Her Muse, Her Magic

by Jane Charles

  Brighid stared out the window at the torrent of falling rain. What was she to do with herself? The herbarium was clean and organized. Even if it wasn’t, she couldn’t stand to be in that room a moment longer. It was almost as if that trunk called to her, begging to be opened. But she refused. She would not give in to the temptation. Those were items of the past and had nothing to do with her. She was not magical and as she was not a witch. They served no purpose.

  She probably should check on Blake. The maid reported that he was doing better, but it hurt too much to see him.

  All she would ever be to him was a healer, a neighbor…a witch. When in need of female companionship, he sought out someone else. A very blond and pale someone else.

  Who was she anyway? The woman hadn’t been at breakfast, as Bradenham’s other guests had. Then again, it had only been gentlemen. Perhaps all the ladyloves slept late and took their morning meal in their rooms. She had heard that ladies rarely left their beds before noon in London, though why anyone would wish to waste the best part of the day lying about was beyond her.

  She had thought to ask about the woman, but as she was probably Blake’s mistress, it wasn’t a proper topic to discuss. She just wished one of the servants would at least gossip about her so Brighid she could learn more.

  “There you are.”

  Brighid jumped and turned to find Blake striding into the morning room. What was he doing up and about? “How are you feeling?”

  “Much better,” he answered, coming further into the room. “Where have you been?”

  So he had noticed she had not come to check on him. “I’ve been here.”

  “But you had a maid deliver the tea.”

  He seemed almost angry. He shouldn’t be. It wasn’t as though she meant anything to him. “You were well taken care of.”

  “By a maid?” he asked incredulously. “You are the healer.”

  She made his tea and stayed to make sure he recovered. What more did he want from her? He already shattered her heart, not that she would ever tell him, of course. “I am sure you were well cared for by your friend.” There, she had let him know she knew about his lover. Now he should just go to that woman and leave her alone.

  “Friend? None of them visited with me, other than to stick their heads inside the door and ask how I was feeling,” he grumbled.

  “I didn’t mean the gentlemen who arrived at the castle with you.” Did he really wish to deny he brought his mistress? “I was talking about her.”

  “Who?” Blake threw up his hands. “You persist in mentioning this she, yet I still don’t know who you are talking about.”

  Did he think her a fool? “I saw her, Blake Chetwey. Twice I checked on you in the middle of the night to make sure you were resting comfortably only to see that woman lying across you.” Her face heated with embarrassment. These matters were not discussed in polite company, but she wasn’t about to let him pretend he did not have a mistress with him.

  “What?” He looked at her as if she had gone mad, which they both knew very well that she had not.

  “The blond woman, in a white nightshift, laying across you as if she were your only blanket.”

  “I can assure you that there has been no woman in my bed,” he nearly shouted.

  How could he stand there and lie to her? “I saw her with my own eyes.”

  “Your eyesight is going. The only women who have been in my chamber, other than you and Miss Alcott that first day, are the maids who bring me tea and the one who checks on me at night. All she does is feel my brow and then I fall asleep.”

  Brighid snorted. That woman did more than feel his brow.

  “What is going on in here?” Mrs. Small demanded as she came into the room. “I could hear your voices all the way in the library.”

  Brighid bit her lip and stepped back. It was not well done of them to be shouting in Lord Bradenham’s home. Goodness, she hadn’t even met the gentleman yet and Blake was his guest.

  “I was trying to explain to Brighid that there was no woman in my, um, well…” Blake’s face grew red, which Brighid rather enjoyed. “Let’s just say that I arrived here with my male friends and nobody else, nor has anyone at the castle been entertaining me.”

  “I saw her, Blake Chetwey. Yet you deny it.”

  “I don’t know what you think you saw, but that woman is not my mistress.”

  “Enough,” Mrs. Small shouted. “I’ve known the two of you since were wee ones and you were friends before now. Let’s get to the bottom of this.” She turned to Brighid. “You say a woman was in his bed.”

