by Eve Silver
He did not look at her as he said, “I will allow you a moment of privacy.” With that, he returned to the table, lifted the dirty crockery, and exited the chamber. She heard the turn of the key in the lock.
Her mind awhirl with the odd tenor of her situation, Jane swiftly divested herself of her dress and donned her nightclothes. Scurrying beneath the sheets, she lifted them to her chin as she had the previous nights. She knew what to expect now, knew that Mr. Warrick would return to lie beside her. The thought both thrilled and distressed her. She turned to one side then the other, nervously awaiting his return, wondering if he tarried because she had insulted him. A strange possibility, and one that left her restless and troubled.
She found her thoughts skittering hither and yon. The frightening scene she had witnessed through the window haunted her, and then her thought became preoccupied by images from the novel—ghosts of souls ripped from life by violent and terrible deeds, menacing strangers who skulked in the shadows, frightening castles and catacombs that snaked their way deep into the ground. The things she had read took on sinister significance.
Sounds floated upward from the common room below. A shout, a raucous laugh. Her eyelids drifted shut, heavy with the lateness of the hour. At some point she fell into a light slumber, oblivious to the noises of the inn, unaware of Mr. Warrick’s return.
She was in a dark passage, deep under the ground, and then she was calf-deep in a gray and angry sea. A woman rose up from the waves, her red hair writhing like living snakes, her eyes gaping black holes in her skull, her raw flesh hanging in ribbons. Hands reached out, clawed fingers draped with rotted entrails, and there on the cliff a cloaked figure watched and laughed.
As she struggled against the nightmare, half-aware that she had but to rouse herself in order to escape, an image shimmered and coalesced, a stranger not borne of imagination, but of terrible and unkind memory.
The cloaked figure on the cliff disappeared, replaced by a man garbed like any common tar. He was on the cliff and then he was halfway along the familiar stretch of beach, in the shadow of Trevisham House.
“Oy, girl. Which way then to the inn?”
Young, nondescript, he appeared to pose no threat, but the breakers churned and roared behind him in a terrifying fury.
Be home before dusk. Her mother’s rules drummed through her thoughts and she felt the weight of the sky, tinged with the coming of night. She glanced back at the man, uncertain.
What harm in telling a stranger the way? What harm?
Too late. Too late to see the harm, to heed the warning that snaked icy tentacles through her veins. His hands were on her, hurting her. She struggled. Screamed. Terror was a thick miasma, wrapping her in its choking hold.
His hands were on her. His hands...
With a cry, Jane jerked upright. There were hands on her shoulders, not rough, but gentle, soothing, reassuring. Aidan’s hands. He had wakened her. It was a memory. A dream. A nightmare. She had not suffered its coming for so long that she had dared to hope it would never return.
She tried to chase away the frightening recollections that snapped at her, crossing the boundary from dream to wakefulness. Rigid and distraught, she stared at nothing, haunted by images that yet felt real, memories that refused to rest. The fire had died and the room was couched in blackness, chilled as the frost-kissed air outside.
“Jane, lie against me, sweet. I will let none harm you, not even the demons of your dreams.” Aidan’s voice calmed her flayed nerves. His big, warm hands guided her as he drew her against his muscled chest and wrapped her in the safe harbor of his arms. She did not resist, drawn by his strength and the kindness of his touch. “Sleep now,” he commanded, his breath caressing her cheek as he tucked her close, warming her with the heat of his body.
He was solid against her back, his hand gentle as he stroked her hair. She could feel the steady rhythm of his heart, the even cadence of the rise and fall of his chest.
The horror of past memories faded, and she drifted toward sleep.
The nightmare had come for her, and Aidan Warrick had not let it take her.
* * *
Morning found Mr. Warrick up and dressed, prowling the confines of the small chamber like a caged beast. Jane felt certain that he had been awake for some time. She thought he might have gone out and returned while she slept.
“My business is concluded and I would be away from the New Inn,” he said, his tone flat and cold, as if he would distance himself from the man who had comforted her in the night. “I am for home.”
