Annis doubted Her Ladyship had forgotten her son’s rejected marriage proposal, which might have solved one of her problems. It was kind of her not to include it in her list of concerns. On an impulse she sprang up from her chair. “Why don’t you go and rest this very minute, Lady Eleanor? I can see to your guests’ departure. I can speak to Jermyn for you, make certain the carriages are ready, that the horses are properly in their harness—I’m very good at that. I know precisely what needs to be done.”
“Why, Miss Allington,” Lady Eleanor said, her words coming slowly, as if she wasn’t quite sure of them until they were spoken aloud. “That’s very generous of you. Do you know, I believe I will accept your offer.” Her Ladyship pushed herself from her chair and rang a little silver bell that rested on her desk. “A lie-down will do me the world of good. I’ll tell my housekeeper you’re going to step into my shoes, at least for today. Please make my excuses to the Hyde-Smiths and the Derbyshires and the Whitmores, will you? I’m sure they will understand.”
“Yes, of course I will,” Annis said. “I’ll go to the stables now, shall I? Perhaps the housekeeper could send word to Jermyn through one of the footmen. Tell him to expect me—that you have deputized me.”
“How very kind. I will do that, and thank you very much.” Lady Eleanor’s smile was more gentle than usual as Annis curtsied again and let herself out of the study.
She was halfway to the front doors when the thought occurred to her that Lady Eleanor had accepted her offer with no resistance at all, though it must be an unusual suggestion for such an ordered household. Despite everything, Annis found herself smiling over Her Ladyship’s cleverness.
James’s mother had put Annis in the post of the mistress of Rosefield Hall, however briefly. Annis could guess Her Ladyship hoped she would like it. Would change her mind, accept James’s offer of marriage. Solve the problem of Seabeck’s debts.
She would have to be careful around Lady Eleanor. She had secrets now, secrets that must be protected.
She hugged the thought to her as she hurried out to the stables. She wasn’t sorry to have something so marvelous, so remarkable, to hide. She was a Bishop. A woman with abilities. She was a witch, and she thought the word was a marvelous one, with connotations of knowledge and power and independence.
Despite the sadness of the day, Annis felt a surge of joyful freedom, a feeling she had never before experienced. It was the best feeling in the world.
35
Harriet
At the Four Fishes, Harriet went straight to her room and rested all through the day. She didn’t rise until after five, and though she was still bone weary, she was also ravenous.
She found the two pieces of Frances’s manikin in her basket, mashed together into a shapeless lump. As the creator of it, she could dispose of it. It had done its damage, of course. There was no more harm in it, but she wanted to make certain it could not be put back together. She crumbled the wax into fragments. She separated the pebbles and moss and the bit of bark from the pile and tossed them out onto the thatch for the birds to take. She wrapped the now-formless wax in the flannel that had served as its dress. There was no longer any danger in the crumbled wax and scrap of cloth. Her fingers told her that, sensing no electric tingle of magic.
With a sense of mingled relief and guilt, she set the bit of flannel in her basket and went to run a bath.
She presented herself downstairs for dinner at about seven. The innkeeper, with his hands linked under his apron, came to say that “the wife” had made shepherd’s pie. “Salad, too, if you like that sort of thing,” he said. “The wife uses her own lettuce from the garden out back, with radishes and some watercress she bought this morning.”
“I will have both,” Harriet said. “And bread and butter, please.”
“Ale?”
“No, thank you. A pitcher of water.”
He nodded and disappeared into the kitchen. Other patrons came in and settled at the other tables. The villagers had gotten used to Harriet’s presence. They nodded, and two of the men touched their forelocks. When her dinner arrived, she ate hungrily at first, then at a more moderate pace once her appetite began to ease.
And she listened.
