“But that is the truth, Sian. You are an artist. Unless you plan to paint the leader’s portrait, you need to stay away while my men and I set the trap.”
“But you forget I have an important ally. One who has already guided us in the right direction with a warning.”
He stared at her, puzzled, and then he smiled. “Do you think your spectral friend would be willing to help?”
“We can ask.”
“Can you call the ghost to you?”
“I will try.” She closed her eyes and called, “Can you hear me, guardian of Nethercott Castle?”
Nothing happened then or when she tried a few more times.
“I may need to be closer to Bannatyne Hall,” she said. “I will try on our way back.”
“Good.” After tying his domino into place, he reached up and ran his fingers along the wall, pushing the hidden buttons that unlocked the door. He smiled. “Did you see that?”
“No. Will you do it again?”
“Maybe some day when it is safe for you to wander around on the cliffs and explore.”
“It would be simpler just to say no.” She slapped his arm and laughed. He wanted to take that sound and store it away in his heart, so he could savor it over and over when he could not be with her.
As the door grated open, he turned to get the lantern. He saw Sian walking back toward him with it in her hand. The door’s stridence had drowned out her steps. He needed to keep that in mind for the future, because the noise could just as easily conceal an enemy’s presence in the cave.
“Stay close,” Constantine said as he took the lantern and shut it almost completely. “There are almost two hundred steps up.”
“I know. I counted them coming down. Their number will seem much greater going up, I am sure.”
“If you need to rest, let me know. Do not stop without telling me, because it is too dangerous to go up these stairs in the dark.”
“I understand.” She swallowed roughly.
“As soon as we reach the top, drop to the ground while I reconnoiter.”
“I will.” Her hands trembled as she curled them into fists.
“One more thing you must do.”
“What is it?”
With his arm around her waist, he pulled her against him. “Kiss me for good luck, sweetheart.”
She softened in his arms as she returned his kiss with the fervor he knew was only a portion of the passion she could offer him. Releasing her was the most difficult thing he had ever done. He took her hand and stepped up onto the landing. As she followed, he worked the hidden controls to seal off the cave once more.
Sian continued to call softly for the ghost. As before, there was no answer, but he was pleased she kept her voice low.
Again and again, as they climbed the steep and winding stairs, she asked the ghost to appear. She halted when Constantine put his finger to her lips as they neared the top.
He gave her the lantern and pushed against the boulder that concealed the entrance. He braced his feet, wishing there was a landing at the top as there was at the bottom. Maybe there had been when the ancient Celts or Romans built these stairs, but no longer.
The boulder shifted. He smiled, but whispered, “Set the lantern on the step where you are standing, then blow out its light, sweetheart.”
He watched her until her lovely face was eclipsed by the darkness. Sliding the rock away, he climbed the last steps and emerged on the top of the cliff. He crouched low behind the stone, then held out his hand to guide her up into the first silvery light of dawn. She squatted beside him and pushed on the boulder alongside him. It settled back into place much more easily from aboveground.
Holding out his hand, he said, “Hurry, sweetheart. It is later than I thought.”
“Much later, Wraith,” answered a male voice. Pitchford’s voice!
Constantine did not have time to react as a gun fired from where Pitchford stood amidst the surviving wreckers. The ball drove into his shoulder with devastating agony. But even that pain was not as great as knowing he had delivered Sian into their most vicious enemy’s hands.
Chapter Twenty-one
Everything slowed to utter clarity in the thick dusk before dawn. Sian saw the gun fire, and she stretched out her hands to push Constantine aside. The ball struck him, sending him reeling back. Blood erupted from beneath his cloak as she tumbled forward. In her ears, Pitchford’s victorious shout resonated as if from a great distance. Constantine looked at her, and she saw anger and remorse in his eyes amidst the pain. Other men shouted, but their voices made no sense as she struck the hard earth almost at the same time as Constantine.
Her breath exploded out of her in a scream. The sound sent the world exploding forward in time at a frantic rate. She was jerked back. Orders were fired through the predawn twilight. The half dozen men with Lord Pitchford jumped into action. She recognized them from the day she had overheard them talking on the cliffs before one of them had knocked her senseless. They acted as if they had never seen her before.
She was yanked to her feet and shoved away from Constantine. Reeling, she would have fallen again if a broad hand had not gripped her arm.
“Do not treat her so,” snarled the man beside her.
At his voice, she pulled away to stare at him. “Arthyn! Thank heavens you are here! Help us!”
“Us?” he gasped. “So it is true. You left me to bleed to death here on the cliffs while you slipped away with that cur.”
“Do ye think she had any choice?” snarled Constantine as he rose unsteadily to his feet. She could not see his face because it was still too dark, but his shoulders were stiff with pain. “She thought I was taking her to Bannatyne until it was too late.” He laughed condescendingly. “She is a silly, fancy lady so used to a man protecting her she cannot think for herself. Even the whores at Bennath’s academy would know better than to go with me, but not fancy Miss Nethercott.”
The marquess growled, and one of his men stepped forward. He drove his fist into Constantine’s wounded shoulder. Constantine groaned and dropped to his knees, weaving like an unsecured sail in a high wind.
