His Wicked Sins
Page 31
“The new owner?” Jane asked, loath to tar and feather a man without cause. “We know nothing about him.”
With a careless shrug, Dolly shuffled a short way along the path, clutching her tattered cloak about her hunched shoulders.
“What do we know? What do we know about him?” She slanted a sly glance at Jane. “We can guess that he has a very, very large fortune, for Trevisham surely cost him more than most could ever imagine. But how he came by his money...” Dolly’s voice trailed away, leaving her allusions all the more sinister for being unspoken.
“I am sure that is none of my concern,” Jane said. She knew from experience exactly where this conversation would lead. Dolly loved nothing better than to sniff out her neighbors’ secrets, and if she smelled naught of interest, she was not averse to providing details from her own vivid imagination.
“His money’s ill gotten, if you ask me. Smuggling. Wrecking. Murder.” The old woman turned a jaundiced eye to the heavens.
Dolly’s words conjured an image of the terrible bloated face of the woman Jane had seen dragged from the sea.
“There’s an ill wind blowing,” Dolly said. “You mind me well ...it blows from Trevisham”—she stabbed a finger in the general direction of the house—”and from the man who will be master there.”
“The man who will be master there,” Jane repeated. She could not recall a time when Trevisham had been inhabited. The previous owner had left more than two decades past, before Jane had come to Pentreath, and the house had stood empty all the time since. Curiosity surged. Who was this man who had purchased a crumbling, forgotten pile of rock and mortar, this man of mystery and shadow?
He was a man of great fortune, if Dolly was to be believed. A pirate. A smuggler. A wrecker.
With a shudder, Jane turned and stepped forward, moving closer to Dolly’s side. Fierce breakers pummeled the jagged rocks that surrounded Trevisham House, then crashed against the stretch of beach, churning the sand.
Dolly reached for her, age-twisted fingers curling about her wrist.
“Have you seen him, Dolly? The new owner?” Jane asked, though for certes she already knew the answer. If Dolly had seen him, the entire village of Pentreath would have known within the quarter hour.
Speculation about the newcomer was rampant. Even without the man having actually put in an appearance, people had talked of nothing else for more than a fortnight. Her father welcomed the gossip, for the villagers needed somewhere to meet and discuss their conjectures, and a pint of ale at her father’s hostelry was usually the venue of choice.
“I’ve not seen him. Other than old William, no one has,” Dolly replied, hooking her arm through Jane’s. “He arrived under cover of night, never stopping at the pub for drink or conversation. I wonder what kind of man shuns the company of his neighbors.”
“A man who prefers his privacy.” Jane pulled out her black wool gloves from the small pocket she had sewn on the inside of her cloak near the slit for her arm. She slid them onto her hands, keeping her arm linked with Dolly’s throughout.
“Aye. But why does he prefer his privacy? A good question.” Narrowing her eyes, Dolly tapped the tip of her forefinger against the sagging skin of her wrinkled cheek. “And why did he choose this place? There are less isolated houses about, and in better repair.”
Jane thought she understood such a choice. She had long ago learned to appreciate the magnificence of the stark and lonely countryside that had been her home for more than a decade. She knew the splendor of the moors, the harsh appeal of the wind-and-salt spray-etched face of the precipices that jutted into the sea, the tors with their caps of jagged granite. And she knew that Trevisham House called to those who would listen. “Perhaps he views isolation as privacy.”
Dolly grunted. “Isolation is good for certain activities ...those that are carried out on a barren rocky coast with none to bear witness.”
A heaviness settled in Jane’s chest, stalling her breath. She shook her head, and said firmly, “Perhaps he chose Cornwall because this is a place of beauty.”
“Aye. That it is. Barren. Lonely. Beautiful.” Dolly hooted at some secret jest. “But that is not why he came. Mark my words. This man is cloaked in death ...I feel it in the depths of my old soul.”
“Death is no stranger to Pentreath. No stranger to Trevisham,” Jane replied, thinking of the pitiable, nameless woman whom she had watched Jem and Robert drag from the ocean.
She dared not let her memories wander farther back than that.