It was amazing, she thought, how swiftly news flew through the houses and shops of an English village. By the time she had finished the excellent salad, she had heard that “the influenza or some such” had struck Rosefield Hall. As she worked on her serving of shepherd’s pie, which tasted unpleasantly of old mutton, she learned that only two people had fallen ill. There had been, the gossip said, three old couples there who had departed in haste, eager to avoid infection. Since then, no one had been allowed in or out.
Harriet waited, toying with her fork, to hear more details of who was ill and if they were recovering, but those weren’t forthcoming. Surely, she told herself, as she pushed away the unappetizing remains of the shepherd’s pie, if someone had died they would know. Evil news always had wings of its own.
There was an hour left of daylight. She went up to her room to retrieve her jacket and her basket and hurried out of the Four Fishes and down the short high street. Beyond the green she pressed on into the copse on the western boundary of Seabeck.
The light was beginning to fail in the shadow of the trees by the time she had finished burying the remains of the manikin. Despite the gloom, she managed to find mullein flowers, for discernment, and bilberry, to enhance her vision. She still had a bit of starwort, which was helpful for freeing the imagination. Alone they might not have added up to much. Together she hoped they would give her the insight she needed.
As she carried her trove back to the Four Fishes, she felt a stirring begin in her solar plexus. The thrill spread in shallow, distinct waves that flowed up to her heart and down into her belly, the familiar near pain of magic. Her hands and feet began to tingle with it.
This was the aftermath of the power she had wielded in her battle with Frances, and she knew enough about it to be wary. Misuse of such singular power could have destructive side effects, and there could be no doubt she had misused it. That her motive had been pure made no difference to the source. There was a darkness about her now. It would take a long time to disperse.
Nevertheless, since the current of magic was running high, she would use it.
She opened the window of her cramped room before she dropped the crumbled shreds of herbs, bit by bit, into her candle flame. As the fragrant smoke drifted up into the shadows to waft through the open window, she laid her amulet beside the candle and muttered her cantrip:
Reveal to me the fate of the one
Whose manikin is late undone,
And of the innocent lying ill
Cruelly magicked without his will.
The flow of magic in her body sharpened, its energy sparkling through her bones and stinging her toes and fingertips. She caught a breath at its intensity, and at the same moment the ametrine flared. The violet above shimmered with waves of color. The yellow below glowed as if it had caught fire. The veins of purple burned in lines so intricate they appeared to become an arcane script, some ancient words no human could remember, no tongue pronounce.
The knowing seized her, filling her mind with the knowledge she sought. There was no foretaste, no foreshadowing, no warning. It was like a blow, but one that struck inside her head, between her temples, and it rocked her backward as if it had been physical. She knew.
The marquess would recover. It would be slow, and he would chafe at the pace, but he would one day be whole again and pick up the scattered pieces of his life.
Frances would survive, but she would not thrive. She would not speak, nor live independently, ever again. Her body would function, after a fashion, but her mind…
Her mind was no longer part of the whole. It was ruined.
The knowing was often uncomfortable, but this was ghastly. Harriet rarely shed tears, but she found they were spilling down her cheeks now, dripping on her clasped hands. She leaned
forward and blew wetly at the burning candle. It took three tries before she succeeded in extinguishing the flame.
The ametrine continued to glow, the power that had ignited it not so easily doused as the wick of a candle. Harriet gazed at the amulet through the sheen of her tears, helpless before an onslaught of guilt and confusion and regret.
Many moments passed before she could dry her face, take up the amulet, and go to sit by the window. With the ametrine clasped against her heart, she gazed up into the cold stars and whispered a message to Frances, who would never hear it, nor understand it if she did.
“I am sorry,” Harriet murmured, “so very sorry for what has happened to you, Frances. Poor little cousin, never content, never happy.” Fresh tears choked her as she thought of Frances’s pretty face, her craving to belong. “Oh, Frances,” she murmured. “You will never be one of the Four Hundred. You will never practice your art again. Your wealth and privilege will mean nothing. Your future is wasted. I am sick at heart, but I had no choice. It was you or it was Annis and poor innocent James.”
