The Age of Witches

by Louisa Morgan

  There were a dozen of them. Four were in the pasture, grazing in the summer sunshine. Eight were still in their loose boxes, their big heads hanging over the half gates to inspect the visitor.

  The marquess spoke their names and stroked each of them in turn. “This is Seastar, our stallion. That big fellow is Shadow, our only black. It happens among Andalusians, though not often. Here’s Dancer, and across from her is Isabella. You’ve met Breeze already, of course.” They went on down the rows. Annis pulled off her gloves to feel each satiny coat, to caress the wide cheeks and strong noses, to rub the warm necks beneath those rich, wavy manes.

  She stepped up on a crosspiece in Isabella’s gate for a better view of the horse. Like Breeze, she was stout of leg and chest, with a short, powerful neck. The mare nuzzled at her jacket pockets, looking for treats, and Annis chuckled. “I’m sorry, Isabella. I had no opportunity to get anything.”

  “She’s a beggar,” the marquess said with an indulgent smile.

  “Your horses have easy dispositions, I see,” Annis said.

  “They do. They’re known for that.”

  “Bits—that is, Black Satin—is easy with me, but he can be testy with other people. Well, not with Robbie, but—”

  “Robbie?”

  “Our stableman.” She glanced around the stables. “Where are your other horses? Those were Andalusians in harness yesterday, I think.”

  “Yes. Come this way, I’ll show you the carriage horses. And my old pony.”

  “Your pony? That’s sweet. I still have mine, too, though she’s getting a bit slow, poor old thing.”

  The two of them walked on to another wing of the stable, side by side. Annis had forgotten, until that moment, her odd feelings of the morning. Now they came back in a rush. The sweet, pungent smells of horses and fresh straw, leather and sawdust, mixed with the scent of soap and shaving lotion that clung to the marquess. Her belly contracted strangely, and she cast him an uneasy glance, as if he could guess.

  His eyes were brighter today, alive with enthusiasm. His hair was unoiled, and it fell every which way over his collar and over his forehead, which suited him. He sensed her regard and turned. “Are you well, Miss Allington? You look a little flushed.”

  They had reached the corner of the aisle that led to the other wing of the stables. Several horses looked out of their boxes. Annis turned sharply toward one of them, as if especially interested. “I am quite well, my lord,” she said. Her voice sounded strange in her ears, husky, a little hollow. “Is this your pony?”

  “Yes. An Icelandic pony. Quite old now, twenty-two or -three, I think.”

  “He’s a darling.” She let the fat pony nuzzle her palm, and she scratched behind his ears. He had once been coal black, she thought, but now his coat was grizzled here and there with gray. “I wish I had something for him.”

  She left the pony as the marquess came to her side, and she moved on down the aisle, glancing at the heavier horses, who gazed incuriously back at her. She wanted distance from the marquess, even as she found herself, unaccountably and distressingly, wanting to be close to him.

  This was not natural, she thought. There was something wrong with her. Perhaps, in truth, she was not completely well. But what illness would cause such strange sensations, such conflicting emotions?

  Something was definitely the matter, but she didn’t know what to do about it, and there was no one she could consult.

  She wanted to be her usual independent self, even though being herself so often got her into trouble. At this moment she felt as vulnerable as a newborn foal. She loathed the sensation of weakness.

  She felt better once she was mounted. The stableman had pointedly placed a sidesaddle where she could see it, though he had prepared a horse for her with a cross saddle. The sidesaddle was ugly, with its hideous double pommel, one to put a leg over, and one to trap the other leg beneath. An extra cinch dangled under its skirts, which she knew was the balancing strap. Such nonsense. With a cross saddle none of that was necessary. She pretended not to notice the thing as she stepped up on the mounting post and threw her leg over the horse’s back.

  She heard the stableman’s indrawn breath of disgust, and she didn’t know whether to laugh or to reprimand him. She decided that as he was not her employee, and as she would probably never lay eyes on him again, the better course was to ignore him, too, and focus on the elegant horse the marquess had chosen for her.

  She was called Patience. She was smaller than Breeze, with a well-cut head and small ears and beautifully turned hocks. “She has the look of an Arabian,” Annis said.

