Chapter 6
Chapter
Six
Sunday dawned cool and pale, the morning sky gray with heavy clouds as the bells from the small church tolled across the village.
Gabriel had not intended to attend services — not at first. It had been years since he’d set foot in a church for anything other than duty, and even then, the sermons had always struck him as more political than spiritual.
But the habit was ingrained from childhood, and habit, as ever, won out over inclination.
The villagers of Dunrake-on-Swale turned out in their Sunday best, filling the narrow lane that led to the churchyard.
Bonneted matrons exchanged gossip beneath the yew trees, children fidgeted in their starched collars, and the men spoke in low voices about harvest yields and the price of wool.
It was an unremarkable, familiar scene — until the murmur of conversation altered ever so slightly.
There was just a brief pause and then the rhythmic hum picked up again, louder and sharper than before.
Gabriel followed the change in the crowd’s mood instinctively, his gaze sweeping past the churchyard fence. There, moving with unhurried grace and their heads held high, came the two figures—one all too familiar and who had so thoroughly unsettled his peace of mind.
Miss Eliza Ashcombe had arrived in the company of someone he presumed was her grandmother.
Even the witches, it seemed, attended church.
They were dressed plainly, though not poorly — Helena in a dove-grey cloak, Eliza in the same claret wool he’d seen her wearing before— and there was nothing in their appearance to mark them as different from any of the other parishioners.
And yet the distinction was there all the same.
It was in the way conversation faltered as they passed.
In the way eyes followed them, some merely curious, others cool and appraising, and still others openly hostile.
The Ashcombes, for their part, did not respond.
They sauntered past as though they did not hear the whispered words or see the sidelong glances.
They did not lower their eyes or shrink into the background.
They simply continued on, every step measured and dignified, until they reached their usual pew at the very back of the church — the one no one else ever seemed inclined to occupy.
Gabriel watched them settle there and felt an unexpected twist in his chest. There was something that he could not truly name, simply that he felt, that tugged at his conscience.
Perhaps, he thought, Miss Ashcombe was entitled to her prickly nature.
Because despite every appearance to the contrary, he knew that she was not as impervious as she appeared.
He had seen the disdain on more than a few faces — the subtle curl of lips, the faint widening of a gap between bodies there, as though mere proximity to the two women might be dangerous.
Even those who offered polite nods did so with an unmistakably cool and detached civility.
Of the sort, he thought, one reserved for an unavoidable nuisance.
And yet, despite it all, there they sat, side by side in their little pew, their backs straight and their expressions composed.
They were there not because they were welcome, he realized, but because they had chosen to be present in spite of that. They were there because they refused to be erased, refused to be forgotten, refused to surrender their place in the community to small minded gossips and superstitious nonsense.
And for that — for their quiet dignity, for their stubborn resilience — Gabriel felt something dangerously close to admiration.
The service began, the familiar cadence of prayer and scripture echoing through the small chapel.
He tried to focus on the words, but his attention kept straying to the back pew.
More than once, he caught himself glancing over his shoulder, and more than once he found her gaze already there, watching him from beneath the soft sweep of her lashes.
Their eyes met across the distance — a long, suspended moment that felt somehow removed from time and place.
And then she looked away.
A faint flush crept into her cheeks as she dropped her gaze to the small, clasped hands resting in her lap.
It was a small thing, almost nothing at all, but it struck him with surprising force.
There, beneath the calm and the confidence, was something softer.
Something that matched the strange, unwelcome pull he felt every time she was near.
It was, he thought, a strange place to feel such a spark. And yet there it was. Preoccupation had shifted into something more for him. Her quickly averted gaze and flushed cheeks told him that he was not alone in that. For such a realization to occur in a church, of all places, was ironic.
And for that attraction to be to a woman whom half the congregation thought was in league with the devil, no less. He was half convinced she might be. For surely there could be no other explanation for the way she had invaded his thoughts — and, God help him, even his dreams.
The hymns rose and fell, the sermon droned on, and still she lingered there — not in the back pew where she sat, but in the space behind his ribs, a presence that refused to be banished.
When the final amen was spoken and the congregation began to stir, Gabriel remained in his seat for a moment longer, staring straight ahead but seeing none of it.
Something had shifted. He could feel it — subtle, undeniable, and entirely beyond his control. And though he did not yet know where it might lead, he knew one thing with absolute certainty.
Eliza Ashcombe was no longer merely a puzzle to be solved.
She was a complication. And one he could no longer pretend to ignore.
The service ended with the final echo of the organ’s somber refrain lingering in the rafters. The congregation rose as one, a polite rustle of skirts and murmured farewells filling the chill air of the small stone chapel.
Gabriel turned instinctively toward the back pew where Helena and Eliza Ashcombe sat.
Even in the modest confines of the church, they seemed set apart from the others — Helena regal in her stillness, Eliza’s bowed head haloed by the pale morning light filtering through the leaded windows.
He waited for them to rise, intending to intercept them at the aisle.
He was not entirely certain what he meant to say, only that he wanted to speak to her — to see her expression when she looked at him without the barrier of polite distance.
But before he could take a step, a hand clapped his shoulder with unwelcome familiarity.
“My Lord! Blackburn, as I live and breathe!”
Gabriel turned to find himself confronted by a florid-faced man of middle years, broad through the middle, his expression one of practiced geniality. Despite that, he had the look of a predator. Or perhaps a confidence man.
