Ride the Wind: Touch the Wind Book Two

by Erinn Ellender Quinn

  He walked up to her and stood, still and resolute and wordless as a standing stone, but it was the full moon, and the magick she had woven was still in the air. Instead of condemnation, she heard his breath change and felt his passion rise. She somehow understood that to become a priest, he’d denied his manhood without first experiencing it. He’d known the mystery of Holy Communion but he’d never known a woman.

  And she had never lain with a man. It was bound to be an awkward, desperate joining. Beth knew that he wanted her, wanted this, but if he reached for her first, he’d be denying his God. And so she took the torch from him. She loosened her laces and pulled down her bodice and bared her breasts. She took his hands, and she put them on her body.

  “Witch,” he called her, but there was no harshness in it, and she knew that he felt the same sweet torment she’d known since their kiss. Witch. It flowed off his tongue, caressing her like a lover’s touch. He swept the wild curls back from her face and framed it with his hands—a priest’s hands, hands that comforted, hands that healed. His mouth came down and his hands forsook his vows and claimed both of her breasts. The next thing she knew, they were lying on a bed of heather, struggling with a tangle of skirts and robe, and his fingers were sliding through her nether curls and pushing into her, then something else, something alien, as his weight spread her legs and he moved over her and into her and suddenly, she was a maiden no more.

  It hurt. She muffled her cry against his shoulder. He felt her tears and paused, giving her body a chance to adjust to his invasion of it. Her maidenhead was rent asunder. With blood slickening his way, he rocked her as gently as he could, until the pain eased and a sweet torment took hold, and the passion he’d suppressed for years would be denied no longer. He quickened his pace and deepened his strokes, until, at last, he sucked in a harsh breath and poured himself deep inside her.

  It was a long, telling moment before he could pull himself free. He hung his head and turned away, averting his gaze as he wrenched away, separating himself from her. She, who knew his weakness, who was his secret shame.

  When he’d left her, he could not even look her in the eye.

  She supposed she should pray for a simple, quiet life. If she thought lying with a priest made for mixed emotions, it was nothing to the turbulence of loving a captain come from the sea. He seemed to challenge her at every turn, but she must admit that he was there when it mattered most. He would defy Herne to safekeep her in her circle, and she had no doubt he would die to protect her from anything, physical or otherwise, that might seek to do her harm.

  She wished she could say that he wouldn’t need to, but this dark and awful thing she felt refused to go away. It hovered on the edges of her consciousness like a ghostly hand over an atlas map, poised where it fully intended to go and she was very much afraid that, this time, no magick of hers could hold it.

  Chapter Twenty

  They found the body in the morning.

  A young girl’s scream came from the spinning house, and everyone on the property went running, from wherever they were. Beth had braved the weather to return to the big house only a few hours earlier and had slept downstairs on the library daybed, having spent most of the night in her cottage on the edge of the orchard, plagued by the sense of impending doom, working magick that the equinox rain just seemed to wash away.

  It was raining again, tears from heaven now, for the victim of a monster’s brutality.

  The Captain was out the door before she’d awakened enough to rise from her bed. By the time she reached the spinning house, the Captain was stepping from it, his face ashen, shaking like she’d not seen him since he was getting off the laudanum and he’d dreamed he was back in Jamaica.

  Ian caught Beth’s gaze, and his mind screamed at her to stop where she was. There was no way he could let her see what had happened. It would haunt him the rest of his days—but then, her assailant had used his razor when he was done, and the hand that had wielded it was gone, and free to strike again.

  Geoffrey Knowles had grabbed India’s arms and was trying in vain to get her to stop screaming, praying to make some sense of the nightmare they’d all awakened to.

  Ian ordered Miss Denning to get the rest of the Knowles children in the cottage out of the rain that just started, and had Jannet Gordon do the same with Beth.

  He gripped George’s shoulder and had Israel to fetch Sean and Dylan from the stable, the two men he judged to have enough steel to help him do what needed done. He’d covered Lucy’s body, had hidden her shame, but he would have Dylan make notes of the scene. They would not clean anything until the authorities had had a chance to look, but Ian was going to at least take her covered to the ice house.

  Lucy Knowles, who hated sex, had died in the act, but with whom?

  Someone evil. Someone twisted enough to carve on her body and leave it for her daughter to find. Someone who knew about him and Beth, and especially Beth, but who either didn’t know or didn’t care that pagans didn’t use satanic symbols. One had to believe in Satan for that. But the sheriff was bound to judge it witchcraft, not knowing any better himself, and how could Ian explain the difference, when his razor was involved?

  Beth had warned him that evil was coming, and now it was here with a vengeance.

  The King’s man and the coroner came together and interviewed everyone there, paying particular attention to the men, since anyone with a working penis was immediately a suspect. They paid attention to Ian most of all, since he’d come second on the scene and it was his stolen razor that had been used in the murder. But Beth had said that she’d slept downstairs; when they checked, the dampness of the upholstery was proof she’d come in before last night’s rain had ended and supported Ian’s claim that he’d spent the night alone in his room, that Beth had witnessed his race downstairs and out of the house, after they’d heard India’s screams.

