The Devil's Mistress Read online

  Don’t wear the blue dress, though. It makes you look rather corpulent.

  Your dearest husband-to-be,

  Thomas Benedict Worthington Huxley, The First

  P.S.: My cook Rosila suggested I bring you a peach cobbler she had baked this morn, which I tried, and was quite delightful, but seeing as you were not present, I am afraid most of it went to waste. I beat her for the trouble.

  P.P.S.: Tarry not! Half past eleven.

  “Well, I wouldn’t want you to be very disappointed,” Isabella said to the empty room.

  She was lying in her four-poster bed beneath the quilts, reading by the glow of candlelight. For a moment, she considered putting the letter to flame, then thought better of it. There was nowhere to dispose of it, and burning down her father’s house would not bode well for the nuptials, as Thomas so elegantly put it. Instead, the letter went into a drawer with a dozen of its predecessors. Perhaps Isabella would burn the whole lot one day. Perhaps even tomorrow, if the enchantment worked.

  To think, earlier this same evening, she had been lost in the wood with head full of misery. Now the world seemed a brighter place. She had braved the forest and triumphed. She had navigated the treacherous cliffs and survived. She had met the Lady of the Hill, a boast no one would believe even if she were foolish enough to speak of it. Jacob hadn’t responded to the whole affair as she’d expected, but Jacob was…well, he was just a boy. A servant, no less, and not worthy of consideration.

  “Just a no-good, cumber-world, dung-scooper,” she said.

  With that, she turned and blew out the candle. The idea of sleep should have been laughable, but somehow, it wasn’t. Everything would be right soon, and all she had to do was—

  There was a shout from somewhere below. Then a commotion, and a rustle of bodies. The voice of Sebastian Sands, the head of house: “Out of the way! Out of the way, you fools!”

  Isabella jumped out of bed and rushed to the door. Every member of the house was crowded on the floor below. She raced down the stairs, coming in behind the group and pushing up the middle.

  The chicken coop was just beyond the door. In front lay the bodies of a dozen hens, torn and dismembered in a bloody line along the grass. For a moment, it was unclear whether they had been killed by man or beast. Then, without warning, an enormous gray wolf emerged from the door of the coop, its fur matted with gore.

  Jacob stood at the far end of the yard loading his flintlock. He jerked the long ramrod stick out of the barrel, withdrew his powder horn, and shook it into the open primer, near the trigger.

  “Steady, lad,” Sands called. He had his whip out, ready to lash the beast if it decided to come toward the house.

  “Everyone back,” someone yelled. “Stay behind them!”

  “Be quiet,” Sands barked.

  Jacob raised his weapon. The wolf took two steps toward him, then hunkered down and bared its teeth. Jacob squeezed the trigger. There was a blinding flash of light and smoke. When it cleared, the wolf was bolting into the darkness, and Jacob was on the ground rolling in pain.

  The master of house gritted his teeth. “What the devil? Blasted misfire!”

  “Jacob, are you all right?” Isabella could not see the extent of his injury, but the noise, at least, had driven the wolf away.

  Another form was pushing through the crowd behind her, the click of a walking stick issuing off the kitchen tile. Her father, who looked surprised and dismayed in equal measure. “What has happened?”

  “Wolf, sir,” Sands said.

  “How the bloody hell did it get in?”

  “Might’ve jumped the walls, sir. Might still be here somewhere.”

  Isabella’s father cast a worried look about the grounds. Some of the torches around the perimeter had gone out, leaving splotches of inky darkness along the brick.

  Isabella didn’t care one wit about the wolf. She ran into the yard, heading right through the mud. By the time she reached Jacob, he was rising to a sitting position. The right side of his face was bright pink with powder burn, but he looked otherwise unharmed.

  She tried to take his hand, and he pulled away. “I’m all right, my lady.”

  “Elly, get back here,” her father yelled.

