The Demon's Bride (3 page)

One day Rachel listened to a long, detailed tale about a family feud that dated back to the Wars of the Roses, and then was blandly told that the speaker had never heard anything in particular about a girl who’d burned to death less than a hundred years before.

It was both ridiculous and suspicious.

But why would such a matter be a dark secret? Even if someone had killed Meg, what need to conceal it now? The culprit was surely in his or her grave.

When Rachel heard that old Len Brewstock was ailing with his chest, she took the opportunity to drive out in the donkey cart to the Brewstock farm with her special cough syrup. Old Len must be over ninety himself. He was quite possibly a brother, or at least a nephew, of Meg. Surely he must have some memory of that time.

She half expected the Brewstock farm to be a gloomy, secret-ridden place, but it proved to be solid, prosperous, and welcoming in the autumn sun. Rachel took up her basket of help for the sick and knocked at the door.

Ada Brewstock, the current ruler of the farmhouse, greeted her pleasantly enough. “Why, that’s right kind of you, Miss Proudfoot. Come you in and take a cup of tea. Grandad’s here by the fire. Grandad!” she called to wake the wizened little man. “Here’s the parson’s daughter come to see you.”

The old man blinked, face slack with sleep, then perked up. “Always like to see a pretty girl,” he wheezed, then went into a paroxysm of coughing.

“He’s not well,” said Ada as an aside. “But then, at his age. . . . Sit you down and have a chat, miss.”

Rachel sat across the fire from the man. “Please don’t try to talk if it bothers your chest, Mr. Brewstock.”

“No, no,” he wheezed. “It’s none too bad.”

“I’ve brought some of my syrup for you. It may help.”

“That’s kind of you, miss.” He peered at her a moment. “Yous new here, ain’t yous?”

“Yes, my father and I have only been here since August. It’s a very interesting part of the country.”

“That it is. That it is. Were lively here once, back afore the Normans came. . . .”

Rachel did not want a lecture on Anglo-Saxon Suffolk. “And has many quaint customs,” she said briskly. Then winced. It was highly inappropriate to describe something as quaint when it had resulted in a gruesome death.

“Aye, aye,” the man nodded. “We keep to the old ways pretty well. Important, that is. Keeping to the old ways. Don’t hold with these new-fangled notions. Changing crops. Changing seasons. When I were a lad, we knew what day it was. . . .”

Ada Brewstock brought the tea over. “Grandad’s still fretted about the way they changed the calendar ten years back, Miss Proudfoot. Reckons they stole eleven days, he does.”

In 1752, September 3 had become September 14 to correct the calendar. It had created a lot of resentment among the ignorant.

“But days are days,” said Rachel. “Changing the date doesn’t take anything away.”

Even sensible Ada looked skeptical. “If you say so, miss. Are you wanting to ask Grandad something special?”

Rachel colored at that perception. “Actually, yes. As you may know, Mrs. Brewstock, my father collects information about local customs. We recently heard of the death of a member of the Brewstock family on Walpurgis Night many years ago. I was wondering if old Mr. Brewstock remembers anything of it.”

“Well, it was afore his time, of course. Grandad,” she said, “Miss Proudfoot wants to know about Burnt Meggie.”

“Burnt Meggie? That were afore my time.”

As if the Normans weren’t,
thought Rachel. “But what did people used to say about it, Mr. Brewstock? Back when you were a boy.”

He slurped his tea and gave her a surprisingly shrewd look. “Same as they say now, miss. That folk shouldn’t mess in things they don’t understand. . . . “He fell silent and sat staring into the fire sipping tea.

Rachel tried to puzzle out his comments. She wished she could take notes, for often the precise words were useful, but she feared it would make these people nervous.

Then the old man muttered something else. It sounded like, “Could have been worse.”

“Worse that being burned to death?” Rachel asked.

“Nay.” He peered at her. “Who said Meggie were burned to death?”

Rachel realized she had been thinking more of her aunt, whose clothes had caught from the fire, turning her into a human torch. “Mrs. Hatcher implied that Meg’s clothes caught at the fire.”

