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Chapter 6
The foolishness of Hattie’s plan wrapped anxious claws around Amelia in the chilly evening air, uncertainty closing in on her. If they were caught, they were bound to lose all credibility within the parish. Noises from the inn at the end of the street punctuated the stillness of the night, reminding them that they were not the only ones who had chosen to remain awake this late in the evening.
“Are you absolutely certain no one will catch us?” Amelia whispered loudly, eliciting an irritated groan from her friend.
Light from the half-moon shone down on them, glowing against Hattie’s pale skin as she slid down from her horse. “No. But I am nearly positive.”
A muffled cheer rose up, floating through the open windows of the inn’s taproom. Amelia slid from her horse, guiding him closer to Hattie. She glanced over her shoulder, unable to locate Giulia in the darkness, though she knew her friend was there, stationed further down the road to keep watch.
Amelia’s job was to stand guard in the churchyard.
Hattie took the reins and tied them to a branch on the hawthorn tree in front of the church. “The only people awake are either completely foxed or they work in the inn and thus have no reason to leave it. Especially not to come to a churchyard at midnight.”
“Very well. Let us get this over with. Do you have the hempseed?”
Hattie grinned, her teeth shining against the moonlight. “Indeed, I do.”
“Then let’s get on with it.” Amelia felt fourteen again, sneaking out late at night to meet with her friends at the Greens’ old pond for a late-night swim. If her mother had ever found out she had done that, she would have been banned from leaving her house for the following year, at the very least.
But this was nothing like that. She was a grown woman now, and if she wanted to hang about a churchyard at midnight, she no longer had a mother—or a husband—to stop her.
Excited energy pulsed from Hattie, and she pulled a small, woven bag from her reticule, tugging at the drawstrings to widen the opening. She clicked open the watch that hung on a chain around her neck, angling it toward the moon. With a decided snap, she tucked the watch into her bodice and glanced up. “Wish me luck.”
“You don’t need luck,” Amelia said, unable to help herself. “You have magic.”
Hattie nodded, resolute. Turning for the church, she pulled out a handful of hempseed and began to walk around the building.
“No, Hattie!” Amelia called, trying to keep her voice down. “Clockwise!”
Hattie jumped. “Oh, right.” Pivoting, she turned the other direction and walked the perimeter of the church, scattering the hempseed as she walked, her voice reciting the poem in a soft murmur. “Hempseed I sow, hempseed I grow. Let him who is my true love…”
Her voice disappeared as she rounded the corner, and Amelia swept her gaze up and down the road to check for intruders. The eerie stillness of the empty street heightened her nerves, and she wrapped her arms around her chest to stem their shaking. Hattie’s voice grew louder again as she appeared, shooting Amelia an excited smile as she continued with her process. She needed to go around the church three times. Only two to go.
Voices from the inn’s taproom grew louder, another cheer roaming through the night. Surely they were not so rambunctious every evening, but then again, it was midsummer—and a quarter day. Light spilled from the inn as the door opened and a man called his farewells to the occupants inside.
Oh, dear.
Hattie appeared around the corner once again, spreading the seeds as she walked. Her tiny pouch could not contain very much, so she certainly must be quite sparing in her spreading. If only she would walk a little faster.
Horse hooves clopped down the lane behind Amelia as Hattie disappeared around the corner once more. She only had one more circulation to go and she could be finished with this madness. Perhaps the man who left the inn would be too foxed to notice them as he passed. Slipping further behind the hawthorn tree, Amelia stepped on a twig, and her horse turned its head sharply at the snap.
She shut her eyes in consternation. They could potentially remain hidden in the shadows of the tree and the church, but two horses tied off the side of the lane were a dead giveaway.
“Let him who is my true love…”
Oh, Hattie, please finish quickly. Amelia peeked between the branches, her hands shaking as her friend finished her incantation, slipping around the side of the church and out of sight.
The horse hooves slowed, and the man atop the horse turned his curious face toward the church, his eyebrows drawing together.
Amelia groaned.
Charles. Could no other man come upon them at midnight? Must it be Charles? She scowled at him from her hiding place, hoping he would turn about and go home.
A high-pitched scream rent the air, shaking Amelia from her trance. Hattie.
She turned toward the church when the horse Charles rode whinnied, rearing back and throwing his rider to the ground. Charles’s body landed on the grassy edge of the churchyard with a thud as his horse bolted down the street.
“Charles!” she called, rushing to his side and falling to her knees beside him. He groaned, his hand coming up to rub his other shoulder, and she caught a whiff of something stale. Had he been drinking? Shifting, he tried to get to his feet.
