Yesterday, though Aunt E was no longer alive to defend herself, the vicar had stood at his pulpit and spoken of Eve as though she was solely responsible for the woes of the world. Lucy had sat in the front pew, seething. But today he didn’t look ready to deliver a sermon. He stood quietly in the doorway, his hands clasped in front of him. “Do you mind if I join you for tea?”
“Are you sure tea won’t provide too much of a temptation?” Lucy retorted.
“Oh, hush now,” Mrs. Wilkins scolded. She smiled in the vicar’s direction. “You are welcome to join us, Reverend Wellsbury. It will be just like old times, when Miss E was still with us.” She sat down and began to pour the first cup, only to cluck in annoyance as a cat leaped into her lap.
“Here, let me.” Lucy scooped up the tabby and held him in her own lap. If she was going to be forced to bear the vicar’s company during tea, she’d prefer a feline buffer, thank you very much. She stroked her hand down the cat’s back, urging it to settle. She’d become far more accustomed to cats in the past few days, but it was clear that in Lizard Bay, at least, they were still a problem that needed solving.
And while she might be terrible at solving her own problems, solving the problems faced by others was her specialty.
“You know,” she mused as she accepted her cup, balancing it over the purring cat’s back, “you are welcome to take all the male cats up to Heathmore. Separate the sexes, as we discussed.” She glanced down at the purring animal. “There is plenty up there for them to eat. And now that I’ve seen it with my own eyes, I have to admit Heathmore could use a good deratting.”
“It’s a nice thought.” Mrs. Wilkins passed the vicar his cup. “But I would think you wouldn’t need to worry about the rats, when the mining starts. The cottage will need to be torn down once the excavations begin in earnest.”
Lucy choked around the mouthful of tea she’d just taken. Tear down Aunt E’s house? The thought made her throat close tight. “I beg your pardon?”
“Well, the only thing holding the poor house up is that cliff.” Mrs. Wilkins shrugged. “If that goes, everything on top must go as well. And really, the entire property will be trampled by equipment and horses. They’ll need to open the road back up that leads to town, I suspect.” She poured her own cup. “It’s curious we never knew about the property’s value. Miss E never said a word about the tin, God rest her soul. Then again, she valued her privacy and loved the land. Loved the townspeople, too. Probably she thought it was for the best to keep it a secret.”
“She always thought she knew better than everyone else.” Reverend Wellsbury shook his head. “One might have thought she’d at least have put it to the parish committee.”
Lucy set her cup down on the table beside the sofa, then placed the cat on the floor, needing a free lap to think. “She didn’t love everyone in Lizard Bay,” she pointed out. “It was my aunt’s property. Her decision. She didn’t need to discuss it with anyone.”
Reverend Wellsbury’s jaw hardened. She almost felt guilty for needling him in this manner. But if he continued to use his Sunday pulpit to besmear Aunt E’s memory, she wasn’t going to quibble over the moral dilemma of pointing out the obvious.
“If she’d not been so set on remaining a spinster,” the vicar said slowly, “Miss E might have had a husband to share such an important decision with.”
Lucy gritted her teeth. “She didn’t want a husband.”
“Nonetheless, she led some in Lizard Bay on quite a merry chase.”
“That’s a lie.” Lucy picked up the diary from where it lay in the folds of her skirts and waved it about. “I’ve read her diaries, Reverend Wellsbury. Several gentlemen offered for her, but she never seduced anyone. Yes, she was outspoken, but being outspoken is not a sin. So instead of lecturing the town about Eve, you might want to spend a sermon or two asking the Lord’s forgiveness for doubting my aunt, all those years.”
Instead of rising to her bait, he gave a gusty sigh. “I didn’t say she seduced anyone, Miss L. I said she led them on a merry chase. She led me on a merry chase. That’s a distinction of some importance.” He set his own cup down and paused, as though praying for patience. “I am glad to see you received the diaries I mailed for your aunt.”
