by Louise Allen
‘A well-kept cellar,’ he said, with a nod to Mrs Bishop. ‘Wish mine was as dry and well-stocked.’
‘Come and see the old one, then.’ Terence took a key from a hook on the wall. ‘We don’t use that.’
‘I’ve set out the decanters in the drawing room, my lord. Will dinner at half past seven suit?’
Mrs Albright looked up from her ledger. ‘Mrs Bishop has a fine mutton pie removed with roast chicken and there’s crab fritters with samphire and curd tarts.’
‘That all sounds excellent,’ Theo said, knowing it was a heavy hint to take himself off from the kitchen to the other side of the green baize door where he belonged. ‘Send Morefleet in to me when he’s finished traipsing about, will you?’
Theo finished his dinner in leisurely style, wrote a note to remind himself of exactly what was said by Morefleet and where he had been, so he could get the details right when Perry came home, then settled himself with a book of blood-curdling local legends and folk tales, accompanied by a glass of Perry’s exceptional, duty-paid, brandy.
He nodded off over the tale of Black Shuck, the great hound from hell that prowled the Norfolk coast, only to wake with a start when the book slid from his knee and hit the floor with a crash.
With his mind still fogged by a dream of red eyes pursuing him through a clinging sea-mist, Theo picked it up and smoothed down the pages as the clock stuck midnight.
Someone had been in, banked up the fire, set a guard around the hearth and removed all but the branch of candles at his side. Yawning, he tucked the book under one arm, picked up the candles and took himself up to bed.
Pitkin was dozing in the only uncomfortable chair in the room but he leapt to his feet as Theo wandered in.
‘What the devil are you still doing up?’ Theo demanded, knowing he was being unreasonable. He had given the valet no instructions – in fact, he had managed to forget the man entirely, he realised guiltily. ‘Have they given you a decent room and fed you?’
‘Yes, my lord, thank you. I’m very comfortable, my lord.’ He hovered, driving Theo quietly distracted as he flapped a clean nightshirt, pressed a nightcap on him – something Theo had told him more than once he wouldn’t be seen dead in – worried that he should get fresh hot water as that in the ewer was now luke warm, and produced the hideous slippers that Theo’s Aunt Emeline had embroidered and which Theo had hidden in the back of the wardrobe with a shudder.
Finally, Theo managed to get him out of the door and promptly stripped off the nightshirt, kicked the slippers under the bed, splashed his face in the cool water and discovered that he was wide awake. Feeling faintly guilty – and what was he doing with a valet who made him feel guilty twice in one day? – Theo picked up the nightshirt and draped it over a chair. Pitkin had turned scarlet when Theo had refused to sleep in one so, normally completely blasé about nakedness, he had saved the man’s blushes. As a result, every night they went through the farce of Theo removing the thing the moment Pitkin was out of the door.
It was a complete waste of laundry and probably an indictment on Theo as a feeble employer for not putting his foot down and wearing, or not wearing, what he damn well pleased, but being harsh with Pitkin was like kicking a dog and he just did not have it in him.
His heavy silk banyan went on with a pleasantly sensual shiver for its cool slide over his skin. Theo lit a single chamberstick, blew out the rest of the candles and took his book of tales to the window seat. The flickering light, the waxing moon and the tossing branches of the trees just the other side of the glass would make a pleasantly atmospheric setting for another ghostly story.
It took a while to settle comfortably with his feet up on the bench seat, a pillow jammed in the small of his back and the candle illuminating the crude woodcuts that gave the book much of its charm. He had just begun The Legend of the Headless Smugglers when a bar of light fell across the grass beneath his window. Someone else was as sleepless as he was. Someone sleeping on the ground floor.
The servants were all up in the attic rooms and Mrs Bishop had a sitting room and bed chamber leading off the kitchen passage he remembered from a previous visit when Perry and he, playing cricket on the lawn, had put a ball through her window. Which only left Mrs Albright. Myrtle. An ugly name, in his opinion and a dull shrub, except when it was in flower.
