A Heart So Wicked (The Dark Regency Series Book 6)

by Chasity Bowlin

  “Malcolm,” Kit said, “You need to read this! It was here even then… this thing we’ve encountered. It killed her!”

  He took the letter from Kit’s outstretched hand. She didn’t wait for him to read it but moved on to the next. Each one was the same, each one expressing a hopelessness and despair that she couldn’t begin to fathom. Even at her lowest point while being beaten down by Patrice’s constant disapproval and the menial, back breaking tasks put before her, she hadn’t felt so despondent.

  “And she’s she’d trapped here,” he said. “Still surrounded by them even to this day. What a miserable existence.”

  “Not for long,” Kit vowed. “We need to find this illegitimate daughter. I would lay my last shilling that she’s the one controlling it now… or rather she thinks she is. In truth, I believe she’s playing right into its hands. It wants her to use it, so that it use her in return. And when we’re gone, eliminated, it’ll turn on her, just like Nan said.”

  “It will not happen,” he promised. “We will prevail. I refuse to accept any other alternative.”

  “How?”

  “We know two things that we did not before we entered these attics… we now know the gender of Lord Hadley’s offspring, and her age. And we also know, or have a good idea of, where they performed whatever strange rituals they were a party to. We will find the answers, Katherine. I promise you that.”

  She wanted to believe that, to believe him. But so few things in her life had worked out as planned. Nothing was as painful as lost hope. “I wish I could be so confident.”

  “Get up. We’re not wasting any more time in these moldering attics. We’re going to the source,” he said.

  Kit rose and dusted off her skirts. She didn’t leave the writing box behind, however. As she gently placed the other items back in the trunk, she wondered at the short and tragic life of her predecessor. With the writing box in hand, she waited as Malcolm gathered the others and they made their way down to the third floor and the ballroom that had been closed up for nearly two decades.

  Vera and Joseph were sent to the kitchens, ostensibly to prepare luncheon, but in truth because they had no idea what sort of items would be found in the room that had been mentioned. If the perversions that had been alluded to were true, there was no predicting what might be awaiting them inside.

  “We should identify the daughter first,” Malcolm said. He turned to Nan, “Given the date of this letter, she’d be close in age to Katherine. So who is it?”

  Nan cocked her head to the side. “Your mother was gone from here then, she left Lofton and took off for London and never looked back… We never even saw you here until she’d passed away and your father returned. And then you became thick as thieves with the Fairington girl, Georgiana. Her father never left Lofton, and if I recall, her mother was a bit of a scandalous creature… and very much a frequent guest here at Rosedale Hall.”

  “How do you know all this?” Malcolm demanded.

  Nan shrugged. “Lofton thrives on gossip. It always has and I suspect that it always will… But Georgiana, other than the little spectacle created by Ned Cavendish when he claimed that you tried to seduce him, has never had her name attached to any scandal at all. Funny that.”

  “Are you suggesting that Georgiana is responsible for all of this?” Kit demanded, aghast. It was a ludicrous thought. Georgiana had never hinted at any kind of magic. She’d even scoffed at love charms when they’d attended a fair together. But as she recalled that incidence, she remembered how strange Georgiana’s words had been. She hadn’t denied that love charms existed, she’d denied the power of the woman selling them.

  “I’ve no need of her homespun potions. That woman has no power at all.”

  “Oh, heavens… what if it is Georgiana?” she asked. “She hates me so fiercely. I cannot fathom what she might be capable of!”

  “We shall soon find out, my dear,” Nan said, and gripped the handles of the ballroom doors. They opened inward with a dramatic swoosh. There were no curtains, only heavy shutters over the windows, and all of them locked and barred. Malcolm and Lytton made quick work of opening each one to let in as much light as possible.

  Looking around Kit frowned. There was nothing out of place really, and yet the room felt oppressive and threatening. “There is something very wrong here.”

