Dangerous Magic by Alix Rickloff Read Free Book Online Page A

hidden windows, if cleared of debris, would gather the growing light in the east and send it streaming into the house’s dark rooms. A balustraded terrace ran the length of the west side of the house, looking out on a murky, choked stream that dipped across the property before disappearing into the trees.
    Rafe started toward the house. “Where are we?”
    Gwenyth Killigrew turned back. “Goninan, it’s called. She once was part of Rosevear, the estate of the Chynoweths whose lands we cross. But Goninan and Rosevear parted company well before my grandmother’s day, and now she stands vacant and alone. The stream there empties into a well. People still come now and again to drink from its healing waters.” Her lips turned up in a teasing smile. “Some say Goninan’s haunted.”
    His mouth twitched with laughter. “Every other rock, spinney and glen in this accursed county is said to be haunted.”
    She smiled. “I wouldn’t be knowing about that. But I’ve passed this way more times than I can count in day and night. The only haunting I’ve ever seen has been by the tub-men using her cellars to hide their cargos.”
    Rafe took a few steps up the drive. Plucking a broken branch from the ground, he stared up at the empty house. “That makes sense. A good ghost story will keep all sorts out. But still,” he cast a glance at Gwenyth, “it’s sad to see such beauty hidden away.”
    She shook her head. “You’ve the tongue of a rogue in that head of yours, Captain Fleming.” She started down the drive to the lane beyond the house.
    Rafe tossed away his branch and jogged to catch up with her. “From head to toe, I’m scoundrel through and through.” He tossed her a wicked smile.
    She met his gaze, and Rafe was struck by the beauty of her eyes, gray and impenetrable as fog. Flecks of gold flickering like summer lightning in their depths.
    “You wear your charm like a jacket to ward off the cold,” she said. “There’ll come a time when you’ll be warmed by a woman’s love and there’ll be no need for such protection.”
    Excitement jumped in Rafe’s gut. He took her arm. “Is this one of your visions, or are you simply throwing me the same platitudes you use to swindle your paying customers?”
    She gave his body a raking sweep of her eyes and laughed. “It takes no vision to see such a thing, only eyes in my head.”
    She pulled away and said no more as Rafe trailed behind.
    They followed the lane to Kerrow, the path taking them down from the hills toward the sea. Past the first straggle of cottages just as men began to emerge, dressed for the wet and cold of a day spent fishing for pollack and bass in the waters off the coast. To a man, they nodded or tipped their caps to the Witch of Kerrow as if she were a great lady. But some watched her with a more possessive eye, running their gaze over her body as if she were a three-masted corvette, sleek and trim and only needing a steady captain to pilot her. Rafe observed her reaction to such behavior; she seemed unaware of the scrutiny as she slipped her bag farther upon her shoulder, her steps still light and graceful in spite of twenty-four hours without rest.
    Once or twice he challenged a man’s lascivious gaze. His jaw hardening with an urge to step closer to Gwenyth, take her arm and thwart the dagger-glances sent his way. The men dropped their eyes, refusing to confront him. He knew they recognized him, and that they understood he was never a man to cross—for any reason.
    “They eye you like a meal,” he growled beneath his breath.
    “They know I stand ready to choose, and they wait and wonder.”
    “Choose what? You speak in riddles.”
    She stepped around a puddle. “I’m looking for a man. I need a child, someone I can pass my knowledge on to, someone to take my place when I die.”
    Rafe’s breath caught in his throat, though he refused to consider too closely the rush that surged through him. “You seek a husband?”
    “A man, not a