Home. She did not go to her home, but to his. The thought of the unknown worried her. He had been kind to her, but she was not lulled into security. He had taken pains the day he presented her father with his devil’s bargain to show her, show them both, that he was not a kind man. Were his actions since that day a ruse, some game of torment? Was he waiting until they reached Trevisham House to mete out whatever harsh future he planned for her?
Why? Why would he do that? For some twisted satisfaction?
Or was she spinning dark meaning where none existed?
“You have seen too much.” His voice was soft, musing, his words alarming.
Her chest tightened and she struggled for breath. “What... what do you mean?”
“You have witnessed much on this little excursion. In truth, you have seen far more than I would have liked. Is that why you study me with veiled glances and a wary gaze? Do you think me a threat ready to pounce, sweet Jane?”
She shook her head, not in denial but in absence of any other answer to give.
“I will wait for you directly outside this door. Make haste, if you please.” He strode across the room.
Jane crushed the blankets in her tightening grasp. Directly outside this door... A promise or a warning?
Good as his word, Mr. Warrick was in the hall waiting for her, along with Hawker who hurried inside to gather their belongings.
As they made their way through the common room, Jane saw Mr. Warrick glance at a darkened corridor that led toward the back of the inn. She paused, squinting into the gloom, and wondered if smuggled barrels and goods were stored in some dusty chamber at the far end, or if they were already on their way to the city, destined to sell for a goodly amount.
After a moment, she realized that Mr. Warrick had moved on. She hurried after him, following him outside to the courtyard.
“Oy, Mr. Warrick!” the owner of the New Inn, Joss Gossin, called out as he stepped through the door. The man shot a look at Jane, and his eyes widened in recognition. This was the first time since her arrival that they had met face to face. She was acquainted with this man. He had been to the Crown Inn twice that she recollected, and she had once visited this inn with her father.
He looked to Mr. Warrick and then back to her. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment as she realized that he knew she had spent the past nights in the same bed as Mr. Warrick, that he likely believed she was nothing more than a lightskirt.
And then another thought struck, one with far more sinister implications. Mr. Gossin was the keeper of this fine establishment. It was highly unlikely that Mr. Warrick plied his nefarious trade at the New Inn without the knowledge of the innkeeper. Most Cornishmen believed that what the sea gave up was theirs by right, and believed, too, that a small bit of smuggling harmed none. But all she had seen made her certain that this was not that sort of trade. No harmless petty crime that the revenue men might ignore.
The orchestration of the unloading and loading of wagons, the smooth symmetry of arrival and departure... she was convinced that Aidan Warrick and the New Inn were part of an elaborate smuggling ring, one that snaked through the countryside, a sinister poison that left bodies in its wake.
Dolly had talked of wreckers. There was the horrific possibility that this company of thieves lured ships to the rocks and to bloody murder, for it seemed strange that both a group of wreckers and a second group of smugglers would ply the coast at the same time. ’Twas fa
r more likely that they were one and the same.
The landlord spoke with Mr. Warrick in deferential tones. Jane looked away. She had little doubt as to the identity of the serpent’s head. Her gaze strayed to Mr. Warrick’s broad back, and she hastily looked away again as he glanced at her over his shoulder.
Jane wandered a few feet away, and then walked beside the crumbling stone wall that surrounded the courtyard. Behind her was the inn itself, and the stables and tack room. Ahead of her, at the very far end of the wall, was a great pile of rubble and rock, as though the wall was unfinished and meant to be built upon some time in the future.
She walked, head high, face turned to the meager sun that poked periodically through the clouds. She passed the drinking trough, and the patch of grass, and then she went up the low rise toward the pile of rock.
Once, she paused and turned to look behind her. Mr. Warrick stood in a small group of men, listening as they spoke. He dipped his head and spoke briefly in reply to someone’s words. But his eyes never left her. She felt the heat of his gaze upon her as she walked on.
