WitchofArundaleHall

by Jennifer Leeland

  “You are quick to surrender,” Jaimison said. “It’s possible that what you saw was an illusion or a mistake.”

  She shook her head. “No. It will happen. I have only had visions three times in my life. All of them were portents of the future.” Perhaps she could reveal things that would comfort Perry later. “I saw Perry before I met him. I did not realize who he was but I saw us together. I knew we would—” She stopped and closed her eyes.

  The vision had been a thread of hope, a fantasy that had made her time with Jerome tolerable. When Mariah had accused her of being in love, mistaking her secret smiles for wistful yearnings for Mariah’s lover, Sarah had not been able to deny it. She had known Perry was in her future. What she hadn’t known was that it would break her heart.

  It hadn’t been until she’d arrived at Arundale Hall, fully intending to destroy the evil wolves that haunted that family, that she’d realized Perry was the lover from her vision.

  “Considering that Lady North sent you to kill him, that must have been devastating,” Jaimison said. “Then to wait three years…”

  “I was determined to spare us both. Once I realized he was a wolf, that my vision showed us…together, I knew we would be doomed if we attempted to have a relationship.” She bit her lip, the memories of those lonely days overwhelming her. “But when Joshua found out about me and offered me to Perry, I…accepted it as my fate.”

  “And that is why you did not stop him when he took your innocence. You had seen it.” Jaimison nodded. “Perry believes you had no choice in that.”

  “Marcus had ordered me to raise two fingers if I flatly refused to accept Joshua’s punishment.” She swallowed, remembering how moot that offer had seemed, how she hadn’t even considered it. “I don’t think Perry knew Marcus had given me a way out.”

  “You should tell him, milady.”

  “If things with Miss D’Insigny go the way I fear, I will not have the opportunity. You will have to tell him for me.” She twisted her fingers together tightly.

  “He will not allow anything to happen to you.” Jaimison’s lips tightened and he focused on the road ahead.

  She relaxed her hands and laid one of them on Jaimison’s bicep. “It is my choice to free him, Jaimison. I want him to be free.”

  The silence returned and she did not break it.

  When they reached the small cottage surrounded by a grove of large trees, Jaimison stopped the carriage and stepped down. He didn’t meet her gaze as he helped her to the ground and she didn’t know how to break the quiet between them. Clearly he disagreed with her, but she knew this was the right thing to do.

  She straightened her bonnet and smoothed her skirts before she approached the door to the cottage and knocked.

  The door was flung open and the portrait from the monastery seemed to have come to life. She was tall and slender, her reddish hair bound in a braid that reached to her waist. Her eyes were a vivid green, intense and hostile as she studied Sarah from head to toe. “What is it?” she said gruffly.

  “I am sorry to disturb you, Miss D’Insigny, but I require your help. I am—”

  “I know who you are,” the woman snapped. Sarah stared at this beautiful living version of the painting she’d viewed at the monastery.

  “Then, you know why I’m here,” Sarah said after swallowing past a lump in her throat. The woman was a witch, more powerful than Sarah could imagine.

  “I know why you think you’re here.” Her bitter tone grated on Sarah’s ears.

  “It will be another two hundred years if you don’t help me.” Sarah wasn’t above begging. She’d come this far but she knew she needed Chantal D’Insigney to break the curse. “Do you wish to doom our children to death? Isn’t one casualty enough?”

  “The bishop has been gossiping,” she said with a thin smile.

  “I’ve read the scrolls. You know what they say.” Sarah held Chantal’s stare.

  For a moment Sarah thought the woman was going to shut the door in her face. It was when she shot a glance at Jaimison that she seemed to relent.

  “You’d better come inside,” Chantal said, and stepped aside to wave Sarah inside.

  Chantal led Sarah to a small parlor and indicated that she sit down in one of the ancient high-backed chairs. “You’ve been Claimed by a DeFalk wolf.” Her voice was filled with hatred when she said the name.

  Sarah nodded. “I have.”

  Chantal’s eyes were bright. “You wish to break the blood bond to free yourself.”

