The Cauldron Effect, page 61
She had spelled Olivia, her witch’s hat that now hugged her head in the shape of a pretty blue bonnet, to only self-activate if there was danger nearby. Grace drew breath to check for intruders, when energy from Olivia swept down her body and encased her in a protective shell. Her mother and grandmother, too, had shields in place.
Bartos jumped up and pushing Farfur aside, stuck his head out the window. He growled low in his throat and tension raced up Grace’s back.
What had she precipitated by keeping quiet?
A black shadow whizzed by the window as Dewer raced ahead on his steed.
HIS PULSE THUNDERING and instincts clamoring with alarm, Dewer galloped toward a carriage accident further up the road. A wheel had been laid flat on the ground where two men worked on it. An elderly lady and her dowdy companion watched this activity from beside a tilted carriage missing its hind wheel. The companion had raised a parasol to shield her mistress from a light drizzle.
There was only one problem with that perfectly ordinary picture of an oft-encountered road accident. The subservient female was his mother. Her fae glow was blatant and her familial link drew him like a blazing North Star. He drew up along the muddy road before the two women and glowered at Queen Eolonde.
The well-dressed female stepped backward. “Sir, have a care. You shall muddy my gown.”
An absurd statement if ever he heard one. Her gown was wet and bedraggled as if she had lumbered through a mud flat. A few stray drops of dirt from Ifan’s hooves would hardly be noticeable across that soiled muslin landscape.
He bit back a colorful retort. The larger woman was human, as were the two men. The unkempt clothing of one suggested he was a groom for hire, while the light blue jacket and beaver hat identified the other as a post boy from a posting house.
Dewer had no quarrel with any of them. His mother, disguised as the female servant, he was ready to strangle. Since she refused to meet his gaze by keeping her head bowed, he had no choice but to address the elderly woman who had taken offence at his abrupt stop. “My sincere apology if I spattered your gown.”
The matron’s angry face softened and she gave an imperial nod. “Apology accepted. After our long journey from Exeter, it is good to encounter a gentleman. Pray excuse the manner of my ramshackle introduction. I am Countess Westerly.” She gestured to her servant. “This is Burns.”
Somehow his mother must have inveigled her way into this woman’s company and was pretending to be her companion. Quick work. When pressed, his mother was nothing if not resourceful. The presence of humans, however, meant he could not openly call her out on her deception. If she thought she had nothing to lose, she might strike out at one of the humans in frustration. His mother did not value anyone’s life but her own. And his.
He ground his teeth and focused on the broken wheel. Cracked in two places. Repairs would take several hours before the wheel could be fitted back on the carriage. No doubt that, too, was his mother’s handiwork.
The knot in his stomach tightened. How to defuse this situation without alarming the humans? His fingers twitched to fix the wheel with an incantation that would save hours of work, but that would stir talk about witchcraft, the very thing all Wyhcans in Britain strove to avoid. The witch-hunts of the past were a festering thorn, and a constant reminder to avoid spell casting when among humans.
“Is that approaching carriage yours, perchance?” the countess asked.
Dewer silently cursed his luck. Now, instead of a tense situation with humans in peril, he might end up with a full fae-witch war on his hands, with the humans caught in the middle. As if he did not already have enough counting against him with the Warlock Council, if this situation exploded, they might ban him from ever returning to Wales.
His shoulders and neck muscles bunched tighter as he admitted ownership and made his introduction.
“Excellent. I hope you are in a position to transport us to the nearest inn in Bristol, sir? Your kindness shall be amply rewarded, I assure you.”
His carriage rolled past with Miss Adair and her grandmother peering out with avid interest. The wiser hellhounds had withdrawn from sight. Probably smelled this trouble a mile back. His vehicle drew to a halt ahead on the narrow gravelly roadway.
Dewer dismounted and bowed to Countess Westerly. “I shall inform my companions about your situation. Excuse me.”