  Nan stepped into the center of the room. She looked decidedly uncomfortable. With a pointed look at Malcolm and Lytton, she said, “Roll back this carpet and we’ll see what’s beneath it.”

  They did as she bade, and as the carpet was rolled back, beneath it was a large circle painted on the floor, black as pitch and marked at intervals with symbols she could not fathom.

  “Runes,” Nan explained. “Like the ancient ones used in the stone circles nearby. ̓Tis powerful magic.”

  “Is this what binds it here, then?” Kit asked.

  “No. This is what allows it to travel. They’ve created a doorway for it… It’s bound to a small object, something that the one who called it could carry upon their person!”

  Kit threw up her hands in frustration. “That could be anywhere. How on earth, in this mess of a house, will we find such an item?”

  “More to the point,” Malcolm said, “What if it isn’t here to find? What if it is in the possession of the late Lord Hadley’s bastard, presumably Georgiana Cavendish?”

  Nan shook her head. “She’ll have an object to call it, to establish communication and if it is here, there’ll be a circle similar to this in her home… But the object that binds it will be here, well hidden. We’ll not find it by looking with our eyes.”

  “What the devil does that mean?” Lytton muttered.

  Kit cast him a quelling glance. Turning her attention back to Nan, she asked, “How do we do that?”

  “Dousing,” she added. “In my chest downstairs, there are two metal rods. Get them bring them to me.”

  Lytton left, still muttering under his breath.

  “What is dousing?”

  “It’s like looking for water with a forked stick, but instead of water, we’re looking for power,” Nan explained.

  “Which is fine, but there’s an abundance of power in this house. What if it leads us in the wrong direction?” Malcolm asked.

  “Power is concentrated at its source… This thing, this dark spirit, will be after protecting its power source in this house. The thing that gives it power is also the thing that binds it!”

  “And again,” Malcolm demanded, “How do you know this?”

  Nan shrugged. “It’s instinct as much as anything. My mother knew things. My grandmother knew things. All the women in my family before me, they knew things too. I trust that whatever guided them and provided those answers is the very thing that guides me now… You must trust in that, as well.”

  Kit squared her shoulders, stepped forward and said firmly, “Tell me what you need me to do and I will do it.”

  Nan stepped out of the circle. “Let’s cover that back up. We don’t need to give it any more access to us here than it might already have.”

  Rolling the carpet back into place, they concealed the circle entirely. Immediately, Kit began to feel better, less threatened. It might only have been the power of suggestion, but given everything that had happened since she’d come to Rosedale Hall, she couldn’t imagine that was the case.

  “You said the others were trapped here as well… why haven’t we seen them?” Malcolm asked, dusting his on the legs of his breeches.

  “I think that you have heard them. The slamming doors, the moved objects… that is all of them. The late Lady Hadley has shown herself to you for a reason, to warn you, and perhaps because she feels protective of Katherine.”

  Malcolm considered her reply, and based upon the unfortunate timing of many of their phantom’s appearances, he could only assume that Nan knew precisely what she was talking about. “That makes more sense than anything else in this mess has.”

  Lytton returned then, his
face flushed and sweat beading on his brow. If he’d run, it hadn’t been because of urgency to complete the task. It had been fear of being caught out there alone. He passed the two metal rods he carried to Nan who accepted them and began to hum softly as she placed one in each hand. As she walked the room, carefully avoiding the circle that was now covered, the rods swung wildly from side to side and then stopped. They vibrated in place, pointing directly toward the cavernous hearth.

  Malcolm moved toward it first, keeping the rest of them behind him as he approached. Whether it was instinct or whether it was simply his own heightened fear, he couldn’t suppress the feeling that there was something very dangerous lurking within the confines of that room.

  As he neared the hearth, wind kicked up, not from outside the house, but from within. Air swirled and danced within the room, kicking up dust and debris until they formed a thick cloud. In the midst of that cloud, a large black mass began to form coalescing into a nearly solid shape.

