The Rowanwood Curse (Hal Bishop Mysteries Book 1)

by Elizabeth O'Connell

  He paused, running a hand over his face. “He was meant to meet someone—I never knew who—but he went down with the brain fever. You remember that—he was in bed for weeks.”

  I nodded. We had feared that Father would die then; it had been a wonder he survived it.

  “He recovered, but his mind was destroyed. He shut himself up in his study, writing page after page of nonsense.” Hal pinched the bridge of his nose. “I think—I think he was trying to tell me something. He would leave me clues, little riddles on pieces of paper shoved under the door. But I could never puzzle out what they meant.”

  I remembered the scene in the hallway with Cecilia, and wondered if the riddle she had told him about the king’s name had been one of the clues Father left for Hal. “What did you do?”

  He shrugged. “What could I do? I consulted doctors. I spoke to other magicians. No one knew what to do. The doctors advised me to accept that Father’s mind was gone forever.” He smiled bitterly. “One of them told me I ought to have him put in an asylum.”

  He resumed pacing, shoving his hands in his pockets and looking down at the floor. “I did some reading—about madness, especially in magicians—and I began to suspect that Father had been cursed.”

  I stopped poking the splinter. “But why? Who would do such a thing?”

  “If I had known that, perhaps I could have saved him.” He stopped again, staring into the fireplace. “If he had told me even a single thing—but I had no idea where to begin. All I could do was try to mitigate it.”

  “I don’t understand.” There was a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach; it had been bad enough to watch my father’s long decline—to know that someone had done that to him deliberately was almost more than I could stand. “Why? Why would someone do that to Father?”

  Hal looked at me with a strange, remote expression. “He knew something that wasn’t meant to be heard—and what better way to silence a man than by driving him insane? No one will listen to the ramblings of a madman.”

  I chewed at my lip, poking at the splinter again. “But if there was a curse—why didn’t I sense it?”

  “You did,” Hal said. “Don’t you remember? Every holiday, you were ill.”

  “Only headaches,” I said defensively, then stopped. “Oh. Just like the Hall.”

  He smiled sadly. “Just like the Hall. That’s when I had the idea of making up those herb packets. They seemed to help you—even Father slept a bit easier when I put one in his room. I didn’t know about the tea then—perhaps that would have made a difference.”

  He stared into the fireplace, a melancholy look on his face. I sat at the table, absently picking at the splinter, but my thoughts were miles away, in our old family home in London. I was remembering all the holidays I’d spent on couches, recovering from the headaches I’d assumed were the result of too much reading by candlelight; the resentment I’d felt that Father never left his study when I was home. And all the while, Hal had been desperately looking for a way to save him. My jaw quivered, and I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from crying.

  “You did everything you could, Hal,” I said, after a long silence.

  He shook his head. “Not enough.”

  I fidgeted with my sling; my arm was beginning to ache again. “So that’s why you wanted to try curse-breaking.”

  He ran a hand through his hair. “Anyone can cast a curse; the only requirements are that you know how to summon a powerful enough spirit, and that you’re willing to make the necessary sacrifice. That first part is the difficult one—and that knowledge isn’t exactly lying around for anyone to find. If people are casting curses—real curses, like this one on Cecilia, or on Father—someone is telling them how to do it.”

  “And you think you’ll find that person by breaking these curses.”

  He shrugged. “It’s the best I can do now. I can’t bring Father back—but perhaps I can find the person who took him from us.”

  He kept his tone neutral, but there was intensity in his face as he spoke that sent a chill down my spine. I had known that my brother had taken Father’s death badly, but I hadn’t known how guilty he had felt over it—nor how angry he’d been. I felt a stab of guilt myself, thinking of Hal spending all this time carrying this burden on his own.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  He refilled his pipe and lit it before answering me. “It’s funny—I’ve spent all this time so angry at Father, because he never told me what he was working on. Because I could have helped him if I had known more. And I think I understand him now. He didn’t want me involved—he was trying to protect me.”

  I swallowed back a lump in my throat, and rubbed my arm. “Well, I’m involved now.”