Lucy reared backward on the settee, stunned to silence. Her fingers curled over the edge of the last diary. Surely she’d heard wrong. “You? You sent the package?”
He nodded. “She asked me to, that day she died.”
Lucy lifted a trembling hand to her mouth. “I . . . I don’t understand.” She glanced toward Mrs. Wilkins, seeking guidance, but the woman was as slack-jawed as she was. Her gaze slid back to the vicar. Everyone in town said the pair hated each other.
Had she somehow heard incorrectly?
The vicar’s gaze settled on the pendant about her throat and he smiled sadly, shaking his head. “I’ve tried to seek you out since you arrived, to talk to you about your aunt, but it’s clear you’ve been avoiding me. Sunday’s lecture was intended to be a reminder of the temptations of money, not the temptations of love. Everyone in town is going on about tin as though it alone is God’s solution to our problems. But I suspect Lizard Bay needs a gentler form of industry, if my opinion is at all welcome in the mix. The town is fragile enough without bowing to the weight of an unseemly industry like that.” He inclined his head. “Your aunt felt much the same way.”
Lucy gaped at him, feeling as though someone had kicked her feet out from under her. “But my aunt hated you. You hated each other. You disagreed about everything.” She blinked at him, confusion clouding her vision and very likely her judgment. “Didn’t you?”
“We disagreed on some matters, yes. That is not at all the same as hate.” He frowned as he stood up. “I am sorry. I can tell my presence here is disturbing you. I’d hope to get to know you better, you see. It is clear you have a good deal of her strength.”
He took a step toward the door, but paused on the threshold, his mouth turned down. “You may not wish to speak to me, but I would leave you with this, Miss L. Your aunt regretted some of her choices as the good Lord called her home, and I suspect her diaries reflect some of that. God has gifted us with the ability to share our lives with others, and it is a gift we should not take lightly. Otherwise, we might find ourselves at the end of our lives, regretting the path we chose.” Then, offering one final nod toward Mrs. Wilkins, he walked away, his white collar disappearing down the hallway.
“Well,” Mrs. Wilkins said, blinking in confusion. “That was certainly . . . different. I’ve never heard the vicar talk about your aunt that way before. As though he admired her. As though he . . .” Her words trailed off, steeped with astonishment.
Lucy’s head helpfully supplied the rest. As though he loved her.
Over the years, had Reverend Wellsbury somehow become something more to her aunt than a thorn in her side? It seemed she was missing a few pieces to this maddening puzzle.
And that meant she needed to finish reading the bloody diaries.
From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore
August 16, 1850
In my increasing age and wisdom, I have become adept at seeing a problem and knowing immediately how to help. Or, as Reverend Wellsbury likes to grumble, to meddle in things that shouldn’t concern me.
But when Lord Branston arrived in Lizard Bay, it was clear I was facing my most challenging case yet. He has led us all to believe a failed betrothal lies at the heart of his self-destruction. But last night, swaying on his feet in my parlor, Lord Branston drunkenly confessed the truth of it. His sister’s death was no ordinary death, it seems. If the facts come out publicly, the scandal would be ruinous. His sister must have been desperate to resort to such a scheme. And I can’t help but think Lord Branston is a man worth saving¸ to permit his sister to make such a decision for herself, even when the keeping of it so obviously haunts him.
So, I’ve a secret to keep now. And I will take it to my grave . . .
Bu
t only, I think, if Lord Branston agrees to give up the bottle.
Chapter 23
Lucy closed her aunt’s diary and lifted a hand to rub her stiff neck. She had read through the night, and still she was not quite at the end of the last volume. She’d finally reached the part about Thomas, but far from proving a source of enlightenment on what to do with Heathmore, it seemed to leave the question as a yawning, open thing.
Beside her bed, the candle was guttering, molten wax pooling against the candlestick, the spent wick needing to be trimmed. Father was coming today, along with the inspector from the Marston Mining Corporation. And unfortunately, she felt as confused as ever.
