by Cach, Lisa
The Raven Witch
by
Lisa Cach
Originally published as “Bewitching the Baron” by Dorchester Publishing
Version 1.1 – December, 2012
Published by Lisa Cach at Smashwords
Copyright © 2012 by Lisa Cach
Discover other titles by Lisa Cach at www.lisacach.com
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Prologue
Yorkshire, 1722
The chill of Death frosted the air. It slid its way inside through the crack beneath the door, and crept stealthily down the hall and into the bedrooms. It had already caressed the faces of two in this house, draining the warmth from their lifeless flesh, and now had returned to wrap itself around the one remaining member of the family.
Valerian Bright did not feel its cold touch as it slid under the covers at the foot of her bed, stealing up her body, searching for weakness. She was deep in battle with her fever, fighting with the strength for which she had been named. She did not know that her parents lay dead in their room, did not hear the voice of her neighbor Mrs. Beatty, who prayed quietly at her bedside: prayed for Valerian’s recovery, for the souls of her parents, and prayed most fervently of all that her own family would be safe from the fever.
The gloom of twilight slowly grew, a deep charcoal that expanded from the corners of the room. Mrs. Beatty lit candles against it and stirred the fire, listening to the crackling of the burning wood that was so incongruously cheerful in a house of death.
Mrs. Beatty heard the front door open and footsteps on the wooden floor, and she traced the paths and owners in her mind. It was her husband and the village undertaker, come to take away the bodies.
She went to the bed and looked down at Valerian. The girl was gaunt from her illness, her black hair lank, her cheeks flushed crimson. Mrs. Beatty pressed her own cool fingers to the child’s forehead, and she brushed back a wisp of sweat-dampened hair stuck to Valerian’s fevered cheek. “So young,” she whispered. Even if the girl survived, she would be orphaned. There was an aunt somewhere in Cumbria, but Mrs. Beatty had been unable as yet to contact her.
Down the hall, the front door opened again, creaking loudly on its hinges. Mrs. Beatty turned her head, her face still, listening. The men were yet in the next room, voices and footsteps muffled by the wall.
A cold wind rushed through the bedroom, and then the front door slammed, hard, the force of it sending vibrations through the walls and floors of the house. A gentle warmth began to heat the room, and the chill that had been present throughout the long day finally dispersed.
Footsteps, loud and purposeful, approached from down the hallway.
Deep in her fever, Valerian saw strange images. Her mind wove stories from them as time flowed on around her, unnoticed. She hardly knew that she continued to exist at all. As she weakened, the confusion of the dreams gave way. The images faded and darkened, until a night fell upon her mind.
Ahead of her appeared a distant glow, and she moved toward it, slowly at first, then rushing soundlessly through a vast distance, the luminescence growing brighter and stronger. All at once she was in it, surrounded by it, and warmth infused her. Her parents were with her, and caught her up in their arms.
After an eternal moment they set her down, and her father spoke.
“Valerian, my dearest. You cannot stay here.”
“You are not yet finished with your life,” her mother said. “You have much to do, and a gift to share with others.”
“You must go back,” her father said.
For a moment she understood. The path of her life lay before her in perfect clarity. She felt the power of her gift flowing through her, as rich as blood. But then something was pulling her away, dragging her from her parents, from warmth and understanding. She fell from them, back through the empty black space, and awoke to the heaviness of her body, hot and weak and damp under a layer of blankets.
She heard the subdued voices of women and opened her eyes, squinting against the dim light.
“Mother?” she whispered, her throat hoarse.
There were quick footsteps, a firm hand taking her own, and then a face, familiar and not familiar. The woman had black hair streaked with lightning bolts of white at the temples, and a face weathered by sun and wind. The line of her nose, the curve of her brows were as Valerian’s mother’s, but the eyes themselves were deep green, not the light blue that Valerian had inherited from Emmeline Bright.