  “Yes,” he said, rocking back on his heels. “I’m sorry, Jem. I should have—I should have told you all of this before I dragged you along. Now you know.”

  “Now I know.” I traced a circle on the table with my finger. “Well, where do we go from here?”

  “That depends.” Hal frowned, a deep line appearing between his eyes. “I’ve committed to this case—but you needn’t stay. If you want to go home, now that you know . . . .”

  “Home?” I stared at him, incredulous. “Why would I want to go home?”

  He turned to me, a startled expression on his face. “Then you want to stay?”

  “Of course I do,” I said. “After what you’ve just told me—how could I leave?”

  The corner of his mouth quirked up into his familiar half-smile, and he looked so relieved that I wondered what he’d expected my reaction to be. “I suppose we ought to be getting back to the Hall, then. I’ll tell Mr. Gilley to fetch the cart.”

  He turned to leave, and looked at the porridge, now a cold lump sitting on the table beside me. “And you ought to eat something.”

  “I’ll wait until we get back to the Hall, thanks,” I said, grimacing at the bowl of lumpen porridge. I fidgeted with my sling for a moment and looked down at the table. “I’m glad you told me—about Father, I mean.”

  “Yes.” He paused, reaching for the door, and there was an odd catch in his voice. “I’m glad you know now, too.”

  He left, and I was alone again in the little room, only the fireplace and the howling of the wind for company. I sat at the table for a long moment; my arm ached and my head ached, and I felt vaguely sick to my stomach, as though the solid ground I’d been standing on had suddenly shifted under my feet. I stared into the fire, rubbing my arm. I couldn’t be angry with Hal for not telling me about Father sooner; I understood why he hadn’t, and he had been looking after me for so long that it felt absurdly ungrateful to resent him for trying to protect me now. Still, I couldn’t help wishing that I had known before—that I had understood Father’s distance before his death, and hadn’t resented it so much.

  I ran a hand over my face, pushing away thoughts of my father, and stood up, taking my jacket from the chair it had been folded on, and awkwardly slipped it over my good arm, before sliding my injured arm out of my sling and pulling the sleeve over it. The bite stung as the sleeve slid over it, and I winced. I thought of the beast again, and realized I hadn’t had the chance to ask Hal what he’d meant about its eyes.

  Then I heard Hal calling for me, and I grabbed my coat from behind the door where it had been hung, and went out to meet him.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The cold wind bit at my ears as I walked out the door of the farmhouse, still struggling to pull on my coat. Hal stood by the cart, hands shoved in his pockets, a thick cloud of smoke curling around his face. He looked up as I walked out to the cart, and met me halfway, helping me pull the coat over my injured arm.

  “Ready, Jem?” He had an air of uncertainty about him, as though he’d expected me to have changed my mind in the ten minutes it had taken him to find Mr. Gilley.

  “Of course,” I said, my breath making puffs in the air as I spoke. “There’s work to be done.”

  He gave me a half-smile. “All
right.”

  He helped me up into the cart, and Mr. Gilley slapped the reins to start the pony. We drove back out, past the field where the beast had attacked me the night before. I shivered, remembering, and thought of the blazing blue eyes staring into my own.

  “Something wrong?”

  I looked up to see Hal watching me with concern, and shook my head. “I’m fine. I was just wondering . . . .”

  “About?” Hal tucked his hands under his arms.

  “What you said, last night—when I said the beast’s eyes were the same as Cecilia’s,” I said. “You said that it helped. Why?”

  He leaned back against the cart, closing his eyes and blowing out a puff of smoke. “A wolf dreams of being a man.”

  I stared at him a moment before I remembered that was the other half of what Cecilia had said: sometimes a man dreams of being a wolf, and sometimes a wolf dreams of being a man. “But what does that mean?”

  He opened his eyes, raising an eyebrow. “You ask so many questions. Here’s one for you: where is Sir Jasper’s nephew?”

  I frowned. “I thought he was back on the Continent, with his mother.”

