Murder on the Cliffs (16 page)

I left Padthaway at three o’clock, giving myself a full two hours to scale the cliffs and search for clues since Ewe did not expect me until five.

A late- afternoon breeze whipped across the headland. I pulled my cardigan closer, examining the gray sky. It would rain soon, the heavy clouds expanding and gathering in an ominous formation. A churning sea lapped against the shoreline and I walked the route along the top of the cliffs to the point where Victoria had fallen.

As I reached the place, looking for any discarded shoes or clues missed by the police, I saw him. Standing alone on the jutted rock, the collar of his great coat high, his face hidden beneath the brim of his hat. He was peering over the edge, precariously close to the edge, and I called out, “Be careful!”

Startled, Connan Bastion spun around, steadying himself just before I arrived.

“Oh, it’s you.”

The wind loosened his hat and, catching it, he flung it out to sea.

“Miss Daphne, I’m not about to kill myself.”

“I certainly hope not,” I said, stepping closer. “You have so much to live for.”

“To live for.” Throwing back his head, he laughed, his dark curls hugging the splendid contours of his face. “What do ye think I have to live for?”

“Your family.”

“My family,” he laughed. “Ha! What do ye know about my family?”

“That you’re close,” I ventured. “I know you’d do anything to support your mother and I know that you were close to your sister, Victoria.”

“She were my only
true
sister,” he spat. “Only we had the same father. The fancy cousin in town, my mother tells me. That’s why we lease the cottage, through
him
.”

“Have you met him?”

“Met him,” he spat again. “Sure I have! He’s my father, ain’t he? Even though he’s a wife of his own and five children to boot. Don’t really care about any of us, just payin’ us off, as it were, leavin’ Mum and us two.”

“Then your stepfather came along, Mr. Bastion.”

“Bastion.” He rolled his eyes. “That ain’t my true name. Don’t really have a true name, do I? Since me own father won’t acknowledge me. I
should
be Connan Wright. Yes, Mr. Wright, if ye please.”

“Was your stepfather kind to you, Connan?”

Like a wild animal, he stared out at the sea. “Yeah, he were a decent fellow. Taught me how to get into the fishin’ business.
Landed
me with a job workin’ for a company owned by the Hartleys!”

“Did it bother you before Victoria met Lord David?”

“Bother me?” he repeated. “I s’pose not. Then Vicky gets a job up
there
. I warned her. I warned her from the beginnin’. But do ye think she listens to me? No.”

I nodded my head in sympathy. “Girls don’t often listen to the wise advice of brothers and fathers. I know, because I should have listened to my father once— it was about a boy— but I didn’t listen and now I would, though. I realize now that what they say is often for our own good.”

He nodded deeply and I suspected he’d been drinking at the local pub since lunchtime. “You do think your sister was murdered, don’t you? But you worry you can’t prove it?”

He lifted his hand up. “How can I? How can I go against the man who pays me? Tell me that!”

“But you already have, haven’t you? You’ve told the police what you think, your suspicions? Connan, did Victoria tell
you
she was pregnant?”

“Aye, she told me. Me and him, she said.”

“No other? Did she name the father of the child? It must be Lord David’s!”

“Maybe,” he shrugged. “And knowin’ Vicky, she’d not risk her chance of gettin’ to be a lady, if ye know what I mean. So Hartley’s it must be, tho’ she had plenty after her. Always had, from school. I had to punch out quite a few in my time, I can tell ye.”

“You never tried to punch out Lord David?”

He sent me a woebegone look.

“I suppose not. Yet you must have wanted to. I mean, what did you think when she said she was seeing him?”

“I warned her,” he said after a long pause, not sure whether to trust me or not.

“You can trust me,” I assured him.

“I warned her not to be with the likes of them. They’d use her and spit her out dry. She don’t listen to me, though. Then, she tells me she’s with child, she’s engaged! Engaged to Hartley! I laughed and she slapped my face. Then I realize she’s not joking. She really
is
going to marry him.”

“What convinced you?”

“She showed me the ring. The
diamond
ring.” His face paled. “You would have seen it on her finger.”

