"Stop her!" Simon's command rose above the confusion.
She looked back. He stood near the stables, his arms full of ledgers and papers, his white lace ruff and cuffs blackened by soot. He kicked one of the serving boys racing past but the lad was too scared or too occupied to stop. Simon swore at him then looked around for someone else but no one seemed aware that their master needed them. Behind him, black smoke billowed from the study windows and two of the adjoining rooms. Servants threw valuable tapestries and painted cloths out of the other windows, but most got trampled beneath frantic feet.
Pippa continued running towards the gatehouse and the arched entrance to the estate. Almost there. Even though she knew Simon could recapture her beyond the gates, she still desperately wanted to reach them, wanted to taste the air on the other side.
"Stop!" Simon again, his voice hoarse. "Get back here, Witch!" When she didn't stop, he shouted, "I'll send the Witch Hunter after you."
She stumbled and fell, tearing her hose and scraping her knee. Simon's threat lingered in the air with the ash and smoke. Despite the warmth of the day, she felt cold to the bone.
Witch
.
No. Not her. Surely not.
Yet she had caused the fire. She'd felt the force of it gathering within, felt the heat and power flood her body and blast from her fingertips.
Her stomach lurched. She wanted to throw up. There was no doubt—she
was
a witch. But...how?
She had no time to consider the answer to that. Two fat hands clamped down on her shoulders and drew her roughly out of the dirt. She looked up at her uncle and shrank back from his crazed glare. His fingers dug into her skin where shoulders met throat. A little higher and he would strangle her.
Pippa fought down panic and tried to control her breathing. "Let me go!"
"Allow my dear niece to abandon me?" He sneered, as if that were amusing. "Foolish girl." Without warning, he slapped her.
She gasped at the sting but refused to rub her cheek or check if he'd drawn blood with his rings. She wouldn't show weakness. Not to Simon. He fed on it. He wanted it. Her fear only made him feel more powerful and she would rather die than give him what he wanted.
"That was for running off." He raised his hand, laughing like a madman when she flinched in anticipation of the pain. "And this is for burning my house down." His hand curled into a fist.
Instinctively, she lifted her arm to block his blow. But she did more than merely stop him hitting her. With an explosion of power that seemed to emanate from her core, her arm connected with his and he flew through the air, landing some distance away on his back.
Dusty, sooty and sprawled in the dirt like a beggar, he stared up at her, fear imprinted in every feature. He was afraid of her.
Good Lord, the giddiness of it. The sheer pleasure of knowing that
she
could make a man like Simon Rowe afraid. It was intoxicating, heady and thoroughly exhilarating, like riding extremely fast in rough terrain.
But also very, very dangerous.
Thankfully no one had seen but she needed to be more careful in the future. If she didn't learn to control these strange new powers, she would find herself at the end of a noose.
Simon pointed a finger at her. "You...you...!"
"Witch?" she offered after making sure no one was within earshot. "
Now
will you let me go?"
He licked cracked lips. "Go if you dare. But I will set the Witch Hunter onto you. He will find you no matter where you go, and when he does, I'll not stop him from doing his job."
She backed away from the sheer venom in his voice. The Witch Hunter's self-appointed job was to kill witches. Kill them and obliterate every trace of them as if they never existed. Legend said he knew how to negate a witch's powers, making it easier to capture them. No one knew how he did it and no one knew what he did to the women afterwards, but rumors were rife. Some said he tortured the accused before killing them, others said he took his perverse sexual desires out on their bodies first.
Pippa swallowed and backed away. Simon stood and dusted himself off, watching her all the while. Despite wobbling legs, she turned and ran.
"You'll never find peace again!" he shouted after her. "He will hunt you down. You can't hide, my girl. He'll find you and your kind. He always does."
The sound of his mad laugh dogged her heels. She had to get away, had to run far enough and hide somewhere that not even the Witch Hunter would find her. But where? The man was said to be omniscient. He could find witches anywhere in England.
