It Happened in the Highlands

by May McGoldrick

  Jo remained silent, unwilling to offer anything. She already knew the identity of the culprit.

  Wynne’s gaze moved past her shoulder down the hallway. She imagined Cuffe could be hiding in the shadows there.

  “When you came out of your room earlier, did you see anyone?”

  She knew he had a right as the father to know, but she couldn’t bring herself to say the words. Cuffe was already feeling the grave significance of his actions. Still, she imagined there was something more behind the child’s actions.

  She opened her mouth to convey to him what she knew. She had every intention of at least telling Wynne she’d encountered Cuffe in the stairwell. But different words spilled out.

  “No, I didn’t see anyone.”

  * * *

  Wynne saw a movement by the door to the rooms he and Cuffe shared. After the afternoon lessons with Cameron, the lad had been directed back to his room, where a supper tray was waiting. He was not to stir until tomorrow morning, when he would return to the tutor.

  A thought crossed fleetingly through Wynne’s mind whether Cuffe could have had anything to do with what happened downstairs. He immediately dismissed it. In the two months since he’d arrived here, the ten-year-old had shown no interest in the hospital or the patients, despite Dermot’s repeated invitations. And getting tricked into letting the pigs into the garden had been the extent of any damage he’d caused. Wynne was fairly certain his son would never do anything to injure an innocent person.

  Jo turned and followed the direction of his gaze. “I was hoping to meet your son while I’m here.”

  Her gentle words startled him and drew his attention back to her. Jo’s face was calm, pensive, concerned. She was an exceptional woman. Wynne had ended their engagement less than a fortnight before their wedding. He’d never been able to find the opportunity to apologize, other than in a brief note. He’d left her alone to deal with the aftermath. He’d married another woman and had a child. But in spite of it all, here she was expressing an interest in meeting Cuffe. She’d always been patient and kind, but Jo Pennington carried within her a dignity he’d been too young to truly appreciate all those years ago.

  “Is there a chance we might be introduced tomorrow before I leave the Abbey?”

  “I’ll be sure to make the arrangements,” he declared. “I’d like him to meet you.”

  Before I leave. The notion of Jo leaving so soon did not sit well with him. Even though the question of the drawings and the reaction of the Bartons had not been resolved, a door had been opened. She could pursue it on her own.

  He admired Jo’s face in the flickering light of the candle. He watched the gentle pulse along the pale column of her throat.

  She’d be better off going, he told himself. They’d all be better off. His conversation with Dermot earlier had left him strangely unsettled, and he didn’t like the feeling. He didn’t like the way he needed to monitor them as the young scoundrel tried to entertain Jo over dinner. Wynne wanted his deuced life back to normal.

  And yet, memories of the past continued to flood back to him.

  He remembered sitting with her on a warm night in a wooded lane by the Cascade in Vauxhall Gardens. The taste of the soft skin beneath her earlobe mingled with the scent of summer flowers. His own wonder at her innocent, wide-eyed response as she tried to make sense of the desire charging the air between them.

  She pushed a stray ringlet behind an ear and he struggled not to touch the waves of gleaming dark hair falling nearly to her waist. He’d lost count of how many times as a young man he’d imagined seeing Jo’s silky hair spread across his pillow.

  A handful of kisses. Only once, in the shadow of a rose trellis during a ball, had those kisses led to a passionate whirlwind of caresses. That was the extent of the liberties he’d taken. He wouldn’t make love to her, though he knew she would have given herself to him. But the malicious whispers had already begun, and in those moments of youthful gallantry, he wouldn’t risk adding further damage to her reputation. At least this is what he kept telling himself. But in the end, he’d wounded her more deeply than any malevolent backbiter.

  “Must you leave so soon?” he heard himself asking. “After everything we saw today, it’s clear Charles Barton’s progress could be dramatically improved if you were to extend your stay.”

  And it wasn’t only for Barton’s sake that he was asking.

