The Age of Witches

by Louisa Morgan

  Now, with the future of her great-niece at risk, she set out for the cabin once again. The strega had told her what Annis said, that they were about to go on a sea voyage. There was no time to lose.

  She had watched from a shadowed doorway as Annis pressed money into her maid’s hand and sent her into the chandler’s shop. She didn’t know what the maid purchased, but the glow on her plain face when she emerged told her it had been something special to her, a gift from her mistress. Harriet’s heart lifted at this sign of Annis’s good heart. It was not too late to save her.

  She hurried to reach the cabin while she knew Frances and Annis were out. When she reached it, she was out of breath, and her feet hurt from nearly running in her street shoes. The sun was past its zenith. The time for her search was short.

  A heavy padlock secured the latch on the door, but Harriet had discovered a way to get in on her first visit. On that day she had pressed one hand to the wall of the cabin, the other on the amulet beneath her dress. She had concentrated, closing her eyes to allow her mind to roam around the old building.

  As Beryl had said, hers was an unusual gift. Commonly, the knowing came upon her when she was creating a remedy of some kind in the herbarium, but occasionally—if she was patient and let it sift into her consciousness without obstacles, if she opened her mind and blocked all distractions—she knew things, things that were hidden.

  Was it guessing? That was possible, but if it was, she was very, very good at it. That first time, she stood outside the cabin for nearly an hour, seeking, wondering, waiting for inspiration. She had known, at the end of that time, where the opening was. She could see in her mind the loose, rough-hewn boards. She sensed the weakness in the ancient rusted nails that held them in place. On the back wall were three such boards, side by side, making an opening wide enough for her to slide through without snagging her clothes too badly.

  Now, hurrying, she went to the spot, removed the boards, and stepped through into the dim interior. A cobweb caught at her hair, and she brushed it out with her fingers as she looked around.

  Frances had been terribly careless. Unlike Harriet’s immaculate herbarium, this space was littered with discarded bits of leaves and stems and roots, and a clutter of glass jars and stoppered bottles lay every which way on her work surface, as if she simply shoved each away when she was done with it. In the middle of the chaos, propped against a roll of gauze, was a manikin.

  There was nothing careless about the manikin. Its eyes were a startling blue. Its lips were convincingly red and full. It wore a dress, and a fluff of dark hair crowned its wooden-bead head.

  It was Annis. No one could mistake it.

  “Oh, Frances,” Harriet murmured. “Beryl would be heartsick.”

  Her knowing, coming upon her as she completed Dora Schuyler’s emmenagogue, had been correct. Frances meant to use Annis. She intended to force her into a marriage that would one day turn as cold and unsatisfying as Frances’s own, and Annis, innocent, unsuspecting, would have no idea what was happening to her.

  Thanks to the strega, she knew also that Frances was about to spirit the girl away to England, beyond Harriet’s reach.

  Harriet couldn’t let that happen. She put a finger on the manikin and felt the faint echo of magic that clung to it. Dark magic. It made her fingertip ache.

  She had to leave it where it was. It was an evil thing, but now that it existed, only its creator could destroy it. Only Frances, who had spent her energy and her intention on creating this pretty little golem, could undo it.

  Harriet sidled back through her makeshift door. Taking care to avoid splinters, she fitted the boards back into their places. She shook the dirt of the cabin from the hem of her skirt and dusted her hands carefully to be certain she carried no residue of Frances’s tainted practice away with her.

  She melted into the woods, glancing behind her once to assure herself her presence had gone undetected, then set out at a brisk pace for home. Grace would not be happy about what came next, but there was nothing to be done about it. She must send a message to secure passage on the Majestic. She must visit the strega again, for supplies, and then she must set sail for England.

  Frances was going to employ the maleficia against Annis, and Harriet was the only person who could stop her.

  10

  James

  It was a relief for James to be on his own for a bit, though his mother would fault him for the indulgence. He couldn’t blame her, really. He had left her on her own to deal with the last details. There were the funeral guests to manage, rooms to arrange for those who would stay the night, negotiations with Cook for more meals to see them through the last of the grim rituals. In the morning would be the reading of the will, and that exercise would undoubtedly involve unwelcome revelations.

  Lady Eleanor would seize the opportunity to point out his various faults, committed on this occasion and others. She had a predictable tendency to catalogue his various sins, the list getting longer and longer by the year. His absence on this difficult afternoon would be added to the litany, but he couldn’t help that. He needed air, and the sound of the sea, and the uncritical company of his favorite mare. He counted on these things to cleanse his mind, to sweep the sights and smells of death from his spirit.

  He had, at least, spoken to Jermyn, ordered every guest’s horse fed and groomed, ready to be put into its shafts. He had taken formal leave of the relatives and friends who had come to mourn with the family, and he had sorted through the pile of sympathy cards, now addressed to him with his new title. In a way he had done his duty, but as his mother would remind him, many more duties lay ahead. Perhaps he could persuade her to understand his wish for this moment of solitude, perhaps empathize with his need for reflection. Or perhaps not. At the moment he didn’t care much either way.

