She sat quite still, watching. Waiting . . . for the wind to pick up; for the sprawling rowans and dogwoods and unkempt fruit trees to resume their creaking; for the house to remain as dark, empty and unchanging as ever.
The house did not comply. As Sophie watched, a curtain in the exposed window flicked to one side and then fell back into place.
In an instant she was on her feet, hand flying to her mouth as her writing tablet slapped the terrace. Her quill fluttered down the steps. Her pulse leaping, she backed away until her foot met with insubstantial air. She nearly tumbled down the stairs but for a quick maneuver that restored her balance.
Quickly she retrieved her notebook and ink. Hooking the satchel over her shoulder, she straightened and found herself staring directly into a male face on the other side of the window. Through the mullioned panes she could make out a tumble of fair hair, darker brows knotted over piercing eyes and a full mouth bracketed in lines of displeasure.
He stood in shirtsleeves and a waistcoat, one hand fisted against the buttons. He glowered long and hard at her, rendering her immobile, locked in a silent battle of scrutiny. Good heavens, she was caught!
A whisper of logic brought a measure of reassurance. She was a neighbor, after all, or at least a guest of this man’s neighbor. There was nothing for it but to offer a friendly apology for trespassing and hope the man, be he servant or nobleman, possessed a forgiving nature. Or a sense of humor.
She raised her hand to wave, but he had vanished. The sun burst from the clouds and the wind picked up, plucking at her skirts and whipping loose hair in her eyes. She shoved it back under her bonnet and waited, expecting the man to come walking out of a terrace door. A minute passed, and another, with no sound or sign of movement issuing from the house.
Confused, Sophie descended the steps, was about to turn and leave when an impulse sent her back up to the nearest set of doors. Rapping several times on the glass, she called out, ‘‘Good morning. Is anyone here? I’m dreadfully sorry to be trespassing. I believed the place to be empty. My name is Miss Sophie St. Clair, and I’m a guest of the Gordons down the road. Perhaps you know them?’’ She knocked again. ‘‘I say, won’t you come out and become properly acquainted?’’
Nothing.
She crossed the terrace to where the bay window jutted and peeked into a room, the walls of which were lined from floor to ceiling with books. She spied a settee, a roomy wingback chair, a large desk upon which several books lay open. But no man.
‘‘How insufferably rude.’’ She turned to go.
At the bottom of the stairs a realization brought her up short. Only moments ago clouds had blocked the sun, but as she scanned the sky now she detected not the faintest trace of a cloud, not in any direction. She shielded her eyes with her hand and peered out at the horizon. Nothing but unending blue stretched above the sea.
She made it as far as the footbridge when a rustling sifted through the bulrush along the banks of the brook. The sound brought her to a halt. It was more than the wind stirring the plants, more . . . solid. The rub of fabric, the catch of a thread.
Sophie stood motionless, listening, searching her surroundings. ‘‘Is . . . is anyone there?’’ she asked in a small voice. Her knuckles whitened where she gripped the rail. Leaning out over the stream, she scrutinized the bank. At the thud of a footfall on the wooden planking beside her, she pulled back with a gasp. Seeing nothing, panting for breath, she braced to run.
And then she felt, quite plainly, a graze against the back of her hand. Not the wind, not a falling leaf, but fingertips—cool, slightly rough as if from an old callus, and then . . . the sound of her name tingling in her ear.
Sophie . . .
‘‘You have been found guilty of the crimes of theft, piracy and murder. It is the decision of this court that in two days’ time, you shall be hanged within the precincts of the Truro jailhouse. May God have mercy upon your soul.’’
Chad Rutherford, Earl of Wycliffe, watched in a horrified daze as the condemned man was led out of the courtroom, the chains clapped to his ankles clanking in protest on the floorboards.
Giles Watling himself said nothing, hadn’t so much as flinched as the judge handed down the sentence. But Chad had. His insides had pulled into impossible knots because he knew the penalty could have been his. Should have been his.
