Fox’s heart sank. He moistened his lips. “How bad is it?”
The men all fell silent as they awaited Bourne’s answer, yet he seemed scarcely able to form words. After two starts, he finally managed, “It’s worse than I thought. Much worse.” He shuddered.
“But will you be able to get rid of it, sir?” Chapman asked eagerly.
Another shudder ran through Bourne. “It won’t be easy. Impossible most likely.” He swallowed, hard. “What you see here is only the damage that thing has wreaked on the surface. But the roots… oh, the roots will have spread so much further. It…” His voice broke.
“It has poisoned the land,” Colin Bourne supplied softly. “And because Amy has joined herself with the land…” His face spasmed. For a moment, his control seemed to slip. After a shuddering breath, he added, “It’s no wonder that she is ailing. It has poisoned her, too.”
Richard frowned. “Why would they have wanted to poison the land?”
Bourne gave a hollow laugh. “A mere side effect, my lord. From what I understand, the two other attacks were directed at your children? Then look what this thing does.” He pointed to the bones and the ripped-off, rotting wing of the bird. “Now it is only small animals, but imagine how tall the plant would have grown in spring…”
Fox had never seen his brother go as pale as he did when the full meaning of Bourne’s words sank in. A murmur of shock rippled through the men around them.
Richard swayed, his face ashen. “They… she…”
The admiral’s hand shot out to steady him. “Easy, my friend. Easy.”
“Yes,” Bourne said quietly. “Oh yes. That is what they wanted to happen.”
“Which would be?” a female voice sounded from the back of the crowd.
They turned. The men stepped aside to let the countess and Mrs. Bourne pass. “What is—” the latter began, then caught sight of the plant. She drew in a sharp breath, before her face tightened. “Those bastards!” She shook her head.
“It will be difficult to kill.” Her husband’s voice sounded tired. “Look at how it sways from side to side as if it understands each word we’re saying.”
“How awful,” Bella whispered. She stepped to Richard’s side and slipped her arm around his.
Mrs. Bourne, however, straightened. “No matter if it does or doesn’t understand, it won’t help the nasty little bugger,” she growled. She threw her husband a pointed look. “You dashed away so fast, you forgot to take
any
thing with you. How fortunate that at least one of us kept their wits about them.”
Apparently, Fox thought in a daze, Mrs. Bourne still hadn’t forgiven her husband for sending their niece to live with the Benthams.
“Mary—” Bourne began, only to have his wife cut in, “I have brought books.” Her tone and the look on her face were triumphant.
“You have—”
“Yes.” And she started ticking off her fingers, “
The Red Book of Chumleigh, The Black Book of Caernarfon, The Writings of Rhodri the Great
—doesn’t he cover plants as well?—and, of course,
The Revelations of Domangart of Alba
. ” As Bourne’s shoulders sagged with relief, her expression softened. “I thought they might prove useful,” she added more gently.
“Thank goodness.” Obviously not caring about the audience, Bourne wrapped one arm around his wife’s shoulders and drew her into a tight embrace. “Thank goodness that I have the cleverest wife in all the world.” His voice sounded choked.
Their sons gaped at them. “B-but Mama,” Devlin Bourne stuttered. “Those are… apart from
The Writings of Rhodri the Great
, those are…” As he seemed too astounded to continue, his brother finished the sentence: “Those are all books from the forbidden part of the library!”
“Of course,” their mother said with perfect calm. “All books on dark spells and blood magic and old, better-forgotten rituals. How else shall we understand what we are dealing with?” She pressed a kiss on her husband’s face, then took a step back. With her hands demurely clasped in front of her, she looked again the proper lady. Nobody who saw her now would have guessed that only moments before, her eyes had been burning with fury.
Fox blinked. The transformation was indeed astonishing.
A memory flashed into his mind of the way Amy had looked when she had broken through the spell of Lady Margaret’s sorcerer. She had been frantic when the dagger had pierced his shoulder and his blood had run through her fingers. He remembered the warmth of her touch on his skin, the heat that had flowed from her hands into his shoulder. It hadn’t fully registered with him, though; he had only had eyes for the love that softened her face as she stroked his cheek. But then, as she had turned away—oh, how her expression had changed! Her eyes had glowed with murderous fury when she had confronted their tormentors.