She gasped and turned her head against Arthyn’s shoulder. It was only a pose because she peered through her tangled hair to watch Constantine fight his way back to his feet. She wanted to plead with him to stay down, but knew he must not stop playing the role of the brash and cocksure Wraith who would never bend his knee to any other man.
“Forgive me for what I said,” Arthyn whispered. “I have been half-mad with fear for you.”
She nodded, not wanting to be distracted as Lord Pitchford clasped his hands behind his back and said, “Admit defeat, Wraith, and join me.”
“The king’s army?” He laughed. “No. I prefer to be my own master.”
“Not the king’s army.” The marquess’s voice rose with pride. “My army which will take control of the shipping lanes in western Cornwall. That is only the beginning. Once I persuade Bannatyne to be my ally, I can add his shipping interests with my own. We will control everything in and out of Cornwall.”
Sian bit her lower lip to keep from shouting that Lord Pitchford was wrong about Gideon. She must not speak. The delicate balance between the two men could change at any moment, and Constantine might be hurt worse or killed. After the attack last night, she knew the marquess was capable of giving the order to slay him.
“Join ye?” Constantine’s laugh was dismissive. “Bannatyne is smarter than that.”
“He will join with me or wish he had. Just as you will, Wraith.”
“Let me give ye the answer he will. No.”
“Are you sure that will be his answer? He has a wife and a child soon to be born. Will he risk them?”
She could not silence her moan of despair. As Arthyn hushed her, she shivered. She had hoped she had been wrong about the marquess, but she had been right. Still, she had not guessed the depths of the depravity he would plumb to obtain power and wealth to replace what he and his childr
en had wasted.
“Will he risk them?” continued Lord Pitchford. “Will you?”
“So ye swallowed the rumors that Bannatyne and I are one. I thought ye smarter than that. Ye are no better than silly Sian Nethercott.”
“Do not insult Miss Nethercott.” Arthyn stepped forward. “You should not even speak her name.”
“Silence!” snarled Lord Pitchford.
“Yes, Father.”
“Father?” she gasped. “The marquess is your father?”
Arthyn gave her an unsteady smile. “I wanted to tell you, Miss Nethercott, so you would see when you accepted my proposal that our match was an excellent one. Lord Pitchford is my father, but his wife was not my mother.”
“Is that why you are in St. Gundred?” Her head spun with the truth that Arthyn was the marquess’s bastard son.
“Yes. I confessed that to Lord Bannatyne, and I wanted you to know, too, that I would sacrifice anything to help my father.”
Sian wondered how anyone could be so naïve. The marquess was using Arthyn as he did everyone. But more than ever before, she must judge each word with care before she spoke it.
“As Constantine helps him?” she asked, not looking anywhere but at Arthyn.
The fake curate’s mouth straightened, and for the first time she saw the resemblance between Lord Pitchford and his son. “Lastingham has been nothing but an intrusion. If he had stayed away, everything would be well on its way to fruition.” He lowered his voice. “Once we are done with Wraith, we shall deal with Lastingham. You will not have to worry about him any more.”
“What are you prattling about?” demanded Lord Pitchford. He motioned along the shore. “Take Miss Nethercott to my cottage. She should not witness us persuading Wraith to tell me about his connections in Penzance and beyond.” He cracked the knuckles of one hand against the palm of the other. “That conversation will not be appropriate for a young lady.”
The cruelty she heard in his voice turned her stomach.
Arthyn nodded and tugged on her arm. “Come with me, Miss Nethercott.”
She dug in her feet. She was not going to leave. If she did, Lord Pitchford’s techniques for getting answers from Constantine would become vicious. Seeing the glints of anticipation in the marquess’s eyes, she knew he cared more about torturing his rival than getting answers.
When she glanced at Constantine, he gave the faintest nod in the direction Lord Pitchford had gestured. No! He should not ask her to obey the marquess when her leave-taking could sign his death warrant. But he was.
“Come now, Miss Nethercott,” said Arthyn.
She obliged, but lurched on every step, bemoaning her aching ankle. When Arthyn tried to keep her going along in a fairly straight path, he loosened his hold on her so he could put his arm around her shoulders. Just as she had hoped.
As they passed Constantine, she pretended to trip. She whirled out of Arthyn’s hold, shoving him aside, and faced Constantine. “How dare you, you Newgate saint!”
“What did he do?” demanded Arthyn.
“He tried to knock me off my feet! I have suffered enough from him!” She ran forward, raising her hand.
Lord Pitchford laughed.
“Sorry,” she whispered in the moment before her open palm struck Constantine’s cheek. Her hand continued down between them, and her fingers closed around one of the pistols he wore beneath his cloak.
At the same time, he drew the other even as he elbowed her aside. His eyes shifted toward Arthyn as he murmured, “If this fails, run to the Hall as fast as you can. Do not look back.”
“How dare you!” she cried as if he had said something atrocious to her.
Arthyn reached to take her arm, but she raised the pistol and pointed it at him. “Miss Nethercott” Betrayal rang through his voice.
“Let Wraith go, Lord Pitchford, or I will shoot your son!” she called.
