Peter St. Owen dead more than fifteen years? Sarah was shocked into silence. She felt so distraught that she couldn’t even look at Hugh St. Owen still perched on the edge of the antique chaise longue. How could he believe her now? She must sound like a raving idiot. Had she actually been talking to a ghost? She shook her head. It just wasn’t possible. Tears came to her eyes.  She found herself wishing that the ottoman would rise up from the floor and swallow her whole.
All at once she felt two strong, manly arms surround her shoulders. Before she could stop herself, Sarah hurled her body into the muscular chest of Hugh St. Owen. He had left the settee and was standing over her. She couldn’t stop herself. She found herself sobbing uncontrollably.  Hugh St. Owen stroked her wild, red hair. He pressed her head into his warm torso. Sarah sat there immobilized. She could feel the soft touch of his chest hair brushing against her cheek. She could feel the fine, smooth skin underneath that hair   the musky smell of his manhood rising up from his groin. Sarah felt at once sexually overwhelmed and at peace with the moment. She felt her companion thrust himself forward. Her body felt the full strength of the man’s erection as his member jutted through his clothes and pushed at her dress.  Sarah had never known such abandonment and such desire. Her heart beat so wildly that she could hardly breathe. She had the sudden urge to rip off the man’s clothes and feast on that gorgeous body. Could this just be a portent of things to come?
“Sarah.” From what seemed like a great distance a strangled voice uttered her name. She realized it was coming from Hugh St. Owen.
She heard her name again. “Sarah. Oh, Sarah.”
Reluctantly, Sarah pulled herself away from the man’s fiery embrace.
“Sir,” she said. She looked up into those liquid brown eyes now kindled with passion. Eyes just like those of the man who had forced himself upon her two nights ago at the Abbey. Sarah felt a sexual thrill close to ecstasy course through her body.
“Sir,” she repeated, “Sir, we mustn’t.”
Hugh St. Owen looked down at her, liquid eyes on fire and asking questions. So many, many questions.
“Mustn’t what, Sarah?” he asked.
The overheated young woman looked away in confusion and exasperation.
“You are very well aware, sir, of what I am speaking,” Sarah said. She gasped for air. The overwhelming passion was almost too much for her to bear.  The lusty young man refused to loosen his grip on his fair prize.
“I will not let you go, Sarah,” he said, “I will not let you go.”  Hugh St. Owen repeated his longing once more. Sarah buried her head once more in the lush chest hair of her newfound suitor.
“It’s too soon, Hugh.” Sarah’s voice struggled out between her sobs of ardor and yearning.
With an almost superhuman effort, Sarah tore herself away from the more than welcome grasp of her companion.  And not a moment too soon. Above the roar of the thunder and rain still battering the house, Sarah heard the turn of a doorknob and watched in panic as someone entered the room. It was Doctor Llewellyn.
The old man stopped in midstep as he saw the figure of Hugh St. Owen bent over Sarah. The doctor hurried over to the ottoman.
“Sarah, are you ill?’ he asked. The doctor rudely pushed the young man aside and peered down at his daughter. “You look very flushed, my dear. Is everything all right?”
Sarah looked up at her father. She was unaccustomed to such solicitousness from her parent.
“I…I’m fine, father. Fine,” she said. Sarah thought quickly and nodded. “I’m just a little overwhelmed by the storm.”
“Yes, the storm,” said Hugh St. Owen, “Doctor, she isn’t use to the wild weather in Perris.”
The country doctor wheeled around and stared eye to eye at the young man. Sarah observed that they were both of about equal height, over six feet tall.
“And what the devil are you doing here with my daughter, young man?” The doctor spoke with quite a degree of incivility that took the girl aback.  The young stud’s face turned red with anger at such treatment.  The girl felt she had better intervene quickly.
“Father, this is Hugh St. Owen. He was the young man who took me to lunch and helped me recover my car.” Sarah licked her lips. They felt dry with tension and something strangely approaching fear.  The doctor continued to stare at the young man. He then shook his head.
“You’re not welcome here, sir. I can’t stop my daughter seeing you outside  but I’ll be damned before I see another member of the St. Owen family entertained in my house.” The old man spoke with conviction and authority.