  Seeing the ungrateful look on the boy’s face, Isabella did as she was bid, crossing back through the chicken graveyard in another huff. The nerve of the boy! The hem of her night-rail was now filthy, and what had she gotten instead of gratitude? A gruff dismissal.

  “Everyone, to bed,” her father said. “We’ll clean this up on the morrow. Mister Sands, take Jacob and see if you can discover the source of its entry. If there is a hole somewhere, patch it, and for God’s sake, make sure it’s gone.”

  Sands nodded. “Aye, sir. We’ll take the guns from the stable.”

  John looked at his daughter with a peculiar expression. There was a measure of concern in it, but a little fear as well. “It must have followed you in through the gate.”

  He went back inside, but Isabella didn’t think she’d be able to sleep until the thing was caught. She stayed by the door, watching as Sands organized the hunting party. In a few moments, each man was armed with a weapon and a torch, and they spread out over the grounds, their lights flickering this way and that like fireflies.

  She expected them to corner the thing near the stable or at one of the outer walls, but there was to be no further sign of the creature. For an hour they searched and found neither the wolf, nor its method of entry. When they finally gave up, Isabella decided it best to return to bed, sleep or no sleep. Just before going inside, she looked beyond the walls to the labyrinth of trees on the other side. There was a cry from somewhere far off, and though it might have been the wind, it could have just as easily been the beast, howling in bloody triumph.

  Chapter 7

  She was up at sunrise, helping Delia remove the bodies. Her father would have disapproved of such fraternization, but still being abed himself, he had no reason to know, and Isabella saw no reason to tell him. They were finished within the hour. Once scrubbed, the coop could almost pass for new.

  “You’re a good girl to help,” Delia said, taking Isabella’s hand on the way to breakfast. “Wish you could have met my girls when they were young. You would have gotten on just fine.”

  “Do you miss them?” Isabella couldn’t imagine what it must be like to outlive your own children.

  Delia said simply, “You’re my family now, aren’t you?”

  John Ashford appeared just as they were walking into the dining room. He looked a shade healthier than he had the night before. “Told you I’d be better in the morn,” he said, kissing his daughter on the cheek.

  Isabella smiled and said yes, he had told her, then informed him she was going to the market. She had decided the last thing she wanted to do was stay inside. Her mind was still spinning with thoughts of the previous night.

  Her father offered a weak protest.

  “I’m doing as you asked, Father. I just want to have a look at the Mortons’ new stock before midday.”

  “Mm,” her father said. Once a month, a new shipment of clothing came in from Paris and ended up at Henry Morton’s stall. Most of the clothes in Isabella’s closet came from this very source, and while keeping such fashions was a sizable expense, John had come to accept it as part of the family image. He himself wouldn’t be caught dead outside the residence without a proper cravat upon his breast and a full-length peruke upon his head, fashioned from the finest hair in Europe. “Oh, very well. Just be careful.”

  It was only a quarter mile from the front gates to the market, and after breakfast, Isabella chose to walk the path down to Saint Joseph’s Circle, Blackfriar’s singular road, which cut through the center of the township in a wide arc. Upon one side lay an inlet to the Chesapeake, which fed the machinations of the mill, and upon the other, a small line of wooden houses where the town sawyers—and a growing number of tradesmen—made their homes. It
was not nearly as large a settlement as Annapolis or Williamsburg, but to Isabella’s eyes, it was growing every day. And with the increase, so too came the problems of larger towns.

  As she stepped upon the apex of Saint Joseph’s, she passed a newly constructed wooden platform rising to the level of her head. A man with a shock of orange hair and enormous forearms was banging away with a hammer and nails at one end.

  Then a shadow appeared behind her. “Lady Ashford, you’re far from home again, aren’t you?”

  Isabella turned to find a tall gentleman of a grandfatherly age with eyes the color of old moss. Tiberius Sloop, the priest of the local parish, member of the town council, and quite possibly the nosiest man Isabella had ever met.

  “Mister Sloop,” she said. “How nice to see you.”

  “I did not see you in my service yesterday, young lady. You know ’tis a sin to skip morning mass?”