Her fierceness had left him staggered. For then he had known she would kill to protect him. And she had.
His chest expanded on a deep, agonized breath. Guilt stabbed him anew and it hurt worse than the wizard’s dagger. What a fool he had been! Such a bloody, bloody fool!
Meanwhile Mrs. Bourne proposed that they all go back to the house in order to read up on evil plants before they attempted to kill this particular specimen the next day.
“Tomorrow?” Mr. Chapman asked. “Shouldn’t we whack it with a spade first?” His gaze flicked from the plant to the old oak tree and back again.
“My dear man”—Mrs. Bourne gave him a kind but somewhat pitying look—“in cases such as this, when magic is involved, it is always best to not take any chances. Especially when it might not only cost you a perfectly good spade, but also your arm.” She sniffed. “Look at that little creeper. So full of evil.”
They all stared at the plant, whose central stalk continued to move from side to side. Perhaps it did indeed know they were planning its destruction, because its leaves slithered to and fro, scattering the remains of the small animals buried underneath even more.
“No,” Mrs. Bourne said decisively. “Today we are going to plan our counterspell, and tomorrow at first dawn we will kill that thing.”
So they returned to the house, cold, wet and exhausted from their long search, but in a far happier mood than they had been that morning. For the very first time Fox allowed himself to hope.
When he sat with Amy in the evening, her cool hand resting between his palms, he thought of how easily the Bournes had included his family in the planning of the spell—as if they had taken it for granted that they would and could all work together whether they had magical abilities or not. The Bournes had even called in Mr. Chapman to advise them on how best to kill regular weeds. At this point, the admiral had scribbled down notes as well—no doubt, come next spring he would attack the moss growing on his apple trees with strong lime water.
“It’s most curious, is it not?” Sybilla later remarked to Fox. “How much care and effort putting together such a spell takes. Why, it’s almost like composing a song.”
It seemed his family had easily accepted the existence of magic.
But it goes against all common sense and rational thought!
something inside Fox clamored even now.
He looked down at where he had laced his fingers with Amy’s.
He was a man not given to superstition or flights of fancy, one who didn’t believe in fairy tales. And yet…
His thumb smoothed over the back of Amy’s small hand where her skin was as soft as eiderdown. Being with her had reminded him of a time when he believed that stones could hum. Vividly, he remembered how her dancing in the stone circle had filled him with wonder. Anything had seemed possible with her at his side.
Fox leaned forward and brushed his mouth over her cheek. “Don’t leave me now, sweetheart,” he murmured. “I would be lost without you, and the world would be such an empty place.”
It occurred to him that if it hadn’t been for the potion he would be sitting in his club right now, or spending an evening at Madame Suzette’s, slaking his lust in a meaningless encounter. What a shallow fellow he had been! He would have never pursued Amy, would have never made the effort to see beyond his annoyance and value her for the sweet, witty person she was. She might not fulfill the ideal of the polished, stylish debutante, but she was courageous and resourceful, kindhearted and talented in ways he had never imagined.
If it hadn’t been for the potion, he would have continued his merry but empty bachelorhood or, perhaps, would have eventually relented and married a society debutante after all. They would have had a sparkling, sophisticated society marriage—and everybody knew what
that
meant! Fox grimaced. He would have never known the bliss he had found in Amy’s arms, would have never known that closeness of body and soul he had experienced with her.
Yes, they were different—a man who put rational thought above all else, a woman who lived a fairy tale. The potion had pulled those superficial barriers down and had thus allowed them to find each other after all.
With a sigh, Fox laid his head next to Amy’s on the pillow and his closed his eyes.
Please, you must come back to me.
~*~
The next morning they all assembled around the magical plant once more. Mr. Chapman brought a large, sturdy sickle, which he had sharpened the evening before, and his assistants carried water cans and buckets filled with concentrated lime water. Colin Bourne held two pouches of salt—one large, one small. It had been Mrs. Bourne’s idea to scratch Amy’s skin and mix a few drops of her blood into the salt to increase the powers of the spell she and her husband were about to invoke.
