Burning Bright (Brambridge Novel 2)

by Pearl Darling

  “He was around here. I saw him with my own eyes. He was trying to run away but tripped on one of the stones here, see. I reckon he was running away, sir. My lord.”

  Harriet crawled slowly back to the edge of the cave. Peeping round the pillars of stone that supported the mouth of the cave, she counted some twenty men and women. Amongst them strutted Granger, the lawyer from Ottery St Mary. He had laid off most of the estate workers and raised the rent on the tenant cottages, Janey’s included. He was accompanied by his son, Samuel, who did all the dirty work. Harriet blinked in surprise. Edgar stood at the front of the crowd with Lord Anglethorpe. Harriet had only seen Lord Anglethorpe once before. He kept himself to himself at his house on Berale Estate when he was down from London.

  Samuel stood ramrod straight, his massive shoulders bunching as he threw his hands in the air and pointed down the beach. Harriet watched as Edgar raised his eyebrows and shook his head. His voice carried with the wind to where she sat. “I’d run away too if I had drowned the new riding officer Carmichael in an inch of water, sir.”

  Samuel gestured again towards where the stream that ran off Fountain Vale met the beach. “Hooh. Yes. Just think, of all the bad luck, coming back in on the Rocket and getting caught first time round by the riding officer. Wouldn’t that make you mad?”

  “Mad enough to kill?” Lord Anglethorpe looked quizzical.

  Edgar rubbed his hand against his mouth. “Of course, sir. Lord Stanton, or Major Lucky as he was known in the war, killed many men. He was no stranger to it. I understand that some of the things he did as a lowdown scout were reprehensible. And of course there was that riding officer two years ago.” He coughed. “Strange that it should happen again.”

  “Hmm, yes, I had forgotten that,” Lord Anglethorpe murmured.

  Harriet gasped as anger flooded her. Those fools, not fools, traitors, were trying to frame James for something he didn’t do. No one had known whether he had killed the riding officer two years ago. Apart from her that is. In fact no one had much cared then because the customs man had been universally hated. And this time again she knew it was untrue. She had been with James all the time he was on the boat, and in the water. Unless he had suddenly grown wings, there was no chance that he had managed to kill a man in that time.

  Why were they colluding against James? The penalty if found guilty was hanging; and the country magistrates would hang a man on the most circumstantial evidence. The townsfolk practically bayed for blood. It would be different for James though. As a lord he would be taken to London and tried by his peers. Peers who were old and easily led.

  Skirting a large log of driftwood, Harriet crawled silently to the back of the cave. James had moved slightly and was now lying on his back, his head turned to the side. In the dim light from the cave opening, Harriet could see for the first time blood and pus seeping from a wound in his shoulder.

  “Everyone split up. I want you to search every inch of this beach. We’ll find him, and then traitor or no, he’ll answer to the King’s justice.” Edgar’s strident voice organized the groups of villagers into pairs and sent them off in all directions.

  Catching sight of the driftwood she had just walked round, Harriet drew it to lie in front of James’ supine figure. It didn’t cover him well at all. She was in the middle of dragging another log in front of him when the cave mouth darkened. Throwing herself down in the sand behind James, she held her breath.

  Mr. Granger’s voice echoed in the close confines of the cave. “Go on, go to the back of the cave, Samuel.”

  “But Pa, it’s very dark in there.”

  “Well, let’s get a torch then.”

  “Someone told me it was haunted.” A tremor crept into Samuel’s voice. “Haunted by that Fairleigh that was killed.”

  “Nonsense. He wasn’t killed anywhere near here,” Mr. Granger snapped. “Now get in…”

  James moaned and moved slightly. Putting out a questing hand, Harriet laid it on the back of his neck. James’ moaning tailed off.

  The men’s voices stopped suddenly.

  “Did you hear that?” Fear laced Samuel’s voice. A scatter of shale fell from the ceiling as the sound echoed around the cave. “I ain’t going in there, Pa. Go in yourself.”