  Suddenly, people who had eyed her with suspicion, or believed her to be a trollop, looked at her like she was Joan of Arc—at the first, of course, before they killed her, when they still considered her to be the savior of France. Beth had slept by herself. She had slept downstairs. She swore to the King’s man that Captain O’Manion had spent the night alone in his bed.

  Without her in it, went unsaid.

  Suddenly, she was a heroine.

  But for every hero, there is a villain, and one had savaged Lucy Knowles. The actual cause of her death would be ruled strangulation. While the coroner and sheriff might have briefly considered Ian a prime suspect (having a functional penis and being a razor owner and second on the scene), with Beth’s statement and the divan’s dampness to support it, they were forced to admit that the Captain could not have committed the crime.

  And if he had not, who, then, had?

  Ian could not silence the echo of Beth’s prophetic warning. Someone had followed the Deirdre, had followed him, and was threatening everything he knew and loved. For today, he managed his people and estate with wisdom and grace, and was almost grateful that none of his appointments cancelled. Business helped reestablish a sense of normalcy, and the gentry were not only pleased with their purchases, they seemed willing to part with the asking price and no dickering just to know if the rumors were true.

  Ian was aware of his responsibilities and out of consideration to George and the children, imparted only enough information to keep the rumors from running wilder than they were.

  As soon as he had the chance, he went to Jannet Gordon’s cottage to see Beth.

  He was slain for the second time that day, resurrected from the bloody board floor of the spinning house only to feel himself going again. It killed him to see Beth on her mam’s bed, curled in a ball like a fetus, hugging her mother’s black cat. Her nose was raw, and her swollen eyes looked like a feral raccoon’s, red round about from her crying. She’d bit her bottom lip so hard that it had bled.

  “Ah, Beth. Beth. Darlin’ Beth. I’m here, love,” he crooned, warning himself to not touch her. He didn’t
know what she’d feel on him, pull from him, that he’d carried away from helping with Lucy Knowles. Once the King’s man had gone, Sean had been the one to scrub the blood from the floor. Ian had already ordered Jason to get the boards they would need to replace the swath where no amount of soap and water would ever remove the stains. And if the place was still too haunted, he’d tear the damn thing down and build another for Miss Denning and Lucy’s little girls to work in.

  He didn’t know, as far gone inside herself as Beth was, if she heard him speak or felt his thoughts, but she opened her eyes and met his gaze, and she knew that he knew, that she must be the one to come to him, his brave girl, his pi-rette. Beth, who slept with foxes and talked to bees and who tamed wild strawberries to protect them from their unfortunate mother.

  Jannet Gordon, having years of practice, ran interference for her child. “How is India?” she asked. “And George?”

  “India is in pieces but Miss Denning is helping pull her together. And George—George has taken the morning to think of himself and the children. I believe he plans to offer for Lucy’s sister who’s still at home, if Emily will have them.”

  Not an uncommon practice, especially on the frontier, for a widow or widower to move one way or the other along the line. Uncles were expected to take care of their brothers’ widows and orphans, and aunts tended to be kinder stepmothers. If Emily Reynolds married her brother-in-law, the next set of Knowles babies would be doubly tied to the first. It was no disrespect to his late wife for George to put the needs of the living ahead of his own. There would be time enough to mourn. It might take a month to get word to Lucy’s family and get back an answer from Emily, yea or nay. At least she was on this side of the pond. If she’d been in England, they’d be talking months and months.

  “Guid, guid.” Jannet cast an eye at her daughter and saw that Beth was coming back. “Wie yer permission, I shall see tae the kitchen while there’s need.”

  “Thank you.” Ian watched the midwife cover up and go out into the rain, headed to make a hot dinner when everyone had made do with a cold lunch.

  “How are you?”

  His thoughts echoed her words, and they smiled at each other like an old married couple.

  Ladies first.

  “Unhinged,” she said in all honesty. “Needy. More than anything, I want ye tae hold me, but I dinnae ken if I can.”

  She’d heard him, then, that she’d have to be the one to come to him.

  “Aye,” she whispered, swiping at a tear late-sprung in eyes that were the color of Aruba.

  “It’s all right,” he said when she made no move to do it. “I’ll take a bath, add a drop or two of holy water. Hopefully you’ll be able to stand me after that. If not, I’ll stay in the library and let you have the bed. Either way, you’ll stay at the house until this is done. It’s not safe for you in the cottage. When you think you can manage, we can fetch your things—”

  Her ritual tools, hidden in the floor. He knew she would need them, knew they were safer with her in his house than under a rug that was no real impediment to discovery.

  “Ye’re right,” she said. “We’ll get my things, but first I maun see tae the bees.”

  He’d never seen a beekeeper deal with death. Each hive was turned, and draped in black, and the bees circled around her, as if hugging her in her sorrow. As she worked among them, she told them what she knew, and although many lit on her, she walked away with not a single sting.

  The rain had let up by the time she’d finished and they headed for her cottage. Both of them were thinking the same thing, that there was something else they should do, and when she hesitated, he took the decision from her and stepped into the woods.