Theo watched the light as a shadow crossed it, stopped, moved. The housekeeper was brushing her hair, the movement of her arm as she swept the brush down the length of it was quite clear, as was the fact that it must fall well below her shoulders.
The book hit the floor again with a thud and Theo jerked upright, feeling ashamed of himself, as though he had been watching her secretly through a window. Which was ridiculous, he told himself, smoothing out the pages. He was going to have to buy Perry another copy of the ghostly tales if he didn’t stop dropping the confounded thing.
Voyeur, his conscience scolded him. It wasn’t like that, he retorted. But he was uncomfortably aware that the sight had been arousing, even though all he had seen was a formless shadow and the movement of one arm. It had been a private, intimate moment and that was why it had seemed erotic, he told himself, tossing the banyan on top of the nightshirt and getting into bed. Nothing whatsoever to do with the young woman half-hidden under her oversized cap.
And any member of staff ought to be safe from the attentions of a gentleman, even if those attentions were confined to a desire to remove that cap and several hairpins. Theo reminded himself that he was engaged to be married to a lovely young lady, punched the pillow releasing a waft of lavender scent, and blew out the candle. It had been a long day.
It had been a long day, one that had begun well and now… Laura put down her brush and began to braid her hair. Now the house was full of men. One man, she corrected herself. Pitkin hardly counted as a shadow, the footmen were part of the household and Lord Northam’s coachman kept to the stables most of the time. It was remarkable how much room a perfectly well-mannered, pleasant male took up, not in physical space, but in her head.
She was safe enough, he would behave like a gentleman, she could tell that, even though she could sense his awareness of her as a woman. He’d not act on that, she’d been certain, even as she locked her bedchamber door. But that was habit, more than any concerns about this household. It was a relief to be here, even though she had to put on an act for Lord Northam and they had Riding Officers traipsing through the cellars. Lieutenant Morefleet had given her a nasty start until she realised who he was and that her uncle was unlikely to have called out local officialdom to search for her. Not yet.
Her uncle had been determined to get her, and her money, married off to his eldest son and heir and Laura had felt no confidence at all that he’d stop at any ploy, including sending one of his sons to her bedchamber at night. Here she felt no need to drag any furniture in front of the door to be doubly certain.
So, really, all she had to worry about was convincingly pretending to be a housekeeper for however long it was before Perry came home, Laura told herself as she blew out her candle. That would be easy enough with Mrs Bishop to help, bless her. The rest of the staff knew her of old and had nodded sympathetic understanding when she had confessed to being afraid of her uncle and his schemes. They had heard about him from the local servants’ network of gossip, but she believed them when they promised not to say a word outside these walls about her presence.
It would all be as she had planned and it could only be a month at most because Perry would be home for his house party, the one Lord Northam had been expecting to arrive for. Even Perry was not scatter-brained enough to forget that. Surely…
Chapter Three
‘Good day, gentlemen!’ Theo stood and waited for the three riders to come abreast of him. This morning, with his riding horses not yet arrived and the carriage horses resting, he had set out on foot and taken the cliff path – or what passed for cliffs in this part of Norfolk – and was keeping a wary yard or so back from the crumbling
edge.
‘Good day.’ The older of the three and probably, from the likeness between them all, the father, raised his whip to the brim of his hat. Then Theo recognised him from an earlier visit – Sir William Swinburn, if he was not mistaken. No, Walter. He recalled Perry dodging a dinner invitation and couldn’t recall why.
‘A fine day for a walk. But beware of the edge, sir, it is treacherous.’
‘Thank you for the warning, but I had recalled these cliffs are not to be trusted from the last time I visited. They must be a risk to your livestock as well as not offering safe caves for your local smugglers to hide their booty.’
‘Smugglers?’ It was the younger of the two brothers – Giles? – and he spoke sharply.
‘I assume you have them. We were visited by a Riding Officer yesterday who inspected the cellars to no avail. I could have told him as much without the need to check, but of course he was hardly likely to take a visitor’s word for it.’