  In her soul Sarah did not want to be free from Perry. But to free Perry from the demands of the Beast, she would do anything. To free him to have the child she’d seen in her vision, she would give her life’s blood. “I wish to reverse the curse altogether.”

  “I see.” Chantal leaned back in her chair and kept her gaze on Sarah’s face. “You understand how the curse works, do you not?”

  “I only know that it is passed on to male issue and that they must mate only with their true mate.” She cleared her throat. “I know what the scrolls say.”

  Chantal laughed, a tinkling sound. “Let me tell you the whole story, Lady Sarah Ayers Arundale. Edward Louis DeFalk was a carouser, a man with large appetites and little restraint. He took what he wanted when he wanted it.” There was something in Chantal’s voice that said the story was more personal than something that had happened hundreds of years earlier. “When he arrived in the small village here, he discovered a little maid by the name of Wisteria. She refused him but he would brook no resistance.” Her gaze flicked to Jaimison. “He used her for weeks, using his power and his brute strength to bend her to his will. When he left her, ruined and devastated, he did not consider the consequences.”

  Chantal leaned forward. “When Wisteria recovered she used her ancient powers to conjure a curse. But even a witch does not fully understand the deep workings of the magic she wields. The curse required her blood, which she did not know would tie her and her descendants forever to the man she so hated.” Chantal was quiet for a long moment. The fire crackling in the hearth was the only sound. Then she met Sarah’s stare, her face drawn tight with some unnamed pain. “She succeeded in turning Edward Louis DeFalk into a Beast but she was now bonded to him for eternity. Their child, conceived from his unwanted attentions, its descendants, anyone with her blood became their bonded mates. So the balance is maintained. The thing she hated became bound by blood to her line.”

  It was Jaimison who broke the eerie silence that followed Chantal’s story. “And history has repeated itself, hasn’t it?”

  Sarah swerved to stare at Jaimison and then at Chantal’s rigid form. The bishop had said something about this, hadn’t he? “The bishop said that another wolf charmed you.”

  Chantal’s face seemed frozen, with no expression. “Charmed.”

  “What happened, Miss D’Insigney?” Jaimison asked.

  “He came, just as his ancestor had, and he took.” Chantal’s hands shook and she forced them into her lap to still them. “He took me against my will for a week, wanting my body to bear a child for him.” She raised her head and glared at Jaimison. “I hated him and yet I didn’t hate him. He left for England over a year ago.”

  “What of the child?” Sarah asked gently. “The bishop said—”

  “I lost the child.” Her bald statements were like raw wounds. “I know why Wisteria cursed the DeFalks. I know why she never married again.”

  “And this man,” Jaimison asked. “Who was he?” His voice was cold.

  “Lord Robert Applegate, Duke of Kent,” she said calmly. “Murdered by an Arundale.”

  “Killed by Elizabeth Arundale,” Sarah revealed. “The duke was going to kill me and Perry and Joshua. He wanted revenge for his bastard birth.”

  Chantal’s gaze burned with fire. “He was the father of my child.”

  “He was a coldblooded killer.” Sarah rose. “You know it.”

  “Did you love him?” Jaimison asked bluntly.

  “Tha
t, sir, is none of your business.” Chantal tipped her chin.

  “It is our business if you refuse to help me,” Sarah said, trying to keep the desperation from her tone.

  For a moment the woman held Sarah’s stare but finally she looked away. “Why didn’t he kill you?” she murmured more to herself than to Sarah. “You know he was told to, don’t you?”

  Sarah couldn’t breathe. “What do you mean?”

  Chantal abruptly turned and rifled through some papers on a desk until she found what she was searching for. It was a letter addressed to Lord Robert Applegate.

  Enclosed is money for passage on the Anna Marie, which leaves for England in ten days. You will meet the woman we discussed in our last letter in London. I have arranged it. To preserve your rightful inheritance, you must take action. Do not allow this woman to come to France. Your future depends on it. You must end the threat by whatever means possible.

  The letter was unsigned but the handwriting was familiar. Lady North.

  “But he met Melinda in London,” she said, and glanced at Jaimison.