  “Yes, a blond woman.”

  Mrs. Small turned to Blake. “You have seen her as well?”

  “I’ve only seen young woman at the side of my bed.”

  Mrs. Small nodded. “Very well, come with me.”

  Blake stared after the woman for a long moment before he shared a confused look with Brighid.

  “Well, come on,” Mrs. Small insisted and turned from the room.

  With a shrug, Blake followed her, as did Brighid, as the housekeeper led them to the second level and into a gallery of sorts. The walls were lined with portraits of what Blake assumed were former residents of the castle. There were so many on each wall that it was difficult to tell the pattern of the paper behind them.

  Mrs. Small stood in the center of the room, her hands fisted on her hips. “Which one was it?”

  Blake stared at her in confusion. “Which one was what?”

  The housekeeper gestured to the many portraits. “Which one of them visited you?”

  He barked out a laugh. “You think it was a ghost.”

  She narrowed her eyes on him. “Don’t make fun, Mr. Blake Chetwey.”

  He sobered and did as she asked. It was ridiculous, of course. The woman beside his bed was too real to be a ghost. Besides, he wasn’t even sure he believed in them.

  Brighid wandered away, looking at the paintings as she went. She gasped and stopped before a portrait at the far end of the room. Curiosity pulled him to her and Blake stared up at the portrait, his heart hammering against his chest. That was the woman who had cooled his brow.

  “Is that her?” Mrs. Small asked from behind them.

  “Yes,” Brighid answered in a whisper. Blake was too shocked to speak so he simply nodded.

  “I should have thought so,” Mrs. Small announced. “The young woman did die in that room.”

  “Surely you are joking.” Blake couldn’t tear his eyes form the portrait. There had to be something in the painting to prove that a ghost had not been giving him comfort.

  “How?” Brighid asked as she turned.

  “The poor thing was only seventeen at the time. She was to be married in a week, you know?”

  “No, we didn’t,” Blake answered dryly as he turned toward the housekeeper. Could he really believe this woman?

  “She was in love, so they say. Her name was Blythe Tucker,” Mrs. Small explained sadly. “She had caught some type of auge and, fearing for her health, her father summoned the physician.” She focused on Brighid. “Had they been wise, they would have asked the healer to tend her and perhaps she wouldn’t have died.”

  “The doctor couldn’t help her?” Brighid asked with interest.

  Mrs. Small scrunched her nose in disgust. “Man bled her to death.”

  A chill ran up Blake’s spine.

  “So that is why she knocked the blade from Dr. Alcott’s hand,” Brighid said after a moment.

  Blake pinned her with a look. “You are going to believe this nonsense?”

  “Either that or you explain the woman in your bed.”

  Blake thrust his fingers through his hair and stomped away from them and the portraits. “There is a reasonable explanation.”

  Blake startled awake, unsure of what had pulled him from his sleep. Then he heard them—the children. If Brighid was to be believed they were ghost children. Coolness brushed his cheek and he jerked, turning his head, expecting to find a win
dow open or the curtains moving with the breeze.

  Instead it was her! She was in his bed, her long cold leg draped across his lap and an arm across his chest. She smiled at him and he was mesmerized by her beauty and the warmth of her green eyes. Except her eyes were the only thing that held any heat. He shivered at her cold touch and attempted to scoot away.

  Her arm and leg clamped down on him, making it impossible to slide from beneath her. For a ghost, if that is what she was, she was exceedingly strong.

  “Blythe?” he asked, still not quit believing what Mrs. Small had said yesterday. Yet, the woman in his bed was the very image of Blythe Tucker in the portrait.

  She smiled brilliantly and lowered her lips to his.

  Blake tried to avoid her kiss, but she held his head in place and her lips descended to his. He remained still. Perhaps she just needed a kiss and then she would be on her way.