‘‘It’s child’s play, gov’nor,’’ Watling had said the day he first approached Chad, nearly two years ago. ‘‘Like those gents that do business at the Royal Exchange. We procure the goods, and you provide the means to hide ’em, divert ’em, and sell ’em on the black market. See, it’s your connections we want, your resources. You’ll leave the rest to us. Nice and easy-like, and you not ruffling a single hair outta place.’’
Easy, Watling said. A warning had immediately whispered its way along Chad’s spine. ‘‘Where will these goods come from?’’
‘‘Now, don’t be concerning yourself with that, gov’nor. We know you need the blunt. And we need you.’’
Yes, he had needed money. Badly. Months earlier he had inherited a title and estates swimming in debt, thanks to the excesses of the past several generations of Rutherfords. But again, wariness had tingled across his shoulders. ‘‘Who’s ‘we’?’’
‘‘Never you mind.’’ The man’s grin had released the stench of decaying teeth to waft in Chad’s face. ‘‘I’m talking about a bit o’ fair trading here—nothing to get worked up about. Our fellow Cornishmen’ll be grateful for the chance to purchase goods they can afford. Nobody loses out but the revenue collectors. And they’re a scurvy lot, they are. So, gov’nor, are you in or out . . . ?’’
Yes, fair trading, they called it here. The running of foreign goods—French brandy; Irish whiskey; American tobacco, sugar and cotton—past the excise men to avoid the import taxes. The merchandise would then be smuggled into villages throughout Cornwall, where otherwise such luxuries would have been financially out of reach.
As with all dealings that appeared too easy, too pat, there’d been a heavy price. The guilt that woke him in the dead of night with a racing heart and a brow bathed in sweat. The disappointment burning in the eyes of his best friend, Grayson Lowell, who was the first to discover the evidence of Chad’s involvement, and the first to insist he come clean and turn his life around.
Only Chad’s status as a peer and the information he’d been willing to provide the authorities had saved his neck from the hangman’s noose. Even his name had been kept quiet, with much of the evidence presented by the prosecutor ascribed to an anonymous witness. The Wycliffe name would remain untarnished, but he could still lose everything to the fines levied against his estates . . . unless he managed to help deliver the leader of the smuggling ring to the authorities.
A leader who could be anyone, anywhere. Chad simply didn’t know. He’d never had any direct contact with the man.
Now, as the judge, jury and gaggle of curious onlookers made their way out of the courtroom, Chad stood immobile, staring up at the empty witness box where Watling had sat two days in a row and almost happily, proudly spewed the particulars of their business dealings. Particulars Chad hadn’t known. Hadn’t ever imagined or wished to know.
Details now branded indelibly on his soul.
Ships scuttled. Crews murdered. Passengers left aboard to drown. Oh, yes, he now knew where the larger portion of their booty had originated. Fair trading? As if the innocent moniker could make a gentleman’s sport of the devil’s work.
Two days later, a pounding shook Chad’s bedroom door at the inn where he was staying. Stumbling out of bed, bleary-eyed, he opened the door to a messenger who delivered Watling’s last request. He wished to speak to Chad.
As the first cold, comfortless light glazed the eastern horizon, Chad stepped into the stinking jail cell, wary curiosity and pure dread churning his gut to a relentless froth. Holding his breath against the fetidness of the man’s rotting mouth, he listened to what Giles Watling had to say.
/> ‘‘Got a message for you, gov’nor. You’re to go to Penhollow, to that estate of yours, Edgecombe, and wait for instructions.’’
The pulse in Chad’s temple sent shooting pain into his eye. ‘‘From whom? For what? I’m not in it anymore. Even if I were, it was part of the deal that Edgecombe would never be used as a stronghold.’’
That was the one stipulation he’d insisted upon when entering into the smuggling business. His father’s favorite estate, the property where Franklin had spent his final days, would not be touched; his father’s memory would not be so dishonored. Instead, the smugglers had agreed to use a secluded beach farther up the coast, on Grayson Lowell’s family estate.
‘‘The time for bargains is past, gov’nor. Ended the instant you testified. Best do as ye’re told now.’’
‘‘So whoever sent this summons can kill me?’’