  The oak trees were oddly silent. It was almost as if they were listening, listening, holding their breaths to see what would happen. The Captain had only been there once but he remembered the way to her circle.

  He didn’t know it had gone unused yesterday, that she’d done ritual in the cottage instead. That Herne might get upset was a risk he ran, just by coming. That Herne was already pissed enough to spit thorns had not occurred to the Captain.

  “Wait,” she said, so focused on warning him that she forgot she shouldn’t touch him. And in one, awful moment, she saw enough to knock her to her knees.

  From a distant spring-fed glen came the sound of something crashing through the woods, headed their direction. Declining the Captain’s proffered hand, Beth forced herself to rise and stand beside him, braced for Herne’s wrath when the wind whipped, and rain drops pelted the leafy canopy above their heads.

  Beth wondered if she’d gone too far this time, but Herne did not reveal himself—although he clearly made his presence known. Beth waited, until she felt a shift in the energy, as if he’d calmed down enough to listen, at least.

  The Captain spoke for her, and she could not help wishing she’d saved herself for him rather than give her virginity to someone so ashamed, he could not bear to look at her. This was a man who’d sailed with pirates and survived the tortures of prison, who sat at a table with gentry as equals and would give his life for her if need be. She knew that Herne heard her thoughts, because he let the Captain talk. By the time they headed back to the cottage, the three of them had come to the same conclusion: it was quite possible that the plot that saw the Captain arrested had not yet played out but had changed to a new, and deadlier, game.

  As much as she longed to curl up with Sophie and find comfort in holding her precious weight and petting her soft red fur, she knew it was best to leave her with Herne. The bees had been told, and oaks had been listening, and Herne understood.

  And now, like pieces on a chessboard, they must wait for the next move and pray they could end the game once and for all.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The wild strawberries wanted Beth.

  The loss of their mother had left India, who’d discovered her, nearly catatonic and the other five Knowles children adrift in a sea of sorrow and confusion. Their Protestant father had made them mistrustful of Roman Catholic Jannet Gordon, so it fell to Miss Denning to step in and care for them, with their father working through his sorrow to bring in the harvest, as any farmer would have done.

  Once the coroner and sheriff had come, Jason had built a coffin and they had taken her to church and buried Lucy Knowles in the graveyard beside it. The service was short, and surprisingly moving, given the disparities in the faiths of those attending. When it was done, the inhabitants of The Oaks returned home and went back to the business of living.

  Beth told the bees of the funeral. They already knew of the visit to Herne. She asked them to be on guard. So long as evil was loose in the land, there was a danger that could not be ignored.

  The Captain, who never locked the house unless he was gone, had taken to barring the doors every night and making certain the windows were secure. He and Jason drilled holes in the double-sash windows that went through the one-and-a-half frames, where the tops and bottoms aligned. He had Thomas forge pins long enough to reach, making it impossible to force a window open. It took two days—the house was huge, with ivy-covered walls of windows, and there were the cottages and barracks and living spaces to see to, but they all breathed easier when it was done. Anyone trying to get to them would have to force their way past bolted doors or break out enough glass to afford entrance. Now there was no way they’d get in at night, unknown and unseen.

  Beth kept busy with mending. She refused to spin wool or knit booties or make anything for the baby while things were like this. Try as she might to prevent it, she could not risk letting any energy so unhealthy go into something it would wear.

  And so she reinforced seams and tacked on buttons and sewed hooks and darned stockings, and when she had finished her mending, she rifled through the Captain’s clothes, looking for something—anything—to do. And just then, as if in answer to a prayer, the Captain came in with Harmon and Harmony, clinging to his hands, desperate enough to come with him when t
hey’d never gone near him in their little lives, all because he had mentioned Beth to Miss Denning, and the twins would not stop begging to see her.

  Beth knew a moment of panic. Édouard had started throwing books since Lucy’s murder, which had seemed to affect both the living and the dead on the property. Philip had grown quiet, and Édouard quite the opposite, although he had yet to throw any tomes since the windows were secured. The Captain saw her anxious glance, and gave the twins into her keeping. While she took them to the front drawing room, he went to have a talk with their ghosts.

  The five-year-olds said nothing, at first. They were content to snuggle with Beth on the divan and listen to nursery songs and stories of foxes and cheese and little red hens. Then the Captain came in, and the fiddle with him, and he struck up a merry tune that lit their small cherub faces and made them clap with delight and, for a moment, made them feel like part of a normal family, on a normal day, before their mother’s death had made them five years old going on a hundred.

  They begged to stay, but it was the first Tuesday of October and a new moon to boot, and even if Beth would forego her ritual, the Captain knew they would be safer with their father than here. If he was the target, they would try to get to him, or get to him through Beth, which is why she had to stay too. He’d been sleeping downstairs on the daybed, cutlass and knives within reach and pistols loaded, attuned to every creak and pop and shift in the timbers that framed the house he’d won.

  It was a large house, with ten bedrooms upstairs, but Beth still chose to sleep in his.

  “Thank ye,” she said when he came back with supper, and she recognized her mother’s cooking. There was comfort in familiarity, and she needed that right now, especially with all that had happened.