the sorrow of the day. She stood with one hand on the amulet beneath her bodice and watched puffs of creamy cloud, propelled by the sea wind, scud toward the west. She breathed and reminded herself that she couldn’t carry the burdens of her patients. It helped neither them nor her, and it hampered her ability to heal others.
She heard Grace return from the front door and move into the kitchen, but still she stood. She hoped the beauty of the fields and scattered farmhouses might soothe her, but her memories, never far from her mind, flooded through her defenses.
Alexander had been a gentleman, a throwback to a different time. She had wanted him. Had longed for him, her body throbbing with need, but he was a man of immense honor, and she was a lady. He would not give in, and then, when their wedding was only a few months off, he was shot and killed in northern Virginia. Their future died with him.
Harriet’s body had never been satisfied, not once. She would never feel that quickening of the breath, that ecstasy of skin against skin, the bliss of two bodies becoming one. She would never feel the beginnings of life in her womb or the pains of childbirth. She was barren in every sense.
Not till she felt steady again, her heart beating evenly beneath the consoling weight of Grandmother Beryl’s charm, did she turn from the window to take on the next task of the day.
She had to do something about Frances.
Harriet knew where Frances practiced. She had known for years, since her cousin first moved into Allington House. Frances was adept at her craft but naive in protecting her secrets. Her solitary outings, the only ones she made without her maid, caused her servants curiosity, which no doubt Frances never suspected. It had been simple to learn her schedule, whispered in exchange for a coin in a servant’s hand. People told Harriet things they would not tell anyone else.
Harriet was very good at slipping in and out of a wood or a shrubbery without being seen. One day she had waited patiently in the shade of the strip of trees edging the Allington estate, watching for Frances. When she appeared, she walked quickly with only a cursory glance about her. A string bag bulging with supplies hung from her arm.
Once Harriet knew the spot, she could walk from the Dakota to Riverside Drive and turn north along the equestrian path, veering off into the woods as the trees thinned. She didn’t go often, but it had become her habit, once or twice a year, to check on the cabin, to find out what Frances was up to.
It had shocked her to realize Frances had used the maleficia to force George Allington. His glassy eyes at the wedding breakfast, the quickness of his breathing when Frances touched him, the wetness of his lips, revealed clearly what had happened. Harriet didn’t need the knowing to understand what Frances had done.
She didn’t know whether Frances had used a philter or a manikin. She didn’t learn about the cabin until Frances and George had returned from their wedding journey, and whatever Frances’s means had been were gone. If there had been a manikin, she had no doubt destroyed it. If she had used a philter, a love potion, there was no evidence to prove it. She had the right ingredients, scattered on the bare shelves of the cabin, but Harriet had the same ingredients in her herbarium, each used for other purposes.
Now, with the future of her great-niece at risk, she set out for the cabin once again. The strega had told her what Annis said, that they were about to go on a sea voyage. There was no time to lose.
She had watched from a shadowed doorway as Annis pressed money into her maid’s hand and sent her into the chandler’s shop. She didn’t know what the maid purchased, but the glow on her plain face when she emerged told her it had been something special to her, a gift from her mistress. Harriet’s heart lifted at this sign of Annis’s good heart. It was not too late to save her.
She hurried to reach the cabin while she knew Frances and Annis were out. When she reached it, she was out of breath, and her feet hurt from nearly running in her street shoes. The sun was past its zenith. The time for her search was short.