The Age of Witches

by Louisa Morgan

“I’m sorry, Lady Eleanor, but no,” Annis said. “Forgive my bluntness.”

  “You’re direct. I tend to be that way myself.”

  “Yes. I assure you it’s not James’s—Lord Rosefield’s—fault. The truth is that I do not wish to marry.”

  “I think many of us wish we did not have to marry,” Lady Eleanor responded, startling Annis anew. The older woman gave a tiny, flesh-trembling shrug. “We’re females. Marriage is our lot. What else can we do with our lives?”

  “I intend to breed horses. Establish a fine bloodline.”

  “Do you indeed? How ambitious you are. And how will you do that without a husband?”

  “I will have money of my own. I have a home, and stables to work from.”

  “I fear you will learn no one will buy horses from a woman, or trust that she knows what she’s doing.”

  “I do know what I’m doing, though. I have made a study of it.”

  “I believe you, but the men who run the world will not.”

  “But James believes me!” Annis protested, and realized her error immediately.

  Lady Eleanor’s smile was restrained, despite the minor victory Annis’s admission gave her. “Yes, Miss Allington, I believe he does. Wouldn’t that be an excellent solution to your problem?”

  Annis folded her arms around herself and looked away from Lady Eleanor’s plump face with its pompadour of graying hair. She was clever, James’s mother. Annis struggled for something to say to her that would not offend but would make her own intentions clear.

  Carefully she said, “I was surprised by Lord Rosefield’s proposal. I have no reason to believe he cares for me.”

  “That was true,” Lady Eleanor said. “But that has evidently changed.”

  “I don’t think he would be happy with me.”

  The older woman emitted a gentle laugh. “Happiness is overrated, my dear, and hard to define. Most of us settle for contentment in our marriages. And for some of us lucky ones, friendship. The late marquess and I were the best of friends. I do think you and Rosefield could be friends, too.”

  “Lady Eleanor, I am delighted to be your son’s friend, but I will not marry him. It was a kind offer, and I assure you it was courteously made, but I want only to go home to my horses and my life in New York.” She glanced up to see how Lady Eleanor had taken this statement.

  Lady Eleanor looked terribly weary. No doubt she longed to be free of her cruel corset, free of the weight of her jewels and the black mourning feathers in her hair. No doubt she longed to be free of the burden of worry she carried.

  Annis said sadly, “My stepmother has misled you.”

  “Yes. She has.”

  “She wants a title in the family.”

  “Oh, they all do,” Lady Eleanor said, with a quirk of her lips. “It’s the bargain we make. An heiress’s dowry in exchange for a title for the bride.”

  “But I don’t care about the title.”

  “So I gather.” Lady Eleanor started to push herself up from her chair, then fell back with a little grunt. Annis, seeing this, jumped up to take the older lady’s hands and assist her to her feet. “Thank you, my dear,” Lady Eleanor said. “I do wish you might reconsider. This is a fine place to live—or it will be, with some repairs and a few modern conveniences.”

  “I can see that,” Annis said with sincerity. “Seabeck is beautiful, as is Rosefield Hall.”

  Lady Eleanor drew a shallow breath, and when she started toward the door, she stumbled. Annis took her arm. “Please let me assist you, Lady Eleanor. You’re tired, I think.”

  Her Ladyship didn’t answer, but she leaned on Annis’s arm as they climbed the staircase. At the top her lady’s maid met them, and Annis released the older woman into the maid’s care.

  “Good night, Lady Eleanor,” she said, as the maid led the older woman away.

  Lady Eleanor paused, changing her grip on her maid’s arm so she could turn back to look up into Annis’s face. Her eyes, autumn hazel like her son’s, glistened in the low light of the gas lamps. “You know, Miss Allington,” she said, “I would very much have liked a girl like you for my daughter-in-law.”

  “S-so kind,” Annis stuttered, startled and touched. The only other woman she had ever known who spoke so plainly was Harriet.

  “Not at all,” Lady Eleanor said, with a small, regretful smile. “I’m not a particularly kind person, I’m afraid. I meant what I said, all the same.”