She tried desperately to think of somewhere and of someone who could help her. But she knew of only one person—Georgiana Dale—and one place. With a silent prayer of thanks to Georgiana for her kindly offer in that final letter, Pippa ran through the gatehouse and didn't look back.
***
2 Days Later
Even dressed in boys' clothes and perched half way up a tree just outside London's ancient walls, Pippa didn't feel safe. She wouldn't until she reached Ashbourne House and Georgiana Dale. She needed some of her mother's friend's calm wisdom to help her get far away from Simon. And the Witch Hunter. Especially the Witch Hunter.
Now, if only she could climb down, she could complete her journey. Without stiff skirts and a bodice, climbing the tree had been easy. Getting down was a different matter entirely.
She tried stretching her foot to reach the lowest branch but it was a few inches beyond her toes. How had she managed to get up in the first place? She'd taken no notice of her progress, too intent on climbing high enough to see over the row of buildings lining the northern side of The Strand. Her tree stood in a large field behind those houses and gardens. Ashbourne House lay beyond them on the other side of the busy thoroughfare into London proper.
She looked down again and tried to determine the best route for a safe descent. With a sigh, she realized it was the one she'd already attempted.
Curses
. No fifteen year-old boy would find himself stuck up a tree. That fact was of more concern than her current predicament because it meant she wasn't completely immersed in her disguise, even after two days in it. She could not let her concentration or her disguise slip, even at this late stage.
She blew out a breath. She could do it. Or more to the point,
Pip
could. She lowered herself again, this time holding onto the trunk for balance and—
Crack
!
The branch snapped under her weight. Pippa grappled at leaves, twigs and then emptiness in vain. With a cry, she crashed to the ground, landing with a thud that bruised her rump and stole her breath. But any pain she felt was forgotten when an unearthly screech ripped through the air. She looked up to see a huge beast rise above her, its hooves threatening to smash her skull. She screamed, drowning out the creature's snorts.
The front legs descended. She rolled out of the way. Fear made her fast and she scrabbled backwards to the base of the tree. The creature, one of hell's beasts for sure, reared again. She gathered her strength around her, inside her, drawing on the well of heat at her core and feeling it surge down her arms to her fingers. In the two days since setting fire to The Grange, she'd grown accustomed to the new sensations building whenever her fear or anger rose. But in that time, she'd also learned to control it.
"Easy, Devil," a man's voice boomed over the snorts of the beast. Except the beast was nothing more than a horse. A very large horse, but still not the hellhound she'd thought it to be moments ago. "Easy now," he said again, his voice more soothing.
Pippa quickly stood and suppressed the magic until it was no more than a tingling warmth in her belly. The horse whinnied and shied away from her, its nostrils flaring, its big head jerking fiercely. The rider held the reins in one hand and leaned forward to stroke the horse's neck and murmur in its ear.
She stared at them and tried to control her galloping heartbeat. It took a moment of forcing herself to think rationally to realize horse and rider hadn't suddenly appeared from nowhere like some supernatural spirit. They must have emerged from around the small hill alongside her tree. She'd been so intent on getting down, she'd failed to notice their approach.
When the horse grew calm, the rider dismounted and fixed a glare on Pippa that made her wish she possessed the power to vanish as well.
"What kind of foolish prank was that?" he blasted. "You could have been killed!" He raised his hand and she put an arm up in defence, but instead of striking her, he merely pulled the hat off his head and wiped his brow.
"It was no prank," she said, hearing the tremor in her voice and not liking it. She had no reason to be afraid. Not here on the edge of London where no one knew her. She hadn't been followed—she'd made sure of that. She was safe.
Unless this horseman decided to thrash her.
He looked quite capable of doing it too, with his large hands and broad frame. He had the sort of shoulders used to hard work and breaking bones.
Yet she was quite capable of breaking bones too—something she'd discovered when the highwayman tried to rob her only the day before. Still, it wouldn't do to draw attention to her...abilities. Her situation was precarious enough. It would be wiser simply to stay silent.