  She drew in his breath, and he tried to close his lips. The pressure of her mouth upon his kept it open as she sucked more and more air from his body. His lungs burned with the need to breathe in. Good God, the bloody ghost was going to suffocate him if he couldn’t break free long enough to call for help.

  Brighid balanced the tray on her hip and took a deep breath. She had hoped to see Blake yesterday, but he had not emerged from his room after leaving the portrait gallery. All night she fretted that he had suffered a relapse, but she kept herself from going to his room. It didn’t matter that the woman in his bed was a ghost; she still didn’t like seeing another female draped across him.

  When Blake didn’t come down to breakfast, Brighid knew she couldn’t remain away, so she brewed a cup of tea in case he’d suffered a relapse from being up and about too soon.

  She tapped lightly on the door, but he did not bid her entrance. Brighid waited and then knocked again, still no response. Biting her lip, she stared at the door. Had he gone down and she had missed him?

  What if he was too ill to answer?

  She took another breath, turned the handle and stepped inside. She lost her grip on the tray and it fell, clanging against the floor boards, the cup and saucer shattering, propelling shards of porcelain about her.

  Blake lay on the bed, struggling beneath the ghost. He was kicking his legs and pushing at the woman, but his hands were going through her shoulders as if she weren’t there. Of course, she was a ghost, but she had somehow managed to hold Blake in place.

  The ghost showed no reaction to the noise and continued to practically molest Blake. Brighid picked up a discarded pillow and threw it at Blythe. It went right through her, but startled the apparition enough that she broke her hold on Blake before she turned to glare at Brighid.

  She raised her arm and thrust her palm toward the ghost. “Be gone.”

  In a whoosh, the ghost of Blythe Tucker disappeared.

  Brighid rushed to the side of Blake’s bed. He sat up, gasping for breath. “I think she just tried to kill me.”

  Her heart nearly stopped. She knew that not all the ghosts were as friendly as the Mordue children, but did they have murderous ones about as well?

  She would have to learn more about Blythe. There were stories to go with all of the ghosts, but she had not heard of this one until Mrs. Small told them of her yesterday. Had she truly been trying to kill Blake? Did she want to take him to the other side to be with her? If that was her plan, Brighid was not about to allow her to do so. “You cannot stay in this room.”

  “I am not sure I want to stay in this bloody castle.”

  Brighid paced in the corridor outside of Blake’s room. What if Blythe came back and she wasn’t there to help? Of course, she couldn’t remain inside while he dressed for the day, but that didn’t mean she was at all comfortable with him being alone in the room. When she suggested he ask one of his friends to stay with him, Blake had glowered at her. “I am not about to let any of them think I am afraid to be alone in this chamber.”

  The door opened and Brighid let out a sigh. Blake stood there, put to rights and still alive. At least she hoped he was. Some of these ghosts could appear to be very real. She lifted a hand and touched his cheek. His skin was warm and smooth.

  Blake quirked a brow, “Satisfied?”

  “I will be when you are given another chamber.”

  He held out his arm and she took his elbow. “As will I,” He paused in the middle of the stairs. “but don’t tell the others the true reason. Let them believe I don’t wish to stay in my sick room.”

  It seemed rather silly to her. “Very well.” Brighid pulled away from him when they reached the foyer. “I assume you will wish to go into breakfast.”

  Blake studied her. There was a slight tilt to his head and concern in his eyes, as if he were seeing her for the first time. “You made Blythe disappear.” His words were low, but she heard them just the same.

  “I startled her. That is all.” That had to be all. She certainly didn’t have the power to make the ghost disappear any more than she had the power to protect a room with a spell, or look into the future, or conjure a spirit as her ancestors claimed to be able to do. She wouldn’t allow it to be so.

  A lazy smile came to his lips before he dragged her into a sitting room. “Are you sure it isn’t because you are a witch?

  His tone was teasing but it hurt nonetheless. “Why do you insist on calling me such a vile name?”

  Blake’s smile slipped. “I am only teasing.”

