Bewitching the Baron
Page 1
WORLDS APART
“Yes, I should call you by your title, for there is no use in my imagining any deeper intimacy between us. Mr. Carlyle did me the favor of pointing out the difference between our worlds. I have no place in yours, none at all.”
Nathaniel was silent, searching for words to explain that which was not clear even to him.
“You do not know what you want with me, do you?” she snapped.
“I cannot categorize you, if that is what you are asking,” he said, still searching for his own understanding, for an explanation he could give himself for why he could not stand the thought of breaking off their acquaintance. “But God knows I want you.”
“For what, Nathaniel? Am I a friend to have a meal with, or a woman to seduce with a silver bracelet? What do you want from me?” she cried.
He grasped her face between his hands and slid his fingers into her bound hair, abandoning the effort at the thought for that which his body already knew to be true. “This,” he said, and bending down he captured her lips with his own. She resisted for only a moment.
Other books by Lisa Cach:
DREAM OF ME
COME TO ME
GEORGE & THE VIRGIN
MY ZOMBIE VALENTINE (anthology)
OF MIDNIGHT BORN
THE CHANGELING BRIDE
THE MERMAID OF PENPERRO
THE WILDEST SHORE
BEWITCHING
THE BARON
LISA
CACH
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
To Rebecca.
DORCHESTER PUBLISHING
Published by
Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
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New York, NY 10016
Copyright © 2000 by Lisa Cach
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Trade ISBN: 978-1-4285-1664-9
E-book ISBN: 978-1-4285-1666-3
First Dorchester Publishing, Co., Inc. edition: March 2000
The “DP” logo is the property of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
Printed in the United States of America.
Visit us online at www.dorchesterpub.com.
BEWITCHING
THE BARON
Prologue
Yorkshire, 1722
The air was grey and frosty. Death, sliding its way inside through the crack beneath the door, 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 an
d not familiar. The woman had black hair streaked with lightning bolts of white at the temples, 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 distaste 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 bleedin’ horse,” Paul Carlyle grumbled, shifting his posterior on the smooth leather of the saddle. “I do not know when I last spent such an eternity on horseback. My arse is not used to such cruel treatment, I am 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 do not think it has burned down, do you?”
“How the hell should I know? I told you, I have not been here for years.”
“Maybe there is 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 foul a temper as he had himself been upon leaving London, he had somehow thought that Paul would lighten his mood. Quelle erreur. What a mistake.
Paul had certainly had his own reasons to accompany him into this uncivilized hinterland, not the least of which was the sword-wielding husband of a certain plump lady in the city. Which reminded Nathaniel:
“Your battle wound acting up?” he inquired with saccharine sweetness.
“Shut your mouth!”
“Such rudeness, my friend.”
“I would 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 would not have scrambled bare-assed through a window if I had.”
“Made a bloomin’ 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 twice been accosted by highwaymen, and had left more than one thieving body dead along the roadside to be collected later by his comrades. It wore on one’s nerves, travel did.
“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 will not be so bad for you, your exile here. It should be an effortless endeavor 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 do not 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 would 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 am 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 were not a fool, I would not be here now.” And there was truth to that statement. It was an unexamined sense of guilt over his recent actions that had made him willing to submit to the punishment exacted by his disappointed family: exile to the remote estate he had recently inherited from his maternal great-uncle.
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 will heal more quickly, and you will not 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. “You will barely feel it,” she reassured her. “It will not take but a minute to do, and I will put something on it that will help it to heal quickly.”
“I have 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 softly. “It looks like Oscar.”
“It does rather, does it not? It is more
than a mere carving, though. Hold it tightly in your hands, and let only the 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 did not 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 concentration required, her 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 rich 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.
“By God, Nathaniel, I declare that was by far the most revolting scene I have ever witnessed. I am of a mind to leave you to your fate. Derogatory birds from hell, bursting pustules—what further pleasures await?”
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. 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.
“My apologies for my friend. It has been a long journey, and as you correctly surmised, his hindquarters are not in their usual state of youthful health.”