  Harriet held her breath as their heavy footsteps crunched away. After a short pause, lighter ones followed.

  James moaned again. Sitting up, she squinted at the entrance of the cave and back down to where he lay. She fought the urge to laugh hysterically. They would have been plainly visible had the Grangers taken two steps further into the cave mouth. As it was they must have appeared like boulders, just as she had thought when she had first seen James’ body on the beach.

  Awkwardly dusting the sand from her hands, Harriet stood and trod softly back to the front of the cave. She watched as the search party combed up and down the beach, but not once did they come back to the cave.

  Finally, Lord Anglethorpe seemed to shake his head and glare at Edgar who swept his arm at the beach. But the lord didn’t appear to listen, turning his back on the gathering and stalking towards where the road met the shingle. Edgar and the Grangers formed a huddle and exchanged heated words. Yet despite this, after five minutes they all shook hands and trudged towards the road.

  Stumbling through the churned up sand she had created, Harriet sank to her haunches and examined James’ face in the dim light. It was still too pale. With numb fingers, she pulled at her sewing knife and used it to cut short strips of the drier fine linen of her chemise that had lain close to her body. She balled up the material and laid it in a hollow in the sand, piling the dry driftwood over it. Picking up a small rock, she lay on her front and pushed her hands underneath the pile of wood. She struck at the rock with her knife. A small spark flared and then darkness descended again. Frantically she struck at the rock, but it seemed that the first time had been luck.

  She could not get a fire going. A burst of hysterical laughter bubbled from her mouth. Help was not coming. Edgar and his cohorts would surely be back before they could leave. She would have to get help. But not before she had patched James up.

  Groaning with the effort, she pulled his shirt off him and laid it over the rocks to dry in the little heat of the cave. The wound on his shoulder began to weep as soon as she removed his shirt. The shirt had stuck into his skin, temporarily closed the wound, but without stitching he would lose more blood. Gently rolling his body onto his side, Harriet swallowed. James’ well-muscled back was covered in scars, long white old scars that had turned white with age, overlaid with pinker, jagged scars that still showed the marks of stitches. As she examined him, a trickle of blood oozed down his shoulder.

  She would need to stitch his shoulder together. Harriet licked her lips. She had done it before and she could do it again. Hoping that the seawater had cleaned the wound and grateful that James was still unconscious, she set to with her needle.

  It took much less time than it had when she stitched Tommy. But the wound still wept slightly, although closed with neat stitches. Harriet gazed at her precious embroidery inside the sewing pouch and then at James’ pale face. He needed it more than her. She would gladly give it to him for saving her life. Ripping the strip in half, she wadded one half into a pile, and then, pressing it onto the newly stitched wound, wound the other half around his shoulder and the padding to hold it in place.

  Looking at how James was now lying, Harriet knew he would need more heat. Lying down behind James, she inched herself round his body into the same position as when she had thought that he was dead. Edging her body closer, she gasped as the bare skin exposed by the rents in her chemise grazed his cold skin.

  With her right hand she softly began to rub his body from the shoulder to the hip, and then further down the thigh. The friction drew forth some heat from his body. Tentatively she pressed closer.

  CHAPTER 20

  It was the only pleasant dream that James had had since returning from the Peninsular. At one point a lit
he, catlike body had rubbed up against his body, stroking his chest, rubbing his back like a wanton feline. And then its touch had gone lower, to his belly, and explored around the soft hair of his navel. But then it had stopped, and James had groaned. God, he was cold. So cold, but this little cat was determined to heat him up.

  Then the heat had gone away. The cold was agonizing. Where had she gone? He wanted more, heat everywhere, rubbing itself up and down against his cold skin.