Ifan obediently trotted behind him as he marched toward his carriage, pondering how to deliver this bad news to the three witches. He opened the carriage door and Farfur and Bartos bounded out and raced up the road as if wanting to run away. The carriage horses shied from the enormous hounds running past them.
Miss Adair’s whistle, startlingly strong for a woman, and ringed with power, halted the hounds. They stood still and glanced back with misgiving but made no move to return, seeming as alarmed by his mother’s presence as Dewer. Smart hounds.
Inside the vehicle, all three witches were well armed with staffs at the ready. Miss Adair’s staff had a leaf sprouting near the tip. A tap of her forefinger and the vine fell off.
He quirked his eyebrow at that odd growth, but avoided her searching green gaze. This bad news required her mother’s wise counsel. “Countess Westerly is requesting passage with us to Bristol.” He met Harridan’s suspicious stare straight on. Would she read the warning in his eyes? “I suggest we send help back once we reach our destination instead.”
“How many need assistance, Mr. Dewer?” the elderly witch whom he had nicknamed Dotty asked. Her hand holding her staff was trembling. A shiver of sympathy arrowed into Dewer’s heart at having alarmed the silly old witch.
“There is room for only one more to sit in here with comfort,” Dotty added before he had a chance to respond, her worried glance fell to the empty space beside her.
He had not thought of the seating arrangements. Had his mother? A gleam of pure deviltry tickled him. She might not know that three witches were in here. This might work out after all.
“Two ladies require transportation, ma’am,” he said. “The countess and her companion. The workers would have to stay with the vehicle and horses to guard it until repairs are made or help comes.”
As he spoke, he pictured his mother standing on the cold metal dummy board beside the footman at the rear of his vehicle. By the time they reached Bristol, she would be soaked and shivering. Serve her right for trying to impose herself into his matters. With a wicked grin, he added, “There is room for the servant at the back of this vehicle.”
“It is raining.” Miss Adair glanced at the two women on the road.
“Should we invite them in?” her grandmother asked.
Dewer shook his head. “No.”
At the same moment, Grace’s mother, the Harridan, snapped her response. “Absolutely not!”
Yet again, they were in accord. Her ferocious glare withered his unwise impulse to grin at their parallel thinking.
“Mr. Dewer,” Harridan said in a cold voice, “I am wary of either of these women riding inside with us. Why are you so anxious for this companion to ride outside? Who is she? Pray, honor me by not dissembling, sir.”
Despite her plea, her wary gaze suggested she expected him to lie. That hurt, though he was unclear why. Harridan’s opinion of him should be immaterial.
Under the continued pressure of Harridan’s intent stare, Dewer leaned back on his heels. It was in his mother’s nature to lie to everyone, including him. He had learned the same trick at her knee since boyhood. At this moment, however, with Harridan’s heated gaze boring into him, every lie he had ever spoken clogged in his throat.
He swallowed that squirming lump and said what came unnaturally. “That other woman is my mother.”
Miss Adair gasped and leaned out the open door, coming deliciously close to brushing his cheek with hers. She sat back. “I never would have guessed. I saw her so clearly this morning.”
At that admission, her guilty gaze clashed with Dewer’s. He expected her to skewer him with a similar recriminating stare as her mother’s. Instead, she retreated but then as swiftly recaptured and held his gaze. Then her long lashes dropped as she bent and kissed his white rose.
Dewer’s heart pounded at that come-hither invitation. He had to steel himself to keep from leaning forward and capturing those luscious lips with his. Only remembering her mother sat beside her and would flay him alive if he tried to steal such a kiss, while his mother’s gaze bore into his back, kept Dewer rooted to where he stood.
He shook his head, thoroughly confused. Why would Miss Adair flirt with him after implicitly admitting she had overheard his conversation with his mother where he had torn apart her character? He’d also just confessed that his dark fae mother was not twenty feet away, probably hoping for an opportunity to kill her and very likely all of her family. Past experience had shown that his mother’s reprisals knew no boundaries. He would never understand witches.
“Mr. Dewer,” Harridan said, “I thank you.”