She pulled back her bedclothes and glanced out the window, seeing only the blackness that was so characteristic of a Cornwall night. If her aunt’s diaries formed a puzzle, it seemed some of the pieces still refused to fit. Mrs. Wilkins claimed Thomas’s sister had taken her own life, and Aunt E’s diary passage seemed to confirm it.
Was this what haunted him, why he was hiding in Cornwall, why his seat in the House of Lords was sitting empty and unused? If he’d not been able to stop his sister from committing such an act, did he perchance feel guilty for the outcome?
And how did that all tie in to Heathmore and his interest in the property? She still didn’t understand what lay at the heart of Thomas’s offers or why he’d chosen not to disclose all the facts, but he claimed he had an explanation and she’d refused to listen.
The answer did not appear to be waiting in her aunt’s last diary.
And that meant she needed to see him, to listen to him, before it was too late.
Hurriedly, she pulled on her boots, not even bothering with stockings. Slipping her shawl over her night dress, she snatched up Thomas’s satchel, spilling some of the contents in the process. But she couldn’t take the time to clean it all up now that her decision was made. She stumbled down the stairs, tripping over a sleeping cat in her hurry.
Despite the panicked push of her pulse, as she turned the key in the front door lock and stepped out onto the porch, she stopped dead still. What was she doing tearing off into the night her nightclothes? She hadn’t any notion where Thomas lived, only the general direction in which he had disappeared that first night in town. Once again she was charging into the unknown, not giving herself time to think.
Except . . . that wasn’t exactly true.
This time, the trouble was that she had thought it all through too much. She’d gone about this all wrong, and as a result had let the opportunity to trust him slip through her hands, time and time again. She’d wrongly presumed her aunt’s diaries were full of advice, guidance she was meant to follow. But she’d been ignoring her own instincts all along.
Her instincts told her Thomas was honorable, even if the evidence seemed to point against it. And therein lay the problem.
It wasn’t only that she needed to trust him. She needed to trust herself. Moreover, she needed to be true to herself, rather than what her mother or Aunt E’s diaries would make her. She was neither a tittering debutante nor a scowling spinster.
She was simply herself.
And she needed to stop trying to be someone else.
Lucy stared out into the black night, cursing fate and God and anything else she might reasonably credit with her situation. But most of all, she cursed herself, for her lack of faith. She was to blame for the fact she was standing out of doors, tears pooling in her eyes, her future sliding out of her desperate grasp.
And then she saw it. A distant light, cutting through the night, but growing larger and warmer and steadily closer. She considered reaching out a hand to try to touch it. Considered, too, opening her mouth to scream. After all, she had no notion of what waited at the other end of that swelling light. But instead she watched, mesmerized, until it took the shape of a lantern held high. Thomas emerged from the shadows, his face so dear her knees felt like buckling.
“You came,” she whispered. Again.
It seemed he was always coming to save her.
Even from herself.
“I came,” he affirmed, his voice hoarse. The light sent shadows swirling across his face, but she could see the hollows beneath his eyes, the evidence that he, too, had spent a sleepless night.
“Why?” she whispered.
He hesitated. “Danny told me about the letter that came today.”
A week ago uncertainty might have pushed her to accuse him of coming to offer her seven thousand and one pounds for Heathmore Cottage, to come out ahead of the offer mentioned in her father’s letter. But not now.
“You heard I was returning to London,” she said softly.
He nodded. “Is it true?”
“Yes. We leave today.” It was a conflicted truth. Part of her wanted very much to return to London, to see her family again. Her bag was sitting upstairs at the foot of her bed, already packed in anticipation of this fact.
But another part of her—the same part that had sent her dashing into the night—wanted to stay right here, on the dark street, with this man.
“I waited for you,” he told her. “To come to me. To ask me to show you what I meant about Heathmore being worth more than you knew. But then, with morning approaching and still no sign of you . . . I thought perhaps that waiting anymore was a stupid thing to do.”
She shook her head, hiding a smile. “You are not the stupid one in this scenario, Thomas. I am, for not giving you a chance to show me three days ago.”