  “No,” Hal said, sitting up and gesturing with his pipe. “That’s where everyone assumes he’s been. No one actually seems to know where he is.”

  I chewed at my lip a moment, confused. Hal obviously thought that the beast had something to do with Marcus—but I couldn’t understand why. I closed my eyes, thinking of the beast—the magic that surrounded it, so similar to that which surrounded Cecilia, and the sharp blue eyes, so similar to hers. My own eyes snapped open. Blue eyes—like Cecilia’s, like Sir Jasper’s, like the dozen portraits lining the staircase at the Hall.

  “I see,” I said. “You think Marcus is the beast.”

  Hal stuck the pipe back in his mouth, looking satisfied with himself. He was obviously glad to be back on the subject of the case. “I told you it was something to follow.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand—why would someone curse Sir Jasper’s nephew? He’d only been here a few months.”

  “Long enough to fall in love with Cecilia,” Hal said. “Long enough to quarrel with his uncle.”

  “Does that mean you think a love quarrel is at the root of this?” I scowled. “And you laughed at me.”

  He smiled around his pipe. “I’ve said nothing of the sort.”

  We rode on in silence for a while. As we neared the Hall, the ache in my arm became a bone-deep pain that set my teeth on edge, extending all the way up to my shoulder. The sickly feeling of the curse’s dark magic wound around me again, and a headache came up behind my eyes.

  “Are you all right?” Hal was watching me, a deep line between his eyebrows. “Perhaps you ought to go home after all.”

  It was tempting, now that the pain had come back to my arm, but I shook my head. “I’m fine,” I said, forcing a smile onto my face. “Or I will be, once I’ve had some of that tea Mrs. Ogham gave us.”

  The line between Hal’s eyes deepened. “Jem, you don’t have to . . . .”

  “I’m fine,” I snapped, gritting my teeth against a wave of pain. I rubbed my forehead, suddenly feeling very tired. “I’ll be all right once you break the curse anyway, won’t I?”

  “Yes.” Hal sat back, running a hand over his face. “But that’s for me to worry about—I’m the one who committed to breaking this curse. And it’s my fault you were hurt to begin with. I can do this on my own.”

  I rubbed my arm again, remembering the weight of the beast slamming into me and the feel of its teeth in my arm; Hal’s fire spell had been the only thing that saved me. And I thought of my brother spending all that time on his own, trying to find a cure for Father.

  “No,” I said quietly. “This isn’t—you don’t have to do this by yourself, Hal.”

  He looked at me a long moment, a strange expression on his face. “All right.”

  Mr. Gilley pulled the cart up before the Hall, and we clambered out. I shivered in the cold wind, watching him clatter away down the hill. Hal stood with his arms folded over his chest, pipe sending smoke curling about his head.

  “One thing before we go in,” he said. “Don’t mention this idea about the beast to Sir Jasper.”

  I blinked at him. “But hasn’t he the right to know his nephew is cursed as well?”

  Hal rocked back on his heels, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “It’s only a theory for the moment—without further evidence that’s all it will remain. I don’t want Sir Jasper jumping to any unfounded conclusions.”

  We went into the Hall, where we were greeted by Reeves. He took our coats without so much as glancing at the sling on my arm, and informed us that Peter Soames was waiting in the library.

  “Soames?” Hal blinked. “What does he want? Surely he’s here for Sir Jasper.”

  “He asked for you, sir,” Reeves said mildly. “I told him you were not in, and he insisted on waiting.”

  Hal rubbed his chin, and asked Reeves to have the maid send in some of Mrs. Ogham’s health tea. Reeves nodded and disappeared into the depths of the house. Hal frowned in the direction of the library. “What could he want?”

  I shrugged; the headache behind my eyes had become an insistent throbbing, and my arm felt as though it was weighted with hot lead. “I suppose we ought to go and ask him.”

  Hal nodded, and I followed him to the library, where Peter Soames waited. He was sitting in a chair before the fire, staring into the flames with his brows knit tightly together, and was slumped in the chair as though the cares of the world weighed on his shoulders. He did not look up at our entrance, but gave a startled jump when Hal cleared his throat, swinging around to face us.

