Page 29 of The Witch & the Hound
I glanced around. The nearest tables were occupied by couples lost in their own conversations, the ambient noise of silverware and low voices providing cover. I scooted my chair around the table until I was sitting beside him instead of across, close enough to see the brochure over his shoulder.
Close enough to feel the cool press of his arm against mine.
"Okay," I said, dropping my voice into storytelling mode. "Captain James Hood was a naval officer. That part's true. But 'distinguished' is doing a lot of heavy lifting."
Bram's tail curled with interest. "Go on."
"Hood's ship ran privateering missions during the Colonial era, which is a fancy way of saying state-sanctioned piracy. He had a letter of marque from the Crown, which meant he could legally rob ships as long as they were flying enemy flags. Spanish ships, mostly. French, sometimes."
"Legal piracy."
"The best kind." I pointed to the brochure's painting of a dignified man in a naval coat. "That's him. Looks respectable, right? Very George Washington energy."
"Except?"
"Except Hood got greedy. Started attacking neutral ships. Merchant vessels that weren't at war with anyone. Took their cargo, sank the ships, left no witnesses. For years, no one knew. He'd come back to Seaview, donate to the church, build houses for widows, play the generous captain."
Bram leaned closer, reading the brochure's description of Hood's "generous contributions to Seaview's development." His breath was cool against my temple.
"The town was built on stolen money," he said.
"Yep. And when his wife, Mary Hood, found out?" I tapped the brochure's mention of her:beloved wife who tragicallypassed in 1763. "She didn't 'tragically pass.' She walked to this cliff—right here, where we're sitting—and jumped."
Bram went very still.
"Local legend says you can still hear her on stormy nights," I added, because if we were telling ghost stories, we might as well commit. "Wailing for the men her husband murdered. The sailors who drowned. The families he destroyed."
"Is that true?"
"The wailing? Probably just wind and guilt." I shrugged. "The suicide? Documented. There's a record in the church cemetery.Mary Elizabeth Hood, beloved wife, taken by the sea."
"Sanitized," Bram murmured, disgust clear in his voice.
"History usually is." I leaned back, watching his face. "The town knows, sort of. It's one of those open secrets we don't talk about. Hood's estate became the foundation for Seaview's economy: the docks, the warehouses, the trade routes. The money was dirty, but it built schools and roads and everything people needed. So we just... don't mention the piracy part."
"And his wife?"
"There's a plaque on the cliff path. 'In memory of Mary Hood, whose love for the sea was boundless.' No mention of why she jumped. No mention of what her husband did."
Bram set the brochure down carefully, like it had personally offended him. "Every town has blood in its foundation."
"Most do," I agreed. "Seaview's just has more than most."
He was quiet for a moment, staring out at the ocean. The waves rolled dark against the rocks, white foam catching the moonlight. The same rocks Mary Hood had fallen onto two and a half centuries ago.
"Do you think she haunts it?" he asked. "The cliff?"
"I think if anyone earned the right to haunt something, it's a woman who found out everything she believed was a lie." I tilted my head. "But no. I don't think ghosts work like that. I think she just... left. Let the ocean take her grief. Let the rest of us deal with what was left behind."
"The restaurant's named after him," Bram said flatly. "Not her."
"Of course it is. He built the house. She just died in it."
His jaw tightened. I could see the anger there, carefully controlled but present. Anger for a woman dead two hundred years who never got her name on the building, whose story got reduced tobeloved wifeand nothing more.
"I'm sorry," I said quietly. "That was probably too dark for a first date."
"No." He turned to look at me, eyes serious. "I asked. And I'd rather know the truth than read sanitized brochures about distinguished naval officers."