‘‘Naw. ’E don’t want you dead. Not yet. More useful to have you alive. And you’d best cooperate, or your family’ll suffer. Your sister, her husband . . .’’ The man’s cracked lips stretched grotesquely, the sneering grin of a moldering jack-o’-lantern. ‘‘Let us not forget your dearest friends. Grayson Lowell stood by you. His pretty wife too—’’
Chad grabbed fistfuls of the bastard’s shirt and pinned him, manacles and all, to the slimy wall behind him. ‘‘Who sent this message? Tell me, damn you. What bloody loyalty can you possibly owe anyone now?’’
But the whoreson only grinned his nasty grin, even later, as they led him up the scaffold steps.
Go to Edgecombe and wait. . . .
By nightfall of the following day, Chad reached the seaside village of Penhollow beneath a blue-black sky dusted with stars. Set at the southernmost reaches of Blackheath Moor on Cornwall’s Lizard Peninsula, the tiny hamlet lay exposed to the whim of the Atlantic gales, which battered the coast almost continually throughout the year.
Those gales were oddly quiet tonight. An eerie calm gripped Penhollow as Chad passed through on horseback. Cooking aromas poured from squat, uneven chimneys to vie with the pungent odors of the incoming tide. He trotted his chestnut Thoroughbred, Prince, down the main thoroughfare, a narrow, weather-gouged lane lined with a few shops and cottages.
Penhollow had never been prosperous, but thanks to his father’s generosity it had never been destitute, either, at least not in the years Franklin had spent here. Chad had seen the records kept by the family solicitor. To his right sat a relatively new church and schoolhouse, built, he had learned, with Wycliffe funds. The snug enclosure, encircled by a low stone wall, appeared well maintained, but as Chad surveyed his surroundings he discovered little other evidence of his father’s largesse.
The village was constructed almost entirely of granite, and the whitewash, typically reapplied yearly, had long since been stripped from the stones by wind and weather. Even in the gathering darkness, other signs of neglect stood out. Splintered timbers. Broken and missing roof tiles. Ragged holes where thatch should have been. More than one creaking door drew his attention to the fact that some of the establishments stood empty and abandoned.
The tavern, however, appeared open for business, the lights inside tossing golden squares onto the roadway. He hunched in the saddle to peer through the windows at the men sitting at the tables or ranged along the bar. A rough crowd, by the looks of it, and a noisy one too. Penhollow, at least, seemed not to lack for whiskey or ale.
Turning about and resuming his course along the coastal road, Chad experienced a stab of guilt. When he had inherited Edgecombe, he should have taken a personal interest in the village. Penhollow’s reversal of fortune reflected his utter failure to do so.
A sliver of moon lit the way. Here and there rutted lanes and cart paths veered off from the side of the road and twisted away to the farms scattered across Blackheath Moor. A few minutes past the village a fine mist crept across the landscape, pooling between the hillocks and spilling over onto the road to swallow Prince’s gait from the fetlocks down.
Low and faint, an odd sound drifted off the moors. Not like the other night noises, not crickets or bats or burrowing animals. This was a moaning, like the wind hissing through trees. But there were no trees on the barren landscape, only the night-blackened heather clinging to the hillsides. A tendril of unease curled around Chad’s spine. He brought Prince to a halt and listened.
Weeping. Soft sobs. The baleful notes of a woman’s voice. She could not be far off, perhaps a few dozen yards. He strained his eyes to search the obscurity beyond the road. Rising from the mist, a stony peak reflected the pale moonlight. A cry surged from behind, and Chad spurred his horse onto the fog-choked moor.
Chapter 2
Sophie rolled, slapped her pillow and pulled the bedclothes higher over her shoulder. She’d lain in bed for over an hour, but her eyes refused to remain closed. Something didn’t feel right. Her skin prickled; the very air sizzled as if charged with lightning.
Beside her, her cousin Rachel slept soundly, the younger girl’s black hair streaming like spilled ink across the pillow. Rachel always sank deep into slumber within moments of her head hitting the pillow; even the other night’s storm had failed to disturb her.
Flipping back the coverlet, Sophie reached for her dressing gown. Shivers raised gooseflesh down her arms. In her week here she hadn’t experienced a night as cold as this. Even through her slippers the floorboards chilled the soles of her feet.