“Walton Dabney,” the man announced before Gabriel could place him. “Of Dabney Hall, just beyond the western rise. We’re near neighbors now, and I’ve been eager to make your acquaintance.”
Gabriel inclined his head. “Mr. Dabney. Of course.”
“Fine service, was it not?” Dabney said, already talking over him. “Reverend Mullins may not be a firebrand, but he knows his scripture. Good man. God-fearing. Always best to keep the clergy content — they set the tone for the parish, don’t they think?”
“Indeed,” Gabriel murmured, glancing past him. The Ashcombes were rising now, Helena steadying herself on her cane as Eliza offered her arm. He could see their lips moving — a polite word to someone nearby — and then they began to make their way toward the door.
“I couldn’t agree more,” Dabney went on, seemingly oblivious to Gabriel’s distraction.
“In fact, I was hoping to call upon you soon regarding a small matter of business. You see, I’ve recently acquired certain interests in a new venture — an enterprise promising handsome returns, provided one knows when to invest.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened. “I am not much of a speculator, Mr. Dabney.”
“Oh, come now!” Dabney laughed, as though the idea of declining profit were absurd. “Everyone’s a speculator these days! Railways, imports, shares in steam — it’s the future, my lord, the very engine of progress. I have associates in London who are—”
He followed Gabriel’s gaze toward the door and smiled faintly, the expression far too knowing for Gabriel’s liking.
“Ah. The Ashcombe ladies, I take it. Curious pair, are they not? No one knows quite what to make of them. Still, they keep to themselves and do no harm. The old woman’s clever with herbs, though, they say. And the younger one…”
Gabriel’s tone cooled. “Miss Ashcombe is a lady, Mr. Dabney.”
“Of course, of course,” Dabney said hastily, color rising in his cheeks. “Merely an observation. No offense intended.”
“Offense can be taken whether intended or not, Mr. Dabney,” Gabriel lied, his voice like glass.
Dabney stammered an apology, taking his sweet time to do so. By the time the blowhard finally took his leave — after a rambling insistence that he would “call round in a day or two to discuss figures” — the church was nearly empty. Helena Ashcombe and Eliza were nowhere to be seen.
He stepped outside, scanning the lane where the carriages waited, but the small dogcart that had brought the Ashcombes was already gone, disappearing down the curve of the road beneath the bare elms.
Gabriel exhaled sharply, the cool air biting at his lungs.
It was absurd — he told himself as much — to feel disappointment over something so trivial.
Yet the sensation remained, sharp and inexplicable.
He finally admitted to himself that his entire reason for attending the service was the hope of seeing her. And that was telling.
He should not care. There was nothing between them but circumstance and a handful of charged glances. And yet, even the thought of her absence left the morning strangely hollow.
He lingered there longer than he should have, his gloved hands clasped behind his back, watching the last traces of mist lift from the churchyard. The sound of the departing carriage faded into silence, leaving only the caw of crows overhead.
He had known desire before. He had known curiosity, admiration, even affection. But whatever this was — this restless, unreasoning pull — it was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. It disturbed him more deeply than he could say.
Finally, he turned toward his own waiting horse, his expression grim.
“Damnation,” he muttered under his breath. “What the devil is happening to me?”
And with that, he mounted and rode away, the church receding behind him, its spire stark against the pale winter sky — the faintest echo of Eliza’s presence still lingering like a whisper he could not quite forget.
The church was empty now, the morning sunlight filtering through the stained glass and casting shifting pools of color across the worn flagstones.
The last of the congregation had gone, their footsteps fading down the path, but he remained in the shadows near the bell tower, watching. Always watching.
It was not difficult to see the direction things were beginning to take.
Hawthorne’s gaze had wandered toward the back pew far too often during the service, drawn again and again to the girl seated there.
And Eliza Ashcombe, usually so composed and indifferent, had faltered beneath that attention.
The faint flush in her cheeks, the sudden downward cast of her eyes — small gestures, but telling ones.
It was enough to make his jaw tighten.
Hawthorne’s marriage — to anyone, but especially to her — was the one outcome he could not allow.
The matter had nothing to do with love or jealousy.
It was far simpler and far more important than that.
If Hawthorne remained unwed and childless, if his line ended with him, the title would fall dormant.
The estate would pass into legal limbo, and in time, all of it — Ravenswood Hall, the surrounding lands, even the cursed little cottage the Ashcombe women clung to — could be bought.
Bought, claimed, controlled.
It was a slow plan, years in the making, but it depended upon one crucial factor: that Hawthorne never secured an heir.
A wife would complicate everything, but a wife like her could destroy it entirely.
The villagers might call her a witch in whispered tones, but he knew the truth — that if she caught Hawthorne’s heart, there would be no turning him from her.
And then all of his careful work, every step of the strategy he had crafted, would come to nothing.
That could not be allowed.
There was still time. The bond between them was no more than a flicker now, a spark that could be snuffed out before it ever became flame.
There were ways to keep them apart — ways to make certain that Hawthorne’s future remained solitary and barren.
And if those ways required subtlety at first, they could become far less subtle later.
For now, patience was the wisest course. He would watch. He would wait. And when the moment was right, he would act.
Because Hawthorne would not marry. He would not secure his line. And Ravenswood — every acre of it, every stone and blade of grass — would one day be his.