‘You are staying hereabouts, sir?’ That was Sir Walter again. The older brother merely sat and stared woodenly.
A real slow-top, Theo thought, trying, and failing, to recall his name. ‘Yes. At Mannerton. I am Northam, an old friend of Manners.’
‘Sir Walter Swinburn. You are a temporary neighbour of ours, Lord Northam. My sons, Charles and Giles.’
‘I thought Manners was away,’ Giles Swinburn said, steadying his flashy chestnut as it sidled and fretted.
‘He is. I mistook the date by an entire month. If I thought I needed a rest and to get away from London that error convinced me as nothing else would!’
Sir Walter laughed, a harsh bark. ‘But you are staying nonetheless?’
‘Yes. The staff know me and Perry won’t mind.’
‘You must come and dine,’ Sir Walter said. ‘My wife has made an engagement for one day this week, damned if I can recall which evening it is off the top of my head, but I’ll send a note. Good day to you.’
The three cantered off, sending a pair of oyster catchers piping in alarm as they wheeled into the sky and leaving Theo looking after them, vaguely puzzled. That had been a very abrupt reaction to the mention of smugglers. Perhaps Morefleet had not called on them yet and therefore the topic was far from their minds.
Not an attractive trio, he thought as he began to walk again, following the path as it rose and fell. The oldest son, Charles, looked stolid to the point of stupidity, the younger, Giles, had an aggressive edge to him that Theo disliked as much as he had the spurs the man had been using on his horse. Their father looked like a bad man to cross.
Theo shrugged. A change of company would do him good, even if they were not the most congenial of associates, and it would be tactful to let the staff have an evening off following his unexpected arrival. Sea birds screamed overhead and he stopped to breathe in the fresh salty air and watch the waves crash hypnotically on the beach.
After a mile the rabbit-cropped turf sloped down and gave way to shingle and Theo turned towards the sea through the gap in the low cliffs. On the landward side was a marsh he recalled shooting over one autumn on a visit years before and, somewhere beneath his feet, he deduced, a stream made its way to the sea under the stones of the beach.
The pebbles proved hard walking so he went directly down to the high-water mark where sand was exposed, littered with shells, driftwood and scraps of fishing net and floats. And there, just in line with the gap in the cliffs and the causeway across the marsh, were the marks where a boat had been pulled up, clear of the surf.
It could be a perfectly innocent fisherman, landing with his pots laden with the small, sweet, brown crabs this coast was renowned for. But if that was the case, why not land at a beach near a village? There were few good harbours along this coast and the villages were away from it, across the marshes where the land began to rise to the fields and they were clear of flooding. But each had its beach with a causeway leading across the wetland down to where the boats were hauled up by horse or man-power.
Theo trudged back to the gap and looked. There to the west was the huddle of poor cottages known as Smoker’s Hole and to the east he could see the sails of the windmill at Fellingham village. So why land a boat here? The only building close was a church: flint-built, round-towered, ancient and humble. It must have belonged to some small fishing hamlet that had long ceased to exist, lost to the sea or the encroaching marsh, perhaps.
Exploring that and then walking back by the coast road was a more enticing prospect than labouring back through shingle and loose sand on the beach or retracing his steps along the clifftop and Theo strode forward without a backwards glance. The view across the marshes as he walked along the causeway was invigorating, with the wide sky of the East Anglian coast stretching above him and the shimmering water and mud of the marsh, dotted with reeds and pools, merging gradually into the browns and greens of the fields beyond.
Was he alone in the world? It seemed so, except for the faint smudges rising from the chimneys of the village and from the smokehouses that gave the hamlet its name. The causeway was well-made and maintained, surprisingly so, he thought, if all it was for was to serve the needs of a few crabbers. The surface was marked by cart wheels and there was the evidence that several horses or mules had used it recently. Smugglers? He was beginning to think so and the church ahead of him immediately assumed an enticing air of mystery.
