The vicar nodded. He had lost his color, and his amber eyes were riveted to her.
“My father was carrying the pistol I spoke of the night he was set upon. When the highwayman tried to rob him, he drew it and the bounder took it from him, beat him with it, and then stole it, along with everything Father had on him, and left him for dead. He died in the wee hours on my birthday.”
“Are you certain it was the Marsh Hawk?”
“Our driver seemed certain it was.”
“Did the highwayman identify himself as such?”
“No, but—”
“Jenna, have you any idea how many highwaymen roam this coast? You cannot accuse a man without proof. Why, Simon himself was set upon just two months ago, and shot by a highwayman who was definitely not the Marsh Hawk.”
“W-where . . . did it happen?” she murmured. Paralyzed, she stared. The cold fingers of a chill crept over her scalp, and pinpoints of white light starred her vision.
“Out on the old Lamorna Road.”
“How can you be so certain that it wasn’t the Marsh Hawk who shot him, Robert? Did Simon . . . did he recognize the . . . man?”
“Simon said not. He was younger, with a slight build—a newcomer evidently, and quite inept, though his blunder served him well enough for a novice. Simon would have bled to death if it weren’t for Phelps, who came on just after. They were traveling together, but Phelps was delayed. His horse had thrown a shoe. Had he been at Simon’s side, that highwayman would be dead today. Phelps is an excellent shot. He was Simon’s batman while he served under Nelson, you know, and more than once he took it upon himself to step beyond his orderly duties, or Simon wouldn’t be here today.”
Jenna’s hands were trembling, and she returned the morsel of bread she’d unconsciously been shredding to her plate as crumbs. So it was Phelps she’d heard rustling the brush that night. That being so, the valet was well aware of the situation; he was part of it. Her mind reeled back to the morning of the duel and the valet’s concern. When he’d warned that it was too soon, it wasn’t Simon’s leg injury that worried him at all. It was the wound she had inflicted. Still, she had to be certain.
“Robert, I noticed that . . . Simon has a fairly recent wound in his shoulder, is that . . .”
The vicar nodded.
“I asked him about it. He wouldn’t tell me.”
“Because of your father. He didn’t want to remind you. He worships you, Jenna.”
A dry sob died in her throat as she rose from the table, praying her legs wouldn’t fail her.
“Forgive me, Robert. I . . . Forgive me,” she murmured, and fled the breakfast room with the words half-uttered before he had a chance to glimpse her tears.
Jenna refused the dinner tray Mrs. Rees sent up to the master bedchamber, and she sent Molly away when the maid came to undress her. Her heart was breaking and her brain was numb. Her worst fears were realized. There wasn’t even any comfort in the knowledge that she hadn’t committed murder after all. She threw herself across the counterpane on the mahogany four-poster and sobbed herself to sleep.
Her dreams were dark and troubled, of highwaymen garbed in black with smoking pistols drawn. Dreams of the night she’d left the man she loved to die in the dirt of the road just as he had left her father to die. Dreams of liquid sapphire eyes—blue fire—searing her through the holes in a black silk half-mask, and of those same eyes hooded with desire devouring her, quickening her pulse, igniting her passion.
She awoke in the wee hours still dressed in her sprigged muslin afternoon frock. It was wrinkled, the ribbonwork crimped and spoiled. It was doubtful that even a flatiron could save the delicate flowers and leaves that embellished the neckline and framed the décolleté. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore.
The storm had passed over, and a bright wafer moon cast slanted beams of silver light through the windowpanes. Dust motes danced along the shafts. They traveled back and forth as if they had a purpose. Would the night never end? It was the longest she had ever endured, and the loneliest.
Her eyes were nearly swollen shut, and the quilt beneath her face was damp and cold. That was what had awakened her: the cold, wet cloth against the fever in her cheek. Her hair had come down. The ivory combs that had held it in a neat high coil were lost somewhere in the rumpled bedclothes. She didn’t bother searching for them.
