The Penwyth Bride (The Witch's Daughter Book 1) by Ani Bolton

eyes carefully veiled. “Forgive me. If it is yours then you should take it upstairs.”
    “Why?”
    “Because m’mother will be insufferably jealous. Conservatory beauties from Lyhalis are her prerogative to destroy.”
    “But what has Roger done to make Lady Penwyth so--” I choked off the half-formed question at the expression coalescing on his face.
    “Oh ho. Has someone been gossiping?” Damon asked, so softly it sent a chill through me.
    “Nanny?” he continued. “No. Susannah. What nasty little stories has my sister been telling you?”
    “N-nothing,” I gabbled.
    “The lie, Miss Eames, is in your eyes.”
    The hand he had held out to reach for the plant’s earthenware pot now moved to the purple blossoms. He plucked one and began ripping the petals apart.
    “Do you have something to say, Miss Eames?” he prompted as I worked to form a coherent response.
    Another petal screamed under his rending fingers.
    “Please stop,” I burst out, struggling to contain my affinity. The smell of crushed flowers filled my nostrils like blood. “I’ll tell you. S-Susannah said that Roger’s father had been bewitched by his wife to kill himself in Lyhalis cove, and that he tried to drown Roger there too.”
    Damon wore a thunderstruck look. “My sister told you that Heron Penwyth was bewitched?”
    “Yes.”
    “And you believed this faradiddle?”
    “Well . . . it did sound as if . . .”
    He threw the crumpled petal to the floor. “Heron Penwyth wasn’t bewitched, Miss Eames, though we would all like the luxury of thinking so. He was mad. As mad as a rabid dog.”
    Damon dropped heavily beside me on the window seat. “This is what comes of trying to keep skeletons hiding in their closets. Without the truth to inform them, folk start making up their own stories, even my sister. I see I shall have to tell you what really happened the night Roger’s parents died.”
    Damon gazed at the pewter buckles of his shoes for so long I had thought for a moment he had changed his mind. “I suppose Susannah told you that Heron Penwyth brought home a wife from one of the Scilly Isles,” he began at last.
    “Yes.”
    “Morgreth was beautiful, by God. I remember her even now, sculpted cheekbones, emerald eyes . . . striking. Any man who got close to her wanted her; she needed no witchcraft to tempt them. And many tried to tempt her away from her husband.
    “Heron grew jealous. Who could blame the fellow for that, but his jealousy grew into a mania. He became reclusive, shut himself up in that decaying house, Lyhalis, and he insisted on mewing up Morgreth as well. My father tried to reason with Heron, but then he too began to hunger after his cousin’s beautiful wife--”
    “Not Sir Grover!” I exclaimed.
    Damon smiled sardonically. “Hard to believe the flinty goat had enough blood left in his veins for dalliances. Not that Morgreth ever paid any attention to any of her admirers . . . she knew better than to inflame Heron, whose temper was growing out of hand, especially after Roger was born.”
    “But . . . Lady Penwyth!”
    “Oh, Mama knew, of course. But what could she do?”
    What indeed.
    “One night Heron lost control of himself. I think--now this is only a suspicion--that my father must have gone up to Lyhalis on the pretense of visiting Heron, just to get another glimpse of Morgreth. That visit must have triggered something in Heron’s addled brain.”
    Damon stared out the window. Black clouds soaked the horizon over the purpling moor, and a flock of birds arrowed through the sky. “I remember that night. I was only six, mind you, but the wind howled like a banshee and I was frightened. The rain came after dark, spattering so hard against the roof that no one heard the pounding at the door from Jem Pyder for a full ten minutes, he said.”
    “Jem Pyder . . . Tom’s brother?”
    “Aye. I was there when they let him in, wet to the bone. My mother had been carrying me around to distract me from the