"Then what were you doing jumping in front of my horse?" His deep blue eyes brimmed with anger. "Well, lad?" he said when she didn't answer. When she still didn't answer, he growled low in his throat. "God's teeth, what a bloody foolish thing to do! You're lucky Devil didn't crush you to death."
Devil—how appropriate.
She stared up at him, a hundred retorts racing through her mind. She swallowed them all.
Easy, Pippa
, she told herself using the same tones the rider had with his horse. Best to let the man get his anger out of his system then she could be on her way. From her earlier vantage point in the tree, she guessed Lord Ashbourne's house to be at least another half hour away. It had been easy to spot amongst the other grand houses stretching from The Strand down to the riverfront, thanks to Georgiana Dale's detailed description.
The rider grunted again and turned his attention to the horse stamping at the ground with a hoof. He rubbed its neck and shoulder until the muscles stopped quivering and the horse quieted. When the man turned back to her, his face had lost some of its hardness and his eyes were more like deep, still lakes than stormy seas.
"Are you injured?" he asked.
"No." Except for the bruises. And her pride. She went to tuck her hair behind her ear only to remember it had been cropped short. She adjusted her cap instead.
The man swept her with a brisk gaze as if satisfying himself of her wellbeing. No, not
her
wellbeing, Pip's. The rider only saw a boy standing in front of him. She hoped.
"Well?" he asked, one eyebrow raised.
She frowned. "Well what?"
"Are you going to tell me why you thought it would be amusing to startle my horse?" Irritation threaded his words, even though his stance relaxed somewhat. He held the reins with one hand, the other clutching a piece of paper at his side which she hadn't noticed before. Had he been reading it when she dropped out of the tree? That would explain why he hadn't seen her fall.
"Amusing?" she said. "Am I laughing?"
His eyes locked on her mouth which suddenly went dry under his direct gaze.
"I didn't startle your horse on purpose," she continued. "And if you'd been watching where you were going, you'd have known that."
One corner of his mouth lifted, but not in humor. She had thought him quite handsome at first, not in a fashionably pretty way, but with unconventional roughness that couldn't be smoothed away by a mere improvement in his grooming. Now she thought him quite ugly. He was much too dark, too sharp of cheek, and too big. Far too big. Anyway, he looked to be well over thirty.
"You're quite forthright, aren't you?" he said, his voice low and dangerous. "Considering you don't know who I am or what I'm capable of."
She suspected he was capable of a lot of things, snapping her in half being one of them. However, she didn't think he would hurt her. There'd been genuine concern in his expression when he'd asked her if she was hurt. As to who he was, well, he dressed like any other traveler. Dirty boots, simple black cloak over black riding doublet and breeches. A rapier sat like an old friend at his hip, the hilt worn smooth as if he'd had it for years—and used it well. Not a shiny, gold-hilted weapon like her uncle's, but a real blade. How many people had he killed with it?
At least the dark rider didn't seem like anyone of importance, although he didn't have the same bearing as an artisan or simple villager either. He held himself erect, his broad back straight and his gaze shrewd. He didn't carry any bags so he was most likely a Londoner out for a ride, and London was no village. She'd seen it sprawling like a multi-legged beast across both sides of the river from her tree. She wondered if all Londoners were as arrogant as this one.
Again, he raised an eyebrow. Definitely arrogant. "So you just happened to jump out from behind a bush at the same time I passed?" He rolled his eyes. "Don't lie to me, lad. I'm an expert at detecting them."
"I am not lying! And furthermore, I don't like the accusation that I am."
There was a heavy pause in which Pippa's heart stopped beating. She really should have kept to her earlier decision not to say anything. But something about being in disguise so far from home made her feel safe. And adventurous. A dangerous notion that, and one she needed to suppress. She might be free but adventuring could end her freedom too soon.
"I see," was all he said. He studied her for a long time and she felt the familiar swell of fear overtaking her anger. Then the man blinked and began to chuckle. The chuckle turned to a laugh, crinkling his eyes and softening his features. "Then tell me your version of events."