Sarah arose shakily from the ottoman.
“Father,” she began.
“I will brook no argument,” her father cut in. Sarah looked into the cold blue eyes of her parent. She could see that he meant what he said, in no uncertain terms.
“But what has he done to you?” she asked.  The cold blue eyes stared her down. “It’s pouring down outside,” she added.
The doctor continued to stare at Sarah.
“He came in here during a storm,” he said, “Now he can go back out in a storm.”
Hugh St. Owen turned to go. Sarah could tell that the young man was absolutely furious. But even when he was angry Sarah found him most appealing.
“I’ll be in touch, Sarah,” said Hugh. He walked out of the room without a backward glance and slammed the door.
“Impudent little swine,” the doctor said.
Sarah walked up to her father, her beautiful green eyes blazing with fury.
“Do you mind telling me what all that was about?” she said, “By what right did you throw my friend out in a raging storm, and with absolutely no explanation?”
The doctor turned and looked at Sarah.
“I don’t feel that I owe you any sort of explanation under my roof, young lady. Any explanation at all.”
The man turned to go and was halfway across the room. It was now or never. Sarah seized the moment.
“It has something to do with you and my mother, and the Druid’s curse, hasn’t it, father?”
The doctor turned around and faced his daughter. His lip was curled up in an ugly grimace.
“And what would you know about that, my dear?” he said. To Sarah, his cold blue eyes seemed to have turned even more glacial as they bore down on her relentlessly.  The old man towered over the young woman.
Sarah hesitated. Just how much should she tell her father? How much dare she let him  and possibly by extension, her stepmother  know?
Sarah nervously licked her licks once again.
“I know that Vivien had something to do with you and mother’s divorce,” she said. “I know that Vivien did her best to separate you both after she couldn’t have you. The picture in the hallway says it all.”
Her father looked at her with a shocked expression that quickly changed to mystification as he heard her out.
“Picture in the hallway?” he asked, “What picture in the hallway?”
“The one at the far end hanging on the left,” said Sarah.
The doctor shook his head.
“There is no picture there, my child. Never has been.”
Sarah walked up to her father and brushed past him and moved into the hallway.
“There,” she pointed, “There, father, at the far end.”
The old man strode into the hallway and walked to the far end of the corridor.
“No picture here, Sarah,” he called out, “You must have dreamed it.”
“I did not!”
Sarah caught her raised voice and paused. She mustn’t let herself get too angry. That would not endear her to her father. Her lovely eyes brightened.
“Just a minute, sir. Morfydd saw it too.”
Doctor Llewellyn summoned the housemaid by pulling on the old velvet cord attached to the kitchen bell in the vestibule.
Morfydd hastened upstairs from the kitchen quarters.
“Morfydd,” said Sarah, “Tell Doctor Llewellyn about the picture we saw in the hallway earlier today.”
Morfydd looked down and blushed. She fidgeted with her apron strings. The young girl did not look directly at Sarah.
“Go on,” urged Sarah, “Tell him about it.”
“Well, ma’am,” Morfydd began. She stared hard at the floor. “I don’t rightly remember…”
“What!” Sarah was astonished at the maid’s words. “You mean you can’t remember something that you saw just a few hours ago?”
The maid continued to stare at the floor. Her face had turned as red as a beetroot.
“No, Miss Llewellyn, I can’t rightly say that I do remember exactly…”
Morfydd’s voice trailed off. Sarah was furious. She turned to her father. The doctor looked genuinely puzzled. Then he pulled himself up to his full height.
“I have patients to take care of, Sarah,” he said, “I don’t have time for this tomfoolery right now.” He let out a huff of exasperation and walked off to his study.
Sarah wheeled around on the quickly retreating servant.
“Not so fast, my girl,” she called out.
Morfydd stopped dead in her tracks. She turned around slowly and faced Sarah.  The young woman stared at the maid with a very angry look, exaggerated by the intermittent lightning flashes from the storm that lit up the dark hallway.
“She got to you, didn’t she?” said Sarah. “Vivien threatened you if you didn’t deny seeing the picture, didn’t she? Well, didn’t she?” Sarah’s voice almost rose to a shriek.