After a time, the light dimmed in the room. Though it shone still, the moon was no longer visible through the window frame, and she lay in the bleak semidarkness before dawn. It was no use. There would be no more sleep, and she struggled to her feet and went to the window. Below, the courtyard and the garden wall were visible, and beyond, the tall, dark skeleton of the tower in the orchard loomed eerily. She started to turn away and then turned back again. Had her eyes deceived her? No. There was a light in the tower.
Hypnotized, she strained in the darkness through smarting eyes toward the glow issuing from the lowest window, and then in a blink it was gone. She was just about to dismiss it as a will-o’-the-wisp, a figment of her imagination, when, in the fractured light of the waning moon, she caught sight of a figure emerging from the tower.
It was Simon. Even at this distance, she recognized his ragged gait in the moonlight.
Her heart leapt for fear that a confrontation was imminent. One look at her face and he would know that she had been crying, just as he knew that morning in the library. Her blotches would give her away. She couldn’t let that happen now—not until she had decided what to do. But Simon did not cross the courtyard toward the house. Instead, he mounted the horse tethered in the groundcover that she hadn’t even noticed until then, and rode off in the opposite direction. She followed him with her swollen eyes until he had disappeared amongst the trees in the orchard.
She began to pace. Her mind was racing. The course she traveled took her back to the window. All at once she gave a start and ran to her dressing room, where she opened her armoire and snatched out her new indigo cloak of Merino wool that the dressmaker had delivered along with the frocks for her wedding trip. The mornings were still cold and damp so close to the sea. Tossing it over her shoulders in transit, she burst into Simon’s dressing room and triggered the spring that opened the secret drawer in the horseshoe desk. Her hands were shaking as she lit the candle on the desktop and stared down at the key inside the drawer. Could it be a spare key to the tower? A split second was all it took for her to blow out the candle and pluck out the key. Then, making no sound, she stole to the scullery, lit a lantern, and ran out into the gathering predawn mist.
The hems of her cloak and frock were drenched with the morning dew before she ever reached the courtyard. Their cold, wet heaviness clung to her ankles. Crossing the drive, she waded through the woodbine creepers to the narrow footpath that led to the tower. Her heart was pounding in her ears, and she swallowed the metallic taste of fear that threatened to close her throat and stop her breathing.
Slipping the key from the pocket in the lining of her cloak, she turned it in the lock, and the tower door creaked open on rusty hinges. She stepped inside on hesitant feet and glanced around. It was one room, with a spiral staircase hewn in the round walls that led to two upper levels steeped in darkness.
She raised the lantern. There seemed to be no visible signs of the structural damage Phelps had warned of, no cracks in the thick stone walls that were frosted with mildew, veined with cobwebs, and running with damp. The room was sparsely furnished, only a chifforobe, a large teakwood chest lurking in the shadows of the stone stairwell, and a horsehair lounge. The chest was locked, but the chifforobe was not. Her hand trembled as she opened it and held the lantern closer. It wasn’t needed. From behind, the pearly glimmer of first light had begun to filter through the leaded panes illuminating its contents—the tricorn hat she remembered all too well, the silk half-mask, black cloak, coat, and trousers. It was all there, heavy with wetness. There were other like costumes as well, and in the first drawer, a mahogany case conta
ining a brace of target pistols, long and sleek and deadly.
She set the lantern down, lifted one of the guns from the burgundy baize lining, and fingered the octagonal swamped barrel. She ran her hand over the walnut stock and checkered grip, and traced the floral engravings on the frizzen and cock. It was French, marked Peniet Of Paris. The other was identical. Both were well seasoned and had been fired recently.
Solemnly, she replaced the pistol in the case alongside the powder flask, mallet, and loading rod, and closed the lid. She opened the second drawer and stared down at a small flintlock pocket pistol, and something else wrapped in a piece of green baize. Unwrapping it, she unearthed a Sea Service pistol identical to that which Robert Nast had used in coming to her rescue. Could it be the same one? Her mind raced back to the odd exchange between the vicar and Phelps that day, and her breath caught in her throat. She wiped her moist palms on her cloak and shut the drawers.
