Spellbound & Seduced (4 page)

Lawrence climbed slowly back to consciousness. The air smelled sweet. He was warm and incredibly comfortable. He felt as if he'd been asleep for days. Usually he had trouble sleeping, especially when working on a new building. It was not just that he was a perfectionist, personally taking charge of the detailed plans and lists of tasks for the tradesmen who would effect them, but he was an idealist too. The mathematics of architecture fascinated him. Long into the night, he calculated and re-calculated angles, ratios, perspectives, and elevations.

He hadn't felt so rested in a long time. Opening his eyes was an effort. Above him, the blackened rafters of a low roof were hung with bunches of dried flowers and herbs. A silver cat lay at his feet, languorously washing its face with its paws. ‘Brianag,' he said carefully. ‘I suppose you're her familiar.'

Unblinking amber eyes, uncommonly like her mistress's, held Lawrence's gaze. ‘You're wondering what the hell I'm doing here, and so am I,' he said to the cat.

Brianag yawned, showing a set of very white, sharp teeth. Lawrence laughed and got out of bed. His breeches and shirt were draped over a chair beside his portmanteau. He dressed quickly, rummaging for clean stockings, tucking his shirt into his buckskins as he wandered through to the main room of the cottage. The fire was burning. Steam puffed gently from the kettle, but there was no sign of Jura. His boots were quite dry. He pulled them on quickly, and opened the door.

A blast of icy air sent him back for his greatcoat. The snow was so deep it went over the tops of his boots. The dank grey sky was leaden. It was still very early. In the distance, no more than a couple of miles away, he could make out the castle, a black square against the sky. Edging his way around the cottage to the byre, he found a pail of warm milk by the cow, and his horse munching on a pail of oats.

A small room, a wooden lean-to built onto the end of the cottage, caught his attention. Wooden shelves were lined with jars, bottles, and flasks. A little family of mortars and pestles stood in ranking order on a work bench. A pot-bellied stove. More herbs strung from the rafters. Jura's still room. He was intrigued, but far more interested in finding the sorceress than exploring the place she cast her spells.

Closing the door, he heard her voice above the soft sounds of the animals in the byre. She was speaking Gaelic, he recognised the lilting, rhythmic sounds though he could not understand a word. Making his way round the side of the cottage he found her, crouched barefoot, her hair trailing in the snow, examining the paw of what looked like a large dog. Another of the creatures stood beside her. At the crunch of his boot in the snow, it looked up, hackles rising, long yellow fangs bared. Not a dog. A wolf. Two wolves.

‘Jura. God almighty Jura, get away from those things.'

As he took an instinctive step towards her, the wolf scuttled back on its haunches, ready to spring. To his horror, she put out her hand, thinking to stay it, and to his amazement, the beast dropped back. She whispered something. Its ears flattened against its head. ‘Don't come any nearer. I've told them it's safe, but it's best not to frighten them,' she said, returning to her examination of the huge paw.

‘You've told them—They're wild animals, for God's sake.'

‘They understand me. There.' She pulled a large splinter from the wolf's pad, ruffled his ears as if he were a pet, and got to her feet, shaking out her skirts. ‘I don't know why you're looking so surprised,' she said, once more enjoying the effect her powers had on Lawrence, enjoying the effect Lawrence had on her.

The wolves loped off over the snow. ‘Can you talk to any animal?' he asked incredulously.

‘I can make myself understood. They trust me, I can read their auras, just as I can with people, but I can't actually talk to them, and they certainly can't talk back.'

Lawrence picked her up and twirled her round in the snow, laughing. ‘You are quite extraordinary, do you know that?'

‘Am I?'

‘Show me that laboratory of yours. Explain to me what you do, how you do it. I want to know.'

‘I can't, Lawrence,' Jura said, laughing, for his enthusiasm was infectious and he was so very handsome, and because it was lovely just to laugh with someone. ‘I mean, I could teach you about herbs, how to heal with herbs, that's just a skill, but I can't explain my gift. Besides, why would you want to know?'