  He raised his eyebrows. “He did. And he seduced her to gain access to the Arundale family. He convinced her to seek out support for divorce proceedings between Joshua and Elizabeth.” Jaimison frowned and studied Chantal for a moment. “Do you have this last letter that she refers to?”

  Chantal shook her head. “Robert told me nothing. I have this because I stole it.” She clenched one of her hands into a fist. “Who the hell is Melinda?”

  “She was a cousin of the Arundales,” Sarah explained. “Lord Robert murdered her.”

  “But it was you he should have killed,” Chantal stated. “You are the one Lady North wished to eliminate. You can break the curse.”

  “What I do not understand is that she had ample opportunity to destroy me before I went to the Arundales. Why now?” She was so confused. For years Lady North had cultivated her belief in her destiny. Why would she do that and then kill her?

  Chantal waved her hand toward the settee, urging them to sit down. When Sarah was seated Chantal twisted her fingers together as though she was nervous. “What do you know about magic?”

  “Nothing,” Sarah answered. “I know I am descended from a witch but I have never had any of my own. Except for the visions.”

  “I believe that Lady North is one of us,” Chantal said slowly. Her lips thinned. “I do not blame Lady Elizabeth Arundale for Lord Robert’s death. I blame the woman who used him.” Her pained gaze met Sarah’s surprised stare. “Lady North knows, as do I, that killing is easy. She was determined to do more damage than just death.” Her bleak expression made Sarah reach out and touch her clenched fingers. Chantal’s hand jumped and she touched Sarah’s hand briefly before continuing. “I believe that she does not wish to end the DeFalk curse but twist it to her own ends.”

  “How? And how do you know this?” Sarah stared at the woman.

  “The Arundales are known to be honorable.” Chantal glanced at Jaimison. “And Lady North hates them for taking her daughter. Lord Robert was amused that she enlisted him in her scheme of revenge. After all, he was an Arundale too.” She laughed bitterly. “He believed that his ability to hate would protect him from destruction. He was wrong.” There was a mixture of relief and triumph in her voice. “His death freed me from his power but I blame Lady North for bringing him here in the first place.”

  “Lady North brought Lord Robert here?” Jaimison asked.

  “She’d managed to worm the truth out of the Duchess of Kent, that Lord Robert was an Arundale bastard. Then Lady North invited Lord Robert to view the scrolls.” Chantal shrugged. “He came here.”

  Sarah shook her head. “It is all too confusing for me. I thought it was simple. End the curse and free everyone from this unnatural connection.”

  “Is it unnatural?” Chantal tilted her head. “Who knows what is natural and what is not? The power Wisteria used was from the Earth itself. Maybe it is supposed to be.”

  “Are you suggesting that we don’t break the curse?” Jaimison asked her.

  “I’m suggesting that you are not aware of what you will do,” Chantal stated. Abruptly she rose and went back to the desk from which she’d obtained the letter. After a moment she opened a hidden drawer and removed a sheaf of papers. “This is something that may clarify it for you.”

  Sarah didn’t immediately take the stack of yellowed manuscripts. Chantal nodded. “It’s all there. And without a priest’s bias and anger.”

  The first page was dated the year 1034.

  The entire document was written in a language that looked like French but Sarah had a difficult time reading it.

  Sarah’s head shot up and she stared at Chantal. “This is Wisteria’s?”

  “It is the journal she kept when she was pregnant with DeFalk’s children. She had twins, did you know?” At Sarah’s shake of her head Chantal shrugged. “It took me many years to find it, but I finally discovered it hidden away in stacks of papers in a rich man’s library.” Her smile was faint. “He doesn’t even know it’s gone. It is not written in Latin. She wrote in the language of her people.”

  Eagerly Sarah perused the pages. Well, ‘pages’ wasn’t quite the right term since the material was more like cloth than paper. Like the tapestries, Wisteria had written the words more like painting than writing. The pages were bound together with thread and contained between two thin boards covered in leather, as Sarah had seen on some more modern volumes from later centuries. “Do you know the language?”