The sun had cleared the horizon, flooding the coast with light. Streaming through the window at her back it broke over her shoulders, but it gave her no comfort, and spared her no warmth. It promised to be a beautiful day, but she resented the morning for shining upon her discovery, and her despair.
Jenna glanced around again, then blew the unnecessary lantern out, and left it. Closing the door, she turned the key in the lock, and trudged back across the courtyard, but she did not return to Kevernwood Hall. She went to the stable instead.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jenna reached Holy Trinity Church, rising from a field of burgeoning bluebells on a little slope within sight of the quay, just as the sun spilled over the moor striking the rose window in the tall, square bell tower. It was the vicar himself who answered her frantic pounding on the vicarage door. Throwing it open, he stared, sliding his amber gaze over the bedraggled sight she was on his doorstep. She looked down in dismay at what he was staring at: She was covered with dust and grime from the tower. Her soiled frock and cloak were plastered wet to her legs and ankles. Her hair was falling loose from a center part over her shoulders, and her dirty hands and arms were pockmarked with rain spots. She could only imagine the condition of her face, between the rain and the dirt and the tracks of her tears.
She all but collapsed in his arms.
“Jenna!” he said through a gasp. “What’s happened to you?”
“Robert, please . . . I know it’s early, but . . . you said that if I ever—oh, Robert!”
“Let’s get you inside,” he replied to her stuttering; meanwhile he led her to the study, where he settled her in a leather wing chair beside the vacant hearth. “Mrs. Baines, my housekeeper, hasn’t arrived yet this morning. Let me light a fire and fetch a pot of coffee . . . or tea. You need something hot. You’re soaked through.”
“No!” she cried, halting him as he bent over the wood box. “No, Robert. Let me do this while I still possess the courage . . . please. There is something I must confess. I should have long ago.”
“Have you been . . . harmed?” he said. Turning back, he took her measure again.
Jenna shook her head that she hadn’t been.
“All right, then, catch your breath, my dear,” he soothed, offering his handkerchief.
“I’ve done something . . . unforgivable,” she murmured, wiping her eyes.
“There is nothing unforgivable, Jenna, so long as there is true contrition. You look more than contrite to me, and to God, I have no doubt, whose assessment is the only opinion you need concern yourself with, after all.”
Other than conducting her wedding ceremony, Jenna had never heard the vicar’s official voice before. Thus far their conversations had all been light and cordial. This now was Vicar Robert Nast speaking, and she was not a little impressed.
“I don’t know where to begin,” she moaned.
“Take your time, Jenna. Nothing could be so grave as that face supposes.”
“Oh, but it is, Robert . . . it is!”
“You know I’ll help in any way that I can,” he said, sinking down on the lounge across the way.
“There is no help for this. I don’t know what to do! Simon will despise me if he learns of it.”
“You have been . . . unfaithful?” he said, his voice charged with disbelief.
“No, no, never, Robert. Worse!” she blurted. “When Father was killed, I went to the land guards to seek justice, but they only laughed at me. Mother should have done so, but she and Father . . . well, they were never really close, you see. They had the sort of relationship I would have had if I’d married Rupert—a social disaster, like so many marriages among the ton.”
The vicar hung on her every word, his eyes so intense, Jenna dared not meet them directly.
“The guards looked on me as an hysterical female, nothing more,” she continued. “It made no difference that Lionel, our driver, provided them with a description. They were patronizing and insensitive, and I . . . I took retribution upon myself.”
“You, but . . . how? Forgive me, I don’t follow.”
“Father had no sons to avenge him. It was up to me . . . at least that’s how I saw it. If the law would not do anything, then I would. The plan was to apprehend the man myself and have him before the authorities to answer for Father’s death and let right be done. Father would have been pleased. I told you he was a frustrated Bow Street Runner. It goes back to his days during the war with the Colonies, when he served as provost marshal. Robert, it never occurred to me that the plan was irrational . . . or that I might actually have to . . . use the pistol I carried.”
