Oddly it was that enigmatic side of him that intrigued her most.
During the next days Sophie helped Rachel weed the kitchen garden, card the wool the family saved for its own use, clean the stalls where the two tremendously large draft horses were kept, and dip long wicks into melted animal fat to make the tallow candles they burned each night. She helped prepare the meals and clean up afterward. She rose early each day and fell into bed exhausted each night. And during that time she could not erase the Earl of Wycliffe from her thoughts.
Far too often she wondered where he was, what he was doing. Did he sit alone and brooding in that chilly, murky house of his? Had he made any discovery concerning the harbor lights? Perhaps he had decided she’d been imagining things and given up. She regretted not telling him about her aunt and uncle’s conversation.
It’s to that grandfather of hers we must pay heed. He’s the one to fear. She wondered what threat Grandfather St. Clair could pose to the Gordons.
It’s unlikely that while she’s here you’ll be called upon again to . . . To what? If only Dominic hadn’t interrupted her eavesdropping and she had heard the rest. Perhaps then she might have been able to put her suspicions about her relatives to rest. But judging by her uncle’s subsequent behavior toward her, she didn’t think so.
On the fourth day she managed to rise early enough to follow Rachel out to the still-dark barnyard and have her first lesson in collecting eggs, which resulted in her hand being pecked to virtual mincemeat by outraged, squawking hens. Halfway through the chore she deemed scaling cliffs a far more comfortable venture.
‘‘How can they possibly lay so many?’’
Rachel didn’t bother answering.
After Sophie snatched the last egg with only a minor peck on her little finger, they returned to the kitchen, where she washed off her bleeding knuckles. Heyworth greeted them with affectionate sniffs, then shambled after Sophie as she drew a kitchen chair closer to the hearth. Sinking into the delicious warmth cast by the fire, she let her eyelids droop. In the corner the black iron stove gave off tantalizing waves of muffin-scented heat that made her stomach rumble.
Her eyes sprang open as Rachel thrust her cloak back into her hands. ‘‘No sleeping yet, Sophie. We have to deliver the eggs and milk to the Stormy Gull before sunup. Dominic has the cart loaded and ready for us.’’
She eyed the younger girl wearily. ‘‘You do this every morning?’’
Aunt Louisa entered the kitchen. ‘‘You’d best get on to the tavern before the first patrons begin drifting in.’’
‘‘Patrons? At this ungodly hour?’’
‘‘They’re fishermen,’’ Rachel said with a look that chastised. ‘‘Some aren’t married. They break their fast at the tavern before putting out to sea for a long day’s work.’’
Sophie had never set foot inside a tavern before, had never entered any establishment other than London’s finest restaurants. A growing curiosity kept her tired feet apace with Rachel’s as they trudged beneath a granite sky flecked black as crows and stout, long-fingered ravens took wing.
They were met at the kitchen door by a great, bald hulk of a man Rachel addressed as Uncle Reese. He ushered them inside, handed them each a steaming mug of tea and bade them stand by the roaring hearth fire while he unloaded the cart.
The stone-and-timber kitchen was the most primitive Sophie had ever entered, with neither a proper stove nor even the convenience of a water pump. Reese returned, and as he transferred the eggs from their baskets into waiting bowls, he and Rachel spoke of the weather, the Gordons’ herds, and how the recent wet weather would affect the quality of the pastures. Apparently too much rain could introduce a damaging rot into the soil, and Rachel seemed concerned. Gradually Sophie gleaned that this man was married to Uncle Barnaby’s sister.
More than once she felt his eye upon her, and wondered what tales Uncle Barnaby, Dominic or the mariner, Grady, might have told about her. Did Reese expect to find horns beneath her bonnet? It came as something of a relief when Rachel gathered up the empty egg baskets and they said their good-byes.
Sophie gladly followed her cousin to the door, only to discover the source of the hissing sound she had largely ignored these past several minutes. Pelting rain churned the stable yard to mud and blended the dawn landscape into muted blurs of gray.
‘‘Stop right there.’’ The order, issued in a female’s voice, came from across the room. ‘‘You two are mine until this deplorable weather clears.’’
Sophie turned to behold a woman with shockingly red hair and clothes so bold and brazen that the street-walkers she had occasionally glimpsed near Covent Garden sprang to mind.