‘Because it's fascinating. Because you're fascinating. Because I could, I suppose, make my way to the castle, but I don't want to, not yet.'

‘The castle?'

‘Dunswaird Castle. That's it over there, is it not?'

‘Yes, but…'

‘It belongs to my mother's family, and by a very roundabout route it's mine now. That's why I'm here.'

‘You're the new laird!' She hadn't counted on that. She had assumed that when he left he would be gone from her life. Of course, it made no difference, her magic would protect her, and Lawrence had made it clear there could be no risk to his own feelings but still… ‘Put me down, Lawrence. Does this mean you'll be stopping here in Dunswaird?'

He let her slither back to her feet, enjoying the feel of her body against his. ‘For a while. I thought I might renovate the castle, depending upon what kind of state it's in. You know, I hadn't realised it was so close. Perhaps it would be best if I left today.'

‘No!' Jura exclaimed, without giving herself time to think about whether it would indeed be best. ‘A few days,' she said, more to herself than to Lawrence, for this is what she had promised herself. ‘There can be no harm in a few days. Besides,' she remembered with relief, ‘the bridge is down. That line you can see, it's not a dip in the ground, it's a river.'

‘Then I have no choice,' Lawrence said, more relieved than he cared to admit at having the decision taken from him, ‘and you have no excuse. I shall expect you to share some of your magic with me. I have every intention of sharing more of mine,' he said wickedly.

It was what she craved, but Jura hesitated, wondering why she craved him quite so much when she had never craved anyone before. She was being foolish. What she needed was to make things plain, not so much to Lawrence, but to herself. To say it aloud, not quite to repeat the spell, but to reassure herself of its existence.

‘What is it?' Lawrence said, noticing her wistful look. ‘I was only teasing, you know. If you don't want to…'

‘I do,' Jura said hastily, more alarmed by the idea that he might think her unwilling than by the niggling question as to why she felt so very willing. What was wrong with her? She shivered.

‘You're cold, and no wonder.' Lawrence scooped her up into his arms, and carried her back into the cottage, setting her down by the fire on the cushioned settle, casting off his greatcoat and kneeling on the flagstones beside her, cradling her feet. ‘Don't you have shoes?'

‘I hate them.'

He blew on her toes, then kissed each of them. ‘You taste of snow. I don't suppose you have anything so mundane as tea here?'

‘Something like. There's leaves…'

‘Don't move, I'll do it.' Catching the look of surprise on her face as he set about brewing the tea, he grinned. ‘Much of the time when I'm working on a project, I camp out by myself. I find it gives me the feel of the building. I've learned to be quite self-sufficient when I need to be.'

‘But you have servants? A house?'

‘A small estate in the country that my father left me, and where my mother stays from time to time—when she wants to play the grand hostess. A vineyard in Tuscany. A pied-à-terre in London and another in Paris. My work takes me abroad for a significant part of the year. And now I have a castle in the Highlands.'

‘I would like to travel.'

‘I would like to show you Italy. I'd like you to see my vineyard. The farmhouse there, it has a loggia that goes all the way round, so you can catch the sun or the shade at any time of day. You can grow anything you like there, you could have a herb garden…' Lawrence stopped abruptly, not because he did not wish to tell her any more, but because he found himself wanting to tell her too much. He could picture her there, all too easily he could see her wandering barefoot in the dusty red earth. He poured her a cup of fragrant tea, and took one for himself rather dubiously, joining her on the settle. ‘What is wrong Jura? Out there, my mother would have said you looked as if someone had walked over your grave.'

Jura shivered again. It would not be her grave.
It would not be anybody's grave!
‘There's a reason I live alone here, why I'll always be alone. I think it best that you know it, since you're going to be here a while. After—when the snow clears—I don't want you to think that I—that we could—not that you would, for you told me yourself that you have a short span of attention where women are concerned, which is just as well because—because so do I. I mean with men. At least, I expect that is how it will manifest itself, though to be honest I'm not exactly sure.”

“How
what
will manifest itself?” Lawrence asked, amused, endeared, and perplexed by her earnestness.