Valerian frowned, concentrating, the seemingly familiar face confusing her. An answer finally came, forming on her lips as she thought it. “Aunt Theresa?”
“Yes, my sweet. I shall take care of you now. Your mother asked me to.”
“They said I had to stay,” she complained softly.
“I know they did.” Theresa kissed her brow as tears spilled down Valerian’s cheek. “I know. Sleep now, child. Sleep.”
Chapter One
Cumbria, 1737
“Grey skies over Greyfriars. How appropriate. And exactly how I remember the godforsaken place.” Nathaniel Warrington, the new Baron Ravenall, surveyed with a depressed heart the thatched roofs of the small village coming into sight, thin streamers of smoke rising from the stone chimneys and blending with the heavy sky.
“It looks welcoming enough to me, if it means we have almost reached Raven Hall and I can get off this damn horse,” Paul Carlyle grumbled, shifting his posterior on the smooth leather of the saddle. “I don’t know when I last spent such an eternity on horseback. My arse isn’t used to such cruel treatment, I’m telling you. And I need a drink. Is there an inn in this midden heap of a town?”
“Last I remember, but that was over fifteen years ago, and it looked ready to fall apart then.”
“Inns never fall apart. They slowly sink and their beams go askew, but they never fall apart. Burn, sometimes. You don’t think it has burned down, do you?”
“How the hell should I know? I told you, I haven’t been here for years.”
“Maybe there’s something to drink at the hall. Your old Uncle Georgie had a cellar, right?”
Nathaniel gritted his teeth. Paul’s company had been entertaining for the first fifty miles, bearable for the next forty, and then had slowly deteriorated into intolerable. In as bleak a humor as he had been upon leaving London, he had thought that Paul’s presence would lighten his mood. What a mistake.
Paul had had his own reasons to accompany him into this uncivilized hinterland, not the least of which was the sword-wielding husband of a certain pleasantly plump lady in the city. Which reminded Nathaniel:
“Your battle wound acting up?” he inquired sweetly.
Paul let loose a stream of profanity.
“Such rudeness, my friend,” Nathaniel said.
“I’d like to see how cheery you would be, if it were your ass with the slash.”
“I would never be caught in flagrante delicto with a man’s wife, and most certainly wouldn’t have scrambled bare-assed through a window if I had.”
“Made a big white target for him, I did,” Paul said, his mouth twisting. “He aimed for the moon, and got it.”
The miserable trip was almost at its end, and although unlike Paul he was in excellent physical health, Nathaniel too would be happy to get off the roads and out of the saddle. Despite their retinue of armed footmen, they had tw
ice been accosted by highwaymen, and had left more than one thieving body dead along the roadside to be collected later by his comrades. It was no worse than they deserved, but the encounters left him feeling hollow, with each dead body a grisly illustration of the pointlessness of life.
“You should be safe from the temptations of wedded female flesh at Raven Hall,” Nathaniel said. “I hardly remember a clean face, much less a pretty one.”
“Thank God for that. Maybe it won’t be so bad for you, your exile here. It should be easy to remain in your family’s good graces. Nothing to distract you from upright and moral behavior. Be a proper young baron, pillar of the community, eating beef and pudding, and growing fat with gouty joints.”
“Good God, man, you don’t need to make it sound worse than it already is.”
“Rrrrawk!” came a harsh cry from off to the side of the muddy road. Nathaniel pulled his mount to a halt, Paul and the footmen behind following suit. His eyes lit on the source of the noise, an immense black raven perched on a tree branch, its black head hunched down into its glossy feathers, one eye turned to examine him.
The men stared at the unusually large and curious bird, and then Paul burst out laughing. “He has come to welcome you home, Baron Ravenall. If I were a more superstitious man, I’d say it was an omen.” He lowered his voice dramatically. “The ravens of Raven Hall shall claim your soul, and you shall never see London again.”
