Witching Hour Read Online Free Page B

her land, and she refused to give it up to an uncaring
    stranger.
    She said quietly, but aloud because that was the rule, 'I wish that
    he may never come here. I wish that he may renounce his
    inheritance, and that we may never meet.' Then she began to walk
    round the stone, slowly and carefully, the wind whipping her cloak
    around her legs, her head thrown back slightly, her eyes narrowed
    against the gloom as she watched for a sign of movement.
    She had never really believed in the Wishing Stone, had always
    dismissed it as an amusing local superstition, but now she
    desperately wanted the legend to be true, and to work for her.
    But when her circuit was completed, the great stone remained
    where it was implacable, immovable. Her wish hadn't been
    granted, and she could have thrown herself on to the ground and
    wept and drummed her heels like a tired child.
    She stared at the stone, and sighed despairingly, 'Oh, why didn't
    you work?'
    And from somewhere behind her, but altogether too close for
    comfort a man's voice said, 'Perhaps you used the wrong spell. Or
    simply asked for the wrong thing.'
    Morgana spun round, her hand going to her mouth to stifle an
    involuntary scream, and found herself caught, transfixed like a
    butterfly to a cork, in the merciless, all-encompassing beam of a
    powerful torch.

CHAPTER TWO
    HER heart hammering, Morgana stared back, lifting her chin
    defiantly. She didn't recognise the voice. Low-pitched and
    resonant, with a trace of an unfamiliar accent, it struck no chord in
    her memory. And she couldn't see him either, although she had the
    impression that he was tall.
    She wondered why she hadn't heard him approach, but supposed it
    had been partly because of the noise of the wind, and principally,
    because she had been so totally absorbed in what she was doing.
    All of which he had observed, judging by his opening remark. She
    felt the blood rush into her face with embarrassment, and her
    temper rising at the same time as she visualised him skulking up
    through the bracken, deliberately not using his torch, giving her no
    hint that she was no longer alone until it was too late, and she had
    made a complete and utter fool of herself.
    She demanded sharply, 'Do you enjoy spying?'
    'Not particularly, although I must confess it can be most
    instructive,' he said. 'And it's not every day one gets the paces. But
    isn't it a little early for this sort of thing? I always understood the
    witching hour was midnight.'
    There was a trace of amusement in his voice which he wasn't at all
    concerned to hide, and it stung.
    She said stiffly, 'I am not a witch.'
    'I think that's just as well.' The laughter was open now. 'I don't
    think you'd be very good at it. That stone's supposed to rock, isn't
    it?'
    'How did you know that?'
    'From a book I bought in the village. I hope you didn't think it was
    a closely guarded secret.'
    'No, no, of course not.' The fright he had given her, and her own
    anger, had knocked her slightly off balance, and she hated the way
    he kept her trapped in the damned beam of light, so that he could
    see her, but she could know nothing about him, except that
    impression of height.
    Her voice sharpened. 'Did your book also tell you that this is
    private land?'
    It was only a technicality, and no one at Polzion House had ever
    dreamed of debarring any of the interested tourists from visiting
    the stone, but there was something about this man that flicked her
    on the raw, that made her want to put him down—to make him
    feel small in his turn. It was abominable the way he had stood
    there in the darkness and watched her, and listened, and then added
    insult to injury by laughing at her.
    He said slowly, 'Is it now? And do you think the owner would
    mind?'
    'We don't like trespassers round here—intruders.'
    'I was always told the Cornish were very hospitable. And as for
    intruding, actually I was here before you. I was standing back so I
    could look at the stone from a distance when you