Seth kissed me again, and that time I let the fire free. Desire consumed me as it flowed through my limbs. He was wearing entirely too much and my mind screamed for more. My fingers worked at his layers of clothing. First his jacket, then his waistcoat and shirt were all discarded on the floor. Finally I could lay my hands on his bare chest, where his heart beat under my touch. He was so warm, how could anyone think him cold?Seth undid the tie at my waist and his hand crept inside the robe and along my naked flesh. A small gasp left my throat as his fingers splayed over my back and he caressed my spine. There was almost nothing between us now.Yes, my mind whispered. I want all of him, against all of me.Holding me to him, he tugged the silk from my shoulders and it dropped from my body to pool on the floor. I was naked before him."Why Miss Jeffrey, do you always sleep naked?" he murmured, as his hands stroked my heated skin."Only when I have company." A moment of embarrassment

Millicent deMage clung to her secrets. Day by day we worked to dig them up but found only a snippet here or an oblique reference there. Despite what I had imagined, her diaries weren't full of witches?hexes, gory details of people she had ruined, or an outline of how to release an undead plague on the world. Each page was crammed with the boring description of daily life in Elizabethan England. Of interest to a historian, but I struggled to keep my eyes open.While merely conjuring her image still made me shudder, she was an enemy we needed to understand. The more I learned of her through her words, the less I feared her. At night, all the disjointed threads we chased spun through my mind. Like silvery strands from a spider's web, they seemed unrelated until you stood back and saw them woven together. Now I only needed to decipher what the pattern said.I closed the last diary and tossed it on a teetering stack. Seth was occupied on the telephone talking to the War Office and trying

Lieutenant Bain became a regular visitor, knocking on the manse door every afternoon and staying for at least two hours. His quiet presence wrought a slow transformation upon Reverend Mason that began the day we cornered the Turned in the orchard. The reverend began to answer, and the lieutenant no longer had to keep up a steady monologue. Simple, single word answers at first, then one day a snatch of conversation.Over a period of days, Mr Mason returned to the world around him. Like a sleeper emerging from an overlong slumber he rubbed his eyes and stretched. His thought processes were still somewhat muddled and his words confused, but he climbed out of his isolation and took stock of his surroundings.Mr Mason even visited the barber for both a shave and a long overdue haircut. His frame was too thin for such a large man, but the warmth and intelligence returned to his gaze. He still spent hours in his study, but now it was poring over old books and scribbling notes that he discusse

We arrived back at the farm early afternoon. I barely had time to kiss Father's cheek before I climbed the stairs and headed straight for bed. I drew my curtains, peeled off my clothes, and crept between fresh sheets. Sleep claimed me eagerly and didn't relinquish its hold for fifteen hours.The next morning I awoke refreshed, and Alice and I took the cart to Serenity House. Seth waited in his study, dressed for riding. He stood next to the large table, studying the battlefield. While there was much to admire about a commanding man in jodhpurs and tall boots, still my heart sank.He turned on hearing my light tread and smiled. "We can't put it off, Ella. We both know what we need to do." He held out a hand to me.No we couldn't put it off, but I could grumble about it. Which I did all the way out to the courtyard. Two horses with gleaming coats waited for us. Attached behind their saddles were hurricane lamps, coils of rope, and a crowbar. It looked more like we were going on a mountai

Lieutenant Bain excused himself to help Charlotte with the washing up. He stacked the laden trays and left the library humming ?It's a long way to Tipperary,?and I briefly wondered if he was thinking of the sweetest girl he knew. As the library door snicked shut, my mind returned to the issue of witches. I digested the new information and then grasped a tenuous strand of spun silk. The web began to make a pattern I could discern, and this particular fibre could hold the missing patch in a larger question.I turned to Reverend Mason, the idea still spinning in my head. "Are you able to trace genealogies?"His eyes lit up and he rubbed his hands together. "Of course. Nothing the clergy likes better than to keep records of births, marriages and deaths. Or hatched, matched, and dispatched, as we say. What did you have in mind?""Sarah Wynn and Anne Oakley, can you trace their maternal lines to the current generation?" A persistent niggle in my mind refused to go away. How did Elizabeth