She went to the window. Beyond the barnyard and outbuildings the coastline wriggled like a glowing snake against the moon-tipped waves. Something was different—what?
The harbor lights. Penhollow’s quay lay to the north, but tonight that direction lay in darkness, while a golden glow emanated to the south of her relatives’ farm. Was she mistaken? She shut her eyes and tried to picture the coastline. The village, the beach behind her aunt’s property, the cliffs, Edgecombe. Good heavens. If that ship put in between this house and Edgecombe, it would run aground against a treacherous, jutting headland.
She opened her eyes to see ship lights appear on the horizon. As she watched, they grew steadily larger, closer. Sophie’s heart hit her throat. Someone had made a mistake—how, she could not fathom—and lit the beacons in altogether the wrong place.
She spun about. ‘‘Rachel! Rachel, wake up!’’
The girl let out a murmur and turned her face into the pillow. Sophie realized the futility of rousing her. What could her eighteen-year-old cousin do to remedy the situation?
Hugging her robe around her trembling body, Sophie scurried from the room. Across the small landing she pounded on another bedroom door. Without waiting for permission to enter, she threw the door open so hard it thwacked the wall.
‘‘Uncle Barnaby. Aunt Louisa. You must wake up. Something dreadful is about to happen.’’
‘‘W-what on earth . . . ?’’ Her aunt’s sleep-slurred query drifted softly through the darkness, in contrast to her uncle’s gravelly baritone.
‘‘What in bloody hell’s going on?’’
‘‘Uncle Barnaby.’’ Sophie approached the bed, caught the hairy wrist extending from his nightshirt and tugged. ‘‘Please wake up. There is about to be a shipwreck and we must do something.’’
‘‘Let go of me, girl.’’ He yanked his arm free. ‘‘You’ve had a bad dream is all. Stop raising a ruckus and go back to bed.’’
‘‘But you don’t understand. You must listen to me. There’s a ship putting in, and the shore lights are all wrong. I saw it out my window.’’
‘‘God’s teeth, lass. Your eyes were playing tricks on ye. Now go away and leave us in peace.’’ Uncle Barnaby turned on his side, his back to Sophie.
‘‘Aunt Louisa, you believe me, don’t you? Someone has made a horrible mistake with the harbor lights.’’
The woman sat up, holding the covers to her chin with one hand and pushing her drooping mobcap off her brow. ‘‘Listen to your uncle, child. Cornwall is like that—moonlight on the water, reflections in the mist.�
��’ Her pupils were ringed white in the darkness, and glistening with fear, Sophie thought—with urgency. ‘‘Folk are always imagining things that aren’t there. Go back to bed and never mind silly night phantoms.’’
‘‘Oh, but—’’
‘‘There’s no cause for concern. In the morning all will be well.’’ Aunt Louisa lay back down and turned her face to the wall, but the slight tremor in her voice belied her words. ‘‘Now go back to bed; there’s a good lamb.’’
Sophie stood a moment longer, immobilized by indignation and sheer incredulity. How could they simply roll over and go back to sleep? Especially when Aunt Louisa’s reassurances had sounded far more like warnings?
Someone had to do something, and quickly. Should she try her other cousin, Dominic? Oh, he’d only scowl at her, as he had done repeatedly since her arrival here.
She might not be able to stop a ship in midstream, but she could run to the village, rouse someone and see that the proper beacons were lit. Scampering down to the kitchen, she blew an ember to life in the hearth, retrieved a flaming piece of kindling and lit a lantern. Then, snatching a cloak hanging from the hooks beside the garden door, she flung it across her shoulders and hurried out to the road.
The echoing sobs drew Chad on, sending him beyond the next rise, around the next outcropping, but never any closer. Farther and farther he wandered from the road.
Just as he decided perhaps the wind was deceiving him, that he should make his way back to the road, the mist closed like a fist around him, sealing him in a void that lacked direction, points of reference, even dimension.
The stars were gone, the moonlight doused, the hillsides absorbed into swirling nothingness. The air grew icy sharp, penetrating his clothing and chilling him to the bone. The keening voice surged from all around. Prince bucked, stumbled and reared.
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