Chapter 7
Seven
Idid see Rye the following evening, but in a much less intimate capacity than I’d hoped for.
In a maneuver that must’ve required all of Billy’s charm and financial prowess, he’d arranged for the village records office to remain open past sundown, accommodating our private research efforts until the clerk “was ready for her pint at the pub.” That didn’t seem to be a firm hour, but one that the grey-haired wisp of a woman would announce on a whim.
As such, Rye and I wasted no time handing over a compiled list of documents from Ashbourne’s founders—journals, baptism records, meeting minutes, and the town’s original charter.
The clerk disappeared through a low arch in the white-washed wall, the low ceiling barely missing her curly puff.
Thick support pillars squatted in various points around the room—some wrapped in twinkle lights leftover from the winter holidays.
The original support beams crisscrossed the low ceiling in stark contrast to the meticulously maintained white plaster.
We were seated too far apart for my liking—across a handcrafted dark wood table that creaked at the slightest suggestion of movement, stacks of documents like a labyrinthian city between us.
Rye was well into her third journal from one of the town founders, scribbling away with pencil and pad, a pair of distractible horn-rimmed glasses perched on the end of her nose.
Behind her, low rows of bookshelves sagged under the weight of what appeared to be the entire circulating library of Ashbourne, paperbacks and pamphlets crammed precariously on every free inch.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and tried to drag my focus back to the monotonous daily doings of some human long since returned to the earth.
Although England’s era of constructing shelters against the elements in supposedly undiscovered lands had started much earlier than in the Americas, it was alarming how readily the physical memory of helping the Puritans rose to the surface.
We’d haul and lift and pitch and bind until our bones broke and our spirits gave way to bitterness.
And still, the home or hall we were erecting would not be finished.
Reading this founder’s journal, I found much of the same rhetoric I’d heard back then—their god would see them through, they were grateful for the work as it protected them from evil idleness, and then some blathering on about future goals and plans for the village.
Not a single mention of the supernatural, magical, or unusual. Not so much as suspicion of witchcraft among the villagers at the time, and I was well into the fourth volume of these meticulous ramblings.
“Any luck?” I whispered, nudging Rye under the table with my foot. Her gaze flickered in my direction but remained trained on the volume in her hands. I took that for what it was.
Hands beginning to sweat, I closed the journal and reached for a stack of village council minutes.
Maybe there would be some neighbor accusing another of devil worship.
But as soon as I flipped open the historical scan of the ledger book, my gaze drifted back to Rye.
The low lamplight on the table bounced off the yellowed papers, illuminating her sharp features in a soft glow.
The flicker of her dark eyes from page to page was mesmerizing, pulling me deeper with her every notation.
I wanted to know how good it would feel to slap the volume from her hands and throw her face down on the table, working her to a frenzy with my fingers and tongue before the clerk returned to check on us.
Well-manicured hands snapped three times directly in my line of vision, breaking my lusty reverie. Rye arched both eyebrows at me meaningfully before tapping her own book and pointing at mine.
Message received. Reluctantly, I dragged myself back to the work at hand.
Ashbourne’s village council had been busy in its early days, funding public spaces, building the church tower Billy mentioned had recently been renovated, and installing a tidy system of streetlamps throughout the village. This last item gave me pause.
“To ensure safety of the public and to protect villagers against a certain villainy.”
Surrounded by meadow or forest, Ashbourne wouldn’t have been in danger of a high crime rate or marauding bandits at the time of its formation. So that left two potential sources of so-called villainy. They either feared one among them or an outside influence that had already made its threats known.
I reached for an older stack of minutes, flipping through until I found one sufficiently far back from the installation of the lights.
There were several complaints and concerns raised to the council about a shadowy figure following them in the night, but no attacks or bloodshed.
That seemed to be it until I reached for a third stack from even earlier in the town’s history.
There, the first concern in the meeting of 1820 was an entry titled “The Huxley Affair.” Alexander Huxley was the original owner of the manor Billy now owned—the very same he and Leslee restored as a future tourist attraction.
