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safarigirlsp · 7 months

Text

Wargrave Hall

Victorian Jacques Le Gris x OC Eleanor

Word Count: 55k (partially complete)

Warnings: NSFW. Hauntings. Seances. Occultism. Demonology. Witches. Horror Themes. Dark Themes. Graphic Violence. Gruesome Horror. Romance. Old Timey Sexism. Hot Toxic Masculinity. Conniving Bitches. Violence Against Women and Everyone Else. Victorian Setting.

AO3 Link

For Halloween, here’s a little Victorian ghost story. Notes of Crimson Peak, The Haunting of Bly Manor, What Lies Beneath, The Ninth Gate, and Rosemary’s Baby. 🍂🌙🍁🎃🍁🌙🍂

This is only the first third to half of the full story. It will be completed soon.

Evil lurks in Wargrave Hall. Enter if you dare...

All Hallow’s Eve,1875. England.

Little boys think themselves brave when they play soldiers, firing at each other with finger guns and giving chase or clashing wooden swords. Little girls know the idle roughhousing of boys cannot hold a candle to their own courage. While boys horseplay, girls find much more nefarious ways to entertain themselves. At least this was the case for the two precocious girls who sneakily nudged open the door to the Purple Room in Roxbury Manor. While other young ladies played with dolls and hosted tea parties, the two friends delighted in causing mischief in all its forms. Some days this was a rambunctious outing such as climbing bareback onto horses and riding out at night under the full moon across the sprawling grounds of one of their family’s estates, driving their parents mad with worry. Some days, it was little more than sneaking into one of their family’s libraries to study and intently discuss the forbidden books with all the naughty pictures of naked men and women engaged in strange acts of contortion.

Tonight, however, was All Hallow’s Eve. This called for something special for best friends Eleanor and Katrina. They had planned it for weeks, gathering all the information and supplies they needed. Unknowingly playing right into their little hands, Katrina’s parents hosted a party for the occasion in their home, Roxbury Manor. Quite early in the evening, the girls had connived their behavior to be so recalcitrant as to be banished from the party and sent to think about their actions in Katrina’s room. This had of course suited their plans perfectly. From there, it was only a simple matter of sneaking past the inattentive maid and making their way silently to the East wing of the manor to the neglected study painted a rich purple that overlooked the garden. An old butler had died in the Purple Room earlier that year. The doctor said his heart had simply failed. But the two girls knew better. And even if his untimely demise was perfectly ordinary, it made the Purple Room the best possible setting for their nocturnal plans.

Every child far and wide knew the legend of the Crooked Lady. It was one of Eleanor and Katrina’s favorite tales. Centuries before, in the barbarous days of witch hunting, the Crooked Lady was born of suffering. An old crone who never married, who had a special affinity for animals and curatives was suspicious in itself, but her fiery red hair never ran to grey and her joints never stiffened even as her age advanced into her seventh decade. The wise men of the town knew these were signs of witchcraft. And they had wives and daughters to protect from such evil. When they stormed her house, they found more damning evidence. Herbs and potions lined her shelves, cats prowled her halls, and worst of all, was a carved wooden spirit board. It was commonly known these devilish boards were used to commune with the dead and even the devil.

The old woman, the witch, refused to confess to her nature and her crimes. She endured longer on the rack than many of the strong men who had been torn apart on it before her. The pains she suffered were said to be so gruesome as to break the resolve of two of her tormentors. Two strong men in their prime had died while turning the wheel of the rack, a simple task that had proved too much for their hearts to endure. The witch could be heard cursing her tormentors and laughing with every turn of the rack, her macabre cackles echoing through the walls and to the ears of every man, woman, and child in town. She laughed with every turn of the rack. Every turn that pulled her body apart, tearing her ligaments and sinews and muscles like a goose at a holiday feast. With each wet sickening crunch and slippery tear of her body, she laughed more hysterically. Slowly, over days of untold pain, she was transformed into the Crooked Lady. When she finally found the sweet release of death, her body was stretched and deformed as a ragdoll played with too roughly.

When her corpse was heaped into the cart to be hauled away to her grave, her limbs were frozen in canted rictuses, stiffened by rigor mortis in the impossible angels into which the rack had pulled them. Her rigid corpse was as crooked as that of a squashed spider with its broken legs array.

Witches could not be buried in hallowed church ground. The body of the Crooked Lady was carted away and buried in an unmarked grave, so that none of her disciples could find her and perform their unholy sabbath at her eternal resting place. Though her grave was unmarked, it was rumored that a flat witch’s stone was laid over her, to keep her black spirit trapped beneath.

Any rational man would have thought that once the witch was purged from their township that all malaise and ill fortune would be purged along with her. However, after the witch’s death was when it seemed her curse came upon the town’s people in force. Some said the retelling of the tale over more than two hundred years embellished the aftermath, the deaths that followed. But whatever the truth, since that black day and unto the present, much misfortune was blamed on the Crooked Lady. Her legend grew with every year. It came to be said that her spirit was restless, that it wandered the township, searching for those pious men responsible for her pain and suffering.

All the children knew that if they were not good children, the Crooked Lady would come for them. Their parents had told them so, of course. The girls had been reared on her legend, just as they had heard of Bloody Mary and the Headless Horseman. It was said she would appear for especially naughty children, those who had been sent to their rooms to be punished. Katrina and Eleanor were counting on it. Not only that, there just happened to be a mysteriously flat stone in the rough shape of a coffin in the garden behind Roxbury Manor. The girls knew it was the witch’s stone marking the grave of the Crooked Lady. They decided it was brilliant planning on their part to arrange their punishment on All Hallow’s Eve when their parents were occupied with a party and they could sneak into the Purple Room that overlooked the witch’s garden grave.

It was a perfect night for two girls to summon the Crooked Lady.

The halls were dark as Eleanor and Katrina crept through them, their lacy dresses fluttering around their ankles. The merry sounds of the party wafted through the halls to them, ill-suited to their own dark preoccupation. The door to the Purple Room was thick walnut, looking black in the feeble light. Slowly, Katrina opened it with the key she had pilfered earlier that day. The girls nudged it open and crept silently inside. A thin veil of dust covered the floor and furnishings, and silver moonlight from a full harvest moon filtered through a narrow gap in the damask drapes. Strange shadows were cast across the purple walls and an open fireplace grinned like a monstrous mouth. The girls exchanged a look and nervous giggle.

“It’s perfect!” Eleanor whisper-yelled. She had been fascinated with seances of late, absorbing every bit of information she could find on the subject.

“It’s the best possible place for a séance,” Katrina agreed knowingly. Since her recent tenth birthday, she had developed an interest in the occult after hearing her mother speak of it in hushed tones. She had quickly thereafter become an occult authority. Although she was two years younger than her friend, they both recognized that she possessed the greater knowledge.

A slice of moonlight in front of the window overlooking the garden seemed an opportune spot for their activity. Dust swirled lightly around their feet like disturbed spirits as they scurried through the neglected room. Eleanor froze halfway across the hardwood floor. A white face stared at her from a black corner, stern and terrifying. She yelped with fright and clung to her friend; though older, she was the shorter of the two.

“Don’t be silly.” Katrina rolled her bright brown eyes. “That’s just a bust of granduncle Comstock.”

“He’s mortifying,” Eleanor said, eyeing the marble bust.

“No, he’s just ugly,” Katrina replied reasonably.

The far corners of the room were completely dark and shadows seemed to flit about as the girls crossed the room. Oil paintings hung on the walls, looking like framed black voids in the darkness, save for a few pearlescent white eyes that watched the aspiring mediums as they set out their artifacts. Katrina retrieved a piece of chalk and a neatly folded piece of paper. Eleanor lifted a chain from around her neck, a spear of amethyst as long as her finger dangled from it. The patch of moonlight by the window was just large enough to cast the two girls in its silver glow when they sat down crossed legged across from one another and began their work. The window overlooked the garden, the oblong presumed witch’s stone gleamed in the moonlight. Each girl carried a candle in a chamberstick that had been unlit to enable their stealth. They lit them now, so that soft flickering firelight encircled them and made the shadows in the further reaches of the room dance like eldritch beings.

“It doesn’t have to be perfect,” Katrina said knowingly as she wrote out the alphabet in precise block letters, keeping the rows as straight as she could. “It’s just a way for the spirits to talk to us.”

“I’ve heard that all manner of spirits can talk to you through this,” Eleanor agreed excitedly. “I wonder if we’ll find someone other than the Crooked Lady.”

“I hope it’s nothing too evil,” Katrina said as she finished the Z with a flourish.

“Too evil? You’re not scared, are you?” Eleanor taunted with a smile.

“I’m not scared!” Katrina was offended. “But if a stupid ghost breaks something in here, it’s us that will get the spanking for it.”

“I’ve been spanked before.” Eleanor shrugged. Neither girl was a stranger to being punished for their misdeeds. She studied the completed board. “I think you need to put Yes and No at the corners.”

“You’re right.” Katrina wrote the words in, then added another at the bottom. “I almost forgot! You have to put Goodbye, too. That’s the most important part of the séance, after talking to the spirits, of course. You have to close it properly.”

“Or what?” Eleanor asked, wiping away an errant mark of chalk with her fingertip.

“Or you let the spirits in for good,” Katrina warned with certainty. She had heard this spoken of many times. Although much of the girls’ knowledge on the subject of seances and the occult came from conversations they spied upon through the cracks in door jams, this seemed consistent. “If you don’t close the séance properly, the spirits get to stay here with us. You let the evil in.”

“Not all spirits must be evil?” Eleanor mused, more to herself. “Good people die just like the bad ones.”

“Maybe the good ones have better things to do than talk to people through spirit boards.” Katrina shrugged. She smoothed out the paper on the floor in front of her and looked at the writing upon it with furrowed brows.

“How do we start?” Eleanor asked eagerly, eyeing the paper. “With the incantation?”

“I’m not sure.” Katrina pursed her lips. “It seems a bit rude, doesn’t it? Just asking things outright?”

“You’re right. Father says it’s the height of rudeness to jump right into the direct business of things,” Eleanor agreed. She pulled her thick auburn braid over her shoulder and tightened the bow that tied it off. She dangled the amethyst pendant over the chalk letters, allowing the purple crystal to hover over the board as it pleased. She raised her voice and asked confidently, “We’d like to introduce ourselves to any spirits here. Miss Eleanor Winchester and Miss Katrina Burton. Is there anyone listening who would like to introduce themselves to us?”

They waited a long minute. Nothing answered them, save for the forlorn hoot of an owl outside.

“Maybe it needs to be more formal,” Katrina adopted a serious tone. “We’d like to commune with the dead, please.”

“Please,” Eleanor mocked with a snort of laughter. Neither girl noticed the way one candle flickered out of time, as though a hand had passed over it. Eleanor rubbed her arm with her free hand against a slight chill. “I’d say we have some rude ghosts on our hands.”

“Ssshhh!” Katrina reprimanded hotly. The feeling of being watched crept up her spine, as though all the eyes from the paintings had turned upon them. The amethyst turned, making lazy circles over the board, but it was probably from the way Eleanor had rubbed her arm. “Let’s try the incantation.”

Both girls leaned over the piece of paper laid out on the floor. They joined one hand each together and read it in unison.

“By this chant, I summon thee. Spirits of old, come forth and see. From realms beyond the mortal sight, answer my call on this sacred night. Guides and guardians of the astral plane, I beckon to you, break your chains. Cross the boundary between worlds unseen, on this night of All Hallow’s Eve. In this circle of magic, let us convene.”

They repeated the incantation a second and then a third time for good measure. By the third recitation, their words seemed to echo off the walls, lingering in the air and filling the room that had grown unnaturally still and cool while they spoke. The girls locked eyes across the scrawled letters, both aware of the eeriness that had descended upon them. Eleanor thought she saw movement outside from down in the garden below. But Katrina inhaled sharply and pointed at the amethyst. The purple spear hovered over the word Yes, the chain strained at an unnatural angle from Eleanor’s hand. The crystal danced over Yes the way a compass needle does so as it seeks North.

“Yes, we may convene?” Katrina whispered the question uncertainly to Eleanor. A creak sounded from a shadowy corner, making both girls jump.

“Who’s there?” Eleanor asked with a start. The amethyst stilled as though it now hung from a rigid wire instead of a fine chain. It moved no more.

The hairs on Eleanor’s neck stood on end as rigidly as the frozen necklace chain, a disturbing prickliness crawled over her skin like flies on carrion. With it came a rush of cold, less like a draft through a window and more like the girls now sat in an ice box. She felt an ominous gaze upon her, coming through the window from outside. She had never felt frozen by fear before, but now the simple act of turning her head required more effort than she possessed. Katrina’s eyes were blown wide as she looked around the dark, cold room, equally wrought with panic. Though Eleanor’s senses screamed for her to look out the window, Katrina raised a slender shaking hand to point at the center of the room.

Both girls watched in horror as the dust on the floor swirled lightly, disturbed by an unseen presence. A presence that moved from the gaping maw of the fireplace toward them with the deliberate patience of a stalking predator. Katrina let out a shuddered breath, it fogged from her lips in the chilled air. The amethyst jumped suddenly, dancing as wildly on the chain as a hangman on the noose. The dust whirled with new agitation, and one of the candles instantly snuffed out with a hiss. The chain pulled in Eleanor’s hand, but she didn’t look down. Despite the terror in her heart, a voice sounded inside her mind, like her own inner thoughts but far more commanding, as though a hand had reached into her thoughts and forced her attention back to the window.

A figure stood outside in the garden. It was dark, cast in strange shadows by the moonlight, but Eleanor was certain it had not been there when she had first looked outside. The figure, a black silhouette, was twisted and macabre, looking like a dead and ancient hanging tree with broken limbs jutting outwards at all the wrong angles. A sinister red glow surrounded its apex. Red hair! The right broken limb twitched spasmodically.

“She’s here!” Eleanor shrieked and sprang to her feet. She dropped the amethyst. It spun across the chalk letters of its own accord to Yes, where it drifted insistently like a leaf caught in the eddy of a stream.

Outside, the Crooked Lady was gone. Nothing looked amiss in the garden. A bang sounded on the door to the Purple Room, as loud as a gunshot to girls’ frazzled nerves. The door jumped on its hinges, but Katrina had locked it behind them when they entered.

The girls clung together, as if holding each other could save them from the infernal presence they had summoned. They both stared outside now, for the horror that approached from the garden was far more terrifying than whatever was inside the room with them. Closer now, the Crooked Lady leered at them from the garden below. Much closer. She had reappeared so near the window that they could see the sheen of moonlight glinting on her teeth – too sharp, too small, and too many – when she smiled grimly. Her broken limbs stood out at corrupted angles, giving her the silhouette of a crab. Her gait too was crablike as she shuffled forward. The girls screamed in unison.

The door to the Purple Room burst open as though kicked in from the outside, blowing a gust of cold air over the girls, sobering them. No one stood on the other side, only the darkened hallway and the pleasant sounds of the party carried on in another wing of the mansion.

“Run!” Eleanor shouted, her voice hoarse with dread, but Katrina held firm.

The amethyst slithered across the spirit board, the sound drawing both the girls’ attention for a brief second. It tapped on Goodbye insistently. The Crooked Lady had reached the window. She stood just outside, her head cocked to one side, a glittering string of saliva dripped from the low side of her joker’s smile. She raised a broken finger, pointing it as straight as her misshapen joints would allow at the two girls. Her long ragged fingernail scraped the window pane.

Goodbye goodbye goodbye, the amethyst tapped.

“We have to close the séance, or we’ll let her in!” Katrina dropped back to the floor, pulling Eleanor down with her.

Though their hearts raged in their chests and their palms were slick with sweat, they quickly completed the ritual as they had learned it through self-study. The Crooked Lady was no longer visible. Whether she was closer still or banished into the nether, they didn’t know, but black thoughts plagued their minds. The air inside was still as frigid as winter and their breaths were expelled as steam. They felt an ethereal presence around them, but somehow they knew it was different from that of the Crooked Lady. Although unnatural and otherworldly, the cold presence inside the room did not feel malicious.

With the séance closed, the girls ran from the room, fighting hysteria and feeling utterly mad. Without sharing a word of their thoughts, they knew they must never speak of the happenings of that All Hallow’s Eve amongst anyone other than themselves, not even to their parents. Lest they risk a stay in the madhouse.

*******************************************************************************************

England, 1888

Currents of excitement thrummed through Eleanor Winchester, alighting every sense and nerve ending, as titillating as the electric fixtures that were newly installed in her family’s estate in Devonshire. Tales of the fancy dress balls thrown by the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire had been the subject of great discussion among her and her girlhood friends, but she had never before had the opportunity to attend since she came of age. Tonight was to be the first night since her return from India that she could see firsthand what a true fancy dress ball entailed, and not merely the poor substitutes hosted by the English diplomats abroad. Count Winchester, her father, had been conscripted to oversee some matters of political delicacy in Bombay, and had taken his wife and only child with him. The expedition took years, long enough for Eleanor’s mother to succumb to fever and for her to grow from a girl into a woman.

Upon her return to England, she found a country that was far drearier and more stilted than she remembered from childhood. Then again, children should be less aware of these social constraints than fully grown and eligible women. Since being formally presented for courtship by her family the previous Christmas, she had been pursued like a tiger by sportsmen, and found herself growling just as prickly from the hunt as her feline counterpart. Young bumbling Lords and old lecherous widowers hounded after the beautiful young noblewoman. Her allure was not only her shapely hourglass figure, porcelain skin, bright blue eyes, and long auburn hair the color of a flaming sunset; her father was one of the richest men in England with no heirs other than his single daughter. Suitors vied for her attention at the events she attended. Each as scintillating as Melville describing architecture.

Although she knew it would be prudent for her to accept an offer and marry while still aided by her youthful beauty, she had never found herself prevailed upon to consider any offer for longer than it took for her to gorge to rise at the thought. She had been a little girl when women were given the right to own property in England and her father had made her understand well what that meant for her own personal freedom. A victim of a miserable marriage of obligation himself, he instilled a more independent view of romance in his only child, the future Countess and owner of all his holdings.

Being the game of choice for so many hunters had leached much of the joy out of attending balls and events. The mid-summer fancy dress ball at Devonshire House, however, was an exception. She had fussed over her costume until she was thoroughly pleased with the lavish scarlet gown that accentuated her nipped waist and full bosom. Many women would push the limits of extravagance with their costumes tonight. Eleanor’s dearest friend had commissioned a taxidermy fox to lay curled atop her hat and complete her orange and cream vixen costume that complimented her compelling beauty. That suited Eleanor less as a matter of preference. She had no doubts of her own beauty – it was a simple fact, as plain as stating that her eyes were blue – and it had been reinforced throughout her lifetime. She opted for a subtler finishing touch for her costume. A glossy pair of devil horns, carved from actual horn, secured by a lace tie hidden beneath her hair, and the train of her gown was trimmed with ribbons that mimicked flickering hellfire when she moved. She thought she made quite the handsome devil indeed.

Eleanor rocked gently in the velvet-lined interior of her carriage and looked out the window at the setting sun, growing hazy as it neared the western horizon. Although she would be met there by her father, he had not returned home from the business he had in the House of Lords. Seated next to her was her dearest friend, resplendent in her vixen costume that suited her perfectly. Katrina Burton was a stately and statuesque woman, beautiful in the mysterious way that kept men off balance. Her hair was the color of rich chocolate and her eyes were of deep mahogany, a combination that looked particularly striking against her fair complexion. The daughter of a fellow Count, they had bonded as children through their father’s friendship, but they had grown close as sisters from their mutually sharp wits and merciless tongues. Eleanor supplied the boldness in their pairing, while Katrina provided the calculation. They were equally wealthy, equally beautiful and suited to different tastes, equally unattached, and equally sought after by much of the eligible male population.

“About our wager,” Eleanor said, still looking out the window as the three stories of Devonshire House came into view. “I think that we should not limit it to words. It would be much more fun to include overtures as well.”

“A shilling goes to whichever of us receives the most odious approach from a man this evening. Thank heavens I should be rewarded in some small manner the next time a hapless idiot tells me that my eyes shimmer like a pint of stout,” Katrina scoffed. “What more would you have us expand it to?”

“Physical overtures from the men too meek to summon their voices in our presence,” Eleanor laughed. “Although you were greatly shamed by that terrible compliment, I daresay I had it worse when that skinny little Duke’s boy spilled his wine over my bodice after tripping over his own feet. Or the fat Baron who nearly broke your foot dancing with you with all the grace of a mule!”

“Reminiscing this way is making me far less enthused about the ball.” Katrina smirked. She was prone to sly grins and sultry moues in contrast to Eleanor’s wide smiles and easy laughter. Katrina narrowed her eyes at the numerous carriages that littered the grounds and the people who walked outside in formal dress and ornate costumes.

“But think of all the other ladies there whose night it will ruin to see us walk through those doors and put them to shame. We shouldn’t disappoint them.” Eleanor met Katrina’s eyes and they both smiled.

The carriage halted and a sharply dressed footman approached to open the carriage door. The doormen on either side of the entrance wore loud, white pompadour wigs, almost garish in their long blue tailcoats. The doors steadily opened for the women, admitting them as if they were royalty. Inside, the elegant sounds of a classical orchestra filtered to their ears and their noses were met with luscious aromas of spice and excitement. This ball was the event of the season, attended by most of the men and women in the House of Lords. Any and all eligible young Lords and Ladies would give their eyeteeth for an invitation. Most of the unmarried ladies present, and a fair share of the unmarried men, had high hopes for securing a prospect by the night’s end. No doubt this awkward mating ritual and all the flamboyant grandstanding that accompanied it was a great source of amusement for the more seasoned guests, a splendid form of entertainment.

A finely dressed butler escorted the ladies through a sprawling marble and gilded foyer, past a wide staircase twisting upward. Finally, he led them into a cavernous ballroom. People in costumes passed them, laughing and tipping glasses of champagne to their lips. Entering the ballroom, they were engulfed in an explosion of color and sound. The huge hanging chandeliers gleamed like kaleidoscopes, refracting the colors of the pomp and jewelry worn by the bustling attendees. Masked couples spun around the floor to the sound of the orchestra, a roiling ocean of ladies in gowns and gentlemen in tailcoats. Each wore a costume. Some elegant, some macabre, some gauchely overdone, but each unique and eye-catching.

Eleanor linked her arm with Katrina’s as they strode along the edge of the ballroom floor, watching couples dance in its center. Katrina was tall and lithe with a swanlike elegance, Eleanor was shapely and nubile with a feline allure. Between them, they commanded much of the male attention in the ballroom, and they shared a knowing glance. Numerous hungry eyes watched the pair of ladies walk the way vultures watch lions feed, lurking and waiting for any scraps that may be tossed their way. Each lady met the eyes that lingered upon her with a boldness that made the men look away first. Each was aware this was not the way to procure a husband, but no man had yet appeared to pique that particular interest in either of them.

A servant approached them with glasses of champagne perched on a silver tray. Lowering the tray, he offered the ladies each a flute they happily accepted. Although she maintained her aloof air, there was one man rumored to be in attendance of whom Katrina was especially hopeful. Herzog Von Zimmer held the equivalent rank of an English Duke and hailed from Berlin, meeting several of her criteria of being wealthy and of a superior rank to her own. He was rumored to be of great height, meeting another paramount criteria, that a man must be far taller than she.

Eleanor felt Katrina stiffen beside her, heard her inhale a sharp breath. Across the ballroom, the women spotted a huge man dressed in ornate golden robes. His height was accentuated by a red and gold crown, completing his costume that must be Charlemagne. He had a black beard and his strikingly blue eyes singled out the pair of women at once.

“Go!” Eleanor whispered teasingly to her friend. “I know how much it costs you, but try to look lost and innocent, and in need of a big strong man to come to your rescue.”

Katrina shook her head, but smirked as they separated, and made her way toward Herzog Von Zimmer, careful to make it none too obvious. Eleanor continued skirting the edge of the festivities alone. She came to a large marble pillar and leaned her back against it, content to sip her champagne and watch the petty drama unfold about her. She spied her father Count Montgomery Winchester, talking to a group of noteworthy men on the floor above, looking down over the ballroom, no doubt mocking the happenings below. He was a tall man, easy to spot with his shining bald head and bushy red beard, although he likely did not spot his daughter among the dancing sea of guests. Eleanor recognized two men who spoke to her father. One was the Duke of Devonshire himself, the owner of Devonshire House and the host of the ball; another was a tall blonde man with a jolly demeanor whom she recognized as Count Pierre D’Alencon. She recognized his choice of costume as well; dressed in an eighteenth-century frock with bloodstained bandages taped around each of his fingers and waving a large plumed quill for effect, he could only be the Marquis De Sade. There was a third man in their company whose back was to Eleanor. He stood much taller than the others, broad-shouldered with thick black hair hanging down over the collar of a dark green robe in medieval style. She did not recognize him, but she thought that fact might be prudent to rectify.

Watching the men on the balcony above, Eleanor paid little attention to the man who approached her from across the ballroom, tall and dressed in black. The man moved to the edge of the crowded room as she had done minutes before, as though he were stalking her trail, closing in on her from behind. The men around her father disbanded, Count D’Alencon clapping a hand on the broad back of the unknown man and leading him away, leaving the Duke of Devonshire and her father talking amongst themselves.

The man who stalked Eleanor finally stepped into her line of sight, deliberately making himself known. He was young, perhaps her age or even younger, and wore a smirk of conceit born of having too easy a time seducing women of his choice. He was undeniably handsome, in a dark sort of way. His hair was raven black, drawn back in a ponytail from a sharp widow’s peak beneath a wide-brimmed, magnificently plumed hat that was the height of fashion in the seventeenth century. Even his eyes were almost black, unnervingly, abyssal dark. He waited, seemingly for her to speak, no doubt used to flustering women. Eleanor was not so easily flustered and merely appraised him coolly.

“Madam, you look lost and innocent, and in need of a big strong man to come to your rescue.” His smirk deepened as he echoed Eleanor’s advice to Katrina back to her in a pleasing voice. “Might I rescue you from this doldrum and take you for a dance?”

“You cannot concoct your own witticisms so you must steal mine?” Eleanor retorted, smirking herself.

“I shall aim higher then, and steal the lady herself,” he stated confidently. Without waiting for her to extend it, he grabbed her hand and pulled her closer to him, set on taking her out for dance.

Eleanor was quick to react, twisting her wrist out of the man’s grip in a simple way her father had taught her – pulling against the thumb, which is always the weakest point of any hold. The young man looked offended by her denial and surprised by her anger. Her voice was a little too loud for propriety when she told him, “While I can imagine circumstances in which a lady would want to be commandeered by a man, it is surely not with a man whose name she does not even know, and let alone by a boy who is not yet a full man!”

“I compliment you, madam,” the dark young man hissed, all pleasantry gone from his voice. “And you dare to spit at me? Perhaps, I should respond in kind. Shall I show you what a man can do to a high-tempered woman?”

“I am too much for you, boy,” Eleanor laughed icily. “As I am for many men. I will advise you the same as I advise them all – to find a woman who is less. There are many such feminine creatures here tonight.” She waved her arm to encompass the ballroom. “I can readily spy several women nearly as pretty as I, younger also, and almost certainly of lesser difficulty.”

“Do you not know me?” The man adopted an empirical haughty tone, looking down his nose at her. “I neglected to introduce myself properly. William Le Gris.” He bowed deeply. “Heir to one of the largest estates in the country. I am as eligible as any man at this ball, and what are you but a spinster in the making? You presume to deny me?”

“Impressive. Yet, my family is far wealthier. Do not presume to think my affection can be purchased. If you are so stricken for female company, your reputation will surely carry you far at any brothel.” She smiled beautifully wicked. “Just as a novice should not attempt to ride a boisterous horse, may I advise you to contend yourself with simpler quarry? I’m not possessed of the patience required to train a boy up from a novice into a master in the ways of relating to the fairer sex.”

Laughter, deep and rich, drew Eleanor’s attention. It was good-natured laughter, not in mockery but purely in mirth. Before she could look for the source, she saw a poisonous look flash across William’s features as quick as a heartbeat before his mask of composure returned, but his black eyes remained narrowed.

“A wise man must know when he is defeated, Master William.” The laughing voice said and a huge hand clapped down on William’s shoulder, making the young man jolt and his expression sour further. The man was very tall, well over six feet, with luxurious black hair dusting his impressively broad shoulders. He was older, a man in his prime, and wore a green cape, trimmed with fur, and a medieval-style gold tunic. A likewise medieval broadsword was belted around his hips, which Eleanor took note, looked genuine and not a mere costume accessory. The man’s attention was on William, but it appeared he could not resist letting his eyes wander quickly over Eleanor’s figure; hooded eyes, the color of burnished amber, giving the man a lupine quality. The way he looked at her, brief though it was, thrilled her.

“Defeated?” William scoffed, roughly shrugging the man’s hand off his shoulder. “You admit defeat rather easily. It is not a trait I wish to emulate.”

“No?” The larger man laughed again. “Then by all means, carry on your campaign with this lovely lady. You were doing so well before my intrusion.”

Eleanor took a half-step closer to the men, cutting across William’s reply by addressing the larger man, “This boy is beyond hope, I’m afraid. But perhaps a man could teach him a thing or two about how to campaign a lady?”

The man grinned at her, his full lips framed by a black van dyke, enticed rather than deterred by her boldness. He took her hand and gave her a low bow, not unlike the bow William had enacted, but done with much more aplomb. He accepted her challenge by offering her his hand. “I am at your service, Miss Winchester.”

“You know me?” she asked as she placed her hand in his, marveling at the size of it, the way it swallowed hers completely.

“Would you believe it if I told you that your beauty is as renowned as that of Helen of Troy, and that I would know your face by that reputation alone?” He saw her primed to give him an eyeroll and added quickly in his deep, pleasant voice, “I have business with your father, Count Winchester. He told the Duke and I that his daughter had chosen not to wear a costume this evening, but to merely reveal her horns.” Reaching out with his free hand, he traced one long thick finger along the devil horn that protruded from her auburn hair, flashing a grin that was just a bit lopsided and very dashing. “I have heard the devil would be beautiful.”

“And who might you be?” She was genuinely intrigued now. In the span of a minute this rake had captured her attention more thoroughly than any man had ever managed. There was an intangible magnetism about him. His sharp features and imperial nose, while certainly handsome, gave him a villainous edge. She let her eyes drop to the protruding hilt of his sword, employing her most innocent lilt, “Your sword catches the eye.”

“A family heirloom,” he replied, resting his hand on the hilt, standing tall. There was something decidedly lewd in a man’s posture when he stood thus. “For the evening, I am Lancelot, a knight looking only to serve his queen.” He cast a sideways glance at William, wondering if the boy was learning anything at all. William still stood awkwardly to the side, watching the rapport that was so easily established between man and woman with a look of foul distaste. “On all other days, I am Sir Jacques.”

“A true knight?” Eleanor laughed pleasantly. “How romantic. And impressive that you have dealings with Dukes and Counts while not being in the House of Lords yourself.”

“Would you grace me with a dance, your infernal highness?” he asked while holding his hand out to her side, level with her waist, beckoning her to him.

“Surely, a man such as yourself has danced with the devil many times,” she teased.

“Quite true,” he agreed, stepping closer and placing his hand on her waist. “But never yet to the tune of Tchaikovsky.”

Sir Jacques had a manner that was commanding without being commandeering. The kind of masculine appeal that made a woman want to surrender without even having been asked. He spared one last amused look at William before leading her away, telling the boy, “A man must always approach a woman as he would the devil herself. He could just as easily lose his soul to either one.”

He stood a head taller than Eleanor, which only worked to his favor. He led her through the crowded ballroom, until they reached its center, as if displaying her for all to admire her beauty. When he pulled her into a dance, he seemed even larger, towering over her; she could feel the power in his body as he moved with her. Her pulse raced and she could not be sure if the room itself was spinning or if she was dizzy with pleasure as she was pulled across the ballroom in large sweeping twirls. He was an astonishing dancer, his movements deceptively agile. He was the perfect lead, giving and attentive, but easily powerful enough to carry her completely through every motion if he wished.

“I’m afraid William has not had the proper instruction when it comes to ladies,” Jacques said, instinctively glancing back toward the black-clad youth on the edge of the ballroom.

“Does a man need proper instruction to intuit that rudeness is an ill-advised approach?” she asked, not sparing so much as a flick of her eyes to the young man.

A few silver hairs caught the light as they danced, just enough to make the ebony of Jacques’s lustrous hair sparkle. Parenthetical dimples framed his easy smile and his eyes crinkled at the edges. He was older than she initially assumed, nearer to forty than thirty. He looked like he had weathered a few storms, but not so many that it undermined his attractiveness. If anything, his features looked as though they would have been gawky and awkward in youth, before his body filled out enough to catch up with his long limbs and large nose. Maturity became him.

“His mother died when he was quite young. The lack of feminine influence on a young man makes them all the more barbarous.” Jacques smiled warmly.

“You seem awfully concerned with William Le Gris and his amorous pursuits,” she said, her tone cooling, indicating her lack of interest in the subject. “Is he Arthur to your Lancelot? Why are you acting as his champion?”

“Concerned? No. But perhaps guilty.” Jacques smiled again, but it held a note of melancholy. “I should have given him a better example of how a man treats a lady well.”

Eleanor looked up at him in confusion, her brows knotting.

“My god, I thought you knew!” Jacques exclaimed, apologetically shaking his head. “I am Sir Jacques Le Gris. William, barbarian that he is, is my eldest son.”

Without giving Eleanor a chance to retort, he crowded her and stepped a long leg out beside her. Jacques dipped her backward until her back was level with the bend in his knee, his large hand supporting her back firmly as he bent over her. Her heart fluttered like a caged bird inside her ribs as he lowered his body over her. Her eyes glinted up at Jacques, bright glacial blue that made his heart jump as though he had plunged into ice water. Keeping his eyes locked on hers, he lowered his own body until the tip of his prominent nose skimmed her skin with the lightest touch, trailing from her sternum up her throat as he raised her back up from his dip, returning to his full height. Looking down at her once more, an appreciative sound like a purr rumbled in his chest as warmth flooded her body.

She realized with a start that many people had stopped dancing in favor of watching the handsome couple they made. The ladies envied Eleanor, the men envied Jacques. She felt an uncustomary rush of self-consciousness and tried to pull back, but Jacques held her firmly in place, close to his body, his focus entirely on her. William watched them a moment longer, feeling a mixture of jealousy, anger, and shock at the way this temptress had so quickly bewitched his father, before turning on his heel and all but stomping out of the ballroom.

“I’d hoped for my son to gain some experience with ladies of standing tonight,” Jacques said with a rueful set to his features. “But I fear I’ve done nothing but give him cause for jealousy.”

“What am I, then?” she asked with a note of offense. “A game rabbit to let the puppy hunt for experience?”

“Certainly not.” Jacques shook his head, his long hair becoming fascinatingly disheveled. “If anything, you are the hunter. Or at least, game far too dangerous for my sons to best.”

“Sons?” Eleanor raised an eyebrow.

“Two of them.” Jacques cast a quick glance around the room. “The other must be off causing trouble with Count Pierre’s boy. Nothing looks as though it’s on fire yet, so we may breathe easy for the moment.”

“It would be proper for me to allow another man to have a dance.” She made a small attempt to pull away, having enough of the talk of unruly man-children in whom she had no interest at all. Jacques felt the reluctance stiffen her body and held her tighter, not yet allowing her to escape.

“Let me just tell you this and then abandon the subject.” He lowered his voice until it was nearly a growl, “When I saw young William talking to you from up on the balcony, I thought what a lucky little scoundrel he was to have singled out the most beautiful lady in the room. Now, I feel like a far luckier man since he bungled it.”

Jacques danced with Eleanor through the next two dances, making quite a show for any eye thirsting for gossip. It was not until he could see a fine sheen of sweat glistening along her hairline that he slowed.

“Some air, Miss?” His hand squeezed her slender waist in time with his question and offered her his arm.

Jacques guided her out of the cacophonous ballroom and up the wide spiral staircase. He strode down a hallway to an open double doorway that exited onto a large balcony, enwrapped by stone railing that rose to the level of Eleanor’s ribs. Torches burned in sconces along the outer wall of the manor on the balcony, casting it in flickering firelight. Several other couples occupied the balcony already, but it was spacious enough to allow each their privacy. Although, it seemed that all their eyes turned to Jacques and Eleanor as they stepped out into the cool night air. Even murmured whispers met their ears.

Eleanor looked at them with amusement, then at Jacques curiously. It appeared that Sir Jacques was the subject of much interest among guests, for many eyes surveyed him surreptitiously.

“Surely, you must be accustomed to your beauty drawing attention, Miss Winchester,” Jacques drawled smoothly, deflecting her unasked question.

The directness of his flattery summoned a laugh from her in response.

“I am unaccustomed to women laughing at the compliments I pay them,” he replied, smirking as he led her to the rail. The balcony overlooked a garden filled with green hedges and pink flowers; couples walked through it serenely.

“How very boring they must be, poor things,” she retorted with a smile, finally removing her hand from his arm to place it on the cool stone and take in the beauty sprawled out beneath them.

Jacques rested his large hand on the small of her back as he leaned his hip against the rail next to her, his body turned to face her. The feeling of both his hand and his eyes upon her had Eleanor feeling even dizzier now than she had felt when he was spinning her on the ballroom floor.

“Tell me then, how I may admire your beauty without garnering your amusement?” he asked while lifting his free hand to gently sweep a stray hair away from her face, admiring the faint blush that bloomed on her cheeks as he tucked it back into place.

Before Eleanor could think of a suitable response, they were interrupted by an older woman who had walked unnoticed to her side. She had a tall pile of powder grey hair, and her face was plastered stark white with obnoxious red circles of blush on her cheeks in the style of an eighteenth-century French courtesan. Ignoring Eleanor completely, she addressed Jacques in a haughty, affected tone.

“I have seen you attend many balls, Sir Jacques, but I have never before seen you dance so long with a single partner.” She looked at Eleanor with disapproval before continuing, “Although now, after witnessing such a display of your considerable prowess in the act, I cannot imagine why not.”

“My desire to do so is very rarely piqued, Madam,” Jacques replied without removing his eyes from Eleanor’s so long as to spare her a meager glance. “However, when I so desire, I am very pleased to display it.”

“My daughter is an accomplished dancer,” the woman continued.

“Then she should have little difficulty securing a partner,” Jacques’s tone grew terse with his reply.

Eleanor paid her no mind, adding to the woman’s irritation.

“Had I known that you were openly soliciting young ladies, I would have presented her to you this evening,” the woman persisted. She sighed dramatically, making her displeasure evident as she took her leave of them both.

Her display elicited unabashed laughter from Eleanor that quickly infected Jacques.

“Upon further reflection, I could easily grow fond of hearing your laughter,” Jacques said as he laughed with her.

Other couples still watched on. Fragments of their whispered conversation met Eleanor’s ears. She clearly heard the words widower and accident. She thought she also heard murderer, but surely that was incorrect. Jacques must have heard something he didn’t like because he fixed the offending couple with a severe glare, his narrowed eyes burning into them relentlessly until they muttered a feeble apology and shambled away. He was a very large man, easily intimidating if he chose to be. He took a deep breath and a shadow of regret crossed behind his eyes. He pulled back from Eleanor, his jaw set as if he had come to some private resolution.

“I cannot in good conscience pursue you, given where this may lead, Miss Winchester.” Jacques shook his head, his tone contrite. He tried humor to lessen the blow, “If you inquire after my reputation, you will learn you are better off for having escaped me.”

“I am sure I do not take your meaning.” She began to bristle. She was not a woman used to being rebuffed.