  “That doesn’t mean it hurts any less.” She pulled away and walked to the window. The rain continued, keeping her in the castle. There was really no other reason to be here anymore. Blake had recovered and she wasn’t really a guest of Lord Bradenham’s, but she couldn’t trek through the woods to her grandmothers in this downpour. She would be soaked before she reached the gate at the back of the castle and the path home would be nothing but mud.

  “Why do you call me a witch?” she asked. Blake had begun using the nickname when she was only a child and she’d never understood why.

  His breath heated her neck, sending shivers down her spine. How could she not know he was so close to her? Strong warm hands caressed her upper arms. “Don’t you remember?”

  She turned and looked up into his warm, green eyes. He wasn’t laughing at her any longer and she read a deeper emotion in their depths. Was it possible he cared for her?

  Brighid quickly dismissed the possibility. Blake Chetwey would never have feelings any deeper than friendship for her, if that. “I’m not sure I do,” she finally answered.

  “I had gotten lost. Fell into an old well, actually. It began to rain, much as it is now, and the well began to fill. I had no way of getting out. I thought for certain I was going to die. And then someone dropped a rope down to me.”

  “You were just a boy.” Brighid dismissed, trying to block the memory of that day.

  “My aunt said you were the one who said I was in the clearing. That when asked if you knew where I was you grew silent, stared straight ahead, as if your mind had gone away, and then told them where to find me.”

  Her heart hammered in her chest. Brighid remembered it well. She had seen Blake, at the bottom of the well, the water rising. She didn’t understand how she saw it; just that she did, but she’d never told anyone that she had an actual vision. The entire experience had scared her enough that she feared anyone asking her a question for a very long time. “You told me you were going to the clearing, remember? It was as simple as that.” She had wanted to trail after him. Even when she was the tender age of five, Blake Chetwey had fascinated her. “And that I was to leave you alone.”

  His face colored, but the left side of his mouth tipped up in half a smile. “I was thirteen and didn’t want to be bothered with having a child about.”

  “That is when you started calling me a witch.”

  “The day was frightening enough and then to have been rescued because of a girl…it stung. I figured the only way you could have known where I was is if you were a witch.”

 
; His reasoning made sense, not that she liked it any more than before. “It isn’t very flattering.”

  He pulled her closer. “When I was a boy, it was less humiliating to be saved by a witch than a little girl. As I grew older, and you turned into a beautiful young woman, it was still safer to keep calling you a witch.”

  Her pulsed raced. He thought her beautiful? Was it possible he could one day feel as she did? “I do not understand you, Blake Chetwey.”

  He didn’t understand either. Except, when Brighid ceased being a witch, she became a desirable, enchanting miss that he was drawn to each time he returned to the Abbey, but tried to avoid. When he visited at the age of five and twenty, and encountered seventeen-year-old Brighid picking wildflowers along the road, his heart was nearly ripped from his chest. But he had his life ahead of him and couldn’t be bothered with a miss at such a young age, nor give any consideration to a permanent relationship when there was so much he still wished to experience. And the things he wished to do with Brighid require marriage. He wanted her so badly that he nearly tossed away all the plans he had made. The only reason she could have accomplished such a feat was if she had truly bewitched him.

  He was too young, as was she, so he tried to keep her at a distance that summer and the years that followed. He’d continued to think of her as a witch. It was best for them both.

  But he couldn’t think of her in those terms any longer. He must face the fact that he had been in love with her for three years and it had nothing to do with magic.

  “My ancestors were considered witches,” she said after a moment. This bit of information shouldn’t surprise him. Between the ghosts of the castle and the link her family had to it going back centuries, he wouldn’t be shocked if a few of them hadn’t been accused of witchcraft in the past. There had always been talk about the women in Brighid’s family being witches, but each time he began to give it serious consideration, he insisted to himself it was impossible.

  “Some were burned.”

  “At the stake?”