  Annis met Antoinette in the corridor on her way to lay out Frances’s nightdress. With sudden inspiration Annis said, “Do you know where Velma is? I suspect she’s still in the kitchen. I want to have an early night.”

  Antoinette frowned over the extra steps she would have to take and gave a noisy sigh, but she went through the baize door to the servants’ staircase without argument.

  Annis could still hear Frances’s voice from the parlor below. She seized her moment. She slipped into Frances’s bedroom and moved hastily to the dressing table. Antoinette had already cleaned the hairbrush, but there was another brush, carelessly dropped onto the openwork cloth. Its bristles were white with the pearl powder Frances used. Hastily Annis wrapped it in her handkerchief and hurried out of the bedroom.

  In her own room, Annis found Velma drowsing in a chair. She checked the drawer in her bedside table to make sure the folded handkerchief was still there, with its precious remedy. She felt no need of it at the moment, but it reassured her to know she had it.

  She roused Velma with a gentle shake of the shoulder just as Antoinette peeked in to say she hadn’t found her. As Velma yawned and got up, Antoinette sniffed and backed out of the room, closing the door with unnecessary force. Velma ignored her, beginning to help Annis out of her evening dress and the stays beneath it. Velma yawned again as she hung up the clothes, then brushed out Annis’s hair.

  “Tangled,” she complained.

  “Sorry,” Annis said. “I had to do it myself, and I was late.”

  “Out walking?”

  “Yes. I walked farther from the hall than I realized.”

  It was what she had told everyone at dinner. She said she had wandered away from the gardens and out into the woods, lured by the wildflowers, and had lost track of time. She described a white flower with a yellow center, much bigger than the field roses she had noticed on her ride with James. Mrs. Derbyshire, with a forgiving smile, told her they called it a moonpenny in Dorset, but it was properly named an oxeye daisy. A lively discussion between Mrs. Hyde-Smith and Mrs. Derbyshire ensued about the correct names of local wildflowers. Amid the chatter Annis’s infraction was forgotten.

  Not by Frances, of course, who looked daggers at her whenever she wasn’t playing at charm and vivacity.

  And not by James, whose intense gaze followed her the entire evening.

  With her hair braided and her gown exchanged for a nightdress, she said good night to Velma. She settled herself into bed with a novel she had found on the bedside table. It was a vapid, pointless tale of a peasant girl and a prince, and it didn’t hold her interest. She closed it, turned down the lamp, and settled down to sleep.

  Her door burst open with a bang just as she started to close her eyes.

  Annis gasped and bolted upright, the coverlet clutched to her chest. James loomed in the doorway, tall and dark against the low light of the corridor. He still wore his evening clothes, but his jacket and waistcoat were unbuttoned, and his tie hung loose beneath his collar. He stood, one hand on each side of the doorjamb, and gazed at her, slack lipped and glassy eyed.

  “James!” she cried. “Whatever—why, what’s the matter with you?”

  He lurched into the room, much as if he were drunk. Annis had little experience with intoxicated men—her father drank very little—but she had read descriptions. James had that look, his face suffused, his step unsteady. He advanced toward the bed, and she could hear his rough breathing, as if his throat were constricted.

  “James,” she said. “I think you must be ill.”
/>   “Not ill,” he said, his deep voice rough.

  “What is it, then? Have you been drinking? What can you be thinking, coming into my bedroom this way?”

  “You came into mine,” he said, with no humor at all in his face. “You came into my house, my stables, my bedroom, tempting me, bewitching me—”

  At that she gasped again, a gasp of pure horror. This was Frances’s doing. This was the maleficia. James was in the grip of her cantrip, in neither his right mind nor his normal nature.

  He reached her bedside and fell sideways, his chest landing heavily on hers so she couldn’t catch a decent breath. He scissored his legs, trying to press her down, to hold her in place. One of his hands, fever hot, gripped the back of her neck, while the other tugged at the neckline of her cotton nightdress, ripping it from her arm and her left breast. He clutched her upper arm before his hand slid to her naked breast and pressed it, kneading it greedily, as if its touch could satiate the hunger that drove him.

