the words luscious and mouth. What was wrong with her?
“You speak from experience, I presume,” she said. Disastrous!
“I had a dog as a boy and loved him devotedly,” he said, taking her arm and leading her down a wide hallway to a door which opened onto a raised terrace. As the weather was miserable, blowing and stormy, they should have turned back and remained indoors. They did not. She did not seem to mind. Astonishing. “I was just thinking of that dog earlier today. Odd, since I haven’t given him a thought in years.”
“Perhaps getting Companion sparked old memories.”
Old memories . . . she had no old memories of this man or his dead dog, and yet . . . she could see him as a youth, all gangling legs and arms, running across a meadow with a brown dog with a feathered tail at his side, tongue hanging out in an utterly doggy grin, the boy shouting and laughing, throwing a stick into the tall grass, clapping his hands for the dog to return with the stick with all speed.
“Pip is such a lovely name for a dog,” she said. “He kept up with you, didn’t he, on all your many runs.”
“Pip. How did you know his name was Pip?” he said.
“You told me. Didn’t you?”
Spellbound Page 22
