“The whole thing,” he said harshly, “has been caused by that Carib slave of Parris’s. Tituba! She spent the winter telling those girls that her ex-mistress in the islands was a witch!” He sighed. “John Proctor has been saying that a good whipping would cure the girls of their fits, and I’ve a mind to believe he might be right.”
“Robert,” Eleanor reproached him, “I—I’ve seen them! They are truly grievously ill!”
“Aye,” Robert murmured, “and encouraged to be so, as it appears!” He paused, then turned to look at Eleanor with his eyes very dark against the gaunt contours of his face. “Four children were taken so in Boston not long before we arrived here.”
“Aye,” Eleanor said unhappily.
“What happened?” Brianna demanded.
“They were—cured. The eldest was taken into the home of Cotton Mather, and eventually, she was cured.”
“And a woman was hanged,” Robert said harshly.
Eleanor threw up her hands in defense. “Robert! She was stealing articles of the children, brewing up potions, making dolls to torture—she admitted to witchcraft!”
Robert laughed dryly. “She was Irish, and spoke far better in Gaelic than in English! Who knows what defense she might have had?” Robert turned from the fire in distraction. “Where is my son?” he demanded of his wife.
“S-s-sleeping,” she replied.
He strode for their bedroom door, but before he entered he turned back suddenly, practically shouting at her. He who never sought to command was suddenly giving out fierce orders. “You will stay away from the Village center!” he told her harshly. “You will not say a word, you will not become involved in this, do you hear me, wife?”
She could not reply.
“Brianna!”
“Aye, Robert, aye!” she replied at last. He went into the bedroom; the door closed like thunder.
“I’m sorry,” Eleanor said bleakly. “Truly sorry.”
Brianna shook her head. “Don’t be. He will not stay angry long. He’s just worried.”
“Brianna, don’t be alarmed. Really, in all the time that we have been here, I believe that there have been but four executions for witchcraft. And they were carefully judged and weighed in courts of law!”
Brianna nodded. Eleanor saw that she was still distressed, and longed to ease the torment she had unwittingly caused.
“Ah, Brianna, I forgot to tell you! There is another new excitement for us!”
“There is?” Brianna tried to smile.
“Aye! A ship has come in from England bringing letters and wares! And the most handsome captain—even our most stalwart matrons are talking about him!”
Brianna barely heard her words. She gave Eleanor a wan smile, but she still worried about the things she had learned. Oh, it was true that these people were ardent on justice! But it was true, too, that they believed deeply in damnation, that man was created in God’s image to fight the devil all his days.
“—that he comes to us from King William’s war in Ireland. A fighter, they say, fierce and dangerous, and yet with a stature and cast of the eye that could seduce at will! He’s courteous, yet remote. The girls might well swoon in his path, but he wouldn’t notice, which makes him all the more fascinating.”
“What?” Brianna said at last, brows furrowing, eyes narrowing, and her heart seeming to cease its beat with a single careening thud.
“You haven’t been listening to a word I’ve said!” Eleanor laughed, glad to see that she had at last brought her friend’s mind from the scare of witchcraft. “I was telling you about the captain newly in! I’ve heard he’s a duke. ’Tis amazing that he breached the weather to make it here at all! Lord Treveryan is his name. Philip met him—and was most impressed. He was ready to set to sea himself—”
She broke off. Brianna had risen; her cheeks had gone as pale as new-fallen snow.
“Brianna? Are you all right? Oh dear, my Lord, what have I said now? Robert will be ready to take a stick to me!”
“No, no!” Brianna said quickly. She tried to breathe, in and out, in and out. “I’m fine, I’m fine. I was just a little dizzy.”
“Dizzy. Ah, Brianna! Perhaps you and Robert will have another child—a brother or sister for Michael!”
Brianna had no desire to discourage such a belief. “Ah, perhaps, yes, that might be it.” She forced herself to move, to stir the poke at the logs in the fire.