“My son met you first and set his cap at you,” Jacques tried to make his deep voice soft, though it did little good.

“And he made a very poor go of it,” she huffed, planting her hands on her hips. “Am I the property of any man who lusts after me for a matter of minutes?”

“Certainly not,” Jacques tried to defuse her. “But I cannot cause a feud with my own son. Adding to that complication, I know your father and, as I said, I have business with him. It would not do for me to dally with you. A woman like you could make a man lose his good sense, and I cannot afford that.”

“Ah, and here I was thinking it was some neolithic male possessiveness,” she quipped icily. “When rather, it is just plain cowardice and uncertainty. No fear, Sir Jacques, I have no doubt there are men with stouter hearts than yours.”

“Your father did not exaggerate the sharpness of your tongue.” Jacques was taken aback, but also strangely enticed, like being drawn into a high stakes card game. “Rest assured, no man has a stouter heart than mine, but many have more foolish minds. They will look at a woman like you and see only her beauty, not the danger it conceals, like a serpent coiled beneath a rose. Unlike young William, I have the experience of knowing when I should approach with caution. A man is safe in the company of a woman he can take lightly. You, on the other hand, are a dangerous creature.”

“And how very knightly of you, Sir Jacques, to flee at the first hint of danger.” She had decided if she could not secure his affection, she could enjoy arousing his anger. Unbeknownst to her, she elicited the opposite effect, her tenacity served to set her apart from other women even more than her beauty. “St. George slayed dragons, but Sir Jacques quails from a mere woman?”

“The fire you breathe would have already burned St. George to embers.” Jacques grinned despite himself and his heart jumped involuntarily. It had been many years since he had felt this strange mixture of challenge, temptation, and passion. She stirred the most primal parts of him, those that existed deep beneath the civilized veneer of a gentleman.

A shrill female giggle carried up from the garden two stories below. Looking over the rail, Eleanor saw two couples walking together in a foursome in the garden. They appeared young, the ladies petite and simpering, the men lanky and enthusiastic. One man had short sandy hair, holding the hand of his lady in a death grip. The other man had longer black hair and was in the midst of some act of showmanship that had his lady giggling to the point of breathlessness. The men wore brown tunics and huge plumed hats of the same style that William had sported.

“It seems my younger son has a better instinct for charming women.” Jacques shook his head, but smiled down at the ridiculous spectacle. “That is Count Pierre’s son, Charles, and Theodore Le Gris.” The little blonde woman laughed again when Theodore took her hand and twirled her into his arms. Jacques looked sideways at Eleanor. “He always took after his father more than his older brother.”

Eleanor surmised that along with William, the three young men must be dressed as the Three Musketeers. Even from this distance, the resemblance between Jacques and the boy below was striking. The main aesthetic difference was the boy’s slender gangly build and the immature look of youth. She turned to look at Jacques, comparing the two, teasing, “You don’t look old enough to have two sons who are out terrorizing women.”

“I was married when I was nineteen, Theodore’s age, to a lady a few years my senior.” Jacques indicated his son below with a tilt of his chin. “My sons both came along soon thereafter.”

“What happened to your wife, if you don’t mind me asking so directly,” Eleanor asked.

“She died,” Jacques said curtly. A dark look crossed his features and he did not elaborate but to add, “Nearly ten years past.”

A dark figure strolled onto the balcony with an arrogant gait. Jacques straightened, making his posture less intimate when his eldest son approached. William pointedly didn’t acknowledge Eleanor as he strode to his father.

“Theodore is being an embarrassment, father,” William said flatly. He finally spared a cold glance at Eleanor. “I suspect you’ve been too preoccupied to notice.”

“The boy’s just having some fun.” Jacques waved him off. “You would be in higher spirits if you tried the same.”

“Making a spectacle of myself in front of strangers will not lift my spirits,” William sneered. “People are already talking about you also, father. Given the exclusive company you’ve kept this evening.”

“Let them talk, my boy!” Jacques grinned and leaned closer to Eleanor. “A man can never control what is whispered about him. It is a kind of flattery to be the subject of discussion for those less interesting unfortunates among us.”

“I find no amusement in it whatsoever,” William huffed as another girlish giggle rang out in the garden below.

“Every woman loves a man who is incapable of laughing at himself,” Eleanor quipped sarcastically.

“Come now,” Jacques continued speaking to his son. “Your soul is not so ancient that you cannot indulge in some fun yourself now and then.”

“Indulge in some fun? Like Theodore is up to tonight?” William smirked wickedly, his black eyes shining. “He is planning a prank, you know. He and Charles have been cahooting over it for days. I wonder if you’ll think it all in good fun when he embarrasses the Le Gris name in front of the Duke.”

“A prank?” Jacques asked, annoyed. “What delivery are those fools up to?”

“I haven’t the slightest.” William smiled again. Eleanor was quickly growing to hate his smile, as austere as a winter tundra, paired with his unnerving black eyes. His smile held none of the warmth of his father’s, nor was it a fraction so dashing. “We’d best take our leave before he makes his plans known to us.”

“I’ve a mind to stay a while,” Jacques said significantly. From back inside the door that opened onto the balcony came a clear harmonic melody. Everyone on the balcony turned to look through the open doors. The notes came from the same story, sounding clearer than the cacophony of the ball from the floor below. It was the sound of a harp, beautifully played. Jacques looked toward it curiously.

“Lord Pettigrew’s daughter plays the harp,” William said with disinterest. “She’s been trying to solicit an audience.”

“Good god, boy, encourage her!” Jacques looked aghast at this news. “Let her serenade you. She’s pretty enough, and from a good family. Have you learned nothing at all from your father?”

“I’ve learned that I will have the prettiest woman at the ball, or I will have none.” He looked at Eleanor with a hint of menace that went unnoticed by all but her. “Miss Pettigrew has little that interests me.”

Jacques shook his head and offered Eleanor his arm. “We should ensure the poor girl has some kind of audience, should we not?”

William stayed on the balcony when Jacques led Eleanor inside and across the hall into what had become a makeshift music room. Several other couples stood on the edges of the room and a few hopeful young men watched eagerly. Seated in the center of the room, playing a harp was a petite brunette girl. She was not conventionally pretty and had an unfortunate spattering of freckles, but her family’s money made her far more alluring than her simple features. She played beautifully, each note rang true and sonorous. William trailed behind and remained leaning against the back wall, his arms crossed over his chest.

More than the music, Jacques was aware of Eleanor’s proximity. He felt decidedly ridiculous, a seasoned man such as himself being thrown into a damn tailspin over a lady. He was no stranger to women. Rather, a self-admitted rake and hellraiser who had aroused many salacious scandals and enjoyed every moment of them. Since the death of his wife, he had lived his life as a bachelor to full effect. He was hardened by battle in his youth, having distinguished himself in a bloody campaign during the Second Anglo-Afghan War. His strategy and daring were instrumental in the British victory at Kandahar. Jacques had feared no man in his life and had never quailed from battle. Now, he felt a nervousness in his gut and a lightness in his head that were distinctly misplaced in a hard man such as himself. He took a breath to settle his nerves and clear his mind. It had the opposite effect when he inhaled the tantalizing bouquet of her hair. Her scent alone made his pulse jump like an eager racehorse behind the starting gate. Her skin was as soft as a rose petal when she brushed her fingers against his knuckles. He found himself powerless to disobey her feminine command to take her hand.

Everyone in the room was silent in respect for the girl playing, enjoying each beautifully plucked note. Every sound outside seemed even louder for its intrusion. Minutes passed as the song built to its crescendo. Bootsteps could be heard in the hallway paired with cheery male voices and female laughter. Theordore Le Gris all but stumbled into the room, not knowing that behind it was a young woman playing a harpsichord solo. He froze in the doorway, his green eyes wide with embarrassment as Charles D’Alencon crashed into his back from behind with a drunkenly boisterous laugh. Jacques flashed them a blazing glare.

Still playing the harp, Miss Pettigrew was startled by the ruckus caused by the young men. Her eyes darted to the handsome Le Gris boys, seeing William leaning against the wall and Theodore bumbling in the doorway. Distracted, she struck a foul note, the string twanging shrilly. The harp string snapped beneath her finger and whipped away from its fastening on the bridge faster than the eye could see. The string whipped back like a striking viper, slashing across Miss Pettigrew’s cheek. The end of the string with its twisted wire fastening caught her in the eye before she could even blink. Her eyeball popped like a bubble, spurting fluid the consistency of an egg white, and her check was flayed open where the wire had slashed across it. Even as her hands flew to her face, milky fluid from her ruptured eyeball sluiced down her cheek, mingling with her blood. Her terrible screams filled the room, pained and shrill, like a rabbit caught in a snare.

“Christ!” Jacques growled as he ran to the girl. Everyone else in the room stood stock still, transfixed by horror. He reached her and took her in his arms, supporting the back of her head with his left hand and pressing the handkerchief he had drawn from his pocket to her ruined eye to staunch the flow of fluid. He glared at the still-stationary audience and bellowed, “Fetch this poor girl a doctor! Hurry!”

The girl started to shake convulsively and whimper incoherently. Jacques had seen many men go into shock from injuries they sustained, and he had a basic knowledge of treating wounds on the battlefield. He knew there was nothing to be done about the girl’s eye. She could only be kept as comfortable as possible until it healed into an empty socket, the gash in her cheek stitched. He rubbed her arms and cradled her, trying to prevent her slipping into a state of shock.

Theodore and Charles had run to find a doctor, their female companions left standing alone, mouths gaping and tears spilling from their eyes. William appeared not to have moved at all from his place against the wall, watching the happenings with a kind of macabre fascination, his dark eyes glittering like obsidian. Eleanor snatched a drink from a young man who stood uselessly by and rushed to Jacques and the woman, holding it to her lips so that it might dull the pain a little.

Blood and injuries did not ruffle her. Before being informed it was not appropriate for a lady, she had wanted to learn all she could about veterinary medicine. She had persisted anyway, albeit more secretively, stealing medical knowledge on treating cats and dogs and horses and livestock wherever she could, being an unrelenting pest whenever a veterinarian treated her family’s animals. Animals were more difficult than humans in that they couldn’t communicate their pains, although for an injury like this, it made little difference.

Jacques did what he could to comfort the girl, but there was little. She curled into him like a child, crying and whimpering. The doctor must arrive soon. Eleanor faced him, her attention on the girl. He should not have been so captivated by her in this moment, but it was his first opportunity to study her openly. Her eyes were light spectral blue, intently focused on her patient, immune to distraction, her pillowy bosom rose and fell with her breaths. A swatch of blood streaked down the porcelain white of her jaw from where she had swiped away an errant strand of fiery hair. If it wasn’t decided in his mind before – if the truth lay hidden beneath the conscious part of him that would have denied it – Jacques was certain now. If his fate was that his path was to be crossed with that of the beautiful, dauntless creature that was Eleanor Winchester, he would not fight against it.

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Carriage rides home after an event such as the ball were usually filled with laughter and the jovial recounting of events. Tonight, the only sound inside the carriage was the cadence of the hoof falls of the trotting horses that pulled it. The two young ladies seated in the Winchester carriage watched somberly out of the windows at the passing countryside, the darkened green hills dappled with glowing moonlight. Eleanor and Katrina found little to converse over after Miss Pettigrew had lost an eye and the events of the evening were cut as short as a severed harpsichord string. Count Winchester alone was in high spirits, smiling at a private thought as he sat across from his daughter and her friend. He was a large man, imposing to many with his full red beard and bald head, but he had a genial manner and bold sense of humor. Since the death of his wife, he had taken on the role of chief advisor to his daughter and even her friend in their amorous scheming. He had been surprised to find it a great source of amusement, seeing this facet of courtship from the lady’s perspective, which was far more devious than he had ever assumed.

“It seems to me you had a stroke of good luck this evening,” he remarked to Eleanor, pointedly eyeing a bloodstain on the skirt of her dress that looked nearly black against the crimson fabric.

“I often feel lucky after having an evening curtailed by the maiming of an acquaintance,” she quipped sarcastically. Both ladies knew there was no longer a need for any pretense of demure femininity.

“There’s no need to pretend women don’t secretly relish a woman being removed from the competition,” Count Winchester told the young women shrewdly. “When I overhear you ladies talk, I feel as if I’m keeping counsel with a pair of fledgling Lady Macbeths.”

“I feel no competition with a lady as plain as Miss Pettigrew,” Eleanor replied primly.

“I’ve never seen you on the hunt so intently before.” Count Winchester smiled wider, enjoying himself. “Care to tell me about your quarry?”

“I’m quite sure I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean.” She fidgeted with her skirt as a pink tint flushed her cheeks.

“Quite sure, are you?” He poked her further and tried to wait her out with a heavy silence. When she offered nothing more, he continued, “In that case, it would be of no interest to you that I have ongoing business with Sir Jacques.”

Eleanor’s eyes darted to her father and her heart jumped. She waited for him to continue, but he did not give her any satisfaction. She huffed in frustration, “Fine, you horrible old man! What business do you have with him? And how ongoing will it be?”

“I wouldn’t want to bore you.” He shrugged, the corners of his blue eyes wrinkled with laughter. “What interest could you possibly have in any dealings I have with Jacques Le Gris?” Seeming to change the subject, he added, “Did either of you ladies notice the D’Alencon boy? He appeared to me to be quite popular. Don’t young women covet blonde hair like his?”

Eleanor and Katrina exchanged a sour look at such a noxious notion. Eleanor sighed and capitulated to her father, "You know very well I want to know everything you know about Sir Jacques.”

“Did you know he has a son of marriageable age?” Count Winchester mused, prolonging his daughter’s frustration. “He’s only a little younger than you and the heir to the Le Gris fortune. William Le Gris would be a smart match for any aspiring young lady, as would Charles D’Alencon. Count Pierre made certain I knew this before he and Sir Jacques and I could set about our business discussion.”

Eleanor glared at him and Katrina returned her attention to the countryside that passed by outside the carriage window.

“You prefer the father to the son, do you?” Count Winchester knew the answer and added his approval. “I can’t say I blame you. In fact, I think it’s the wiser choice. I’ve heard of him by reputation for years, though I’d never met him until recently. Sir Jacques doesn’t disappoint, he’s an impressive man. His sons may have that potential, but with no great wars in sight, they will likely never be forged in similar fires. I don’t imagine Sir Jacques will allow them to run out to the Sudan to fight the Madhist in the near future.” He paused, nodding to himself. “Sir Jacques is old enough to have gained some wisdom, but not yet so old as to have enough wisdom to know he should run like hell from a beautiful woman,” he laughed at his own humor. He noticed both girls’ attention had returned to him now that he was divulging information on eligible men. “As you know, I’ve been negotiating a lucrative business opportunity with the Prime Minister for months now. Count Pierre smelled profit on the air like a hyena on the veld and finagled his way in, as Pierre does. I was prepared to curtail his intrusion, but tonight I learned that Count Pierre wishes to bring Sir Jacques into our fold, which would be to the benefit of all.”

“And?” Eleanor pressed, knowing her father’s game of drawing out her suffering.

“And?” Count Winchester asked with a confused expression and paused on the brink of laughter. “And… the ongoing business I have with the Prime Minister, Count Pierre, and Sir Jacques could easily be conducted through correspondence, which is precisely where we left things this evening.” He paused again. “However, it would also be a fine excuse for me to summon Sir Jacques to our estate to continue our business.”

“When?” Eleanor asked, sitting bolt upright, instantly excited. “Do it quickly before some other woman snares him.”

“He doesn’t strike me as a man who’s easily snared. You may have your work cut out for you. A man in his position may not want the bother that comes with a wife, or with any serious entanglement with a woman,” Count Winchester cautioned, then spoke his thoughts aloud. “I could also invite myself to his estate under that same guise and bring my headstrong daughter along. Yes, I think it better to conduct our affairs in Jacques’s home, not ours. To serve your huntress agenda, it will be better to let Sir Jacques be the cock of the walk, in the position of hosting us and entertaining you. Any man will be more at ease in his own home. If he were to come visit us, he may be less inclined to insult me by making an overture to my daughter.” He grinned mischievously. “We will hunt the bear in his own cave. We will pay him a visit at Wargrave Hall.”

“When will this be?” Eleanor pressed again.

“Don’t worry, we’ll give chase before your quarry’s spoor goes cold,” Count Winchester laughed. He looked at Katrina who had been listening intently. “You are invited too, of course, Miss Burton, should you wish it. There are three eligible Le Gris men, after all, and plenty of scheming to be had.”

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Through the carriage windows Eleanor admired the pastoral countryside enroute to Sir Jacques’s estate. They had been on his property for some time but had yet to reach the great manor house past the forests and the hills that rolled away like emerald waves. A light fog hung low on the ground, adding an air of mystery to the verdant landscape, as if any manner of unknown creatures could materialize from its veil. It was the height of summer, but the heat was not terrible. The promise of an early autumn and a cold winter hung in the air. Only a fortnight had passed since the night of the ball but it had felt like an age to Eleanor in her eagerness to see the handsome knight again. She hoped he likewise suffered, though she suspected this was a burden to be shouldered more by women than men. Her father had assured her that in his correspondence with Sir Jacques, he had peppered a few innocuous allusions to her that would not allow her to slip entirely from his thoughts.

The carriage turned down a private lane, lined on each side by dense rows of trees. Eleanor and Katrina watched as the estate came into view ahead. Count Winchester was not bothered to open his eyes from a nap until the carriage stopped at the final destination. An enormous manor came into view, four stories tall, not including the several towers that rose even higher into the sky. The dark stone facade gave it a medieval elegance, while its looming arches and peaked architecture added a foreboding quality to its otherwise luxurious aesthetic. The manor was dark yet charming, much like its master, Eleanor mused. The windows had the appearance of sinister eyes gleaming beneath the arched eyebrows of their frames. Indeed, as the carriage drew closer, the unmistakable sensation of being watched pricked her skin. She shivered despite the summer warmth and immediately felt ridiculous. If Sir Jacques watched her now from some perch inside his manor, that was exactly what she had hoped for. She wanted him to watch her, to pine for her, to covet her. She sat straighter as the eyes of Wargrave Hall watched the carriage approach, at once ominous and alluring, beckoning its guests inside with both a threat and a promise that they could stay forever.

Wargrave Hall had been in the Le Gris family for centuries, since the time of knights and crusades, a gift to an ancestor, another Sir Jacques Le Gris. Only a squire, the Sir Jacques of old had distinguished himself so impressively in the Battle of Arsuf leading to the defeat of the great Saladin that he was rewarded with a knighthood, an estate and acreage that was one of the finest in all of England. Wargrave Hall had been the ancestral seat of the Le Gris family since the end of the twelfth century. The original castle had been so repaired and remodeled as to be unrecognizable today in the Hall’s current incarnation in the gothic style with a heavy influence of turreted French chateaus, similar to the noteworthy Waddesdon Manor.

Despite the renovations throughout the centuries, Wargrave Hall was rumored still to sit upon a warren of underground passages, remnants of the ancient castle dungeons. The feature that remained largely unaltered since the time of knights and crusades was the Le Gris family crypt, a smoke-colored marble tomb that stood forlornly on a hilltop perch. Naturally, this was rumored to be haunted. These legends reached even the schoolhouses of London, the subject of many tales and lore. The rumors differed as to whether the specters were once members of the Le Gris family, cursed to wander the earthly plane for their vicious deeds in life, or if the ghosts were from the men and women killed by the many Le Gris warriors over the centuries.

The carriage circled around a large fountain as it approached the entrance. An enormous marble sculpture of a man and woman in an aggressive lover’s embrace, as though the man had just snatched the woman off her feet and into his arms, rose from the center of the pool, rivulets of water cascading down their pale stone bodies. So soft was the appearance of the flesh of the marble couple and so sensual was their embrace that it could have been sculpted by Bernini. The man’s hands held the woman’s gentle body against his rigid one, bowed over her arched figure with his lips ghosting the curve of her throat above her exposed breasts, her long hair streaming behind her. Only a carved sheet draped around his waist and falling across her hips gave the couple a modicum of modesty.

Only moments after the carriage came to a stop before the pillared front entrance, the double doors were flung open and Theodore Le Gris came bursting out, trotting down the steps to greet the guests. He was tall and skinny, his long limbs gangly as he hurried, and his friendly smile too toothy for his features, but his green eyes were bright and intelligent. He opened the carriage door ahead of the footman and informed the company inside that Sir Jacques was ensconced with Count Pierre and the Prime Minister, and that he had tasked his son with greeting his guests and ensuring Count Winchester was led promptly to the conclave. Theodore’s eyes lingered longest on Katrina and the sway of her long slender legs beneath her skirts when she stepped gracefully out of the carriage. The way she turned her nose up at him and withdrew her eyes from his should have offended him, but he found this aloof gesture lured him in deeper.

As he led the guests inside, Theodore didn’t share that Sir Jacques had specifically tasked both his boys with this obligation, yet William was notably absent. Theodore had nicknamed his older brother Black Billy for his black eyes and black temperament. He was aware of his older brother brooding even more than he was naturally inclined, his mood darker and his temper shorter as of late. The brothers had overheard an exchange between Sir Jacques and Count Pierre that had deeply angered William. Count Pierre had arrived at Wargrave Hall days ahead of the other guests, as was his custom. Seemingly in passing and with indifference, Sir Jacques had mentioned that Miss Winchester would make some lucky man a fine wife. Count Pierre had responded with incredulity and bewilderment to this innocuous comment. In the days since, the Count’s mood had devolved into an inconsolable sulky shadow of his usual ebullient humor, and he muttered occasionally about losing his only true friend and how Sir Jacques was a fool for wading into an obvious honey trap.

Theodore saw no cause for any reaction other than happiness for his father, or for his older brother, should that be the course events followed. The lady at issue was close in age to William, perhaps slightly older, Theodore guessed. He thought he could view her much more readily as a sister-in-law than as a stepmother, but he suspected that he would have little difficulty forming a friendship with her. He had inherited his father’s charm and his mother’s kind temper, both of which endeared him easily to new acquaintances and lubricated his interactions with women. Both of which were also attributes that had skipped over Black Billy entirely. In fact, the more he studied Miss Burton’s lissome figure and the movement of her long coltish legs as the ladies walked abreast of him, the more he hoped Miss Winchester would become a permanent tenant of Wargrave Hall. If Miss Winchester made Wargrave Hall her home, regardless of which Le Gris man she favored, Miss Burton would no doubt be a frequent visitor and Theodore found himself elated by the thought.

Theodore made introductions to the head servants who had turned out to greet their guests and acquaint themselves with Count Winchester’s butler and the two lady’s maids. The head butler of Wargrave Hall was a stern looking man with grey hair and a sturdy build. When he spoke, his Scottish accent was gruff and his words curt. He walked with a slight limp, but still appeared strong and able enough to roust a strong man in a brawl. Theodore explained that Mr. Graham had served under his father in the war in Africa two decades ago.

Inside Wargrave Hall, the air was chilled, a welcome reprieve from the summer day. Eleanor craned her neck to take in the splendor in view from the front foyer. True to the Le Gris name, much of the marble inside was stormy shades of grey, accented with white, black, and a few tasteful dashes of maroon. Theodore led the women to a grand staircase of white marble that wound upward and Mr. Graham remained with Count Winchester. A pair of winged dragons sat on their haunches at the base of each banister, guarding the upper levels. Their teeth were bared in snarls and their eyes were especially lifelike, looking as glossy as the clear eyes of vipers.

“My mother was superstitious,” Theodore said in an apologetic tone. He patted the horned head of one of the waist-high dragons. “She thought these warded off evil spirits like gargoyles atop a cathedral.”

“Think you can pass by them, dear?” Count Winchester teased his daughter to be met with a frosty glare. When she began ascending the steps, he added with a laugh, “Your dragons are asleep at their posts, Master Theodore.”

At the top of the first flight of stairs, the staircase wound sharply at a near ninety-degree angle on its continued ascension. Just before Eleanor rounded it, she was able to look back down to the foyer below when a booming voice echoed through it. Sir Jacques had emerged from whatever room he had occupied with the other important men and greeted her father warmly. Eleanor didn’t hail him, but his gaze was summoned wordlessly to her. Even across the distance that separated them, Eleanor was struck by the way the afternoon light glinted golden in his eyes, nor was it lost on her the way his jaw clenched for the briefest of moments when he sighted her.

“Miss Winchester.” Sir Jacques recovered at once and gave her a gallant bow. “I have failed in my duty as your host. With your indulgence, I shall make amends when our meeting is concluded for the day.”

She was flustered by the sight of him and her voice betrayed her when she teased, “Do not think I will let you off so easily, Sir Jacques.”

Katrina gave a polite curtsy and proceeded up the stairs, rolling her eyes at Eleanor’s flushed complexion when only her friend could see.

“I am a man who rises to a challenge,” Sir Jacques called from below. He then led Count Winchester to the library, which served presently as the men’s war room.

Theodore gave the ladies a tour of the Hall, showing them offices, lounges, solars, and a lavish walnut paneled library complete with rolling ladders affixed to rails running around the room to reach the highest shelves. He pointed out the closed double doors to the master bedroom on the second floor and the luxurious gardens that sprawled away outside of the window opposite them. His room and his brother’s were on the third story, as were the two adjoining rooms allotted to the ladies. Their rooms overlooked a large stables and a fenced paddock populated with grazing horses.

“Do you suppose we have time to relax before the men will finish their meeting?” Eleanor asked Theodore nonchalantly. In truth, she wanted time to pamper herself and refresh after a day of travel so she looked her best.

“You cannot truly want to sleep the day away now that we’re finally here?” Katrina taunted. They had not yet had time alone together to plot their next move, so she was caught unaware.

Theodore seized his opportunity, “Perhaps you’d like to see the garden while she rests, Miss Burton? Or the horses?”

Katrina looked pointedly at Eleanor, sharing a silent exchange that both women understood implicitly but left any man oblivious. An understanding passed between them and with knowing grins and nods, the women parted for the time being. Katrina allowed herself to be led away by Theordore and Eleanor closed herself in her room under the guise of rest.

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An hour later Katrina burst into Eleanor’s room without knocking and seated herself on the large canopy bed. She rolled her eyes theatrically as she watched her friend primping and preening from her seat at a vanity.

“Do you think a little rogue will tip the scales with Sir Jacques?” Katrina teased.

“You never know which straw will break the camel’s back,” Eleanor met her friend’s eyes through the mirror.

“Beauty is not a problem for either of us,” Katrina said with a laugh. “It’s rather other aspects of our persons.”

“Well, I can’t conceal those blemishes with powder, so I might as well do what I can in the hopes that my beauty distracts him from them.” She blew a playfully obnoxious kiss at the mirror.

“Perhaps you might have better luck if you tried to break his back in more alluring ways.” Katrina smirked sarcastically. “I’ve no doubt Sir Jacques’s library has a plethora of inspiration for you. Shall we find a questionable book and the most contorted pose inside it? All that you have to do then is walk up to him, bat your eyelashes, and ask for him to tutor you on it as innocently as possible.”

“You’re terrible!” Eleanor laughed. “But that may need to be my next approach if looking pretty and waiting for him to take the bait on his own fails. Sir Jacques is a special challenge, though. A pretty face will not be enough for him, not for more than a night or two anyway. He will want more.”

“You’d best be prepared for a long and involved siege, then.” Katrina was laughing now too. “Should we feel like black widows, trying to draw these poor men into our webs?”

“Certainly not! No one likes spiders.” Eleanor pursed her lips and traced lipstick over them. “We’re much more like a carnivorous flower, like a pitcher plant. Pretty enough to lure them in so we can seize them.”

“Well while you’ve been busy trying to hide your horns, I’ve made real progress.” Katrina announced and sprang up from the bed. “I have enticed Theordore to tell me where the most interesting parts of the Hall are to be found! He went so far as to give me a badly drawn map. He wanted desperately to give us a private tour, but I told him you were feeling ill and not up for company, but perhaps at a later time. So, try to look pallid and act pitiable if we encounter him.”

“I don’t think it would be to my advantage to go wandering through hidden passageways out of sight,” Eleanor hesitated, fighting the natural inclination both women had toward all things dark and macabre that might spook them.

“Is it cold in here?” Katrina rubbed her arms, fighting back a shiver. “It’s like stepping into an ice box coming through the door.”

“I hadn’t noticed it before, but I daresay it is rather frigid, is it not?” Eleanor’s skin prickled with gooseflesh. Surely, she would have noticed it if the room had been that cold before? It reminded her of a similar feeling of inexplicable cold that had almost faded into her childhood memories.

“Theodore says the ghosts of his ancestors wander the older parts of the Hall,” Katrina shrugged off the feeling of cold and said salaciously. “He says there’s an old knight Sir Jacques was named after and a Renaissance lady named Centaine Le Gris who was burned as a witch because she was rumored to bathe in the blood of peasants. And those are just the two whose names I remembered! Oh, and there’s even supposed to be a haunted mirror, or ghosts haunting mirrors, or something of that ilk.”

“Do you think we can make a quick reconnoiter and be back before suspicions arise?” Eleanor looked out of the windows at the afternoon sun. They had perhaps two hours of daylight remaining before sunset, which was a predictable hour that the men might end their conclave for the day.

“Unless we get waylaid by some ghosts.” Katrina gestured impatiently. “Besides, if you quit being boring and come explore, I’ll tell you the ripest bit of information I gleaned.”

“Fine,” Eleanor sighed dramatically and joined her friend. “But the ripe gossip first! Should we get attacked by ghosts, I’d hate to die without knowing.”

“Well, I know you’re on pins and needles wondering how the late wife met her untimely demise. Don’t worry, it’s my mission to wheedle it out of Theodore.” Katrina crossed to the door and leaned in conspiratorially before opening it. “But, he already disclosed that this room was her boudoir for when she wanted her privacy.”

“I’m staying in her boudoir!” Eleanor exclaimed, unsure if she should be offended or encouraged.

“Theodore says it’s the nicest vacant room in the Hall.” Katrina looked around the room pointedly and opened the door. “He also says that Sir Jacques has been modernizing the Hall by adding electricity to it a few rooms at a time. This room, for example, has electric light, but most in the Hall still have gas lamps or rely on candles.” She dropped her voice to a comically wicked tone, like she would use to mimic a witch to scare a child, “But I don’t think we should discount that perhaps Sir Jacques is already placing you in her stead.” She added a wicked cackle. “He might not even know it yet himself, but feels compelled by some spectral impulse.”

Summer sunlight streamed in through the windows, giving the hallways a cheery feel, even brightening the faces that looked sternly out of the numerous oil paintings that lined the walls. Though the women walked side by side, Katrina directed all their turns confidently, looking only occasionally at the scrawled map. At the far West corner of the Hall was a turret like that of a medieval castle. Katrina confidently led them down a tightly spiral staircase inside it. They passed several narrow rectangular windows, the only source of light inside the staircase.

“Theodore told me that he calls his brother, William, Black Billy,” Katrina said in passing. “He says that he didn’t inherit the Le Gris eyes, which are always green or yellow or hazel, and that moreover, it fits his black heart. For brothers, they don’t sound similar at all, or even close.”

Eleanor lost count of the turns they made as they descended the staircase, but the final window they passed admitted only dim, shadowy light, and then the windows ceased. They must be below ground now, in the ancient part of Wargrave Hall.

“I wonder if the old dungeons are still intact,” Eleanor mused. The staircase was now gloomy and dark, the air far cooler and filled with the musk of centuries.

“According to Theodore, they are.” Katrina had dropped her voice without knowing, more befitting of the somber atmosphere. “Oh, that reminds me of a scandalous tale he told me about Sir Jacques and a visiting French noblewoman who fancied being chained up and whipped, among other torments. Some acquaintance of Count Pierre. Theodore said that Jacques was quite the accommodating host – that he took her down to the dungeons and entertained her there.”

Eleanor glared at her friend who only grinned.

At the bottom of the staircase was a wooden door, shorter than others she had seen and laced with metal trim in a medieval style. Katrina tried to open it stealthily, but it groaned like an old man rising from bed. Only darkness met them, and cold, humid air filled with the musk of earth and decay. Katrina retrieved a chamberstick from a pocket of her skirt and struck a match on the wall to light it. The single candle flame lit their surroundings for fifteen or twenty feet ahead. They stood in an old corridor with aged stone walls, caked with moss, and the floor beneath their feet had the feel of cobblestones. The air around them was cool as one might expect inside a cave, but it was not the unnatural cool that the women had felt shortly before.

Ahead there was a gentle bend in the musty corridor. When the women rounded it, they found the remnants of the Hall’s dungeon. The forepart of the dungeon had been cleared of cells and was repurposed as a wine cellar stocked with enough aged vintages to supply an army of sommeliers. Care had been taken in the restoration of this area, and unlit torches lined the stone wall in ancient iron sconces set between medieval tapestries.

Something shimmered just around a bend in the tunnel ahead of them. A faint green light seemed to creep around the corner, like the Green Fairy was trying to lead them to a well of absinthe. It was so faint, it might be a trick of the candlelight. But both women saw the same trick of light and exchanged wide-eyed glances. They clasped hands and continued.

Following the next turn, they were met with what remained of the dungeon from centuries ago. The iron cell doors remained, as did some other unique features such as heavy chains fitted with collars and iron handcuffs chained to the walls. Several of the cells were used to store what looked like medieval relics – weapons, shields, swords, even pieces of suits of armor. They were dented, bent, chipped, and otherwise scarred from battle and tarnished by age. This was not armor kept for show, as were many pieces in the upper levels of the Hall that were polished to a mirror-sheen and displayed on stands, but the battle worn equipment of the Le Gris line that had survived the centuries. Eleanor could almost feel the presence of the knights who had met their deaths while waging war in these suits of armor. She wondered if any of their ghosts still lingered.

As the thought flitted through her mind, a sword suddenly fell from its wall mount. The women jumped against each other with yelps of fright as it clanged on the stone floor, startlingly loud in the close stone dungeon. But, for good or ill, the ancient stone and mortar kept all sounds sealed within. Before they had recovered enough to assess the situation, the open visor of a knight’s helmet snapped shut, making them jump again. Their hearts raced, but no deep fear had taken root in their hearts. Their ears were perked for any sound, but all was as silent as the grave. Their eyes probed the dim chamber but saw nothing. Nothing felt amiss, other than the disturbed objects.

They would not be deterred so easily. They walked ahead.

Eleanor looked sharply to her friend as an epiphany hit her. “Have you kissed Theodore? You must have to get so much information so quickly.”

“Well, that depends on your definition of a kiss,” Katrina evaded with a sly grin.

“What definition are we using today?” Eleanor bumped Katrina with her elbow.

“Something that makes me want to kiss him again.” Katrina held the candle out toward a dented suit of armor.

“So, by your definition…” Eleanor persisted.

“Though I allowed him to make an attempt, I’d hardly qualify it as a proper kiss.” Something in the corner of a cell caught Katrina’s eye. “Oh, look! A torture device! It’s a real set of medieval pliers. Imagine how many fingers these have pulled off. And there’s a scavenger’s daughter! How fun!”

“I’d love to see a brazen bull,” Eleanor mused. “I wager there’s a pear of anguish down here someplace, too.”

From the corner of the cell, a tall dark figure shifted, the movement delineating its figure. Eleanor gasped and Katrina nearly dropped their only source of light. Both ladies froze with dread. The figure moved, looking like a tall man with a cape that swirled around his legs. The women stood firm, although the chamberstick in Katrina’s hand trembled. They both looked at the dark shadow and the shadow seemed to look back. It took an ominous step toward them, and for the first time since they had entered the dungeon, both women felt a sense of danger.

Before they could bolt for the exit, the figure lurched toward them, its long black fingers grasping for them. Katrina shrieked and Eleanor cursed, both of them jumping away to evade the creature. Then, the shadow stood straight and laughed in a cold, familiar tone.

“What do you ladies expect to find, wandering around down here in the dungeons?” William asked with cruel laughter on his voice. “You should strengthen your resolve if you’re so flustered by a sword falling off a wall.”

“A woman would be foolish not to be frightened by a black-souled bastard like you,” Eleanor hissed.

William bristled visibly at the reference to his nickname, Black Billy. He obviously did not approve of it. “Why exactly are you two hens sneaking around down here? If you want to seduce my father, you need only to lift your skirts. Do hurry it up, so he can be done with you as his next passing amusement, and the servants can scour your residue from the furnishings.”

“The cold air too?” Eleanor asked. “Did you affect that with your cold heart? You’d best take note from your father and brother as to how not to repulse women, lest you meet your end as forlorn as the souls trapped in this dungeon.”

Black Billy looked confused for a moment at the question of conjuring the cold. He ignored it and instead spat, “On second thought, by all means, seduce the old man.” He sneered and advanced on the women maliciously, his black eyes as dark as the shadows that surrounded him. “It may be the fastest way to be rid of you. He murdered my mother, you know. The price for becoming Mistress of Wargrave Hall will be more than you want to pay.”

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Before going down to dinner, the ladies retouched and fussed over their appearance in Katrina’s room, fervently berating William amongst themselves. A timid knock sounded on her door, interrupting their conversation. Katrina answered to find Theodore standing on the other side with a gawky smile. He was clearly expecting to find her alone, and cleared his throat and shuffled his feet at the sight of Eleanor.

“Enter and recover your voice,” Katrina made light of his awkward silence and gestured for him to come inside.

“I heard what Black Billy did to the two of you,” Theodore said apologetically, his tall frame sloped slightly. “I wish I could make amends for him, but the truth is he’s just a vile bastard. It’s hard for me to tolerate him on a good day and I’m the closest friend he has. Father desperately wants him to marry so he will be of better cheer.”

“I’m so flattered to be thought of as the sacrificial lamb for that purpose,” Eleanor huffed.

“You’ve nothing to worry about. No one here has any designs of setting Black Billy on you.” Theodore smiled conspiratorially and took a seat very near Katrina on a settee. “I certainly shouldn’t tell you what I’ve observed...” He shrugged, wanting a carrot before divulging his intelligence.

“And here I thought you wanted to be helpful,” Katrina said with a cocked eyebrow, leaning away from him and giving him the exact opposite reaction he wanted. “Eleanor and I can continue speaking alone if we are to purely engage in conjecture.”

“No, no,” Theodore fumbled, and then stammered quickly. “It’s simple, though. I’ve never seen my father so disarmed before. He smiles close to as wide as I’ve been told is gawking at the mention of Miss Winchester.” He saw this interested both women and continued eagerly, “He’s downright discombobulated. I’ve seen him around plenty of women – begging your pardon, I mean to say that I’ve never seen him so out of sorts around one. If I didn’t think Eleanor was the cause, I’d be worried he was running a high fever.”

“What a well of useful information you are,” Katrina purred approvingly, leaning a centimeter closer. She was training him fast into being a loyal hound who would happily do her bidding.

“Anyway,” Theodore coughed uncomfortably. “That’s not why I came here. When I heard of Black Billy’s terrible trick on you, I came bearing a peace offering.” The women exchanged looks as Theordore withdrew a small silver flask from his jacket pocket. He held it proudly and swirled its contents. He unscrewed the cap and handed it to Katrina first. “See if you can guess it by smell.”

The strong scent of licorice wafted to their noses from the open mouth of the flask. The ladies grinned. Katrina played along and identified it as absinthe.

“I’ve seen father offer it to ladies before dinner,” Theodore said, now very much in the mood to divulge his family’s secrets so long as doing so pleased the beautiful women in his company. He stood, puffed his chest, and deepened his voice to mock Sir Jacques, “He would say, ‘Would you ladies care to dance with the green fairy?’”