“I beg your pardon?” Did she just thank me? His startled attention swung from daughter to mother.
“I appreciate your honesty.” The baroness spoke slowly, as if the words were being dragged from her throat. “As much as I would enjoy your mother suffering on a ride into Bristol on the back of this carriage, I cannot countenance such an outcome. Your footman is human, am I correct?”
He nodded, wondering where this went.
“We cannot leave him to her less-than-tender care at the back of the carriage. Those two men working on the broken wheel and this Countess Westerly are also human?”
Again, he nodded agreement, now sensing clearly where this led. Nowhere he wanted to follow.
“Then we also cannot depart and leave your mother with them,” Harridan said with a deep sigh that spoke of regret. “It is a witch’s sworn duty to protect all humans from harm. A price we gladly pay for our past crimes.”
Gammon! Dewer kept his epithet and disparaging views about Harridan’s last statement unspoken.
How much responsibility Wyhcans bore for the witch hunts that had resulted in many innocent humans being brutally tortured and murdered by other humans was a longstanding argument. Warlocks maintained they were not to blame for the unintended mistake that instigated the hunts, while witches insisted they were all entirely at fault. It was the Wyhcans’ unexpected arrival on this alien earth and their practice of mind-magic that had been the lit wick to the witch-hunt fever.
Dewer’s fae mother, on the other hand, had long claimed that witches were idiots to take the blame for humans’ actions.
Whatever the veracity of anyone’s beliefs, the disagreement over the cause of witch-hunts had split the Wyhcan community for hundreds of years. The catastrophe at Bedfordshire had widened that rift. Though he had heard a strange rumor recently that the breach between the Wyhcans was beginning to heal.
Nevertheless, Dewer was not about to set foot in this scorpion’s nest of a topic, so he kept his peace. Hands clasped at his back, he patiently waited for Harridan to decide her course of action. After all, she and her family would be the ones riding inside this carriage with a queen of the underworld.
Once she considered the matter, she would see the best course was the one he outlined. Though, after his last discussion with this family, he doubted that wisdom was a strong family trait. Meanwhile, having shown a decided lack of good judgment himself lately, he continued to moon over Miss Adair. It was near impossible to not stare as her perfect bosom as it rose and fell with every nervous breath.
A difficult accomplishment when she sat so close her jessamine perfume wrapped its tendrils around him and enticed him nearer. Feet firmly planted to keep from swaying toward the temptress, Dewer kept his sights trained on Harridan.
A nod to her daughter indicated the baroness had made her decision. She shifted to the far side of the carriage. After a moment’s hesitation, Miss Adair did the same on her side, her legs swinging sideways to where he leaned in at the open doorway until her delicate knee brushed his chest and sent his nerve endings ricocheting.
He quickly stepped back and took a calming breath, trying to decipher what the witches were up to.
Then with a defeated-sounding sigh, Dotty stood and took her place between her daughter and granddaughter.
Then the unthinkable occurred to him. They are making room for Mother to join them!
At one unanimous tap, their three staffs faded from view, but their combined powerful presence vibrated inside his carriage and acted as a shield from the tips of their toes to the top of the ceiling.
“Invite the countess and her companion to ride with us,” Harridan said in a grave voice.
“Yes,” Dotty said. “Despite these cramped conditions, I am curious to meet your mother. There is so much noise about her exploits, one can hardly credit which reports are valid.”
Miss Adair had visibly paled as if, of the three, she was most fearful. She should quake. His mother detested competition for his affection and Miss Adair was rising in his affections by leaps and bounds.
Dewer swallowed his protest at this foolish decision and bowed acceptance. Time to inform his mother she had won, but he remained flummoxed by this turn of events.
What was wrong with these witches? Why did none of them act as he expected? Immutable facts were fluid to them. More important, what was wrong with him that despite all the perils circling his head like hungry vultures, he wanted nothing more than to take Miss Adair in his arms and see if her kisses lived up to her eyes’ promise to enthrall?