“How would she know?” grunted the old man. “Mere snip of a thing, she is.”

Rachel had a struggle to keep a straight face at the thought of solid, fifty-year-old Mrs. Hatcher as a snip of a thing. “So how did Meggie end up burnt?” Rachel asked. As she framed the question, horrid thoughts gathered. Sacrificed on an altar, then her corpse flung into the flames?

The man didn’t answer, so Rachel asked again, “How did Meggie die, Mr. Brewstock?”

He seemed to peer back through the years. “Died from getting above her station, as I heard it, and from people messing around with things they don’t understand.”

“Who? What people?”

But the man gave all the appearance of dropping off to sleep.

“He’s asleep more often than not these days,” said Ada, coming over with her own cup of tea. She pulled up a stool. “Did you find out what you wanted to know, miss?”

Rachel considered the woman, who appeared sensible and honest. “Not really. I can’t understand why there’s so much secrecy about such an ancient affair, Mrs. Brewstock. My father’s interest is simply scientific. He records these customs because we live in a time of progress, and soon these traditions will be forgotten.”

The woman’s look was wry. “I doubt much’ll be forgot round here, miss. Folk have long memories.”

“Then they presumably remember what happened to Meggie.”

“Some might.”

Rachel tried a shot at random. “They say Meggie worked at the Abbey.”

“Aye.” Ada stood abruptly and pulled Rachel’s cup and saucer from her hands. “I’ve work to do, miss. Thank you kindly for bringing the cough syrup. I’ll see he takes it.”

Rachel cast a regretful look at the somnolent old man and allowed herself to be firmly shepherded outside. She knew Old Len could tell her all about Burnt Meggie if he chose.

It was a fine day for October, so Rachel took a detour on her way home, one that passed close to Dymons Hill. This corner of Suffolk was fairly hilly but Dymons Hill was an abrupt mound of chalk, and she could quite see how it would seize the local imagination. It told her nothing about Meggie Brewstock’s death, however.

On impulse, she tethered the donkey to a tree and picked her way across the rough sheep pasture toward the hill. She met up with a path which appeared to link the village to the hill. It was faint, but had the depth and permanence of the ancient.

There were so many of these paths in England still, trodden for thousands of years so that their mark would never really leave the earth. Many were the only record of a ceremony once crucial to the people. Rachel had to admit to sometimes wondering if those old ceremonies had been valid, if once gods other than the Christian Trinity had linked themselves with humans, for good or ill.

Her father would be ashamed of such thinking.

As Rachel neared the rise, she could see that there was a clear path up the hill as well. It wound slightly, and appeared to have been carved out in places to make it easier, but it too looked very old. Could Dym’s Night be pre-Christian?

Rachel had no intention of climbing the hill today, but she wandered around the base pondering what she had learned.

Certainly the old man didn’t believe Meggie had been burned to death. That could only mean that she had been burned after she was dead. It did conjure up very unpleasant notions.

But what had he meant about her getting above her station? The most likely interpretation was that she had become romantically involved with one of the family at Morden Abbey. If she’d shamed herself, could her family have killed her and used the revels to dispose of the body?

And what of the matter of not messing with what one didn’t understand? Had that been a warning directed at her and her father?

Had it, in fact, been a threat?

But why? Why would anyone think such old history of any importance?

Even the earl had concealed something—probably that an ancestor had seduced Meggie Brewstock. Why should such a man care about a thing like that? Doubtless he’d worked his way through his female servants like a sultan with a harem.

Rachel was distracted by the beat of a galloping horse, carried to her by the earth. Threats, demons, and funeral pyres all leapt panic-powered into her mind.

She turned to flee, but could not tell from what direction the danger came. By the time she’d fixed it, the black horse and caped rider were in sight, galloping with magnificent speed along the base of Dymons Hill toward her. A scream caught in her throat and the rider charged her like a cavalry officer.

However, the man reared the steaming horse to a halt some yards away and Rachel instantly recognized the earl. He sat arrogantly on his sidling horse and looked her over as if she were a prize ewe, and one he was planning to slaughter.

