“You sent the letter?”
“I was not sure that you received it. I am guilty of having read some of it and writing the rest myself. She wanted ye here. I considered it her dying wish.”
“Do you believe it was a suicide note, then?”
“All I know is she wanted ye to be here, Miss Douglas.”
Christel walked to the lower rock wall that looked out over the cliff. A breeze tugged at her hair and skirts. At least it was warm for June, which allowed her to be out here. She stepped back and saw a faint boot print almost directly next to her foot. She knelt and ran her fingers over the hardened ridges in the mud.
“Someone still comes here,” she said. “This print was made after the last rain, when the ground was soft.”
How many days had that been? Two?
Doctor White walked to where she stood. “Could be Lord Carrick, for all we know. The size boot is near the same. There is no crime comin’ here,” he said, leaning his hips against the wall and looking out across the sea. The Arrann Isle was faintly visible through the heavy sea mist. “As you can see, there is no better view of the world than here.”
“What happened the night she jumped?”
“I was no’ living here yet, but from what I know of the story she had had something of an argument with his lordship. There was a lot of screaming and shouting, she accusin’ him of hatin’ her and tryin’ to destroy all her happiness, him tellin’ her he was leavin’ and takin’ Anna and she’d not be seein’ the girl again.”
Folding his arms, Stephen leaned a hip against the stone wall and peered up at the tower. “No one knows why she ran up there. There would be only one reason, I suppose. The place has been crumblin’ into the sea for centuries and no’ been in use for years since they built the new stables and carriage house on the south side of Blackthorn Castle. I had heard that his lordship had always planned to be tearin’ it down. But that his mam had apartments here and he used to spend a lot of time with her when he was a lad.”
Brushing specks of dirt and brick mortar from his hands, he turned. “I should be goin’ back to our feathered patient before Dog figures out how to nose open the top of the basket. I will attempt to make that wicker basket into some sort of cage for now.”
Christel thanked him for taking the bird. “I would like to stay a little longer,” she said.
After he left, Christel walked along the wall and peered over at the rocks below. A chill went down her spine.
The old lighthouse tower had been built into the face of the basaltic cliff. Centuries ago, the cliff had crumbled enough to form a pathway down to the beach. She could see the old goat trail, the one she used to use to sneak up from the beach without being seen. A person on foot could follow the trail up or down the side of the cliff, which was why when she was a little girl she had always worn sturdy shoes and breeches when she’d gone treasure hunting in Blackthorn Cove. She knew the trail well. From up here, debris blocked the descent so that she could not climb down the lower tower wall, but she could certainly climb up from the beach.
Christel returned to the lower terrace and took the cart road down to the beach. From this end of the cove, the entrance was only accessible during low tide. The water looked to be coming in. Tucking the hem of her skirt into her waistband, she barely evaded a crashing roller. She worked her way around the tidal pool and up onto the higher rocks. The old goat trail was five feet across in places and as narrow as two in others.
A freshening breeze carried with it the high-pitched whistle that came from the wind screaming through the cracks and crevices in the rock. She followed the path up the cliff to where it had crumbled around the backside of the tower. She found a window, covered only by ancient wooden shutters. She grabbed a rock and broke the latch.
Christel wrapped her fingers around the ledge, scrabbled up the stone wall, and promptly fell over the sill, nearly landing on her head as she tumbled into the stairwell. She felt a bright bolt of pain as a finger jammed back, then her elbows hit, then her chest. She gasped in air thick with the reek of mold and sea kelp. Braced against her palms, she sat, collecting her wits and her breath. Finally, brushing the hair off her brow, she looked around, grateful for the sunlight coming in through the window. Streamers of dust marked its path.
She climbed to her feet. She disliked the narrow walkway. The damp stone walls enclosed her like a tomb. But she walked up the curving stairway past the main floor where the doorway into the courtyard had been bricked over. She followed the wall until she reached the top and came face-to-face with a heavy oak door slightly off its hinges and ajar. The belfry was open to the sea. Bats and seagulls nested inside and on the stone ledge. Guano covered the floors and walls.
She hesitated. Then, wrapping the bottom of her skirt over her nose and mouth, she gingerly stepped over the disgusting mess as she made her way to the high ledge. A three-legged stool lay overturned in the corner. She stood on it and leaned out. Camden had been right when he’d once told her a person could not fall from inside. A person would have to climb out onto the ledge and then walk out another four feet to jump.
She leaned out to look left and upward. Steps led from the crumbling stone ledge to the cupola. Glass enclosed the old lantern room that had once housed the lard oil fires used to warn off ships. She turned inside to look at the walls. The door to the lantern room looked to have been sealed decades ago as well, when the lighthouse went out of use. One could still reach the cupola by accessing the stairs from the ledge, probably once used by workers to clean the glass.
There would be no reason for Saundra to go up there, Christel thought. She could find no hint of conspiracy afoot, no reason to doubt the facts as they seemed laid out before her.
Christel remained on the stool a moment longer. The sun was lower in the sky than it had been and threw vibrant light against the wall. With one last glance, she started to turn away when the glint of something gold caught her eye. She pushed up on her arms and leaned out to reach the bottom stair. The flash of gold was lodged in a crevice half covered in the remnants of an old bird’s nest. She would not have seen it at all had it not been for the position of the sun. Christel worked it out from the crack.
