The Midnight Witch (26 page)

“If I can ever get this blasted gas to light, the matches are so damp … there. Shouldn’t take too long.” He leaves the kettle and hurries back to wrap me in his strong arms. “It is ridiculous that I subject you to this,” he murmurs into my hair.

“There is no place on earth I would rather be.”

“There is nothing in the least bit romantic about pneumonia,” he warns, “which is what we shall both soon have if we are obliged to hide ourselves away in the roof like, oh, I don’t know, a pair of mice.”

“Bats,” I tell him. “I would rather we were bats.” I smile up into his lovely face. “The cold doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.” For a long moment we say nothing but gaze at each other, reveling in the embrace. He kisses the very tip of my nose.

“I’ll bet you couldn’t even feel that, your poor dear nose is so frozen.”

“Better kiss me again, then.”

He does, but not my nose. This time he puts his lips to mine and I melt into the blissful closeness of a long, luxurious kiss. The heavenly moment is pierced by the shrill cry of the kettle. Bram lets me go, grinning. He pushes his unruly hair out of his eyes and claps his hands together, rubbing them in a businesslike fashion.

“Tea,” he says, hurrying back to his task. He fills the pot and puts a little milk and sugar in the cups. He is careful to shut the sugar tin and milk away in the shabby metal cupboard where he stores his comestibles. He gives the tea in the pot a stir before pouring it with a flourish from some height.

“Do you know, until I met you I had never seen a man make tea.”

“I’m happy to hear I have added so significantly to your life experiences.”

“Particularly with the tea making.”

“Particularly.”

He brings the steaming cups and sets them down on the low table in front of the single armchair. When I hesitate he plonks himself down in it, taking hold of my hand as he does so and pulling me onto his lap.

“Thing with only having one decent chair,” he tells me, “is that you have to decide: share or take turns. Sharing is warmer.”

“I like sharing.”

“Excellent. Then we are in agreement.”

“As in so many things.”

“Only now you will have to pass the tea over.”

I do so carefully and we sit with our hands wrapped around the saucerless cups, sipping at the scalding drink.

“It’s too cold to go out today,” he says.

I laugh a little. “It might be warmer than in here.”

“Snow is threatened.”

“We could go to the Soldiers’ Arms and sit by the fire.” The little public house has become one of our favorite haunts. No one who knows me would ever go to such a place, and the walk there is short, so we are not at any great risk of being seen. But there is the matter of money. Bram was paid well for Charlotte’s portrait, and is hopeful for further commissions on the back of it, but none have yet been forthcoming, and we are both aware that the money will not keep him for long, especially if we spend it on brandy. I have insisted on paying my share, but he simply will not let me pay when he cannot.

“Not today,” he says. “Today I’d like to do something different.”

“Oh?”

He looks unsure of himself, but continues.

“I want to paint you, Lilith. Please say you’ll let me.”

“Only if you’ll allow me to buy the picture from you when it is finished.”

“Don’t be absurd. How could I let you pay for it?”

“Then I won’t sit. It is my only condition.”

“Really? Your only condition?”

“Absolutely. A fair price, the minute it is completed.”

“I won’t want to part with it.”

“You can keep it here, show it to Mangan, if you’re pleased with it. Perhaps it will gain you some commissions.” I do not mention that I can hardly take it home to hang above the stairs at Fitzroy Square. How would I ever explain its existence to Mama?

He thinks about this for a while and then smiles broadly. “Very well, I accept your condition.”

I hop to my feet, excited at the prospect of being his model now. “Where shall I sit? I trust you don’t expect me to remove my clothes. I would freeze to death before the paint was dry.”

“Only your hat,” he says, leading me over to where he has the easel set up. I see now that there is a canvas in place and a chair positioned just so on the other side of it. Had he really been so sure I would agree to sit? He already knows me better than I know myself.

You know that he does not, Lilith. He cannot!

The voice is so unexpected that this time it makes me jump.

“Lilith, what is it?”

“Oh, nothing. I … thought I saw a mouse. Over there,” I tell him, sitting on the worn wooden chair and allowing him to turn my face fractionally to one side.