When she reached the pile of rock, she toed it with her boot, watching small pebbles roll down the slope. Her gaze wandered to the small knot of men—Mr. Warrick and Hawker and Joss Gossin among them—and then back to the ground near her feet. Something glittered, catching the sunlight, and she rounded the far end of the heap of rock and bent forward to examine her find. It appeared to be Mr. Warrick’s button. The missing one from his waistcoat that she had noticed that first night.
Leaning forward a bit more, Jane picked it up, and then gasped as she made a second discovery: Two booted feet protruded from the very far side of the pile. Someone sleeping off a drunk, she imagined.
Frowning, she stepped closer, and immediately wished she had not. A wall of acrid stink slammed into her. Her breath left her in a whoosh and her gaze locked on the dark stain that had all but soaked into the ground, nearly invisible against the brown soil. Staggering back, she pressed her hand against her lips, her fingers closing reflexively around Mr. Warrick’s waistcoat button as her eyes traveled from booted feet to coarse coat to the shock of white hair that stood out in contrast to the earth.
Recognition dawned, and she bit back the churning ball of nausea that roiled in her belly. Davey. He was dead. And the rocks had rolled down the mound, covering a part of him and leaving the rest exposed.
Blood. Blood. So much blood. A stain soaked deep into the soil.
She whirled, took three uneven steps, her gaze seeking Mr. Warrick’s tall form. As if sensing her distress, he turned, his eyes finding hers.
“Jane!” He reached her in a few long strides. “What is it?”
“There,” she rasped, feeling as though a thick, sticky ball of bread and honey clogged her throat. “A man. Behind the rocks.”
Mr. Warrick’s expression hardened. “Did he frighten you?”
A sob caught in her throat, and she refused to let it free. Swallowing her distress, she shook her head. “No. I think he is quite dead.”
His eyes roamed her face, assessing. Then he smiled. “Quite dead? You mean he is not partially dead?”
She stared at him, appalled. He was making a joke of it? Stiffening, she jerked her chin up a notch.
“That’s my girl. Strong as forged steel,” he said softly. “You won’t swoon on me.”
She blinked, both strengthened by his praise and appalled that she cared at all.
Looking around, she realized that Hawker was there, and Joss Gossin, and several others she did not recognize. She stepped back as they pulled Davey’s corpse free of the debris. His arms were above his head, and she stared at the gashes dug by his fingers in the loose, damp earth. He was face down and she was grateful for that, for she thought she might retch if she looked upon his lifeless eyes.
She recalled the menace in Mr. Warrick’s tone as he demanded her release that first night. Davey, is she worth your life... The man that touches her is the man I’ll gut. A nice, slow death, that.
Though she knew with certainty that Davey would have killed her, she could not find satisfaction in his demise. Drawing a shaky breath, she forced herself to look at the dead man once more, and was sickened by the sight of the back of his shirt, dark and stiff with dried blood.
He had been stabbed in the back. Or perhaps shot. But it appeared that he had not faced his killer as he died. Stepping away, she turned her face from the sight.
Shock and dread gnawed at her. Had Mr. Warrick killed him as he had threatened? Shot him? Stabbed him in the back? Had she witnessed the man’s murder from her window last night?
She glanced about the circle of men that had formed, wondering what any one of them would do if she spoke of that now.
Nothing. They would do nothing, for she had not seen anything that definitively proved blame. And even if she had, she suspected that none would speak against Aidan Warrick. She thrust her hand into the pocket of her cloak and ran her fingertip over the surface of the button she had found near Davey’s corpse. Certainly it proved nothing, for Davey had been hale and hearty for days after Mr. Warrick’s waistcoat had given up the button. But still…
“Stabbed from behind,” one of the men said, confirming her suspicion.
Stabbed. She could see Mr. Warrick in her mind’s eye slowly, methodically wiping the long, wicked blade that he kept always close at hand.