Richard leaned over to whisper into Fox’s ear. “How curious. I always thought such things would require the full moon.”
Fox shrugged. “Apparently not. Lady Margaret and her minions didn’t require the full moon, either, did they?” He watched how Bourne took the sickle and the smaller bag of salt. Mrs. Bourne, armed with a can of lime water and the larger bag, positioned herself near the plant, and gave her husband a nod.
Taking a deep breath, Bourne turned. “And here it begins. If you would all take a step back, my lord, my ladies, gentlemen.”
With measured steps he then circled the plant, dropping grains of salt onto the earth. His lips moved as he murmured under his breath, but the words remained unintelligible. Carefully, he drew a circle around the plant, his wife and himself, and when the last few grains of salt touched the earth to complete it, the round began to shimmer with blue light.
Hissing, the plant shot forward as if to snap at Bourne. Yet he stood out of its reach and, unperturbed, lifted the sickle slowly with both hands. Rays of the winter sun caught and sparkled on the gray steel, and it seemed as if a gleaming star was lodged at the tip of the blade. The next moment, the sickle swung downward in a graceful, deadly arc. Yet instead of chopping off the main stalk, Bourne cut deep into the earth in order to hit the main root.
A high-pitched wail made them all start. Faster than lightning, the main stalk shot forward and the black ball at its top unfurled to sink a row of sharp thorns into Bourne’s arm. He grunted with pain. Still, his free arm never wavered, and he drew the sickle out of the ground with one hand. The tip of the blade had blackened.
Dark red liquid oozed up from the wound in the earth, and Mrs. Bourne quickly aimed a gush of lime water at it. Already the plant seemed to weaken: the stalk sagged; the leaves’ rustling decreased.
While his wife steadily poured the water on the plant, Bourne raised the sickle once more, and this time he did cut through the main stalk. Another wail was abruptly cut off. The black ball fell away from Bourne’s arm. Although blood tripped from his wound to the earth, the hiss of the sickle swinging from side to side and cutting into leaves and roots never faltered. With each blow the blade turned blacker and blacker until, with a screech, the metal burst and splintered like dry wood.
In unison the group of spectators gasped.
The can of lime water spent, Mrs. Bourne put it aside and opened the bag of salt. Murmuring a spell under her breath, she sprinkled it liberally over the dying remains of the plant to stamp out all life. Under the influence of the salt and her spell, the dark leaves and roots withered away and turned into black slime that lay thick and oily on the earth. With a graceful wave of her hand, Mrs. Bourne brought her spell to an end. She looked at her husband, a small smile hovering around her mouth. “Done,” she said.
With the tip of his boot, Bourne smudged the line of salt that described the border of the magic circle, and immediately the blue light expired. With a deep sigh he stepped out. “Well, now.” With the back of his hand he wiped his forehead. “The roots need to be dug up and burned together with all the earth. Afterwards, the whole area must be purified.”
“What about Amy?” Fox pressed. “Will this help her?”
Bourne lifted his shoulders, then grimaced in pain. “That remains to be seen.” He glanced at the now useless handle of the sickle in his hand, and frowned as if he had only now become aware that the tool had broken. With a shrug he threw it away.
Mrs. Bourne went to her husband and, putting her hand on his shoulder, inspected his arm. “This wound needs to be cleaned and looked after. You should have chopped off that nasty little thing at the top first, after all.”
“And have its blood splatter everywhere?” Bourne asked wryly.
She wrinkled her nose. “No, you’re right. It would have ruined everybody’s coats. And these things are usually terribly difficult to remove from fabric. That would have been aggravating indeed.” She turned her attention back on the remains of the plant and on the surrounding area. “I am afraid the bushes are beyond saving, Mr. Chapman,” she addressed the head gardener. “And that poor old oak tree probably needs to be cut down as well. Everything else ought to be rubbed down with lime water and then we’ll have to wait and see how this turns out.”
The group scattered: the gardeners went back to their work, while the Bournes, the Stapletons and the admiral returned to the house. Pip and Dick bubbled over with excitement about what they had witnessed, and asked the young Bournes a thousand questions.