“There,” he says, “that is perfect. There is not much light this time of year, but what there is now falls directly onto one side of your exquisite face, my love. Your hair, though.” He frowns. “It should be loose. Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” I say, reaching up to take it down from the high bun into which it is coiled.

“Please … let me.” One by one, with great tenderness, he removes the hairpins. Slowly. Carefully. Allowing each lock of hair to fall naturally onto my shoulders. Such an intimate action, such gentleness, should be blissful, but I am still tense, alert, waiting for the Dark Spirit to speak again, so that the moment is quite spoiled.

When he has finished his task Bram stands back to look at me. “Now,” he asks, “are you comfortable? Can you hold this pose, do you think?”

“Quite comfortable,” I assure him, though I find I am stupidly anxious. The unwanted spirit is still with me. I can sense him watching. Listening. Ready to remind me of the fact that Bram does not know, cannot know, that the woman he adores, the woman he has lost his heart to, the woman who now sits before him, holds such strange and powerful secrets. I do my best not to let my anxiety show, but Bram is not so easily fooled. He is, it seems, attuned to my own moods and cannot help but see that something is troubling me deeply.

“Darling, please tell me what it is.”

“I … cannot.”

He shakes his head slowly. “Don’t you recall what I told you? Nothing you can tell me about yourself would alter my feelings for you. You must surely believe that now. Do you doubt me, is that it?”

“No. No, it’s not that.”

“Is it…” he hesitates, and then goes on, “is it something to do with your fiancé? Breaking off the engagement will not be easy, I know…”

“It’s not about Louis.”

“Then
what
?” He takes my hands in his and feels them tremble. “How can I help you if you will not talk to me?”

Perhaps you should tell him. Tell him what you are and see how he regards you then. It will be interesting to watch his promises of love turn to an expression of disgust.

I leap from my chair, pushing past Bram, my hands over my ears.

“Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! Why can’t you leave me alone?”

Bram grabs me and pulls me to him. He is searching my face for answers and knows that my cries are not directed at him. “Who is it, Lilith? Who is making you so very afraid? Tell me.”

“I can’t! You wouldn’t understand.”

“I could try.”

“It’s impossible.
We
are impossible. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be seeing you.” I try to pull away from him, but this time he will not let me go. I can hear his voice, soothing yet urgent. I can hear the Dark Spirit, goading and laughing at me. I can hear other spirits now, disturbed by the activity of such a powerful soul from the Darkness. I can hear my loyal captains offering their help. I am deafened. I am drowning in all their voices, all their words. I feel as if my mind will burn up from it all. I let out a shriek, and as I do so I unintentionally loose a shock of magic, fiery and dangerous, without direction, that lights up the entire attic space. The heat of it sends Bram hurtling backward, crashing against the far wall. The easel and chair are overturned, the teapot and cups dashed against the floor and smashed, the armchair upended, the bed turned, the mirror burst in smithereens from its frame. The blinding light lasts a second, no more, but when it passes and cools, there is an aroma of singeing hair and wood and dust. I stand very still, my fists clenched, my hair flowing outward, billowing, undulating, as if moved by a celestial breeze.

Slowly, cautiously, Bram gets to his feet. He looks a little bruised, and shocked, but otherwise unharmed. He takes in the devastation of the room and then returns his bewildered gaze to me.

The Dark Spirit has, mercifully, been silenced by my outburst.

I take a long, deep breath and look at the man I love, levelly, calmly. I want to hold close in my memory that dear, loving face in case, after I have spoken, he never turns it upon me again.

“You know me as Lady Lilith Montgomery, daughter of the sixth duke of Radnor. And so I am. But my father also happened to be Head Witch of the Lazarus Coven. A position that, when he died, passed on to me. My chosen name is Morningstar, and I lead a coven dedicated to the art of necromancy, sworn to commune with the dead in the Land of Night for the good of all, and to protect the Great Secret. In short, my darling, darling Bram, you have fallen in love with a witch.”

