“In time you will know.” She smiled. “Those who hold tightly to a path for themselves usually tumble the hardest.”
Her words made no sense, but Damon decided to play along. “How will I know?”
“Flowering vines will be your answer.”
Damon frowned.Bloody hell! There were flowering vines all over Nightshade, so she wasn’t being helpful.
“Has anyone new arrived to Bocka Morrow?” Miss Cordelia asked.
“Other than Lord Bentford’s family and their guest?”
“Yes,” Miss Cordelia answered. “Anyone else.”
“Not that I am aware,” Brigid answered.
“As you are not aware, then there is no one,” Miss Adriana stated as she placed a jar of the white cream with green flecks within on the counter.
“Why is it important?” Brighid asked.
Damon looked to Miss Cordelia and hoped that she’d answer so that he didn’t sound like a fool.
“You can tell Brighid anything and it will not be repeated,” she said.
Damon took a deep breath then recited the dire prediction of darkness surrounding him and danger to someone he cared for.
“If Madam Boswell saw this, then it is so.”
“If someone were to arrive, would you please send word to Nightshade Manor?” Miss Cordelia asked.
“Of course.” Brighid reached forward and grasped Damon’s hand again. “I know how your brother and his wife died.” Sadness filled Brighid’s dark eyes. “I am sorry. It is a reminder to us all that there are those who wish to destroy us.”
“Thank you,” he murmured.
“Do you fear that it may be the same danger?” Her tone was filled with heavy concern.
“We believe so for I can’t imagine who else would wish to harm my family,” he answered.
Brighid gave a quick nod. “I will be on alert and ask the others like me to be as well.” Then she looked up into Damon’s eyes. “If it is the same, may we still find refuge at Nightshade Manor?”
He squeezed her hand in return. “Refuge will remain the same, as it always has been, even when we are not in residence.”
Though it may take his mother’s gifts to part the bramble, it also easily parted and closed for the witches of Bocka Morrow if nobody was living at the estate. All witches were to be protected within, not just those from the Drakos line.
Then he remembered that Miss Adriana was standing with them. If she hadn’t known that he came from a family of witches before, she did now, though she only seemed concerned by the conversation, not shocked or surprised.
Adriana paid for and took her purchase. “I am going to visitPennick’s Book Shop,” she said before exiting and without waiting for a response.
“My tea did not help?”Brighid asked Cordelia with a light smile.
Cordelia prayed the witch didn’t reveal her secrets.
“Tea?” Lord Bentford asked.
“I had trouble sleeping and was plagued by dreams, but those have been resolved.”
“I told you that if it was meant to be, no tea would be of assistance.”
“But it was,” she insisted and wished Brighid would stop speaking of it now as the tea was to have rid her of her obsession with Nightshade Manor and its residents.