I nodded, still uncertain of his present mood and intentions. Examining his profile, the heavy- lidded, red- rimmed eyes bespoke a hard night or two on the liquor. The pinched cheeks and steely jawline suggested anger and a frustration bordering on desperation.

“You found the body, didn’t you? How’d she look?”

Overcome by a profound sadness and stepping closer to the edge of the cliff, I searched for the sandy spot below, shivering at the memory of the young bride lying there. “She looked beautiful . . . almost peaceful.”

“She were pretty, Vicky. The prettiest girl around.”

A deep resonating pain echoed in his voice and I pictured the two of them as children, running hand in hand across the open fields. Two fatherless children, finding solace and comfort in each other. “Connan,” I said softly, “I met a Mr. Cameron at the funeral. Was he a friend of Victoria’s?”

His mouth hardened at the name.

“A tall auburn- haired fellow? He rents a flat in London?”

“Friend!” Connan spat. “He just used her like the others. I warned her not to get that job in London. I warned her not to go to the club, but does she listen to me?”

“Why do you think she did it? She never fit into the village life, did she?”

He shook his head.

“She wanted to rise above; she wanted to join that class.” He snapped a look at me. “
Your
class.”

“Yes, my class, and maybe it’s a good thing my coming here at such a time.” I leaned over to whisper in his ear. “I can get inside Padthaway. I can find your sister’s murderer and bring him, her, or them to justice.”

He liked the sound of it, and I questioned the wisdom of my rash words. Connan didn’t sneer at the suggestion, for he knew, as I did, that those of the upper class eluded justice too often.

“What did you think of Mr. Brown? Dashing, ain’t he!”

I did not share Ewe’s enthusiasm. “I found him arrogant.”

“Well, he found you quite charming, for I saw him this very morning. He comes down to visit his uncle, another
charming
man though a bit of a recluse. I invite him
all
the time to my luncheons and one day, he’ll accept.”

We sat down to our simple evening meal, a meat and vegetable stew Ewe had been brewing all day.

“Didn’t know if ye’d be stayin’ up at the big house. Have the Londoners gone yet?”

“Nearly all of them. Lianne and I spent the day with Jenny Pollock. She’s lovely. Do you remember much about her?”

Ewe stretched back her memory. “Saw her once or twice. Pretty thing, she were, Jenny. Did you see Lady Hartley? Or Lord David?”

“No, but I suspect I may see them on Wednesday. I’ve been invited for lunch.”

“Oh, have you?”

I blushed at the inference in Ewe’s tone, and quickly changed the subject.

“You know Bastion is not Connan and Victoria’s real name. It is not kind to be deprived of your own identity.”

“And now the funeral is over, real life can start again,” Ewe finished.

But what kind of life, I wondered. Despite the ongoing investigation, Lord David had planned to marry, to become a husband and a father. Victoria was soon to become mistress of the house, much to Lady Hartley’s chagrin.

Thinking on the latter, I observed Lady Hartley closely at the Wednesday luncheon in the Green Salon. She’d since put back the photograph of David and Victoria together, the happily engaged couple, and I couldn’t resist viewing it before Lord David arrived.

It had been taken in the conservatory, Victoria poised in a chair with David standing behind her, his hand resting on her shoulder. She wore a slim- fitting white dress, a string of lavender beads at her neck, her beauty emphasized by the simplicity of her attire. Her fingers touched David’s hand where it rested on her shoulder, her engagement ring large and sparkling. I shuddered, remembering where I’d last seen the ring— on her dead finger.

“It’s so nice to have one’s house back to oneself,” Lady Hartley announced, dripping with jewelry, and certainly not fitting the image of a grieving mother- in- law and grandmother- to- be. As she relaxed there, proudly viewing her paintings, Lady Hartley’s eerie calm behind her mask of royal hauteur chilled me. She looked like an adoring mother when David walked in, his cursory glance locating the returned photograph.

Lunch commenced and passed tolerably well, Lianne pleased to have me in attendance. Avoiding anything related to the funeral or the investigation, we spoke of trivialities, holidays we’d been on, plays and shows we’d seen, ordinary obligatory comments that were safe under the circumstances. By the end of it, I felt exhausted and dreaded that Lady Hartley would ask me to take tea.