Katrina clapped her hands in approval and Eleanor laughed. Theodore’s peace offering was well-received. They all agreed that they must drink only in moderation, for it would not do to be out of sorts at dinner, and absinthe was a powerful drink. Named for the smoky green color of the drink, the green fairy was known to grant visions and even hallucinations on occasion.

After the better part of an hour spent gossiping and passing the flask around, the three young people thought themselves quite responsible. They had left nearly half of the silver flask untouched – perhaps a third to a miserly eye – and therefore considered themselves still rather sober. It was no matter if they wavered slightly on their feet when they stood from their various attitudes of repose. Theodore didn’t mind at all if the ladies needed to hold fast to his arm for balance.

“Wait a moment!” Eleanor exclaimed as they sauntered past the door to her room. “I must reapply my lipstick.”

“You’re being silly,” Katrina sighed, leaning against Theodore.

Theodore smiled goofily and told Eleanor, “Take all the time you need.”

Only slightly unsteadily, Eleanor rushed through her bedroom door to the vanity. The tubes of her lipstick looked somewhat blurry as she searched for the correct shade she had applied earlier. She had to lean a little closer to the vanity mirror than usual to paint her lips well. Straightening, she stowed the tube of lipstick down her bodice and studied herself in the mirror, pursing her lips. Although it would have been highly inappropriate to raise the issue with Theordore, she ruminated on Black Billy’s accusation that Jacques had killed his first wife. Surely, such a terrible thing was untrue? But a nagging part of her mind told her that even if it was as true as the gospel and was a murder clear as day, that Sir Jacques was rich and powerful enough to have such a thing swept away under a rug and face no consequences.

Especially now, under the spell of the green fairy, her mind was plagued with gruesome images of horror. Visions dreadful enough to prickle the hairs on the back of her neck and make her again feel the icebox chill inside the former Lady Le Gris’s boudoir.

“What a ridiculous notion!” she scolded herself aloud, shaking her head to clear it even as she fought back a shiver.

She closed her eyes tight, fighting back some of the spinning inside her head from the absinthe. With her eyes still closed, she leaned forward on the vanity table, trying to steady the wave of dizziness. Her face was inches from the mirror when she opened her eyes. The reflection staring back at her was not her own. It was a slightly older woman, beautiful, with fine features, raven black hair, and striking green eyes. Eleanor looked at the face, into the green eyes, seeing but not comprehending. The woman in the mirror screamed, her mouth torn open by terrible pain. Eleanor jerked back as if she had received an electric shock. The woman in the mirror likewise jerked back, mimicking Eleanor’s movements.

Then the woman’s movement changed. Eleanor watched in the mirror as the woman turned around in frightened circles, looking around her with horror gleaming in her wide green eyes. The room in the mirror was no longer Eleanor’s room, but a hellish backdrop of flames. Wallpaper peeled off the walls in scorched reels and smoke billowed across the ceiling like thunderclouds. The woman’s dress was aflame and she screamed again as fire licked from her feet up her legs like a macabre candle. Somehow, Eleanor knew she couldn’t get out, though she didn’t know how or why. The woman locked eyes with Eleanor through the mirror and screamed again, shrill enough to curdle blood. Her scream dissolved into a harrowing plea, her voice as ragged as graveyard cobblestones, creaking from her charred throat. But Eleanor could not make sense of her words. She bolted from the room as the woman’s beautiful face began to sear and melt away.

Back in the hallway, Theodore was busy whispering sweet nothings in Katrina’s ear. They both paid little mind to Eleanor’s condition, aside from starting when she slammed the door too harshly behind her.

“Is anything amiss?” Katrina asked with only mild concern.

“Care for another sip?” Theodore offered her the flask.

“I’ve had quite enough absinthe for the night. Perhaps, for a lifetime,” Eleanor said shakily. The vision in the mirror was undeniably sobering. “The green fairy does not agree with me.”

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Dinner that night was a lively affair with the guests all seated at a long dining table set for a banquet. Sir Jacques and Count D’Alencon were the most entertaining men Eleanor had ever had for company. Count Winchester and Robert Cecil, the Prime Minister, were more reserved, although most men were by Jacques and Pierre standards. Seated near one another, they continued whatever business had consumed them for the day. Black Billy sat near the Prime Minister, trying to worm his way into importance. Theodore had wheedled his way into the chair next to Katrina. The only disappointment of the evening was that Eleanor found herself directed to a chair several down from Sir Jacques where he sat tall and handsome at the head of the table, too far away to have any meaningful engagement with him. However, she did take note that he studied her openly and frequently, and smiled when he caught her eye. She thought that maybe he had seated her away from him so as to be less distracted by her.

Count Winchester had extensive dealings with the Prime Minister for years. They served on the same foreign relations committee when Cecil was in the House of Lords. As such, Eleanor had known him nearly as long by proxy. He had made it known many times that he thought Count Winchester had allowed his daughter to grow too headstrong for her own good. However, he respected a fine wit, regardless of the sex of its owner, and he enjoyed stimulating banter. Robert Cecil was bald, heavy set, with thick grey hair and a black beard. After the main course, he rested his hands on his rotund belly when his plate was cleared and leaned toward Count Winchester to have a private conversation.

“I wish you hadn’t brought that daughter of yours along for this tete a tete. Not for my usual reasons surrounding propriety, mind you.” He looked at Jacques whose eyes had flickered once again to his beautiful young guest and shook his head ruefully. “This is how empires crumble.”

“If my intelligence is current, that’s exactly what she’s going for,” Count Winchester laughed.

“Sir Jacques is a hard man,” Cecil added, thinking to himself that it did not do for such a hard man to look so – what, exactly? Giddy? “Do you want your only daughter beholden to such a man?”

“You know as well as I do my daughter would run rough-shod over any man who was not.” Count Winchester watched the same live theater with amusement. “I’ve known since she was a girl that she must find either a man’s man or a milquetoast, there can be no middle ground there.”

“The specter of murder that haunts him does not concern you?” Cecil prodded. “Ghastly business it was with his first wife.”

“Powerful men are prime fodder for all manner of hogwash and rumors, as you should know well. I’ve observed closely and for some time how Sir Jacques comports himself with women, and I’ve seen nothing to indicate he’d be indelicate with one. His fault lies in that he may like women too much for his own good. It concerns me more that if tries to gallivant around on Eleanor, he might find himself in a far grislier position than that of his first wife. I’ve aired that concern with her.” He turned in his chair to look at the Prime Minister squarely. “I’m a bit surprised by this line of inquiry. Sir Jacques has been your man for some years. You do not wish for his happiness as well as Eleanor’s?”

“Happiness, yes. And were it with a meeker woman who would know her place as a wife, I’d be elated for them both.” Cecil shook his head again. “I’ve invested much time and capital in Sir Jacques. It will not do for him to get drunk off a woman and forget his duty to Queen and country. Or far worse, come to see her command as outranking mine!”

“I see your concern.” Count Winchester grinned and added unconvincingly, “He may reject her.”

“What man would,” Cecil grumbled. Getting no reassurance from Count Winchester, the Prime Minister addressed Eleanor with a seeming non sequitur, “You’ve been unnaturally silent. Are you coming to accept that women are far prettier when they listen as opposed to speak?”

She bristled as he knew she would. “We’ll have the vote one day, and I will relish every moment of watching you politicians pander to us ladies as you grovel for it.”

Cecil laughed, holding his hands up. They commonly bantered like this, both good-naturedly. “Before you start down a war path, I have another question for you. A frivolous question, appropriate for a lady. What is your opinion on the supernatural? These days, I cannot attend a dinner party without having anecdotes of seances forced upon me. I’m shocked I haven’t been so assaulted yet tonight, given how we all know Wargrave Hall to be haunted.” He said the last with a teasing smile. “It’s long been a desire of Count Pierre to host a séance here.”

“Indeed, it has!” Pierre agreed exuberantly and pounded his fist on the table. “See, Jacques, now you have the blessing of the Prime Minister himself. Great fun, séances! You know how the ladies love them. It must happen!”

Jacques gave him a cautioning look. It was apparent this had been a topic between them before. “I’ll not have such nonsense conducted in my home. I’ve seen more death than anyone here – more than all the rest of you combined. I can tell you, there’s nothing intriguing or glamorous about it. No white lights, no loved ones waiting on the other side of veils, no lingering spirits.” Then he tried to make light, “I don’t like the company of most of the living, why would I want to invite the company of the dead?”

“Wait, now.” The Prime Minister held up his hand. “We’re committing that sin women accuse us men of – not letting the women voice their valuable opinions.”

The question of ghosts and the supernatural hit too close for comfort after the day’s events, but Eleanor remained composed. “On matters of the occult and the supernatural, I accept Pascal’s wager and must bet on the side of belief. It is surely better to be prepared for an encounter with a spectral presence than not. What has one to lose?”

“Prepared how?” Jacques scoffed without rancor. “Sounds to me like a good way to spook yourself and walk around jumping at shadows.”

Eleanor smiled at him, and posited, “There are supposedly no wolves in these woods. Knowing that, is it not still wiser to be prepared to handle an encounter with a wolf when you venture into the woods? Or is it better to rest on the knowledge that there are no wolves, and be wholly unprepared if you meet one? If there are indeed wolves in the forest, do you think that turning a blind eye to them or not believing in them will protect you, or merely make you easier prey?”

Jacques leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table, an attitude that accentuated the breadth of his shoulders. “If all I need to do to be prepared for an attack from beyond the grave is carry a pistol, I am sold on your logic, Miss Winchester.”

Cecil wanted to interrupt this more intimate exchange. He thought of a gruesome tale that would make most women retreat from a man. “Sir Jacques, you have no grounds to be a skeptic. After all, you are the only man here who is known as a ghost himself.”

Jacques shot him a look, imploring silence, his jaw clenching. “A tale exaggerated by those who were not there to witness it. And a dark tale, at that, hardly befitting dinner conversation in mixed company.”

“I find it highly apropos, as it bears directly on the business we have all convened here to discuss.” Cecil continued unchecked. “The Afghans called Sir Jacques the Ghost during the war. After Ayub Khan, the Emir of Afghanistan, betrayed us and violated the peace in ‘78, we tasked Sir Jacques with, ah, making amends. Even I’m not privy to all the details, but perhaps Jacques will regale us,” Cecil paused, waiting for Jacques to take the reins of the story. When Jacques contributed nothing but a stoic glare, Cecil continued, “By all accounts, Jacques sneaked into the Emir’s palace like a ghost. Like a ghost who butchered his entire guard, I might add. Heads were found impaled on spears, entrails strung across the floors, and bodies found torn apart limb from limb as if from some wild animal mauling.”

At this, Jacques did interrupt, “They killed many of my men. Having friends die in one’s arms inspires a man to violence.”

“To put it mildly!” Cecil continued. “Rumor, or shall I say legend, has it that Jacques somehow caught the Emir unaware and got a knife to his throat. Using his imitable powers of persuasion, Jacques was able to get the Emir to reconsider his position. He speaks the native tongue, as well as several other languages – rare in such a formidable soldier. To top it all, I have it on good authority that many of the Emir’s advisors believe Jacques to have mystical powers. It’s a palatable way for them to explain their fumbling of the palace guard to say their enemy can walk through walls. But you see, Miss Winchester, how this makes him indispensable in negotiating with the Emir.”

With a sigh, Jacques joined the conversation, “The good ol’ Emir is now in Bombay. Plotting. He’s narrowly skirting a course of action that could trigger another Crimean conflict. The consensus thinking is that it could result in a quarter million losses on our side alone.” Jacques spread his large hands. “But thank God for capitalism, gentlemen. The Emir is as greedy as he is shrewd, and with the idea Count Winchester posited this afternoon, I wager he will take the bait. The allure of an avenue of commerce through the Indian Ocean rather than for him to continue struggling across landlocked Afghanistan to Europe via the Suez Canal is a mighty incentive.”

William smirked at Eleanor as he quipped to Jacques, “If one didn’t know better, I’d think you sounded fearful, father.”

Jacques’s left eye twitched with anger, but he forced a grin in good humor.

Theodore jumped to his defense, “Father’s not afraid of anything!”

“Only a fool feels no fear,” Jacques said, glaring at William. “A brave man maintains control over himself and does what’s necessary in spite of fear.”

“And a smart man finds a way to avoid the danger all together,” Count Winchester added.

“Yes, that is our ultimate goal,” Cecil agreed. “But still, the Emir must be persuaded that it will serve both himself and his people if he serves as our agent in Bombay. This will require much tact and persuasion. And to disarm the Russian counterpoint, who will be testy at not getting the war they’re itching for. We cannot rule out the need to spill some blood in the course of our negotiations. Discreetly, of course. Given that complication, what better man for this political mission than Sir Jacques?” He paused before adding weightily, “Miss Winchester, you would agree then that he must get to India post haste?”

Now, she saw her potential role in all their mechanizing. It was not lost on her that Jacques had been watching her to gauge her reaction, as if he had more at stake now, more to consider that may be affected by his decision. As did her father, who had counseled her from a young age never to fall for a soldier, as it only invited heartbreak. Her answer to the Prime Minister was stern, “If you’re seeking outside opinions, Sir Jacques must have expressed some reluctance over venturing to India on your errand? If I put myself in the shoes of a man who has everything one could want in life, including money, title, and a reputation as a war hero, I can see little to be gained from such a venture and much to be lost if it goes badly.”

“Tales of such adventures are romantic and exciting,” Jacques said. “They tend to leave out the blood and sweat involved, the pain and toil. In reality, it’s a deadly game to play. I wouldn’t even consider it just for glory. I’ve had enough of that. It weighs heavily on my mind that I may be in a unique position to save the lives of a quarter million young men, if war can be averted by my action.”

Count Winchester saw an opening to aid his daughter and observed, “We’re not deciding things tonight at dinner. My approach may, and hopefully will, render all this maneuvering moot. Count Pierre and I are in agreement that money will be politic enough to motivate the Emir. As I said many times over today, we don’t need a stick when we have the carrot of opium. It would be more profitable to the Emir than diamonds. Profitable enough for him to eventually be free of the British yoke. Or so, we will make him think.”

With dinner concluded, the Prime Minister insisted the men take their leave to partake of cigars and drinks, and to continue their business at hand. Much to Eleanor’s chagrin. As the men adjourned, Jacques sought her out and took her hand to kiss it. His voice was low enough for only her ears, “I hope you will enjoy your stay here in Wargrave Hall as much as I have enjoyed your presence so far. I shall endeavor to be more attentive to my duty as your host in the coming days.”

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By all appearances, Sir Jacques made little effort in being a more attentive host the following day and even a few thereafter. The ruminations of the so-called men of power consumed much of their time and attention, making even a sighting of either count, the prime minister, or Sir Jacques scant. The only time any of them were accessible for anything at all was during dinner, which was of course, far from the private affair Eleanor wanted. However, she and Katrina did not spend their days sitting idly.

On their second day at the Hall, they went for a ride out over the rolling grassy hills, using two of the four horses that had pulled their carriage enroute. Alone on a ride, they could also be assured of time alone without being overhead. They decided to make it their mission to explore as much of Wargrave Hall as possible and learn all of its secrets, with a secondary agenda of learning about the former Lady of the Hall. An inquisitive woman could spend months, possibly even years, exploring all that the Hall had to offer, especially when the personal secrets of its tenants both living and dead were added to the agenda.

Much of the Hall was as they expected, composed of sprawling hallways, winding stairs, and lavish rooms. Their biggest obstacle was getting distracted by all the interesting cornucopia of artifacts and art they came upon. Theodore was a helpful if over-eager guide and partner in exploration and Black Billy was to be avoided like a nest of spiders. They took particular interest in learning the identities of all the faces in the many portraits scattered throughout the Hall. They even kept a cheat sheet of the most interesting names and stories. Theodore was an enthusiastic storyteller of his ancestor’s exploits, and although neither woman would classify him as fully charming, they found him engaging.

One evening after dinner when the men had retired to the smoking room and the only light was from flickering gas lamps and the few scattered rooms outfitted with electricity, the ladies walked to meet Theodore who had promised to show them an area of the Hall they hadn’t yet explored.

Finally alone, Katrina nudged Eleanor and whispered, “I found out how the wife died.”

“Did you finally wheedle it out of Theodore?” Eleanor asked excitedly.

“Not quite. He divulged that she was an avid painter and that she died in an accident inside her painting room, but he wouldn’t give more details. So, I casually mentioned to the old butler, Mr. Graham, that it was such a shame to hear she was murdered, as the rumors say. He was all too eager to correct me and tell me all about it.” Katrina smiled proudly at her accomplishment. “She burned up in a terrible freak fire in her painting room! It was Jacques who found her too, apparently while she was still alive, and she burned to a crisp before he could get to her. Hence the murder rumors. They say he either started the fire or simply let her burn without saving her.”

“Fire would be a nasty way to go,” Eleanor said, shaking her head.

“Yes, but fire is also purifying.” Katrina smirked. “It cleared the way for you to move in on her husband, did it not?”

“You’re horrible!” Eleanor laughed. “But yes, all in all, it’s quite fortunate for me.”

They found Theodore at their rendezvous point at the base of the staircase on the second floor. He greeted them pleasantly, then led them up two more stories. Theodore took the women down a long hallway on the fourth story of the Hall. This story, they had learned, was home to the overflow of artwork and artifacts that had no place in the more cultivated floors below. The doors to some rooms were closed with white sheets covering the furnishings that had fallen into disuse. There was no electricity on this floor and some of the gas lamps were out. The relative darkness paired with white sheets draped over various oddly shaped objects gave the fourth floor an otherworldly feel. Adding to that effect were the battalion of old Le Gris family portraits that lined the walls.

The subjects of the portraits had many commonalities. Most of the born Le Gris’s had dark hair, strong noses, and hooded eyes, all of which were shades of green or brown, with a few painted outright yellow. It was equally apparent which subjects had married into the family, both men and women. It seemed the Le Gris’s of both sexes were drawn to beauty, or the portrait artists were very kind to their subjects. The attire of the men and women attested to the long history of the line, ranging from medieval up to the recent past. There was even a gruesome example of post-mortem photography of a young boy and girl who were posed together as if sleeping, betrayed only by the deathly shadows under their eyes and their drawn-back lips. Theodore identified them as Jacques’s siblings who died after accidentally ingesting lye in the course of a game of dare gone array. They had been younger than Jacques, though close in age and he was young also – supposedly, too young to recall the details when Theodore had inquired.

Theodore stopped them in front of a large oil painting, darkened by the patina of age and layers of dust. The gold plaque at the bottom of the gilded frame read, Sir Jacques Le Gris, the Devil of Arsuf (1154 – 1221). A large knight glared out of the portrait, his menacing angular features framed by long black hair. His prominent nose was slightly crooked as if it had been broken more than once, and several scars traced over his face. The most notable wound was an ugly raised scar that ran from his hairline, over his brow, and down his cheek to his jaw as it split the right side of his face. He wore a shining suit of armor and rested his hands on the hilt of his sword.

“Father is named after him,” Theodore said proudly of the fearsome knight in the painting. “He fought in the crusades and Saladin gave him the name The Devil of Arsuf. There’s a better portrait of him in father’s study. He’s riding his favorite war horse and holding a sword in that one.” He looked at the women and made his voice comically spooky. “But he’s not a devil anymore. He’s a ghost now. He’s one of the ghosts who haunts Wargrave Hall.” He finished with his best attempt at an evil laugh.

“Let me guess,” Katrina teased. “He rides through the hallways on his warhorse looking for heads to lob off?”

“You’re not so far off,” Theodore said seriously. “He’s a lost soul, tormented. He made many enemies on crusade. One of them found him as an old man and killed his wife – she was a redhead also. The villain beheaded her and threw her head out into the moat that used to surround the Hall back then when it was a castle. Sir Jacques killed the brigand but was too late to save his wife. Her head was never recovered. They say the heart went out of him after that. He was one of the mightiest warriors in our family, and he died of a broken heart.” Theodore paused to see if his recounting was having any effect on the women and was pleased to see they had moved closer together. “He still wanders the Hall searching for his wife’s head. It’s true. I saw him when I was a boy, down in the dungeon. He looked frightful and he was so big, but I don’t think he meant me any harm. He just gave me a once-over and walked straight through the wall.”

Looking at the painting and the severe venom yellow eyes that met hers from its canvas, eyes that looked eerily similar to the Jacques she knew, Eleanor sensed the truth in Theodore’s story, as if the Sir Jacques of old was with them now even as they spoke of him. The flames in the gas lamps danced to a stranger tune than they had moments before and the air around them had grown frigid, chilled but still. It was a feeling Eleanor decided she would have to grow accustomed to if she intended to make Wargrave Hall her home.

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Eleanor and Katrina’s favorite room they had explored thus far in Wargrave Hall was the exquisite library. It was filled with enough volumes to spend a lifetime reading, ranging from topics of medical journals to philosophy to poetry to novels. It was apparent that Sir Jacques was an avid reader, which only heightened his appeal. The ladies were enchanted by the library and thought that nothing could intrigue them more.

Until Theodore informed them Sir Jacques had a private collection of books in his personal study.

That became their next nighttime mission, but they knew this mission must be far more covert than their simple wanderings around the Hall. It was certainly a breach of Sir Jacques’s privacy and utterly reprehensible. Which naturally made it all the more appealing.

They stayed up late together in Eleanor’s room under the guise of female chatter until well past midnight. When the old grandfather clock in the hallway outside the bedroom door tolled two am, they made their move. They carried only chambersticks, so as not to risk the hiss of gas lamps, and wore only stockings, so as not to scuff a shoe loudly on the floor. It seemed they were the only creatures awake in the Hall as they crept through its long, dark hallways.

“Does this bring back memories?” Eleanor asked in a whisper.

“Let us not summon the Crooked Lady again tonight,” Katrina teased.

“We could try to summon the Devil of Arsuf for a change of pace,” Eleanor said as they approached the closed double doors to Jacques’s study.

“Try to contend yourself with the Sir Jacques who is still among the living.” Katrina smirked. “If your efforts fail on that front, we will summon the old knight for you.”

The doors were unlocked when Eleanor tried them, but they creaked in protest when she pulled one open. The women froze, each cringing from the noise that sounded as loud as a wounded animal in the silence of the night. When they heard no activity in response after a minute of listening, they ducked inside and closed the doors behind them.

Sir Jacques’s study was tastefully decorated and decidedly masculine. The walls were ochre yellow with chocolate walnut paneling, and the vaulted ceiling was of embossed tin. One half of a side wall was a gun case with glass doors, each slot inside home to a rifle or shotgun. Some were beautiful, with the bluing gleaming like oil in the moonlight. Others had been well used, with scratches on their fine stocks and their bluing worn down to silver steel. European style mounts, which were only the skull and rack, were displayed on the walls. Several magnificent red stags and a few of what had to be African antelopes with four feet long black spiked horns. A pair of elephant tusks longer than Jacques was tall and thicker than Eleanor’s waist sat against the far wall on either side of a tall window with an arched frame.

A tall fireplace with a marble mantle was set into the wall opposite the gun case. The mantle was decorated with trinkets and effects that must hold special meaning for Jacques. Among them was an open case with a red velvet interior that showcased several military medals. Above the fireplace hung a pair of huge medieval battleaxes, each longer than Eleanor was tall. Their crescent blades, glinting in the candlelight, crossed each other in the center of the wall, forming an X. Eleanor was reminded of the sword Jacques had worn at the ball where they met and how he had referred to it as a family heirloom. She wondered if it had belonged to the first Sir Jacques Le Gris and also how many such deadly heirlooms still resided within these walls.

Two oil portraits hung in the study. One was obviously the portrait Theodore had referenced of the crusading knight in full gleaming armor riding a great black horse into battle, his sword held high, red with the blood of his enemies. The other was a similarly styled portrait of the living Sir Jacques in an English Colonel’s uniform, mounted atop a black Arabian horse wearing green and silver Persian style armor.

Adjacent to Jacques’s imposing desk was the bookcase Theodore had teased them with. Compared to the big library, it was unimpressive and didn’t even span the height of the wall. It was a standalone antique bookcase with doors that could be closed and locked, though now they hung open. The ladies shared an excited look and trotted forward to inspect its contents. The shelves were filled with not only books, but curios that must hold special meanings for him, black leather journals that were presumably his own, and large rolled scripts that must be charts or maps. It seemed Theodore was correct, this was Jacques’s private collection of things that resonated to him as being deeply personal. Eleanor felt slightly guilty at studying his private collection. But not guilty enough to restrain herself.

More than half of the books looked like things that would have aided him in his military days – anthologies of adventures in Northern Africa, India, Arabia, and the Middle East. Several books were written in the languages of those countries, making Eleanor recall his fluency in them. There were books on history, philosophy, and military strategy, including Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, and books on horsemanship, martial combat, and weaponry. There was a framed photograph of a large man on a black Arabian horse against a backdrop of sand dunes. It had to be Jacques on the same horse he was depicted as riding in his portrait, although, in the real-life scene his head and face were covered by a keffiyeh but for his eyes to protect against the sun, and the black Arab was very clearly a mare as opposed to the stallion in the painting. On the shelf above, there was what seemed an out of place oddity: poetry. Jacques had a small collection of poetry, all with well-worn spines and aged pages. Sappho, Lord Byron, Keats, Blake, and two plays by Shakespeare, Macbeth and The Taming of the Shrew. Sitting upright inside the self, facing outward, was a framed page containing the poem Ozymandias. Eleanor was indeed getting a better picture of Sir Jacques and better feeling for him as a man. She had not thought him a romantic, but his tastes betrayed his heart.

The poetry was at eye-level for Eleanor, capturing her attention at once. From her taller vantage, Katrina was first enraptured by the higher shelf. She bumped Eleanor with her elbow and snickered at what she found. The subject of that shelf was clear, and the Kama Sutra was the tamest volume that sat upon it. The ladies took turns reading the salacious titles, grinning mischievously.

“Oh, I’ve only ever heard of this one!” Katrina whispered excitedly. “He has the entire serial of The Maiden Tribute of Babylon.”

“Nor have I seen so many copies of The Pearl!” Eleanor added, examining the complete set of all eighteen copies of the magazine, The Pearl, A Magazine of Facetiae and Voluptuous Reading.

“Now, these are rumored to be quite a romp. William Lazenby published them when his magazine was shut down.” Katrina pointed to copies of The Oyster and The Boudoir. The women had a curious interest in books describing the mysterious sex acts, but they had been able to actually procure copies of few.

“Do you think he acquired a taste for this while off at war?” Eleanor asked, tracing her finger down the spine of The Lustful Turk, Lascivious Scenes from a Harem.

“I’d expect so.” Katrina said, cocking her head in confusion as she read the next title, The Mysteries of Verbena House. “Though I’d suspect his tastes have been refined since by Count Pierre.

“The Nunnery Tales,” Eleanor read a title. “For all the fascination men have with virgins, I hope he’ll make the most of his first night with me and make a good showing of it.”

“So, it’s all decided then.” Katrina smirked as she eyed Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch.

“Naturally!” Eleanor laughed quietly, then her eyes widened. They both saw at the same time the recently published anonymous novel, The Autobiography of a Flea from just last year. Eleanor and Katrina had heard wickedly good things and had been itching to get a copy.

“You have selected a well-versed man to train you,” Katrina quipped, still eyeing the naughty shelf.

“A lady should improve her mind through reading and developing new skills,” Eleanor replied sarcastically.

Seeing all the secrets the shelf contained was scandalous and illuminating, but it gave them no heretofore unguessed insights into Sir Jacques. Lest they read through his own private journals, which seemed a bit too intrusive. For now. Before selecting the lewdest book to flip through, Eleanor took another glance around the room and realized she had paid his desk no mind. Two books set on the desktop, obviously those Sir Jacques had handled most recently. One was placed squarely on the desktop with a handwritten note beside it. Eleanor walked to the desk and recognized it as one of the ladies’ favorite authors, Edgar Allan Poe. Katrina followed naturally and they both studied the compilation of Poe’s poems and stories.

The note beside it was more interesting. It was a stanza written in beautiful calligraphy, copied from Poe. Eleanor read it aloud.

“For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;”

“He is a romantic!” Eleanor exclaimed happily.

“You’re seeing what you want to see,” Katrina said reasonably. “That poem is about a dead woman, you know. He could full well be thinking of his first wife.” She lowered her voice to a teasingly ominous lilt, “Or worse, he could be thinking about entombing you in a sepulcher by the sea so he can lay beside you forever and ever.”

Eleanor rolled her eyes but laughed quietly. Both ladies then turned their attention to the other book. It was quite large, the size of an encyclopedia, bound in black leather. Oddly, it was completely devoid of markings, no author or title. Only a silver pentagram was embossed in the center of its front cover. The women looked at themselves and eagerly opened it.

Just inside the cover was a note written a different script from Jacques’s.

Seances are a great way to a lady’s heart. More importantly, to her nether regions! ~ Pierre

“Count Pierre is such a loathsome creature,” Katrina mused. “Yet, he’s not mistaken. I hate how entertaining I find him.”

“Indeed,” Eleanor agreed. “Although with some work, we may be able to recruit him to our side in matters Jacques sees as frivolous. Seances and the like.”

“I’ve never seen such a – I don’t know, serious – book on occultism,” Katrina said as they turned the pages. They were thick and yellowed with the patina of age.

The text was Latin, but both women were educated and fluent. The image of a thin black shadow of a woman caught their eye, sketched on a weathered page, making them pause to read. Much of the vernacular was difficult to trudge through and allowances for allegories had to be made. But they decided the message of what they read was that ghosts are remnants of humans, and like humans, they can be good or evil. Intuitively, the women realized they had known this since that fateful night in the Purple Room. They learned of a species of supernatural creature of which they had heretofore known little. Demons are entities of pure evil. They can appear in disguise as spirits, or even possess and command otherwise harmless or even good spirits to do their bidding.

They spent hours perusing the book that they named the Book of Pentacles. They learned much more than they had ever hoped for until they were forced to retreat by the grandfather clock tolling four am. Sir Jacques would arise soon, and they dared not be caught by him.

They vowed to return and learn more, for there was much more to learn in these dark matters than they had ever imagined.

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Nights had been particularly restless for Eleanor since her arrival at Wargrave Hall, and it was not for lack of trying. She was not prone to long indulgent bouts of sleeping. Nighttime was often her favorite part of the day when she could be left alone with her thoughts, lose herself in a novel, or even take her horse out for a ride under the full moon when no one was awake to obnoxiously caution her against it. However, she had made a concerted effort to sleep long and well during her stay. Dark circles beneath one’s eyes were not a becoming feature, and she wanted to look her loveliest at all times while in the company of Sir Jacques. And yet it was he who was the cause of her sleeplessness! How could any hot-blooded woman sleep with thoughts of such a man running rampant through her dreams? During her short stay, she had awakened twice in a hot perspire, her skin damp and nightgown clinging to her body, pleasantly moist in other places as well. Her personal handmaiden, Agnes, who had accompanied her from home, complained of her own sleep being disrupted as well for entirely different reasons, conjuring tales of vivid nightmares and imaginings of shadowy figures lurking in corners. But she was a simple girl. Kind, helpful, and always well-intentioned, but simple. Eleanor gave her grim fairytales no weight at all. Strangest of all was that Katrina was oddly solicitous of company. Both women were highly independent, neither prone to needing the company of another. But since they had come to Wargrave Hall, Katrina had been loath to spend any time alone, not even in the wonderful library. It was another reason Eleanor had resorted to sneaking out before the world awakened.

Eleanor had never spent any significant time around a man of Sir Jacques’s vintage before. Given her upbringing, she was familiar with older men of her father’s peerage and, naturally, she had been a subject of interest among many young men near her own age who hoped to catch her eye. Most men she had encountered in their third and fourth decades were married, and therefore could hardly interact with her within the bounds of propriety; others were slovenly hogs who had let their bellies overrun their belts; and some, the worst of all, were nasty creatures who had at no point in their lives been endowed with either looks or charm, who treated women like a game of odds, taking as many bites at the apple of eligible women until they found desperate enough to give in. Jacques Le Gris fit none of these molds. He was kind and affable with a sharp wit, albeit commanding and intimidating; he had kept his body athletic and strong, and as finely sculpted as anything Bernini touched. There was another quality to him that was wholly new to her, something about him that called to her and alighted her senses. Beyond his looks and his size, he had a vigorous and masculine presence that drew her in like a hummingbird to nectar.

Just like seeing the finest horse at a sale, she wanted him for her own. And she had grown tired of waiting for him to arrange a private encounter with her. It was easy for her to decide that she would have him. In her mind, this was a simple thing. It was of no consequence that countless other women across England likewise had their hopes pinned on the handsome knight and his estate. They had all failed, or he would not still be running free as a stag in the wood. Eleanor Winchester was not a woman who failed.

Every morning of her stay at Wargrave Hall, Eleanor had watched from her window as Jacques Le Gris returned from the stables. Every morning, he finished his pre-dawn ride near the time she awakened and was handing his horse over to a groom while Agnes helped Eleanor dress. He was unaware of her appraisal, so it was an opportune time for her to study him properly when his keen eyes would not catch her looking at him, as they always managed to, even though she was being thoroughly stealthy. When he walked from the stables, she could let her eyes indulgently wander over him, lingering wherever happened to draw them, which more often than not were his broad shoulders and massive chest. She supposed that she ought to feel some sense of impropriety over the thoughts the sight of him induced, but she simply couldn’t bring herself to feel anything untoward about it at all. If a woman was not meant to admire a man, then fate should not place such an impressive example of one right in front of her.

Rather, she would be concerned her senses were failing her if she did not appreciate the look of him and respond the way she did to the masculinity of him. What manner of woman would not admire the sight of him striding across a grassy paddock, tall and proud, his white shirt open at the throat allowing his broad chest to peek through, his skin slicked with sweat from his ride. His hair was always wilder then too, with the morning breeze fingering through it. She liked him much better like this, when he had the look of a wild thing about him.

Best of all, he always took his rides alone.

Like a hunter learning when a stag came to water, she patterned her game. It was plainly obvious this was his favored morning ritual, a time he stole for himself before the demands of his day settled upon his shoulders. His habit was to take lone rides before sunrise and to sequester himself in the late evenings in his study with a cigar, a drink, and a book. The latter was of little use to her at present, but his riding habit was something she could use to her advantage.

Painful though it was for her, Eleanor roused herself before the first inkling of dawn. Stars still twinkled in the sky that was just lightening from black to navy. It was an unconscionable hour, but one had to make these kinds of sacrifices in their amorous pursuits. It was but one example of the woman having to carry the burden of seduction when men were too foolish to take the initiative for themselves. Besides that, this was one of the few, if not the only, hours of the day she could slip away unseen on a perfectly innocent errand and secure a private encounter with Sir Jacques.

Not wanting to alert anyone to her plans, Eleanor dressed in a simple riding habit that required no help from her handmaid. Her bodice was a shade of cornflower blue that she had been told often made her eyes more radiant and her skirt was simple charcoal. Without Agnes’ help, she didn’t bother putting her hair up in any intricate fashion, opting to braid her long tresses so that it hung down her back or unobtrusively over her shoulder. She appraised herself in the tall cheval mirror and thought that, given her haste taken to make herself up and the horrendous hour, she looked quite good. Though she had slept little, her body was thrumming with anticipation and her eyes were clear and bright.

Had she slept longer and her senses been more alert, she might have noticed the figure of the dark, stately women who watched her from the corner of her room. Her black hair blended with the shadows as did her long black gown, but her eyes glowed like embers. Or like the fires of hell.

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Long before sunrise, Sir Jacques took his black coffee alone in his study. It was part of his morning ritual, known to all those in the household. Coffee was a taste he had acquired during his time fighting in the orient, although the grounds he could get here were a poor substitute for the black sludgy brew he favored. His habit was to begin his days alone in his study in the darkness before dawn and end them there as well in the darkness of nighttime, provided he was not entertaining female company elsewhere. He reclined in his tufted leather chair, his boots propped on his desk, as he sipped his coffee. He had half an hour before the customary time he went down to the stables for his morning ride. Customarily, this was his favorite time of day when he had the Hall to himself and before the demands of the day settled upon him, each one chipping away at his good humor until little remained.

The air inside his study was unusually cool, especially for summer. So cool that Jacques considered building a fire. Once or twice, he thought he could even see a tendril of steam on his exhaled breath. The feeling of being watched settled over him, looming like a physical presence over his shoulder. He felt it behind him, as though a cold body stood at his back. He knew the only thing behind his chair was the study window that overlooked the garden. Jacques was not a man prone to flights of fancy, let alone to fear, and he would not be bothered by such foolishness. He utterly refused to look behind him, nor toward the source of anything so nonsensical. He rolled his shoulders, physically shrugging off the strange feeling along with a few cracks in his back. Such sensations were not entirely uncommon in Wargrave Hall, but Jacques had noticed them more as of late, or for some reason, he had become more aware of them.

Before Jacques could reconcile the odd feeling with any rational cause, William strode into the study, closing the door behind him with pointed loudness. Jacques studied him over the rim of his mug. His son had grown into a tall man, although not as tall as Jacques himself, nor as tall as he had hoped for the boy, and neither did his shoulders have the impressive breadth of his father’s. There was much Jacques had hoped his son would inherit from him, such as his large hands and powerful build, but he had instead gotten the finer bone structure of his mother. His features were finer too. More handsome, perhaps, in an effeminate way, but they were crueler also. The boy’s harsh demeanor that had earned him the moniker of Black Billy was misplaced as from both his parents, neither of whom were cold nor cruel. And his black eyes that were a unique feature in the Le Gris family had unnerved Jacques since the day he had opened them. The more the boy matured, the less of himself Jacques saw in his eldest son. At least, Theodore took after him strongly. He could scarcely see a difference between his younger son and himself at the same age, except that Theodore had inherited his mother’s green eyes instead of Jacques’s feral amber color.

“It’s become apparent that you are playing cavalierly with the family estate, father,” William said testily without preamble.

Jacques felt his irritation bloom afresh for the day. He took a long drink before engaging. He decided against rising to the challenge and instead set his mug down on his desk and folded his hands in his lap, fixing his son with a fiery stare.

“It’s quite clear that Miss Winchester is playing you for a fool. I would think you have enough notches on your bedpost,” William continued. “If you want to feast on the little tart, eat your fill. But if you play fast and loose with the strumpet, you are also doing so with mine and Theodore’s inheritance.”

Jacques felt the rush of anger flood him so fast it left him lightheaded, his skin flushed hot and his hands curled into fists involuntarily. He would have shot to his feet and slammed his fist into the boy’s mouth had it been anyone but his own son. Instead, he sat up rigidly straight in his chair and tried to control the timbre of his voice when he growled dangerously, “You forget your place, boy. How aggressively do you want me to remind you of it?”

“Am I wrong?” William asked with cold detachment. “I think not. If you take this cock tease to wife and fuck an heir into her, that will affect your existing sons.” Jacques pushed menacingly up out of his chair to his feet, but William continued unchecked. “It is the height of irresponsibility, and additionally, thoroughly disloyal to both Theordore and myself. Under the law of primogeniture, Wargrave Hall and all the property and assets under your name will pass to me alone as the oldest son. I am the age of majority. Under the circumstances, it would only be responsible of you to yield your position as head of the family to me and take a stipend if you intend to act with so little regard for your existing sons. Run off to Paris or New York where such lurid liaisons are commonplace and where your decisions will not affect Theodore and myself.”

“Primogeniture only applies to an acknowledged heir, boy,” Jacques snarled, leaning over his desk like a wolf over a kill. He kept his hands planted on the desktop to keep them from flying at his son’s throat. “I am the master of Wargrave Hall, and I alone decide who inherits it. Place yourself in my way, make yourself my enemy, and I will disinherit your ungrateful ass and leave you to rot in the gutter with nothing.”