  The marquess, already astride Breeze, nodded. “You have a good eye, Miss Allington. There is an Arab stallion in Patience’s pedigree. She’s the only one at Seabeck. All the other horses here are from the pure Spanish bloodline.” He lifted his reins and indicated a direction with his chin. “There’s quite a nice path through the coombe. It runs up to the crest of the hill, where there’s a view of the sea. Shall we?”

  “Yes, please.” She urged Patience forward, and the mare set out at a smooth walk that matched Breeze’s speed perfectly.

  The last of Annis’s discomfort fell away as the two of them rode in silence out of the drive and turned into the well-trodden path. The breeze from the Channel helped to dissipate the cloud of confusion that had enveloped her all morning. The wind set the boughs of the trees dancing and made Patience’s mane ripple like silk.

  It was pure pleasure to be riding, to be silent, to be free of deciding where to stand, when to sit, what to say to a marchioness or any of her stodgy guests. Annis felt comfortable for the first time since arriving at Rosefield Hall. She was grateful for the sounds of water and wind and horses’ hooves. She relished the view that opened before her as the horses made the shallow climb out of the coombe, which turned out to be a sort of valley, and up to the crest of the slope.

  They reined in before an ancient beech tree. Its trunk and branches leaned inland, bent by many years of ocean breezes. Half-buried beneath a root that arched out of the ground was a rectangular slab of stone that didn’t seem to fit the landscape. Annis pointed to it. “What is that stone doing there?”

  “It’s a menhir,” the marquess said. At Annis’s puzzled expression, he explained. “One of the standing stones—well, this one has fallen over, but there are several stone circles in Dorset. If there was once a circle here—a henge, it’s called—it’s gone now. The stones have probably been pressed into other uses, fences or walls. I expect this one was too large to move.”

  “I don’t know what a henge is,” Annis said. Intrigued, she swung down from her saddle and bent to put her hand on the cool, rough surface of the stone. “Have you touched it? It feels alive!”

  He laughed and slid down to join her beside the stone. He laid his own hand on it, right beside hers, then shook his head. “It doesn’t feel alive to me, I’m afraid. It just feels cold and rough and old. A henge is a stone circle, you know, from ancient times. A ceremonial circle, we think. No one knows exactly what it was for.”

  Easy together for the moment, made comfortable by the presence of the horses and the glitter of the wide sea below the fields, they turned together, looking from east to west. The marquess pointed out the farms of his estate, the sheep grazing in their pastures, the first golden haystacks of summer beginning to blossom here and there. The crenellated roof of Rosefield Hall was just visible beyond the gentle green of the hills and the darker green of the woods.

  Annis turned in a half circle, admiring the view and breathing in the sweet air. “There’s a scent, something I don’t recognize.”

  “The sweet one, rather cloying?”

  “Yes. I first noticed it from the carriage. Is it those white flowers, the ones with the yellow centers? They grow all through the shrubbery, I think.”

  He smiled. “Those are my favorite wildflowers. They grow all over this land, in the woods and in the hedgerows. They’re called field roses.”

 
“Oh! Is that where your name comes from? That is, your title?”

  “In part. The title goes back to the Wars of the Roses, which you have probably never heard of.”

  “I have, though,” she said, intrigued now. “I learned about them in school. The Yorks and the Lancasters.”

  “Precisely! Well done, Miss Allington.” His smile grew, and he gestured again to the expanse of the estate, from the wooded hills in the north to the blue sea in the south. “My ancestor fought for Henry VII and was granted all this land and created Marquess of Rosefield when it was all over. Although,” he added, “the field rose is white, and the York rose was red. I suppose they thought it didn’t matter, or perhaps it was symbolic of the end of hostilities. Peace.” His smile faded as he gazed over his lands. “Seabeck is a peaceful place. I like to think the people who work this land are happy here, that they love it as much as I do.”

  “Why does that make you sad?”

  He looked down at her. His eyes darkened, and a crease appeared between his brows. “I am responsible for it now,” he said. “I don’t know if I’m up to the task.”