  “I had an errand that could not wait.”

  Sloop had a short, rat-like nose. It twitched once as if sniffing for a lie. “I’m quite certain Mister Huxley will have his hands full with you. You never seem to stay in the same place.”

  “Thank you,” she said, choosing to ignore whatever Sloop was getting at.

  “I trust I will see you at the Twelfth Night feast?”

  The feast was something of a tradition in Blackfriar. Twelve days after Christmas, the town would gather at the mill to celebrate another year of prosperity, and to toast another year of the same. The food was prepared by the Huxleys’ staff, who spared no expense in feeding every mouth in town. It culminated with the cake lottery, a massive spread of sweet ginger cakes, several of which contained jewels or coins supplied by Isabella’s father. Devouring the cakes in search of wealth had become the climax of the feast.

  “I wouldn’t miss it,” Isabella said.

  “Good, very good. I hope to be done with this unpleasantness by then.”

  Isabella felt her eyes pulled toward the platform.

  Sloop followed her gaze. “’Twill be a swift trial, and a swift end, if the carpenter delivers. Our gallows are built for the long drop.”

  Built with a high enough fall to break a man’s neck, he meant. Isabella shuddered. “Are you quite certain the man is guilty?”

  “Indeed. The magistrate of Her Royal Majesty is on the way from Baltimore. Mister Beauchamp is an old colleague of mine. I am sure he will do the job proper. The world will know Blackfriar is a civilized town, my dear. We do not tolerate godlessness and barbarism.”

  Isabella looked past the platform to the other side, where rested the small parish that doubled as the town hall. Up until the incident with the Collins boy, Blackfriar had been lacking not only a hanging square, but a gaol in which to place the criminal. As rumor had it, they were keeping the man in a cage behind the church like some kind of wild animal.

  “I would not dally here,” Sloop said. “Go about your business, Lady Ashford. Give my regards to your father.” He nodded once and made off toward the center of town.

  Though Henry Morton’s stall was not far, a strange curiosity seized her, and when she was certain Sloop had moved on, she opened the church gate and stepped into the side yard. There was no cage. In the center of the field was a hole with iron bars across the top. She stepped toward it, peering over its edge. There was nothing but darkness beneath the line of the earth.

  Then a voice from somewhere below, full of a deep and subtle menace. “Have you come to see the monster, little one?”

  The bravery which she had so clearly felt upon the road drained from her body in a sudden, sticky rush. “I…”

  “Afraid, are you? I expected more from the way you so boldly cast aside the gate.”

  Isabella trembled but found her voice. “How did you know I came in through the gate?”

  “I have ears, do I not?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t see them.”

  “Then you must be afraid. That I can sense, even from your voice.”

  Isabella was dismayed when she realized this was true. She leaned forward boldly, anyway, and peered down the hole. “’Tis rude to have the advantage of someone during a conversation. Come forward.”

  “We are not having a conversation. I am a monster, as they say.”

  Isabella bristled. “I saw a monster once, just last night. He had four legs and sharp fangs. I doubt very much you are more fearsome than he.”

  There was a long pause, then a face appeared at the bars. It was a much younger face than Isabella expected. A much more handsome face as well, or might have been were it not for the long days beneath the earth. There were no scars upon it, no deformities, nor devil’s horns. His only ornamentation was a metal ring which hung through the cavity of his nose, and even this seemed oddly noble.

  “What’s your name?” Isabella said.

  “If you wish to have a conversation, perhaps you should introduce yourself first.”

  Isabella might have given up here, but the Lady of the Hill had made her bold. “Isabella Ashford.”

  “Hunter of Shadows.”

  “That’s your name?” Then, taking his silence for ascent, “Why do they call you that?”

  “When I was little, I would follow my father into the forest to hunt. I had not learned to walk as a man walks, and each deer I stalked would be frightened before my arrow loosed. The iron would strike their shadows instead of their flesh.”

  “So you killed their shadows?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  Isabella frowned. “Can you hunt now?”