“You trained Theodore and me to fight since we were three,” William sneered. “You’re old and slow. You’ll be forty on your next birthday! You’re past the time when you could beat me in a fight.”

Jacques stormed around his desk, knocking his coffee mug off to shatter on his Persian rug and splash its contents across the floor. Warring with rage, he rushed William and grabbed his lapels, yanking the young man bodily off his feet to bring him up to eye-level. The thick vein in Jacques’s neck pulsed with anger. William tried to whimper something, but Jacques cut across him, “You’re a man now, not a boy, as you pointed out. The next time you find the balls to speak to me in such a manner, be prepared to fight me like a man.”

Jacques dropped William and shoved him back with unbridled aggression. William’s back slammed into the bookcase behind him with enough force to knock the wind out of his lungs, knocking several volumes off the shelves. Jacques feared he would not be able to restrain himself from true violence if William persisted. He was not known for his restraint in so many ways. To avoid his temper inflaming, Jacques stormed out of his study. He would expend his temper on the back of his horse.

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Darkness had just begun to relinquish its hold when Eleanor made her way to the stables. There was enough soft light for her to see her way through the grounds, but not enough to make out the face of the groundskeeper she passed. The man lingered in the shadows of the Hall, no doubt tending to some shrubbery or something of the like, a dark silhouette only, his features hidden in shadow. It was early even for a groundskeeper to be about his duties, but she commended his diligence. No matter, she had not hauled herself out of a warm bed to ponder the comings and goings of groundskeepers.

For her plan to work, she had to reach the stables before Sir Jacques and have her horse already saddled when he arrived for his morning ride, lest it seem suspicious. It must not appear as though she had followed him or was inviting herself along with him during his private hour. It must be Jacques who invites her to join him. Though it was seldom if ever reality, men must think themselves in charge. A woman’s task was far more intricate, engineering the happening of things while framing it so that the man in her custody thinks himself in control.

Horses stuck their heads out of their stalls to see their visitor when she entered the stables, their ears pricked forward curiously at the sight of a new person. It was dark inside the stables, but Eleanor recognized Jacques’s horse at the end of the stable, a huge dapple-grey fit for a medieval knight to ride into battle. He stomped a hoof impatiently and arched his neck over the stable door, fiddling with the latch with his mouth. Like his owner, he too looked as though he enjoyed these morning rides. Midway down the stable aisle, her horse greeted her with a friendly knicker. She too would enjoy a brisk ride in the morning chill, regardless of her motives for doing so. She caught him and saddled him quickly so that she was ready when Jacques appeared, but she strategically left the breast collar unbuckled so it would look as though she was only nearly finished.

While she waited, she groomed her horse, taking her time until his black coat shone like obsidian. She watched the light brighten outside the stable doors until she could clearly make out the grounds outside. It was a pink morning imbued with soft light – the kind of light that made a woman’s features particularly alluring. Mist drifted over the grassy hills giving the countryside a mystical feeling. It was the perfect morning for her plans to unfurl, innocently, like the gentle blooming of a rose.

But where was he? Jacques had taken his morning ride every day she had been at Wargrave Hall. Surely, her luck was not so foul that today would be the day he forgoes it. Waiting and uncertainty made her grow irritable, cursing under her breath and stomping. Her mood infected that of her horse, and he too stomped the ground and danced in place, eager to carry his owner away from whatever distressed her and run until both their hearts were light.

That rotten bastard, she cursed under her breath, deeply offended that Jacques had broken the plans that he didn’t know he had.

Patience had never been one of Eleanor’s virtues, and it was some time past when Jacques usually took his ride. She buckled the breast collar and led her horse through the stable, striding indignantly with her chin held high. Her horse’s hooves echoed on the cobblestone floor of the enclosed stable, louder still due to his excited prancing instead of walking, taking three paces for every one he needed. Eleanor turned back to calm him, running a hand down his nose as she continued walking to the end of the stable. Her horse arched his neck and jerked on his lead, normal for a high-spirited animal. Looking back at him, she didn’t watch where she was going.

Turning out of the stable doors, Eleanor strode right into the unforgiving balk of Sir Jacques as he entered. The sudden commotion startled her horse, who threw his head and yanked her arm back. In her surprise and built irritation, she snapped at the man before she could catch herself, “A man as barbarously large as you should watch where he’s going!”

Jacques looked just as startled as her horse when he looked down at her. On instinct, he reached a hand out to steady her, but stopped it midway and returned it stiffly to his side. Instantly, she felt a hot blush stain her cheeks. This wasn’t going well at all. Jacques straightened and smoothed his jacket. His voice was polite but held no warmth when he replied, “My apologies, Miss Winchester. I am unaccustomed to concerning myself with guests in my stables, especially at this hour.”

From the set of his shoulders and the tension in his brow, she surmised that Jacques was in an unpleasant mood himself. Her momentary lapse in temper and ill-timed barb certainly hadn’t helped matters. She considered abandoning her plan and redoubling her efforts another day when the conditions might be more favorable. But no, if she let this opportunity pass, there may not be another. Even then, it would make her carefully arranged ‘chance meeting’ too transparent a ploy to attempt it again. This was her opportunity and she’d best seize it. Fortune favors the bold, after all.

Since she was already knee-deep in mire, she figured she might as well double down. It was always better to be the accuser than the accused. Planting her hands on her hips, she raised her chin and asked him, “Are you following me?”

“Of course not.�� Jacques raised his hands defensively. “I ride most mornings. It’s the best time to find solitude. Usually.” His eyes narrowed as realization dawned. “Which I suspect you know well. How cunning of you, madam.”

“I’m quite sure I don’t take your meaning at all.” Her horse saved her from further inquiry by rearing in place. He was affected by the tension of the people around him, growing more restless by being held still.

“Whoa, you feisty bastard,” Jacques said to the horse in soothing tones, placing his large hand on the animal’s forehead.

“Well!” She raised her eyebrows in a challenge. “Since you have succeeded in thoroughly agitating my horse, I hope you will be good enough to hold him still while I mount.” Asking a man for help was a sneak attack her father had taught her, a way to slip past their guard that few could resist. It was a strategy from which Jacques was not immune.

For the first time, Jacques considered her horse. He was a big powerful animal, not a delicate lady-like mount. He looked from the horse back to her. “Can you handle that horse? Have you ridden him often?”

“Quite often,” she quipped tartly. “I raised him from a foal.”

Jacques didn’t argue, but eyed her horse skeptically as he took the reins and led him out into the open area in front of the stables. He stroked the horse’s neck to calm him, which had the unintended effect of calming himself at the same time. It was difficult if not impossible to remain agitated when trying to imbue calm into an animal. His eyes strayed to her as she bounded easily up into the sidesaddle, hooked her right leg over the pommel, and adjusted her skirts. He handed the reins to her, his warm hand brushing hers, and unbidden dropped his hand to her boot to check its fit in the stirrup. His jaw flexed and he seemed to make some internal decision.

“I am your host, Miss Winchester.” He looked up at her. From her seat on her horse, his face was level with her waist. “I would be remiss if I did not ride with you and show you the grounds.”

“I thought you didn’t want company?” she asked, not letting him off so easily.

“In rare instances, I will make an exception.” He pointedly grabbed the rein near the bit, holding her horse as he awaited her reply.

“Am I supposed to hold my horse here while you take your sweet time saddling yours?” she asked as her horse stomped and snorted impatiently, emphasizing her question.

“Yes,” Jacques said simply. “You can ride, can you not? If so, control your mount.” His tone remained stern but a shadow of a smirk played over his lips.

Jacques made quick work of catching and saddling his horse. He hoisted himself up into the saddle and sat tall and statuesque with his dapple-grey dancing beneath him. Both horses were filled with nerves and high spirited, ready to bolt away until their energy was spent.

“Lead on, Miss Winchester. I assume you have a plan this morning,” he said, letting his words linger, further calling her bluff. “As to where you intended to ride, I mean.”

“I had planned nothing beyond seeing what chance might bring me. Since you have unexpectedly decided to join me, I will defer to your superior knowledge of your own estate.” She smiled tartly back. “Take me on a ride, Sir Jacques.”

“Be warned, I am in a vigorous mood this morning.” However, he had to fight to keep a scowl on his lips. His black mood had nearly lifted. He found himself enjoying this lively banter almost as much as a lively galloping ride. The golden morning light had a curious effect on Eleanor’s features. He already thought her pretty, but this morning she looked especially beautiful. Was it her or was it something softening inside him, he wondered.

“Then take us along your most challenging route,” she said confidently. “Better yet, let us race along it! With a prize to the victor, naturally.”

“The stakes you may ask concern me,” he laughed gruffly now, unable to contain it. “What would you ask in the unlikely event that you win?”

“I’ll go easy on you and ask only for the right to compel you to join me on another ride, at the time and place of my choosing, irrespective of decorum.” She lined her horse up beside his, readying the animals to run against each other.

“I suppose I can endure that well enough.” He nodded. “And what do I get when I win?”

“Most men would want a kiss as a prize,” she said haughtily.

“Why would I exert any effort winning something I could steal?” He winked at her, enjoying the way a pink blush tinted her cheeks.

She recovered and returned, “Is that a note of fear I detect?” With an exaggerated sigh she added, “If you are afraid of losing to a woman, I understand.”

He pointed to the highest hillside in view about a mile away. Its sides were steep and one was pale-soiled giving it the look of a small white cliff of Dover. Mist circled through the trees at its base and the rising sun made its grassy crest glow.

“Should I lose you in my wake, I will meet you at the top,” Jacques told her cockily.

Without waiting for him to give the word, Eleanor whipped her horse with her quirt, sending him lunging ahead into an immediate gallop. She called over her shoulder, “To the victor go the spoils!”

Crisp morning air cooled her hot cheeks as her horse ran across the meadow that surrounded Wargrave Hall like a grassy moat. Jacques was close behind, their horses very equally matched and equally game. He found that he enjoyed his present view so much that he didn’t want to try to pass her. Her braid flew out behind her like an auburn pennant and she sat her horse erect with infallible balance. He had always thought women who mastered the art of sidesaddle had superior seats to men. It defied logic how they could keep their balance with half the moorings a man had from two stirrups.

Ahead of them was the first of two fences that separated them from the targeted bluff. Her horse showed no signs of balking, but Eleanor swatted him again lightly, wringing an extra burst of speed out of him. Jacques involuntarily held his breath, watching from a pace behind, as her horse took the jump. The beast sailed easily over the five-foot fence and his rider maintained her seat effortlessly. She looked back over her shoulder to smirk triumphantly at Jacques when he landed immediately after. Jacques kicked his horse harder, demanding another knot of speed until the animals ran alongside each other neck and neck. Wind whipped through Jacques’s thick hair, blowing it wildly around his face. He looked over at the woman beside him and grinned.

“I fear I may always be fighting to keep from being a step behind you,” he shouted above the thunder of hoofbeats.

Not just one step!” She laughed back at him. “Sometimes, even two or three. Men are slower beasts, I’m afraid.”

“Perhaps when they are properly disarmed,” Jacques agreed. “The term temptress was surely coined with a woman like you in mind.”

They approached the second fence, both horses running hard, competing with each other. Both again took it with flying ease. Now across the meadow, the horses plunged into the untamed growth of forest that surrounded the base of the bluff. They jumped over logs and weaved between trees as agile as a pair of stags. Jacques found his spirits lifted and his mood lighter than he could remember it. He realized it had been years since he had allowed his horse to run fast and free beneath him, and he wondered why he had stopped indulging in this simple pleasure. As their horses reached the hillside and lunged up it, still vying closely for the lead, it hit Jacques like a bucket of ice water that it had been even longer since he had felt so alive, so virile. He realized, too, that his situation was hopeless. If he allowed this woman to ride out of his life, he would be forever chasing a similar high that would be a counterfeit at best. He knew with a sudden clarity, that if he didn’t seize his opportunity, he would regret it as long as he lived.

Eleanor took the lead by a yard as they crowned the bluff. Her horse carried less weight and had more pent up energy from being cooped up longer in a stall. She let her horse slow down to an easy lope across the top of the ridge and reined him to a stop just before the hill sheared away again on the opposite side. Jacques stopped beside her, grinning broadly, his chest flushed where it peaked from the open collar of his white shirt.

“It appears that I am in your debt,” he acknowledged her win with a half bow from his saddle.

The winded horses snorted and blew on the crest of the bluff, calm for the moment while they caught their breath. The bluff was the highest point within view in any direction. Below, green hillsides rolled away like verdant waves on an endless sea, spilt by valleys and accentuated by untamed patches of forest. In the meadows nearest Wargrave Hall, horses grazed idly and cattle dotted the gentler areas. Further out, a small herd of red stag browsed along the edge of the treeline near a ravine as they returned to the safety of the forest to bed down for the day. The view stretched away for miles in all directions without a man-made structure in sight, save for the monstrous Hall and its surrounding outbuildings.

“Picturesque, is it not?” Jacques asked with obvious pride of his property.

“Is all this yours?” Eleanor asked of the countryside.

“Everything within view and much more beyond,” Jacques answered, waving his arm in an encompassing gesture. He looked at her sideways and smirked, “Impressed?”

“By the man or the view?” she teased. “The view is very fine, but I’ve yet to make a final determination on the man.”

“It sounds like you are judge and jury. I worry that you may think yourself executioner too!” he laughed fondly, enjoying himself. “Am I to have no voice in this?”

“It is probably best if you do not.” She nodded with mock seriousness. “Men are ill-equipped to make weighty decisions of the heart. Especially when said man presumes to deny the wishes of his own.” She looked at him knowingly and returned to the topic of the beauty before them. “My family’s property is nearly as large, but I admit yours is more beautiful. It has a wildness about it that mine does not,” she replied genuinely, then teased him back. “But my main concern is alleviated. I was worried that a mere knight would not have enough property to get a decent ride in on.”

“You speak as if things are already decided between us.” Jacques looked at her, intending to display offense but his disobedient features reflected only intrigue. “I’ve not made you an offer, Miss Winchester.”

“Not yet, that’s true. Perhaps my confidence is entirely misplaced.” She let out a disingenuous sigh. “My father tells me that if you are ever in want of a wife again, you will know full well that you can never do better. He says that my only downfall will be if you have resolved to live out your days as a bachelor.” She looked at him directly, piercing into his heart with those luminous eyes. “What he did not say but that I know to be true, is that you are a man who would prefer the consistent company of a woman. That your druthers would be to have a woman in your bed every night – a woman who belongs to you – as opposed to an assortment of inconsistent mistresses.”

“By god girl, you don’t mince words!” Jacques huffed indignantly, both at her directness and her accuracy. “And outside of your father’s wise council, just how do you come by your more salacious intelligence?”

“Just as you’ve no doubt inquired about me, I have conducted my own investigation. Women speak rather freely about such matters when they’re amongst themselves.” She smiled at the way he shifted uncomfortably in his saddle. It was endearing that he was so concerned about keeping her good opinion of him.

Jacques chewed his lip for a moment, thinking. It was a new experience for him to feel both like the hunter and hopelessly caught in an inescapable snare at once. It was both exhilarating and uncomfortable, but undeniably unmatched. He decided to meet her bluntness with his own. For the moment at least. “I’m much older than you. I’m fast becoming a grouchy old bastard. I’m not in want of more heirs. I’m embroiled in a host of unsavory rumors that have followed me for years. They would enshroud any woman I took for a wife.”

“Those sound precisely like the sort of problems a vibrant young wife could solve,” she replied easily. She touched the reins to her horse’s neck, bringing his head back around to face the Hall in preparation to return. “But if you do not share my interest…”

Jacques leaned down from his saddle and snatched her horse’s reins near the bit, stopping the animal. “Of all the shrewd assumptions you’ve made about me, it’d be a shame for your logic to go array now.” His face was near hers in this position, bending over his horse’s neck to grip her reins. “I want to know for certain that this is the path you wish to follow before we start down it beyond the point of no return. I have two sons who are more eligible than I and less marred by scandal. Are you sure that instead of the pups, you want to contend with the wolf?”

“Don’t demean me by insinuating that I don’t know my own heart, Sir Jacques.” She yanked her rein out of his hands, making her horse jerk his head in annoyance. “Although, in truth, I grow tired of being the pursuer. I have given you a fine serve. Now, I await your riposte.” Her eyes held a challenge more than her words, looking fixedly into his. “You are rumored to be a great soldier. Such a man knows how to wage a fine offense on the battleground of hearts. I would like to see it. A lady deserves as much.”

Jacques grinned wickedly and straightened in his saddle. He pointed down to a stand of trees below the bluff they straddled, nestled in between two hills. He made certain Eleanor followed his arm, her eyes sighted upon his mark. His voice was dangerously low when he told her, “How rude of me, Miss Winchester. I have been remiss in my duty as a suitor even before I knew I had assumed the role. Do you think you can beat me in another race? I hope that you can, because if I catch you before we reach those trees, the consequences for you will be dire.”

Before she could retort, Jacques smacked the ends of his reins down harshly on her horse’s rump. Her horse jumped away from the whip and lunged into a full gallop down the bluff. A less-skilled rider would have been hurled off over his hindquarters from the unexpected start. Her horse shot down the hillside with Jacques on her heels. The downward slope of the bluff was steep, the ground damp and loose. Their horses sat back on their haunches to keep from tumbling over forward, sliding down as much as galloping. The two horses reached the bottom with grunts of displeasure. Eleanor tapped her horse with her crop, sending the animal flying across the gently rolling meadow that sprawled out before them. Jacques ran close behind, the snorted breaths of his horse sounding as loud as a locomotive behind her. She aimed for the grove of trees Jacques had pointed out; it was thicker than it had looked from above.

The meadow sloped easily downward to a ravine, shrouded by trees. They ran inside, immediately surrounded by luscious greens and sensual pinks inside the blooming trees. With every galloping stride of their horses, the scenery grew more and more beautiful. Eleanor looked around her at the beauty quickly flashing by. She was so distracted that she nearly ran her horse headlong into a small pond. Yanking on her reins and sitting back in the saddle, she reined her horse into a sliding stop at the water’s edge. Jacques was immediately behind, but his horse was slower to stop and it plowed into the pond up to its knees, splashing both horse and rider. His horse snorted indignantly but Jacques only laughed.

They stood in a secluded glade, as cloistered and beautiful as a fairy glen. It was small, the size of a moderate sitting room, shaded and lightly wooded, and the grass their horses pawed was as luscious as a manicured lawn. Sunlight streamed down through patches in the canopy of trees above them, mottling the emerald grass with pale spots of peridot. The water rippled from the disturbance caused by Jacques’s horse, its crystal-clear surface shimmering with diamonds of sunlight. The water was so clear that the light and reflection of nearby trees were the only barrier preventing a view of the bottom of its depths. The remnants of an ancient rock wall crumbled down the water’s edge. Moss clung to the rock wall, snaking through every crevasse and creeping over most of its surface. It looked medieval. Birdsong rang through the trees in a natural symphony, unbothered by the human presence.

Eleanor looked around the beatific clearing, enclosed on all sides by thick forest. Jacques gazed upon her instead of the view. He smiled broadly, knowing by her expression that he had done well.

“I’m glad you like it,” he told her softly. “This is my favorite place on these grounds. I ride here often to find peace, although not as often as I once did.”

“It’s beautiful, Jacques,” she affirmed, still appreciating their surroundings.

“I’ve never shared this place with anyone,” he said more quietly but with more conviction.

Eleanor’s head jerked around, her eyes shot to his almost aggressively. “What about your wife? I don’t want to be lied to in the course of you trying to romance me.”

“It’s no lie.” He placed his right hand over his heart as he nudged his horse closer alongside hers until their knees touched. “She did not enjoy riding, nor much out of doors. There are no roads here, so she never accompanied me. I am afraid that I can offer a woman few firsts with me, but this is something I have now shared with you alone.”

She beamed at him, but she could think of nothing either suitably romantic or coy to say, so she only smiled and then further admired the beauty surrounding them. Sunlight danced on the pristine water, and she saw it was fed by a narrow brook that flowed between the hillsides, keeping the water clear and pure. Jacques stepped down from his horse and looped his reins over the branch of a tree. He walked to the side of Eleanor’s horse and offered her his hand to dismount, which she happily took. Jacques took the liberty of grabbing her waist as she hopped lightly down from her mount. He tied her horse beside his and led her to the medieval wall.

The wall remnants were only waist high on Eleanor and ran into the pond, a dead end to whatever pasture it had enclosed centuries ago. Jacques directed her to lean against its mossy rocks. She expected him to sit beside her but instead, he dropped to take a knee before her. Her heart jumped at the thought of a proposal, but he made none and unexpectedly took her right boot in his hand.

“What on earth are you doing?” she asked with a small measure of alarm, pulling her boot away.

“Do you not want to see what I enjoy doing most here, in my favorite place?” Jacques looked up at her from his kneeling position. Although, he didn’t have to raise his eyes far – kneeling, his face was level with her bodice. He took her boot again.

“What do you intend to do from that position?” She tried to sound imperious.

“The mind reels with possibilities,” he replied hungrily.

“You know very well a lady cannot do such things before marriage,” she huffed with annoyance, yet she was secretly enticed to let this handsome man do absolutely anything he wanted to her.

“What things might those be?” Jacques smirked. His large hand crept up the back of her calf, moving slowly as he would with a startled horse. “I haven’t told you what I want to do with you today.”

“You’ve given me quite a clear idea.” She tried to pull her boot away again, but he held it firm this time, his grip like iron.

“Do you not trust me?” His hand slid higher up to the back of her thigh just above her knee, stroking her there through the silk of her stocking. “What an irresponsible young lady you are to put yourself in the hands of a scoundrel like me. Out here, with no one to rescue you.”

“You’ve never given me a reason to distrust you,” her voice was firm, but her pulse thundered in her ears. There was nothing she could do to fend off such a big, powerful man. And she wasn’t sure if she wanted to. A disturbingly large part of her wanted him to continue despite her protests, to rip her clothes off entirely, and ravage her right then and there.

“What makes you think I’ll give you a reason to distrust me now?” Jacques’s grin took on a wicked edge. He saw clearly the effect he had on her and it spurred him on. She was as excited as she was afraid, and Jacques let that simmer inside her until her chest was beautifully flushed and her leg quivered in his hands. Finally, with his free hand, he unlaced her boot and pulled it off. Using the hand at the back of her thigh, he trailed it slightly higher until he found the top of her stocking. With tantalizing slowness, he rolled it down her leg and pulled it off entirely. He was pleased to see the way she held her breath but didn’t pull away. He could go much further now if he wanted, but he released her bare foot. Eleanor looked almost disappointed when he took her other foot and repeated the process of removing her boot and stocking.

Looking at her dainty feet and the muddy hem of her dress, Jacques pursed his lips in appreciation. Laughter wrinkled the corners of his amber eyes when he looked up at her. “What a wanton little hussy you are, baring your ankles to any man who bothers to pull your boots off.”

She kicked at him playfully and he caught her around one of her wanton ankles, holding her easily. He pushed up the hem of her dress and kissed her knee. It was the first kiss he had given her, other than greeting her chastely by kissing her hand. It felt like a brand, her flesh burning where his lips touched so gently. Jacques set her boots aside and pushed up from the ground. He took a seat beside her on the low wall and unceremoniously pulled off his own boots and socks.

“I’m very confused,” she said as he rolled his pants up over his muscled calves. “What are you playing at?”

“I’m doing what I often do when I come here.” He took her hand and stood, pulling her up with him.

Stroking her hand with his thumb, Jacques led her to a flat rock that protruded over the pond close below. He sat down and let his legs hang over to dip his feet in the water below, groaning with pleasure. He looked up at her with a smirk, waiting for her to join him. When she sat and dangled her feet in the water, it was so pleasantly cool that she gasped with delight. She looked at him sideways and narrowed her eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me this is what you wanted to do with me?”

“That hardly seemed fun,” he laughed and leaned back on his elbows, his large body sprawling beside her. “I tried to warn you about me. I’m no gentleman at all, Miss Winchester.”

Relaxing, she reclined beside him. She watched birds flitter through the trees overhead and clouds drifting by through the gaps in the branches. Propping himself up on one elbow, Jacques looked down at her. Her impressive bosom was still flushed from their ride and her eyes looked exceptionally crystalline in the dappled sunlight. He felt himself drifting toward her, looming over her body, along with that inexorable pull of arousal welling deep inside him. Before he lost himself in a passion he could not restrain, he took a deep breath to clear his head and rose to his feet.

“We’d best get back before you are missed, Miss Winchester.” He offered her his hand. “Your father may shoot me if he learns of this.” As an afterthought, he added, “However, I would welcome your company any morning you wish to join me for a ride.”

*******************************************************************************************

“Eleanor!” Katrina ambushed her friend the moment she stepped inside her room. “Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you all morning.”

“I felt like going for a ride this morning,” Eleanor said dreamily.

“No, you didn’t!” Katrina accused. “We’ve known each other most of our lives. There’s nothing you feel like doing first thing in the morning unless it involves violence.” She eyed Eleanor critically, seeing the dirt on her dress and her hair that had blown undone. “I hope you haven’t let Sir Jacques get away with more than you should. A lady must hint at the forbidden fruit, or give a man a taste at most. You mustn’t let him take a full bite of the apple.”

“Sadly, no one bit me or so much as tasted me today,” Eleanor quipped and set about unbraiding her hair to brush it back out neatly. “What has you so distressed?”

“I agreed to play Theodore in a game of croquet,” Katrina said fussily. “But now, I realize that will entail him wanting to teach me, and me having to be pleasant. I’m really not in the mood to be pleasant today. It’s too soon for me to be wretched around him. I might frighten him utterly away. You’re so much better at faking these things. Come with me and smile on command when I cannot muster one.”

“I have a better idea,” Eleanor opened the door to her room and gestured for Katrina to follow her. “But I fear it will devastate poor Theodore not to have you all to himself.”

It was still early enough to find the men at breakfast. The Prime Minister was set to depart that day after his morning meal. He was an especially hearty breakfaster and the others accommodated him. It was of little inconvenience to Jacques, who could eat most men and some beasts under the table. They hurried downstairs and with a stroke of luck, encountered Count Pierre as he exited the breakfast room. His eyes were still bloodshot from drinking the night before, but his mood was high. The women both knew that merely inviting the man to play a silly game with them would have no effect, not when there was business to be done.

“Count Pierre, would you be good enough to help Katrina and I settle a debate?” Eleanor asked him with a smile few men could refuse.

“Please tell me it involves the shedding of clothing,” Pierre returned lewdly. Unlike most men who tried to hide such aspects of their personalities, Pierre embraced his nature.

“Theodore insists he’s a better croquet instructor than you or Sir Jacques,” Eleanor let the challenge hang in the air.

“Let me tell both of you ladies something.” Pierre wagged a finger in their faces. “There is no substitute for hard-gained experience. In all matters. Some young buck is not going to give you the same quality of tutelage that an old master can.”

Jacques had emerged from the breakfast room and stood behind his friend, grinning as he listened. His eyes flickered to Eleanor when he added, “But in matters of manipulation and espionage, I find there is no finer teacher than a cunning woman.”

“They can spare the two of us for the length of a game of croquet,” Pierre said to Jacques, nodding toward the room where Count Winchester and the Prime Minister could be heard talking.

Jacques stepped toward Eleanor and offered her his arm and a warm smile. “Is this more of your maneuvering?”

“I would never take credit for such a thing,” she teased. “Unless it’s well received.”

Outside, the sun shone brightly and the weather was warm and welcoming for an outdoor activity. Theodore’s face fell when he saw Katrina approaching him with an entourage that included his father. He stood, leaning on the handle of a mallet near the white wickets he had set up in a pretty elliptical pattern on the lawn. The balls were lined up, too, in a variety of colors.

Jacques leaned close to Eleanor and said quietly, “Let me guess, it’s the mallets that appeal to you?”

“You’re getting smarter by the minute,” she replied.

Jacques grinned. These ladies were grandmasters on the chessboard of romance. But he too could play games and call bluffs. “Since you’ve dragged me out here, I assume you’ll allow me to give you a lesson.”

“I’m not a novice,” Eleanor said as she took a mallet Theodore handed her.

“You’ve already bested me riding,” Jacques continued with amusement. “Is it wise for an aspiring young woman to best a man at every sport? Should she not allow him to impress her?”

“Besides,” Pierre joined in the obvious teasing. “Men are simply far better when it comes to hitting things. Even you cannot argue that point, Miss Winchester.” He flexed a skinny arm to make his point. “We have superior strength and bad tempers. We’re naturals!”

Eleanor laughed, then hefted her mallet, testing its balance. She pointed it at Jacques. “I think I could abuse you quite well with this mallet.”

“Now thatwould be something for you to write about, Pierre,” Jacques laughed.

“I’ve written so much abuse and flagellation, I’ve done it to death, I’m afraid.” Pierre sighed theatrically. “I’d like to think you’d know that about my publications if you weren’t so discombobulated at present.”

Eleanor and Katrina looked at each other and then at Pierre, each wearing expressions of confusion and embarrassment.

“Of course, this is far too lecherous a topic for upstanding ladies,” Jacques said with heavy sarcasm. “But Pierre is inflicted with the terrible burden of boredom brought on by his obscene wealth. To amused himself, he writes publications of an, ah, amorous nature under the nome de plume William Lazenby.”

Both ladies’ eyes widened. They didn’t want to admit they knew the name well.

“And why does he do it, you ask?” Jacques continued.

“To spread chaos, naturally!” Pierre exclaimed proudly. “It’s my sacred duty to ensure there’s not a limp cock or dry cunt in the land!”

Jacques glared at him, shaking his head. Even on such a topic, he would have modified his words in the company of the fairer sex. Pierre imposed no such restrictions on his behavior. Theodore blushed on behalf of the women, sure they were startled by the crude language and the topic in general. He had heard often about the delicate sensibilities of women. He was surprised to find them looking both intrigued and amused now. He was getting an unintended lesson in courtship from his father and Count Pierre.

“Do these stories all come from your imagination?” Katrina asked.

As they talked, Jacques moved behind Eleanor. He placed his hand over hers on the mallet, adjusting her grip and showing her proper form. Then, he moved her arm in a practice swing, pressing his body against hers from behind and moving his hips in time with hers. He looked pointedly at Theodore, indicating he might consider following suit with Katrina.

“Oh, inspiration comes in many forms,” Pierre said as he watched Jacques. He couldn’t help but foil his friend’s efforts. “I can’t tell you how many stories I have of horny old men tutoring young women in the dance of the bedsheets.”

Eleanor and Katrina laughed. The men’s game was up.

Pierre joined them laughing and added, “Imagine a romantic retelling of a sequestered getaway such as this. Two young, inexperienced ladies, seeking the tutelage from a pair of seasoned old rogues. Maybe the young bucks watching on, also to learn a thing or two.”

At this the women sobered, their demeanors changed to mild distaste. Pierre kicked himself inwardly for pushing too far. Jacques saw the change in the ladies, and jumped in to rescue the mood.

Jacques looked at Eleanor with an appropriately pained expression and said, “I only say this because I think it will appeal to you, Miss Winchester, but know that it pains me. Pierre had a rather prurient experience once during a séance. I’m sure he would love to regale you. I have no doubt it’s the seminal experience that converted him into such a staunch advocate for the occult.”

“Now, you must tell us!” Eleanor said excitedly.

“Even I, veteran that I am,” Pierre began with laughter in his eyes. “I have never before or since seen a woman possessed by such a randy spirit. The braggart forced the poor girl to strip out of her clothing entirely and then proceeded to cause her to writhe in the most obscene ways in front of me. I was utterly baffled as to how to cure her.”

“If I recall,” Jacques said, shaking his head. “You gave her the rod many times over while shouting Hail Mary’s into her ear.”

Everyone laughed at the lewd anecdote. Pierre made a point of reassuring the women, “Don’t let Jacques frighten you away from the occult. That one isolated event aside, I’m good at conducting seances. I’m something of an expert at them by now.” He caught Eleanor’s eye and told her directly, “Convince Jacques to let me host a séance in Wargrave Hall. I can promise you a night you’ll never forget. Don’t worry, Jacques will be there to protect you.”

*******************************************************************************************

After the men retired from dinner to plot over cigars and drinks and the ladies walked toward their rooms, Eleanor mused suggestively, “Wouldn’t it be a nice evening to investigate the dead wife’s painting room?”

“It’s not morbid enough that we know she burned up inside it, must we snoop through her things?” Katrina teased sarcastically.

“Can a lady ever really be morbid enough?” Eleanor laughed. “Surely not while there are dark secrets left to unravel.”

“Theodore says Sir Jacques hasn’t set foot inside since she died,” Katrina added as they hurried down the hallway with new purpose, their voices growing less discreet. “He said Jacques forbade him and Black Billy to go in there too, but that he used to sneak in anyway. He said he never saw anything out of sorts though.”

“Sounds like he needs some lessons on the proper use of a spirit board,” Eleanor deadpanned. “Shall we offer to teach him one night? It’d be a nice excuse for you to swoon and let him catch you.”

“I will never stoop so low as to swoon,” Katrina said with mild offense. “Although, maybe with you as the bait, we could draw out the ghost of the dead wife. If she’s after anyone, it would be you.”

“If she’s anywhere, she’d be in her lair, all right,” Eleanor agreed. She didn’t mention the image the green fairy had shown her in the mirror.

The women mounted the staircase and trotted up the stairs to the fourth floor. Once they had passed, William stepped out from the shadows to the banister. He watched their skirts swishing as they hurried the stairs, his teeth bared in a silent snarl of contempt for the nosey, conniving bitches.

They had only vague directions from Theodore as to where the painting room was located on the fourth floor, and a few wrong turns were made while searching for it. When they finally found the purple door at the end of a long hallway, oddly, it was standing open. Inviting.

The room was small and dim, the walls covered in framed paintings and canvases in various stages of completion. This was the first room that had been outfitted with electricity and there was a single electrical switch on the wall. Eleanor flipped the switch and several lights mounted on the walls flickered to life with only mild hesitancy.

A discarded easel sat in one corner, perhaps the one the artist had been working at when she was burned alive. The women looked around the room in stunned silence. The first thing they both noticed was the style of the paintings. Her art was no pastel emulation of Monet, but of macabre subjects, boldly painted. The most preeminent painting on the wall looked to be untouched by the fire. It was in the style of Saturn Devouring His Son by Goya. Instead of Cronus, it was a darkly beautiful woman with a crazed look in her green eyes, holding a male child down on a chopping block as he screamed in agony. She held a meat cleaver high, poised to sever his last remaining limb.

Despite being possessed of dark humor, both women were stunned by the graphic horror depicted so beautifully.

Another painting done in the same style showed the image of a heavily pregnant black-haired woman lying on her back in a birthing position. The angle was from over her shoulder where her lover might stand at such a time. Her head was thrown back in anguish as a black razor-clawed hand tore its way out from inside her swollen belly. Blood and tissue were captured mid-splatter by thick swatches of oil paint and confident brush strokes.

The most darkly painted was a depiction of a bedroom that was nearly black and done in silhouette. Four posts of a canopy bed glinted with scant light and a silhouetted male figure stood beside the bed. The scene itself could have been innocuous, but the execution was deeply ominous. Eleanor thought the man was Sir Jacques. Although no features were defined, save for his nefarious eyes painted as yellow as a candle flame, the silhouette was tall and broad, and the artist captured his commanding bearing. The way the man stood beside the bed in reserved menace led the viewer to think any woman who was the subject of his attention would have no option but to go to him and do his bidding. Impliedly, it would be far from loving.

Perhaps the most disturbing to Eleanor personally was the same slender dark haired woman with fine features standing at what could only be the gates of Hell. Her black dress blew around her long legs from the wildfires of Hell that raged at her back. The flames had already reached the hem of her dress and the tips of her long hair. She held out a hand toward a trio of people standing outside the other gates in a grey landscape. Two young boys and a tall handsome man who was clearly Jacques. One boy was halfway between the man and woman, captured mid-stride as he ran from father to mother. It was unclear if her raised hand was meant to caution her family to stay away, or if she beckoned them to join her in the flames. It obviously must have been painted before her death, and Eleanor shuddered with foreboding.

“Do you think this was her?” Katrina asked of a portrait that had been ravaged by the fire, its paint melted into strange rivulets and clumps, giving it a deeply sinister look.

Eleanor knew at once it was a self-portrait of the woman she had seen in the mirror, even though her features were mostly melted, save for her black hair and one green eye staring out of the canvas. Looking closer, Eleanor saw something that made her skin crawl. She had thought it only scorched paint at first, but a closer inspection revealed that in her self portrait, the late Lady Le Gris had painted a large hand resting on her shoulder. Someone or something was standing behind her in the portrait. But it was not a man’s hand. It was a black sinewy-fingered thing with talons gleaming like knifepoints.

“I’ve heard that some women go mad after having children,” Katrina said in a low, uncomfortable voice. She shrugged off the ominous feeling and strode to study another painting. “Maybe that happened to her.”

Eleanor didn’t have an answer but felt that she was seeing something far more sinister than the unraveling of a mind. She was looking at evil. Pure menacing evil. And a woman trapped by it. Eleanor still looked at the painting, meeting the single remaining green eye staring out of the canvas. The black clawed hand resting on her shoulder exerted control over the women even in its painted form. Eleanor stared at it. The black fingers twitched.

Before Eleanor could scream or even react, an explosion of light burst near her head and pieces of glass stung her cheek. The light nearest her had exploded. The remaining lights flickered, then went bright white and all exploded in unison, spraying glass throughout the room like shrapnel from grenades. Fire erupted from the first light that had blown with the strength of dragon’s breath, shooting so high it licked across the ceiling. One after another, the blown lights vomited flames up the walls and across the ceiling. The single green eye in the melted painting seemed to look out at Eleanor, shining and vivid. The black hand was gone.

Fire reached the first painting, consuming it almost instantly into a hellish immolation that spat sparks of searing paint like oil from a cooking pan. Katrina was much closer to the door, and she ran for it, shouting for Eleanor. Despite the ravening flames around her, Eleanor felt a gust of cold air surround her. She jumped into a run, only a few paces behind Katrina.

Katrina reached the door and escaped back into the hallway. But just as she slipped past the door, it crashed closed behind her.

Had Eleanor been a step faster, she still wouldn’t have made her escape, but she may have had her nose broken or been knocked unconscious when the door slammed shut in her face. Eleanor tried the knob, but it wouldn’t turn. The metal was as hot as a branding iron, leaving welts on her palm when she yanked her hand away. The door was locked fast and immobile. She was trapped inside with the flames closing in upon her. But the cold intensified, surrounding her inside the inferno.

Death by fire was much colder than she thought it would be.

*******************************************************************************************

On the other side, Katrina tried the door in a panic, but she couldn’t budge it. She pounded her fists in frustration a few times before accepting the futility of it. She fought the hysteria from her voice when she yelled through the wood, “Hold on! I’ll get help!” She sprinted away as fast as her long legs would carry her, searching for someone, anyone to help free her friend.

Katrina raced through hallways that were the most vacant she had ever seen them. It seemed help was always hardest to find when it was needed most. She flew down two flights of stairs, then finally down the main staircase and as she whipped around the dragon at the bottom of the banister, she collided with Theodore, so hard that she knocked him fully down onto his back. He looked up at her, immediately infected with the fear in her wide eyes.

“The painting room is on fire! Eleanor’s trapped inside!” she shouted at him as she vaulted over his prostrate form without slowing. “Get up and help her!”

Katrina ran on, she knew that the man who was most able and motivated to help her friend was Sir Jacques. Her lungs burned and her slippered feet slipped on the marble floors as she flew around corners. She burst through the closed doors to the smoking room and found the men inside amidst the strong odor of cigar smoke and cognac. Jacques shot to his feet, a cigar clamped between his teeth and smoke coiling from his nostrils. The men all sprang into action when she relayed her message.