  Nan reached for his hand, linking their fingers. In her other hand, she held Katherine’s. She began to chant softly.

  “Spirit, I bind thee! Harming none and protected by three! Spirit, I bind thee! Casting down to the depths that bore ye! Spirit, I bind thee! As I will, so mote it be!”

  They were words unlike anything he’d ever heard, but it seemed the very earth shook beneath his feet as they old woman repeated them again and again. At last, the cloud began to dissipate, the black mass shrinking in on itself until it vanished.

  “What just happened here?”

  Nan started to answer but swayed on her feet. He caught her, lowering her to the floor. “It’s strong… too strong for me alone. But there’s no coven anymore to combat such things. It isn’t gone, only licking its wounds. If you mean to find this object, you’ll have to do it now and do it quickly.”

  Her voice was weak and breathless, whatever spell she’d just cast clearly having taken much of her energy. “Wait here,” he said. “Keep your eyes open for any sign of its return!”

  Malcolm rose from the floor and continued toward the hearth. He’d been in a high stakes card game once, and the gentleman, if such a term could be applied to him, who had hosted it, had possessed a pack of vicious but well trained dogs. They’d lain by the door and watched every move of every man present. That was precisely how he felt at that moment, as if something he could not see was watching him, waiting for an opportunity to strike out and literally rip his heart out.

  As he neared the hearth, he heard what could only be described as whispering. It was coming from within the stones. A chill swept through him, raising the hairs on his skin and making him want to run. But he did not. He forced himself to forge ahead and to face whatever might be awaiting him. He refused to live in fear and what he was determined would be his home.

  It was the faint stirring of the air that alerted him, not to the presence of the Dark Spirit as Nan had referred to it, but to something else altogether. Peering into the hearth, he could make out the entrance to a small passage there. “It isn’t a hearth at all. I thought it was overly large for this room, and now I know why. It’s a doorway. There is a chamber beyond here.”

  Katherine moved forward supporting Nan’s weight as the old woman was still terribly weak. Lytton was coming up behind them, pale faced and clearly terrified.

  “That’s it,” Nan said. “That’s where they will have hidden their most valuable and most powerful objects.”

  Malcolm stepped through the opening, having to duck his head inside the smaller space and pushed at the forged iron door. Lytton, terrified as he was, stepped forward to help him.

  “This is hardly what you signed up for, is it?” he asked the valet.

  “I do not dictate my duties, my lord. As your manservant, it is your right to direct me,” the little man answered with false bravado.

  “You’re a good man, Lytton. And I owe you a great more than I can hope to repay.”

  The door finally gave with a loud groan, scraping over the stone floor as they created a wide enough gap for them to squeeze into the small chamber. Not trusting anything in the house, Malcolm took a chair that had been placed in that little chamber of horrors and put it between the door and the frame. He didn’t want to see the lot of them locked in there to die.

  Lytton had already found a candle on the table and he lit it. What it revealed was a macabre collection. Jars and bottles filled with unspeakable things, unnatural things, but it was the small altar in the corner that drew him. Two blades, coated with a dried brown substance he could only assume was blood, flanked a small piece of stone carved with a series of symbols not unlike what they’d just seen on the floor.

  “This is it,” he said. “This tiny rock is the root of all its power?”

  “Pick it up,” Nan said.

  Malcolm reached his hand toward it. He was still inches from touching it when he felt the frisson of current running up his arm. When he finally closed his hand over it, his entire body trembled with the force exerted by that small piece of stone.

  “What is it?” he asked breathlessly.

  “It’s a talisman… like the onyx about our necks. It is how they focused their power to bind that spirit to them.”

  “How can we destroy it?” Katherine asked.

  “We cannot,” Nan said. “We must return from whence it came. There is a circle not far from here.”

  “In the woods,” Katherine surmised. “I never realized that those large boulders where Georgiana and I would walk were anything but that. Is that the place you mean?”

  “Aye. It is. There’s a deep well there to a mineral spring but it has long been covered over… that is where you must return the stone,” Nan said.

