Touch of Desire Read online

  Chapter Two

  “You must leave the man in peace now, Sarah.” Julius Tamony looked over the top of the book he was reading, pinning his sister with a stern gaze. “I insist upon it. And if you won’t listen to me, then I’ll make certain that Father insists as well. One doesn’t continue to harass a peer of the realm after so many firm refusals, unless one wishes to find oneself the worse for it. Especially not a peer like the Earl of Graymar.”

  Sarah responded with an amused laugh, countering Julius’s unhappy look with one of affection and patience. “You are welcome to try with Father, Jules,” she said, reaching for the jam pot and pulling it toward her, “but I doubt he’ll give the matter more than five minutes of attention before turning his thoughts elsewhere. He’s far more taken up with preparations for his speech before the London Antiquities Society than with any of my doings. Philla, dear, pass me those sausages, will you, please? Isn’t the food at this inn wonderful? I do love a good English breakfast. It makes such a nice change from what we’ve had on the Continent.”

  Lifting the platter, Philistia did her cousin’s bidding, saying, “I do think you ought to leave Lord Graymar in peace, Sarah, just as Julius says. This last letter you’ve had from Mr. Niclas Seymour certainly does seem to be final regarding the matter. And it can’t be very ladylike to press onward with your requests. From all that we’ve heard, the earl is terribly powerful among members of the ton. You shouldn’t wish to have your only Season ruined because he’s taken a dislike to you, do you?”

  Sarah filled her plate with a number of sausages before setting the platter aside. “I really can’t see why such a thing should happen. I doubt I’ll set sight on the man again after I’ve had my interview with him. The Seymour family is far above the kind of society that we’ll find ourselves in, my dear.”

  “But you’re so famous, Sarah,” Philistia said. “And so is Uncle Alberic. Aunt Speakley wrote that Society is all eagerness to meet you both. She’s already been overwhelmed with invitations for all of us, and the Season doesn’t even begin for many weeks.”

  “Stuff and nonsense,” Sarah said, swallowing a mouthful of food. “Aunt Speakley, God bless her sweet soul, has been trying for so many years to get the ton to take notice of her that she believes an invitation to a card party is a social boon. I doubt anyone will care a whit about a family like ours, with a bent for writing about oddities. Especially now that Julius has joined the madness and written his unique perspective on the history of the Celts.”

  Julius peered over the top of the book once more. “It is not unique,” he stated. “It is simply none of the popular romantic rot that’s being put out today.”

  “People like romantic rot, dear,” Sarah said, spearing a sausage with her fork. “It’s far pleasanter to read about gallant warriors riding out to battle on their magnificent steeds and beautiful ladies dancing beneath a full moon than heads stuck on pikes or using the skulls of one’s enemies as drinking vessels.”

  Julius’s brow furrowed. “I fail to see why that should be so. The truth should always be preferable to mere perceptions, certainly to anyone possessed of a superior sense of reason.”

  Sarah smiled indulgently. “You would think so, dear. But never mind. There’s no question that a great many scholars will receive the work with glowing appreciation.”

  “Of course they will,” he stated, and went back to reading.

  “But your books have been received by the public at large, Sarah,” Philistia said. “And Uncle Alberic’s have always been widely accepted, as well. And he’s a baronet. Surely that means something to Society.”

  “Perhaps,” Sarah said. “I really don’t know. We’ve been gone from England for so long that I’m not sure what to expect. Papa’s estate has been well managed in his absence, thankfully, and the books have ensured enough funds to allow us to rent a proper residence while we’re in Town. I don’t think we’ll be a complete disgrace to Aunt Speakley. I hope we shall not, anywise. Will you be a dear and fill my cup with more coffee? Thank you, love.”

  “All will be well so long as you keep your distance from the Earl of Graymar,” her brother said, not looking up this time. “And the rest of the Seymours. You have more than enough interviews arranged for your next book without having to speak with them.”