The gold had long since tarnished. The ring itself was made with tiny emerald and ruby cabochons—the gift her father had once made to her and Tia on their thirteenth birthdays.
The ring belonged to Tia.
“I am glad you know,” her sister said from the doorway. “You have no idea how hard it has been carrying everything that happened that night on my shoulders.”
Heart pounding, Christel climbed down from the stool. They faced each other from across the filth- and offal-ridden room.
“I have no intention of harming you if you are concerned,” Tia said.
“Did you kill her?”
Tia’s eyes shone with tears. “ ’Twas a horrible accident.”
“Then if you do not mind, I would prefer to get out of this room.”
They made it back outside. Christel used the stool to climb out the stairwell window. Once outside, she dropped to the path and sat. She wanted to tear off her shoes and clothes and throw everything into the sea. Far below her, down the goat path, waves crashed high on the rocks, blocking her escape. She could wait twelve hours for the tide to recede again, or she could try to climb over the crumbling debris and go up. She remained sitting as Tia dropped from the window and fell next to her.
Neither spoke. They sat with their backs against the rock wall. The goat path stretched out unevenly in front of them. Christel leaned back her head and shut her eyes.
“You were on the ledge that night with Saundra.”
“I did not murder her,” Tia said. “She . . . she fell.”
“Why were you both up there?”
Tia shook her head. “Saundra was going to destroy everything. She wanted to leave Blackthorn Castle. She wanted the gold. I could not let her take it. If Sir Jacob found out . . .”
“The g
old?”
“There is twenty thousand pounds’ worth of gold coins sitting in the lantern house. Leighton, Saundra and I are the only ones left who know the truth. We made a pact to tell no one it was there.” Tia struck out at the tears on her face. “If Sir Jacob found out . . . he would have us hanged.”
Everything began to pour out.
“It had all been so noble in the beginning. The gold was headed to royal coffers in the war effort against the colonies. Leighton had friends on the inside. Everyone involved had agreed that it would be used for the good of those around here. Something happened. Men were killed that night. But not by Leighton’s men. They were alive when Leighton left the ship.”
“Do you believe Sir Jacob executed his own men?”
“We could never prove it, any more than Westmont could prove it was Leighton who took the gold, and without proof, he could not search Blackthorn Castle outright. But Westmont was around here a lot. Saundra had already fallen in love with him before Lord Carrick returned from Yorktown. She kept it a secret from everyone, and when Lord Carrick came home, Westmont broke it off with her.
“She was distraught. Later, when she told Westmont she was with child and begged him to take her away, he would have none of it. He took her to a woman who could rid her of the babe. She came to me shortly afterward and told me everything because she was afraid of what she had done. Shortly after that, she started to bleed and Lord Carrick learned she had been with child.”
“What happened the night Saundra died?”
“She and Lord Carrick argued. I do not think he realized how sick she had already become or I do not think he would have said the things he did. She ran away and came up here with the intent of taking as much gold as she could. I think she was desperate enough to take it to Westmont if he promised to take her back. She had no business coming up here. The weather was dangerous that night. I followed her. I begged her to consider what she was doing. But she was blind and deaf to reason. Nor did she care that if Westmont found the gold, ’twould be traced back to Blackthorn and to Leighton and me. I would not let her take it.
“She jerked away from me. The ledge is four feet wide. But that night, she could not stop from sliding on the damp stones, and I could not stop her from dying. I tried to grab her hand. She pulled my glove off and went rolling down the stairs and over the ledge. If it had not been wet that night . . . she might have been able to stop herself.”
Tia looked up and blinked back tears. “I was so terrified I hid in the lantern room for a day. No one ever came up to the cupola. Why should they, when everyone thought she had been distraught and jumped? I let Leighton . . . I let everyone think she had killed herself because of Lord Carrick.”
Christel turned her head. The backlash of wind caught her hair. “Saundra wrote me a letter asking me to come home and care for Anna as her governess. She had asked Stephen to mail it after she was gone. She must have written it that night.”
“ ’Twould make sense. She wanted you to care for Anna.”
God. “Have I always been such a naïve fool?”
“You have always been generous and unspoiled and loyal to those you love. I know that she loved you. She had no intention of ever returning. Maybe she was trying to do one decent thing for you before she left Blackthorn Castle, and that was to bring you together with Lord Carrick.” Tia inhaled and leaned her head back against the rock. “Now you know everything.”
Christel wished she hadn’t. Lord in heaven, she wished she hadn’t known any of it.
She gave Tia the ring. “This belongs to you.”
Tia studied the filigree gold band. “I thought I had lost this forever.” After a moment, she asked, “What will you do now?”
“Lord Carrick has a right to know. Anna has a right not to live with the stigma of her mother’s suicide.” But was it better to learn that Saundra was trying to run away with stolen gold, and that she was an adulteress?
Christel drew her legs to her chest. “If I tell Carrick the truth, he will hunt Sir Jacob down. But if I say nothing, Sir Jacob lives free. If I say anything at all, you will be implicated in her murder. And what about the gold? You could be accused of murder. At the very least you could be transported.