Annoyed by his friend, and subtly disturbed by the knowing look in the bird’s eye, Nathaniel nudged his mount to where he could reach the end of the branch where the raven sat, and jerked on the limb.
“Rrrawww!” the bird protested, wings spreading and flapping as he sought to hold tight to the branch. Nathaniel shook the branch again, harder, and at last the raven gave up, dropping toward the ground before his yard-wide wingspan caught the air, and he beat his way up, passing close enough that Nathaniel could feel the rush of air on his cheek.
“Eee-diot!” the raven screeched, and flapped his way off toward town.
Stunned, Nathaniel watched it go, his jaw slack. “Did that bird just call me an idiot?”
When no answer came, he turned to look at Paul and the others. One and all, their eyes were round, their jaws agape.
“You heard it?”
Paul finally spoke. “I’m suddenly not so eager to see this ancestral hall of yours.”
Nathaniel shrugged, trying to shake off the eerie occurrence. “The bird called me as he saw me. If I weren’t a fool, I wouldn’t be here now.” And there was truth to that statement. His disappointed family had exiled him to the remote estate he had recently inherited from his maternal great-uncle, but he would have left London even without their urging. His recent actions and their tragic consequences had shaken him to the core, and made him question all that he had once been sure of: his friends, his way of life, his own worth as a human being. He floated now in a black pool of self-loathing and doubt, and did not know in which direction to swim for shore. He hoped that by retreating to remote Raven Hall, he might find the space and quiet to make sense out of the mess that was his life.
Damn the raven. It had probably only sounded like it had spoken, and it had been their own imaginations that had given meaning to the cawing. Ravens did not speak.
Valerian lifted the hot compress from the back of Sally’s neck and examined the boil, gently testing the surface with her fingertip.
“Will you be lancing it?” Sally asked with a tremor in her voice, tilting her head so she could see Valerian’s face. She was sitting on a stool outside the front door of her small cottage, where the daylight allowed Valerian to better see the boil.
“I think that might be best. It’ll heal more quickly, and you won’t be in such pain, what with your collar rubbing against it all the time.”
Sally stared down at her hands clasped tightly between her knees and nodded, a few strands of lank brown hair falling against her cheek, shielding her face. Valerian tucked a few of the strands back behind Sally’s ear, her other hand resting lightly on the woman’s shoulder. She loved her work as a healer; loved the moments of connection it gave her to people, and the chance to improve their lives, in however small a way. “You will barely feel it,” she reassured her. “It won’t take but a minute to do, and I’ll put something on it that will help it to heal quickly.”
“I’ve been through worse.”
Valerian silently agreed with that. Sally had three sons living, and had given birth to four other children. The woman knew something about pain. Lancing the boil would hardly compare, but Valerian had come to expect people to dread any form of medical care. Most put off any treatment at all until their condition grew so terrible that they were forced to it.
She dipped her rag back into the small kettle of steaming water at her feet, then gently pressed it once again against the inflammation, drawing the infection to the surface. She took out her small case of knives and made a selection, then paused. Best to give Sally something else upon which to concentrate. She dug into her basket and pulled out a small wooden carving of a bird with two shiny black stones as eyes.
“Here, hold this.”
Sally looked up from under her brows, then down at the carving Valerian had thrust into her hands. She chuckled. “It looks like Oscar.”
“It does rather, doesn’t it? It’s more than a mere carving, though. Hold it tightly in your hands, and let only an eye show. Now, I want you to stare into that eye. Concentrate on it. Think only of the bird in your hand, and the eye watching you.”
As Sally obeyed, Valerian finished preparing. She heard and sensed movement nearby in the lane, but ignored it as the usual activity of village life. She was as intent on her task as Sally was on the carved bird. “See only the eye, you are aware of nothing but the eye,” she murmured, and with a swift, short stroke she lanced the boil. Sally didn’t even flinch.
“The eye is watching you, watching over you, protecting you,” Valerian continued softly, and proceeded with draining the boil, using scraps of clean cloth to catch the discharge. When she was finished, she took a small pot of salve from her basket and began to dress the wound.