  “I have learned it, though some of it is still a mystery to me.” Chantal took the book from her and turned to pages toward the back of the binding. “She wrote about the curse here. ‘I have cursed him and, unknowingly, cursed myself and my children. I called on the shade of the Mother who came to me. To break the curse a willing sacrifice must be made by one marked by blood.’She even wrote the words she invoked. They’re in Celtic and that language I do know.

  ‘Dea Matrona take this blood

  I curse the man who defiled me

  Let him be transformed into the beast, the wolf, to be hunted

  Forever and always

  Let it be’”

  Even though Chantal spoke the words in English they still seemed to reverberate around the small drawing room, and Sarah shuddered. “Does she say anything about how to reverse it?”

  “No. But she reflects on the unintended results of the curse. She realized that she had bound the blood of her unborn children to the descendants of the DeFalk house. I believe she saw visions.” Chantal’s attention was on the pages, so she missed it when Sarah’s head snapped up in surprise.

  “She had visions?” Sarah tried to keep her voice neutral.

  “Yes, here it is. ‘I have seen through the veil. My line is bound to the DeFalk beasts, forever enthralled and marked to belong to them. I have meditated and begged Dea Matrona for an answer to break this bond. The answer in the bones is the same. The curse can only be broken by a willing sacrifice of one of my blood. I will not allow it. I have defied the goddess and tied my soul to this curse. Death and blood shall be my price.’” Chantal raised her head and stared at Sarah. “You see? You must not do this thing. Wisteria has imprisoned her essence in this curse. Her hatred will rise up and kill anyone who tries to end the curse. It has happened before.”

  “But why?” Sarah demanded. “She realized that she had bound her descendants to the Beasts she created. Why wouldn’t she want to end that?”

  “She was an unhappy woman, defiled and rejected,” Chantal said, her face pinched and tight. “In the end I do not think she wanted anyone to be happy.”

  “She says death and blood will be her price,” Sarah pointed out. “There is a way.”

  “No one wants this curse ended more than me,” Chantal said vehemently. “But what is the point? You will die.”

  “I must try.” So much death and agony had come from this curse of hate. Sarah had to give all she could, all she had bee
n born to do to end it.

  For a moment it seemed that Chantal would object more but then she nodded. “Then I will help.”

  “Milady, there must be another way,” Jaimison protested. “We can consult men of power or the priests. Do not throw your life away.”

  His light-blue eyes were intense and his voice vibrated with urgency. He spoke on Perry’s behalf, knowing she would leave behind pain and anguish. But she also knew what she’d seen in her vision. Perry’s child. A boy. Something she could never give him.

  “The scroll was clear, Jaimison. Any child I have will die.” Sarah stared at the incomprehensible words on the parchment. “Breaking this curse is as much freeing me from that…reality as anything else.”

  “It could be a lie,” Chantal said sharply.

  Sarah raised her head with a snap. “It isn’t. I allowed Mr. Arundale to mark me. It means that I am no longer unclaimed, a requirement to reverse this spell. I must face the consequences.”

  Chantal pressed her lips together briefly. “As you wish. I will call the Coven.”

  “The Coven?” Sarah exchanged a worried glance with Jaimison.

  “Eleven women and myself who will summon the spirit of Wisteria D’Insigny.” Chantal rose and smoothed her skirts. “I should, perhaps, warn you that there will be something important needed during the ceremony.”

  “What might that be?” Sarah asked her.

  Chantal did not look at Sarah but focused on Jaimison. “The summoning of this spirit, interchangeable with the curse, requires sexual energy.”

  Jaimison’s eyes narrowed. “I am not sure I understand your meaning.”

  Chantal stepped closer to Jaimison. “Tell me, Mr. Jaimison, can you bring twelve women to orgasm?”

  Appalled, Sarah stood and placed herself between Chantal and Jaimison. “That is too much to ask.”

  “I believe I can,” Jaimison answered, and Sarah whirled around to face him.

  “No, Edward. You mustn’t. If this goes badly…” She couldn’t finish the thought. Perry would be devastated and Jaimison had to help there. As part of the ceremony he might come to harm if she failed.