‘‘Ladies, close that door and join me in the common room. Reese, oatcakes, blood sausages and a good warm draft of small ale. These two look as hungry and bedraggled as freshly hatched sparrows.’’ Turning, the woman disappeared through a doorway.
‘‘There’s no harm in waiting out the rain,’’ Rachel whispered to Sophie as she sealed the kitchen door against the weather. ‘‘Mother will expect us to.’’
In the common room they took seats around an oak trestle table. As in the kitchen Sophie felt as if she’d stepped into an earlier century. Inhaling the jumbled scents of ale and oak-aged wine, cooking aromas and the acrid smoke of the peat fire burning cheerfully in the hearth, she experienced a sudden contentment, her first since coming to Penhollow that wasn’t directly linked to Chad. Whatever the tavern lacked in refinement it made up for in snug warmth and solid security, especially with the driving rain streaming down the windows and fogging the panes.
As Rachel made the introductions, the street door burst open to admit four men who hurried in out of the weather, followed almost immediately by three more, their oilcloth overcoats glistening wet. The red-head, who insisted on being addressed as Kellyn rather than Mrs. Quincy, greeted them heartily and called their orders in to Reese.
‘‘How splendid,’’ Sophie couldn’t help blurting when she learned that Kellyn owned the Stormy Gull. ‘‘I’ve never met a woman who owned a tavern. Or any sort of business, for that matter.’’
Kellyn laughed softly. ‘‘ ’Tis no great feat, I assure you.’’
Oh, but to Sophie it was, and a bubble of envy rose up inside her.
The street door opened again upon a blast of wind and another handful of men. They bade the ladies gruff good mornings and shuffled around a table. Reese returned carrying a tray loaded with steaming oatcakes, blood sausages still sizzling from the pan and three pints of mulled ale. Sophie’s stomach rumbled in appreciation of the tempting aromas.
After filling a plate with food, she sipped her ale. Small ale, Kellyn had called it, meaning it was less potent than regular ale and wouldn’t make her tipsy. The brew was warm and thick, and bore a sweet hint of apples.
‘‘This is wonderful. Thank you,’’ she said, and sliced into a sausage. Kellyn questioned her about London, but Sophie’s own curiosity soon steered the conversation back to what she considered Kellyn’s extraordinary circumstances. ‘‘Was this tavern left to you by a member of your family?’’
‘‘In a sense. I purchased the Gull myself with money left to me by my maternal grandmother and my husband, who had been a sea captain.’’
Then Kellyn was a widow. Sophie exchanged a glance with Rachel, whose downcast expression revealed her knowledge of the unhappy story. Around them the gravelly drone of conversation afforded them a measure of privacy. ‘‘May I ask what became of your husband?’’
Kellyn set down her knife and fork. ‘‘Rob died as many a Cornishman does, on the deck of a storm-racked ship. Most of his crew died with him.’’
Sophie gasped. ‘‘I’m so sorry.’’
‘‘My husband’s was not the only schooner to go down in the tempest. Many a widow was made that day. And other days as well.’’
‘‘Then . . . it’s something that happens often here?’’
‘‘Often enough.’’ Kellyn raised her mug but didn’t drin
k. ‘‘Our seas are fraught with danger.’’
The woman’s voice held a faintly bitter note, and prompted Sophie’s next question before she judged the wisdom of saying it aloud. ‘‘Is it true what I’ve heard, that even in these modern times sailors sometimes run afoul of pirates and wreckers?’’
When Kellyn didn’t answer, Rachel murmured, ‘‘To Cornwall’s shame, it has been known to happen. Never openly admitted, but not unheard-of.’’
‘‘Has such a thing ever happened in Penhollow?’’
Rachel exchanged a guarded glance with Kellyn. Before either offered an answer, the tavern door opened. Rain blew in on a squall of wind, quickly doused when a figure in a dripping cloak stepped inside and slammed the door.
Sophie’s heart gave a lurch as Chad stamped the water from his boots and blinked in the gloom. Raising both hands, he swept his drenched hair from his brow, sending a shower of drops sprinkling the floor behind him.