  “I’ve been thinking the same thing.” Her dark gaze met his. “Dr. McKendry mentioned the name of an inn at Rayneford Village this afternoon. I’ll send my manservant down there tomorrow and make arrangements to stay for a few more days.”

  “There’s no need to leave the Abbey,” he said. “You’re welcome to stay right here. If the rooms you’re occupying now suit you, you can remain where you are.”

  Where he’d be able to chaperon that scurvy sawbones, Wynne thought.

  “But I don’t want to be a nuisance.”

  “You could be nothing of the kind,” he insisted, already feeling better about the new arrangement. “Everyone at the Abbey will benefit and take pleasure in your company.”

  And that included himself.

  Chapter 8

  As Jo watched Wynne descend the stairs, she struggled to reconcile her troubled thoughts with a long-forgotten flutter in her heart. Her worry about the son battled with the fever she felt in the presence of the father.

  Cuffe was responsible for what had happened in the ward, and she already regretted holding back the truth from Wynne.

  She was a stranger in this place, she chided herself inwardly. She was certainly no parent. She was in no way qualified to hide what she knew and chance a greater disaster in the future. What did she really know about the unruly ways of a ten-year-old boy? Very little. What she did know was she’d allowed herself to be influenced by downcast eyes and a panicky and remorseful tone.

  She knew what needed to be done, and she hurried down the hallway and rapped on a door. The footman who’d brought them up when they decided to stay, told her these rooms were occupied by the captain and his son.

  No one answered, but she wasn’t deterred. She knocked harder.

  “Cuffe. Come to the door this instant.”

  Her friend Violet Truscott and the women who worked together in running the Tower House told her she had an excellent angry mother’s voice when she chose to use it.

  “Open this door now!”

  Dark eyes appeared as the door opened a little. A shock of hair hung over his face.

  “You didn’t give me up to him,” Cuffe said.

  The tremble in his voice made her want to pull the child into her arms, but she held back.

  “A man could have died down there,” she said sternly, pushing the door open. “Mr. Barton was in no position to defend himself. Is that what you were after? Did you go down there to kill him?”

  Cuffe stabbed at tears that sprang onto his cheeks. He shook his head. “No, I didn’t. I didn’t know that would happen. He told me it was a lark, to rile up the fellows who watch the ward at night. And he gave me this to do it. But I don’t want it.”

  Jo stared at the coins in the boy’s open hand. “Someone paid you to do this?”

  Cuffe nodded.

  “And he told you to put the tam on Mr. Barton’s bed?”

  He nodded again.

  “The man who put you up to this is evil,” she said, putting her hand on his shoulder. “This was no lark. He wanted to hurt people and he used you. He didn’t succeed. But that doesn’t mean he won’t try again.”

  This was more dire than what she first assumed. Jo deeply regretted not having Wynne there. It was important for Cuffe to go to him and tell him.

  “This evil man could use someone else. Or even do it himself. We need to stop him,” she told him in what she hoped was a stern tone. She needed to make him understand and do the right thing. “You have to stop him. You must go to your father and tell him who was behind this.”

  He shook his head. �
�I’ll tell you his name, and you tell the captain.”

  “No,” she replied firmly. “You did wrong, Cuffe. You put those men downstairs at risk. It’s your responsibility to tell the truth.”

  He stood perfectly still for a long moment, staring at the floor before he finally spoke. “I don’t talk to him.”

  Jo recalled the frustration Wynne expressed about his son. Whatever reason existed in Cuffe’s head to make him want to punish his father, it was none of her business.

  “I didn’t give you up to him because I believed you would do right . . . on your own,” she said. “You’re not a child. You’re a young man. I barely know you, but I see an intelligent, strong, and independent lad. And I think you already know this is the time to put aside your obstinacy and act as you should.”

  “The captain will be angry,” he whispered.

  “That’s his right and his duty as your father. A man was hurt tonight,” she reminded him. “A disaster will happen if you do nothing.”

  She dropped her hand from Cuffe’s shoulder and looked directly into his eyes.

  “You need to decide whether you follow the path that is right or wrong. But I trust that you know which one to take.”