He was rather more alarming than a demon.

He slid off the horse and walked toward her, reins held slackly in one hand. Rachel stepped back nervously. Even casual country wear could not disguise his rank, and she was not accustomed to dealing with the high nobility. He was a good foot taller than she, too, and being tall herself she was not accustomed to that. In his long black riding cloak he was positively menacing, especially as his courteous smile did not reach his eyes.

“What a blessed chance,” he drawled. “It’s the vicar’s pretty daughter.”

Rachel stopped her retreat and frowned at him. No one had ever called her pretty in seriousness, including this man.

Before she could frame a reply, he further disconcerted her by drifting his gaze up and down her body and adding, “No, I mistake the matter, Miss Proudfoot. You are not pretty.”

This was even more impossible to respond to, but Rachel was experiencing a strong desire to box his ears, earl or not.

“Magnificent, I think, is more the word.”

That liberated Rachel’s tongue. “My lord, pray stop this foolishness!”

“Is it foolish to call a lady magnificent? If so, all London is foolish.” He glanced around at the bleak landscape scattered with sheep. “But this assuredly is not London, Miss Proudfoot, and our company is not the glittering throng.”

Rachel knew he could be up to no good. She dropped him a stiff curtsy and turned to pick her way back across the field.

The wretched man kept pace with her, saying nothing, his horse stepping neatly behind. Rachel could not bear it. She stopped to face him. “Please, my lord, this behavior is
intolerable.”

A sudden smile lit his face, making him look a great deal more like his portrait. “I have merely been waiting for an opportunity to apologize, Miss Proudfoot.”

“You could have apologized at any time, my lord.”

“Shout at a fleeing lady? I think not.” He placed a hand on his heart. “However, Miss Proudfoot, on reviewing our brief encounter I am forced to conclude that I was discourteous, and I most humbly beg your pardon.”

Rachel didn’t believe a word of it, most particularly the “humbly”, but in the face of such a superficially gracious apology, she could do nothing but say, “It is forgotten, my lord.”

He bowed with a true London air. “Thank you, dear lady. You have distressed me, you see, which naturally leads me to resent you deeply.”

“I? I have done nothing.”

“Indeed you have. You have looked at me with honest eyes and tilted that firm chin at me.”

Rachel colored, wondering if he were accusing her of boldness.

“And you blush,” he said with a sigh. “What am I supposed to do with a strong-minded woman who can still blush?”

He dropped his horse’s reins, pulled Rachel within the compass of his arms and his cloak, and kissed her.

For a crucial moment, Rachel was frozen by shock. When she tried to struggle, she found herself powerless in his strength. She also found that her struggles only served to make her far too aware of his body. His strong, hard, exciting body.

She turned instead into a statue of icy disapproval.

That, however, only pulled all her attention to his mouth. To begin with, his lips had merely captured hers; now they released her and started to play across her cheek to her ear lobe.

“My lord!” she gasped.

His open mouth swooped back to cover hers as he simultaneously swayed her stiff body off balance, so that she had to clutch at him or fall. Her mouth opened further in a scream and became joined with his without restriction.

At that, she lost control, plunged into a pit of wicked sensation, swirling ever deeper into a spicy heat unlike anything she had ever known.

And she liked it.

In the dim recesses of her mind, her well-trained conscience struggled to assert that this was wrong, was terrible, but her wanton body betrayed her. It surrendered itself to his skill. It drank in the heat and smell of him as her mouth learned from his shockingly intimate attentions.

When she was lost, entirely lost, and was willing to sink with him to the damp grass and do anything to continue this delight, he began to raise her back toward the vertical. As he did so, he released her lips gently, with many parting, flickering kisses.

Rachel realized she was returning those kisses in full measure, and stopped it, but still staring up at blue eyes dark with sin. She thought, perhaps, that her own drowning disbelief was strangely reflected there. . . .

Then the cool cynicism snapped back. “So, the vicar’s daughter knows how to kiss.”

Rachel snatched herself out of his arms. “I know no such thing!”