“Go on,” the vicar said in a voice she didn’t recognize.
“I would slip out at night dressed as a highwayman and follow the post chaise routes. I didn’t fear the law. They had turned blind eyes away from the situation.”
“But, why dressed as a highwayman? I don’t understand.”
“I couldn’t very well go out like this,” she said, slapping at her skirt. “I would have put myself at risk—a woman, alone at night on the highway in the company of gallows dancers? Dressed as a highwayman, I hoped, at the very least, to disarm—to give the brigand enough pause for thought to allow me to get close enough to affect a capture. I knew I’d find the man sooner or later. The old Lamorna Road was the most dangerous, and the most notorious. I haunted the spots where robberies had occurred in the past, and one night . . . I came upon the highwayman—the one they call the Marsh Hawk—holding up a carriage. I . . . I interrupted him. Lamorna Jail was not far off, and it was my intent to see him there on foot at gunpoint, and let the guards deal with him. They could no longer deny me. I had caught him red-handed, after all.”
The vicar swallowed. He had lost all color, and he didn’t seem to be breathing.
“The man threw down his gun but not the spoils, and approached me offering to share,” she went on. “He . . . had another pistol concealed beneath his greatcoat. When he drew it on me and fired, I fired back. I . . . I had no choice. I’m an excellent shot, Robert; Father taught me. He had no son to share his weapons collection with, and I did so want to please him. Then I heard someone coming and I fled. I . . . left him there! Robert, it was Simon, and I . . . left him there to die.”
“So that is why you’ve never mentioned the Marsh Hawk to Simon?”
“No, not at first. It wasn’t until I saw the wound in his shoulder that I began to wonder. And then yesterday, when you told me that a highwayman had—”
“Simon did not cause your father’s death, Jenna,” he interrupted.
“How can you possibly know that?” she flashed, her eyes filled with scorn and brimming with tears.
“Because I know Simon. You do not, or you wouldn’t doubt. I told you once that two people ought to get to know one another before they—”
“You are aware of this!” she cried, her gasp cutting him short. “You know that Simon is the Marsh Hawk,” she realized, vaulting to her feet. “You’ve known it all along!”
“I know he did not cause your father’s death,” h
e conceded. Getting up from the lounge, he approached her.
“The day when Rupert accosted me, you didn’t have that pistol in the cabriolet at all. You took it from the tower, didn’t you?” She gasped again, avoiding his outstretched hand. “You must have a key, too! You do, don’t you? I just saw that pistol there in the chifforobe with three others, and Simon’s . . . costumes. That business about your not being skilled with a gun was all a lie. You know exactly how to handle a pistol, don’t you, Robert? My God, you’re part of this!”
“You need to talk to Simon, Jenna. I’ve been telling you that since our first meeting.”
“It’s too late for that,” a cold voice interrupted from the doorway.
They both spun toward the sound.
It was Simon.
“Simon, please . . . I asked you to let me handle this,” the vicar pleaded, shaking his head in an emphatic no.
Simon stayed him with a raised hand and a look that turned Jenna’s blood cold. His eyes then came around toward her, and the expression in them exuded more hurt than anger cooling their blue fire, which had darkened despite the shaft of bright sunlight flooding the study. Had he been there all the while? He must have been. Of course! This must have been where he’d ridden off to when she watched him leave the tower.
She looked away, unable to bear that terrible wounded look. Was the man awaiting an apology? She would not tender one. Though every fiber in her ached to run to him, to feel those strong arms folding her close, igniting her passion, she would not—could not—yield to the man who had robbed and bludgeoned her father, and left him for dead. Moaning her despair, she shoved the vicar aside with rough hands, fled past Simon into the corridor, and ran from the vicarage leaving the doors flung wide behind her.
Simon wheeled around and started after her, but the vicar reached him in two strides and clamped a firm hand around his rock-hard arm.
“No, let her go,” he said, “Simon, how could you? You know confession is sacrosanct. I told you to leave it to me.”
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