  Cuffe’s chin sank to his chest, but he faced up to his responsibility and stepped out of his room.

  “Go find your father and tell him what he needs to know.”

  As Jo stepped back to allow him by, she glanced down the hallway to see Wynne standing at the top of the stairs.

  * * *

  He’d barely reached the ground floor when he heard the loud knocking and Jo’s sharp commands to open the door. Retracing his steps, he stood at the top of the stairwell, watching her talking to Cuffe.

  And Wynne heard every word that passed between them.

  Cuffe’s face was the very picture of misery as he came down the hallway to him.

  “What is his name?” he asked brusquely. “The man who put you up to this?”

  “Abram.”

  “Abram from the kitchens?”

  Cuffe nodded.

  “Wait in my office,” he ordered. “I’ll deal with you when I return.”

  Head down and feet dragging, his son went directly to Wynne’s office. Down the corridor, Jo turned and disappeared into her own chambers.

  The man had taken advantage of a naive lad to commit what was a deliberate attempt to injure or even kill Barton. As Wynne hurried down the steps, he seethed with anger.

  He knew this Abram. An older man from the Inverness. They’d hired him fairly recently to work in the kitchens, deliver food trays, and help the attendants with whatever needed to be done. Because of his work, Abram was perfectly familiar with the peculiarities of the patients in the ward.

  When Wynne reached the door to the ward and put the question about the man’s whereabouts to the attendants, the last anyone had seen of him was when he took a dinner tray up to Cuffe.

  Dermot came out as Wynne was sending two of the men to go and fetch Abram from the staff’s quarters on the uppermost floor. Quickly, he explained to his friend what he knew, including what Cuffe had done.

  “I hope you didn’t punish the lad too harshly. He was manipulated.”

  “You don’t need to make excuses for him,” Wynne told him. “I’ve done nothing to him yet. He’s awaiting his punishment in my office right now.”

  He started for the kitchen in spite of his doubts that Abram would still be there. Dermot fell in beside him.

  “Having Cuffe free Stevenson and at the same time direct the attack at Barton was clearly a deliberate move,” the doctor said. “Difficult to imagine why he’d do such a thing.”

  Wynne’s thoughts immediately turned to the Bartons. “And how curious that all of this should happen today.”

  “You don’t seriously think his own family would try to harm him.”

  “We both saw Graham and Mrs. Barton’s reaction,” Wynne retorted. “But we need to talk to Abram. He told Cuffe it was all a ‘lark’, but that’s rubbish. Perhaps he harbors a grudge and saw this as an opportunity to get his revenge.”

  “He was hired at around the same time that Barton arrived,” Dermot said thoughtfully.

  “We’ll know when we get our hands on the rogue.”

  Wynne could not get the Bartons’ reaction to Jo out of his head, however. What exactly was her connection to the family? He worried if she could be at risk too.

  “Don’t forget, we know nothing of Charles Barton’s years as a shipowner,” Dermot reminded him. “We don’t even know what caused the explosion that eventually brought him here.”

  Wynne knew very well the hard world of the sea, and the dark side of some who made their living on it. Smugglers who would cut a man’s throat for an extra share. Slavers who vilely continued to transport human cargo in spite of the laws banning it. He’d fought against them and hunted them down from the Mediterranean to the coast of Africa to the West Indies. For shipowners, a line existed. On one side, honest living. On the other, violence, double-dealing, and the chance for greater riches. If Barton chose to do his business among the latter, his enemies would hardly be above seeing him battered to death in an asylum ward.

  When they reached the kitchens, they found only two young men washing up. The rest of the staff had retired for the night.

  “I’m guessing Abram is halfway to Inverness by now,” Dermot complained. “But how can we keep Charles Barton safe when we don’t know where the danger is coming from?”

  * * *

  “I should run away now,” Cuffe murmured, looking out the window at the rising moon and the patches of forest on the mountains to the west.

  This place wasn’t home. He turned his back to the window and frowned at the open door. He could be gone, and no one would miss him.