‘The spell.' Jura took a quick sip of tea then put the cup onto the floor at her feet. ‘I cast a spell upon myself, Lawrence, to make sure I could never fall in love.'

‘Why on earth would you do something like that?'

‘Because I can't fall in love. Must not. I am quite determined, you see, to break Lillias's curse.'

Lawrence choked on his tea. ‘Curse! What curse? Who the hell is Lillias?'

‘My grandmother, about ten times removed. She was burned at the stake on Christmas Day two hundred years ago exactly come this Christmas. Her daughter it was who gave evidence against her. She was married to the local laird's son, and he and his father were by all accounts heartless men who thought a witch-burning would provide their guests with a memorable entertainment. They held a sham of a trial, and they burned her, and as they set alight the bonfire, Lillias cursed them.'

Jura paused to draw breath, shaking her head at Lawrence when he made to speak, anxious now that she was started not to lose momentum. ‘The daughter's husband died, just as Lillias said he would, a year to the day on which they were wed, and so it has been, down through the female line—for we seem to bear only females. We are each of us witches, and all of us widows. Every one of us for two hundred years, Lawrence,” she said, her voice cracking. ‘My own father died before I ever knew him. I am determined to put an end to it. No man will die for loving me, and since I would wed none I did not love—for you and I have that in common—I have cast a spell upon myself to make sure that I can't. Fall in love, I mean. So when the snow is over and you go to your castle, you need not fear that I shall be wanting more from you, because I expect by then the spell will have taken effect and I shall be just as pleased for you to go as—as you will be to leave,' she concluded, trying very hard to look pleased at this rather awful prospect.

Lawrence was quite at a loss for words. At pains as he usually was to make it plain at the start of any relationship that it could have only a limited future, it had not for a second occurred to him to say anything of the sort to Jura. Finding himself on the receiving end of her brush-off, no matter how original… Except it wasn't a brush-off. Her anguish was quite obvious in those big expressive eyes of hers, and he was willing to bet that her hands would be clasped tight under her apron. She meant it—the spell, the curse, the whole lot. ‘Does this mean it was one of my ancestors who was responsible for burning your ancestor?' he asked, not the most relevant question, but an appalling notion.

‘No, no. I came here to Dunswaird a few years ago when my mother died. I hoped to make a fresh start.'

‘And have you succeeded?'

‘My powers will always isolate me, even where none know of my history, but they have no fey wife, no other healer. I can do good here, that is enough.'

‘And if you say that another thousand times, you might convince yourself,' Lawrence said, touched by her bravado. ‘I can't quite believe what you're telling me. If I'd heard it from anyone else—if I hadn't seen for myself that you really do have powers—to live under such a cloud your whole life, it's some horrible fairy tale. Surely this Lillias must have made some provision to revoke her curse? Isn't there always such a thing?'

‘She said that only a true and perfect love could break the cycle, but in two hundred years, the cycle has not been broken. Maybe we witches are not capable of a true and perfect love—my mother's love, I know, was stronger for me than it was for her husband. Or maybe those who claim to love us do not love us enough. I don't know, but I do know that I can make sure I am the last of us.'

‘It seems to me an enormous sacrifice, to be alone always like this without the comfort of a husband or children.'

‘I am not so different from you, Lawrence. You will not take a wife, and so will not have a child.'

‘Yes, but…' Lawrence frowned. When she put it like that, he was conscious of the tiniest niggle of doubt. Did he really want to be alone for the rest of his life? He brushed this question aside impatiently. ‘The point is that I have a choice. To have none, to have no hope, Jura—that is a bleak future indeed.'

‘Don't pity me,' she said, brushing the tears from her eyes and trying to smile, ‘I have much to be happy about. My powers do good, Lawrence, that must be enough.'

‘And you are certain that this spell you have cast upon yourself is effective?'

‘I'm four-and-twenty, and I've never yet felt even the slightest inclination towards any man.'

‘That's hardly a nice thing to say, when I was under the impression last night that you were very much inclined towards me,' Lawrence pointed out.