  “James! No! Stop!” Annis hissed. She could scarcely believe any of this was happening, and the shock of it threatened her own sanity. She batted at his hand as she twisted her neck, trying to get free. She suffered a moment of real panic as she struggled to push his hand away from her breast.

  It felt so strange, a man’s hand on her flesh, flesh that was usually hidden from everyone but herself and her maid. It made her feel as if her breast—her body—were no longer her own, as if it had become some sort of object to be used without her volition. She hated the feeling, and the shock of it, the wrongness, gave her strength.

  She gritted her teeth to suppress the scream that built up in her throat. Her cry would bring the household, the maids, the valets, the butler—James would be ruined, and for something that wasn’t his fault. This was all Frances. James was Frances’s victim.

  Still, if she didn’t stop him, prevent the violation that was clearly intended, she would be a victim, too. She refused to be a victim, ever. She could not let this happen.

  She gathered all her strength and broke free of his groping hand. She pushed herself backward, kicking at him with her bare feet. She wished she still had her shoes on. Her toes weren’t hard enough to get his attention. She hissed, “James, stop it! You’re not yourself!”

  James was a tall man, and strong, but Annis was a strong girl. James was heavier, but he was in the grip of madness, and it weakened his muscles as well as his mind. Half the coverlet was caught between their bodies, but Annis could grasp the other half with her left hand. She pulled it up and threw it across his legs, twisting it beneath his feet. In the same movement, wriggling from beneath him, she scrambled from the sheets and stood on the far side of the bed, panting, as she tried to tug up the torn neckline of her nightdress.

  James’s attempts to kick the coverlet off made the tangle around his long legs worse. The more he fought it, the tighter it held. Annis, seeing this, became aware that the moonstone at her throat had begun to throb, as if it were part of her battle.

  The bedroom door still stood open, as James had left it. Anyone could walk by and see His Lordship in Miss Allington’s bedroom—in her bed—and come to the most damning of conclusions. Annis didn’t want that for herself, but just as much, she didn’t want it for James.

  She ran to close the door, then put her back to it, facing him. The room was in near darkness now. She had only the light of a cloud-filtered moon to help her see that James had managed to get the coverlet from his legs, though it caught on the tail of his coat and wound around his dress shoes. He shoved the whole thing to the floor, tearing off his coat in the process. Sitting up on the bed, he began to shrug out of his waistcoat as Annis stared in horror.

  The power of the maleficia had turned this gentle, courteous man into an animal, a beast. She hated Frances for doing this to him. He would hate himself when he realized.

  He was tearing at the buttons on his shirt now, off the bed, on his feet, coming toward her even as he yanked his arms out of the sleeves.

  Annis gripped the moonstone. She had no time. In seconds he would take hold of her, and she didn’t know if she could fight him off a second time. Swiftly she whispered the words of Harriet’s cantrip, the lines tumbling over one another so quickly she didn’t know if they would mean anything.

  Mothers and grandmothers, guard my way

  Every night and every day.

  Let no danger me befall,

  Nor evil catch me in its thrall.

  James paused, one foot in front of the other, his ruined shirt dangling from his hand. He gasped for breath as he peered at her through the dimness. “What—” he began.

  One more uncertain step brought him so close to her she could feel the unnatural heat radiating from his body. His long arm reached toward her, the trembling fingers outstretched.

  The moonstone pulsed beneath her palm as if it had a heartbeat of its own, pounding in synchrony with her own panicked heart.

  She repeated, louder now, faster,

  Let no danger me befall,

  Nor evil…

  She didn’t finish. James’s momentum faltered. His arm dropped to his side, and his eyes rolled back in their sockets. He fell to his knees and then, with an awful groan, to one side.

  Annis couldn’t restrain a soft cry, fear for herself giving way to fear for him. She knelt beside him, taking one of his hands to chafe the wrist with her fingers. “James! James?”

  He didn’t respond. His eyelids were open, but his eyes were as vacant as if he were dead. She felt the pulse in his wrist and heard the whistle of his breathing. He was alive but senseless.