  She nodded gravely. “Yes. I can imagine it’s a daunting responsibility.”

  “Indeed.” He looked away again and sighed. “So many people rely on me.”

  “Would you rather do something else?”

  He glanced at her again, his brows lifted. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I mean, perhaps you would rather be a scholar, or a lawyer, or something.”

  “I have no choice in the matter,” he said. “I am my father’s only heir.”

  “But what if you didn’t want it?”

  He shook his head and straightened his shoulders as he gazed out again toward the sea glittering in the morning light. “It’s not a matter of what I want. It’s my duty.”

  “Oh, duty!” she said. “Other people deciding what we must do or must not do!”

  “I don’t understand,” the marquess said.

  “I mean,” she said, “that I don’t want anyone telling me what I have to do! What if you decide you don’t want to be the Marquess of Rosefield? What if you want to be plain… Oh dear. I don’t know what your name would be if you weren’t Lord Rosefield.”

  That made him laugh, and she was glad to see the crease disappear from his forehead. “I would be plain James Treadmoor. That’s the family name.”

  “James Treadmoor. That sounds nice,” she said. She grinned. “James Treadmoor, lawyer. Or teacher. Or farmer.”

  “Farmer,” he said. “I like that. I’m pretty much that already.”

  “And I,” she reminded him, “am going to be a horse breeder.”

  He turned away from her again. She looked up at his spare profile and saw how his mouth turned down and his chin tightened. He was, once again, the stiff, disapproving man he had been in Regent’s Park and again at dinner the night before. “I don’t think that’s going to happen, Miss Allington,” he said. “I think you should give up thinking about it.”

  She said, decisively, “Never.”

  He didn’t respond. She sniffed and turned away, back to Patience. She was sorry their moment of camaraderie had been broken so easily, but it was his fault. She wouldn’t let her father stop her, and she certainly wasn’t going to let this snobbish aristocrat stop her, either.

  Her discomfort didn’t return until he held out his hand to boost her up into the saddle. At that moment, at the touch of his gloved hand on her knee as he lifted her up, the ache in her belly and the heat of her blood returned tenfold. It caught her by surprise. For a moment she gripped the low pommel of her saddle, as if she were about to fall. She couldn’t find her stirrups with her boots.

  “Miss Allington?” The marquess was standing at Patience’s shoulder, his hand on her bridle as he looked up with a frown of concern. “Are you unwell?”

  She gazed helplessly at him as she suffered an urge to simply release the reins and slide out of her saddle into his arms. It was a horrible feeling, utterly unlike her. She didn’t even like him. He didn’t like her, and yet he was standing there, his eyes fixed on her face, as if he wanted what she did.

  Annis drew a sudden, much-needed breath. She jammed her boots into her stirrups with a rough motion, making poor Patience startle and take a nervous step to the side, forcing the marquess to let go of her head. The distance between them helped to soothe Annis’s feverishness, to ease the ache in her belly. She said, more sharply than she intended, “I’m perfectly well, my lord. Isn’t it nearly time for luncheon? We should be on our way.”

  It occurred to her, as she watched him leap easily up into his own saddle, that he was as relieved as she was. He didn’t look at her again, or speak. He put his heels to Breeze’s flanks and led the way back down the path toward the coombe.

  Could he be experiencing the same weird brew of feelings she was? Did it mean something? None of it felt natural. None of it felt right.

  Annis let Patience have her head to follow Breeze as she gazed off toward the sun-bright sea and wondered what could possibly be happening to her.

  Once luncheon was over, the company disappeared, each to their own preference. The elderly couples went up to sleep until tea. Lady Eleanor excused herself to meet with her housekeeper. Frances vanished without explanation, and Lord Rosefield did the same, bowing to the company, departing without ceremony. Annis felt a terrible moment of disorientation, glad to see the back of the marquess and at the same time wishing she could run after him.

  She hesitated in the foyer. The servants all seemed to be busy elsewhere. The sun was already on its westward journey, leaving the house sleepy and dim. Annis didn’t feel sleepy in the least. She felt—she didn’t know what she felt. Itchy. Restless. Wanting something without knowing what it was.