  Malcolm couldn’t hold it for that long. There was something dark about it, something that, as much as he feared it, also tried seduce him. It whispered inside him of power that he hadn’t even recognized that he’d ever wanted.

  As if sensing his discomfort, Katherine removed the fichu she wore and passed it to him. “Wrap the stone in that.”

  Not feeling that it offered enough breathing room for his peace of mind, Malcolm removed his cravat and created a second layer of protection. It only muffled the sensation, rather than dissipating it entirely, but it was enough for now.

  “Can you take him to this place, Katherine?” Nan asked.

  “I can. I remember the way,” she reassured them.

  “Then go. And God be with you both,” Nan uttered solemnly.

  Chapter 22

  Georgiana slowed her horse as they made their way through the woods. Ned was on his mount beside her, grousing and complaining. She’d be glad to be rid of him finally. The truth was, she’d only ever wanted him because he’d wanted Kit. The entirety of Kit’s ruin had been her doing, a fact she’d never been able to truly crow about.

  She’d engineered all of it, even arranging their discovery. Ned was so very easy to manipulate that it had taken little persuasion, in truth it had taken no more than a mere suggestion, that somehow all of it had been Kit’s own fault. He’d happily laid it at her door, accusing her of being fast, of seducing him because she was jealous of his affections for Georgiana herself. The remainder of Kit’s ruin had been her doing as well. The heavy losses at cards by her father, the deep melancholy after and then his ultimate suicide.

  It hadn’t all been magic. Some of it had simply been knowing how to navigate society and not being burdened with a conscience. But other aspects of it had taken spells and magic to push people in the directions she’d wanted them to go. It was the same tactic she’d used to get Ned to drive to Lofton yesterday when the roads were not nearly clear enough for such a journey. And yet, they had arrived unscathed. She’d used those same skills again to convince him to accompany her on a ride, but the potion she’d poured in his morning tea was beginning to wear off.

  “What the devil were we thinking, George?” he asked. “It’s foolish enough to drive to Lofton in this weather, but to b
e out for a ride?”

  “It was your idea, darling,” she said with a smile.

  He shook his head in confusion. “Was it really?”

  “Yes… and I hate to be a bother, dearest, but I’m a bit fatigued. It’s so trying to ride sidesaddle after so long. There is a rock formation just ahead. Can we rest there for a moment?”

  He wanted to refuse her. It was plainly evident in the firming of his lips and the muscle that ticked along his rather weak jaw. But after a second’s hesitation, he forced his lips to turn into a false smile and said, “Of course, darling. Naturally. We’ll recoup here for a bit.”

  Georgiana allowed him to ride ahead, plodding along behind him at a snail’s pace. Her athame was concealed in the sleeve of her riding habit. She’d slit his throat and deposit him in that well just as her mother had done with the late Lady Hadley. It was what she’d promised after all, and the reward for obedience would be great.

  As she neared the rocks, Ned had already dismounted and was hastily sweeping snow from the stones so that they’d have a place to sit. “This place is a bit odd, don’t you think?” he asked.

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  He looked over his shoulder, as if he felt the presence of someone else. “It feels a bit eerie here… like someone is watching us from the woods.”

  “Probably a poacher,” she said. “Far more terrified of us catching him and turning him in than we’d ever be of him!”

  He smiled. “Of course, dear. You’re always so sensible about these things.”

  “Let’s take a turn about these stones… some of them look quite interesting. I think there are carvings on some of them!” She knew every carving by heart. Her mother had brought her there and taught her each one of them as a child.

  He offered his arm as if they were at a ball, going into dinner. She didn’t roll her eyes as she wanted to, but instead smiled at him just as she had when he’d first begun to court her, when he’d first fallen under one of the many love spells she’d used to hold his interest over the years. It wasn’t only Ned’s eyes that wandered. It would be a relief, she thought, not to have to worry about him bringing home some horrible pox.