A tense silence blanketed the pub as the other patrons fell silent. Subdued conversation slowly resumed. Chad swung his cloak onto a hook beside the door, revealing snug breeches and snowy shirtsleeves. Yearning flared, heating Sophie more than the fire behind her.
His gaze alighted on their table, meeting hers with a spark of surprise, a smolder of awareness. Her name formed on his lips, and for the length of a heartbeat, it seemed no one else inhabited the room but the two of them.
‘‘Lord Wycliffe,’’ Kellyn said, ‘‘what on earth are you doing out in such weather? You’ll catch your death.’’
Outside, the frantic clanging of a bell pierced the pattering rain. Abandoning their meals the sailors came to their feet in an urgent cluster and pushed outside. Sophie saw them through the window, all heading in the same direction—the harbor. Kellyn rushed to the window and stared after them, then turned and grabbed a cloak off a hook.
‘‘What is it?’’ Chad asked.
‘‘Trouble on the quay.’’ Her features were taut, her brow ribbed with furrows. ‘‘Reese,’’ she called across the room, though she needn’t have. He’d already sprinted from the kitchen. ‘‘Get Tobias,’’ she said, and hastened out into the rain.
Chapter 11
‘‘What kind of trouble?’’
Chad stood at the open door, trying to determine the answer to Sophie’s question. Kellyn and Reese were already gone. About a dozen other villagers streamed down the road behind them.
‘‘It could be anything.’’ He turned to Sophie and started to reach out, to frame her face in his hands and offer comfort, reassurance. He let his hands fall to his sides, knowing it wasn’t his place to offer her anything. As she herself had told him, it was not his ongoing task to protect her.
Nor was it his right to care about her.
Her cousin hovered at the window. She turned toward them, her eyes huge in a face that glowed ghostly white. Outside, the bell rang discordant notes that could herald nothing good. ‘‘There’s been a death at sea,’’ Miss Gordon said in a trembling voice.
Her certainty confirmed Chad’s worst fear, or at least part of it. Lives were lost in countless ways on the seas. Accidents, storms, illness . . . Why had a stifling certainty crept over him that none of those were to blame?
‘‘I’ll go and find out what happened,’’ he said. ‘‘You two stay put.’’
The rain hit his face and he broke into a run.
A throng of villagers choked the entrance to the quay and spilled down onto the main pier. A schooner’s lines were being secured to the moorings. As soon as the gangway had been let down, Kellyn climbed its length. Reese’s glistening bald head moved through the crowd. Onboard, a small knot of sailors shouted and gestured. Ranged about the deck, others of the crew stood shivering, arms hugging their sides as rain dripped off their bent heads.
The gleaming wet brim of a familiar tweed cap caught Chad’s eye. He craned his neck and searched the crowd. A gap between the close-pressed bodies opened to reveal a slightly hooked nose and a pair of sharp, close-set eyes—the man who’d sat watching Chad in the Stormy Gull on his first morning there.
The crowd moved again and the gap closed. Chad pushed forward, but when he could again see the spot where the man had stood, he was gone.
Under his feet the dock’s wooden planking shuddered beneath the weight of so many people. More kept arriving, their necks craning, their shrill speculation forming into names, questions, cries of blatant fear.
‘‘Is it one of ours?’’
‘‘Bill—has anyone seen Bill today?’’
‘‘My Stephen—where is he?’’
‘‘Has Josiah returned?’’
The reek of sodden wool and panic mingled sharply with ocean brine. A sickening dread spread in Chad’s gut until he half expected gruesome apparitions to rise up and point their rattle-boned fingers at him.
Kellyn descended from the schooner to the pier, singling out a woman in the crowd. A moment later a scream filled the air, and Kellyn’s arms went around a pair of wrenching shoulders.
The crowd shifted, thickened. An elderly couple pushed their way through. They shouted a name—Randolph—to which Kellyn solemnly nodded. The couple fell against each other, hands clutching, groping for purchase. In their distraction they might have plunged off the side of the pier had not their neighbors formed a barrier around them.
A lanky youth, all arms and legs and dark, curly hair spilling from beneath a tattered wool cap, called out a third name.