  He paused Breeze at High Point. There he gazed over her head to the sea tossing beneath the cliffs as he tried to comprehend how profoundly his father’s unexpected passing had changed his life. His years as Lord James Treadmoor were over. He had become, in the instant of his father’s death, James, Marquess of Rosefield, master of Seabeck Park and Rosefield Hall. He had always known it would happen one day, but not when he was twenty-one, in the midst of pursuing his passion for history and architecture, still working on growing up, still laboring through the insecurities and fears of his youth. Some men grew up fast, it seemed. They matured early. He was not one of them.

  He loved Seabeck, and it had always been his plan to one day completely devote himself to its care and preservation. He had not expected that day to come so soon.

  The funeral had been a misery. He envied the Catholics, sometimes, with their curated rituals and timeworn texts and hymns. In particular he loved their “In paradisum,” which was both moving and formal, refining grief and loss into a moment of pure crystal music.

  He could have requested they use it in their own service, he supposed. It hadn’t occurred to him. Their service, at the chapel in Seabeck Village, had been one of raw emotion, sentimental hymns, and a somehow greedy devouring of this new stage of life, a marquess dead, a new marquess in place, a marchioness become a dowager in a stroke. There were changes ahead. There were frights afoot.

  He would learn how bad the frights were when the will was read and the state of the Treadmoor finances, always held close to the old marquess’s vest, was revealed. His mother had been walking about with a face of stone, which meant she already knew the news was not good. She didn’t speak of it. James didn’t ask. She would simply have said, lips pinched in that chilly way that told him he should have known better than to press her, “Everything in its time,” and told him nothing.

  Breeze tossed her head, making her wavy forelock lift in the wind. “You’re right,” he told her, lifting the reins. “We should go back and face it. But I’d rather run off, lass, wouldn’t you?” Her ears flicked back toward his voice, then forward again.

  Despite his declaration, he held her in place a few moments l
onger, looking out to sea, watching the rising tide splash the sea stacks with foam. It didn’t show up on any map, but the locals had always referred to it as High Point. A cluster of boulders on the landward side of the road marked the spot, backed by a patchy copse of windblown trees. Sometimes James dismounted to sit on one of the big rocks to eat the sandwiches Cook packed for him.

  There were no sandwiches today. He stayed in his saddle, letting the sea breeze pull at his hair and cool his face and neck. Behind him stretched the bit of land they called the High Point parcel, gentle hills rich with green grass. Before him the westering sun turned the waters of the English Channel the color of old emeralds, rather like a necklace his mother had but never wore.

  He released a long breath as he turned his mare toward home. His mother might have to sell that necklace, and other old pieces. And how could he justify the expense of his Andalusians? The hay and wool and milk production couldn’t keep up with the mounting debt of Seabeck. Unless his father’s will held some surprising good news, the estate was in deep trouble, and with it the livelihoods of more than a hundred people.

  He feared even High Point would have to go, and that felt like the end of historic Seabeck’s long life.

  Breeze, happily ignorant of these worries, set out toward the stables at her best swinging trot, and James tried to give himself up to the pleasure of the movement.

  It was satisfying to see the fields he passed through greening nicely between the hedgerows. Sheep grazed peacefully under the late-afternoon sun. A dozen columns of smoke rose from the chimneys of his tenants’ cottages, promising meals for the laborers and their families. He knew those tenants. He knew how hard they worked and how loyal they had always been. He hoped they would remain loyal to their new lord. He hoped he could protect Seabeck, enable these farmers to support their families.

  He lifted his gaze toward the sandstone facade of Rosefield Hall. At this distance he couldn’t make out the damage to the tiles of the roof, or the gaps where stones had fallen from the southern parapet, or the upper windows in need of reglazing, but he knew all of that was there. Thinking of the work that needed doing, and what it would cost, set a bubble of anxiety rising beneath his breastbone.

  For now he tried to be grateful that the mullioned windows gleamed in the sunshine and the stone balconies above them boasted pots of flowers. The phaetons and barouches of the visitors, freshly cleaned and provisioned, awaited their owners in the drive. The lawns and shrubberies were trimmed and weeded. Dozens of servants labored to make all of that happen, servants who would now depend upon him for their livelihoods and their welfare.

  He would do his best for them all, he resolved, his tenants and his domestic staff. He would do whatever it took.

  He wished he knew what that might be.

  James was barely awake the next morning when his mother gave her solid double knock on his bedroom door and came in without waiting for an invitation. She went straight to the window to pull the drapes open. Blinking against the flood of sunshine, James struggled sleepily to a sitting position and, since he invariably slept without a nightshirt, reached for the dressing gown his valet had left at the foot of his bed.

  “Good God,” he muttered, pulling the dressing gown across his bare chest. “Mother, what time is it?”

  “You shouldn’t sleep naked,” Lady Eleanor announced. “You’ll catch your death. I’ll speak to Perry about that.”

  James could have retorted that unless Perry were going to climb into bed with him, that would be a waste of her breath, but he held his tongue. It was easier than arguing, and James much preferred, in all cases, the smooth path to the rocky one.

  He didn’t answer her, but he did thrust his arms into his dressing gown and pull it over himself as best he could beneath the coverlet. “Has something happened?”