At length, Dolly gave Jane’s arm a gentle squeeze. “I’ll leave you now. I have mending to do and I need what there is of the light on this dreary day to do it. Best see to your visiting, Janie, and make your way home before the storm.”
Yes. She would do well to make her way home before the storm. The lesson was one well learned. Cold fingers reached forward through the years to touch her skin, making her shudder. Memories nipped at her like a beast poked with a stick. She would have done well to hurry home another day, far in the past, to hurry home before that long ago storm.
With a forced smile, Jane spoke her farewells, and Dolly hobbled off in the direction of her small cottage nestled at the edge of the village. Watching her go, Jane tried to stifle her unease, to tamp down the restless urgency that gnawed at her, the sense that great misfortune was soon to come to Pentreath. Of course, grand calamity had already come, not to Pentreath but to her, carried on her father’s foibles and poor choices. Yet, she sensed something bigger, stronger, something worse.
Dolly had seen a light to the north, where no light should be.
A dead woman had washed ashore, her very presence testament to some horrific event.
Only once before had Jane felt such a strong forewarning building inside her until it seemed to take on a life of its own. On that day her world had tilted and all she knew as safe and good had shattered. Gone in an instant. She remembered the storm and her mother’s voice calling out to her, then the sharp crack of sound, and the pain. She well remembered the pain.
She remembered Mama dead, broken like a porcelain doll on the merciless rocks, her long dark hair hanging wet and limp like seaweed.
“No.” With a whispered denial, Jane tore her thoughts away from the cheerless remembrance, away, too, from the terrible guilt, for if she allowed it to surface it would easily overwhelm her. She had learned over the years to control it, rather than letting wave after wave of crushing sorrow control her.
Her grief was old now and tinged with bittersweet recollection, misty memories of joy and warmth tempering the horror of her loss.
Turning, she shambled with her uneven gait toward the tall square bell tower that loomed in the distance, its crenellated cornice reaching to the menacing sky. The way was familiar to her. At least once each week she made this journey to the church, to the graveyard that lay in its shadow.
She paused beside the low stone wall that surrounded the building, and rested a wool-gloved hand against the chilly surface, silently acknowledging the ever present dull ache in her left knee. The winter damp seeped right through the joint. She could barely remember a time when the muted pain had not been her constant companion.
A noise caught her attention. Frowning, she turned and looked over her shoulder. A chill chased along her spine. For an instant she had been certain that she was no longer alone. But, no. There was no one behind her on the well-traveled dirt path.
Opening the ancient iron gate, Jane set her teeth as the rusted hinges emitted a strident squeak. The gate was in need of oiling. She would mention it to the vicar’s wife, who in turn would mention it to the vicar. Such was the way of village life.
Fallen autumn leaves, brown and parched, tumbled end over end, whipping between the headstones with a dry, rustling sound as Jane walked through the graveyard.
Suddenly, the wind died, and all was still. In the eerie silence, she glanced about, her gaze coming to rest on the dead and blackened elm that stood in the far corner of the c
emetery, its lifeless limbs arching over the etched stones. High upon a narrow branch perched a solitary raven, watching her.
She let her gaze wander away, across the rows of tones. Something felt strange this morning: the silence in the face of the brewing storm; the portent of the raven; Dolly’s doomsaying; and the faint whisper in the darkest corner of her mind that had haunted her since she had jerked from slumber at the first rays of dawn. There was a wind of change swirling over Pentreath, carried by the storm. A wind of change, bearing menace and danger.
Chilled to her marrow, Jane fastened the highest button on her cloak and pulled her shawl tighter about her shoulders as she slipped between the graves, making her way to the carved granite headstone that marked her mother’s final rest. Pausing, she reached into the pocket of her cloak to pull out the small, perfectly coiled pink shell that she had taken from the beach. With a sigh, she trailed her fingers along the stone to the engraved words that were her mother’s epitaph.
Sacred to the memory of Margaret Alice Heatherington the wife of Gideon Heatherington of this Parish who departed this life 18th day of July in the year of our Lord 1802 aged 29 years. In this life a loving wife, a tender mother dear.
