He slammed the coffee pot down suddenly, walked across to the window and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘No, forget I said anything. I shouldn’t press you to talk about things which upset you. It is just—’
‘Just that the little hints Mr Jeavons dropped have roused your curiosity. And my reluctance to enlighten you has fanned that curiosity to a flame.’ And she should know, because the way he’d hinted at having something to confess had just had pretty much the same effect on her.
Perhaps, if she satisfied his curiosity, he might return the favour.
‘I didn’t know either of them that well. The people Mr Jeavons mentioned,’ she began. ‘So I didn’t exactly grieve their loss. Though any sudden, accidental death is unpleasant. To be honest, it was the gossip that followed that I found so upsetting. Especially since so much of it was wildly inaccurate. And so I refused to join in when anyone speaks of either death, you see. If he was a different sort of man, I suppose you might think that was why he stopped talking about them when he did. Out of respect for my feelings,’ she finished glumly, since respect was the last thing Jeavons had ever accorded her. Not real respect for her as a person.
Captain Bretherton turned round. Squared his shoulders. ‘Point taken. If you dislike indulging in gossip I shall not press you to repeat it. Indeed, I admire you for your attitude.’
His words made her brief dip into the gloom disperse like mist before a stiff sea breeze. And, strangely, also made her want to confide in him.
‘I would not mind giving you a factual account of what happened,’ she said, going to the table and picking up the coffee pot he’d abandoned moments earlier. ‘Shall I pour?’
‘Please.’ He came to her side as she poured the coffee. And though she was concentrating on her task, she could feel him watching her intently.
‘The first person who drowned along this part of the coast earlier this year,’ she said as she handed him his cup, ‘was a maidservant. A girl called Jenny. A Londoner, from her accent, who’d had some dealings with the Reverend Cottam. Which was why she came down here when she got into trouble. To seek his advice, or perhaps to ask for refuge.’ She frowned down into her cup as she poured her own coffee. ‘That is where it gets a bit confusing. Depending upon whom you speak to about her.’ Lizzie couldn’t help giving a shudder. ‘Poor girl. To begin with, people thought her drowning was just an accident. Until another visitor to the area, a young man this time, went the same way. Although...’
‘Although, what?’
‘Well, after Mr Kellet—that was the young man I mentioned—after he drowned, people started saying he’d been responsible for Jenny’s trouble. That there had been some sort of doomed love affair. They even started to call the headland where they were supposed to have thrown themselves into the sea, Lover’s Leap.’
‘But you don’t believe it?’
‘Absolutely not. There was no mention of any sort of lover until Mr Kellet drowned as well. I think people put that story about to stop holiday makers thinking this part of the coast was dangerous, to tell you the truth. Better some wild tale of star-crossed lovers than the prosaic truth about the currents just offshore being too dangerous for anyone to go sea bathing. Besides...’
‘Besides?’
‘Well, I spoke to Jenny, a couple of times. I found her up on the headland—the one they started to call Lover’s Leap, it’s true, but I’m pretty certain it wasn’t unrequited love that made her jump. Because she didn’t say anything about a man being at the root of her unhappiness at all.’
‘Didn’t she?’
‘No. She was just upset about an elderly lady she’d been working for. The lady had died while she was in the house and she felt responsible, because she was the one to administer her medicine. Which, at the time, I thought sounded a bit silly. I mean, why should she feel guilty if an elderly lady, who must have been under a doctor if there was medicine being given, died? Especially since it had never done anyone else any harm.’
‘What do you mean, never done anyone else any harm?’
‘Oh, just that she said she’d given it to other old ladies, without them...er...kicking the bucket was the expression she used. Which was why I didn’t perfectly understand what she meant until some time later.’
‘No,’ he said faintly. ‘Why would you?’
‘And what’s more, Mr Kellet never spoke about being in love, either. He just wanted to know why he couldn’t go and visit his great-godmother. Lady Buntingford, that is. And he spoke to me about her several times, because I am the only one, just about, who ever visits her. And I cannot believe a young man who could barely stammer out a complete sentence without going beetroot red could have possibly treated Jenny the way people said he must have done. Why, he couldn’t have seduced anyone. Let alone abandon them. He was far too...well, he just wasn’t smooth enough. If you know what I mean?’
‘I know exactly what you mean.’
‘Besides, it was only after he’d drowned, as well, that a tale began to circulate about him having broken Jenny’s heart and flinging himself into the sea in a fit of remorse. When there’d been no mention of a broken heart at the time of her death. Not even a whisper. So, after a bit, I decided that someone deliberately started that rumour to make the tragedies more interesting to holiday makers. And less off-putting to people considering coming here. It’s the only explanation that makes sense.’
‘So you don’t think there’s an ounce of truth in the lovers story?’
‘No. And I don’t want you believing in the rumours, either.’
‘Why is that?’
‘Well, Mr Kellet was such a nice young man. It doesn’t seem fair that his memory should be tainted by tales of that sort.’
He reached out and gently squeezed her hand.
‘You are a remarkable girl.’