  Instead, he sat hard on the floor and slid back against the wall, cramming himself between two chairs.

  Only an inch or so was left of the candle he’d lit on the captain’s desk. The wax dripping down the side reminded him of the tears on his Nanny’s wrinkled cheeks when she’d pushed him toward the solicitor who’d come to bring him here. She said she had no choice. She was getting on in years. Be dying soon. He had to go to his father.

  Dying. Cuffe stabbed at the stubborn tears that kept finding their way out. They came every time he thought about her. How many nights had he lain in bed worrying about who was taking care of his Nanny now that he was gone? Bringing her water in the morning, moving the heavy pots hanging over her fire, fetching wood, fixing the roof when it sprang a leak during the hard May rains.

  He took care of her as much as she took care of him. And their two-room cottage in the Cockpit village above Falmouth was home. Not this place with its houses of stone and its guards and lunatics roaming the gardens and living right beneath him. This wasn’t home.

  Twelve pounds. A bloody fortune. During the crossing from Jamaica, he’d heard the men working on the ship say that’s how much it took to pay for passage in steerage. He had to come up with that or try to get hired on as crew. Even if he managed to find a ship sailing to the West Indies, hiring on was risky. He’d heard plenty of stories of free Jamaicans being abducted and sold as slaves to some passing trader. What was to stop a white ship’s master from selling him on some sugar island along the way?

  No, he’d be safer paying for his passage. But twelve pounds! He’d have to work for years to save that kind of money. And Nanny would tan his hide if he stole it or hurt someone to get it.

  Cuffe wiped his face with a sleeve and stared at his hands. But that’s exactly what he’d done tonight. He’d allowed himself to be tricked, and a man was hurt because of it.

  The captain wouldn’t believe him now if he said he didn’t know.

  Abram knew he was trying to make money. The dog had been there the time he made a deal with the farm lads. He was the one who separated them when they were fighting. He pretended to be Cuffe’s friend. He even told Cuffe he’d help him leave the Abbey.

/>   Liar. Cheat. Evil, she’d said.

  That room, the ward. He’d never been inside it until tonight. It was the way Abram described it. The men the doctor kept there seemed normal enough when Cuffe saw them outside. Some talked a little loud or said strange things. A few never spoke at all. One just sat and stared at the bushes in the gardens. But none of them ever harmed another, that he’d seen. And when he’d slipped into the ward tonight, they were all sleeping.

  He pulled his knees to his chest and rested his head. There was no one here who cared. No one liked him. He was nothing to them at the Abbey, but back in Jamaica an old woman loved him. To Nanny, Cuffe was the sunshine that warmed her ancient bones in the daytime, and the moonlight that showed her the road when her dim eyes struggled to see.

  Man grow; wait ’pon man, she’d always say. A boy will eventually grow up to become a man.

  Cuffe never knew his mother. Nanny was everything to him. To others, he was only ten years old, but to Nanny, he was her little man. And he needed to get back to her.

  No matter how tight he tried to shut his eyes, fresh tears squeezed through. He missed her. He missed her songs. Her stories. He missed her scolding. Cuffe felt a fist tightening around his heart as he recalled the way she fawned over him when he did right.

  It was getting late. The sounds from downstairs lessened until the house was silent again. His tears finally stopped, and he sat breathing in the country smells and listening to a family of foxes yipping in the distance as the moon crossed the corner of the window. Finally, he heard the captain coming up the steps.

  He quickly stood. He’d done wrong and he expected to be punished. The captain had never laid a hand on him, but Cuffe almost wished he would. He couldn’t bear spending another extra hour tallying sums in Mr. Cameron’s dusty office.

  The captain stopped in the doorway, and Cuffe kept his eyes on the dark floor between them.

  He’d have to talk to him, though he knew it meant his last plan of getting back to Nanny was about to be destroyed. For weeks now, Cuffe never spoke a word to him. Since he’d arrived at the Abbey, he’d deliberately treated him as if he didn’t matter. If the man grew to hate him, if he got tired of his surly ways, he thought maybe he’d pay his passage back home.