So Enchanting (6 page)

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Authors: Connie Brockway

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Historical, #General

BOOK: So Enchanting
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“E PLURIBUS UNUM!”
With a shriek, Grammy Beadle lifted up her skirts, displaying a pair of crooked shanks encircled by improbable red garters, turned tail and shot off down the street, disappearing into a side alley.

 

The young lady, after a glance overhead at a sky now completely free of any shadows, ravenlike or otherwise, walked calmly over to her companion. The Little Firkians gave one another nods of approval and, without a single word to their champion and defender, went back to gossiping, eating, and drinking.
At the same time, a handsome and elegant young man let a curtain drop back down across the pub window through which he’d been watching.

 

“What an extraordinary creature. Whatever is she doing here?” the young gentleman asked, turning his bemused gaze to a man sitting tipped well back in the chair opposite him, a dark, broad-shouldered gentleman with sooty, overlong hair and piercing blue-green eyes currently riveted on the scene outside.
Before he could reply, the inn’s rotund barkeep arrived at their table bearing two tankards of ale. “That be Amelie Chase,” he said. “Our witch.”
Chapter Five
“What do you mean by calling that delightful young lady a witch, barkeep?” Lord Hayden Augustus Collier asked, his gaze following the pert swish of plaid skirts down the street.

 

“I’m just stating what’s fact,” retorted the rotund barkeeper, Donnie MacKee. He plunked down their ale and a dish of beef and turnips and moved off.
Thoughtfully, Hayden lifted his tankard to his lips. This trip to the Scottish wilderness looked like it might have more to it than the trout fishing he had anticipated. Here was a mystery, by God. A cure for the ennui plaguing him these last few months, an ennui born of London’s utter predictability: the same conversations, the same drawing rooms, the same music halls, the same women with the same goal to ensnare him in matrimony.

 

It wasn’t vanity that led Hayden to this supposition. He’d only to look into the mirror to see a handsome face. Add to good looks an expensive education and pretty manners, and couple these with a future barony and the fortune that accompanied it, and only a dolt would fail to appreciate his desirability as a husband.
He had accordingly quickly agreed when his uncle had suggested a trip to the wilds of Scotland, where the renovations on his brother-in-law’s hunting lodge had just been completed. Since his uncle’s brother-in-law was also Hayden’s father, and thus the lodge would one day be Hayden’s, his curiosity was stirred. The old lodge had been uninhabitable since a fire some fifteen years earlier, and Hayden’s memories of the place were vague. But the thing that made the trip irresistible was that it would be undertaken in the company of his uncle, Greyson Sheffield, a man one could never call boring. Exacting, intimidating, and unnerving, but never boring.

 

Indeed, Hayden considered it more flattering to be asked to join his maternal uncle on a fishing trip than to be chased around the London ballrooms by a flock of debutantes. At thirty-eight years of age, Grey Sheffield had developed a reputation for being notoriously picky about the company he kept.
Hayden glanced at Grey, balancing on the back two legs of his chair, his laced fingers cradling his head. The expression on his uncle’s bold, angular face belied the insouciant pose. Something outside held his attention. His eyes had narrowed in intense focus.

 

“I’ll be damned,” he muttered.
“Grey?”
Grey shook his head slightly, his gaze never wavering from the view outside, staving off any questioning. Hayden knew better than to disturb him. He waited until the girl and her companion disappeared into the green grocer ’s across the street.
“What the devil is a beauty like that doing here dressed like a Parisian mademoiselle?” Hayden murmured, assuming he was echoing his uncle’s thoughts. “And what the blazes did that fellow mean, calling her a witch?”
The intensity faded from Grey’s expression. He let the front of his chair fall to the floor with a thump, swung his feet down, and applied himself to his food. “Don’t be too harsh on the poor fellow, Hayden.”
Hayden scoffed at such advice, coming from a man who took pride in being called draconian.
“I’m completely earnest,” Grey said, stabbing a piece of beef. “The fellow is only speaking the truth. At least, such as he knows it. Who can do less?”
“You of all people don’t mean to tell me you think that charming girl is a
witch
?”
“Please.” Grey’s lip curled at the suggestion. “I hope you know me better than that.”
Hayden did, indeed. For fifteen years it had been Grey’s vocation as a special adjunct working for the Crown prosecutor to expose dealers in supernatural phenomenon. Spiritualists, mediums, fairies, demons, haunts and hauntings, table rappers and mind readers, levitators and, yes, witches—he exposed them all as frauds and brought forth the necessary evidence to see them prosecuted as swindlers.