  “I want to talk to you before the reading of the will this morning.”

  He glanced at the gilt clock above the mantelpiece of his bedroom fireplace. “Mother, it’s barely seven! What are you doing out of your own bed?”

  “Seeing to breakfast, of course. We still have houseguests.”

  He swung his feet to the floor and tied the sash on his dressing gown. “Isn’t that what staff are for?”

  It was a slightly provocative thing to say. Lady Eleanor brooked no criticism, even of her working too hard, which wasn’t unusual, but he wasn’t fully awake. On this morning, however, she let the remark pass. She settled herself into the brocaded armchair beside the fireplace with a little grunt of effort. She was, he could see, wearing her corset too tight again. He knew she hated her thickening waistline. She fought it with admirable energy, but nothing seemed to slow the expansion except tighter and tighter corsets. He was sure that couldn’t be good for her, but he knew better than to speak the thought aloud.

  She leaned back in the chair, and for a moment her fatigue and worry showed on her plump features, normally schooled into rigorous composure. She said with a sigh, “The news will not be good, James.”

  “You know this already?”

  “I fear so.” Lady Eleanor toyed with the lace edge of the handkerchief she had tucked into her sleeve, flicking it with one blunt fingernail. “Your father was a good person but a bad businessman.”

  “To be fair,” James began, but his mother interrupted him with a wave of her hand.

  “Oh, I know, I know,” she said. “It wasn’t entirely his fault. American imports are cutting badly into Seabeck’s output of wheat and corn. Your Andalusians are expensive, and not many people can afford them. You haven’t sold a foal this season, have you? Seabeck’s income isn’t keeping up with expenditures.”

  “I had hoped there might be some source of income I didn’t know about.”

  “Such as what?” Lady Eleanor straightened, and her face resumed its usual rather fierce nobility, as if none of the anxieties of ordinary people could trouble her. Her nose, short and blunt, thrust up like a terrier’s scenting prey.

  James squirmed on the edge of the bed, embarrassed about the nakedness of his long, pale shins. He wished he were dressed so he could pace around the room. “Well, Mother, I don’t know exactly—I had thought perhaps some of the older paintings, furniture we don’t use… Some of it is so uncomfortable, surely we could…” He broke off under the pressure of her narrowed gaze.

  “James, listen to me. When a family begins to sell its heirlooms, all is lost. It’s over. Everyone can see that it’s the end for the family, no matter how noble.”

  “We could sell the London house,” he ventured, but her eyes blazed with instant fury.

  “No, we could not.” She pushed herself to her feet and stood with her hands linked before her. The pose looked contained and calm, but he saw how her knuckles whitened. “The Marquess of Rosefield does not begin selling off his property. Nor—” Her eyes glinted with anger. “Nor does the dowager marchioness part with her jewelry, under any circumstances. These are acts of desperation. Everyone would know it. You’re not even to consider it.”

  “Yes, Mother,” James said meekly. He knew his lady mother’s jewel case, and the safe in his father’s library, were both overfull with rings and brooches and tiepins that were never taken out. The house in London maintained a staff year-round, even though they used it only during the season. He had to look away, lest his awareness of all that should show in his face. He wasn’t nearly so good as she at disciplining his expression.

  He should, he thought, as he fixed his eyes on the white clouds drifting across the sky beyond his window, stand up for himself. Point out that he was now the marquess and must do what he thought best.

  He didn’t have the courage. His father had never found it, either.

  Lady Eleanor was not finished. “You,” she proclaimed, her voice vibrating with the authority she had wielded his whole life, “will have to marry money.”

  At that his head snapped up, and he stared at her, aghast. “Mother!”

  Her gaze never wavered. “There
is nothing to be done for it. You’re hardly the only nobleman in England facing the same…

  let us call it choice.”

  He stood up, careless of his bare legs and the inadequate coverage of his dressing gown, and gazed at her in horror.

  She blew out a breath, but her posture did not relax. “You’re old enough to face these things, James. My marriage to your father was hardly a love match. Our properties merged, which has been a good thing, a successful enterprise. At least,” she finished, with just the slightest hint of defeat, “it was until the last decade or so.”

  He found his voice, although it was hoarse with shock. “But, Mother—you knew each other from childhood! You weren’t strangers.”

  Lady Eleanor’s expression didn’t alter, but she stepped to the window to hold back a fold of heavy velvet drape and gaze out onto the raked gravel drive and the manicured gardens that spread all around the house. The gardens had been his father’s special passion, and more than once he had seen his parents, his mother’s hand tucked under her husband’s arm, strolling together before coming in to dress for dinner. They were talking, sometimes. Other times they were just walking, side by side, enjoying the waning day.

  James’s throat tightened with the grief he had been suppressing. “Mother, I’m sorry. I know you’re going to miss Father. I will, too.”

  “I know, dear,” she said, in a tone so unaccustomedly mild that he almost went to put a comforting hand on her shoulder. He restrained himself, knowing she would hate it. He had never seen her weep. He was quite sure he never would.

  He tightened the sash on his dressing gown and waited, aware that if there were tears in her eyes she wouldn’t turn until they had subsided.