A different kind of knowing came over her as she sat there, gazing over the sleeping village. What she had said was true. There had been no choice. If she had not been here to fight for Annis and for James, there would have been two tragedies instead of one. Two lives destroyed instead of one.
There had been nothing else she could do. She understood that, but still grieved that it had to be so.
She rose to get into her nightdress and to lay out her things to pack. Tomorrow she would go back to London, book passage to New York, return home as soon as possible. It would be good to see dear Grace, to be back in her herbarium, to walk again in her beloved park. She folded herself into bed, closed her eyes, and welcomed the deep sleep of exhaustion.
She suffered no nightmares, despite her sadness. She slept soundly, comforted by a dream of Alexander, who touched her cheek with his big, gentle hand. She found no judgment in his eyes, no criticism for anything she had done. She saw only love, the kind of love that comes once in a lifetime, the kind that can never die.
She woke with more tears on her cheeks, but these were tears of nostalgia and of longing for the life she could not have.
36
James
James was confined to his bed for a full week before he felt strong enough to sit up in the armchair, his feet on a hassock. He had Perry pull the drapes so he could gaze out over the gardens and catch a glimpse of the summer-blue sea. His bedroom faced east and south, with a view of the Seabeck farms. The rain of a few days ago had revived the browning fields. White sheep grazed along the hillsides, and a herd of red dairy cows browsed in their pasture.
The doctor had said it could be weeks before he would be well enough to ride out on the estate. James had to settle for the view and for the scents of summer-blooming flowers and shrubs borne to him on the sea breeze.
The doctor had not been able to identify the illness that had come over him so suddenly. The same ailment had evidently struck Mrs. Allington, and that troubled James. He worried that it might attack some other resident of Rosefield Hall. Most especially he worried that it might strike Annis.
It had been a bizarre sort of sickness. He couldn’t remember anything about the night he fell ill except for a strange sequence of nightmares. They still haunted him, though he couldn’t bring himself to speak of them, either to Perry or to the doctor. They had been violent, disgusting, lurid as passages from the penny dreadfuls sold on railway station racks. He would never want anyone to know the inventions his fevered mind had been capable of. He could only hope the nightmares would eventually fade from his memory, the way normal dreams did.
Perry had just removed his luncheon tray, leaving the door open so the air could circulate. James dropped his head against the back of his chair and contemplated a pair of bullfinches darting from tree to shrub at the edge of the garden, their plumage glowing rose and silver in the bright sun. He envied their freedom and their energy, while he sat here, weak as a newborn lamb. As an infant. The doctor said he would recover, but since the same doctor had no idea what was the matter with him, it was difficult to place confidence in his prediction.
A light knock on the open door roused him. He lifted his head and twisted in his chair. It was Annis.
She was dressed in her riding habit and offering him a tentative smile. “James,” she said. “I’m delighted to see you out of bed.”
“Yes, at last,” he said. His voice, hoarse from disuse, creaked like an unoiled hinge. He cleared his throat. “Do come in, Miss Allington.”
“Annis, please.” She crossed the room and came to sit on a straight chair beside the hassock. She looked as bright and glowing as the bullfinches, the opposite of his own condition. He was infinitely glad she could never guess at the role she had played in his nightmares.
He tried to sit up a bit straighter, distressed at looking feeble. “Tell me,” he said. “How is your stepmother?”
“I’m sorry to say she is still in her bed. Her eyes are open, and she takes a bit of nourishment. My maid, Velma, is particularly good with her, persuading her to swallow some soup and sometimes a little toast. She hasn’t spoken a word since she fell ill, though. The doctor doesn’t know why. I’m terribly worried.”