The marquess shrugged. “Shoot him. I have others. Legitimate ones.”
“Father!” His eyes were wide with disbelief.
She did not let the gun waver as she kept it pointed at Arthyn. Could she fire it? At this range, she might kill him even if she tried to wound him.
Suddenly she heard a shriek. A shriek of terror as a man pointed beyond her.
She looked over her shoulder to see the ghost from Nethercott Castle evolving out of the mist roiling ahead of the sunrise. Lord Pitchford’s wreckers raced away in the opposite direction.
The marquess leaped forward and tore the gun from her hand. He aimed it at Wraith. “I do not know what trickery this is, but halt it!”
“Daughter of Nethercott Castle,” intoned the ghost. “I am here to answer your call.”
“Help us!” she shouted.
As Lord Pitchford swung the gun toward her and drew back the hammer, Arthyn screeched, “Don’t, Father!” His words were muffled by gunfire.
She held her breath, but the ball did not strike her. She stared in astonishment as the marquess crumpled to the ground. Looking at Constantine, she saw the barrel of his gun smoking.
With a cry, she flung her arms around him. She took care not to touch his wounded shoulder, but he drew her close and held her until long after her brothers-in-law and the men from Bannatyne Hall arrived to find out who was shooting along the cliffs. Only once did she raise her head and that was to look at the ghost.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
She thought it nodded its faceless head before it merged in with the morning mist.
* * * *
Sian had hoped that breaking a second betrothal would be easier than her first. It was not. Again she stood in a garden. Again she knew that no matter what she said, she was going to hurt a man who had wanted to spend his life with her.
“I do not understand why you have changed your mind, Miss Nethercott,” Arthyn said as Sir Henry had. “When I presented my suit, you seemed delighted.”
“I was.”
“But you are no longer?” He scowled at the house, and she wondered if he had seen someone looking out at them. Her sisters had vowed to keep the rest of the household away from any windows overlooking the garden.
“I am honored that you asked me, but I find that recent events have changed my outlook on many matters.”
“Because my father denied me at his death? I came here and pretended to have been sent to serve as the curate, in the hope of being acknowledged by my father. Not as an heir, of course, but to be counted among his children. I had hoped the chance for us to know each other would lead to familial feelings.”
“But he asked you to be one of his wreckers.”
“These people are desperate, Miss Nethercott. They have so little. Why shouldn’t I have wanted to help my father give them more? Is there something wrong with that?”
“No.” She smiled sadly. “Arthyn—Mr. Trembeth, I know how it is to want to be with one’s father. I miss mine deeply since his death. I would do almost anything to see him again.”
“Yet you wish to put an end to our betrothal.”
“Yes.” She searched her mind, then said, “If you wish the truth, Arthyn, you are not the man I thought you were.”
“Because I am not a dashing soldier?” His voice rose with more emotion than she had ever heard from him. At the same time, his face became an unhealthy shade of red.
“There is no one reason other than you and I marrying would not make either of us happy in the years to come. You deserve a woman who adores you.”
He considered her words for a long moment, then nodded. “That is true.”
As she bid him farewell and escaped into the solar, she wished she could drop into the nearest chair and catch her breath. She must go to the nursery. She had asked her sisters and their husbands to meet her there so she could reveal the mural she had finished that morning. She had been unsure if she could finish it because, two days after the events on the cliff, her hands still trembled.
Sian pasted a bright smile on her face as she went up the stair
s. Seeing her family waiting by the nursery door, she hurried forward. “I am sorry to be late,” she said.
“You had other business,” Jade said, giving her a hug. “Should we say congratulations that your betrothal is over?”
“Yes.” She laughed, so glad her sister was teasing her instead of offering comfort.
“Again?” asked China.
“Yes, again.” She squeezed her older sister’s hand and shook her head. “And I fear that was my last chance.”
“I doubt that.” Gideon’s wry tone matched his raised eyebrow.
“But the ghost said—”
China interrupted her. “About the ghost you have seen—”
“Later,” Jade said with a laugh. “You can talk about ghosts as much as you wish, but, for now, can we see the nursery? I have been waiting for weeks to see what Sian has painted.”
Sian stepped forward and opened the door. She moved aside to let them into the sun-swept nursery. Exclamations of delight came from her sisters, and both Gideon and Alexander crossed the room to examine the panorama of the cliffs and sea more closely. With the sounds of the wind and the water coming through the open windows, the scene seemed real.
“It is beautiful!” Jade hugged Sian even more tightly.
“Look in here,” called China from the smaller room. “She painted the fields going down to the cliffs. There are sheep and gorse and even the hedgerow.”
“Jade, you must see this,” Gideon said, pointing to the slanting wall in front of him. “There are real shells among the painted ones.”
Smiling, Sian stood by the door while she enjoyed their enthusiasm. It was nice to think only of the real reason she had come to Cornwall.
“You are right. It does look better now that it is finished.” Constantine stepped into the room.
“Aren’t you supposed to stay in bed and rest?” she asked, as she looked at his coat draped over his left shoulder. The lump beneath it was the bandaging around the gunshot wound.
“I would be glad to. . .if you were there with me.”
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