Theo reached the coast road – although road seemed a lofty description for the collection of ruts, potholes and puddles that it consisted of. Still, it was wide enough for a good-sized wagon or a herd of cows, which was probably all that travelled it regularly. Another trackway rose up to his left towards the church and he took that, searching for signs of recent use. It was well-trodden, but that could be church-goers, he supposed.
The rusty iron gate to the churchyard opened so silently that he hardly noticed it and was half a dozen steps up the path to the South door before the improbability of that struck him. He walked back and looked at the hinges – clean of rust and recently oiled. That wasn’t due to a fastidious churchwarden, not judging by the overgrown state of most of the graves, so why take such care to silence the gate?
Theo studied the churchyard with more interest. There were a few recent graves that were being tended, some narrow paths through the long grass and wild flowers, but no sign of anything substantial being carried through. Possibly there was a crypt. Or possibly I am letting my imagination run away with me, he thought as he made for the door again. Even if this was simply a romantic fantasy he was chasing, he did not much care, looking for clues was enjoyable.
The sight of the table tomb next to the path and about nine feet from the porch brought him up short. It was the kind of thing one saw outside the larger city churches, or those associated with great families, not modest little country churches that looked as though their most wealthy communicant was a yeoman farmer.
The rectangle of greyish white stone was almost chest-high, its corners supported by fat, scowling cherubs and slightly crooked twisting columns, its sides covered by what looked like coats of arms and mythical animals. Theo leaned over, brushed at the lichen and tried to read the flowing script on the top.
Sir Brandon Flyte, Kt. 1673 – 1767 was clear enough, but the rest was in Latin and hard to read unless one was actually kneeling on the slab that was the size of a small dining table and probably a sight heavier. Whoever the knight had been, someone had held him in high esteem. Probably himself, Theo thought with a grin as he turned from the tomb and tried the door into the porch. He could imagine the aged Sir Brandon sketching out his grandiose monument and confounding the limited skills of the local stonemason who had done his level best to realise the ideal.
He was not surprised that the door to the church opened when he turned the twisted iron ring: somewhere as remote and simple as this probably had no valuable plate to steal. The interior was a cobwebbed white space lit by large windows of plain, greenish glass, letting the sunlight flood over old oak benches and a h
alf dozen high-walled box pews, and Theo’s grin became a smile of simple pleasure. The old church had a calm and a rightness despite its poverty and he sat on one of the back benches to absorb the atmosphere.
He was not a religious man, but he had rarely found somewhere so conducive to meditation. What am I doing with my life? he mused, watching the dust motes swirl in a shaft of light. What is my purpose? He had friends in plenty, money sufficient and more to his comfort and his indulgences. He had occupations that gave him pleasure but…
‘Forgive me, but may I help you in any way?’
Theo shot bolt upright, then relaxed when he saw the figure standing at the end of the bench.
The man, in his mid-twenties, thin, dressed in slightly shabby clerical black with white bands at his neck, pressed his hands together. ‘Forgive me, I have interrupted you at prayer – ’
‘Not at all, I was merely deep in thought. This place is well suited to that, Vicar.’
‘It is indeed, sir. But we have a Rector and I am merely the curate, William Thwaite. We do not often see strangers here – I feared you had, perhaps, lost your way.’
Very true. ‘Perhaps I have,’ Theo admitted.
‘If it would help to talk?’ Thwaite sat down at the end of the bench. ‘I promise not to pray at you,’ he added, and Theo caught an attractive trace of humour in his voice.
He grinned. ‘If I say I am probably past praying for, then I am sure that is enough to provoke any cleric. No, what you see is a reformed man finding facing up to his responsibilities extraordinarily dull. And I am annoyed with myself because those responsibilities give me status and a very comfortable living, so I have no right to be disgruntled,’ he added with a shrug.
‘Then I would say you are halfway to finding your way back. You know what the problem is, you only have to work out what will give you an interest that enlivens you.’
‘A mystery is what I need. I enjoy mysteries, even very small ones, like what on earth was Sir Brandon Flyte thinking of, having that grandiose and slightly inept tomb erected here?’