“I do not know what to do, Tia. How could you put your life in my hands like this? Why would you do it? You could have told me Saundra stole the ring from you. I would have believed you!”
Tia’s wet gaze went to the sea, where salt mist was forming over the blue-gray water. A bank of white clouds was building over Arrann. “We have no cloak, and it gets cold up here at night,” Tia said. “I do not think either of us wants to go back into the tower, and we can’t leave by way of the beach until the tide goes down.”
Christel leaned out and looked up the goat trail. The ledge was a natural funnel for the wind. What was left of the path extended thirty feet in an inward slope that tapered to nothing before falling off into open air. The trail itself was a mix of crushed rock, clumps of grass and bird droppings. “If I give you a boot up over there, can you reach the wall?”
Tia shuddered but nodded. They walked to within a few feet of the drop-off, standing on five feet of ledge and needing only to climb four feet to the top. Christel knelt and linked her palms for a step. Tia stepped into her hands and Christel boosted her up. In moments, Tia scrabbled over the side, sending a shower of loose pebbles down on Christel’s head, causing her to choke and cough. Tia stuck her head over the ledge.
“I made it,” she said unnecessarily and held out her hand. Her long chestnut hair had torn away from the pins and hung over the ledge like the flowing mane of a mermaid. “You will have to climb a little to the left. I see a foothold.”
Christel drew in her breath. She stepped into the crevice as she pushed off and grabbed Tia’s hand. The rock beneath her shoe broke. She slipped and clawed for a handhold in the loose rock. She began to slide backward. For a terrifying moment, one foot dangled above empty space as she sought a foothold in the rock.
“I need your other hand!” Tia was shouting. “Take my arm so I can pull you up!”
Grabbing Tia’s outstretched arm with her second hand meant letting go of the only grip she had on the rock face. With all her strength, Christel reached for Tia’s hand and latched on to her arm. Together they worked to pull her over the ledge and to safety. Breathing hard, Christel collapsed on all fours. Tia sprawled on her back and found herself staring up at the cloudy sky. They were both suddenly laughing.
Christel lifted her head and found her sister. “You could have dropped me,” she said seriously. “Then your secret would have been safe forever.”
Tia sat up. Her bodice was ripped at her shoulder. Her knuckles were scraped. “And lose my only sister when it has taken me this long to find out that I like you? I would rather die myself.”
Christel looked over Tia’s shoulder at the old tower courtyard. Thick growths of alders, larch and birch blanketed the landscape. They would have to walk around the high stone wall to get back onto Blackthorn Castle grounds. Christel stood and helped her sister to her feet. They had walked a hundred yards when the sound of horses approaching alerted Christel. She pulled Tia into a cove of alders.
A half dozen riders approached at a gallop, Camden in the lead. He saw the two sisters and swung his horse in their direction.
“His lordship looks angry,” Tia said.
He was dressed in nondescript homespun with a coat over plain brown breeks and hose, as if he had been called from the sheep pens. He reined in beside Christel. Thick clouds flew overhead, driven by the wind, and battered her hair as his gaze dropped down to her soiled skirts. She saw it was taking him a moment to assemble a frown as he looked from Tia to her.
“Doctor White was concerned when neither of you returned to the surgery.”
“I went to the Lighthouse Tower,” Christel said.
“He told me.”
“You never asked me not to go,” she said.
“I never aske
d you not to walk along the edge of the cliff either, and still I had thought you would have the sense not to. The tower is dangerous. I should have torn it down years ago.”
“You should have, but you have not.”
He motioned for a rider to come forward. “Take Miss Etherton back to Blackthorn so that she can clean up and change.”
Tia gave Christel a shaky smile. Then Christel watched Tia mount and ride away with the other riders, leaving Christel and Camden alone.
“What was all of that about?” he quietly asked. “I have no idea why you would come here.”
“This entire area is dead. You have closed away the tower courtyard, encapsulated the tragedy in time. This place stands as a shrine to the heartbreak of that night, a rock headstone as if you need more self-flagellation—”
“Enough, Christel.”
“What happened that night was not your fault. She failed you.”
He crossed his hands over his reins and looked toward the sea.
“Marry me,” she said. “I want to be your wife.”
He slid from the horse and stumbled. She caught him by his shoulder. He hated his weakness. Hated the constant reminder of his failure. Still, she moved against him.
“What is this really about?”
“Justice,” she whispered. “The future.”
His fingers speared through her hair, pulling her head back. His sex stirred against her belly. It was thick and hard, and she could feel the heat of it through her clothes.
She took his palm and placed it against her heart. “Tear down this place or make something good of it, Camden. Go visit her at the church. Say hello. Say good-bye. Tell her she was a fool. Tell her anything and let us be done with it.”
She looked into his eyes, her own clear and unshielded from his. He touched the end of her nose with his fingertip, kissed her deeply, then wrinkled his nose. “You will forgive me, my love, but you need a bath.”
She leaned against him, holding him tightly. And did not disagree.
Chapter 19
This Perfect Kiss Page 28