Something inside her turned over. ‘I am not the slightest bit remarkable. I just don’t like people making up tales about people. Especially when they have no means of refuting those tales. It’s almost like bullying them.’ She shook her head. ‘And I cannot stand bullies.’
‘No,’ he said sombrely. ‘No more can I.’
‘Have some cake,’ she said, picking up the plate and holding it out. ‘Mr Jeavons might be a most annoying and rather unscrupulous person, but his cook does make the most delicious cakes and pastries.’
‘What do you mean, unscrupulous?’
‘Oh, well, just that he doesn’t seen all that bothered about things like telling the truth if it will get in the way of making a profit. That kind of thing.’
He hesitated, his face turned to hers for several moments before he lowered his gaze to look at the plate and selecting one of the slices.
‘Now,’ she said, setting the plate back on the table as he threw the fruit cake into his mouth and began to chew, ‘that I have satisfied your curiosity, perhaps you can satisfy mine.’
He swallowed. ‘In what way?’
‘Well, just before Mr Jeavons came in and interrupted, you were about to confess something. And I have to admit that I cannot stop wondering what it might have been. Will you tell me what it was? Please?’
Chapter Sixteen
Thank goodness he managed to swallow what was left of the cake swiftly, rather than spitting it out, or choking on it.
‘Confess?’ He managed to wheeze the word with relative clarity, before walking away to the window and running his fingers through his hair. He could not confess what had been on his mind now. Admittedly, for one crazy moment, back there, he’d been on the brink of taking her into his confidence. Confessing that he had an ulterior motive for making her acquaintance and following her down here.
But that would have hurt her. What woman wouldn’t be hurt, when she discovered that a man supposedly engaged in courting her was actually doing his utmost to prise information out of her? Not that he’d had to work all that hard
on her. She was so open, so trusting, that she was revealing all sorts of crucial information without having the least idea of its importance.
But if he did anything to damage that trust, she might never tell him anything of relevance again. Perhaps never even speak to him again.
What was more, had he yielded to the temptation to let his regard for her override his need for secrecy, at that precise moment, she would not have told him what she knew about Jenny and Archie’s death. And what else might she know, without even knowing its importance?
What harm might he do to the investigation by easing his conscience over the way their acquaintance had been stage-managed? He might well feel a weight roll off his shoulders, but he would hurt her...and he found himself wanting desperately not to do so. It was time, well past time, that he acted up to his namesake. The punishment of Atlas was to bear the weight of the world on his shoulders. Not to make confessions and hope that people would understand him. If only he’d been able to remember that when he’d first returned to England, none of this would have happened. If he hadn’t been...wallowing in some sort of... Slough of Despond over the fate that had befallen his crew when they’d been ambushed on that beach...been stuck in the mindset he’d sunk into while being held prisoner. A sort of creeping lassitude. He should never have tried to seek solace over his physical and mental deterioration in the bottom of a bottle. Then he would never have sat back and let Archie try to take on the task of investigating what had started out as a jewel theft. Even though he’d had so little sympathy for the rich old women who’d been robbed.
‘Captain Bretherton?’
He whirled round. While he’d been drowning in a morass of bitter recriminations, Miss Hutton had come up behind him and was now laying her hand, tentatively, on his upper arm. He realised he’d curled his fingers into a fist. Had struck the window upright.
‘I don’t deserve your regard,’ he ground out. ‘I am...’ He lowered his head. ‘I have failed to act honourably.’
‘Oh, no, I’m sure not.’
Her voice was soft. Laced with concern. And stung worse than the lash of a cat-o’-nine-tails.
‘Yes,’ he hissed. And because he could not, at present, confess what was uppermost in his mind, regarding her and the false courtship upon which he was engaged, he decided he’d better tell her something else instead. Something that had, indeed, been troubling him for some time. ‘We were speaking about being honest with each other, weren’t we?’ he said. ‘Of getting to know each other, rather than flirting. And I thought I might tell you...confide...how I felt when I failed my men. So miserably. I was imprisoned, you know? By the French? Because I made a complete c—a complete mess of planning the operation. I didn’t check the terrain thoroughly enough—’
‘Terrain? You mean, you were on land? But you are a captain in the navy...’
‘Yes, but we were responsible for getting troops ashore many times. This time, I led everyone straight into an ambush a schoolboy should have seen. The entire operation ended in failure. I should have been court-martialled.’
‘Why were you not, then?’
‘Oh, some nonsense about unreliable intelligence. But I’d believed it. Completely. When I should not have done. I should, at the very least, have sent a small party ashore to double-check the details. And then the crew from the other ship, who managed to get away while my men held back the French, put in a report about us sacrificing ourselves so that they, and the infantry, could escape. They even tried to make out I’d been some kind of hero.’ He shuddered in disgust.
‘But...weren’t you? To stand and fight while others escaped?’
‘The infantry might have got away. And the crew of the other ship. But my men all either died, or were captured. And the conditions they suffered, at the hands of our captors, were brutal. And there was nothing I could do about it. Nothing. I...you see...as an officer, they offered me parole. Which meant that as long as I promised not to try to escape, I had relative freedom. I tried to use it to do what I could for the men, but...’ He bowed his head. The food he’d managed to get to them, from time to time, had been a mere drop in the ocean. Though he’d gone without, time and time again, until the flesh melted from his frame, it made little difference to them. One by one they’d died. The injured first and then the stronger ones.