‘‘Gregory?’’ Even before an answer came tears spilled down his freckled cheeks. He turned to Chad with unseeing eyes and wailed, ‘‘I should have gone out with them, but he wouldn’t let me. I’d been ill, and he said I’d only be underfoot. They’d gone out to . . .’’ His tearful gaze landed on Chad, and wariness flickered behind his anguish. ‘‘They’d gone out fishing. I should have been there. I should have gone. . . .’’
No, Chad thought with a sinking dread, they hadn’t gone out fishing. They had gambled their lives on a much more valuable cargo—and lost their wager.
A man approached from behind and slipped an arm around the youth’s shoulders. ‘‘ ’Tis all right, lad. You couldn’t have done aught. ’Twas God’s will.’’
Sorrow swept the villagers like a rushing tide, engulfing Chad in its wake. Three men dead. Three families devastated. Otherworldly fingers pointed at him, whispered his name. . . .
‘‘Lord Wycliffe, can you tell me what happened?’’ Tobias Hall’s query roused him, and he turned, trying to calm his erratic pulse. The vicar came up beside him, a leather bag dangling from his hand, a pile of blankets draped across his arm.
Chad shook his head. ‘‘I know only that three men will not return to their homes today.’’
Kellyn threaded her way down the pier. Her pale eyes told a grim tale. ‘‘We can use the blankets, Tobias, but I’m afraid your herbs will do no good.’’
Familiar voices prompted Chad to search the quay. Near the entrance to the road he spotted Sophie and her cousin. Sophie had caught hold of the other girl’s wrist and was attempting to restrain her. At the sight of their soggy clothing and streaming hair, the horror of the other morning’s dream came rushing back to him—his struggles to save the little girl in pink from drowning . . . only to watch Sophie die in his arms. . . .
Breathe. Stand steady. Know that Sophie is alive and unhurt.
‘‘Let me go!’’ Her cousin yanked to free herself of Sophie’s grip. ‘‘I have to see. I have to know who it is.’’
Chad worked his way through the crowd to them. ‘‘Miss Gordon, is there someone you wish to inquire after?’’
She stopped squirming and peered at him through red-rimmed eyes. ‘‘Ian,’’ she whispered.
‘‘Then be reassured. I heard three names, and Ian’s was not one of them.’’
‘‘Oh, thank God!’’ The girl’s knees wobbled and Chad made a swift move to catch her. Sophie cried out and reached to steady her cousin as well. But already the girl was pushing
out of his arms, determination burgeoning behind her tears. ‘‘Thank you, Lord Wycliffe.’’
He nodded. ‘‘I’ll see if I can find out more. I wish you two would go home. This is no place for either of you.’’
The vicar now stood at the bottom of the gangway. ‘‘Stand aside. Make way.’’
Above him a half dozen crewmen lifted three blanket-wrapped bundles from the deck and started down. The crowd parted, flanking the narrow walkway in stunned curiosity. Whispers fluttered, little louder than the hissing rain and the murmuring ocean.
‘‘Meg Keating, that’s who.’’
‘‘And her husband, Jack.’’
‘‘The ghostly crew of the Ebony Rose . . .’’
By Christ, could these people believe such a thing? That phantoms had murdered these men?
As the mournful procession reached him, a hand slid from beneath the blanket, dangling like a dead fish on a line. Blue. Bloated. Fingers missing. Stinging bile rose in Chad’s throat. He clutched at his shirtfront, wanting but unable to turn away.
Around him the faces of the villagers blurred. Harbor, sky and the schooner’s long hull began to spin. Beneath his feet he felt the slap of the waves against the pilings, the sway of the dock. He pressed his hands to his temples and attempted to crush the images, block out the condemning words.
Killed for the cargo.
‘‘Chad? Are you all right?’’
A hand closed over his shoulder, a delicate pressure with power enough to anchor him. Out of the spinning visions Sophie’s concerned features came into focus. Heedless of the onlookers, he closed his arms around her, knowing he shouldn’t, but letting his quaking guilt dissipate into the calm compassion of her sweet body.
Sophie knew they were creating a spectacle, albeit one likely to go unnoticed under the present circumstances. As the last of the three bundled bodies passed, she pressed her cheek into Chad’s shirt collar and spoke soothing words in his ear.
Whatever had taken hold of him moments ago had alarmed her enough to steal her from Rachel’s side. What could have unsettled him so? The bodies, yes, but she sensed something more.
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