He had tried to dislike her, attempted to discount her character and to dissuade his body from desiring her. All to no avail. Now his mother had twigged to his struggles and he feared he might fail to protect a woman who was fast eclipsing Merryn from his heart.
His blossoming addiction to everything that was Miss Adair was completely inexplicable. Including this longing to want to protect her silly grandmother and, apparently, also to make her dragonish mother proud of him.
GRACE TUCKED HER FEET in as Countess Westerly and her companion entered the carriage. The vehicle tilted to the left as the large woman slid over to sit across from Grace’s mother and grandmother. Her companion, Mrs. Burns, sat directly across from Grace in the little space left on the seat.
Her grandmother circled Grace’s cold trembling fingers in a fiercely protective hold that offered great comfort.
There was little comfort from the hellhounds who had decided to finish the rest of their journey on foot.
Cowards.
From the open doorway, after making introductions, Dewer lingered watching Grace with a deeply troubled frown as rain drummed on his riding hat. His hesitation spoke of his uncertainty at leaving Grace alone in his mother’s precarious company.
His concern mirrored hers. She wished there was room for him to cuddle next to her, but with three on this seat, her grandmother’s hip was already snug against hers.
His worry made him look cross. Finally, he stepped back but before he shut the door, something grazed Grace’s face. It was as if he had tenderly brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. Yet, he could not have, for he had been standing too far away. Unless he used magic. Her skin tingled with that remembered caress.
Dewer returned to his mount without a backward glance. Disappointed, she turned her attention to the new occupants and her startled gaze clashed with his mother’s censorious glare. Her unspoken reprimand merely confirmed Dewer’s illicit touch. His ethereal gesture, along with his mother’s animosity, proved he was growing to care about her. Grace tucked her head down to hide a triumphant grin.
The vehicle trundled forward, wheels turning on the wet gravelly road, splattering mud. The two men remaining with the broken-down vehicle stood back to avoid getting smeared by the flying dirt, and waved them off.
Meanwhile, inside the carriage, the fae queen continued to pretend to be no more than a timid British country woman in her early forties. Her mousy brown hair was tightly combed into a bun and tucked under a dowdy straw hat that dripped water from its brim onto her narrow shoulders. She had rounded cheeks and age lines around her eyes and mouth. She could easily have been mistaken for one of Grace’s neighbors.
In her mother’s rose garden, the queen had appeared tall, with a pallor of death over her smooth face and her raven hair spitting flames.
Who was the real Eolonde?
Had Dewer ever wondered that about his mother? Probably all of his life. Grace’s chest swelled with compassion for a boy with such a deceptive mother.
“Thank you dearly for transporting us to Bristol.” Countess Westerly shifted her enormous bulk more comfortably onto her seat, taking up three-quarters of the available space. “We were at our wits end about what to do, were we not, Burns?”
“Indeed, my lady.” Burns’s tone was quiet and submissive as she slid to the far edge to give her mistress more room.
Joy’s energy vibrated a warning in Grace’s palm and her clandestine grip on her staff tightened until her shield merged so tightly with her mother and grandmother’s, their invisible barrier might have been a steel cage door dividing the carriage interior in two.
“How long has your family been in these parts, Lady Westerly?” her grandmother asked, though her gaze remained fixed on the lady’s maid.
“Nearly two centuries,” the countess said. “Aside from our estate, we own several dairy farms in Somersetshire.”
“What brings you away from home?”
“I am on my way to London.”
Movement above Burns’s head caught Grace’s attention. The seat cover’s fabric distended outward as if something moved behind it. Grace’s breath caught as the creature crept upward. The material’s distorted shape resembled one of those human-headed snakes she’d seen in the garden slithering between Dewer and Queen Eolonde. It was making its way upward. Did it think to cross over to their side of the vehicle through the carriage ceiling, and thereby bypass their shield? She prepared a spell to counter such an aggressive move but her mother was quicker. A tap of the baroness’s staff and the creature gave a high-pitched squeak and then vanished.