Someone’s hand came to rest on her shoulder. With a gasp, Jane jerked around to find Joss Gossin watching her with a strange expression, his gray brows drawn together in a frown. “Are you going to be sick, girl?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I am well. Truly.”
Then she thought of all that had passed since she had first laid eyes on Mr. Warrick standing at the edge of the graveyard, his coming heralded by the stark cry of the raven, and she thought that she was not well at all. Sinking her teeth into her lower lip, she glanced nervously at her employer. His back was toward her as he spoke quietly to Hawker. In that instant, she realized that this was her chance. She had been unable to fulfill her promise to hang a sheet from Trevisham House and notify her father of her wellbeing that first night. This was her opportunity to remedy that lack, to take control over at least one small thing in the turmoil that had become her life.
“Please, Mr. Gossin,” she whispered. “I beg you send word to my father. Tell him I am well. Tell him—”
“Nothing.” Mr. Warrick’s rough voice cut her off. “You will tell him nothing.”
Her heart sank as Joss pulled his hand from her shoulder and looked uncertainly between the two.
“Miss Heatherington is…” Mr. Warrick paused. “Under my protection.”
She cringed at his choice of words. He made her sound like his mistress. Kicking up her chin a notch, she turned to Joss. “I am his bondswoman, Mr. Gossin. Payment for my father’s debts.”
The innkeeper’s bushy eyebrows waggled in surprise. “Are you, now? Well... er... well...” He looked to Mr. Warrick for confirmation.
Her employer was in no mood for civility. He ignored Joss and turned to Hawker. “You know what to do with him,” he said, jerking his chin in the direction of the body.
“I do, sir.”
“Should we not call the magistrate?” Jane asked, a small bubble of hysteria floating close to the surface. “Find the perpetrator? Return the man’s remains to his kin?”
“Davey’s got no kin we know of. One of the boys”—Hawker gestured at the small group of men who stood nearby—” will take him to the church at Tintagel. Get him buried. We... um... that is... the vicar there is known to us.”
Jane followed Hawker’s gaze to the growing knot of men who stood some feet away. Like scavengers, their numbers increased the longer the corpse sat.
She strained to see those in the back, feeling a malevolent gaze locked upon her. Gaby, Davey’s cohort. She thought she saw him lurking at the far edge of the group, though she had no clear view of his face. Wrapping her arms about h
erself, she took a steadying breath. She could remember the ugly sound of their voices, the rough grasp of their clawing fingers, and now one of them was dead.
“As to the magistrate,” Hawker said, then shrugged, his gaze flicking first to Joss Gossin, and then to Mr. Warrick.
With a dark curving of his lips that barely qualified as a smile, Mr. Warrick shook his head and said, “No need for the magistrate. My law will suffice.”
Chapter 7
They rode in silence for quite some time, Mr. Warrick frowning formidably as he stared out the carriage window at the surrounding countryside, Jane silently reviewing the terrible events of the morning. Her imagination added detail after macabre detail until she wondered at the veracity of her recollections.
Yet death was the indisputable truth.
She kept thinking of the horrific grooves gouged in the earth by Davey’s clawed fingers. Davey, dead. The woman pulled from the ocean, dead. Connections and links. Suspicions.
“Did you—” Jane began. Her stomach plummeted. What folly took her that she dared question him? Only the fact the not knowing was worse than knowing. Taking a deep breath, she forged on. “Mr. Warrick—” Again, she faltered.
He turned and fixed her with a steady stare, and she could not look away. Such eyes. Blue and gray, a swirling storm, the color made all the richer by the sun-kissed tone of his skin.
“Aidan,” he said softly. “We have shared a bed, sweet Jane.” He gave a small, close-lipped smile. “My given name is Aidan. Use it.”
Shared a bed. The words made a wave of heat spread through her. “We shared naught but a place to sleep,” she corrected. “And I shall call you—”
“Aidan. You shall call me Aidan simply because I wish it. Consider it my command. Are you not answerable to me, Jane? Did you not agree to the bargain?”