  “I have had a letter from the Earl of Llew,” she said. “He’s agreed to an interview, and even offered to lend me his aid in speaking with other members of his family. Which is truly very kind, for there are several ancestral Cadmarans on my research list. I’m especially interested to find out about one in particular,” she went on, giving her attention back to her plate. “A fellow named Prothinus Cadmaran, who lived in the ninth century and set himself up in Ireland as some kind of magician who could help rid dwellings of unwanted evil spirits. For a price, of course.” She glanced up at her cousin, who was daintily sipping a cup of hot chocolate. “I told you about him, do you remember, Philla? The one who got drunk and fell into a well one night? Several local villagers who saw him fall swore that he surely died, but they never found his body at the bottom, and years later it was discovered that Prothinus was living in another village, miles away, still practicing the art of spirit expulsion.”

  Julius uttered a derisive snort. “What you mean to say,” he said, “is that some other fellow who looked like this Prothinus was living in a village miles away and was mistaken for the dead man. Any number of deceivers took money from the ignorant by claiming the power to rid them of curses and spirits. It could scarce be wondered at if untutored country folk started such rumors and spread them about. It was commonly done, even among the Celts.”

  “But, Julius, what happened to the body at the bottom of the well?” Philistia asked.

  He considered for a moment before speaking. “The water must have been too deep for them to recover the corpse. Either that or the fellow had gotten into some kind of local trouble and run off, leaving the villagers to devise an explanation that made sense to them. That would account for someone who looked so like him appearing in another village. You see, Phil, there’s always a logical explanation for these mysteries, just as I’ve always told you. Sarah’s readers may fall for such fables, but anyone possessed of a reasonable intellect must seek out the truth.”

  Sarah frowned. Julius was so painfully practical in every matter. Like the rest of the world, he thought her books entertaining but untrue. It didn’t matter that Sarah, herself, knew the reality of the supernatural world. She could never convince him or anyone else of it.

  Philistia was thoughtful. “I suppose you must be right, Julius. But it is a fascinating tale, nonetheless.”

  Sarah gave her a grateful look. “Yes, it is,” she said. “But much more so are the stories I’ve heard of ancient Seymours. One that I find particularly interesting relates the tale of Mistress Helen Seymour. She lived in the fifteenth century, in a small village near the border of Scotland. Her father was a baron, possessed of a fine manor and many acres of land, and her mother was distantly related to the king. Mistress Helen was their only child, and accounted a great beauty. She was also said to be a powerful sorceress.”

  Behind his book, Julius snorted again. Philistia’s eyes widened and she leaned closer.

  “Was she?” she whispered. “Truly?”

  “It seems very likely,” Sarah said. “She was able to change her form, you see, and turn herself into various creatures.”

  “Oh, my,” said Philistia. “And she was a Seymour—the same family that is related to the present Earl of Graymar?”

  Sarah nodded. “The very same, though of course there wasn’t an Earl of Graymar then, for the family hadn’t received the title. But this young woman, Mistress Helen, was observed by the villagers as leaving the baron’s grand manor at night to wander through the forest—in the forms of different beasts, they claimed. She performed dark and terrible rituals and brought evil spirits to life, and if anyone dared to naysay or anger her she placed a curse upon them.
”

  “How terrible!” Philistia said.

  “Sarah,” Julius muttered, “stop telling Phil such nonsense. Can’t you see that she believes you? Save it for your books.”

  Sarah ignored him. “There was only one manner in which she could be taken and held captive,” she went on, “and that was by the light of the bright midday sun, for then—and only then—was she powerless. But she never ventured out-of-doors during the daylight hours, and so the villagers had to devise a trick to get her past the threshold of her front door.”

  “What did they do?”