Jacques looked particularly stricken as he charged from the room without even bothering to spit out his cigar. Jacques was a fast runner, but he had never sprinted faster than he did now, pushing his long stride to its limit. He lunged up the stairs three at a time and skidded around the corner into the hallway leading to the painting room. He sprinted down it like a madman. At the end of the hallway ahead of him, the door to the studio was closed. The doorway glowed ominous orange from the flames inside, looking like the gateway to hell. William and Theodore fought the door, alternating between trying to pull it open and shouldering into it to try to break it down. Jacques slid to a stop on the marble floor and grabbed both of his sons by the backs of their collars, he yanked them both back roughly with such force as to wrench them each bodily off the floor and send them flying backwards.

“The door opens out, you fools!” he roared. “You’ll never break it in against its hinges!” He pounded twice very hard on the door and shouted through it, “Eleanor! Drop to the floor. The air will stay freshest there.”

Backing a pace from the door, Jacques squared his shoulders and kicked the door dead center. The door shuddered on its hinges, but held firm. However, Jacques had no intention of kicking it down. He intended to kick through it. He kicked it again, savagely, and a crack appeared in the center of the door. Growling with effort, he kicked again and again until his foot broke through. Instantly, he felt the heat on the other side through his shoe, and it spurred him on. He frantically tore at the broken opening to widen it, then kicked out more of the splintered wood. It took precious seconds, but he finally kicked and tore an opening large enough to squeeze his huge body through.

“Eleanor!” he shouted into the flaming room. His voice was instantly hoarse from smoke and his eyes burned. He could feel the stinging heat on his face as wet tears leaked from his eyes. The room swirled with black smoke and licking flames, hiding every other detail within its infernal curtain.

He heard a tiny groan and staggered toward the sound. Through teary eyes, he saw her figure lying on the floor. She feebly tried to crawl toward him, coughing out smoke, and he ran to her as flames reared around him. Jacques pulled the lapel of his jacket in front of his face to shield him from the flames. He dropped to a knee beside Eleanor, pulled her into his arms, and lifted her as easily as a child when he shoved back to his feet. He tucked her face inside his coat and ran with her back to the door. The hole he had broken open was too small to admit both of them, so he handed her through first to Theodore as his head throbbed from the lack of oxygen.

Jacques glanced back at the inferno raging inside the painting room. He inhaled sharply in shock, throwing himself into a fit of coughing. Standing in the flames, clear as day, was the unmistakable figure of his late wife, her features as beautifully serene as he remembered, despite the blaze. In the portion of a second he spared to watch her, her once-lovely features began to sizzle and burn like bacon in a frying pan, sloughing away from her bones in red peels the way a candle melts. It brought back the horror of finding her fire-ravaged remains in this very room as fresh as a new bleeding wound.

In a panic born from more than just the flames, Jacques fought his way back through the splintered door. Back in the hallway, he wanted to sag against the wall and fill his lungs with fresh air. His sons were both there, as were Kristina and Count Winchester. Each wore a look of fright and concern. Jacques took Eleanor from Theodore and cradled her head in his arm – he would trust her safety to no one else. Soot was smeared across her pale skin, and there were ugly burns on the backs of her hands and her forearms from where she had hid her face behind them, but her eyes were clear and lucid when they met his.

Emotion spurred him to crash his lips to hers. It was not his finest kiss by far, given with bruising force and tasting of smoke and desperation. But it was the most grateful kiss he had ever bestowed, and he realized he never wanted to let her out of his arms again. He wasn’t bothered to explain himself when everyone looked at him with surprise, save for William, who watched sourly. Jacques should have felt embarrassed for kissing Count Winchester’s daughter right in front of him, but he felt nothing but relief and gratitude. Without a word, Jacques carried her down the hallway, holding her close, keeping her safe inside his arms.

*******************************************************************************************

Jacques, his sons, several servants, and every guest in Wargrave Hall lingered late in Jacques’s study. Jacques had washed his face and hands, and Eleanor had bathed and changed out of her charred clothing, but she had returned to join them. No one wanted to be alone that night, it seemed. Their discussions were a flurry of conjecture as to how the fire must have started. It was clear to the men that it had to be an electrical fire. Jacques was not impressed by the new installation of electrical wiring in the Hall and heatedly aired his grievances.

Though Eleanor and Kristina exchanged many looks, they didn’t muster the nerve to share what they had seen and felt inside the room before the flames erupted. It would profit nothing for everyone to think them mad. They had an unspoken understanding to try to unravel the mystery themselves, no matter how dark and twisted that lefthand path became. Likewise, neither Jacques nor anyone else familiar with the tragedy of his late wife mentioned it, but it weighed on all their minds just how close Eleanor had come to meeting the same fate. Jacques replayed the apparition he had seen in the flames over and over in his mind. He had seen mirages before out in the desert, they had that same wavering, otherworldly look to them. He decided that’s all it was, a mirage. A trick of his oxygen deprived brain and the searing heat waves.

Jacques was unable to sit, unable to remain still, and found it difficult even to confine his pacing to just one room. But he hovered near Eleanor where she sat at the end of a couch. He paced behind the couch and beside it, as near to her as a loyal hound. He wanted, needed, to take his aggression out on something before it boiled over onto an innocent bystander. Had he not instinctively wanted to keep his vigil over Eleanor, he would have raged through his halls until he found something suitable to punch or crush in his hands.

Most of the attention was given to Eleanor, fussing over her condition. Although she was perfectly fine and didn’t particularly enjoy that sort of attention. She did, however, like it very much when Jacques laid his hand possessively on her shoulder, squeezed her reassuringly, and lingered near her.

“It had to be an electrical fire,” Jacques grumbled for the fourth or fifth time. His throat felt as though he had tried his hand at sword swallowing, and his voice was coarse as sandpaper. “Damned, infernal electricity! I’ve been against it since day one! It’s no different from stealing fire from the gods and thinking there will be no consequences.”

“I don’t think lights explode like that just from electricity gone array,” Eleanor said cautiously. She knew it was the wrong time to challenge Jacques outright, nor to tell him all of what she had experienced inside the room. But she could nudge him. “And it felt cold inside. There was no reason for it to feel cold. I think the cold is what kept me from burning alive.”

“You’ve earned my good opinion faster than any woman I have ever known,” Jacques told her harshly. “Do not undermine it all now with absurd talk of the supernatural.”

“I didn’t mention anything supernatural at all,” she returned. “Perhaps that’s where your own mind wants to go.”

“Fucking absurd!” Jacques growled, more to himself than to anyone else. He thoroughly wanted to hit someone now. He both respected and resented her for being right.

“I’ve heard that before one succumbs to hypothermia, they feel overheated. Men have stripped down to nothing in the dead of winter before they die of cold,” Count Winchester pondered. Like Sir Jacques, he was a deep skeptic of anything that could not be scientifically analyzed and rationally explained. “Do you suppose it’s the same with burning? I’ve heard from a man who was tortured with a red-hot iron poker that it felt like an ice cube was being traced over his body, a trick of the mind from such intense heat and pain and burning nerve endings.”

“It stands up to reason far better than talk of ghosts,” Jacques spat the final word, shaking his head as he looked at Eleanor, making her feel foolish for offering anything. It wasn’t worth ruining the progress she had made with him.

“I cannot abide intelligent men being so willfully stupid!” Count Pierre exclaimed. He was one of the few men who had the clout and the gall to accuse the others of willful stupidity. “Miss Winchester did not even sustain any severe burns. A miracle in itself! She should have burned to a crisp! But it negates your argument that she was suffering so intensely that her mind was tricked into phantom sensations. You have an actual phantom on your hands, Jacques old boy. No so-called rational explanation satisfies all our questions. I’d bet on a lady ghost at that. Doesn’t this have all the flavor of a jealous woman about it?”

Jacques glared at his best friend, his temper smoldering.

“You’re wrong, father,” Theodore joined the conversation loudly. “Listen to Count Pierre! And to Eleanor, for Christ sakes! You’re pigheaded and refuse to see anything that doesn’t fit with your theory.”

“An electrical fire fits the facts better than anything else,” Jacques tried to keep his voice calm. He didn’t succeed. “If there are ghosts here, let them come out and set us all on fire right now.” He stood tall and held his arms out wide, inviting a challenge from any being, living or dead. “Come out, you dead bastards! Strike me down, cowards!”

Jacques’s aggression provoked Theodore, who had been bothered more deeply by the events than anyone aside from Eleanor. He jumped to his feet and shouted at Jacques, “What about mother? Was it an electrical fire that killed her too? Before there was even electricity in that room? You don’t want to think that it could be something you can’t punch unconscious, so it has to be bad wiring.” He stepped close to Jacques, too close. “If anyone is being a coward, it’s you! You’re afraid of something you can’t see and challenge to a duel. You’re afraid you won’t be able to save Eleanor like you couldn’t save mother!”

Instinct overtook Jacques and without a conscious thought, his fist was flying through the air of its own accord. Jacques slammed his right fist into Theodore’s nose, knocking his son bodily off his feet onto his back. The punch was thrown with only moderate force, not a devastating punch he could have dealt, but it was enough to knock Theordore to the brink of consciousness and cause blood to pour from his nose.

With a yelp, Katrina jumped from the couch and rushed to Theodore’s side, glaring up viciously at Jacques. In spite and retribution she looked at Jacques and told Eleanor, “This could well be you. You can do better than a man who can’t restrain his temper even with his family.”

Eleanor and Count Winchester looked on with surprise, and Pierre sighed at his friend’s faux pas. Black Billy crossed his arms over his chest haughtily and grinned. Jacques straightened and took a deep breath in an attempt to compose himself. He ran a shaking hand through his unruly hair and surveyed the room. There was nothing he could do to repair the situation at present and no point in trying to continue the evening reasonably. Instead, he chose not to say a word. He strode to where Eleanor sat on the couch, looking up at him with wide, surprised eyes. He was grateful he didn’t see fear in them, or worse, contempt. He bent enough to seize her hand, yanked it to his lips and kissed it rather roughly. There was no comfort or tenderness, but still, he forced himself to make an overture of some kind before storming away, silently telling her that he was still enamored of her. Even if he wanted to kill something with his bare hands.

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Late that night when the hour was at its blackest, Jacques lay wide awake in his bed. A bed he had recently decided was too big and too cold for him to occupy alone, as he all too often did. Images from the harrowing events of the evening raced through his mind, worse now with nothing else to stimulate his thoughts. Katrina’s terrified face as she screamed for his help. His sons strained ineffectively at the door. Eleanor curled on the floor with flames roaring around her like hungry lions. The pain and dread in her sparkling eyes at her imminent death twisted his guts, but the look of hope and trust that overtook her when she saw him was also emblazoned on his memory. Emotions warred inside him, ranging from fear to relief to lust to hope, but most of all was anger. Anger boiled inside him, making his muscles taught and his pulse thunder. Anger at harm coming to the lovely young woman in his care. Anger at having no accounting as to why. And black, roiling anger at himself for being unable to prevent it.

Unable to maintain even a pretense of rest, he threw the blankets aside and shoved out of bed. Jacques slept in the nude and the feeling of the cool night air on his heated skin was invigorating after the tangle of sheets. He thought about walking outside to the pond on his grounds and plunging into the cold water for a swim. Although it had been some time since he had indulged in a late night swim, it was something he enjoyed immensely.

But that would resolve nothing.

He lit a gas lamp, pulled on a dressing gown, stepped into slippers, and left his room to expend some energy pacing his halls. He had no plan, nowhere in particular he was headed, but his feet led him along the familiar route to his study. He sank down into his chair, clamped a cigar between his teeth, and poured himself a whiskey, wishing instead it was one of the Old Fashioneds that Mr. Graham made to perfection. Yesterday’s unread copy of the Manchester Guardian sat in the center of his desk. Jacques had it delivered daily by courier. It might serve to distract him if nothing else. He looked around, thinking it would be easier to read with more light.

The gas lamp flickered on his desktop where he had set it, but his study was one of the rooms that had been converted to electricity. Theodore had bought him a fine electric reading lamp to christen the newly electrified room. It had a stained glass lampshade made to look like sunlight shining through trees, and Jacques hated to admit how much he liked it. He had used the little reading lamp daily in the past few months. He glared at it now, as if the electric lamp was in league with the nefarious electric currents that had almost killed Eleanor.

Inhaling deeply from his cigar, Jacques shifted it to the other side of his mouth and stared at the lamp. He leaned forward to study it more closely. He had never examined the workings of these new-fangled electric devices. It all still seemed like a kind of witchcraft to him. He blew a puff of smoke out around his cigar, making it bob on his lip. He traced his thick fingers along the cord where it attached to the lamp, turning the lamp upside down to get a better view. Something about the cord didn’t look correct, but he had never looked at it closely enough to pinpoint what bothered him. The length of the cord was coated in black, except where it attached to the lamp, which was only a bundle of copper wires. It looked as though the cord had been eaten at by rats, or molested by some other animal.

Motivated by curiosity more than anything else, Jacques tipped the lamp over on his table and fiddled with the injured looking cord. It still seemed to be attached, so he decided it was probably nothing. Jacques righted the lamp and took the cigar from his mouth to blow a few contemplative smoke rings. Returning the cigar to his lips, he rested his hand on the lamp’s base and pulled the little cord inside the shade to turn on the lamp.

The lightbulb exploded from an electrical surge with a pop and shocked Jacques’s hand where it touched the metal base. Sparks jumped out of the frayed cord at the base of the lamp, just enough to catch the corner of the dry newspaper aflame. Jacques jerked his hand back with a pained grunt and jumped back in his chair. Ash from his cigar fell onto his bare chest where it was exposed from his dressing gown. The newspaper burned quickly, the flames growing tall on his desktop. Jacques shot to his feet and beat them out before they got out of hand, cursing vehemently with every swat of his palms.

It was not a serious fire, but certainly enough to startle him. And he was a man used to gunfire and canon bursting around him in battle. It made him think how easily the ladies could have overreacted to the electrical fire in the painting room. Especially Eleanor being trapped inside it. She was rightfully terrified. It made more sense to him now, despite having no explanation for the door being locked from the inside. As Jacques stood leaning over his smoking desktop, the door to his study flung open. He was startled afresh to see Eleanor standing there, her chest flushed beneath her own dressing gown, and her long hair free of its pins and braids, cascading down over her breasts.

“Are you hurt?” she asked awkwardly, walking timidly into the room. “I couldn’t sleep, not after the day I had. I tend to wander when I can’t sleep. I heard you grunting and cursing in here.”

“We’re similarly afflicted.” Jacques looked down at his body, ensuring his robe hadn’t come undone during his recent calisthenics. There was no need to frighten the poor girl even more in one day. He tightened the sash of his robe and brushed some ash off his chest. He was still fuming from the lamp that now lay toppled over on his desk. As she approached his desk, he answered her unasked question gruffly, “The damned lightbulb exploded in my lamp and caught the newspaper on fire.”

As he said it, he looked up at her, worried another event with fire so soon might send her into an emotional tailspin. Women’s emotions were even more volatile than electricity. She indeed did look concerned, but then he noticed her attention was on his hands. They were blacked from the ash of the newspaper and singed mildly, but not injured. She gently took his huge hands in her dainty ones and inspected them herself to her satisfaction. Her touch was cool and silken soft on his callused hands.

“Do you think this was an accident too?” she asked, looking up at him. She didn’t mention again that she knew in her heart that the previous fire was not. “Two electrical fires in one night?”

Jacques quickly replayed the events over in his mind, allowing himself to delve to the very furthest reaches of his imagination out of courtesy for her. He recalled the image of his first wife in the flames and the feeling that accompanied it. No similar emotions had accompanied the mishap just now in his study. Now, all he wanted was to comfort her and not risk offending her again, so he restricted his reply to the present incident. “Nothing otherworldly had a hand in this. It was nothing more than an accident.”

Jacques glared at the lamp on his desk and his anger burned hotter. He grabbed the stained glass reading lamp he loved and viciously ripped the cord out of the wall. Then, for good measure, he ripped the cord out of the lamp base. He sat the lamp back down in its rightful place, intact save for its missing cord. “To hell with this blasted electricity. I can enjoy it just as well without.”

“Are you going to rip the electrical wiring out of the entire house?” she teased lightly.

“I just might.” He grinned and took her hand. “I think we’re both in need of some fresh air. Will you join me in the moonlight?”

She smiled prettily and squeezed his hand in agreement. Jacques led her through the darkened halls, aware of a somber feeling inside his home, the way a forest grows silent when a hunter fells a stag. He hadn’t noticed before that her feet were bare, so he modified his plan to accommodate her. Instead of taking her outside to the garden, he led her to a veranda that overlooked a fountain in which marble nymphs splashed an unruly satyr. Moonlight danced on the water like diamonds and the night air was just cool enough to be a pleasant reprieve from summer’s heat.

Eleanor felt the tension leaving her body as soon as she stepped outside. It must be the combination of the beautiful setting, the calming moonlight, and the best possible company. She leaned back against the outer wall of the Hall, still holding Jacques’s hand. He did the same and leaned his back against the wall beside her. He let out an indulgent groan, as if all the strife from the day was finally leaving his body.

The simple act of Jacques holding her hand in his rough paw imbued so much safety and calm into her, that she felt as though she could fall asleep right there at his side. She longed to have his arms around her fully, to feel the full measure of his strong embrace. She wondered what it would be like to have his arms at her beck and call, to command them to embrace her at her whim. They reveled in the comfort of each other under the soothing moonlight for a long while. Eleanor wondered if he had dozed off but when she looked at him, his jaw was clenched tightly, at odds with his relaxed posture.

“Penny for your thoughts?” she asked dreamily.

“I’m thinking that I should talk to your father.” He chewed his lip as he spoke, his voice hoarse from smoke.

“Whatever for?” she teased.

“You know full well.” He shook his head ruefully. “To admit defeat.”

“Regardless of my father’s position on the matter, you will still have to ask me properly,” she told him seriously.

“I thought since you’d decided things for me, that we’d dispensed with such formalities,” he laughed, lacing his fingers through hers. The shy strands of silver in his ebony hair caught the moonlight, sparkling when he moved.

“Don’t be a fool,” she scoffed, turning to look at him squarely. “You will never be dispensed with formalities such as romance so long as you are with me.”

“I am not prone to speeches or flowery words, darling.” He used the endearment for the first time strategically. It had the effect he intended when she blushed and smiled. “Shall I tell you that I have never felt so tormented? That I have never known such suffering until you walked into my life, aptly wearing devil horns?”

“That’s slightly better.” She leaned in toward him, wondering if she should kiss him, but she wanted him to take that lead.

“I know I will suffer greatly if I marry you.” He grinned at her, his warm amber eyes glinting in the dappled moonlight. “But perhaps that suffering will be less than if I do not.”

“One should always choose the path of lesser suffering,” she laughed, elated.

He swallowed thickly and chewed his lip. She was making him nervous, Eleanor realized as he looked down with uncharacteristic shyness. Without giving himself time to second guess, he pushed away from the wall and dropped to a knee in front of her. The proposal to his first wife had been more of an acknowledgement and had been done in writing. He wanted this one to be far better, for it to be real. The beaming smile that bloomed on her lips gave him all the nerve he needed.

“If I didn’t know it before tonight, I know now that I would rather face death than a life without you. I can count the times in my life I have known fear, and they are few. None has been so poignant as seeing you trapped in that flaming room.” His voice was still thick and hoarse from the smoke, catching in his throat. “I’ve never felt anything as strong as what I feel for you. Nothing I’ve ever felt before has had the power to devastate me, to undo me utterly. I am unsure if I have been the hunter or the prey in all this, but you have captured my heart regardless. I love you as I have loved no other. My heart now beats for you alone. Will you have it and me?”

“I may have loved you from our first dance, but after tonight I can have no doubts on the matter.” She smiled and ran her hand through his hair. “I can’t wait to be your wife.”

With startling suddenness, Jacques surged to his feet. He captured her in his arms and lifted her high off the ground, twirling with her excitedly and grinning like a madman. Her neck was level with his nose and he kissed it aggressively, teasing her skin with his teeth until he must surely leave a mark there for all to see. Returning her to the ground, he pushed her back against the stone wall and planted his huge palms on either side of her head, caging her inside his arms. He pressed his body against her, pinning her to the wall. He gazed down at her, triumphantly – the look of a man who had just won a battle or toppled a regime. Lust bled into his features, softening his lips until they parted and intensifying his eyes until they seemed to look into her soul. It was the first time she had felt the insistent hardness of a man, and it was much larger than she had ever assumed it would be. In contrast to that hardness, he stroked her cheek with his fingertips and his touch was full of nothing but tenderness. Slowly he brought his lips to hers and gave her her first real kiss. His lips were plush, his mouth hot, and his tongue caressing when it slipped against hers. Her arms flew around his neck, her hands tangled in his hair, and she moaned at the rush of sensations. He kissed her indulgently, savoring the taste and feel of her and every sweet noise she made. But nothing compared to the feeling of her soft welcoming body against his. He was desperate to meet her soft willingness with all of his hard insistence. His eyes were half-lidded when he finally drew back and he wore a drunken sort of grin.

“I have a demand of you as my future wife,” he said in a voice as smoky as the room that had almost claimed her life. “I will not wait until spring to have you. I want you now. You may choose an autumn or winter wedding, but I will wait no longer.”

“You are lucky, Sir Jacques, that autumn is my favorite season and that October is when I feel most alive.” She pulled him down into another kiss that was more aggressive than skilled.

“The season of the witch? Fitting.” He smiled fondly. “It’s no wonder you have bewitched me so effortlessly.”

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The morning Sir Jacques’s guests were set to depart, they were all gathered for breakfast. The mood was lively and high, befitting the engagement between Jacques and Eleanor. It was as though the fire and strange events surrounding it had already faded into the distant past, the horror and fear replaced by happiness and hope. Besides not wanting to dwell on dark matters, there was much to plan in a very short time. August was nearing its end and the couple had decreed they would be married by mid-October. Sir Jacques had been in particularly high spirits, laughing easily and grinning broadly – like an idiot, according to Count Pierre.

When breakfast concluded, Sir Jacques stood from the head of the table and stopped them from adjourning. Standing tall and affecting a commanding air, he asked Count Winchester openly in front of the full company, “May I steal your daughter for an hour or so before I’m forced to part with her until our wedding?”

“I’d hate to see you break off your engagement with her because you get to know her too well before the manacles are fastened,” Count Winchester joked, but gave Jacques a look of warning. “But I suppose an hour won’t be the death of anyone.”

Jacques offered Eleanor his hand, the entire exchange making her blush furiously. He tucked her hand in the crook of her arm and led her through the Hall, walking with purpose, and out through a back entrance into the gardens. It was a beautiful midsummer morning with the rose bushes in full bloom in a cacophony of reds and pinks and the air filled with birdsong. Walking through such beauty, one could never account for the darkness Eleanor had seen and felt inside the stone walls behind her. She wondered if Jacques intended to kiss her, or more; to get something of substance from her to tide him over until they were wed. She was surprised when he didn’t linger to enjoy the garden and instead took her on a narrow path that sidestepped the hedges and flower bushes.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked curiously. The dirt path led them into trees that were unmanicured and part of the natural growth of the countryside. She was not opposed to traipsing around in the forest, but the shoes she wore were not correct for such a venture, nor for keeping pace with a fit man who stood a head taller than she.

“Something I should have shown you before all the fears of late were allowed to run rampant.” He gave her a reassuring smile.

They came to the rise of a gentle hillside and the trees thinned. Now, she could see their destination on the hilltop above them, backlit by sunlight. It was not a place in which she wanted to spend her last hour with Sir Jacques.

The Le Gris family crypt was built on top of a hill near the Hall. It was stormy grey marble, its front edifice tall and imposing. Twin dragons were seated on each side of the front face at the base of tall pillars, baring their razor teeth in a snarl to ward off enemies. Jacques let her breathe for a moment and study them before leading her inside. He struck a match to light a large torch mounted on a wall sconce just inside. Firelight danced over his features, accentuating their angles and casting a harsh and even satanic edge to his prominent nose, arched eyebrows, and eyes that gleamed like embers.

The marble interior was ivory white, accented with gold. It gleamed in the torchlight like a holy relic. It was cold inside, as one would expect inside a cave, but devoid of an icy edge. Three marble sarcophaguses lined each side of the crypt, evenly spaced. The furthest two were at the far reach of the torch, and barely visible in shadow at the far end of the crypt was a larger sarcophagus seated in the very center against the far wall. Symbols Eleanor recognized as occult could be seen scattered throughout the crypt amid the ordinary religious iconography. An all-seeing-eye engraved into a sarcophagus, an ouroboros encircling the name on a plaque, and numerous pentacles.

“Not everyone in the family shared my skepticism,” Jacques said, watching the path of her eyes. “Many Le Gris’s were members of secret societies. There have been many Templars in the line.”

Jacques placed his hand on the small of Eleanor’s back and led her slowly through the crypt. He strategically kept the torchlight away from the sarcophagus nearest the entrance, which belonged to his first wife. Eleanor read the names as they passed, Gerard, Rosaline, Nicholas, Benjamin, Georgette. The tomb at the end of the crypt sat in the very center and was of a medieval style. The lid was a life size sculpture of a huge prostate knight holding his sword. By his long hair and features, Eleanor could already identify him from the portraits she had seen as the crusader knight after whom her Jacques was named.

As she looked down upon the handsome carving, she felt an icy whisper against her ear. She jumped against Jacques, clutching his arm, making him grin down at her. She had been so focused on the knight that she hadn’t seen the open doorway in the wall behind his sarcophagus. It was utterly black inside and chilled air issued from it.

“The crypt descends many levels, some say all the way to Hell,” Jacques told her, aiming the torch at the doorway that led to the lower levels. “The most recent additions are here above ground. They are moved below successively when new tenants arrive. All except for the old Devil here. He’s laid there since the thirteenth century and will still be there when we’re all dust.”

“Why did you bring me here this morning?” Eleanor asked, hugging her arms against the chill and the naturally foreboding feeling of being inside a crypt. “It’s rather morbid, don’t you think? We’re getting married. We’re supposed to be starting our lives together. I don’t want to be surrounded by death.”

“Then we are of the same mind. That’s precisely why I brought you here.” Jacques smiled and took her hand. “I don’t believe in any of that supernatural nonsense that’s been such a topic of late. A grown man has no business believing in ghosts and ghoulies and long-legged beasties, and I don’t subscribe to it. But for you alone, darling, I’m willing to suspend that disbelief long enough to consider your position.”

“Suspend your disbelief?” Eleanor asked, unsure if she should be flattered or offended at the insinuation that her beliefs were silly and childish. “Temporarily enough to convince me to come around to your line of thinking, no doubt.”

“What more could you ask of me? I intend to further your education in a great many ways once you become my wife.” He grinned wickedly, then continued sincerely, “I wanted to bring you here, to what can only be the seat of all the spectral mischief at Wargrave Hall, to make introductions.”

“You mock me?” She pulled back her hand, crossed her arms, and glared at him.

“Perhaps, but not at the moment.” He found her temper amusing, and pointedly plucked her hand back from where she folded it in her elbow over her breast. He laced his fingers through hers, holding her hand tight so she could not retrieve it again. His deep voice echoed eerily in the stone chamber. “Most of the Le Gris’s are laid to rest here – those whose bodies were intact and available anyway, for many died violently or off fighting in faraway lands – and others are merely memorialized. As are their beloved wives and husbands who married into the family.”

“That’s lovely, but I have no intention of taking up residency here for some time,” Eleanor huffed.

“Nor do I, darling.” Jacques kissed her tense hand. “I earned a rather rakish reputation after my first wife died, I was a bachelor and I lived that lifestyle to my fullest. But I was always faithful to my wife when she was alive, and I will be eternally faithful to you. The Le Gris men are unfailingly loyal. It is a family trait that runs strong in us. And all appearances and reputations to the contrary, the Le Gris men have good hearts. Only our enemies need fear us. I tell you this, my beautiful darling, because no Le Gris would harm a member of his family. When you become my wife, you will become part of my family. Even if every ghost from this crypt haunts Wargrave Hall, none will do you any harm.” He looked at her seriously, pulled her close, and kissed her with all the tender passion he promised to give her as a husband. “There is nothing for you to fear from any Le Gris, living or dead. Not now, not ever.”

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The season of the witch swept over the countryside like a wildfire, catching every leaf ablaze in hues of reds, oranges, and yellows. Autumn was the season when those wise in the ways of the old world knew that the veil was thinnest between the spirit and the corporeal worlds, and October was the pinnacle of devilry and witchcraft.

What better season for love to cast its spell over a happy couple on their wedding day?

A little chapel maintained by a friendly parson sat on the edge of the Le Gris grounds. Eleanor found it a fitting enough venue in which to have her wedding. It was an ebullient affair, filled with Jacques and Eleanor’s closest friends and family. In the spring, they would make a showing in London to satisfy those who could not attend their October nuptials on such short notice. Pierre had to be ordered not to dress in mourning garb at what he called Sir Jacques’s second funeral.

All eyes were on Eleanor when she walked down the aisle to give herself fully to the handsome knight. She had never seen him more dashing and resplendent; his hair thick and glossy, his eyes hungry, and his smile easy. She thought it a great pity that no one watched Jacques instead of her. No one would ever believe her if she told them that Jacques’s honeyed eyes glistened wet as she walked toward him; that she caught him hastily wipe some errant moisture from his cheek before taking her hands in his.

The golden hour of an autumn sunset bore witness to the first kiss between man and wife. The guests in attendance clapped and cheered, even if Sir Jacques kissed his bride a bit too passionately for decency. Katrina caught the bouquet, making Theordore’s heart race with anticipation as he pondered the implication. Laughter rang when Count Winchester interrupted the couple’s dance to ask if he could cut in. When Jacques gallantly agreed, the father of the bride pulled Jacques into a dance instead, much to the amusement of all.

Many looks were exchanged in acknowledgement of the ardor the couple shared, which was apparent not only in the way they kissed and kissed during the reception at Wargrave Hall but more so in the way they looked at one another throughout the day and long into the evening.

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Even more so than Sir Jacques wanted his bride’s wedding day to be beautiful, he did everything within his considerable power to ensure her wedding night was magical. He didn’t rush her during the reception, despite wanting to take her right then and there. Although he had not voiced it aloud nor shared it with her, Jacques had made a vow to be a better husband his second time around. He considered himself a good husband, devoted and loyal. He vowed to be those things again for Eleanor, but to also be more romantic and loving. He had learned those were traits that required conscious effort and a bit of labor, and he vowed to make that effort valiantly.

When Eleanor finally inquired of him when they should retire, he swept her out of the reception so quickly that they failed to make all the appropriate salutations. Not that it mattered greatly, the guests had all come to Jacques’s mansion for a long weekend of celebration. At the base of the staircase, he lifted her into his arms as she laughed happily and bounded up the stairs with nary a step impaired. He was such a powerful man that although she was voluptuous, he made her feel light as a feather and tiny in his arms.

At the door to their bedroom, Jacques turned the knob then playfully kicked the door open in homage to the night he saved her life. She had never been inside the bedroom she would share with him, and she was pleasantly struck by its majesty. A welcoming spiced perfume with notes of cinnamon and orange scented the air, and she appreciated the attention to that detail. Eleanor noted the bedroom was not outfitted with electricity, and for this occasion, it was lit only by candles instead of gas lamps. Flickering golden light emanating from dozens of candles illuminated the room. The dancing hue of firelight blended with moonlight streaming in through expansive windows, their heavy brocade drapes tied open. An opulent bouquet of crimson red roses sat on the enormous admiral’s style desk that was positioned near the windows, perfect for Jacques to keep watch over the grounds of his imposing estate while seated behind it. The circumference of the bouquet was so large that Jacques probably could not wrap his arms around it.

The room itself was lavish and decadent with a color scheme of blue and gold. Even the vaulted ceilings were patterned in three-dimensional crown molding. The streaked marble floor was a few shades darker than the marble that formed a grand fireplace and mantle. A blooming fire filled the room with its glow and the soothing sounds of its crackles and sparks. Of course, the centerpiece was the bed. It could have been a trick of the romantic lighting, but the bed looked so large that she suspected Jacques had it built to larger specifications. It was a canopy style with carved walnut pillars. Matching the drapes in form, the canopy, too, was tied open, draping elegantly around the pillars.

While Eleanor’s eyes feasted on every detail and nuance of the room, Jacques strode to his desk. He made quick work of undoing the buttons on his waistcoat as he walked and loosened the cravat at his throat. Shrugging his jacket away from his broad shoulders and following with his waistcoat, he draped both over the back of the leather chesterfield chair that sat behind his desk. He studied the large bouquet as he untied his cravat. With care, he selected the finest scarlet rose he could find and walked to his bride.

Holding the rose out for Eleanor’s approval, he smiled as she leaned forward to inhale its perfume. He stepped closer to her until only inches separated their bodies. Instead of lowering the rose, he brought it to her lips and traced the silky petal over the bow of her pout.

“Did you know roses are my favorite flower,” she asked him, surprised to hear the husky notes in her voice.

“So my spies informed me.” He grinned handsomely. “Do you know my favorite flower? It is one with velvet petals and silky dew that blooms from a skillful touch in the darkest hours of the night.”

“My flower is yours to pluck tonight,” she told him, unable to disguise her nervousness. She was elated, but frightened too, for she knew he must hurt her.

“Are you ready to bloom for me?” He traced the rose down from her lips to her chest and down between her breasts. “I will wait, if you ask it of me. But tell me now, before I get drunk on you and lose all reason.”

She breathed deep the masculine scent of his body so near hers and felt the heat of him. His entire presence steadied her nerves and she swayed toward him, resting her hands on his enormous chest. Her voice was a whisper when she told him, “Make me yours.”

Jacques let the rose fall away and kissed her deep and slow, taking his time and relishing in the feeling of his lips on hers, patiently igniting the fuse of her desire. He moved with the same unhurried deliberate way when he unbuttoned his shirt. Jacques knew he had an impressive physique, and that his chest was one of his best features. In his experience his chest was what women liked best about him. Until they explored lower.

Still kissing her, he took her hands and placed them on its wide expanse. It was she who broke their kiss to push his shirt fully away and admire his broad and powerful torso. She ran her hands over the dense planes and ridges of muscle, feeling it firm as marble under her touch. His pale skin was decorated with a spattering of scars that her fingers found and traced. Jacques didn’t direct her and let her hands wander where she wanted. He was pleased to see how she delighted in his body, and he would use all of it to give her pleasure. A deep groan escaped his throat when her hand skimmed downward, following the line above one of his hips to palm the hard length of him through his trousers.

She clumsily worked his pants open, eager to see what all the fuss was about and if a man’s cock was worth all the curiosity she and her friends devoted to it. She dipped her hand inside his trousers, felt the hard hot length of him, and gasped. She had not expected him to be so large, and a new stab of trepidation hit her when she tried to close her hand around his girth.

“You’re going to tear me apart with this monstrosity.” She meant it to be teasing, but her voice betrayed her nerves.

“I promise my cock will drive you mad once you’re accustomed to me,” Jacques growled, descending into deeper passion. “You are woefully overdressed, darling.”

He turned her somewhat roughly to face away from him and began undoing the laces of her dress. With an effort, he calmed himself, reining himself back from the wild passion of wanting to ravage her senseless. He would take his time, he reminded himself. He was a good lover, and he knew it. His wife deserved his skill and his patience, and romance on her wedding night.

With care, he removed the pins from her hair so it hung down her back in a long auburn wave. He took a fistful of luxurious hair, tugging it in a way he knew gave a woman pleasure and leaned down to inhale its fragrance before attaching his lips to the delicate skin of her neck. While he unlaced her dress and undergarments, he licked and kissed and nipped her until his goatee had rubbed her porcelain skin red and she was mewing like a kitten.

Warm strong hands and long thick fingers caressed her as Jacques pushed her dress down her body and away from her to pool at her feet. Her back arched when his fingers trailed back up her thighs. Pressing her shoulders back against his broad chest, she felt it expand impossibly further as he breathed in her scent, pressing his large nose against her neck behind her jaw while he continued to kiss and lick at her skin. His left hand smoothed up the front of her body to her breast, teasing her nipple until it peaked with arousal. His right hand caressed her thigh, moving almost sneakily between her legs. He was pleased when his fingers slipped through the wet heat that had already collected there.

“You’re dripping for me, darling.” His deep voice thrummed through her entire body down to whirl in her abdomen. She inhaled sharply when he slowly pushed a thick finger into her.

She thought she felt very full, but pleasantly so. He seemed to distract her with those disarming kisses on her neck as he inserted a second finger alongside the first, making her gasp. She had never been so full and felt on the brink of pain. Certainly, the experimenting she had done with her own fingers couldn’t compare to what he was doing to her now. He pumped his fingers slowly and curled them, spreading her open and relaxing her. The initial brief pain had given way to pleasure as his thick fingers stroked against delicious places inside her she didn’t know existed. She moaned again, unable to stop herself, and bucked her hips against his hand involuntarily.

Feeling she was ready to take him, Jacques withdrew his hand, much to her displeasure. He lifted her into a bridal carry only to lower her gently down onto the bed. He shoved his trousers down his muscular thighs and paused beside the bed before joining her on it. Jacques took a lingering moment to admire the sight of his bride laid bare beneath him. He had never seen anything so beautiful; it was as though Aphrodite lay in his bed with long fiery hair splayed out beneath her and bright icy eyes gazing up at him. Her breasts were high and full, her waist tiny and nipped, her ass round and shapely; he thought even her pussy was beautiful, glistening in the candlelight and flushed as pink as a rose with her arousal, a flower blooming for him alone. And she was his. Her flower was his to pluck and keep forever.

“Nothing has ever compared to you,” Jacques purred honestly as he lowered himself over her, planting his hands on either side of her waist.

Dropping his head, he brought his lips to her breast. Lingering on her nipple, his tongue swirled around its peak while he sucked it lightly. He then trailed his mouth slowly down her body, traveling lower with every wet kiss. He paused to grin up at her and meet her eyes as he placed a hot wet kiss to the top of her pussy. Her legs trembled as he lifted them over his shoulders and settled between them. Wanting to taste the nectar of her, he parted her with a swipe of his tongue and kissed at her swollen lips.

“You’re a delicacy, darling,” Jacques groaned into her.

Eleanor had never felt anything like when Jacques licked into her. It was pure bliss, enough to render her incoherent, and he elicited it so easily with the strokes of his ardent tongue. Her hands quickly found themselves tangled in his thick mane as her hips bucked subtly against his face of their own accord. His amber eyes held hers in a burning gaze, only briefly falling shut when he savored the taste of her, as he worked her toward the edge of a chasm of pleasure.

She thought his appearance dangerous and intimidating, which she found deeply desirous. Merely the sight alone, of this dangerous and powerful man with his devilishly handsome face between her thighs, was enough to push her over the precipice. A rush of heat flooded her as she came on Jacques’s hungry lips and ardent tongue. He kissed and licked her ravenously, extending her pleasure as long as he could until her quivering subsided. Jacques gave her a reprieve by kissing her soft inner thigh, looking up at her and smiling proudly as her thighs trembled on either side of his head.

Eleanor felt boneless as he crawled back up her body, moving over her and caging her inside his muscled arms. His weight threatened to crush her when he lowered his body over hers, but she found she liked the feel of his weight on her. She was so lost in a delirious afterglow that she didn’t notice him positioning himself until she felt his thick cock nudge against her entrance. He felt impossibly large, too large. She clawed his back harshly and cried out with pain when he thrust inside her, forceful enough to tear through the resistance of her body with his first firm thrust.