 

There had never been an instance where he could not reveal the science or trickery behind the supposed magic. He hated his quarry as much as he pitied their victims, and he claimed to despise them both.
“But simply because I do not believe the chit is a witch,” Grey was saying, “doesn’t mean our host doesn’t. The poor bloke is a victim of his own desire to believe in something extraordinary, a curse caused by an excess of hope.
“No, Hayden, my lad. You can pity him,” Grey said, waving his fork instructively. “You mustn’t mock him.”
“I’ve never noticed you refraining from mockery,” Hayden said.
“That’s different,” Grey replied equitably, taking a swig of ale. “I am a lost cause. There is still hope that you shall grow a nicer view of your fellow man. At least, that is why I believe your father was willing to let you tag along. I am to provide a cautionary example of the wretched end to which a misanthropic worldview can lead.”
“I don’t need my father’s approval to accompany you. I am, after all, twenty-one years old,” Hayden said stiffly.
“Exactly,” Grey said with a broad grin. “A babe. So, in keeping with my charge of educating you, eat up whilst I explain the amazing and monumental idiocy that has brought us here.”
“I thought we were here to fish.”
Grey rolled his eyes. “You didn’t actually think I’d come all the way up here to dangle a string in front of some gaping piscatory lips, did you?”
“Fish don’t have lips.”
Grey sighed. “You have no romance in you, Hayden.”
“And you do?”
Something flickered in Grey’s gaze. It might have been amusement. Or regret.
“At one time.” He shrugged. “But to answer your question, we are here precisely because of that young lady, Amelie Chase, who is, in fact, the town’s witch.”
At Hayden’s look of astonishment, Grey laughed. “Though in all fairness, she belongs at least as much to your father, who is her legal guardian. At any rate, a few weeks ago your father received a letter from someone in this town stating, and I quote, ‘Come quick. Someone is trying to kill our witch.’ ”
“Whatever are you talking about?” Hayden asked, bewildered.
“About six or seven years ago, Colonel Hubert Chase, the owner of the hunting land adjoining your father’s here, moved to Little Firkin from London with his orphaned daughter, Amelie. He did so after unusual occurrences began happening in the girl’s presence, occurrences for which society, being the credulous, dull-witted dolts they are, had, unsurprisingly, no explanation and therefore, as is the way of credulous, dull-witted dolts, seized on the most improbable explanation they could come up with: that the girl was possessed.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Hayden declared. “What sort of occurrences?”
Grey took a deep draft of ale before answering. “The usual claptrap. Things moving about, flying off walls and tables. Plus, there were the feelings of unease and otherworldliness that are ubiquitous amongst believers. I wonder how many bowel rumbles have been attributed to the supernatural rather than indigestion.”
“Was the girl responsible?”
“Someone was. But whether she purposely contrived these things as a childish prank or to attract attention—she was, after all, only about eleven—she hardly deserved to be labeled a witch.”
“I find it hard to believe anyone could take such a thing seriously. This isn’t the Dark Ages.”
“All ages are dark, Hayden,” Grey said gently, before continuing. “Unpleasant as society made it for the girl, it wasn’t until a group of religious zealots began making threatening noises that Colonel Chase, reportedly himself a superstitious crackpot and having recently been diagnosed with a terminal disease, decided action was called for.”
“Zealots?”
Hayden breathed, his sympathies completely engaged. The poor girl.

 

“A pedantic little lot of posers who affected monks’ garb. More like a masquerade party than a religion, actually, and mostly harmless. Mostly.” Grey’s expression briefly hardened.
“What did this Colonel Chase do?”
“He built a house just outside of town here, his old hunting lodge being antiquated and drafty, and hired a woman to act as governess and companion.” Here, Grey’s gaze moved back to the street outside. “He then installed the woman and his daughter here to keep Amelie out of harm’s—” He abruptly stopped and leaned toward the window, staring outside.
Hayden looked to see what had arrested him. The girl and her friend had exited the grocer’s and were moving slowly along the plank sidewalk.