  “Be careful of your plate, dear,” Sarah warned, and Philistia, having bent so near the table, straightened to keep from staining her sleeve on a bit of jam. “Well, first, they waited until Mistress Helen’s parents had gone to London to visit at court, and then they trapped a little dog that had been seen accompanying Mistress Helen into the forest at night. They tied the dog to a tree near the manor house and whipped it to make it cry—”

  “Oh!” Philistia said, both hands flying to press against her cheeks.

  “Sarah, don’t frighten her,” Julius warned.

  “—and then they called to her, saying, ‘Mistress Helen, come quickly! Your little dog has broken its leg.’ And, hearing the poor dog’s cries and the shouts of the people, out the door she came.”

  “What terrible deceivers.”

  “The moment Mistress Helen was out the door,” Sarah said, “the villagers took her and bound her with ropes. They carried her to a stake with wood piled all about it and imprisoned her there.”

  Philistia’s hands slowly dropped to her lap. Her eyes remained wide with distress.

  “They burned her alive?”

  “That was the way to be rid of a witch, was it not?” Sarah asked. “And they were quite certain she was one, though she protested her innocence and cried piteously for her mama and papa, for she was then but a young girl of ten and three years.”

  Philistia’s eyes began to fill with tears, and Julius murmured another warning from behind his book.

  “Mistress Helen pleaded with her captors to grant her one request, and because of her youth and beauty they agreed that, within reason, they would comply. She asked only that the little dog be brought to her so that she might touch it one last time, for it had been a dear companion to her. She begged her captors to give their solemn vow that they’d not set flame to the wood until she’d been able to pet the dog’s head with her own hand. The villagers did as she asked, and made their vow before God. Having made such an oath, they could not then take it back, and that was the mistake they made in dealing with Mistress Helen Seymour.”

  “How so?” Philistia asked.

  “Because the little dog, when untied, bit the man who’d whipped it and then ran off into the forest. Once inside the trees it led its pursuers on a merry chase, first showing itself and then running away, refusing to be caught until darkness had fallen.”

  “Thank heavens!” Philistia declared, much relieved. “And by then Lady Helen had gained her powers and was able to escape.”

  Sarah smiled and nodded. “She did, and was. She transformed into a sleek black cat and disappeared into the forest, and neither she nor the dog was ever seen again. The baron and his good lady returned to the village only long enough to pack their belongings and close the grand manor. And, it’s said, to also lay a curse upon the villagers who had tried to murder their daughter. For once the Seymours left that village, it slowly began to die. The land failed to yield any crops and the water in the river and village wells dried up. In time, the village ceased to exist, as all who lived there were forced to move elsewhere to find work and food.”

  “And what happened to Mistress Helen and her family?” Philistia asked.

  “They went to London, where the Seymour family had established itself as a great political power, and where Helen’s cousin, Mistress Glenys, oversaw the Seymour shipping concerns and other businesses. They had built their grand palace, Mervaille, along the Thames and become favorites of the court, despite having stood firmly with Glendower during the Welsh uprising some years earlier. But the Seymours were very wealthy, you see, and the king cared far more about that than the Welsh loyalty they so insistently displayed. When Glenys married and took up residence with her husband at Glain Tarran, in Pembrokeshire, Mistress Helen took charge of Mervaille and became famous throughout London for her great charm and beauty. She had many romances with numerous dashing noblemen before at last falling in love with a wild Scotsman named MacQueen, who swept her off her feet and took her back to the Highlands to live in his impoverished castle. They had nine children, and those children had children, and the MacQueens have been closely tied to their Seymour cousins ever since.” Sarah picked up her coffee cup. “I have a great many stories about them to investigate, as well.”

  “How romantic!” Philistia declared happily. “And did Mistress Helen continue to transform into other creatures?” Philistia asked. “Even while in London?”

  “Philistia!” Julius admonished sternly, peering over the top of his book. “She did not truly transform herself. That is an impossibility, as you very well know.”

  “Yes, Julius,” Philistia replied obediently.

  “This is particularly why you must give up on your pursuit of the Seymours,” Julius told his sister, who had given her attention back to her breakfast. “You’re clearly obsessed with them beyond rational thought.”