‘When I was released, I failed to act like an honourable officer of His Majesty’s navy, too.’ He’d let his former schoolfriend, Rawcliffe, take him into his house and feed him, and had gone along with whatever he’d suggested, because it hadn’t seemed to matter what he did. ‘I failed even to uphold my own standards. For so long...’
He’d been drifting. Without a compass. He hadn’t really set his hand to the tiller again until he’d heard that Archie had died, doing a job he’d been so ill equipped for. He was the one who should have come down to Dorset. And, yes, been the one to die. Nobody, then, would have cared a rap. He was worthless. Spent. Whereas Archie was such a brilliant man. Had so much promise. Archie had been destined to make discoveries that would improve the lot of mankind.
All Harry could do was train men in the arts of destruction. He’d spent his entire adult life blowing things up and tearing things down.
Well, now, he vowed again, grinding his teeth, he was going to put those murderous skills to good use. He would tear down whatever organisation was behind sending servant girls to steal jewels from wealthy families. And bring those responsible for Archie’s death to justice. And he wouldn’t let anyone or anything stop him.
Not even soft words from a girl he liked and admired, and felt such a strong kinship with. For it wasn’t as if he could really marry her. He wasn’t yet so deeply into the role that he believed they could really have a future. He was here to do a job. And part of that job was to pass on whatever information he gleaned to Rawcliffe and Becconsall.
That was one mistake Archie had made that he would not repeat. Whatever Archie had discovered while he’d been here, whatever it was that had caused the criminals to kill him, nobody would ever know. Because he hadn’t passed that information on. That was one thing his training, as well as his mistakes, had taught him. Information was the key. Every day, officers kept logs of everything that happened, so that there was always a written record against which to compare the fading impressions of memory.
So, before this day ended, he would have to write down all that he’d learned so far. So that even if he did meet the same fate as Archie, at least his death wouldn’t be completely in vain.
‘Miss Hutton, I have suddenly recalled that there are things I should be doing. Things I have neglected. I will escort you home and then apply myself to...some long-overdue letters I should write.’
Her face fell. Poor Lizzie. He wished...but no. He had to pass on the knowledge he’d gleaned so far.
Rawcliffe and Becconsall needed to know the exact date when Lady Buntingford had suffered that seizure. And how, from that point on, she could not write. If the references purporting to have come from her had been issued after that event, then she couldn’t possibly have written them. Couldn’t even have ordered them to be written on her behalf. Far from being the brains behind the series of jewel thefts, she must surely have become Cottam’s puppet. Lady Rawcliffe had already found out that he was using her address as a sort of secret post office. Cottam himself had told her that if she wanted to get in touch with him without her husband’s knowledge, she could do so by addressing her letter to Lady Buntingford, because, as her trusted advisor, he dealt with all her post.
Trusted advisor? Hah! He was no such thing. On the contrary, he was practically her jailer. Harry couldn’t believe that story about her telling him she didn’t want anyone seeing her in such a helpless condition, just before suffering a second seizure. It was all just a little bit too convenient. For Cottam, that was.
Harry also had to let Rawcliffe know what Miss Hutton had just told him about Je
nny. That could be another coincidence, he supposed, that a girl called Jenny had drowned shortly after coming down here to Cottam for help. And that she’d been mixed up in the death of an elderly lady for whom she’d been working. But Rawcliffe had certainly been hunting for a girl known as Jenny, who’d been working for Archie’s great-grandmother, and who had mysteriously vanished immediately after her death. There had also been a Jenny working for Lady Rawcliffe’s aunt. And in both households, jewels had been replaced by fakes. And in both cases, the ‘Jenny’ in question had been hired on the strength of references supposed to have been written by Lady Buntingford.
Rawcliffe was already convinced that Cottam was behind all of it. The jewel thefts and forged references, as well as Archie’s death. And the more Harry found out, the more inclined he was to agree. The way Cottam had so callously treated Lady Buntingford made it all too easy to see him working behind the scenes, like some big fat spider, crouching at the centre of a web whose strands reached as far as London itself.
Once Harry had written his report, he’d have to take steps to make sure it reached Rawcliffe safely. From what he could tell, the locals were all either scared of, or in the pay of, the smugglers with whom Cottam was so closely connected. So it wouldn’t be a straightforward matter to get information out of the area. But that was where Dawkins was going to come in handy. He could act as a courier, taking letters to somewhere near enough so that he’d be there and back within a day, so that they could relay any new information they discovered on a daily basis, if necessary.
They’d decided on Bath. The postmaster there could surely not be in the pay of a gang of Dorset smugglers. And they could also drop hints about consulting a medical man there, or fetching medicine, or some such thing. In fact, he promptly decided as he looked down into Miss Hutton’s troubled face, he would have Dawkins consult an oculist on her behalf.
He took hold of her hands and squeezed them.
‘I am sorry, Miss Hutton. But...’
The Captain Claims His Lady Page 12