Instead, Lianne suggested we go to the library. I loved nothing more than dwelling amongst books and couldn’t wait to indulge myself with the splendid collection.

An hour passed easily before Lianne became bored and demanded we do something else. I said I had no wish to do anything else and would stay with the books unless she wished me to leave. Cautious not to trouble our friendship, she shrugged good-naturedly, leaving me alone to explore at my leisure.

I started with one section of the library, slowly progressing to the next section when I noticed that Lord David had entered the room.

I admired his obvious ritual, poised halfway up the ladder, immersed in a book and completely unaware that anyone else occupied the room.

“Hello.”

Startled by my interruption, the book went flying and so did Lord David. Retrieving his balance, he made a rapid descent, displaying a graceful, athletic prowess.

“Forgive me,” I grinned, “you probably had the same idea as me and here I am blundering into your private retreat.”

I turned on my heel.

“Don’t go.”

My hand was resting on the door, but I had no intention of leaving. “Yes?”

“Please stay.”

Brushing down his jacket, he collected the book from the floor. “I give you special license to blunder, Daphne du Maurier.”

An almost remorseful smile accompanied this comment and a heated gulp dislodged its way down my throat. Steeling myself against the encased masterful masculinity adorning one of my favorite backdrops, a room full of books, I gestured to the book hidden behind his back.

“Oh, it’s nothing,” he said, hastily shoving it under papers on his desk.

Did I imagine it or did a flush of color show in the planes of his face? What kind of flush, one of embarrassment perhaps, or guilt? Why hide a book?

Immediately curious, I meandered about the room, inspecting the odd title here and there, loving the wealth and breadth of choice. “It’s a fine selection . . .”

He nodded, lifting a curious brow of his own. “I thought you ladies like to take a nap before dinner?”

“I rarely nap before dinner,” I replied, “but I have been known to daydream a great deal. I am often guilty of the crime, especially at inconvenient times, or so my mother tells me.”

An amused chuckle left his lips and he relaxed, smiling. “Then you’re not alone, for I am guilty of the same crime. Daydreaming is a remarkable escape, is it not?”

The book I’d selected slipped through my fingers. I bent down to retrieve it as did Lord David, our hands colliding over the spine.

His hand failed to move from mine. Breathless, I raised my eyes up to his smiling face.

“It’s a good book . . .”

“Is it?”

I didn’t even recognize the sound of my own voice. He was so very near, too near, his hand poised there across the tips of my fingers, firming its hold as he swept me to my feet.

The book dropped between us. Laughing, we both ducked again to pick it up, and this time, to my intense mortification, our foreheads touched. David’s arms reached out to steady me and I swallowed, unsettled and yet excited by our proximity.

Neither of us bothered about the book. I found myself slowly drawn into the circle of his arms, half- afraid and half- elated, and totally unable to stop the pressure of his lips on mine, gentle at first, then deepening, proving he was a man of great passion and strength.

Warning myself I must be wary of this man, I slowly pulled back, my heated face silent confirmation of the success of his kiss.

To put space between us, I stepped away to find a book, any book.

“Forgive me,” he said. “A momentary lapse.”

“No, it’s nothing,” I whispered, desperately looking for a book.

Sensing the sudden awkwardness between us, he gestured to the back wall. “You might find something of interest there.”

He had guessed correctly. Selecting one on the Viking age from the historical section, I flicked through it, willing the beating of my heart to slow. My relationships with men had been few, some stolen kisses with my cousin Geoffrey among others, but this kiss alarmed me with its intensity.

“You might like to flick through these, too.”

Collecting a few titles about the room, he handed me the stack, his eyes searching mine.

I failed to even glance at the titles. “Thank you,” I whispered. “You are very kind.”

“Kind,” he echoed, glancing away. “I’ve been called many things of late, but not kind. Thank
you,
Daphne. You make me believe in life.”

I gazed up at him, the tortured, lost hero, unsure of how to cope with life in the aftermath of this tragedy.

Escaping to my own corner of the room, I tried to concentrate on the history book, the Viking men in their helmets blurring before my eyes. Why,
why
had he kissed me? Why was he trying to hide the book he’d shoved under the papers earlier? Is that why he’d kissed me, hoping to divert my attention?