Groaning with pleasure, Jacques seated himself fully inside her then rocked his hips gently and kissed her tenderly, trying to alleviate the pain he knew he caused her. There was nothing for it, she would have to get used to the size of him. Even after he rendered her as limp as a ragdoll and dripping with arousal, he could feel how intensely he stretched her. He had been too large for women in the past, and he was greatly relieved that she could take him even on her first experience. Every muscle in his body was taught with restraint as he forced himself to keep his thrusts shallow and easy, a difficult task when he wanted to lose himself in her. He knew that would be too much for her on her first night as his wife, that she couldn’t yet take him if he went at her with all his unrestrained passion.

He kissed her softly and nuzzled her cheek with his prominent nose until he felt some of the pained rigidity leave her body. He didn’t think he could make her cum again this night, but still he angled his cock in the way he knew would give a woman the most pleasure as he chased his own release as gently as he possibly could. Soon, he felt her moving in time with him and his heart filled with pride. There was still pain, but slowly Jacques built her pleasure up again until the agony from wanting release was more than the deep ache she felt from Jacques splitting her open. With the pain were sparks of pure bliss that shot through her with every thrust.

“Cum for me, darling,” Jacques growled deep and rich, burying his face in her hair. “I want to feel my wife cum all over my cock.”

As if at his command, she came a second time in heady waves of pleasure. An incoherent whine escaped her lips, an unexpected mix of searing pain and exquisite pleasure. Her pleasure bled into Jacques, pulling him over the precipice with her into an abyss of ecstasy. His eyes were crazed with lust, his lips curled in a feral grin, his hair a wild tangle. Jacques threw his head back, looking up at the ceiling like a wolf howling at the moon, similarly groaning long and low as he emptied himself inside her.

As Eleanor’s high subsided, the pain returned with a sharper edge. She felt him soften inside her and the weight of his relaxed body on hers was comforting, as were the soothing kisses he lavished on her neck. Caressing her with his lips, he silently praised and adored her until he finally rolled off her to lay beside her on his back. He pulled her onto his chest and wrapped his arms around her. She had dreamed of being held like this, of resting her head on his pillowy chest. She found the real experience to be far superior to her fantasies.

Raising her head from his chest, she propped herself up beside him and traced a pattern on his skin with her fingernails. His large hand stroked her back gently as he watched her with a soft smile.

“Are you pleased with me?” she asked, although she knew the answer with certainty.

“I realize now that I have never before known either happiness or pleasure until you, my beautiful darling,” Jacques promised with only very slight exaggeration. Smiling up at her, his eyes glimmered in the firelight, shining with reverence and unadulterated love.

As Jacques held her and drifted toward sleep, he began to wonder privately. Pascal’s wager, he remembered her saying. He loved Eleanor fiercely. Fiercely enough to suspend his pride and consider there were things in this world beyond his comprehension. He owed it to her to do his best to be prepared against any threat, corporeal or supernatural. Above all else, a husband’s duty is to protect his wife.

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Now that she was mistress of Wargrave Hall, the new Lady Le Gris resolved to make it her home. No presence, human nor spectral, would get the better of her or make her frightened of her own home. Out of respect for Jacques’s stoic beliefs, or rather, disbelief in all things intangible, she decided she would not burden him with any strange happenings she may see or feel. Everyone had their own demons to battle, after all. The last thing she wanted to be was a meek woman who needed her husband to check under their bed for the boogeyman. She was a strong woman and that is what Jacques had fallen in love with. She would adhere to it.

Most of the wedding guests remained at the Le Gris estate the next day and would stay through the weekend. Which meant the couple had little reprieve from their duties of host and hostess. Jacques had awakened her early on their first morning as husband and wife to attend to their guests, after assuring his new wife that he would love nothing more than to spend the entire day in bed with her. It was a sentiment she shared, although her body needed a reprieve from his attentions. Gallantly, Jacques offered to entertain their guests alone and make appropriate excuses for her so that she could linger later in bed and then enjoy a hot bath in her new master bathroom.

The master bath had an enormous clawfoot bathtub large enough to easily accommodate three normal-size people, or Jacques and another very comfortably. Eleanor looked forward to sharing it with him often. Now, she reclined alone in water that nearly reached her chin, scented with rose-petals and frothed with Parisian soaps. The water was steaming hot, as hot as she could tolerate, fogging the windows and the mirrors. She was brutally sore. Not just in the area she expected to be. Her entire body was sore and in the strangest of places, even in muscles she never knew existed. Her inner thighs ached from clamping tightly around Jacques’s hips and there was a kink in her neck from using his chest as a pillow throughout the night, firmer and thicker than the down she was used to. There were small bruises on her thighs from his fingertips and marks from kisses that were too rough for her delicate skin. She felt thoroughly used, bordering on abused. It was a wonderful feeling.

Reclining in the bath, letting the hot water soothe her aches, it was easy to let her mind wander. She thought her future had never seemed so bright, every possibility laid bare before her like a road made of golden cobblestones. Such thoughts were pleasant for a long while, until she was relaxed and drifting toward that state between wakefulness and dreaming. The bathwater began to cool and as it did, her mind took darker turns. As thoughts often do when one approaches sleep, hers turned toward down an eldritch path. Images danced across her mind in flashes, like glimpsing curious beasts through the trees when walking an unknown trail through the forest.

As a girl, she had loved Grimm’s Fairytales and so she did not think it odd when the image of a young woman perfectly fitting the description of Snow White came into her mind. A woman of around twenty, lithe and beautiful, with skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony walked through an unknown castle-like hall. Eleanor watched her from behind as the black robe she wore whirled in her wake. Then she was inside the woman, seeing what she saw, feeling what she felt. The great hall was crowded, every person wearing the same black robes and masks as well – frightening, hellish masks, like the leering faces of a demonic army. Ahead of her, Eleanor saw through the woman’s eyes an enormous altar covered with a scarlet cloth. And she knew what it was for. She was to submit upon it to someone unknown to her. She knew only that it was the highest honor in this secret order to which her family had belonged for longer than her husband’s family had lived in Wargrave Hall. She forced the thought of her husband from her mind. Tonight, she didn’t belong to him, and he need never be the wiser when he returned from war. The thought of what was to come frightened her, but in a thrilling way. Her heart raced with equal parts fear and anticipation as she approached the altar and the congregation around her began chanting something low and sonorous.

In that omniscient way one experiences dreams and semi-consciousness, Eleanor was aware of her own thoughts and was simultaneously aware of the happenings around her physical body while dreaming, as if she hovered above herself, watching the real world from some astral plane. She saw herself lying in the bathtub, surrounded by the pink glow of morning light from the fogged bathroom window. But she was not alone. A black figure stood in the corner of the bathroom behind her. The figure stood grimly still, looming, lurking, watching over Eleanor. It reached out a hand toward the back of her head. A spindly-fingered, razor-clawed hand with tar black skin.

Panic yanked her back to consciousness. Splashing in the bathwater, she flailed upright instantly, and looked behind her. There was nothing more than an empty corner, brightly lit by morning sunlight. The bathroom looked as peaceful as it should have been. But the air was chilled, as if the morning frost of autumn had crept in through the windows.

Standing from the bath, she looked around more cautiously but still saw nothing. The cold raised goosebumps on her bare skin. Paying the cold and her nudity no mind, she walked through the large bathroom to check every corner, water dripping from her with every step. She saw nothing amiss. The fog on the windows and mirrors had begun to drip down their faces, streaking lines across the glass. There was a tall cheval mirror in one corner, tall enough for the tallest of men to admire himself full-length. Jacques was fond of them. She had seen several through his home, including one in their bedroom. Streaks of moisture dripped down the glass in winding trails.

Slowly, Eleanor walked to the tall mirror. The fog on the glass seemed to melt faster. She stood before the mirror and felt the pinpricks of terror erupt along her spine. Words began to form in the mist of the mirror. They appeared across the glass all at once, in no sequence or pattern Eleanor could discern, as if the spectral hand that wrote them did so in the greatest haste. Eleanor read them as fast as the words appeared in the mist and just as quickly melted away.

Get Away From Jacques

The words appeared across the mirror, one in the upper corner, one in the middle bottom. Jacques appeared dead center. They dripped away nearly as quickly as they appeared. Eleanor should have been terrified, and the impulse was certainly there, but the message angered her more than it frightened her. She would not be scared away from Jacques by anyone, living or dead. She opened her mouth to say as much, but more words wrote themselves in the dripping fog.

Die Inside Wargrave Hall The last word stuck in her mind, instantly carved into her memory. Hell.

As Eleanor read the final word, a green eye met hers out of the mirror. Eleanor startled, a strangled yelp escaping her throat as she jumped back. She collided with a firm presence behind her, and full panic flooded her. A huge hand clamped down over her mouth, stiffing her scream before it reached her lips. Even the green eye in the mirror widened with terror and vanished along with the melting mist that ran down the glass in rivulets.

“This is a compromising position to find you in, darling,” Jacques’s deep, familiar voice rumbled in her ear from behind and his free arm snaked around her waist.

“Jacques?” Eleanor instantly relaxed in his strong embrace, feeling his rigid body against her back. The hand that had covered her mouth ran down the front of her body, lingering on his favorite places. “I’m so glad you’re here. Did you see what was in the mirror?”

“Only my beautiful wife.” His voice was a purr and he ground against her. Judging by the way his cock dug into her, already demandingly hard, he was lost to all else in the world. “I came to fetch you. People are wondering about you, asking if I am already widowed again after the wedding night I put you through.” He laughed at his own dark humor, kissed her neck and steered her back to the bathtub. “Upon reflection, I think they can wait.”

“You didn’t see anything amiss in the mirror?” Eleanor asked again, looking back toward the mirror that now only reflected the image of Jacques embracing her.

“I’ll take your mind off whatever it is you think you saw in the mirror. A wife must sate her husband’s demons before any other.” At the side of the tub, Jacques dipped a finger in the bathwater. “This is far too cold, darling.” He turned on the hot water. Then he bent her over, placing her hands on the side of the tub. He pulled his cock out of his trousers and leaned over her back to whisper in her ear. “Watch the mirror now if you want to see something amiss. I’ll give you a fine show.”

He took her from behind as hot water replenished the tub, giving her new aches and the new sensations and ecstasy that accompanied them. Then, he joined her in the bath and showed her the pleasure to be found by riding him astride. By the time he helped her step unsteadily from the tub, there was no chill in the air nor writing on the mirror, and she was sorer than when she had arisen that morning. However, Jacques was the most ebullient she had ever seen him, and almost too affectionate for propriety, which made her beam with happiness. To say the least, he appeared pleased with and proud of his new wife. She hoped none of their guests would comment on her not making her first appearance of the day until lunch.

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Sir Jacques was not of the species of idle rich men content to grow fat and lazy. It was a source of pride to him to handle his own affairs and not delegate them, as many wealthy men did. Eleanor was pleasantly surprised to learn also that he valued his physique and cultivated it like any other asset. She too made it her prerogative to learn all the matters pertaining to Wargrave Hall and the Le Gris family assets. In reliance on assurances by Count Winchester, Jacques allowed her more leeway in this regard than most husbands would think prudent. Additionally, since Count Winchester was directly involved in Jacques’s most serious business endeavor at present, he would have been hard pressed to deny her. He was pleasantly surprised at her aptitude for such matters, and found in her a confidant and sounding board for business ideas. Not only had she been trained in matters of business by her father as the only heir to his estate, she was also smart as a whip and learned quickly. She had what he considered a decidedly female edge that he had never thought could be an asset in business matters, but he quickly came to accept that she had far deeper insight than him into interpersonal strategic skills. He quickly came to find her observations and insights invaluable.

It was so natural a progression from the object of his desire to a confidant in all other matters, that Jacques didn’t even balk when he realized how suddenly and how deeply he had come to rely on her. When his mind drifted along paths he tried to prohibit – thoughts of the fires in Wargrave Hall, one that had claimed his first wife and another that had almost done the same to his new wife – he found it hard to reconcile the shrewd, rational woman he found in Eleanor with a woman prone to bouts of hysteria or superstition. Many women who believed in the supernatural were hysterical at best, if not suffering far more egregious afflictions of the mind

As husband and wife, they continued the shared ritual of their morning rides. Jacques found he enjoyed them much more when she accompanied him. It was strange for him to think that only weeks before he had valued his solitude above all else, when now he took great pleasure in her company and looked forward to their rides so that he could ensure he had her all to himself. He knew it was out of sorts for a man to find pleasure in a woman’s company outside of the bedroom, yet he relished it. Jacques enjoyed their rides so much that he took it upon himself to convert her into an earlier riser. It was a task that had thus far proven too much for even his hardheaded determination, but he would not admit defeat so easily.

It was a rare morning that Eleanor made it to the stables before Jacques, and he undertook the duty of saddling both their horses. This was one of those rare mornings. Jacques was waylaid in the foyer by some urgent matter between his sons in which he had to intervene to prevent a brawl. In the short time she had lived in the Hall, she understood Jacques and Theodore’s desire to find William a woman who could be a sacrificial lamb to his black temperament. She had already made inroads into matchmaking schemes with several women. Naturally, they were women Eleanor disliked intensely. Instead of dealing with the prospective women directly, she had sent letters to their mothers, who had the ears of their fathers, who in turn could command the girls to marry whomever. It was a delightful bit of conniving against women who she felt deserved it.

Jacques and Eleanor were ambushed at the bottom of the stairs in the front foyer by the squabbling young men. Jacques immediately fell into a gruff exchange with them while Eleanor lingered on the last step from the bottom, watching over Jacques’s shoulder. From her elevated vantage, she was only a few inches shorter than him. Choosing against listening to whatever problems Black Billy was causing that morning, Eleanor pulled Jacques into an open-mouthed kiss in full view of the jealous and surly youth. It was a tactic that she knew irked Black Billy beyond any verbal barbs she could sling at him, and it had the added benefit of ensuring Jacques didn’t forget that he was making her wait while dealing with the petty drama unfolding between his adult sons. She stroked Jacques’s chest then flashed Black Billy a venomous little smile, trotted down the stairs and away down the foyer, leaving the warring men to each other.

It was a cool October morning with grey clouds hanging low and mist swirling over a landscape tinged with the colors of autumn. A breeze nipped at Eleanor’s cheeks, making her pull tighter the coat Jacques had given her, charcoal grey wool trimmed with mink and quite warm. Outside the stable, a pair of ravens pecked at the ground and watched her approach. There was always scattered grain around the horses and, of course, quality feed year-round, making the stables a great draw for birds. Ravens were a dominant presence around the Hall and particularly near the stables. Once Eleanor had gotten used to them, she found she enjoyed their dark presence hovering near like watchful spirits. They were intelligent birds and remembered who treated them kindly and who did not. Despite Jacques’s protests not to encourage them, she would always throw a handful of grain out for the ravens when she went for a ride. They hopped and chirped excitedly when they saw her coming. The birds would occasionally hiss at Jacques when he tried to shoo them away, and they particularly hated Black Billy, who would throw stones at them.

The horses were restless, stomping and snorting inside their stalls. Eleanor caught her horse and led him out to saddle him. The horse was on edge and spooky, blowing and prancing sideways. His eyes rolled back white when he saw three ravens hopping on the ground at the stable entrance, cawing animatedly. Eleanor tried unsuccessfully to calm him and resigned herself to saddle him with difficulty while he danced in place and fought his tether. It was rare for him to behave so strangely. He was a high-spirited animal, but not flighty or easily spooked.

Outside the stables, the clouds were growing darker and denser. It would be storming by midday. But there was still ample time for their morning ride. Five ravens watched her from the stable entrance. The ravens cocked their heads from side to side curiously. She tried to shoo them away, for they appeared to be bothering her horse. They ignored her. A pair of them hopped inside, perhaps out of the building wind. Her horse reared, yanking back on his tethered reins.

On the coldest day autumn had yet seen that year and with a building storm, it wasn’t unusual for horses to act more unruly than normal. A drop in temperature and an imminent storm almost ensured horses would act more hot-blooded than any other time. It was to be expected.

She went to Jacques’s horse, who was even more agitated and kicking at the walls of his stable. He responded to her long enough for her to bridle him, but he lunged by her through the stable door, knocking her against it. It took all her strength to rein him in enough to tie him off and saddle him. By the looks of him, he had been in a dither for some time. His dapple-grey coat was darkened with sweat to the color of tarnished silver and there was white foam between his legs. His nostrils flared red and his eyes rolled white as he snorted and stomped and shook his head. He was far more agitated than could be accounted for by the temperature drop. If she didn’t know the animal, she would have questioned his mind.

A commotion at the stable entrance drew her attention. She thought Jacques had finally come to join her. Instead, she saw more ravens. A whole conspiracy of them. They stood at the entrance in a black line, several ravens deep, hopping and flapping their wings, cawing loudly. The horses were very troubled now, fighting their leads and watching the ravens frightfully. Eleanor waved her hand belligerently at them and shouted to scare them away, but they were unbothered by her posturing. Two lead birds hopped closer to her down the stable aisle. One held something in its beak, but she couldn’t make out what it was.

“Eleanor!” Jacques shouted from outside. His heavy bootsteps could be heard as he approached. From the sound of his stride and his tone, he was in a foul mood after his dealings with Black Billy. “What are you doing with all these damned ravens?”

“I haven’t done anything!” she called back over the cacophony of ravens cawing and horses snorting.

“I told you not to feed the bastards!” Jacques replied angrily. “Will you never learn to listen to me? A husband is entitled to some obedience from his wife.”

“You married wrongly for that, handsome,” she called back, trying to make light, but it was difficult while in the midst of an unruly menagerie. The leading pair of ravens hopped down the stable aisle toward her more quickly, seemingly with purpose, the lead bird still holding something in its beak.

Jacques came into view outside. He waved his arms and shouted at the birds, trying to scare them away without success. He kicked aggressively at the nearest one, which only narrowly avoided his boot by taking flight. It perched on the top of the stable and hissed down at him belligerently. Jacques would not tolerate a treachery of ravens blocking his path into his own stable. He drew the pistol he carried on his belt when they went riding, aimed it at the ground near the bird closest to him, and fired. The shot was deafening in the still morning, the bullet kicking up dirt in front of the birds, sending a clear message of intent. In an explosion of black, they burst from the ground and took flight. But they didn’t fly far. Most of them settled on the stable roof or in the nearest trees, looking down at Jacques, hissing and cawing their displeasure at him.

Jacques entered the stables like he was marching to war, his lips set in a thin line, his jaw clenched, and eyes burning. His bearing alone frightened the horses even more.

“Let’s pass on our ride today,” Eleanor said as he walked to her side. “If this business with the ravens isn’t unsettling enough, the horses are acting terribly. Besides, there’s a storm coming and I’d rather not be caught out in it.”

“I’m not going to be scared out of our ride by a flock of blasted birds my wife has overfed to complacency. And I know you’re not afraid of a spirited ride, darling.” Jacques winked at his innuendo, making an effort to recover his good humor. He took the reins of his horse and slapped the beast’s neck harshly, enough to get his attention but far from enough to hurt a thirteen-hundred-pound animal. Jacques addressed his horse, “Best behave, I’m in no mood for an argument from you too.”

Even with Jacques’s warning and his aggressive demeanor, his horse tried to bolt as soon as he was untied. Jacques had to yank back on the reins to bring him under control, which only served to incense Jacques’s temper. The wind had picked up, blowing Jacques’s hair around his face when he led his horse out of the stables. Eleanor followed, leading her own nervous horse. Ahead of her, the dapple-grey swished his tail and wrung it round in circles, his haunches bunched. Jacques led him to the place they usually mounted, a clear area free of obstacles in front of the stable.

As Eleanor passed beneath the stable awning, something fell down from above in front of her face. She looked up first and her eyes met dozens of little beady black ones shining back at her from the ravens on the roof. They cocked their heads and looked at her with some unknown intent. She looked at the object that had fallen just in front of her feet. It looked like a sprig of lavender, luscious purple blooms on a green stem. Curiously, she picked it up and smelled it. It wasn’t lavender. Her horse reared, but she let him yank away from her and bolt. Her attention was elsewhere.

Jacques raised his long leg to mount his horse. The animal watched him with wild, white-rimmed eyes. Eleanor shouted a warning as she whipped off her grey coat and shook it at Jacques’s horse, snapping it at the animal’s sensitive nose. The horse reared in fright and jumped sideways, away from Jacques, who only had one foot in the stirrup. Off balance and with no hold, Jacques was knocked over backward, sent sprawling on the cold ground in a tangled heap of long limbs and vigorous expletives. Jacques’s horse bolted away, wringing his tail and bucking as he ran. Eleanor ran to Jacques as he pushed up from the ground.

“What the hell are you thinking, woman?” Jacques barked at her, yanking his arm away when she tried to help him up. He stood and dusted himself, glaring at her.

He was interrupted by a loud squeal from his horse, who was now halfway across the paddock. The horse was crazed, bucking and kicking and squealing as if he was surrounded by a swarm of bees. The ravens cawed excitedly, watching the spectacle. Jacques and Eleanor were equally transfixed. The horse bucked so hard he started to sunfish, turning his belly up toward the sky like a fish dancing on a line, twisting and contorting in a way that would have unseated the best equestrian. Then he paused, shook his head, and began to rear, pawing at the sky with his front hooves. He reared several times, the last so high that he fell over backward onto his back. From where they stood, they heard a crack like a gunshot when the wooden tree of Jacques’s saddle broke under the horse’s weight. It was one of the best ways to get killed on a horse. The horse rolled to his feet and bolted again, this time running straight through the wooden four rail fence without check. The fence shattered around him, sending splinters flying like grenade shrapnel, but the horse ran free uninjured.

Jacques and Eleanor watched in silence. If he had been on the horse through that escapade, he would have been a skilled enough rider to stay mounted long enough to get seriously injured, if not crippled or killed. Eleanor handed him the purple sprig. She had recognized it instantly, memories flooding back of the many times she had burdened her father’s veterinarian with hundreds of questions. It was a plant that was particularly toxic to horses.

“Astragalus. Locoweed,” she said. The ravens cawed in approval. “It makes horses go mad.”

She went off to recapture her own horse, who appeared similarly affected. She needed to work fast on both of them and try to flush the toxin from their systems, or the effect of the poison would be permanent and the horses would have to be shot.

Anger boiled inside Jacques as he looked at the pretty-colored plant in his hand. This was no ghostly occurrence. A hand of flesh and blood was behind this mayhem. The thought of an unknown man attacking him and his beloved wife in their home set his temper ablaze. Jacques would tear him apart, limb from traitorous limb. He craned his neck to look up at the dozens of ravens who watched him from the stable roof like a congress of little demons, and for the first time he doubted his own reason. A human culprit was behind this, of that he was entirely certain. But now, he was not entirely certain that there were no other forces influencing the happenings at Wargrave Hall.

A raven squawked at him, an utterance that sounded very much like Beware.

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Soon after, Jacques had business in London and his new wife missed her best friend, so he combined both errands. While Eleanor and Katrina enjoyed tea together, Jacques met Pierre at their gentlemen’s club, The Reform Club.

A light haze of smoke drifted through the club and tones of exclusively male conversation filled the room. Pierre had secured them a corner table where they could speak of delicate matters privately. Jacques leaned back in a soft leather chair and crossed his long legs. Even after their lengthy discussions on what they had deemed the ‘Bombay Problem,’ Jacques still wanted another drink before coming to the main thrust behind his meeting with the count.

“I’m sorry to say you’re looking well. I’d hoped you were suffering tremendously, ready to send the ball and chain off to a tower somewhere and resume our philandering.” Pierre leaned forward to light the new cigar Jacques put between his lips. “She must be working her rejuvenating magic on you.”

“I’m straddling the line of being well-fed by her affections and worked to the bone by them,” Jacques said and blew a ring of cigar smoke. “My back has ached since our wedding night."

“How’s married life the second time around?” Pierre talked to pass the time. He knew Jacques well enough to know there was some weighty matter percolating in his mind. “Still full of bliss? Or has the terrible and inescapable reality of it settled in yet?”

“It’s better than I remember.” Jacques grinned genuinely. “Or perhaps I’ve chosen better this time. Being a husband suited me the first time, but I am fonder of it now. The good is better and the bad is lesser.” He laughed to himself at a private thought. “Although, the little woman has one hell of a temper.”

“That’s an example of the good being better, is it?” Pierre teased.

“It’s well worth it, I assure you. Her hot temper presents itself in a myriad of ways that are very much to my benefit,” Jacques said with pride. “She’s a slave driver. I probably have some marks like any other beast of burden.”

“So, take a week to recover,” Pierre suggested helpfully. “Come visit me. I’ll see to it you’re nicely pampered by some gentler ladies.”

“I’m a married man,” Jacques laughed at his friend’s transparent attempt. “You’ll simply have to pine over me like so many despondent ladies.”

“Hopes dashed again!” Pierre exclaimed and slapped the table with comic theatrics. “Here, I’d hoped that you wanted to meet to discuss some form of gallivanting. Alas…”

“I’ve come to discuss far more distasteful matters.” Jacques grimaced at the taste of the words on his tongue. “I’m ready to capitulate to a goddamn séance at Wargrave Hall.”

“You’re not leading me on?” Pierre asked excitedly, leaning forward across the table.

“Sadly not,” Jacques grumbled sourly. “I’m only allowing it for the sake of my darling wife.”

“Oh, are we going to try to convene with all the evil spirits in your home? Wives and whatnot included?” Pierre prodded Jacques with his finger, physically ribbing him.

“I think it’s all a load of manure, as you well know. Lunacy! Contagious lunacy, at that.” Jacques glared at Pierre. “But Eleanor is convinced there’s something amiss in our home. A séance might be the best way to show her it’s all hokum. I want you to put your best foot forward. Do all the inane little rituals you do and give it your best effort. I want to give her a chance to say and ask whatever she wants – and see that nothing’s there to answer from beyond the grave. Give it the old college try, as it were.”

“But what if something does answer?” Pierre asked more seriously. “I tell you, old friend, it’s not just hokum.”

“Now, look here,” Jacques leaned over the table, resting his elbow on it and waving a large finger at Pierre. “I’m doing this to calm her, to set her mind at ease. To make her comfortable in her new home. Do you hear me? I don’t want any damned antics or theatrics. Understand? And no loose women, for Chistsakes.”

“I’m insulted and appalled that you think I, of all people, would be prone to antics, theatrics, or keeping the company of loose women.” Pierre covered his heart with his hand, looking deeply offended. Then he smiled lewdly. “But I must know how she persuaded you. I’d like to hear all the details of what tactics your blushing bride had to employ on that front. Do tell!”

“She hasn’t even asked it of me,” Jacques replied solemnly, with the attitude of a commander riding off to a hopeless battlefield. “Caring for her is my duty, as is protecting her. That duty isn’t obviated because I don’t like what it entails.”

At the thought of caring for his wife, he hastily drew a large pocket watch from his inner jacket pocket – her wedding gift to him. Flipping open the beautifully engraved gold hunting case, he checked the time and saw he was late to pick her up from tea. As soon as he could take his leave of Pierre with a hasty goodbye, he hurried out of the club. At first, he wished he didn’t look quite so much like a man who was so eager to please his wife and loathe to upset her. There were terms for such a man, all of them highly unflattering. Then, he grinned to himself and stood straighter. When had Sir Jacques Le Gris ever wanted to hide his nature nor given a damn about the opinions of lesser men?

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All Hallow’s Eve fast approached and Sir Jacques wanted to get the ludicrous business of seances over and done so that it didn’t corrupt the winter holidays. He found winter the most peaceful time of year, when a man had the fine excuse of cold and snow to stay inside and enjoy his woman in front of a fire. He was already plotting how he would keep certain rooms a bit colder than usual so Eleanor would seek out his warmth and invite his arms around her all the more.

Shortly before All Hallow’s Eve, Sir Jacques and Lady Le Gris hosted their closest friends for a long weekend of what Count Pierre called his ‘dark delights.’ Pierre and Katrina were the only outside guests invited, for it would not do to have word of such happenings spreading far and wide. Jacques assumed Pierre would bring a woman along to keep him company. He brought two. He represented that the pair of blonde twins were adepts at the occult, a medium and a psychic. Jacques suspected their true talents lay elsewhere.

Count Pierre presented his guests as Mirabelle, who was the medium, and her sister Giselle. They were barely distinguishable, both pretty and petite with the physique of ballerinas. Mirabelle was one of Pierre’s favorite ladies on his rotation. She had earned his favor many times over outside of the bedroom, which was a rare feat. He was most impressed when she allegedly used her mystical powers to rid him of his first shrewish wife in a boating mishap. He was convinced she could hold counsel with the dead. Moreover, he was endeared by her willingness to share him with her twin sister and how she turned her second sight away from his other frivolous pursuits. He vowed to marry her one day. Although, he never said when that day might come.

Pierre was ecstatic for the happenings he had tried to engineer for years. He knew that a bit of fright and excitement were just the tonics to have his two ladies grasping for a strong manly arm to hold. His excitement was nearly matched by that of Eleanor and Katrina, who had both experienced brushes with the supernatural. However, it was known by all that the extent to which any of them could indulge in occult rituals was limited. Jacques had made a great concession by allowing a séance, but it would push the bounds of his indulgence to suggest convening with the dead every night of the long weekend.

The group of friends and family gathered the first night after dinner in Jacques’s study, smoking cigars and downing drinks, genuinely enjoying one another’s company long into the night. Jacques had a lifelong friend in Pierre and he saw the same in Eleanor and Katrina. He knew if Theodore had his way, Katrina would soon be a member of the Le Gris family as well. Jacques hoped for the sake of both women’s friendship that his son didn’t bungle it. If only the times weren’t progressing so fast, for Jacques could no longer simply approach the young lady’s father and make an offer of marriage the man couldn’t refuse on behalf of his son. It was a dreadful thought that his son’s matrimonial success hinged on his own charm, which was budding gracelessly at best.

“Is this not the finest of all the seasons,” Pierre pontificated with drunken profundity, waving a half-full glass of whiskey. He ran a finger down Mirabelle’s diaphanous sleeve. “It’s when the veil is thinnest, you know?”

“The veil?” Theodore asked with a laugh. “Your mind is never far from women’s undergarments, is it?”

“The veil is that which separates the world of the living from the dead,” Katrina said, hooking her arm through Theodore’s. “Now is when the veil is especially thin.”

Pierre narrowed his eyes at the woman for upstaging his presentation, which Jacques watched with amusement and teased, “It’s been a downhill slide for us men since we allowed the ladies into University, has it not?”

“Yes, well, that travesty should serve to teach us gents to be more open minded.” Pierre gave Jacques a stern look. “Even in all those things we may normally find unnatural.”

“I’m here, am I not?” Jacques spread his arms wide. “Welcoming the unnatural into my home. I’m as determined to try to see through the veil as if it was the chemise of my beautiful wife.”

“The thinning of the veil begins with the fall equinox and endures until the winter equinox,” Black Billy added with interest, earning a baffled look from Jacques at his knowledge in such matters.

“The very best time for a great many occult enterprises,” Pierre added enthusiastically, catching William’s eye as he did. “If ever a spirit is going to speak to us from beyond, it is now. We’ve timed it well.”

“As if the damned ghosts aren’t nosy enough already,” Jacques added good-humoredly. “Banish them from our bedroom and bath at least, won’t you?”

“A little company in the bedroom can liven things up on occasion,” Pierre teased, looking between his two female guests.

“Livening things up has never been a failing of mine.” Jacques winked at Eleanor. “Is it, darling?”

“No, no, I forbid this romantic nonsense,” Pierre said loudly enough to cut across the newlyweds. “You’ve the rest of your lives for such frivolities. We are gathered here this weekend for mayhem and merriment! I shall not allow the evening to end without some sport.” He looked from one woman to the next. “What shall it be, ladies?”

A round of discussion on the topic of festive games ensued among the ladies. It was settled easily when Katrina asked Theodore, “What game will you win as my partner?”

“I’m the family champion at charades,” he answered proudly. “My team always wins.”

“That sounds like great fun,” Eleanor agreed, forcing Jacques to concur. “Let’s have folklore for our topic. Any character from fiction or legend. All those gorgeously frightful stories we all love.”

“Yes, any character or creature,” Katrina added. “But since it is nearly All Hallow’s Eve, we must make them born from horror. No Mr. Darcy’s or Edmond Dantes.’”

Everyone wrote a few names down on small pieces of paper that they folded and placed into an obliging tophat Jacques had in his study. They divided into teams of two, each comprised of one amorous couple, which left Giselle and Black Billy paired together. Eleanor generously volunteered her husband to go first. She was pleasantly surprised to see him undertake his role with enthusiasm. Jacques drew a piece of paper from the hat and read the name as he stood for a moment before the group in the center of the room, hands on his hips, pursing his lips in thought. Decided on his presentation, he held up one finger indicating one word. Then, he bared his teeth in a snarl and leapt at Eleanor where she sat on a couch with Katrina and Theodore. He attacked her neck with playful bites and kisses as she vainly tried to push his heavy weight off her. It took her several moments to stop laughing long enough to correctly identify him as a vampire. He decided playing a vampire was a fine excuse to seek out her neck throughout the evening.

Jacques’s vampire was followed by Pierre, who replaced Jacques in the center of the room after drawing his answer. An empty mug lay on Jacques’s desk. Pierre extended his arms straight out in front of him and lumbered stiffly around the room until he came to the desk. He pointed at the mug and put his hand to his ear, indicating ‘sounds like.’

Leaning close to Eleanor, Jacques whispered in her ear, “It seems our medium cannot take a simple hint. It rhymes with stein.”

“One would think you two were the married couple,” Eleanor teased. “But is he the doctor or the monster?”

Mirabelle shook her head in confusion at the hint, but correctly answered, “One word,” when Pierre held up one finger. Pierre tapped his nose for ‘correct’ and then pointed at his crotch with an inane grin. Mirabelle’s brow furrowed in thought. Then, she clapped her hands and exclaimed, “Frankenstein!”

“Right you are,” Pierre applauded her.

Eleanor whispered to Jacques, “Don’t tell me he calls his dick Frankenstein?”

“Wishful thinking on his part. Remember, Frankenstein is eight feet tall.” He grinned, as Eleanor rolled her eyes and shook her head.

Pierre draped his arm over Mirabelle when he returned to his seat beside her, remarking, “How I’d have loved to have been at old Lord Byron’s party that gave birth to both of those stories. I’d wager even I could learn a thing or two about debauchery.”

Eleanor surmised Katrina had confided some of their shared experiences when Theodore did his best impression of the Crooked Lady for his turn, holding his arms cocked over his head and shuffling across the room. Although there was nothing sinister about the young man, both Katrina and Eleanor were reminded of the creature they had seen long ago, stalking them from a moonlit garden. Not to be outdone by her partner, Katrina indicated two words. She mimicked a terrified woman running from something, shielding herself from an attack. Theodore made the first guess at Jack the Ripper, but everyone agreed that since he was purportedly real, he did not meet the criteria of being a creature of folklore or fiction.

“He’s a myth perpetuated by the bobbies,” Pierre argued in support of Theodore.

“At least you can say for him that he will be remembered,” Black Billy added with relish. “How many men can say as much?”

“I’d like to meet Jack alone in an alley like the women he preys upon. I wouldn’t give him the courtesy of using a knife to rip him apart,” Jacques said before Theodore correctly guessed Katrina’s character as Spring-Heeled Jack, a black-clad creature with metal claws and red eyes who likewise preys upon the women of London.

Black Billy took advantage of his hated moniker and with a few canine growls, led his teammate Giselle to identify his character as the fearsome black demon that took the form of a black dog or mule, and who, according to legend, heralded doom and bad fortune. Eleanor made similar advantage of her dark red hair, using it to lead Jacques to guess her draw of Red Cap, the foul monster who prowled the countryside in search of bodies left from war so he could soak his cap in their blood. If Red Cap could not find already dead men, he was happy to create his own crop of corpses.

The turn came again to Jacques, who was now in high spirits and genuinely enjoying himself. With pride, he announced to the room, “I’ve drawn well. This round is in the bag. Married couples have an unfair advantage. I know what my wife’s been reading.”

Taking center stage in front of the couch and chairs, Jacques pulled the collar of his black jacket up as high as he could and hunched down behind it until only his aurous eyes and arched eyebrows peeked above. He comically thrust his hips, mimicking riding a horse while swinging an imaginary sword.

“He’s right!” Eleanor laughed. “I just read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and I would know the Headless Horseman anywhere. Although, I picture him to be a bit less ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous?” Jacques huffed playfully. “I’d best that headless bastard on his finest night.”

“Best him at what, pray tell?” Eleanor asked, cocking an eyebrow. “Riding or swordplay? That match would make for quite a sight.”

“Or giving head, perhaps?” Pierre added lewdly.

“Only my darling wife can attest to my talents there.” Jacques winked at her.

“I’d prefer you stay in character as the vampire over the horseman,” Eleanor said coyly.

“As you wish, my love.” In a lively mood, Jacques took Eleanor’s hand and pulled her up from the couch. He made a show of retrieving his pocket watch, flipping open the engraved gold case, and looking aghast at the time. “This vampire needs to take his bride to bed before I burst into flame with the sunrise.”

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Before joining their guests for the séance the following evening, Jacques capitalized on the goodwill this concession had earned him from his wife. Though his temper was much subdued after vigorously enjoying her, he was still far from eager for the nights’ events. As they redressed inside their bedroom, Eleanor stood in front of him while he relaced her corset a bit too roughly behind her. She turned to face him and pulled some thick ebony strands of his hair free from his collar then adjusted his silk cravat. She had chosen a burgundy cravat for him that contrasted handsomely with his black waistcoat. He glared over her head at nothing, burning a hole into the wall, chewing his lip.

“I marvel at how lucky I am to have the strongest, bravest, most loving husband,” Eleanor gushed playfully. “I think you’re the most handsome man in the world. Except when you’re sulking.”

“I’m not sulking. I never sulk,” he said sulkily.

“You mustn’t look more frightening than the ghosts,” she teased. “If you scare them off, we will have no success at all and we’ll have to try again.”

Jacques grumbled and, choosing to make fun of himself for her amusement, gave her a wide, grimacing smile. He offered her his arm and led her down to the library, for that was the room Pierre and Eleanor had decided together would be the best setting. Jacques had mandated only that it be a room without electricity. Should there be fire sprouting from the walls or explosions of light, he didn’t want yet another debate over the wretched electricity.

The room glowed warmly, lit by dozens of candles. The library was naturally filled with strange shadows cast in various nooks and crannies. If there were spirits in the mansion who were attached to objects, as Pierre said was only natural for them, there were three prime locations for such spiritual anchors. The dungeon, which was far too cold and dreary. The fourth floor, but it was dusty and now also smelled of smoke and acrid burnt wiring. Filled with books and artifacts from almost every person who had lived and died in Wargrave Hall going back to its inception, the library seemed the logical setting.

Portraits of several long-dead members of the Le Gris family hung on the walls, their oil eyes keeping a gleaming watch over the assembly of guests. One large portrait was of a darkly handsome man in a military uniform with a brilliant red coat, cream trousers, and knee-high black boots. It was Sir Nicholas Le Gris, Jacques’s father who had been a war hero, instrumental in the victory at Waterloo. He was older when he settled into the role of husband and father for the second time, the marriage that had produced his only surviving son. The family he began in his twenties all met with tragedy, necessitating him to try again for an heir.