  He opened his eyes, his lids fluttering as little light filtered in. Hell. That was where he was, the only place he was going after the number of men he had killed. Flames of orange danced in front of him. Oh, to be so close to heat and yet so cold. A shadow moved across his vision. He blinked as the flames resolved themselves into a mass of fiery red hair above a body made for sin. From his position on the floor he could see the curve of her inner thigh clad in breeches that clung lovingly to her body. This must be purgatory. He had seen enough scenes in the Roman Catholic churches of the countries he had marched through. Orgies of people conducting lewd acts on each other as the flames consumed them. This must be the warm up. Oh, he nearly wanted to laugh. If only he was warmer.

  His eyes fluttered closed again, the coldness dragging him under.

  The next time he woke, he was warm, too warm, despite the continuing darkness. A shadow danced at the edge of his vision.

  “Who is it?” He was surprised that his voice didn’t waver.

  A face bent over his, and curls of hair fell on his face. He groaned inwardly, his thoughts more lucid this time. He might have known that she was mixed up in his own personal torment.

  “James,” Harriet said softly. “You’re awake.”

  “Surprise,” he said weakly.

  Harriet shivered and clasped her arms around her slim waist. “You’ve been unconscious for a while.”

  James tried to sit up. “What?” he repeated after her hazily. His shoulder pulled tight.

  Harriet knelt alongside him and held out a hand. “The night the lord spent with the schoolmistress in the cave,” she muttered, “Brambridge would be agog at the tale.”

  James sat up with a jerk and ignored her hand. “No.” He stared at her as she slowly drew her hand away. He fell back onto the soft sand and put a hand to his head. “Hells bells.” If anyone found out that they had been stuck together in that cave for twelve hours, Harriet was right—he would be called to account for compromising her.

  “There’s no need to act so disappointed.” Harriet rocked back on her heels and stood. She crunched across the sand to the opposite side of the cave.

  “Harriet.” James groaned as she refused to look at him. “Harry.”

  Harriet glared at him across the tops of her hands.

  “You don’t really know me,” he said with effort. So what if she was the only woman he wanted to know well at all? James grimaced and, clenching his stomach muscles, propped himself up on his elbows. He couldn’t marry her. Marie Mompesson was the only woman that stood between him and the estate and he’d vowed to take it back at all costs. Once he married her then perhaps he would be at peace with his father’s ghost.

  Harriet cocked her head to one side. Her hair cascaded over her shoulder. James blinked; he’d seen that look before. It normally heralded something rather terrible, akin to a verbal kick in the shins instead. It was also strangely alluring. He closed his eyes.

  “Aren’t you lucky, my lord.” Harriet’s voice was barely a whisper above the wind howling outside the cave. James opened his eyes again. Harriet looked away from him, down at her breeches, and plucked at the tea stain that mottled the buckskin. “Being neither of quality or aristocracy, I have no reputation to be ruined. I am merely a maid and cannot be compromised.”

  God help him if a sigh of relief escaped from his mouth. It hadn’t been as terrible as he feared.

  Harriet looked up at him quickly, and then away again. But not before he had seen the hurt glistening in her eyes.

  “I can’t marry you, Harry. You have to believe me. Even if the stars aligned for us I couldn’t. Father’s estate… there are certain conditions. They prevent me from marrying you.”

  “Conditions?” Harriet’s voice was filled with disbelief. “I don’t believe you. That’s archaic. Don’t you have other estates that you were awarded during the war? The paper was full of it. Major Stanton awarded ten prime hectares of Kentish coast line, Major James given rights to prime Yorkshire farming country? Why bother with Brambridge?”

  James clenched his fingers into a fist. Yes, he had other estates. But he didn’t get any profits from them. He gave them all to the workers on the estate, injured soldiers every last one of them. He’d done it a week after he had arrived in London. Soldiers without legs, arms, feet littered the streets. The government refused to provide for them. He had got off lightly himself, but that was just luck. A few more inches and that shell would have blown him to pieces.

  James had banked on his father’s estate to provide him with his own income. And he would damn well have it.

  “Brambridge is mine, Harriet. Nothing will stop me having it.”