*   *   *

Bram pulls the rough blanket a little tighter around Lilith’s shoulders. In his narrow bed they lie together, fully clothed beneath the covers, holding one another in an embrace that he wishes would never end. In those first moments after Lilith told him, after she uttered in all seriousness—and he knew it
was
serious—the word “witch” he had felt as if he were falling. As if nothing he thought he knew would ever be true again. As if he could not, now, be certain of anything. The ground under him might not be real. Indeed, at that moment it had seemed to dissolve beneath his feet and no longer to be able to bear his weight. He knew one thing—Lilith was not lying. Nor did he believe her to be mad. Which meant that what she said was the truth. She was a witch. A witch, she had gone on to explain, who talked to the dead and who was capable of magic. This last was not, in fact, a surprise to him.

I sensed something. I always knew there was something about her. Something … otherworldly. She glows with it.

Even so, it is a giant step to take, from suspecting something strange to accepting that the woman he adores casts spells and summons spirits. He considered the possibility that it is he who is mad, but Lilith has done her best, in the hour since her revelation, to reassure him that this is not the case. He kisses the top of her head, breathing in the sweet scent of her hair. He can feel her tender heartbeating against his own chest, even through their many layers of warm clothing.

“You are very quiet,” she says softly. “I am afraid of what you might be thinking. Of what you might be thinking of me.”

“I am thinking that I am the luckiest man alive to be holding you in my arms.”

She wriggles free a little and looks up at him, risking a small smile. “Aren’t you afraid I might turn you into a frog?” she asks.

Bram shrugs. “I quite like frogs.”

Lilith’s smile broadens. “I’m not sure I’d want to kiss you if you were all green and warty.”

“Better kiss me now, then, while I’m still relatively human.”

And she does. A long, slow, sweet kiss that stirs him, making him wish the room were not so very cold, and their clothes not so very thick and plentiful. When she speaks again she lowers her gaze, uncertainty in her voice.

“I … I thought you might be repulsed. Revolted. By what I do. By what I am. Or afraid, perhaps.”

He shakes his head. “I love you, Lilith. I love
you,
in all your wonderful strangeness.” He hesitates before going on, then says, “But
you
were afraid, I think. Earlier. Something terrified you. Won’t you tell me what it was?”

“Not today. Not yet. I don’t think I can tell you any more right now. Do you mind awfully if we don’t talk about it for a little while? Could we just … be together? Like this?”

When he nods she snuggles back into him and he holds her tight. He knows that by confiding in him she has allowed him to come closer to her than anyone. He knows that she will tell him all there is to tell, in her own time.

I can wait, my love. Now I know that you trust me, and that you will not run away from me again, I can wait.

14.

The night after my revelation to Bram I sit in the blackness of the unlit Great Chamber, Druscilla at my side. I am glad to be pressing ahead with the summoning. The Dark Spirit has become increasingly frightening and persistent. He seems to know precisely when his words will have the most impact on me, when I am least able to address him. Indeed, I feel that it was because of how unsettled, how badgered, how hounded I felt that I confessed my truth to Bram. Oh, and it is wonderful that the secret no longer binds my heart! I feel able to love him now without the fetter of duplicity. Though, I admit, my relief at having told him is clouded somewhat by the knowledge of what I have done. Have I put the coven in danger? I do not believe so. Have I broken my vows as a Lazarus witch? Yes. I cannot pretend otherwise. To speak of the coven and our work to someone of the Outerworld is strictly forbidden. I do not suppose I am the first to have done so, but am I the first Head Witch? Do I even deserve to be called such, when I cannot follow our creed? I don’t know what will happen in the future, but I do know now is not the time to show weakness. The coven must unite against the Sentinels. This is not the moment to reveal any chinks in our armor. For this reason I have decided not to tell Druscilla about my confiding in Bram. Not yet. Tonight we have another matter that demands our full attention.

“I think it advisable,” Druscilla is saying, “given the hostility you have spoken of when this spirit is present, that we try only to summon him in voice.”

“I agree. His visual presence would be distracting and would somehow make him more threatening.”

“Make no mistake, a Dark Spirit can still be extremely dangerous, even when he is here in his most ethereal form.”