A fire roared inside a cavernous marble fireplace. Above the mantel was a newly painted portrait of Jacques and Eleanor. It was done in a more modern style that Jacques thought too casual but Eleanor loved. She had commissioned an artist unknown to him, John William Waterhouse, a twitchy little man with a bushy beard. Jacques intensely disliked him at once. However, even Jacques couldn’t argue that his talent was profound. In the painting, the couple strode arm in arm through a garden aflame with an autumn palette. They looked at one another adoringly, both their features and expressions astutely captured by the artist in lush and almost loving detail.

Refreshments to suit every taste populated a console table against the wall, including a few specials for the occasion. Theodore held a snifter of smoky green absinthe and Pierre was indulging in one of his favorite delicacies, coffin liquor. Jacques found the substance obscene and strictly forbade the harvesting of any from the Le Gris family crypt, but Pierre had brought some from his private collection. He thought it the best way to prepare for a séance by putting one foot in the door to the underworld. Eleanor curiously eyed the coffin liquor. It looked like watery apple cider with a likewise darker pulp that had settled at the bottom of Pierre’s glass. Jacques threatened to never kiss her again if she drank any.

A circular table had been set up in the center of the library with chairs set for the eight participants. Its surface was lit by three long taper candles. Centered on the table was a weathered spirit board with the look of age about it and the feel of having been touched by the other. A pointed hexagonal quartz crystal rested on the board, an item spirits could use to point out letters and form messages. Although the room was pleasantly lit and filled with good friends, there was an ominous air about the table. The spirit board was a presence in itself. A presence that even Jacques’s defiant senses acknowledged in some creeping way, the same way they often gave him a feeling of being watched when he knew he was alone.

The last couple to join the table, Jacques held a chair out for Eleanor, then took his seat beside her. He sat across from Pierre, who was straddled on either side by a blonde twin. Katrina sat between Eleanor and Theodore, who had Mirabelle the medium on his other side, and William sat grimly between Giselle and his father. Jacques squeezed Eleanor’s thigh and rested his hand there, glaring at the board with surly skepticism. Eleanor whispered animatedly to Katrina before they began. Whereas Pierre’s interest in the occult was secondary to the effect it had on women, Eleanor and Katrina both had a deep-seated interest in the mystical since they had gotten their first unforgettable taste as children. They had devoured every book on the subject, including Pierre’s mysterious Book of Pentacles. By now, they very likely knew even more than Pierre and his blonde twins.

Pierre clapped his hands, commanding the attention of the table, “Are we ready to see what the spirits have to tell us?”

Everyone assented eagerly, save for Jacques, who grunted noncommittally. Eleanor leaned in close to him, ran her fingernails tantalizingly up his thigh, and whispered in his ear, “You agreed to this, now play along. Stop acting like a petulant little boy who doesn’t want to eat his vegetables. Don’t you want me disposed to reward you later?”

“Yes, darling.” He gave her an exaggerated smile and sat up straighter.

Theodore smirked at the way his father sat like a trained circus lion on a podium under the whip of his wife’s tongue. He remarked to Katrina, “I’m going to start calling Eleanor the Lion Tamer.”

“Appeasing is not the same as taming,” Jacques said but couldn’t help smirking at the barb. He rolled his eyes when Eleanor played up the image and affectionately ruffled his black mane.

“Let us begin,” Pierre announced. “Before Jacques adds more impertinent young ghosts to the house.” He adopted a somber tone and continued, “Everyone join hands. And remember now – this is serious – no one must break the circle until the séance is complete. It’s a matter of protection. A séance must be closed properly.”

Jacques scoffed while everyone else nodded.

Pierre looked at Jacques sternly, a very rare expression for him, and told him seriously, “Hear me, old friend. At this table, I outrank you. I am in charge and you will do as I say, or you could bring harm down upon us all. I must be able to command the spirits without you interfering.”

“We’re commanding them now?” Jacques asked with a grin. “Why don’t we just command them all to go back to hell and be done with it?”

Eleanor kicked him under the table and Pierre chided in a paternal tone, “The spirits do not conform to our rules. Tonight, we must play by theirs. You can choose to play along with the proper etiquette and do as I say, or you can choose to sit outside the room like a problem child. Spirits can see our thoughts, project our emotions, act out our demons. It is imperative that our minds stay clean of negativity and that none of us, Jacques, provoke the spirits.”

Though Pierre would conduct the séance, as a medium, Mirabelle would be the conduit through which any ghosts could communicate. Neither of them had ever encountered a spirit strong enough to manifest physically nor converse audibly with the living, but they could communicate through Mirabelle. They may whisper in her ear things that no one else could hear or put thoughts directly into her mind. Sometimes, a spirit might even possess her. She had been possessed by a succubus, or so she had alleged, during the séance Jacques had attended with Pierre when she had made quite a spectacle indeed. Pierre had given Jacques an exceptionally scandalous recounting of the aftermath and how he came to refer to certain female secretions as ectoplasm.

“Join your hands and open your minds,” Mirabelle said firmly. She needed her own hands for the work she would do, but she instructed Theodore and Pierre to rest their hands on her shoulders to complete the circle. Jacques kissed Eleanor’s hand before lacing his fingers through hers. Trying to follow his father’s lead, Theodore did the same with Katrina, earning an eyeroll from her. Mirabelle placed a notepad and pencil on the table in case she needed to transcribe any messages from beyond the grave. She guided them through a few deep, calming breaths and placed her hand on the hilt of the quartz. Giselle put on quite a show with the breathing, her bosom heaving deeply, until she achieved a trance-like state with vacant eyes.

“Let us begin,” Mirabelle said and closed her eyes. She muttered an indecipherable chant to herself, barely audible above a murmur. With heightened awareness, Theodore thought he saw the candles flicker more than usual and Pierre was certain he felt a slight chill on the air. Eleanor and Katrina exchanged looks. They felt nothing like the disturbances they had experienced when playing with a spirit board as children, nor like any of the haunting sensations they had felt in the mansion. Tension made each minute drag long and the anticipation was agony as minutes upon minutes passed with nothing happening. Jacques caught Eleanor’s eye and made an expression of terminal boredom, which did not amuse her.

Jacques was convinced of the theatrics of the proceeding when Mirabelle’s eyes rolled back to white and she began to tremble. Jacques barely restrained himself from giving a hearty eyeroll. He would have to ask Pierre if she acted so artlessly in all settings.

“We are not alone,” she said in a rasping voice that was a far cry from her sonorous feminine lilt. Jacques coughed to contain a bout of laughter. Mirabelle’s attention shot to him, her eyes still rolled back white. “You joke, Sir Jacques, but what is here with us tonight does not.”

He thought it was an easy guess to assume he was joking in his own head. How could he not be?

“You fight against the afterlife,” she continued, looking at Jacques with those unnerving white eyes. “But you have walked among the dead longer than any of us. You are surrounded by death. Your parents, your brother and sister, your first wife, so many friends who died at war, and countless souls you reaped yourself. You fear the world of the dead. You fear you are cursed to live a life with one foot in it. Cursed to lose all those you love before their time, and have only their ghosts to haunt you.”

Against his will, the hairs rose on Jacques’s arms and a sensation crept up the back of his neck. It was like the sigh of a lover, whispering in his ear with deathly cold breath. He rolled his shoulders to shake it off and gripped Eleanor’s warm hand more tightly. He wouldn’t let this hocus pocus get to him. Eleanor felt him stiffen beside her, and then she felt it too. The air was cooler and far heavier, like the air near the sea as opposed to the air on a mountaintop, but with the chill of a tomb. Something moved between them like a heavy mist, weaving among the people at the table. Theodore’s eyes shot open wide and Katrina inhaled sharply. Eleanor tried to open her mind to any message while Jacques closed his against it. Pierre grinned and Black Billy looked utterly unnerved, more so than any of them, his black eyes wide and searching the room.

Mirabelle smiled sinisterly and croaked in her strange voice. “An ancient spirit haunts this house. He knows his living namesake is troubled and wishes he could ease it. But he says that he cannot do so, that only Jacques can help himself. Only he can help her. Le Gris men must fight for those they love.” She directed a question at Jacques. “Does this mean anything to you?”

“Not a damn thing,” he snapped, refusing to think of Sir Jacques of old. He looked at Theodore and warned him, “Don’t you go feeding her any information.”

“I can see him!” Giselle joined in, her eyes shut tight, seeing with her psychic mind. “He’s tall and frightful.”

The crystal twitched on the spirit board and the air was notably colder. Mirabelle inhaled deeply and shuddered, looking almost as though she was in the throes of ecstasy and continued, “He says you asked him a question when you were a young boy and you saw him in the study. He says the answer to that question is sitting beside you.”

Before he could suppress it, a look of visible unease flashed across Jacques’s features. The message bothered him. He looked at Eleanor. He forced a laugh and scoffed, “Ask the old bastard if he’s the one who’s been scaring my wife. If he was in the bathroom with us the other day, I’d like to have a word with him in private.”

The crystal snaked across the spirit board to No. Mirabelle closed her eyes, looking strained and said, “But he warns you should not be complacent. He says, beware.”

“Of what?” Jacques asked irritably. “Telling a man to beware is not overly helpful.”

“There’s another spirit here,” Mirabelle said. “A woman.”

“She’s beautiful,” Giselle added. “But melancholy and fearful.”

Eleanor and Katrina looked at one another. Theodore stiffened and Jacques bristled. Jacques leaned over the table angrily so that Eleanor had to hold tight to his hand to keep him from breaking the circle. Though the medium’s attention was elsewhere, Jacques commanded her in a dangerously low voice, “Don’t you fucking dare pretend to talk to my first wife.”

Everyone save for Jacques was now enraptured by Mirabelle and the way the quartz jumped under her fingers.

“Who else is here?” William asked, his abyssal eyes glittering.

“Mother, were you murdered?” Theodore interjected.

Jacques shot him a look filled with menacing warning, but before he could respond, Mirabelle’s hand shot up to Yes. A gust of cold air swirled through the room, snuffing out one of the candles.

“Is the person who murdered you here?” Theodore asked again.

The crystal danced on Yes. The extinguished candle whipped across the table as if flung by an unseen hand. It flew between Jacques and William, Jacques ducked his head as it passed close by his cheek. Mirabelle began shuddering again and as if of its own accord, her hand began writing on the notepad with strange halting scratching movements, like something was yanking her hand roughly around the page.

Mirabelle groaned, “There’s so much she wants to tell…”

“Are you trying to scare me away from Jacques?” Eleanor could no longer contain herself and called out, “What was the message you tried to send me in the bathroom mirror?”

Mirabelle’s hand twitched again on the page and started writing in another direction, transcribing a new message.

“Enough of this!” Jacques bellowed at Pierre, but his friend was too engrossed to pay him any mind.

Giselle started whimpering like a frightened puppy, staring with glazed eyes at a far corner of the library, into a black shadowy alcove.

“She has a message for you, Sir Jacques. So, you’ll believe her,” Mirabelle said, her hand flying across the page. “She says you were demanding when you met and wouldn’t wait for marriage, that she was pregnant soon after knowing you. She lost that first child, but you did what was honorable by her regardless before you went off to war. She says you didn’t love her when you married, but that you promised her you would grow to. And you did.”

“I said enough,” Jacques rumbled darkly, his jaw clenching and shoulders bunching. But no one knew his first wife was pregnant when they wed, save for the two of them. Just as no one knew she had lost that first child. He had pushed her hard to submit to him before marriage, but had done what was honorable when they both faced the consequences of his impatience. Ironically, it was the loss of that first unborn child and comforting each other thereafter that had kindled their love. It was a dark secret he had never shared.

“Something else…” Giselle’s voice died in her throat.

Eleanor saw a dark figure move in the corner of the room, as if the shadow itself had come to life. Its features were murky, but its menace palpable. She thought she heard a woman screaming in terror, but it was very faint. Almost as if the voice sounded inside her mind. She knew somehow that it was not only a scream, but a warning of something terrible approaching.

“Another presence has joined us,” Mirabelle said in a quavering tone. “I’ve never felt anything like this.” The color drained from her face until her skin was as pallid as a corpse in a winter marsh. Her shaking grew worse until her teeth chattered. “I can feel Lady Le Gris. I feel what she feels. So much pain. She’s terrified.” Her whole body began to shake uncontrollably as if she was electrified and white froth appeared at the corners of her mouth. “She’s burning again. Fire eating away at her skin. She’s screaming so loud! Don’t you hear her?”

Provoked by the medium’s foul words and the painful memories they brought to the fore, Jacques lost control of himself. Shooting up to his feet, Jacques yanked his hands free and slammed his fist down onto the table with enough force to crack the wood and knock over the two remaining taper candles, sending them rolling across the table. Theodore caught one, but the other candle rolled over Mirabelle’s notepad, catching the paper on fire.

“Jacques, no!” Pierre cautioned and Eleanor tried to hold Jacques’s arm. Katrina patted at the burning notepad, trying to salvage the message Mirabelle had transcribed. Giselle was crying in terror, covering her eyes.

“I’m done listening to charlatans!” Jacques roared. He snatched the spirit board off the table and broke it over his knee, splintering it clean in two. He slung the two halves across the library in opposite directions. He grabbed Eleanor’s upper arm and yanked her up harshly, holding her beside him. “My wife is done with this hoax.”

“He’s coming!” Giselle sobbed shrilly. The shadow swelled in the corner, leaching all the light around it. “My god, he’s coming!”

“He comes now!” Mirabelle shrieked just as a full grand mal seizure overtook her. Mirabelle’s head jerked back and her teeth clacked audibly. Pierre grabbed her behind the neck to steady her. When he brought her head back forward, her mouth was filled with blood from where she had bitten nearly through her tongue. It spilled from her lips mixed with white froth as she seized.

Eleanor wrenched herself free of Jacques’s hold and helped Pierre with Mirabelle. Pierre laid her on the floor and Eleanor turned her head sideways so she couldn’t swallow her tongue and inserted the pencil between her teeth so she couldn’t bite through it.

Eleanor saw Katrina pat the last embers out of the papers and swipe the surviving pieces into her hand to tuck them away. Katrina nodded that they were safe. They looked at each other with knowing trepidation. They hadn’t closed the séance, and now there was no way to do so. Theodore looked bewildered and sought Katrina’s hand for comfort. Even Black Billy was anxious and placed an unsteady arm around the shoulders of Giselle as she whimpered. Holding the seizing medium, Eleanor’s eye caught on a badly singed corner of paper that had flitted down to the floor beside her. The handwriting was poorly scrawled and difficult to read. But she quite clearly saw one scratched word. Hell.

“You’ve gone and done it now, old friend,” Pierre said to Jacques, his voice full of vitriol and notably unfriendly, looking up at Jacques from beside the seizing Mirabelle. Candles still flickered in the room, but it was decidedly darker, as though the shadows at the edges of the light were now darker or had crept a bit closer.

“Done what, exactly?” Jacques asked with a measure of guilt. “Allow a hoax, a goddamn All Hallow’s Eve prank, to go too far? You’re blaming the wrong man for that one.”

“This was no prank, you pigheaded fool!” Pierre shouted, emotion and fear making his voice hoarse. “And unless I’m very mistaken, you, my friend, have just let the evil in.”

*******************************************************************************************

Tagging some haunting beauties!

#adam driver #my stuff!#my writing #halloween #jacques le gris x reader #jacques le gris x you #victorian!kylo #best #fic

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seravphs · 1 year

Text

ੈ♡˳·˖✶ — NANAMI x FEM READER

Nanami Kento’s only sixteen when he kills for you. He’s only twenty four when he dies for you. What was supposed to be his final sacrifice play, a life for life, goes awry when he ends up haunting you.

wc — 13.5k

tags — major character death, jjk typical violence/fights, mild(?) body horror, grief, betrayal, ghost marriage, Gojo my favorite deus ex machina Satoru, title from song of the same name by good dog

There’s nothing worse than standing on the sidelines of a major battle.

Of course, those fighting in the battle might disagree. You’re sure that any number of sorcerers would gladly trade places with you to be in the safety of Jujutsu High. But for you, missing out on watching Nanami fight is agonizing.

You’re the perfect complement to his cursed technique. Where he finds the chink in the enemy’s armor with his 7:3 ratio, you shore up your own defenses. While other techniques are aggressive, prioritizing attacking first and early, your skills are more suited to a war of attrition. In terms of endurance, no one can outlast you besides Gojo, who’s sheer strength simply eradicates all obstacles in his path.

Like Shoko, you’re a special case of sorcerer.

Gojo was rare, prized, and the strongest, but he was anticipated. He was simply stepping into a role that had already been played out over and over again, just by different men. The arrival of Getou, Shoko, and you was what truly rocked the boat. Two special grades in one generation, an innate reverse cursed technique user, and a barrier specialist all in one class - a guaranteed success, if not for the fact that one of you went crazy.

75% was still passing, if just barely.

Though you loved Shoko, Getou, and even Gojo, narcissist that he was, you understood that you would forever be a fringe member of that class. As a trio, there had been no room for another. For a while you were content with that. It was enough just to be counted among them, to be special like they were. No other Jujutsu technique was as well suited to defense as yours, able to fortify the Achilles’ heel of your target. If Nanami could find the perfect opening for a weakness, your talent was to do the opposite.

It was that very talent that had thwarted Getou time and time again, preventing him from entering sacred ground. Jujutsu High was as close as sorcerers could get to hallowed ground. It was their sanctuary, their first home, the place that had nurtured them to become killers so they wouldn’t be killed first. You couldn’t allow it to be desecrated, even by an old friend.

So you stayed, and Nanami went.

The worry was constant, the first few hours. It had been a while since you and Nanami hadn’t been paired together on a mission. Without you, he was simply a first grade sorcerer - nothing to scoff at, but not comparable to even the weakest special grade. With your protection, however, he was a monster. The two of you could achieve special grade status together, whereas apart, you would remain first grade only.

It was a fact that had earned you many a partnership with him on missions that all other special grades were too preoccupied to take. The elders’ budget special grades, if you will. Cheap copies could work just as well, utilized the right way.

But eventually, as it always did, your fear faded to a steady, constant hum behind your rib cage, but no more. You were always afraid for Nanami when he left your sight, since the first day you had met him and become inseparable. As if your techniques had been an indicator, it was like two magnets locking into place.

Nanami has more than earned your trust over the years. He’s survived many missions without you just fine. He made it to first grade status without your technique’s protection in the first place. In many ways, he was the one who protected you. It was how your relationship began.

Years earlier, back when you had been just students, you had been ordered to take Nanami with you to observe how upperclassmen dealt with curses. His patently obvious gratitude that Gojo wasn’t his mentor for this mission was further amplified by the fact that you were the anti-Gojo, the sweet senior. You couldn’t help doting on your underclassman, so uncorrupted by Jujutsu society. You remember when you and the trio had been pure children like that.

No Jujutsu sorcerer was truly pure, child or not. It’s not a curse that threatens to take you out, not with your ridiculously sensitive detection field or your perfect armor. It’s another human, a bounty hunter without a cursed energy signature for you to pick up on. He lunges for your heart, just like another curse user will years later. Nanami cuts him into ten pieces before he reaches you, seven parts sliding left and three parts sliding right.

Nanami killed a man for you when he was sixteen, and the blood shed that day has tied you to his side ever since. The two of you have a bond forged in iron and mutual understanding.

He will always come back to you.

For now, your duty is to make sure he has a place to come back to. If the worst comes, Jujutsu High will be the final battleground. You have no intention of losing an inch of the front line before the last battle even begins.

Not that it will. For all your adoration of Nanami, the truth is, no one can compare to Gojo Satoru. With him on the scene, you’re confident the mess in Shibuya will be cleaned up soon.

Shibuya, October 31st, 9 A.M.

Bad news always comes in battalions. One hour after dawn breaks, the unthinkable happens. Terrible news flies on dark wings from Shibuya to the main campus. Ui Ui lands in front of the morgue in a panic. Black feathers fall around him, a remnant of his cursed technique and an omen all in one.

Gojo Satoru has been sealed.

At first, Shoko merely laughs her dry laugh. She pulls another heavy breath from her cigarette, her voice momentarily raspy before her technique heals any damage almost instantaneously. Smoke wreathes her head like a miserable angel.

Ui Ui does not joke.

With shaky hands, he presents Principal Yaga’s letter. The two of you are the only ones left on campus, deserted by all but dry leaves. There’s no need to read it out loud. Instead, you and Shoko stand shoulder to shoulder as you pore over the writing. No matter how many times you read it, nothing changes.

Somehow, in one day, your world has been completely shattered. It’s like a law of physics has been broken, only more shocking because Jujutsu techniques are prone to ignoring natural law. No, this is more like if you had woken up and been told your entire life had been a hallucination. There can be nothing more real about this than if giraffes were suddenly unicorns because Gojo does not lose, but somehow it’s true.

Gojo is out of commission.

He’s been taken out by Getou Suguru, returned from the dead.

There had been a time when you would have been happy to hear Suguru was alive and well.

Now, you know almost instantaneously who Getou will target first. After Gojo, Jujutsu Society’s strongest line of defense is the sorcerer who can make Jujutsu High untouchable. Getou will burn to ash as soon as he steps so much as a millimeter within the barriers you’ve erected around the campus perimeter.

Immediately, you start plotting, comparing pros and cons, running possibilities. If Gojo’s already out of the picture, you cannot let yourself fall under any circumstances. You’re the campus’ final bastion.

You’re good in a fight. Watching Nanami’s back for years had taught you how to think on your feet, finding and removing potential for injury before the enemy notices. In a tricky situation, you can even use your technique offensively, using your barrier to inflict damage. However, none of this is what you really excel at.

Given adequate preparation, you could build a city with walls that no curse or curse user could penetrate without fear of instant death, and it’s been years. You’ve been working on the campus barrier since your arrival at Jujutsu Tech, letting your power bleed into it a little each year until it had become glutted on a wellspring of cursed energy. It was now so powerful and so well maintained it could run off nothing but scraps for centuries, completely impenetrable.

If this is truly Kenjaku, however, he has you beat in preparation by a few thousand years.

Gojo is your classmate, your friend, but also, as it was so easy to forget, your savior. He was the keystone of Jujutsu society. Without his effortless strength, things feel hopeless.

But even impossible battles must be fought, and you were willing to take it to the bitter, bitter end. From your vantage point on the farthest point of campus as you could get without straying outside of the protection of your barriers, you see your allies start to trickle in from the horizon. Without Gojo to simply teleport people in and out if and when he felt like it, they walk, run, and crawl their way towards safety, chased by mortal danger.

Sometimes you’re close enough to help with a conveniently placed ward. Other times, you pray that someone else is in the right place at the right time. Irritation with the elders and the three clans with their petty power plays wells up within you. If you all want to survive, the sorcerers will have to close ranks. There can be no weakness within when danger looms so close on the outside.

Inumaki gets in first, Yaga half carrying the boy across the threshold before he immediately leaves to find the rest of his charges. Panda and Maki stagger through together. Nanami brings up the rear, rounding up the last few stragglers. Casualties are more than you’ve lost in one year alone. You’re horrified by how thin your numbers are.

All the more reason why your technique is so imperative at this critical moment.

Yaga declares a state of emergency as soon as the immediate community is within the safety of headquarters. All other rogue sorcerers and stragglers, the few who have made it to retirement, those out of the country, and notably, Yuki Tsukumo are to return immediately. War is breaking out.

The loss of Gojo Satoru is a heavy blow to your forces. Thus, the first plan of action is to get him back. It’s a harsh reality, but the truth of the matter is you only have a few real sorcerers left at your disposal.

Yaga is working overtime making new dolls to patrol campus. Mei Mei and Ui Ui are currently your only contacts with the outside. At the moment, they’re trying to locate Hakari and Kirara. Nanami, Utahime, Shoko, Nitta, and Takuma make up what’s left.

Ijichi and Kusakabe were lost at some point during the retreat from Shibuya. You can only hope they’re alive somehow. Then there’s the matter of Yuuji’s curse of an older brother, which no one seems willing to touch quite yet. Yuuji himself seems unsure of how to deal with him.

The children are desperate to be of help, but it doesn’t take Shoko to see how traumatized they already are without taking an active role in the war effort. Survivor’s guilt has its claws in some of them already. The rest have their own little problems.

And Nobara - you swallow down bile.

Nobara is dead.

She was just a girl. Even worse, there’s no time to grieve, though she deserves a proper goodbye. One more thing war has taken from you.

One more friend Getou owes you.

If he tries to enter campus, you’ll make sure it’s painful.

The three great clans have chosen to consolidate forces on their own rather than, in their words, come running to you. Their delusions of strength or more likely, their pride, won’t allow them to owe you any favors even when facing down the threat that took down Gojo. No matter - you don’t want them here anyways.

Strong as they are, infighting would only make matters worse at this point. They’ll come to you when they’re desperate. You’re not above using that for leverage.

Yuki is on her way home, racing back from Latin America, where she’d been doing more research for her goal of eradicating curses at the root cause. Having her here would set your mind at ease. Even if she’s not Gojo, any special grade is a blessing. Besides, with your barriers to counterbalance her mass’s weak points, she might be strong enough to put up a fight against Kenjaku. All your hopes are banking on her.

For now, all you can do is wait.

Nanami finds you in the kitchens at 4 am, slumped over a bowl of melting ice cream. He slides in next to you easily, slotting into his place.

“Are you still working on that or can I have it?”

“It’s gross now,” you sigh, finally uncurling from your hunched position. “Like ice cream soup.”

Nanami shrugs half-heartedly and takes a bite, though it’s more like a sip. He makes a face.

“Told you so.”

“Some things have to be experienced, not told.”

You’ve been together long enough to be able to recognize the telltale signs of a lecture. “Not now,” you plead. “I’m exhausted.”

It only takes him a moment to give in. He’s always weak when it comes to you. Scooting closer on the bench, his shoulder bumps into yours. Warmth spreads through you where his shoulder is touching yours; his body a furnace. After scanning the room, he lets his head drop onto your shoulder.

Neither of you can afford to show weakness in front of the students, but this is an unprecedented catastrophe. You know he can feel it as well as you can. You lean in too, letting his soft hair tickle your cheek. Taking his hand into yours, you reinforce the point where you’re conjoined, just to remind yourself that he’s safe and with you.

He stirs. “Don’t waste your energy.”

Even with Shoko’s constant healing and pre-prepared wards, guarding campus takes a lot out of you.

Although you know this, you can’t help the need to reassure yourself. Gojo had seemed so infallible. In the way one only appreciates what one had once it’s been lost, you wonder if you had all relied too heavily on Gojo. To let society crumble because one man has been taken out was pure foolishness. What else have you taken for granted that could so easily fall from your clutches?

When you speak again, your voice is hesitant, though you know Nanami would never judge you. He already knows everything about your past.

“Do you believe in ghosts?”

Your breath ruffles his hair when you speak.

“Like your village?” He’s blunt.

“I’ve been thinking about Getou. There’s no way he came back. It’s impossible. How do you live through Hollow Purple?”

Nanami’s laughter is wretched and serious. “This is Jujutsu. Anything is possible.”

There’s just the slightest hint of emotion in his voice, indistinguishable if you didn’t know him well. You’re both thinking about her.

But Nobara wasn’t a special grade, wasn’t the beloved of the strongest.

Even more shocking than Getou’s return from the dead is his betrayal, which is a testament to the bond the strongest duo once shared.

“I didn’t think he would haunt him,” you muse. It is a haunting, isn’t it? Even if Getou’s physical body is present, he’s a dead man. He belongs elsewhere now. What he is currently is an abomination, a perversion of nature.

The mountain village you hailed from had been prone to superstition and folklore. Legends of ghosts had lurked in every corner, spirits born of resentment and unfinished business. Though it makes sense for Gojo to be Getou’s tether to the earthly realm, you can’t imagine the two to be so at odds that Getou would haunt him. Even now, it’s hard to accept. Regardless of how divided they were at the time of his death, Getou loved Gojo too much for that.

At least, you thought he did.

Nothing is certain in this world anymore, certainly not matters of death.

Perhaps that’s what Nanami’s thinking about when he whispers into the cold silence of the cafeteria, “If something happens to me, I promise I’ll leave you in peace.”

You tighten your grip on his hand, wishing he wouldn’t offer something he couldn’t promise. You know he’ll try. Nanami would never haunt you willingly. Ghosts aren’t always what they were living, however. Getou is proof enough of that.

Instead of voicing your doubts, you just hold onto him tighter until Megumi finds the two of you. You’re grateful it’s him and not Nobara, who would’ve no doubt teased the two of you. The memory of her brings fresh pain.

“Ui Ui and Mei Mei have news.”

You’re a little surprised he came to you, but he shrugs.

“They said to get Yaga after you.”

The brother and sister duo have been your only form of contact with the outside, as Yaga locked down campus. Only those two, with their ability to shift between spaces, were allowed to venture out.

If Gojo was still here-

If he was still here, you wouldn’t be hiding at all. There’s no use fantasizing about the impossible - is what you would think if it wasn’t occurring before your eyes.

Sitting behind the Principal’s desk in his office is Gojo Satoru, feet propped disrespectfully on his desk. In lieu of his usual sunglasses, his blindfold has returned, perching precariously high on his forehead, almost like a headband. It makes him look like a douche.

Nanami freezes beside you. In a way, it almost makes sense. If anyone could escape the Prison Realm, it would be Gojo Satoru. Your heartbeat is calm, not a single instinct rebelling against the scene playing out in front of you. Despite your body’s lack of warning to the man sitting in front of you, as if it truly is him, alarm bells are ringing in your head.

He cackles at the dumbfounded look on your faces. “Come on! You didn’t think that stupid little box was going to keep me trapped, did you? Even made time for a detour for mochi.”

He makes his point by popping one of the little green balls of rice flour he loves so much into his mouth. You want to smack him. Everyone was worried sick, and he went to get snacks?

But you don’t. None of your barriers have been ruptured, so this must be Gojo. If it was anyone else’s curse energy signature, you would know. Getou shouldn’t be able to set foot on campus.

“Relax,” Mei Mei says, sitting on the edge of the desk. Ui Ui clings to her adoringly. “I found him picking out his sweets in-“

The wall behind her crumbles, a clear number line emblazoned on it for a second before it falls. Mei Mei has already dodged the attack, standing slightly to the left. She raises an eyebrow. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Nanami hefts his blade and works his shoulder. “I don’t know what game you’re playing at, but you’ve got Gojo wrong. He’s a fool, sure, but he’s a soldier. He wouldn’t stop at a mochi shop before returning to find his students.”

Gojo sighs. “And here I thought an incorrigible, selfish bastard was all the depth there was to him. Guess that’s true friendship for you, huh?”

“Getou?” All of this is happening too quickly for your brain to catch up. The bandages-

He makes a hand seal and you flinch, expecting his dragon or another one of his nasty little curses to pop out, but nothing happens.

Nanami is already putting two and two together, being most familiar with the technique used. “You let Mahito take away your sorcery,” he breathes.

Your blood runs cold. The idea of someone tampering with your brain stem and taking away your technique sends chills down your spine. Willingly letting someone perform such an invasive procedure is horrifying, but the limits Getou will go to seem boundless. He must’ve used idle transfiguration to look like Gojo, too. They had been around the same height. You can see the scheme unraveling before your eyes which means-

“Traitor,” Yaga says in the doorway, looking at Mei Mei with a hardness in his eyes you’ve never seen before. He’s panting, having run all the way here. You can’t imagine how it feels, for the student you raised to have turned her back not only on you, but every ideal you’ve ever held dear.

“I can’t believe-“

Yaga’s voice is full of surprise and betrayal before it’s cut short by her scythe. You want to move, but are rooted to the spot at the sight of your teacher, throat carved open.

“Sorry, sir. It’s nothing personal. I’m just joining the winning side. You understand, right? You raised me to be practical.”

“Mei Mei?”

“Come here, Ui Ui.”

For potentially the first time in his life, Ui Ui doesn’t obey his sister.

“What’s this? You’re getting too old for a rebellious phase now, kid. Don’t you trust me?”

When she reaches for him, he darts past her hands and into your arms. You shove him behind you. A look of hurt confusion flashes across Mei Mei’s face, clearly unused to anything but perfect obedience.

“Go!” You urge him, trying to push out the door past Yaga’s body. Taking a quick inventory of the situation, you ascertain your chances. Yaga’s down for the count. You don’t know how serious his injury is. Nanami’s still fresh for a fight, but Ui Ui is dead weight. You’re dangerously low on cursed energy, but not near the bottom of your reserves quite yet.

You don’t need to speak for him to catch onto the plan. Immediately, Nanami engages Mei Mei. Getou may be the evil mastermind, but he’s a non sorcerer for now. Ui Ui is the priority.

“Go! Tell the others!”

By the time you spin around, Getou has his fingers around your throat. Your barrier flares against him, leaving him scrabbling at nothing. Light shines in the space between the two of you. Across the room, you let your cursed energy block a blow from Mei Mei right above Nanami’s navel.

Already, fighting with him feels so familiar, a song and dance you’ve done since you were students. He leads Mei Mei towards you until you’re back to back.

It’s so familiar to defend while he attacks. Nanami’s sharp eyes find that elusive chink in their armor while you adjust to cover your weak points. You drop back when he slashes forward. He ducks while you throw up a ward so strong Mei Mei and Getou stumble back. In every way, you’re winning, yet it doesn’t feel like it.

Getou’s calm is an ineffable as it was when you knew him, but his face-

His face is unsettling. It’s another boy’s. He smiles, so horribly close to the Gojo you knew that your heart breaks, both because something so familiar has become so twisted, and also because you know at that moment that you’ve made a mistake.

“You got it wrong,” Getou says softly. “I didn’t use idle transfiguration. I used a binding vow to seal my cursed energy for twenty four hours.”

The horror sinks in as you realize he hasn’t been weakened at all. The binding vow has made him stronger, twenty four hours of repressed cursed energy roaring to life in one minute.

Your barrier pulses around you and Nanami, dying light fighting to keep the two of you safe.

That’s when Getou pulls out his trump card.

Backing away from the barrier, he pulls the Prison Realm out of one pocket, and a cursed weapon in the other. He’s dangling it in front of you like the world’s most obvious mouse trap.

To get the Prison Realm, you’ll have to take down the shield.

You, or Gojo?

The choice is obvious.

At least Kenjaku is facing you and not Nanami.

With a burst of cursed energy, you slice straight through bone. Blood spurts from the stump of Kenjaku’s hand as it clatters into your palm, the Prison Realm along with it.

You expected getting stabbed to feel cold from experience, adrenaline numbing the sensation. This time, the burning starts immediately. Maybe fatal wounds are different? By the time you were in high school, your technique had improved enough that you couldn’t remember what those felt like.

The Prison Realm slides into your hand effortlessly. The blood coating your side doesn’t matter anymore, because you have Gojo.

When you hear the gargle of air in Nanami’s lungs, you immediately know what happened. There’s a jagged cut across Getou’s front, in the shape of his signature ratio. A barrage of cursed spirits forces you back. Desperately, you cling to Nanami as you shield the two of you with the flickering embers of your cursed energy.

“We have to go,” Mei Mei snaps at Getou.

He’s not listening, advancing towards you. A mistake, because you’re going to kill him. Your vision is red with blood and fury. With shaking fingers, you arrange your hands into the right shape.

“Domain Expansion-“

Mei Mei pulls Getou back, her crows beating a hasty retreat. She half runs, half flies down towards the boundary, taking him with her.

You’re throwing every attack in your limited arsenal at them, but every single hit is absorbed by the body of a crow, leaving a trail of corvids behind. She leaves you with your dead best friend and a horde of children to protect.

Nanami was dying for nothing. You can’t even open the Prison Realm.

You’re crying against his neck, hunched over him. Even as he lay dying, you’re looking for comfort from him and you despise yourself for it. He’s fighting to get words out. You press closer to him to hear it.

“I won’t haunt you,” he breathes against your forehead.

“Nanami,” horrible, shuddering sobs rip themselves from your chest. You’re desperately trying to hold him together, blood making your hands slippery. You’re afraid you’re making it worse.

“Don’t say anything,” you plead. “Save your strength.”

You hear it when he takes his last breath, rattling, painful. In the distance, you hear a horrible noise, as if even the earth is mourning with you. Dimly, the realization comes moments later.

That’s not the wind, that’s you.

“Hey!”

You can’t look at the voice, so consumed by your grief. You can’t even tell if your barriers are intact.

“Pull yourself together! I need to know what happened!” Someone is slapping your cheeks lightly. You can’t register the sensation. Nanami is gone. You only react when they try to pull you away from him. Howling like a wild animal, you cling to his body, but even by instinct, you know it’s not the same. He may as well be a cut of meat now. Nothing that made Nanami, Nanami remains in this cold lump of flesh.

Yuki Tsukumo was just fifteen minutes too late to save the day. She arrived right as Nanami’s body was starting to cool, and has been holding the crumbling remains of Jujutsu Tech together while you’ve been inconsolable.

You wonder if the guilt is eating her up inside, just like the resentment you’re trying to keep a handle on is devouring you even as you know it’s irrational.

In one attack, Kenjaku has taken out Yaga and Nanami. As the strongest, Yuki automatically assumes leadership, and she has an ambitious goal.

“We’re going after Gojo Satoru.”

Although you’re hesitant to split up, you admit that her plan has the most chance of success - not that it means anything, anymore.

Yuki will take Choso and hunt down Kenjaku with the goal of retrieving Gojo.

Yuuji’s team comes in for the second half of her strategy. He’s going to be sent with the other students into the Culling Games to seek out Angel, one of the few who can free Gojo since he destroyed all of the objects that could have saved him like the idiot he is.

Utahime, Shoko, and Ui Ui are going to serve as communication and healing for either team. Ui Ui’s transportation will allow him to move in and out of the Culling Game, as well as bring Shoko to whoever needs her most. Utahime will guard them while Nitta and Takuma will continue gathering allies.

Your role is to maintain the campus as a headquarters and safe house. You react, as Yuki predicted you would, explosively.

“Am I to understand that you want me to sit here and allow children to risk their lives for me?”

Yuki’s gaze is, as always, light-hearted steel. It’s not that she’s unreasonably confident, but simply that confidence is embedded in her DNA. There is no questioning Yuki because such a thing might as well not exist. Such is the cost of strength - it’s a quality Gojo also shared.

“You are to understand that if you want these children to have a home to come home to, you must defend the campus. What happens when one of them is injured? We’ll have no safe house to take them to recover. What happens when we need somewhere to fall back? You might think you’re noble for offering to take their place in the culling games, but all you want to do is relieve yourself of guilt. Is that selfishness worth their lives? The world?”

“The rest of the world can go to hell! We’ve given enough - let the children grow up here. I can protect them. Let Getou come for them if he dares.” Your blood boils at the idea. You’re ready for it, spoiling for a fight.

“Is that what Nanami would’ve wanted?”

That’s unfair.

“Nanami would’ve wanted them to be children!”

Yuki slams her hand down on the table. “How can they grow up as children knowing the threat of Getou will always be there? You can’t protect them! You already failed once!”

Your heart clenches painfully at the mention of Nanami. For a minute, you can’t speak. Yuki softens, also reminiscing about Nanami. She had already graduated when he had just joined Jujutsu Tech. Perhaps she’s remembering the little blonde boy who used to beg her to spar when she says, “Besides, I’m the strongest you have right now. If you stay, you’ll free me up to fight elsewhere. Otherwise you’ll force me to stay and defend Tengen. Of the two of us, we both have duties we’re better suited to. Trust me.”

Defeated, you can’t even verbalize your assent, you just nod.

Yuki’s pity only makes you feel worse. You turn away as she outlines the rest of the plan. While she captures Mei Mei and takes all the information she can offer, Takuma and Nitta’s first contact will be Hakari and Kirara. Yuki will turn Mei Mei over to them to guard while she goes after Kenjaku with Ui Ui’s team as backup.