 

“Is there more?” Hayden asked, eyes on the girl.
“Oh, yes. Much more even than I suspected,” Grey replied softly before turning to regard him. “Don’t stare.”
Hayden bit back his protest that that had been precisely what Grey had been doing, knowing he’d never get the full story if he engaged in an argument with his uncle. The man loved to argue.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Please continue.”
“Colonel Chase then drew up a will, naming your father, the only friend from his pre-India days with whom he’d remained in contact, the girl’s legal guardian should he die before she reached her majority. Shortly thereafter, he died.”
“But?” Hayden prompted, reading his uncle’s expression.
“But unofficially, Little Firkin is Miss Chase’s guardian. At least physically.”
“What? That’s impossible.”
“One would think. But apparently not. Colonel Chase’s will states that when Miss Chase reaches the age of twenty-one
and
provided she is still living in the town of Little Firkin, she will inherit the bulk of her father’s estate. Those who were residents of Little Firkin at the time of Colonel Chase’s death and are still residents upon Miss Chase reaching her majority will divide amongst them one hundred thousand pounds.”
“Dear Lord,” Hayden whispered.

 

“That’s quite an incentive to keep someone alive, wouldn’t you say?” Grey finished the last of his ale and set the tankard down on the table.
“And after getting this letter my father asked you to come and see what’s going on?” Hayden asked.
“Not at all. He told me about the situation, and I volunteered to come as his representative. How could I resist? Witchcraft, threats of dire doing, a positively Gothic will, and a beautiful young girl in need of protection. Or not.”
“But there’s no reason anyone would want to harm her,” Hayden protested. “As you just pointed out, quite the reverse is true.”
“Exactly,” Grey said, nodding. “A delicious little mystery, is it not? Unless it’s simply a prank.”
“And you asked me to accompany you because . . . ?”
“As unlikely as it may be, I’m rather fond of your company. Besides, should anything happen to your father, you could inherit Miss Chase.”
“How old is she?” He bristled inwardly at the thought of anyone wanting to harm the maligned beauty.
“Eighteen or thereabouts.”
“Why doesn’t she just leave?”
“The terms of the will make it impossible, barring a few exceptions. For instance, she can leave under a husband’s care, but any husband would have to be approved by your father, and really, where is she to meet someone suitable? Or your father could remove her himself
if
he is willing to keep her under his direct supervision. Which means he would have to agree to let her travel with him, and we both know this is as likely to happen as pigs taking flight, which, by the way, a widow in Doncaster claims to have seen last week.”
It was true. Hayden’s father was constantly traveling throughout Great Britain and Europe. He wouldn’t consider for an instant curbing his wanderlust in order to make a home for an orphaned girl.

 

“Not that the girl hasn’t lately made the suggestion,” Grey added, looking amused.
Hayden tilted his head inquiringly.
“She has written letters hinting she would very much like to spend some time with her guardian. Needless to say, she has been disappointed in the answer.”
“How is it that this is the first I have heard of her?” Hayden asked.

 

“Your father probably just forgot to mention Miss Chase to you. It’s not like she’s had any reason to be forefront in his mind, and he does have rather a lot of things to occupy his thoughts,” Grey answered, stabbing the last bit of meat in his bowl and lifting it to his mouth.
“Colonel Chase succumbed to cancer five years ago,” he went on, “around the time your father became involved in the London dockworkers’ strike. I suspect Miss Chase simply got lost in the shuffle. It’s not as if she needed his immediate attention, in any case. And your father is always beginning some reform plan or other. Like the canal system on his estate. Or, for that matter, the pottery factory he meant to build here.”
“Excuse me?” Hayden said.
“He came up here soon after Colonel Chase died, you know,” Grey said, “to look in on the girl and to see if he could restore his hunting lodge. While he was mucking about, he discovered that Little Firkin’s riverbanks are composed of some sort of extremely rare, premium goop that makes the crockery makers swoon.

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