  As she hesitated at the foot of the staircase, she experienced a sudden, inexplicable urge to go outside. The impulse surprised her, building into a compulsion. She felt as if someone had called her name, though she had heard nothing.

  Swiftly she slipped out through the doors, closing them behind her as quietly as she could. The impulse felt like a command, one she couldn’t refuse. It drew her to her left, along the stone porch to a short stair leading to the west lawn. There she turned left again, pulled as surely as if she were on a longe line. Her skirts in her hands, her uncovered hair flying in the afternoon breeze, she dashed down the sloping lawn behind the house, where a narrow gravel path led to a funny little building. It was round, pillared, open to the air.

  A folly, she thought. Though she hadn’t seen one before, she had read of them in novels. She had the impression they were usually bigger, but this one was charming, with an enormous rhododendron shading one side and weeping roses growing opposite. The inside was fitted with a stone bench running half the circumference.

  A woman rose from the bench as Annis approached. She wore a plain walking suit with a thick jacket, and she was tall, dark haired. Familiar.

  Annis slowed her steps and released her skirts so she could push her hair out of her eyes. Her heart began to pound with this new, confounding development.

  “It’s you,” she breathed. “It’s you! Whatever are you doing here?”

  19

  Harriet

  Harriet hadn’t issued a summons in a long time, and she had worried it might not work. But here was Annis, breathless from having run down the lawn, her pupils expanding with shock at finding Harriet waiting for her. Annis looked as if she might crumple in a faint, if she were that sort of girl.

  She made it instantly clear that she wasn’t at all the sort of girl to faint. She steadied herself with a hand on one of the pillars as Harriet said, “Yes. It is I. I should introduce myself at last.”

  “You’re the herbalist!” the girl breathed. Her color rose in a wave and then receded, leaving her cheeks ice pale beneath her smattering of tiny freckles.

  “I am that,” Harriet said, trying to speak in a bracing manner. “I’m also a relative of yours, Annis.”<
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  “You know my name?”

  “I do. Perhaps you should come and sit—”

  Annis blurted, “You’re a relative? Are you an Allington?”

  Annis had already, Harriet could see, suffered some confounding emotions. She wished she could put her arms around the girl, but that would hardly be welcome. She was still, essentially, a stranger. She said, “No, I’m not an Allington. My name is Bishop. Harriet Bishop.”

  “My mother’s name was Bishop.”

  “Yes. My sister Lily was your grandmother. You are my great-niece.”

  “Oh! Am I? Why—I don’t—Are you here because of me? You came all this way?”

  “I did. I think you need me.”

  Annis lifted her hand from the pillar and came slowly up the two steps into the folly. She sank onto the bench and twisted her hands in her lap. “How did you know, Miss Bishop?” Her words tumbled from her, stammering, confused. “How—how did you know what’s happening? Everything is so—so strange. The oddest things… There’s no one for me to talk to!”

  “I understand. As it happens, I know all about it, and I’m going to try to explain.” She sat next to Annis but took care not to sit too close. She felt the girl’s tension radiating from her as if she were a wary bird who might fly away at any moment.

  Harriet had rehearsed her explanation in her second-floor room in the Four Fishes Inn of Seabeck Village. It wasn’t much of a room, but then, the Four Fishes wasn’t much of an inn. There were only four bedrooms, fanning out from a steep, rickety staircase. She had to share her bathroom with the guest next door. Fortunately, the occupant of that room was rarely present. She had paced in circles, from the dormer window to the old-fashioned door with its iron fittings, practicing what she would say to Annis, but the words she had prepared seemed woefully unequal to the task. How in the world do you explain such things to a girl who has never even heard of them? And probably doesn’t believe in them?

  Still, there was intelligence in Annis’s eyes, and courage in her stance, despite her state of mind. Her color had begun to return, and her breathing to ease. She touched the choker at her throat, a string of white pearls with a cream-colored stone in the center. A moonstone, Harriet realized, with layers of silver beneath its pearly surface. It was a jewel known to produce calm and balance. To emphasize feminine energy and wisdom.