He offered her the lantern. “Do you trust me?”
A question of some portent. And one for which she finally had an answer. “Yes.” She took the lantern and offered him the satchel in return. “With all my heart.”
His smile was like dawn breaking, though that was still at least two hours away. “Then follow me,” he told her, motioning for her to follow.
THEY WALKED, HAND in hand, pulse against pulse, steadily upward in silence.
She seemed content to go where he would take her, and the wonder of that kept his feet steady on the rocky path. The past three days had been some of the hardest of his life, and there were quite a few worst days in his past to compare them to. He’d nearly come to see her a dozen times, wanting to explain himself, knowing he had, in some respects, failed her.
He’d known about the tin, although he hadn’t known what a rich vein ran beneath the cliff, not until the earth had given way to reveal it. But he’d certainly suspected it. The rocks above the cliff were a mixture of serpentinite and granite, littered with streaks of white tin. Telltale geology, one a man of scientific persuasion couldn’t miss.
But he should have shown Lucy the tin from the start and trusted that she was capable of making her own decision on the disposition of the property.
They passed the lighthouse, its bulbous, obscene light swinging wide, and he realized he could just see a hint of the coming dawn, the thinnest of lines stretching across the horizon. He tugged harder, hurrying her along. They couldn’t do this properly this close to the lighthouse.
Too much light and too much sound.
Finally, after another twenty minutes of walking, he stopped. Cocking his ear, he listened. It took a moment, but he caught it on the edge of the wind, a rustling of life in the grass, the faintest quiver of birdsong. This was it. The perfect place—and the perfect time—to show her.
He lowered himself to the ground.
“We are stopping?” Lucy asked through the darkness, though she willingly dropped to her knees beside him. “The cottage is a half mile farther, isn’t it?”
“You’ve already seen the cottage. I’ve a mind to show you something else about your land.” He pulled off his boots. “You might want to get comfortable. We are going to be here an hour, at least.”
He expected questions. A staunchly worded objection.
After all, such exchanges had characterized so much of their acquaintance to date.
But instead of arguing, she handed him the lantern and began to take off her boo
ts. He stretched back on his elbows and watched her work, admiring the wild sway of her short hair as it caught the lamplight. She was dressed in some filmy white thing that covered her from neck to toe, but its color caught the light from the lantern and tossed it back defiantly toward the darkness. He couldn’t take his eyes from her.
Finally, when she had her bare feet tucked up under her and her boots safely stowed beside his, he smiled. “Are you ready?”
She nodded. Closed her eyes and leaned toward him.
As though she was anticipating a kiss.
He was tempted. Hell, he was beyond tempted. She looked so sweet, so expectant in the lamplight, he wanted to tip her back onto the soft grass and show her something else entirely. He wanted to make love to her, to uncover each cotton-wrapped piece of her and kiss her until she was soft and sighing beneath him. But there was never going to be another moment, a different time. She was returning to London today.
So he held himself away from the pretty invitation she offered, opened the door of the lantern and blew out the flame. In an instant they were surrounded by darkness, the faint glow of the horizon a poor substitute for the lantern’s strength.
“Am I to presume you are trying to show me how dark it is?” she asked dryly.
“Shhh,” he whispered. He could feel her beside him, the air between them humming with want and other more potent things. He could hear it now, the calls and trills of the birds hiding in the brush growing stronger and more enthusiastic.
“Are you telling me what to do?” she asked archly, but amusement feathered her words.
“I would never be so foolish as to presume I had the right to do that. I am merely encouraging you to consider my request. I want you to see the sunrise.”
“But . . . shouldn’t we be angled toward the ocean for that?”
He lifted a finger to his lips, though he doubted she could see it yet, as his own eyes were still adjusting to the shock of darkness. “You claimed to trust me. Now you must prove it. Let your eyes and ears go. Watch . . . and listen.”
The Spinster's Guide to Scandalous Behavior Page 27