The young girl looked terrified. She grasped her blond hair with both hands and tried to stifle the muffled sobs that tumbled out with both arms raised over her face.
“She said she would fire you if you breathed one word of this to my father. I’m right, aren’t I?” Sarah glared at the young girl.
Morfydd nodded slowly behind her raised hands still covering her face, hands still grasping her hair.
Sarah let out a long sigh.
“All right. You can go.” Sarah dismissed the maid with a wave of her hand. Morfydd turned around still covering her face and quickly retired to the kitchen quarters again. Her muffled sobs could still be heard as she descended the kitchen stairs.
Vivien must have threatened her with something really terrible, thought Sarah. Probably threatened to turn her into a toad or something equally disgusting. But if it was Vivien who planted that picture, why go to all that trouble to put it there and then remove it just a few hours later? It just didn’t make sense.
“Quite the little detective, aren’t we?”
The harsh, slurred voice cut through Sarah’s reverie with knife-sharp precision. She nearly jumped out of her skin. She turned around.
It was Vivien. In the gloomy hallway, still lit up intermittently with lightning flashes from the storm, her stepmother’s face looked even more heavily made up than usual, if such a thing were possible. She was dressed in black. Then Sarah noticed with a shock that the woman was dressed in exactly the same dress that she had worn in the photograph. The obligatory glass of sherry dangled from an overly bejeweled hand, nails decorated with what looked like dark purple nail varnish.  Sarah mentally shuddered at the sight.
“Just what do you think you’re doing, Vivien?”
“Oh, my dear,” said Vivien. She paused and gave Sarah a really hideous smile. Her eyes were glazed and her lipstick even more smeared than usual. It looked to the young woman like the Gorgon trying to make nice at a Halloween party or something. Vivien attempting to be pleasant, however insincere, was a really stomach turning event.
“I’m just trying to improve the relationship between a loving daughter and her father,” her stepmother continued.
Sarah gasped with annoyance. She narrowed her beautiful green eyes.
“Oh, I’m sure you are, Vivien, I’m sure you are.”
The stepmother stared at Sarah with that hideous, fixed grin, and then burst into a paroxysm of harsh, cruel laughter. To Sarah it sounded like the amplified cackling of the wicked witch of the West.
“You poor, poor little fool,” Vivien mumbled between each peal of laughter, “I told you to get out while you could, didn’t I? But you didn’t listen.” She took an unsteady slurp from her sherry glass. “Now it won’t be just you who will suffer, my girl. Why, that nice young Hugh St. Owen is going to suffer too.” With this announcement the woman’s laughter increased even more in volume. Thankfully, the booms of thunder drowned out most of Vivien’s shrieks.
Sarah glared at her stepmother.
“What do you mean ‘suffer,’ Vivien?”
“I mean suffer in the worst way.”  Vivien looked at Sarah with an evil grimace on her ravaged face.  She took another sip of sherry. “When the Guardians of the Abbey have finished with you both  and I do mean both  neither of you will live to tell the tale. Do you hear me, girl? Neither of you!” And with those words the old witch almost staggered down the hall into the gloom.
 
 

Sarah stood there frozen with fear. What did Vivien mean? What possible threat could Hugh St. Owen and Sarah Llewellyn be to the Guardians of the Abbey? Was the Druid’s curse indeed true? Were they really in danger? And what sex spell had the Druid’s curse  or Vivien’s evil witchcraft  used to enslave her body and soul to the handsome young stud that consumed her every waking hour, night and day? See the next exciting installment in Chapter 8 of Sarah Llewellyn and the Druid’s Curse.

Read Chapter 8: VIVIEN’S ROOM
Chapter Index
Back to the Magic of Laurice Daniels
Back to Romantics Network
 
 
 

     Background and Design by Romantics Network.No portion of this website may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, saving, or by any information storage, dissemination or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author. Written permission from the writer must be obtained to reprint or cite the information contained within this site. The writer and Romantics Network assumes no liability arising from the material in this site or of actions of advertisers or viewers of this site. Excerpts, poems, design, and literary works are copyrighted and the property of their respective owners.