Prologue
Camber Hall
Glenfinnan, Scotland
What had started as a gentle mist was turning into sheets of rain when they least needed it.
Portia Maclean charged up the attic stairs in a race against the leaks in the roof.
“Cold, drafty, leaky house,” she muttered, stomping on each step in her frustration. There were two buckets up there that were probably full from the rain the day before. She had been hoping she could put off the chore of emptying them. Now she was on a race against Nature.
The attic was not her favorite place. It smelled of must and was full of wooden boxes, crates, trunks and old furniture from what seemed to be centuries of previous tenants.
Portia could not stand the smell of dirt and decay and she hated cobwebs. She always held her breath when she came up here and prayed she never saw any of the spiders she knew had to be lurking in the rafters. Spiders that watched her, waiting for an opportunity to jump down upon her.
A shiver went through her at the thought, or at imagining any of the other multiple-legged creatures that lurked with those spiders.
The first bucket was close to the staircase and was, as she had suspected, almost full.
She pushed the bridge of her wire spectacles up her nose, waved away a wet cobweb dangling from the ceiling, and picked up the bucket handle with both hands.
She lugged it to the small window overlooking the front drive.
Humidity had swollen the wood—again—so she had to give the sash a few pounds of her fist for it to open.
She poured the water out, returned the bucket to its place and went in search of the other in the far corner where the attic was darkest, even in the afternoon.
Anxious to finish this unpleasant task so she could return to the fire in the kitchen, Portia wound her way around the accumulated boxes, trunks, tables and crates toward the steady drip of water dropping into the bucket. Here was where the roof leak was the worst.
Portia found the bucket and made quick work of emptying it, closing the window when she was done. She was hurrying to place the bucket back under the leak when a streak of white blazed across her path.
She stumbled backward in surprise, reaching out for the first available surface to catch her balance, and ended up tipping a precarious stack of junk down onto her. She fell to the floor in a crash of wood and billows of dust.
Coughing, Portia needed a moment to grasp what had happened to her and to be certain she was all right. The noise of her fall had been so loud, she was surprised her mother and her sister hadn’t heard and come to check on her.
Instead, all was quiet save for the rain on the roof. Her younger sister, Minnie, was probably down in the kitchen, and their mother . . . well, Lady Maclean might be in the bedroom almost directly below where Portia was now, but rarely stirred herself for anyone.
Portia wiggled her toes and her fingers.
Nothing was broken. She was all right . .
. but what had that flash of white been?
She was a practical woman and not given to flights of fancy, well, other than her very reasonable distaste of bugs.
If she saw something, then there was something.
But before she could investigate, she needed to dig herself out of this mess.
She shoved a wooden crate off her legs. It had been filled with old shoes, clothes and hats, none of it salvageable.
She and Minnie had already investigated the attic last June when they’d first moved in.
She lifted the box and set it on top of a trunk and was just turning to pick up the empty bucket off the floor, when a book fell onto the floor right in front of her.
A book. There were never enough books to read in the house. It was a heavy, leather-bound book and so aged, the binding was falling off its spine. Portia forgot about the bucket and the leaks. She took the book and hurried back to the window so she could inspect it better in the light.
The book was handwritten. The paper was yellow and brittle. She had to be careful with it. There were pages and pages of writing. Perhaps poetry? She adored poetry—
“It’s recipes,” she said, disappointed. She frowned again, attempting to decipher the faded handwriting.
Yes, recipes, but not the sort she was familiar with.
“How to remove warts,” she read and then curled her lip in distaste at the instructions to make a mash of onions and potatoes and apply to the wart for no less than ten days.
“The whole poultice will stink after that period of time,” she mumbled to herself.
She turned a few more pages, and her imagination was captured.
There were recipes for strawberry wine and what to say when surrounded by a toadstool ring to protect one’s self against evil.
Who would have imagined toadstool rings were evil?
“ ‘Queen of the Meadow, take this evil from this house,’ ” Portia chanted and then hummed her disbelief. She wasn’t superstitious. Toadstool rings were toadstool rings. They harbored no magic, or at least not the ones she tromped through.
She flipped more pages and found one that was wrinkled and the ink smeared as if someone had shed tears over the recipe titled, “To Reclaim True Love.” The word “Charles” had been written in the margin.