  Harriet stared at him. “It’s your father, isn’t it? You don’t really care about Brambridge. You never did—you spent most of your time on the Rocket.” She put a hand to her mouth and then back to her side. Standing, she shook her hair as James stared at her open-mouthed. He followed her with his eyes as she marched round the fire and stood towering over him. “Your father was a fool, James. And you are fool just like him. Can’t you see he is still leading you on a rein from beyond the grave, just as he did in life?”

  “You don’t understand, Harry.” He wanted to put a hand out but he didn’t have the strength.

  Harriet gave a bitter laugh and strode towards the mouth of the cave. “Oh I understand, James. You’re more like him than I thought.” She looked back over her shoulder as she crouched down on the rocks at the entrance to the cave. “I’ll get help for you. Don’t bother to look for me when you are back in Brambridge. It shouldn’t be too hard. The new Lord Stanton shouldn’t fraternize with maids if he wants to keep his standing in the country.”

  With a lithe movement, she slipped out of the cave and into the shadows of the rocks beyond.

  James’ elbows collapsed beneath him. He had been wrong; she had skewered him just like he had known she would.

  CHAPTER 21

  Blearily, Harriet left the cave opening and stepped heavily onto the beach. A man lingered on the beach some way into the distance, watching the shoreline. Backing into the shadow of the rocks, she drew her breath. Her hands shook with anger and embarrassment. What had she expected? That James would get down on one knee and propose to her after one kiss? He was right; they barely knew each other. She bowed her head. She had given exactly the same reasons to Bill.

  James wasn’t indifferent to her, she knew that. She could see it in his glance. The way he had kissed her for goodness sake. And he had to know that she loved him, had always loved him. But he’d told her himself, as they rowed towards the boat. He’d warned her with the last stanzas of the Kubla Khan poem, but she had been so lulled by his voice she had barely listened.

  And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

  Harriet leaned her head against the cool rock and waited as her breathing slowed. He had made it perfectly clear to her that she was not what he wanted. Brambridge Manor came above everything. She would not take her words back, James was more like his father than she thought if he valued riches above all else. With one last breath, her fingers stopped shaking and her heart beat slowed. In the shadow of the rocks, she felt very cold, as if the wind had whipped right to her insides. The warmth generated by James’ proximity that had kept her going finally flickered and died.

  Weaving her way blindly in and around the large boulders, Harriet reached the dense undergrowth at the cliff bottom. Searching along the undergrowth, she finally found the opening, and made her way up the old
smuggling path and up to the entrance to the stone mine.

  She had expected the path to be relatively overgrown; however it was clipped back here and there. The soil in the makeshift steps bore footprints from after the recent rain. The mine itself was dank and forbidding. Little light shone in from the entrance. She stopped, one foot inside. Her heart pounded in her chest as she touched the dank stone walls. Could she really do this alone, again?

  A few paces into the mine, the memories of two years before swept over her, the disorientation, the stillness only punctuated by trickling water. Harriet bowed her head and took another step forward. There was no other way off the beach without being seen. Her life, and James’, depended on it. She put her hand back on the wall. That’s what she had found before in the mine. A ledge quarried at waist height. Just right for a man to reach out with his hand and trail his finger along in the dark to find his way out of the mine. Lifting her head up, she pushed her finger forward along the stone, and began to walk.

  It took but ten minutes to reach where the deepest stone miners were working.

  They didn’t notice her. The light from their candles only spread as far as the wedges that they had driven into the wall. The noise in the echoing space was tremendous. A cutter looked up from his work and briefly around the cavern. His eyes passed straight over Harriet. In her male clothing and in the dim light she didn’t attract attention. She quickly found the cart rails that took the stone out of the mine and followed them up to the giant arched exit.

  The entrance to the mine was full of milling ponies and carts of shale. The mine foreman stood in the light archway leading to the outside, shouting angrily. Harriet stepped neatly into the side shadows and flattened herself against the wall. From there she could see Edgar, astride his horse on the road that led out of the mine, shouting back at the mining foreman. Behind him the road to safety stretched into the trees. There was no way she could get round him without being seen.