Silently mouthing the phrases, Jane closed her eyes against the insidious tide of sadness that flooded her heart. There were still days that she awakened expecting to hear her mother’s voice.
“Good morning, Mama dear,” she whispered as she placed the shell on the top of the tombstone. A hazy memory flitted through her mind of her mother running barefoot along the beach, laughing as she paused to gather shells. That night she had strung them on a length of yarn, making a necklace for her daughter. As a child, Jane had treasured the gift; as a woman grown, she treasured it still more.
Her touch strayed to the small, painted miniature—fronted in glass—that her father had ordered embedded in the stone. An exorbitant expense, but one her father had insisted upon. Jane ran her finger over the glass, noting that the winter’s harsh kiss had forced a jagged crack. Her heart twisted and a tear escaped to carve a path along her cheek.
The glass would remain as it was, broken, for there were no funds for its repair. Her father’s folly had seen to that.
She traced the twining vines that the mason had carved about the picture to frame her mother’s likeness. The artist had done a wonderful job. The minute painting resembled Margaret Heatherington in all details, just as it resembled Jane, who took after the woman who had borne her to an uncanny degree.
Mother and daughter shared the same tall, slim build, the chestnut hair, the ready smile. Jane well remembered her mother’s flashing dark eyes, tipping up just a bit at the corners. She could see those eyes looking back at her in the mirror each morning. And she could see the subtle differences, too. Her nose was smaller, her lips fuller, her chin slightly squared where her mother’s had been soft and round.
“Oh, Mama, I miss you so.”
Her only answer was the mournful howl of the wind, which had renewed itself and bit through Jane’s cloak and shawl with pitiless vigor.
With a single piercing cry and a great flapping of feathers, the raven took flight from its lofty perch. Startled, Jane spun about. Her gaze sought the source of the sound and she watched as the bird spread its wings and soared above the secluded cemetery, flying free and unfettered.
Oh, to be that raven. To be free of the situation her father had thrust upon her. Free of her twisted limb. Free to roam the world and see all manner of wonderful things.
She watched the bird until it was only a dark speck in the distance, and then she shivered.
Again, she felt the sensation that she was not alone.
Slowly, she lowered her head. Her breath caught in her throat as her blood rushed hot and rich in her veins. Taking a stumbling step back, she felt the unyielding solidity of the granite stone at her back, and she leaned against it, touched by an equal measure of trepidation and fascination.
Her heart stuttered, and then raced.
Because, no, she was most definitely not alone.
o0o
Check out all of Eve’s gothics. Dark Prince, Dark Desires and His Dark Kiss available now.
About the Author
National bestselling author Eve Silver has been praised for her “edgy, steamy, action-packed” books, darkly sexy heroes and take-charge heroines. Her work was shortlisted for the Monica Hughes Award in Science Fiction and Fantasy, the White Pine Award, and has been listed as a 2013 American Bookseller’s Association Best Book for Children and a Canadian Children’s Book Centre Best Books for Kids and Teens. She has garnered starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Quill and Quire, two RT Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice Awards, Library Journal’s Best Genre Fiction Award, and she was nominated for the Romance Writers of America® RITA® Award. Eve lives with her husband, two sons, an energetic Airedale terrier and an exuberant border collie/shepherd. Learn more at www.EveSilver.net
o0o
Books by Eve Silver
For Adults:
The Dark Gothics
(each is a stand alone story & the books may be read in any order)
Dark Desires
His Dark Kiss
Dark Prince
His Wicked Sins
Seduced by a Stranger
Kiss of the Vampire (in the anthology Nature of the Beast)
The Otherkin/Sins series:
Sin’s Daughter (novella)
Sins of the Heart
Sins of the Soul
Sins of the Flesh
Body of Sin
The Compact of Sorcerers:
Demon’s Kiss
Demon’s Hunger
Trinity Blue (short story)
The Northern Waste series:
(originally released under the pseudonym Eve Kenin)
Driven
Hidden
For Teens & Young Adults:
The Game series:
RUSH
PUSH
CRASH (coming 2015)