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SING WITCH, SING DEATH
by Roberta Gellis
Thorndike Press May 1999
(Large Print reprint)
Had the witches of Tremaire brewed up a sudden storm so the Earl of St. Just and his eldest son would drown? Was the coven determined that Vyvyan inherit the estate because his mother had been one of them? Or was the coven planning to be rid of the St. Justs, root, stock, and branch? |
- AN IMPERFECT MARRIAGE
- When Vyvyan St. Just unexpectedly inherited his father's earldom, his vulgar and ambitious wife Hetty expected to take her place in the ton--that was, after all, why she had sacrificed her considerable fortune to marry an earl's son. Instead Vyvyan forced her to travel with him to his beloved home in Cornwall, Tremaire--where danger brooded along the cliffs above the sea and evil lurked at the top of the stairs.
- A RELUCTANT COMPANION
- Impoverished by her late father's gambling, Lady Pamela Hervey had a choice among starving, living on the charity of sneering relatives, or going to Cornwall with Hetty St. Just and teaching her how to act like a lady. The last seemed the least unpleasant alternative--until they arrived in Tremaire and ran afoul of the witchs' coven there.
- A FORBIDDEN LOVE
- Lady Pamela and Vyvyan St. Just were too much alike. Both loved the wild Cornish countryside; both loved to ride; both loved the sea; both loved Tremaire--and soon both loved each other. It was a hopeless situation, and Pamela knew she must leave Tremaire, but she could not go before midsummer night in the dark of the moon because the coven was planning something and either Vyvyan or a new born babe might be the chosen sacrifice.
"A master spinner of tales." -- Romantic Times
Excerpt from SING WITCH, SING DEATH
The clatter of booted feet on the stairs gave George and Pamela a moment's warning. They had been seated in uneasy silence, straining to hear. George, half-smiling did not try to conceal his interest, and Pamela was too furious and at the same time too worried to consider the implications of hers.
"Told you," George said mildly as St. Just erupted into the room. "Wrong way to go about asking a lady for something. Best thing to do now--"
"Get out!" the earl snarled.
Unable to think of anything else, and hoping that even a few seconds' delay would give St. Just a chance to regain his control, Pamela rose to her feet as if the remark had been addressed to her.
"Not you," St. Just snapped. "You, George, get out."
George's eyes, normally fishlike in their round expressionlessness, narrowed, giving a singularly wicked look to his face. "Sometimes you go beyond the bounds of what is permissible even between relations, Vyvyan."
"Will you get out, or must I throw you out?"
"St. Just!"
Unheeding the earl advanced on his cousin. George rose, and Pamela leaped forward to interpose herself between the two men.
"George, please," she cried, "please do not quarrel with him. He will hurt himself."
Even with an injured hand and a sprained wrist, there was about as much chance of St. Just being hurt in a set-to between him and George as a lion being seriously mauled by a rabbit. It was excuse enough, however, to permit George to retreat with some remnant of dignity.
"That was disgusting, St. Just," Pamela gasped. "How could you?"
"I asked Hetty for a divorce. She refused."
For the moment the lesser but more immediate outrage blanked Pamela's mind to what St. Just had said. "I don't care what Hetty did," she cried. "You have no right to treat George that way."
St. Just's hands shot out, seized on Pamela's shoulders with bruising force, and shook her until her teeth rattled. "Did you hear what I said?" he bellowed.
Exerting all her not inconsiderable strength, Pamela wrenched herself free and landed a resounding slap on the earl's distorted face. He gasped and brought a hand up to his maltreated cheek.
"You were perfectly correct," Pamela said coldly. "A slap in the face is an excellent remedy for hysterics. Will you stop acting like a spoiled child instead of a grown man? I must assume, since you are telling me this, that I am the reason you broached this topic to your wife. You should have consulted me first. I could have saved you the trouble on two counts. First of all, I could have told you Hetty would not consent to a divorce. How you could have thought she would is utterly beyond me. And as for myself--"
He did not allow her to finish, but sneered bitterly, "It does not matter. I have permission to take my pleasure when and where I will."
Instead of being insulted, Pamela had to suppress an urge to laugh. If St. Just thought he was proposing an illicit relationship to her, she could not conceive of a more inept way to do it. "You are an inconsiderate beast, St. Just," she remarked dispassionately. "Does it not occur to you that, even if I were so lost to the world for love of you as you think, the present circumstances might make it awkward for me to make light conversation with Hetty?"
The sneer was gone, and there was only a gray, blind look to his face. "You know I did not mean that. I can buy amusement, and I do," he said bleakly. "I do not need to offend a woman like yourself to obtain that." Then the full meaning of what she had said penetrated his dulled senses. "For God's sake, I said nothing of my feeling for you. I am sure Hetty does not suspect that. There are troubles enough between us to account for my request without implicating any woman. Pamela, you will not leave us? Hetty will go mad here alone. In common mercy..."
"I will not leave this afternoon or tomorrow," Pamela said slowly. "If Hetty does not connect me with this sudden desire of yours for freedom, I should not like to add that to the other causes of friction between you."
"Curse me for a stupid lout," he burst out. "You liked me before this. You were willing to be my friend, and I had to try for more. I'm like a trapped animal," he added softly. "I endured it quietly when there was no way out. Then you came and I thought I saw an escape, so I struggled. The worst of it is that I cannot blame Hetty. She has her faults, but a clear bargain was made, and she has kept her part of it. I have the money. For the rest, probably I made most of the trouble between us."
This was the moment, Pamela thought, to ask for her money and set a definite date for her departure in a week or two, but she could not do it. St. Just's situation was heart-breaking. His wife hated him; there must still be a seed of doubt in his mind as to whether his cousin had tried to kill him. Pamela longed to take him in her arms and assure him that someone cared. She could not do that, but she could not leave him either.
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