  “Oh, there you are,” he said, running a hand down his face. His eyebrows went up when he saw the sling on my arm. “What happened to you?”

  Hal grimaced. “He met with a bit of an accident.”

  “I see.” Peter leaned back in his chair wearily. “Nothing serious, I hope?”

  “I’m all right.” I sat down on the sofa and bit the inside of my cheek as the movement jostled my arm. “Or I will be, anyway. What did you want to speak to us about?”

  Hal looked over at me, the line reappearing between his eyes. He walked over to the fireplace, tossing in one of his packets. The pleasant smell of it filled the library, and my headache eased at once. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and leaned back against the mantel, looking expectantly at Peter.

  Peter sighed and reached down to a satchel that sat next to his chair. He opened it and pulled out a ledger which he laid out on the tea table. He looked up at me. “You remember what I told you—about the payments Sir Jasper was making, I mean?”

  “Yes.” I frowned. “Have you found something else?”

  He scrubbed a hand across his forehead; there was an ink splotch on the cuff of his shirt. “I—well, in a way, yes. I went over the books again last night, after you left. These payments—Sir Jasper has been making them for some time, it seems.”

  Hal pushed himself away from the mantel, picking up the ledger. “How long?”

  “As near as I can tell, almost since the mine was founded,” Peter said. “But it isn’t the mine’s money. This is—this is Sir Jasper’s personal ledger.” He looked to the door of the library and swallowed, dropping his voice. “He’d have my head if he knew I was showing it to you.”

  Hal flipped through the ledger, pipe clenched between his teeth. “T.S.,” he said. “Those initials mean nothing to you?”

  Peter shook his head. He stood and began pacing, a harried look on his face. “And I knew nothing of it—despite being his secretary. I only stumbled upon it by mistake.”

  “Hm.” Hal set the ledger down. “And you think this is blackmail money?”

  “I don’t know,” Peter said, running his hands through his hair. “I don’t know that I would have thought anything of it at all—except for this trouble with Cec—with Miss Pryce.”

  The maid came i
n, carrying the tea tray, and the sharp medicinal scent of the tea filled the library. I took a cup, feeling it warm my hands, and as I drank it, the pain in my arm died down to a dull ache.

  Peter refused a cup himself, wrinkling his nose at the smell of it. “What sort of tea is that?”

  “A health tea.” Hal stood with his arms folded, looking down at the ledger, his brows knit together. “Never mind that. What makes you believe these payments have anything to do with Miss Pryce’s illness?”

  Peter began pacing again. “I don’t know. I only know that someone is trying to harm her—and Sir Jasper.”

  “You’re quite attached to Sir Jasper,” Hal said. He looked up at Peter, raising an eyebrow. “To say nothing of his daughter.”

  “Sir Jasper has been very kind to me,” Peter said, his face reddening. “As for Miss Pryce—we’ve been friends since we were children.”

  Hal took his pipe from his mouth, refilling it. “I’m given to understand it goes a bit further than that.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” Peter looked away from Hal; the redness had spread from his face to his ears.

  Hal put the pipe back in his mouth, eyebrows raised. “Don’t you?”

  Peter went back to his chair, putting his head in his hands. “All right. Yes, I’m in love with her. I always have been.”

  “Then you must have resented her attachment to her cousin,” Hal said.

  “No.” Peter sat up, shaking his head. He smiled ruefully. “I’m not an idiot, Mr. Bishop. Sir Jasper took an interest in me—but I’m still only a miner’s son. Cecilia is a baron’s niece. I admire from afar—that’s all I can ever do.”

  Hal regarded him silently for a moment, curls of smoke rising from his pipe. Then he picked up the ledger, handing it back to Peter. “I think you’d better take this back before Sir Jasper notices that it’s gone.”

  Peter looked up at him blankly, then shook his head, reaching out and taking the ledger from Hal. “Yes—yes, I suppose that’s right.” He ran a hand over it, frowning. “Then you don’t think this means anything?”