  “I certainly am,” Sarah agreed. “But if you only knew some of what I’ve turned up in my research, you’d be fascinated, too. Well,” she amended at his astonished expression, “perhaps not. But they are fascinating. Their history is going to make the most wonderful part of my book.”

  “You’ll have to find some other way of ferreting out your facts about the Seymours than speaking with them personally. What about that fellow in London who knows so much about your subjects? The professor?” Julius prompted at her blank expression. “You gave me some of his books to read. Seabolt or some such.”

  “Oh yes! Professor Harris Seabolt. I forgot to tell you. I had a response from him last week, when you and Father left us at Bamburgh to make your visit to the Celtic sites at Lindisfarne. The professor was pleased to have my request, and has agreed to help me in any way that he can. Which is the most wonderful thing, for I doubt there’s another man in all of England who knows as much about the history of the supernatural as he. And he’s arranged for me to speak to the London Society for the Study of the Mystical and Supernatural—does that not sound like a wonderful gathering?” Her voice betrayed her excitement. “I vow I cannot wait to meet with others who share my passion for such things.”

  “It does sound exciting,” Philistia agreed halfheartedly. “But I hope we’ll be invited to dances and parties, as well, just as Aunt Speakley wrote.”

  The wistful tone in her younger cousin’s voice made Sarah pause. It hadn’t occurred to her until this moment that Philistia might not be viewing their visit to London in the same manner as the rest of them were. For Sarah it was an opportunity to interview the descendants of those ancient individuals she intended to write about, to do additional research for her next work, and to spend time with others, like Professor Seabolt, who shared her passion for the supernatural. For her father it was a chance to accept an award from the Antiquities Society in recognition of his work and to see old friends and acquaintances. For her mother it would mean several weeks with her sister, their Aunt Speakley, whom she’d not seen in years, and for Julius it would merely be a trip to another large metropolitan city possessed of numerous museums and galleries with which to fill his days. But for Philistia, Sarah realized, London meant something entirely different.

  Philistia had lived and traveled with them since she was a young girl, after her parents had both died of the influenza. She was far more like a sister to both Sarah and Julius than a mere cousin, though she was so different from the entire Tamony family as to seem completely unrelated. She was smal
l and delicate, rather than tall, as the Tamonys were, and was blessed with soft brown hair rather than the horrid auburn that Sarah despised. Only Julius had escaped the red-tinged hues that crowned the rest of the family, and although his dark chestnut hair wasn’t the most striking aspect of his handsome person, Sarah had always thought him tremendously fortunate in possessing it. Philistia was also the only member of the family who wasn’t obliged to wear spectacles, yet another blessing as far as Sarah was concerned.

  Unfortunately, poor, sweet Philistia also had no bent for any of the pursuits that drove the studious Tamonys and was obliged to spend her days trotting after them as they read, researched, and wrote. But she was repaid for such drudgery by the social life that the family enjoyed. Their fame abroad had made the Tamonys desirable guests in every corner of the Continent, with the result that seldom an evening went by that Philistia didn’t find herself at a ball or festive gathering. Those were the moments the younger woman lived for.

  But despite such a steady diet of entertainment, London held out the promise of something far more important. These would be English people she would be in company with and Englishmen whom she would dance with. For the first time in her life, Philistia would be able to cast lures for the kind of husband she dreamed of having—a proper British gentleman who spoke her language and understood her sense of English propriety.

  “I’m sure that we will,” Sarah assured her. “And we’ll have new gowns made, shall we? The ones we had from France two years ago are probably long out of fashion. We’ll go shopping for everything we’ll need—shoes and gloves and hats. Mama will enjoy that. She always does.”

  “What’s this?” Lady Tamony said as she entered the private dining room, followed by her husband. “What is it that I’ll enjoy?”

  Julius stood to greet his parents, and Philistia leaped up to grasp her aunt’s hands.