Annis’s worry didn’t show on her face. Her wonderful eyes were as bright as the summer sky, and her skin shone with health. There were several new, tiny freckles scattered across her nose. The jaw he had once thought too masculine now appeared merely well cut, a decisive feature in a strong face. It was ridiculous to think he had once found her plain. “You look as if you’ve been riding, Annis.”
“Oh yes! Lady Eleanor encouraged me, since we remain here, to take advantage of your stables. I do hope you don’t mind.”
“Which horse did you ride?”
“Why, I’ve ridden them all, James—well, all except Breeze, because she’s yours. And of course Jermyn flatly refused to let me ride Seastar, which I very much wanted to do.”
“You’ve even ridden Shadow?”
“Oh yes, Shadow is easy, isn’t he? I mean, he’s a stubborn boy, but once he knows you mean business, he’s perfectly fine. His trot is a bit rough, but his canter is lovely.”
James had nothing to say to this. Shadow was a horse only he and Jermyn were ever able to persuade past a stolid walk. They had given up trying to use him for guests.
Annis burbled happily on. “Today I took Dancer out. She practically begged me to, nodding over the stable gate and whickering at me when I came in. I felt quite honored! She has the most delightful running walk, doesn’t she? We went along the coombe, then had a lovely gallop in the upper pasture.” Her cheeks went pink as she described the wildflowers she had seen and the many birds that were unfamiliar to her. “Do you know there’s a bed of mallow along the stone fence in that pasture? Mallow is good for inflammation. I would have picked some if I had thought of taking a basket with me.”
She seemed to become aware that she had been chattering, and sank back in her chair, wrinkling her freckled nose. “I didn’t mean to rattle on so,” she said. “I will tire you.”
“Not at all,” he said. “I’m glad of the diversion. Tell me what else you’ve been doing.”
“I helped Cook with the kitchen garden. There were root vegetables ready to be pulled, and the pea vines were more than ready for the picking.”
“You didn’t pick them yourself, surely?”
She laughed. “Well, a few. The kitchen maids did most of it. Our kitchen garden at home is a marvel, because Mrs. King—that’s our cook—is insistent on only the freshest produce. She knows a great deal about cultivation, and she taught me. I also made two calls on your mother’s behalf, which was great fun. One was to one of your farms. There’s a brand-new baby, the most precious darling, called Rosemary. Lady Eleanor wanted to send a gift for the little one but was too busy to go herself. The other was in the village, a few things she needed at the greengrocer’s. I was going th
ere anyway.”
“I’m sure my mother is grateful for your help.”
“She’s been so good, since my stepmother’s illness, insisting we stay on until Frances can travel. She’s been very kind.”
James didn’t answer that. He put his head back and let his gaze drift out again to the emerald fields and the sapphire sparkle of the sea. It wasn’t usual for him to hear his mother described as “very kind.” Annis’s youth and energy must be helpful to her just now, with two invalids in the house, but she had never wanted help before. He had no doubt his mother had a motive. She invariably did.
He said, “I’m glad you’ve found things to occupy you, since you’ve been stuck here through no fault of your own.”
He heard her small, sharp intake of breath and cast a quick glance her way. Her cheeks paled, and she dropped her gaze as if she were embarrassed by something. Or ashamed of it.
A little silence stretched between them until he said, “I believe, Annis, that you didn’t want to come here in the first place.”
Her color returned, and she gave an apologetic shake of her head. “All of this was my stepmother’s idea, James. I did object, but my father ordered me. I’m so sorry you were deceived. I have explained this to Lady Eleanor and apologized on Frances’s behalf.”
He knew she was trying not to hurt his feelings, but they were wounded just the same, all over again. He couldn’t speak past the knot suddenly tightening his throat.
He wished he could start again with her. He wouldn’t be upset by her free-spirited ways. He would try to be less old-fashioned—less of a prig, as his mother had said. He would make an effort to charm her. He would demonstrate to her what a good life she could have as Lady Rosefield. It seemed his mother had succeeded where he had failed.
The Age of Witches Page 26