Billy had worked there in the stables until the gory night he was turned by a sire who then fled and was never seen again, leaving Billy to deal with the resulting ghoul that Huxley became.
Certainly, the same family wasn’t responsible for the strange power in Ashbourne that seemed to disrupt our kind in various ways—especially allowing for a ghoul to sire a full nest of fanglings.
I read on, skimming the list of council representatives present and the addressing of old business before finding the section where “The Huxley Affair” was raised.
It seemed that Alexander Huxley’s ancestor some generations back was interested in the land the manor now stood on, but the village was hesitant to allow one entity to own that much.
They’d wanted to protect as much of their community balance as they could—a sentiment I remembered Billy reported still lingered in the modern day.
But Huxley persisted, going so far as to threaten to take the land “by any means necessary.”
Later in the notes, there were accusations against Huxley of dealing with the devil and consorting with witches to amass his considerable wealth.
While it was more likely the Huxleys owned more land elsewhere, earning them the credits needed to purchase the deed in Ashbourne, this was the mention of the supernatural I was hunting.
A thrill running through me, I started to reach for Rye’s attention, then stopped. What was the harm in a little flirtation if it was work-related?
Slipping off one shoe, I slid a questing foot up the back of her primly crossed legs beneath the table.
Rye’s focus remained fixed, so I moved from the back of her calf to the softer flesh inside, teasing past her knee and just barely to her thigh.
Her breath hitched momentarily, nostrils flaring as she released it slowly.
Encouraged, I continued up, teasing and rubbing the sensitive flesh, eyes never leaving her face, counting each restrained breath.
Venturing a touch further, wishing it were my hands spreading her open and not the barest reach of my sock-covered foot, I was rewarded with a gentle sigh and the opening of her legs.
Heat rushed through me at the welcome, and I angled myself in my creaking seat to gain better access to her. Could I add a second foot with attracting too much—
“Oh, heavens!” the clerk shrieked, startling me into slipping off my chair and falling to the ground, grabbing the groaning table on the way down.
Too late, I realized there was no tablecloth to conceal my game of footsie, and the clerk had walked in with a clear view of my attempt to nudge Rye’s pussy with a toe.
From underneath the table, I heard Rye smother a giggle, followed by the clerk’s strained answer to the whole mess: “I think it’s time for that pint, then.”
“Of course, ma’am, we’ll wait for you to lock up. Would you like an escort to the pub?” Rye offered, laying on her most charming tone.
“No, I should think not.” The clerk sniffed. “Wait here a moment . . . if you can.”
I listened for the faded click of the clerk’s steps before giving in to my prior impulses.
As Rye’s laughter slipped between her teeth, I hauled her hips forward, tearing easily through her slacks and shoving aside the lacy panties beneath.
The table above me shook with the slam of her hands, its creaking covering her moans as I descended on her cunt, nipping and sucking as if I had only seconds to feast before dying of starvation.
She was sweeter than I’d imagined, opening for me like a bud to the sun, soaking my tongue more with each ravenous lick.
Working her clit with punishing flicks, I slid in a careful few fingers, hunched beneath the table, her knees clamping around my ears. The clench of her drove me higher, tighter, and it was all I could manage to fist myself through my pants as she panted harder above me.
Her hands slammed the table again, as her muffled cry drifted to the floor.
“Oh God, I’m so close.” I let the invocation sear me, mixing with the heat of my own twisting climax as I worked her cunt, sucking hard as I slid in a third finger and flicked carefully within her walls, grazing the sensitive flesh.
Her muffled release escaped the cracks of her hands, meeting my own as I lapped up her orgasm, coming with my own stifled cry.
Just as quickly as we’d started, we were done, and none too soon. The clerk’s officious steps echoed from behind us. Swiping a furious sleeve past my mouth and tucking myself back into my pants, I slammed my head painfully under the table as I tried to emerge, knocking several papers loose.
Rye slid into her long coat from the night before, buttoning it crookedly over her torn pants as she knelt to retrieve the lost documents.