  This tall, heavy man was unconscious on the floor of her bedroom, and there was no one she dared call for help without revealing her secret, and his.

  She had never in her life felt so helpless. Clutching the moonstone in her closed fist, she bent her head and focused on calling for assistance. On summoning Harriet.

  30

  Harriet

  The silhouette of Rosefield Hall loomed against the pale, cloudy sky. The sea whispered to Harriet’s right, and to her left the stable block stretched toward the pasture. She could see the folly from her vantage point at the edge of the woods, but she felt the pull of Annis’s summons. She needed to go inside the hall.

  Undoubtedly the staff locked the doors at night. She detected no flicker of light in any window, not even on the third floor, where she guessed most of the servants slept. If anyone was watching, she would be visible as she crossed the lawn, but she did it anyway. Whatever awaited within those walls, there was urgency about it. She knew it by the trembling of the ametrine against her breast, and by the sense she had of being tugged, as if she were attached to a rope.

  As she hurried across the lawn to the small door in the back of the house, the one she had seen Annis use, she glanced up at the blank, dark windows. Was there a face, there at one of the mullioned windows on the second floor? She slowed, just for a step, but it was gone before she could be certain.

  She reached the door and tried the latch. As she had expected, it was locked. How many such doors were there? Could she count on any servant having been careless, forgetting one? It seemed unlikely.

  She drew a slow breath to calm her heartbeat and focus her mind. She placed the flat of her left hand on the chilly wood of the door, bent her head, and closed her eyes. She placed her right hand on the amulet as she called upon her special gift. Upon the knowing. She couldn’t hurry it. She had to let the knowledge seep into her mind at its own pace.

  She waited. Off in the darkness the breakers rolled against the shore. In the shrubberies night birds twittered. Filtered moonlight gleamed on the gables above her head, and a horse stamped in the stables. Harriet observed all these things, but at a distance. She kept her mind as blank as she could, as open as she could, and—

  There it was. A window to her right, left open to allow fresh air into a stuffy room.

  She had never understood how the knowing worked. Did part of her mind
break free from her physical self? Possibly. Or possibly it was that all minds, if they were open enough, sensitive enough, could perceive things not obvious to the eye.

  She found the window without difficulty, open just far enough for her to put her fingers underneath the sash. She pushed it all the way up and wriggled through the window frame on her belly. She swiveled and set her feet down inside a dark room crowded with boxes and trunks and unused bits of furniture, the flotsam and jetsam thrown up by a house long occupied. She pulled the window down again, leaving it open as she had found it. She felt her way through the cluttered room and, when she reached a wall, ran her hands along it until she encountered a door frame. This door was unlocked, its iron key hanging, unused, in the keyhole.

  The corridor outside was a shade brighter than the storeroom. A window at one end allowed moonlight to fall on the floor and the lowest treads of a narrow staircase. Harriet moved to the stairs and started up, tiptoeing in her boots. On the second floor, she pushed through a baize door and into a much broader corridor, with closed doors set far apart. She saw the head of a grand staircase leading down to the foyer. A set of double doors stood open to an enormous room that might have been a ballroom.

  She turned in the opposite direction, moving cautiously, her fingertips trailing over each door as she passed it. When she reached the right one, the ametrine gave a pulse that made her skin tingle. Cautiously, as silently as she could, she eased the door open.

  Annis was kneeling beside the limp body of the marquess. She lifted her head at the soft scrape of the door, and even in the darkness Harriet saw how pale the girl’s stricken face was.

  Annis gave a low cry. “You’re here! Oh, Aunt Harriet, you’re here!” and burst into tears.

  “Is he going to die?”

  Annis’s tears didn’t last long. She gulped them back, apologized, and was ready to address the crisis.

  Between them they managed to hoist James’s lanky body from the floor to the bed. Annis patted his hands while Harriet tried to get him to swallow a bit of water. He couldn’t do it. The water dribbled down his cheek and onto the pillow, and she gave up the exercise for fear of drowning him. None of their actions roused him in the slightest.