Now that the worst of it was over and little of her concentration required, Valerian’s senses shouted that she was being watched, and she turned. Her breath caught at sight of the mounted figures who had paused to observe her. They were a mass of richly colored cloth riding high on fine horses, and for a moment she could not distinguish one from the other. She had never seen such a collection on the muddy street of Greyfriars. They were a beautiful assemblage, and at the same time an intimidating, frightening one. She saw herself for a moment as they must see her: wearing faded homespun clothing, her black hair hanging in a thick loose braid down her back, a pile of pus-soaked rags beside her. To their sophisticated eyes, she must look every inch the ignorant country peasant, beneath notice, beneath contempt. Her back went rigid, her jaw tight.
“By God, Nathaniel, I declare that was by far the most revolting scene I’ve ever witnessed,” one of the men said. “I’m of a mind to leave you to your fate. Derogatory birds from hell, bursting pustules—what further pleasures await in this cesspit?”
Valerian narrowed her eyes at the speaker, a slender young man, perhaps a couple of years older than herself, with blond eyebrows. A wig of curls hid his hair, but his features were fine, with a thin straight nose with nostrils flared in distaste, as if offended by the very air. Her diagnostic eye took in the pained manner in which he sat his horse, favoring one buttock. “If you find my activities so repulsive, sir, then I shall be most happy to leave the care of that sore on your buttocks to your own hand.”
The blond man’s eyes widened, and he shifted in his saddle, but it was his companion who answered her, an amused smile playing on his lips. “My apologies for my friend. It’s been a long journey, and as you correctly surmised, his hindquarters are not in their usual state of, er… youthful vigor.”
Valerian turned her gaze to this ne
w speaker, and for a moment lost all sense of time and place. She felt dizzy, and a pain struck her heart, and one single, impossible thought: I want. She took in the breadth of his shoulders and his relaxed attitude in the saddle, his dark eyebrows, and the faint shadow of whiskers darkening his square jaw, and felt as if the breath had been stolen from her. I want, I want…oh God help me, who is he, I want him… Men never affected her in such a way. Never. What’s happening? Who is he? I can’t breathe… She could not see the color of the stranger’s eyes, but they stared at her from a strong, symmetrical face that wore an expression of condescending amusement.
That attitude of entitlement recalled her to herself, and as quickly as the overwhelming attraction has struck her, she in turn struck it away. She was impossibly beneath him in social standing; impossibly unattractive—she was a wise woman, a witch, the next thing to a crone—and a life devoid of suitors had taught her that no man would ever want her. She, therefore, would not want any man. She would not make her heart vulnerable.
She fell in love, and as quickly into hatred, in the space of a breath, and barely knew it had happened.
“Who are they?” Sally whispered behind her.
Valerian turned her head, frowning. Sally still clasped the carving, but obviously Valerian’s altercation with the strangers had broken the entrancement. Sally’s eyes were bright with a mix of nervousness and curiosity.
“A very good question,” the dark man said in his lightly mocking tone. “I must apologize again, this time for having failed to introduce myself. I’m Nathaniel Warrington, the new Baron Ravenall, and this rude man is my friend, Paul Carlyle. Presently sans title, but if he lives long enough, he may yet see the day when he inherits one.”
Valerian gave Paul one of her notorious smiles, the smile that showed her slightly long, pointed canines, and made her look, she had been told, like a wolf salivating for the kill. The smile clearly expressed her doubt that Paul would live to see his inheritance. She was rewarded by his shudder.
“Welcome to Greyfriars, Baron Ravenall,” Valerian then said, turning to the man who apparently had every right to act entitled in the town he now owned. “Your great-uncle is mourned by us all. He was a good, fair man, and is sorely missed.” She tilted her head, and her voice took on a musing quality. “We have all been wondering if his successor would prove his equal.”