Worst case scenario, she’s to retreat at any cost so Shoko can fix her up. If it comes down to it, you’ll abandon campus and Tengen to support her, leaving the students and Hakari to watch over it in your place. With your barriers, Yuki’s one weakness will be safely covered for. But in that scenario, you’ll need to end the Culling Games first to retrieve the students.

Every aspect of the plan hinges on pulling off some miracle, pushing past your limits. It requires a Gojo level of skill and insanity, but it’s the only choice you have.

Yuki’s teeth are bared in a grin as she ends the meeting. “Sleep well, everyone. Tomorrow I’m going to discipline a traitor.”

She grabs Yuuji’s older brother by the collar with a hooked finger and drags him in. He looks startled.

“Then we’re going to go get Gojo back.”

It’s a fool’s plan. Gojo is as good as dead in that prison of his, completely helpless, and someone who could beat the strongest is a complete wildcard. Yuki is brilliant and powerful, but where she measures up against the oldest and cruelest sorcerers from another time is unknown.

Still, it’s Yuki, the woman whose trump card is the most terrifying natural phenomenon known to mankind. If there was anyone on the current team who could get Gojo back - and you needed him back - it would have to be her.

She packs her bags and is ready by nightfall to start hunting her prey. Choso is already waiting just outside the barrier as you say your goodbyes, having walked her to the edge of the perimeter.

Impulsively, you pull her into a hug. This close, you can smell her strawberry shampoo. Her bangs tickle your cheek when she jolts, startled. Slowly, she relaxes and hugs you back.

You’re almost scared to let her go. Tears are forming in your eyes. Watching so many of your friends disappear in front of your eyes makes you wonder if you’re about to let one more slip between your fingers. Yuki is so reckless. Yaga had always been afraid she’d die young.

“Come back, Yuki.”

Don’t let this be the last time you see her alive.

“Stop that,” Yuki says gently, slapping your arm. “With Gojo out of the rankings, I’m the strongest. Don’t worry so much.”

Neither of you say what you’re thinking.

With Gojo out of the rankings, the spot of number one is a power vacuum that many would be dying (or killing) to fill.

Time is ticking. Every minute is another minute Getou plots, but still, Yuki hesitates. The realization that she’s looking at you with pity is not a welcome one.

“Are you going to be okay all alone?”

You force a cheery smile to your face. “I’ll be fine. I think I prefer it this way, anyways.”

Putting up a brave front for Yuki is easier than confronting the actual situation. As soon as she leaves, campus feels eerie and desolate. There’s an unwelcome chill at your back - even at its quietest, Jujutsu Tech has never been home to just one sorcerer before. In just a few days, everything has gone horribly wrong.

Sitting on the sidelines is as awful as it normally is. This time, instead of waiting for Nanami to come home, you feel the awful lurch of forgetting he died. Every day you wake up without the memory of it, only to feel that abyss open up beneath you over and over again at random moments throughout the day.

When you make the curry he liked, when you have to jump for a book he would’ve gotten for you easily, when you roll over to cuddle into his warm body after waking up cold - all of these little instances are accumulated paper cuts: miserable, mundane, and multitudinous.

You thought you’d be happy to have alone time to grieve, but the absence of Nanami is only compounded by the lack of your other friends. The last time you’d lost someone so dear to you, everyone had grown even closer, all piled all over each other like a litter of puppies. You had curled into one another, seeking warmth and companionship instinctively.

You had been inseparable, sleeping together in the common area, eating together, even showering together. There had been no understanding of the naked body as something to desire, just the sense that if one of you were to be left alone, you would crumble.

The pain of those days had been unbearable, but you miss the comfort of it too, like the sweet ache of a day-old bruise. Getou’s death had faded into a familiar hurt that could be suffered. Remembering those bygone days now brings the memory of Nanami rising soap out of your hair, or being sandwiched between Utahime and Gojo in sleep, his leg slung over the both of you, your face pressed against her back.

Now you’re alone, having outgrown the nest. Or rather, it appears that everyone else has flown the nest and left you behind. You remain in Jujutsu central, holding the line as you always do.

You break surprisingly fast. Perhaps Yuki knew you better than yourself. Like her dragon shikigami, she was almost half animal. Beautiful and feral, with a pleasure that came from obeying only herself - like a beast, she could sniff out the truth in you.

Everyone was gone. You were lonely. You turn to the one friend you had left.

For hours you sit with the Prison Realm, grimacing at the almost tacky feel of its strange skin. Your fingers slip over everything but the stitches, as if it repels you. The eye blinks patiently as you probe it with your technique. Even if you don’t have Nanami’s offensive technique, you can still find its weaknesses.

You see none, but that doesn’t stop you from trying. For days, you try to pry it apart with brute strength. You pore over the archaic, arcane scrolls in the catacombs, throwing the contents of text after text at it. You’ve taken every cursed weapon in the armory to it.

You listen for Gojo’s voice, still disbelieving that someone like him could be trapped in such an unassuming object. If anyone could escape, give you direction on how to help him, it would be Gojo. You fantasize that he has enough power to simply force his way out, or at least send you a hint in the real world.

He stays quiet, slumbering.

Talking to the Prison Realm is a surprise. You don’t mean to, it just happens naturally. In his place, you treat his prison as if it were him. You cart it everywhere with you, from laundry to patrol, cracking jokes and telling stories.

Of course, it doesn’t respond as Gojo would have. There’s no raucous laughter or snide remarks. Instead, the unnerving eye of the Prison Realm blinks steadily at you. But this fragment of Gojo is all you have left of your scattered friends.

And you miss him.

Even though you had belonged to the same class, and in fact he was younger than you by a few months, Gojo had always felt like a certainty in your world. It was as if you had been born knowing him, like you knew the sky was blue or that water was essential for life. The Six Eyes was one of the laws of the natural world. Even disagreeable as he was, he had a way of reassuring you.

If he had never been captured, Nanami-

You choked.

Nanami would still be alive.

You were forever the last line of defense, the second choice. Your only job was to step up if Gojo failed and you hadn’t. The eye of the Prison Realm blinks in annoyance as your salty tears seep into it.

A cold breeze brushes the back of your neck, almost like fingers, and you shudder. The Prison Realm’s eye seems to hold eye contact with you for a second, or something slightly to the left of you, but when you turn, there’s nothing there. It might have been a trick of the light, or a figment of your imagination, but you could’ve sworn there was recognition in that eye.

Can Gojo hear you?

The event shakes you so badly you put the Prison Realm away for the day and continue on with your chores. You maintain the barriers, you look after Tengen, and you keep updated on the status of everyone’s missions. You do such an admirable job of avoiding the Prison Realm that you almost forget about it until you see it lying on your bed. Your blood runs cold instantaneously.

You shriek when you feel it again, the breeze that shouldn’t exist. Spinning to face your assailant, you almost drop the Prison Realm - and yet there’s nothing there. Your technique returns nothing too, but somehow you know the truth as if by heart.

“Nanami?”

The air stills around you. Even the whistles of the birds in the trees outside are muted. The crawl of frigid fingers up your arm returns, now unmistakably familiar. Even the whorls and ridges of the pads of his fingers are known to you.

Half of you is relief, half of you is dread.

You did this to him.

You cursed him.

He nudges you towards the bed and sets the Prison Realm down on your lap. His fingers are cold but gentle as he tries to pry the box open. The eye looks uncomfortable.

“Nanami, stop. It won’t work.”

He arranges your hands into the shape of a seal, though of course, it does nothing without your cursed energy flowing through it. The intention is clear - he wants you to use your barrier technique. But you’re not Nanami. You can’t exploit weaknesses, you can only defend them. Hypothetically, you could try to reverse it, but the chances are unlikely.

Still, if Nanami wants you to, you’ll try, even if every attempt you’ve thrown at it before has failed to even budge it.

Nothing.

His disappointment stings.

Again, he folds your fingers into the right shape. Again, you pour cursed energy out through the right channels, letting it wrap around the Prison Realm. Again, its boxy shape is silhouetted in white, as you find its soft underbelly.

Nothing short of Hollow Purple could burst through it.

Nanami lets you go.

It’s as if it’s storming outside. Wind batters the windows until the shutters slam forcefully against the walls. The very foundation of the house groans in pain.

“Nanami, stop! Please!”

Almost immediately, the breeze dies down, as if Nanami is mildly ashamed. He’s more volatile as a dead man, easier to anger in a way he was never in life. You loved that about him, his patience, his goodness.

“I know you’re upset. I am too, but I promise we can-“

Can what? Fix this? You can’t promise that.

You jump at his hands on you again. You’ll never get used to them being so cold.

“Enough,” he writes against your arm, his finger tracing the letters over your skin. “I’m sorry.”

You think Tengen might be scared of ghosts. He hasn’t been out much since you discovered Nanami’s presence, though the two of you used to discuss barrier techniques. You think Yuki might have told him to look out for you.

There’s no guidebook to being a ghost. After that first day, you and Nanami experiment to see what he is and isn’t capable of.

He can’t be more than a room away from you. Physically can’t. He describes it as a wall, except the wall is indeterminately high and wide. There’s simply no space for him to move to that isn’t less than twelve feet from you at all times.

He’s only able to interact with the living world through you. If he wants to move a glass or close the blinds, he has to tug on you until you move where he wants to before he can put his hands over yours to complete the task.

It’s strange, at first, living with a roommate you can’t see. In the early days, you forgot his presence often, and would be startled by the soft brush of cold hands against yours, then again when your hand moved of someone else’s volition to catch whatever you had dropped.

Like all things, it becomes normal over time. Now Nanami is just Nanami again. You play chess on both sides in the afternoon while you wait for more information from the teams on the outside.

Sometimes it feels like a snow globe, as if you’ve been preserved in time. Everyone keeps fighting on the outside, yet you only grow more and more removed. These days life is starting to feel like a dream. Nanami worries over you like he did when he was alive. You wish he wouldn’t, though it’s partially your fault. He keeps catching you sitting on the porch with the Prison Realm in your lap, staring off into the distance as you stroke its strange flesh and dream, dream, dream.

In some ways, you’re beginning to understand Gojo, even appreciate him a little. Caring about life when you’re on a plane removed from existence is surreal. You have to remind yourself every day that you love Yuki and the kids, that you want to protect them and do your part. You loved Nanami, too. This is for him.

He tries to keep you here and lucid. When you get too lost inside your own head, his hands shoot up to your face, roaming over your cheeks until the icy thrill sinks in and you remember what task you had been doing before you zoned out. It happens more and more often these days until eventually, even the coldness of his body stops startling you and he has to resort to gentle pinches.

Yuki sends a letter during the first winter, when snow blankets the campus and muffles any sound. You barely hear Ui Ui’s footsteps when he enters the kitchen. Has he gotten taller? Children grow so fast. You hear from Megumi and Yuuji, but they don’t tell you about their heights, only if they survived and carried out the next step of the plan. There’s enough humanity left in you still to worry for those children.

Would Nobara have grown too, if she still lived? The pain in your heart is muted, not as sharp as before. Nanami doesn’t think this is a good thing, but you can’t bring yourself to care.

Ui Ui barely stays to wolf down the dinner you’ve prepared before he disappears in a cloud of black feathers again, shuttling the two teams to each other. Yuki’s notes are brief things scrawled on any available paper. This one is ripped off a hotel’s memo pad and reads:

Getou is Kenjaku from the Meiji Era, returned to life.

I’m not sure if I can beat him.

Getou was never Getou at all. Even as a villain, he stirred up lingering emotions in you that you couldn’t help. For the second time, you mourn your friend. It’s a cruel trick fate plays on you, to subvert death over and over again in all the wrong ways. Each time, those you love return to you wrongly.

You feel the brush of hair against your cheek, as if Nanami has placed his head against yours. You’re equally grateful and miserable he’s here.

He’s just another one of your dearly deceased that have been cursed.

Supplies are running low. One day, you’re picking radishes from the garden when you think to ask him: “What’s it like?”

He pauses before he answers, but never lies. His fingers scrawl out the message, quick and dirty, like he wants to get rid of it. “Cold. And dark. I can only feel you.”

Your blood freezes in your veins.

You had thought you could have him back. It was a selfish dream, a child’s dream. It had been a miracle at first.

Sure, he wasn’t the same.

He was cold-blooded now, ran quiet and passive except for when you goaded him to move. You were his tether to life. Guilt roils in the pit of your stomach. You had seen nothing wrong with it even when he could only move through you.

Already, Nanami is no longer the same. You wonder if this decay will continue the longer he remains stranded on earth. The first day you reunited with him, he had been different, darker. Has it gotten worse?

Perhaps this is your form of a curse, to have Nanami rot along with the body that once held him.

Nanami didn’t deserve this half-life.

Alarmed, he taps your arm rapidly for your attention before writing out, “What’s wrong?”

“Let’s go to Malaysia when all of this is over,” you suggest more lightheartedly than you feel.

“So suddenly?” You can almost see his wry smile.

After Malaysia, you can put him to rest. He deserves one thing he wanted before you have to let him go.

Getting in touch with Yuki is getting harder and harder. Every fight comes with increasingly narrower odds, so it’s a while before Ui Ui can make time to get to campus between transporting students to Shoko.

It takes even longer for Yuki to respond.

The message the sealed envelope contains is a simple ‘Yes.’

Preparations are immediate. Kenjaku isn’t going to come just because you want him to. Thankfully, after a few years of hunting this elusive beast, Yuki has a few clues to how it ticks.

She wants you to pretend to use your technique to forcefully pry the prison realm open. Immediately, you shoot the idea down.

“It’ll never work. Kenjaku’s too smart not to know that my technique alone won’t be capable of breaking the seal, especially not if my specialty is defense.”

“Are you alone?”

All special grades are the same, you think in frustration. You’ve often witnessed Megumi on the receiving end of this from Gojo, being led around by the nose. Everything is a teaching moment to them so they can bring you up to their level, but sometimes you wish they would just say things outright.

Nanami spells it out for you. On your forearm, he writes, “She means me.”

“How-“

“One step ahead of you, sweetheart. Remember how I went after Mei Mei first?” Yuki’s smile is fanged. “She’s going to leak information of Nanami Kento’s miraculous return.”

You aim for the battle to happen on home territory. It doesn’t matter anymore - if you lose, there’s no way Jujutsu Tech will still be standing by the end of all this.

Sitting quietly on the main road that leads to campus, there’s a strange sense of peace permeating the air. The knowledge that this is your final stand almost brings you comfort. No more running. No more hiding.

You end this here, or you die.

It’s so simple.

Nanami’s presence helps, too. Each breath slips you deeper and deeper into a semi-meditative trance. His hands run lightly up and down your arms, as he did in life. Even now, freezing to the touch, it’s grounding. It soothes you as you wait, eyes trained on the horizon.

You have to time this just right.

Kenjaku is just cresting the hill when you press your palms into the Prison Realm and start pouring your cursed energy into it. Nanami treats your body like a conduit. The familiar symbol of the 7:3 technique hovers over the Prison Realm like an old friend.

“What’s this?” Kenjaku is, for the first time since he exploded onto the scene and ruined your life, confused. He scans the scene, looking for one Nanami Kento, very much missing in action despite his obvious presence.

“Did you cannibalize your friend's technique?”

You hate how he seems almost impressed with the idea. Ignoring him, you simply reinforce your barrier. He’s not getting to you or the Prison Realm. You’ve just realized you can access the reserves of Nanami’s cursed energy as well. They feel different now that he’s dead, but they’re still there.

Predictably, 7:3 fails to pierce the Prison Realm. Kenjaku looks relieved. It must seem like your last bet had failed, a miraculous resurrection that went wrong. If only he knew that wasn’t the plan at all.

Yuki’s infinite mass slams into him with enough force he goes careening sideways. He barely manages to catch himself against the ground with a hard grunt while she lands gracefully on her feet, not winded at all. Her curtain of blonde hair whips around her face in the wind, making her look like an ancient goddess.

She doesn’t let up, going after him before he can even catch his breath. Yuki is a brawler at heart, matching her full physical fortitude against Kenjaku’s masterful use of technique. Her first blow catches him right in the cheek, pulverizing teeth and spraying blood. Her next lands square on his arm, snapping the bone clean through.

When Kenjaku tries to fall back, Yuki rears back and kicks Garuda, curled into a ball, so hard into him he goes flying once again. She’s a wild beast - beautiful and feral. Kenjaku can’t give himself breathing room as she hammers him with attacks. Every time he gets too far, Garuda occupies him until she can get him in close quarters once again, where she specializes.

For a second, it seems like Yuki is winning.

Then, right when Yuki has him cornered, Kenjaku grabs her arm and pulls her in, almost as if embracing her. He places one hand at her stomach, right where her vital organs are, and summons a mini Uzumaki in his hand.

You realize with horror that he’s going to tear her to shreds right in front of you.

Your reaction time doesn’t catch up quickly enough, but your technique instinctively senses what he’s about to target and throws a shield over her - if you hadn’t, she’d be dead. There’d be a gaping hole blown in her side.

You can’t count yourselves lucky just yet.

Kenjaku takes advantage of Yuki’s loss of momentum to use his gravity technique, pinning her and you to the ground. Your shields are up, but knowing Kenjaku, he has something else up his sleeve. Every second you’re down is another second for him to unleash a new, worse weapon.

Yuki moans in pain, her arm ruined. It’s bent at an awkward angle. Her reverse cursed technique is working overtime to heal her injuries enough that she can keep fighting. She’s a true monster, tanking hits like that at close distance even with your help.

“Tsukumo!” Yuji’s voice is worried.

Somehow, the students are here.

You close your eyes. The momentary relief you feel at hearing Yuji’s voice, safe and sound, is quickly overtaken by fear. Even if you can get back up for your fight now, Yuki can’t unleash her trump card while the students are here. Her black hole would suck them in at this close of a range.

Whatever support they could’ve provided for this fight is heavily outweighed by the cost it’ll force Yuki to bear. Special grades fight best alone. You know this from watching Gojo. Everyone else drags them down.

Choso had fallen back while Yuki was thrashing Kenjaku, likely because she had told him to. Now, Megumi and Yuji rush to him as he duels Kenjaku, severely out of his depth. They can buy him some time, but you’re not sure how much. Will it suffice to get Yuki back up again?

Can Yuki even adjust to fight alongside them?

Yuta peels away from the pack of students and heads towards you. “No time to explain!

A disfigured figure lopes towards you, grinning horribly. You cringe at the sight of it, which instills some primal fear in you. “Is that-?”

Yuta nods. “Yuji said we should bring him here. I’m sorry, there’s no time! You’ll just have to trust me!”

Splitting your attention between five different bodies that need your shields is agonizing. You’re breaking out in cold sweat, fully aware of the fact that any lapse in concentration could mean the end of someone you care deeply for. Already, Yuji’s only avoided two near death experiences because your shield slid over him just in time. Yuki pulls Megumi back just as Kenjaku tries to drop a cursed spirit on him, and demolishes it with Garuda. She shoves him hard towards Yuta who’s stolen Mahito’s technique and is now employing it against him with a sense of almost childish wonder.

That’s when a sixth person joins the fray, adding to your already buckling mental stamina. This one flies and is calling out to Megumi.

Very quickly, the situation is only growing worse. Yuki pushed Megumi out of the fight because Yuji has lost control. She’s now on her own against Kenjaku and Sukuna, barely fending them off. Your shield cracks and reforms, only to crack again under a relentless onslaught of blows. You taste copper in your mouth, but you can’t stop. Nanami strokes your hair, trying to offer some relief as blood dribbles from your nose under the pressure of your technique being pushed further than it ever had before. Even tapping into his reserves, you’re finding that you’re about to run dry.

Megumi’s friend dive bombs Sukuna from the air with a scream of rage.

“Angel, don’t!” Megumi screams.

For a second, you don’t think she’ll really do anything. After all, she’s with your students. You’re sure she won’t hurt Yuji’s body, but when she strikes with the intent to kill, you throw another barrier around Sukuna’s body just in time. It drains you to the point of collapse. Now Nanami’s physically holding you up, the phantom sensation of his strong arms around your waist keeping you from falling.

Angel is furious, raining blow on top of blow on your shield. In your one second lapse in concentration, you drop Angel’s shield by accident. Sukuna grabs hold of her and tears her wings off her back before Megumi summons Nue to pull her back. Dropping Angel, once again safely enclosed in your shield at the cost of feeling like your skin is on fire, Nue heads to support Yuki, who’s losing her battle.

Beside her, Megumi shoves the Prison Realm into her hands. She must realize she can’t win a fight with Sukuna, because she makes a miserable face. Megumi closes her hands around the Prison Realm and urges her on. You feel faint. You wish he would talk faster but finally, finally, he gets through to her.

At her touch, it unfolds in a way it didn’t for you or Nanami. Gojo Satoru returns to action in a literal blaze of glory. The light pouring out of the Prison Realm is so bright it’s blinding.

His face is sterner than you’ve ever seen it. Unobscured behind his blindfold, his eyes are blue chips of ice. He neutralizes Sukuna immediately and turns to deal with Kenjaku.

“Wait,” Kenjaku says.

Gojo doesn’t hesitate.

“I have something you want.” Kenjaku bargains. At a gesture, Mahito, crushed by Yuta, pulls something out of his pocket.

It’s Nobara, her form mangled into something tiny and unrecognizable. She’s missing an eye. Mahito must have used idle transfiguration on her.

Your stomach turns. All the students are horrified. Yuta’s face has gone stony with anger, but Megumi turns to the side and gags. He fights and fails to keep from retching into the grass, down on his hands and knees. Weak yourself, you crawl to him to wipe the cold sweat from his brow.

Whatever Kenjaku was trying to accomplish with that little show fails. Gojo goes berserk. Kenjaku’s existence is simply deleted from the face of the planet as if he never existed at all. Such is the power of a god.

You remember lines from a text you read long ago, as a student.

Through heaven and earth, I alone am the honored one.

Mahito is wiped from the earth just as effortlessly, too. It’s too late for you to throw a shield in front of him. Even your scream is too late - Gojo is simply unmatchable.

Your heart breaks. “We needed him,” you sob. “He’s the only one who can fix Nobara.”

“We didn’t.” Gojo’s as cool and level headed as ever when he nods Yuta over. “You know what to do.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Yuta says nervously.

“Just give it a shot. Be greedy. Let your cursed energy take the shape it wants to.”

Yuta startles. He’s so used to control, keeping Rika on a tight leash. Still, he trusts Gojo immeasurably.

Nobara’s resurrection is violent. You turn Megumi and Yuuji’s heads away. Her flesh unravels back over fresh bone growth. Her frame elongates and stretches. Yuta assiduously tries not to concentrate, and that tiny doll pops back into Nobara like it had been stretched out and wrangled back into the right shape. No sooner does he finish then Megumi and Yuuji wriggle out of your grasp.

They wrap their arms around her, a three headed monster weeping. A few feet away, Yuki has forced herself into a sitting position, blood seeping from a cut over her eye. All around you, your friends are battered, but alive. Gojo saved everyone.

All, but one.

One person he was too late to save.

Gojo’s brow furrows.

“Where’s Nanami?”

A cool breeze touches your cheek as you feel the first drop of rain touch your cheek. The sky opens up above you, and soon the ground is soaked, so wet the soil has darkened.

Gojo knows just by looking at your face, but he needs to hear it.

“Nanami’s dead.”

It’s cruel. It’s unbelievably, unbearably cruel. It’s a cosmic joke, because Gojo just lost Suguru, and now he’s confronted with the death of another old friend.

He never falters. He’s the strongest. But there’s just the tiniest wrinkle between his eyebrows as he helps usher all the students back inside the safe doors of the main building.

His time in the Prison Realm doesn’t leave him. Although he’s mostly normal, and certainly does his best to act like it, tiny cracks show in him. He’s lighthearted and blithe about all of it, blowing off your concerns, but you know him.

He develops a dangerous tendency to self-isolate and stew in his own emotions. Too volatile for meditation before, claiming he was prone to boredom, now he remains stuck in place for hours at a time. He doesn’t drink, he doesn’t sleep, he doesn’t eat - it’s like he’s frozen.

He treats meditation like a chrysalis, trying to ascend to an even higher plane. But already at the top, he has nowhere else to go. Still, he sits cross legged on the stone floor in the heart of the catacombs snaking under the campus, dreaming for days on end.

He’s searching for peace.

You are, too.

Perhaps that’s why he suggests funding your trip to Malaysia. You have a mutual understanding. You’re loath to leave him and the kids in this state, but Utahime promises to watch after them all. Thank god - Shoko and Yuki weren’t meant to be caretakers.

The latter had already skipped town, claiming that being in one place for too long made her antsy. Still, the bonds of that hard fought war seem to hold her just as tightly as everyone else. She returns home every few days, Gojo’s twin in hollow eyed fake happiness. Ever the world traveler, she marks out a careful itinerary for you and Nanami.

Malaysia is a good life, a peaceful one. You live for Nanami; you let him live through you. In death, he can be selfish as he never was in life. You spend days on beaches, sun bathing and hoping he can feel the warmth of its rays.

You don’t forget how he told you once, in that voice like he would never recover, how cold it was to be a ghost. He told you later that it was like extended hypothermia, a chill that seeped into the bones and stayed there.

You read the books he likes and eat the pastries he enjoys. Every time you check in, the hotel managers will worry over you traveling all alone, but you aren’t alone. You sleep wrapped in solid arms, with your back pressed to his chest. His breath tickles your ear when you sleep. Sometimes you wake up crying because it all feels so real, having him next to you. Every morning is a fresh heartbreak, but you savor it because it means he matters. You savor everything he gives you, every press of skin or gentle kiss, knowing it’ll be gone before you know it.

All too soon, it’s time to go home.

The fact of the matter is, he’s still a ghost. You can’t change this. Nanami’s life is already gone. You’re just clinging to borrowed time, trying to extend your debtor’s card to mark out just one more day, one more hour past what you were allotted.

You can’t help wishing you had more time. In that quiet place in your heart where you keep secrets you can’t admit to anyone, not even yourself, you want Nanami to stay.

In the real world, you start preparing to lay him to rest.

It’s a complicated practice. You’re not sure how to bring Nanami peace when you’ve never had a ghost before, at least not a true, recorded one. You rely on old legends from your village and an ancient text Shoko unearthed from the library to figure out which ceremonies need to be performed so Nanami can finally leave this plane of existence.

Nanami protests the idea of a ghost marriage. He doesn’t want you to be a widow so young.

“Married to a dead man! Think about it,” he pleads.

“I already thought about it. This is what I want,” you tell him stubbornly.

In a way, it fits. Malaysia hadn’t shaken the urge for you to give Nanami everything he still hadn’t experienced in life. Grief is a permanent lump in your throat. He had died so young, too young.

Your marriage will be a happy event, at the very least. All your friends will be there to celebrate. This way, everyone can let Nanami go with a warm memory.

It starts with a feast.

Say what you want about Gojo, but the man knows how to party. He’s not shy about throwing around his massive wealth to host the most lavish of dinners. In fact, he’s acting almost as if he’s giving away his own daughter. You’ve never seen him so absorbed in anything as in wedding planning. Flyers litter his room, and you have to stop him from demanding every item the caterer can supply on more than one occasion.

It’s a night of merriment, the kind Nanami would’ve wanted - not the partying, but the effusive joy on his friends’ faces. He probably would have gotten it, if he had lived long enough to marry. Gojo drags Shoko and Utahime onto the dance floor where they do a strange three legged hop to the beat of the music. Nobara is enjoying the delicacies ordered on Gojo’s money.

All around you, the people you and Nanami loved most are happy. You feel him rest his head against your shoulder. He turns your hand over so he can write on your palm. Your skin tingles with the ticklish sensation.

“Are you happy?”

“I am. Are you happy?”

“So much so I could die,” he writes back with his characteristic dry humor.

Normally, it would make you laugh, but tonight it just chokes you up.

“Sorry,” he writes after a second.

You just bring his immaterial hand to your face and kiss it in lieu of words, hoping he knows how you feel.

A ghost marriage is half beginning and half ending. Like a snake eating its own tail, it devours its own happiness. There’s no need for an official announcement. As the night wears on, the mood grows somber on its own. You know when it’s the right time.

After the glorious, bright joy of the marriage ceremony, the funeral rites start.

In a roundabout way, god is the closest thing you have to a priest. Gojo lights a simple, unscented candle taper solemnly. Dressed in all white, he doesn’t look like the friend you know. He looks otherworldly.

You kneel in front of him. He chants an old prayer. The flame leaps with his words. You bow once, twice, three times, feeling your heart rise in your throat. Nanami’s presence is all around you, closer than you’ve ever felt him. When you press your head to the floor for the final time, Gojo’s voice is barely a whisper. He presses a gentle kiss to your forehead as he helps pull you to your feet. This is what almost breaks you, after everything, this kindness from an old friend.

When you rise, it’s time for the candlelight vigil. Your friends file out of the room silently. Yuki, surprisingly, does not leave. When Gojo stares her down, she only raises her chin. “I owe her.”

Only Gojo is left to lead you down into the catacombs, where you will meditate all night, thinking of nothing but Nanami, remembering his smile and laughter for when he’s gone. Yuki trails behind you. Nanami squeezes your hand as you walk, lending you his silent support. You squeeze back.

Thus, two friends accompany you into the underworld. You will be the only one leaving. Gojo sets the candle in front of you carefully, making sure not to stir it with his breath. They leave silently, so it’s just you, Nanami, and a dying flame.

The wax drips.

Just before dawn, the candle burns out. It flickers, fighting, before it dies down into melted wax. You think you can feel the imaginary tether between you and Nanami be severed. A sigh escapes your lungs.

“I’m still here,” Nanami taps out against your shoulder.

It didn’t work.

At once, relief and grief crash into you, a cocktail of emotions so complicated you threaten to hurl up your decadent wedding cake. The pain of knowing you’ll have to lose him all over again wars with the joy of having him even just for one more day, even at the cost of his own peace is striking. You feel horrible, but you can’t help it.

You clutch onto Nanami’s hands, holding him tightly. For an hour, it’s just the two of you, weeping silently together. Sitting down next to you, Nanami pulls you towards him until he can cradle you with his body, the two of you skin-to-skin, so close the boundaries of your bodies blur.

Your chest heaves in great sobs as you wail and claw at him. If you don’t concentrate, sometimes your hands slip right through him, hurting you all over again. You’re so overwhelmed by panic and grief, so much love you don’t know what to do with it, that you confess your secret sin to him right then and there.

“I don’t want you to go,” you admit, tasting salt and ash in your mouth. You nestle in, calmer now that you’ve purged the bile infecting your system. It’s something Nanami used to encourage in you, refusing to let you bottle your emotions up. He knew you’d feel better once you let it out.

He rocks you back and forth slowly, the action so comforting it almost lulls you to sleep, as exhausted and spent as you are. “I know,” he sighs, his breath stirring your hair as he rests his chin on top of your head. The circle of his arms tightens around you. “I know, sweetheart. I don’t want to go yet either. I want to live-“

Shocked, you bolt up and grab his face.

“Nanami! Why? If you didn’t want to be exorcized, we would’ve never- '' Confusion boils under your breastbone. You’re already exhausted from a night of vigil, and somehow you can’t string the connections together for any of this to make sense.

“Because you deserve better than to have me leech off your life. There’s no place for a ghost in the future.”

You’re overcome with longing and misery, and then Gojo opens the door. The question is in his eyes.

Nanami lifts your hand with his and waves.

Gojo almost smiles, albeit ruefully. “Should’ve figured you would cling on. Guess you’re not so weak after all, Nanamin.”

In Yaga’s absence, Utahime has taken over as de-facto principal, though you’re sure you’ll remain in her position after everything has been worked out. The only reason the other clans haven’t challenged her yet is because the far worse option is Gojo, and they consider her the lesser evil. She abuses her authority to place you on a mandatory break.

“I’m fine, really!” You insist, even as she tuts at you.

“You,” Utahime says sharply, “have been running yourself ragged. Has your body ever gotten out of our fight or flight reaction to Kenjaku? I get it, we need to help Nanami, but you won’t help like this. You need a break.”

“Malaysia-“

“Malaysia was another thing you did for Nanami! Don’t argue with me. Whether you like it or not, I’m pulling you off all missions. If you don’t relax, I’ll extend your sentence.”

Utahime is a very strict jailor. Your days pass peacefully, with long walks underneath the flowering trees. You come to realize one of your friends is with you at all times, but you don’t mind. Even if they’re babysitting you, it’s good to have them around. In a way, Utahime shouldn’t have worried.

No one is more adamant about finding a cure than Nanami, but you’ve lost your fire with his confession. You don’t mind if Nanami stays with you for the rest of your life, your ghost husband. You’d be lonely without him, haunting be damned. He could burn your life down to the quick to stay here, and you would let him. You’d do anything to keep him.

The students are furious that their mentors are monopolizing you. One day, Nobara, Yuji, and Megumi sneak into your room. You hear them coming. Who couldn’t?

“Shut up! She’s going to be back any minute!” As always, Megumi is trying to do damage control. You can practically see his eye twitching.

Nobara tells him to shove it with all the authority of a girl people thought were dead up until recently. “We haven’t seen her in a week! It’s all Gojo’s fault,” she grouches.

“Are we allowed to be in a girl’s room?” Yuji says, oblivious as ever.

You open the door. “Not really, but I’ll make an exception this time.”

You barely finish your sentence before Nobara and Yuji leap on you, bringing you to the floor in a tight hug. Megumi is slightly more restrained, but when he embraces you, he almost crushes your bones. Fondly, you stroke his hair. You’ve known him since he was a child and Gojo took him in.

“We missed you-“

“Gojo wouldn’t let us see you-“

It’s a cacophony of noise, Nobara and Yuji are talking over each other. Megumi pinches the bridge of his nose, already frustrated. You don’t know how he puts up with them when they clearly annoy him so much, though of course you do know - because he loves them.

Yuji touches your sleeve. “Did Nanami-?”

They deserve to know.

“He’s still here,” you say, your voice broken. Nanami squeezes your shoulder in warning, a silent plea to stop.

Children shouldn’t shoulder these burdens. You pull yourself back together, but Nobara is clever and quick on the uptake. She picks up on your changed emotions immediately.

“Does he still have to go?”

“Nobara,” Megumi hisses. “Be tactful.”

“No, seriously! The straw doll we used for the ceremony gave me an idea. I wasn’t going to bring it up if everyone still wanted Nanami to move on, but if not-“ she looks at you hopefully.

You nod at her, expecting Nanami to stop you, but he’s surprisingly quiet and docile by your side.

“If we combine my technique, Mahito’s, and Kenjaku’s, couldn’t we bring him back? If Kenjaku can stay alive, why can’t Nanami?”

Of course.

Yuta’s more than happy to use his borrowed techniques for Nanami’s sake, but as you’re all gathered in the morgue, you can tell from all the grim looks on the adults’ faces that this is something you can’t come back from. Resurrecting the dead isn’t just taboo, it puts a target on your backs. Everyone will want to bring their loved ones back, not just you.

Is this a risk you’re willing to take?

You look around the room at all the determined faces. Yuji is deathly pale with restrained hope. Utahime, prim and proper, is guarding the door.

You know instantly that everyone in this room is willing to take this secret to the grave.

Yes, this is a burden you’re all willing to shoulder.

Nanami is worth it.

Yuta starts by using idle transfiguration on the doll. In front of your very eyes, the image of the doll seems to melt away, only to be replaced by Nanami. He looks like he was sculpted out of wax, still beautiful, but cold and stiff. All hints of life are absent.

Wrapping Kenjaku’s technique around himself, Yuta grabs ahold of Nanami, whatever he is now, and pins him against the doll. Nobara strikes down through the center of its chest with a nail. Her face is set in determination.

You feel Nanami begin to peel away from your side. Nobara pours more energy into the nail. Everyone is watching, transfixed, as your small team of sorcerers performs a miracle.

Then it starts to hurt. Just a little bit, at first, like a paper cut until the pain grows so intense you can’t ignore it. Utahime is at your side instantly as you gasp.

“Something’s wrong,” you say, voice horrified. “He’s slipping away.”

Gojo, for the first time in his life, looks helpless. His jaw is clenched in rage that has nowhere to go. Strength means nothing in this situation.

“Let go,” Nanami urges. His voice is barely more than a whisper. “It’s okay. I wish we got more time - in the next life. I promise. I’ll find you in the next one, whatever it takes.”

His voice is breaking. In the distance, Gojo is barking orders like, “Hold on!” and “Just a little longer!”

“Nanami, please,” you’re crying. Cold fingers freeze your tears on your face and brush them away. “I don’t want you in the next life. I want you in this one.”

Your mouth is suddenly stinging cold, but you welcome the pain. This might be the last kiss you ever get from him.

Nobara roars with rage and strikes a nail into the doll with such force her hammer shatters. Her eyes are feral with an emotion you’ve seen before in Megumi and Yuuji. It seems like she’s hit her tipping point, just as they did.

Cursed energy surges from her into the doll. Black roses climb up her arms, twining their thorns up her throat and over her face. Still, her cursed energy output keeps building until the doll simply disappears. The nail stays in Nanami’s body, glowing with blue fire until it too melts into his chest, the hollow cavity where his heart was.

Nanami’s return to life is quiet.

You’re clutching his face, fingers near frozen to his cheeks when you first feel the faint signs of life. Slowly, his skin gains color and heat flushes through his body, warmth bleeding into your aching bones. You can’t let go, or won’t, still cradling him.

Nanami opens his eyes with a gasp that sounds painful. It takes another second, then his chest heaves, two more and he’s breathing, miraculously breathing, gulping in great inhales of air. You nearly weep, hauling him upright, pressing your forehead to his. He’s so beautiful, so alive.

“There you are,” he says, his voice raspy with disuse. “I missed you.”

Epilogue !

Yuji is visiting today, so you’re just finishing up the last touches on dinner. You’re making his favourite, steak so raw it’s practically mooing, on top of rice with an egg on top. You shake your head even as you grill the meat, letting Nanami’s and yours cook a little more.

There’s a great measure of joy in being a hostess. If you hadn’t been a sorcerer, you think you might have been a party planner. Nanami says it’s not too late, but you’re content to keep your abilities confined to just your circle of friends for now. Utahime and Gojo came by just last week, doing the same old song and dance they’ve been doing since they were teenagers. Yuki has bets on when they’ll get married, Shoko says never. In your opinion, this is just their thing, and if they enjoy it, who are you to protest?

You hear the patter of footsteps on the porch. There Yuji is now, off to bother Nanami before his mission, no doubt. Even now that Nanami’s too old to go on missions with him, as a result of Utahime’s newly implemented retirement strategy for sorcerers due to the drop in cursed spirits, it soothes Yuji to see Nanami before missions.

“Whatcha doin’, Nanamin?”

“Reading the news.”

“You’re boring,” Yuji grouches.

“I think we deserve to be a little boring sometimes,” Nanami says.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll be back for dinner! Can you-“

“I’ll make sure your meat is so bloody we can’t stand to watch you eat, you little rascal.”

Yuji’s laugh is bright as he runs off your front porch down to the car where Megumi and Nobara are waiting. You come out to wave goodbye to him.

Somehow, sitting on the sidelines isn’t so unbearable anymore, not when Yuji has grown so strong and capable. You know you can leave the world in his capable hands. He’s been raised well.

Watching him leave, back straight and proud - looking so much like Gojo your heart aches, you share a loving smile with Nanami. He lifts your hand to his mouth and kisses the golden band on your finger. Peace and crows feet are beautiful on him, as on you.

#sera writes #Nanami x Reader #nanami kento x reader #nanami x y/n #nanami angst

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