  The man chose to ignore this. “Why have you come here, little one?”

  “I only wished to see if you were as terrible as people say.”

  “And am I?”

  “I don’t know,” Isabella said truthfully. “I should like to ask you something.”

  “You’re a curious one.” He reached up and grabbed the iron bars with both hands, pulling himself into the light. Isabella took a step back. “Bring me water. I have not drunk for a day. Do this and I shall answer whatever questions you like.”

  Isabella considered the request. He was a big man, but up close, he looked drained to the very soul. Perhaps the men of the watch wanted him weak when they took him to the noose. Perhaps with good reason.

  “I shouldn’t,” she said.

  He disappeared back into the dark. “Be gone with you, then.”

  Isabella again considered his request, and for the second time that morning, her curiosity got the better of her. She retreated to Saint Joseph’s. There was a public well not far from the church, and it took but a moment to fill a small cup.

  When she returned to the yard, the man with orange hair had left his post and was standing over the hole. He was urinating through the bars. For a moment, Isabella could do nothing but stare. She had caught sight of her father at the chamber pot once, and it was an experience she never wished to repeat, with him or any other man.

  The interloper caught wind of her. “Ay, what are you looking at?” His accent was so thick that at first, Isabella didn’t understand him. It might have been Welsh, or from deep in the Scottish Highlands. “I said, what are you doing here?”

  The Isabella from the day before might have turned and ran, but she had grown a coat of scales since then. “Stop that.”

  He refastened his trousers and walked over to her. “What’s that?”

  “Stop that,” she said, firmer this time.

  “What business is it of yours?”

  “I came to bring him water,” she said, trying to stay calm. She calculated what would happen if she began yelling for help and couldn’t figure the outcome. The town circle seemed impossibly far. “I’m going to bring him water, and you can’t stop me.”

  “The hell you say.”

  “Step aside, or my father shall hear of this. John Ashford. Perhaps you know him.”

  The man laughed. Then he seemed to realize she wasn’t jok
ing, and scoffed. “Blue-blooded prig. Rue the day you crossed me, you will.” The man spat on the ground and began walking toward the square.

  Isabella ignored him and walked to the hole. By the time she got there, half the water had splashed from the cup. “I’m sorry.”

  The man stared at her through the piss-covered bars. “You are terrible at fetching water.”

  Isabella set the cup down next to the hole, thinking he might grab it later. “I still wish to ask you something.” There was nothing but silence below. “They say you were coming into town when the watch caught you.”

  There was a grunt. “Is that your question?”

  “I was just wondering… Why did you have the boy’s clothes on you if you knew you were coming to town? Did you not think you would be caught?”

  “Why indeed,” the man said. There was another unbroken silence that seemed to stretch to the ends of the forest. In it, Isabella could feel his eyes on her, studying her from the deep. At last, Hunter said, “I think you are a great deal more clever than the men around you, Isabella. That can be a dangerous quality in one so young, and in a woman, doubly so.”

  “What do you mean?” To this, there was no answer. She prodded him with several more questions, but Hunter, it seemed, was done speaking for the day.

  Isabella straightened her sleeves and marched back to the road, more troubled now than when she had first entered. “Justice is a rich man’s illusion,” her father had told her once. She hadn’t known what he had meant at the time, but today, it was becoming clearer each moment.

  As she passed the front of the town hall, she looked up at the gallows, and marveled how quickly Blackfriar was to welcome this illusion into its midst.

  Chapter 8

  The Huxley house was built upon a field of violets just outside the town borders, with its own dirt road and a sweeping view of the bay, beyond which sat the mill, and the three dozen men who toiled six days a week in the name of the family’s industry. A craggy, shale stone hill stood at its back, making it easily defensible, and a short stone wall encompassed the front. It had its own ground-dug well, stable, granary storage, for when the winters grew harsh, and its own slave quarters, which, as Marianne often said, was a necessity for a thoroughbred white woman surrounded by Africans.