The name wasn’t in the same handwriting as the recipe, so perhaps this spell had been used.
Perhaps some woman, years earlier, had pined for Charles.
Portia wondered if, after the spell, he’d come back to her. And if he’d been worth it!
Love was a mystery to Portia. Her sister was in love with Mr. Oliver Tolliver, the valley’s physician, but who knew what would become of it.
Right now, Minnie was pining because Mr. Tolliver had not called in three days.
Portia thought the man was busy with his duties.
A doctor was always at the beck and call of his patients, and she’d told Minnie as much.
Minnie was not convinced. She feared he had lost interest.
Portia herself had never been in love, and after witnessing Minnie’s miserableness waiting for Mr. Tolliver these past few days, was grateful to have been spared.
Then again, her father had taught her well that men could be selfish creatures with no thought of using women and then discarding them.
After all, wasn’t that what he’d done with his own family?
Of course, since she was seven and twenty and lacked a dowry, the likelihood of Portia ever marrying was long past. She was a penniless spinster, an old maid. She’d made her peace with it.
That didn’t mean that she didn’t find this love spell fascinating—
Her thought broke off with insight. Love spell? Yes, this was a book of spells.
Fascinated, Portia flipped through more pages.
The toadstool chant wasn’t the only spell that made her chuckle.
There were spells to rid a house of demons—she should share these with Reverend Ogilvy—and to keep people she didn’t like from crossing her path.
She wondered if she could use that on the daughter of her landlord the duke.
The very pampered and petty Lady Emma, daughter of the Duke of Moncrieffe, had lorded over the valley as the reigning beauty until the Macleans had arrived.
Minnie had usurped her place, and Lady Emma was not happy.
On the inside front cover page of the book was a list of women’s names. Most were unreadable. However, the last one on the list caught Portia’s eye. Fenella. If ever there was a witch’s name, Fenella was one.
At that moment, Portia’s musings were interrupted by the sound of a small meow.
Portia cocked her head, unsure if she had heard correctly. How could a cat find its way into the attic?
As if answering her question, a small white cat climbed onto the lid of a trunk close to Portia’s right hand.
Or at least she thought it was a cat. The body, tail, and sweet face were all catlike. However, the ears were different. They folded over, giving her head a flat roundness, much like the shape of an owl’s.
The ears weren’t the animal’s only different feature. She had the largest, most expressive eyes Portia had ever seen on a kitty. They, too, were owlish in expression: all-knowing, all-wise . . . with a touch of almost human understanding.
Portia shook her head, thinking she was being far too fanciful now.
The cat jumped to the floor. She walked around Portia’s skirts and rubbed her face in them, purring softly.
Portia was charmed. She set the book aside and picked the animal up. Kitty weighed next to nothing. “So you are the culprit for the knot on my head.” Portia smiled and the cat seemed to smile in return. “What beautiful eyes you have, kitty.”
The cat closed her eyes and rubbed her cheek against Portia’s hand, begging for a pet.
“Would you like some milk?”
Those expressive eyes came open. The cat made a sound that could only be interpreted as agreement and leaped down from Portia’s arms. She trotted to the stairs before turning as if to ask Portia if she was coming.
“I suppose you do,” Portia said with a laugh. “But wait. I must put this bucket in place.”
She carried the bucket to the corner of the attic. The cat waited for her to finish the chore, taking a moment to gracefully groom herself.
A pet was exactly what Portia needed. She and Minnie had never had one. Her mother wasn’t fond of animals.
But they were in Scotland now, her father’s ancestral home. Their lives had changed in so many ways . . . so perhaps it was time they had a pet. Besides, Lady Maclean left her room only for church and visitors, so keeping the cat a secret would not be that difficult.
Portia walked to the stairs and sat on the floor, fears of spiders forgotten. The cat climbed into her lap. “Owl,” she said. “I shall name you Owl.”
The cat purred approval.
Portia would have gone down the stairs, but Owl jumped from her lap and ran back to the window as if to remind her that she had almost forgotten the book. Portia laughed at the cat’s almost humanlike sensibilities and at herself for imagining them.
“Thank you, Owl, I don’t want to forget it,” she said. “How else shall we know what to chant when we see a bat?”
The cat purred her approval and followed Portia down the stairs.