Revenge of the Barbary Ghost (26 page)

But more pragmatically, she had another reason for leaving him out. “I promised Pam I wouldn’t tell him. Help me out of my dress and then go to bed, Mary. And sleep. The landing won’t happen right away, you know. Anything may occur before that. Never borrow trouble, my nanny used to say.”

“Wise woman,” she said, Scottish gloom tainting her tone with foreboding. “But we’re not borrowing trouble,” she continued, her eyes wide, as she undid Anne’s gown and unlaced her stays. “We’re seeking it out, hunting it down, and demanding that it descend upon us.”

Anne laughed. “Now that sounds like my Mary,” she said, picking Irusan up, gently, and putting him on her bed. She gave her maid a gentle shove toward the small dressing room she and Robbie were using as a bedchamber. “Go to bed. Sleep.”

Mary carried her clothes but turned and gave her mistress one long, hard look before closing the door behind her.

Sixteen

The next day dawned stormy and miserable, but Pamela left early to visit Edward, taking advantage of Anne’s offer of Sanderson and her carriage. She was going to tell Mrs. Gorse that within weeks she would be taking her son to their new life together. Lolly was again teaching Robbie, for it seemed that they were at an especially difficult part of his lessons, English grammar, and Mary, anxious for her boy to move ahead in life, wished him to have the benefit of such a patient teacher as Anne’s companion. Beneath Lolly’s fluffy exterior beat the heart of a tyrannical governess.

Anne, restless after a sleepless night and conscious that this morning was St. James’s funeral, tried to read, though she could not attend to the book’s lines, nor remember what she read, then ate a solitary luncheon. Lolly was still wholly occupied with Robbie’s lessons, much to the child’s vocal dismay.

After the midday meal, Anne paced the terrace for a while, but the weather drove her indoors after half an hour. The day dragged on in dreary monotony, and finally she knew she needed to do something or she’d go mad from boredom. Donning a cloak, she waited until Mrs. Quintrell was occupied and slipped down to the cellar with a lit lantern. Keys in hand, she stole through the cellar to the tunnel door, pulled the heavy rug aside, coughing a little at the dust, and unlocked the padlock. She pulled the door open as quietly as she could, slid into the tunnel, and pulled the door closed behind her, hoping if Mrs. Quintrell did come down to the cellar for something, she wouldn’t come so far.

She held the lantern up. The tunnel was scary even in the daytime, but if she was going to help Pamela with one last smuggling run, then she was going to do it right. She wanted to know where and how this tunnel erupted into the cliff face, but it was certainly quicker and more sheltered to approach it from the tunnel side than it would be to go all the way around by the beach.

The tunnel was longer than it had seemed the evening before; light from her lantern shimmered, illuminating only about ten feet ahead. She walked carefully, keeping an eye out for creatures, warm or cold-blooded. As she crept down the tunnel, she was plagued by fretful thoughts.

What did she want to do with her life? Was she destined to become simply a wife and mother, another in a long line of maternal vessels dedicated to continuing a noble lineage? She wanted more for herself, but what?

Though she felt strongly about the ills that plagued their society and the measures she believed were necessary to produce a more just world for them all—Catholic emancipation, the abolition of slavery, improved legal rights for abandoned or mistreated women—she did not feel called to help the many who were already fighting for change. Everything she had to say had already been said by more eloquent men and women. She attended church, but was not especially religious, so “good works” through the church did not appeal. She provided money for a few projects, including a dame school near Harecross Hall and a refuge for women whose husbands had abandoned them or perished, but when she went to them to help, she only managed to interrupt the hardy women she had hired to do the actual organizing and labor. She left the schemes in their capable hands and provided advice and money. If the first went unheeded, at least she knew the second was always useful.

She read widely, and not just male writers, finding obscure works by Mary Astell and the even more obscure works of Aphra Behn interesting in the light they shone on feminine abilities, but she was no writer herself. Letters were necessary on occasion, but she had not the gift of talking infinitely on unwise things, as many women did, or deeply on one thing, as some women did. Was she no more than a butterfly, then, flitting through life, touching on flowers, sipping nectar, to leave no lasting impression once she was done and gone to whatever lay beyond the veil? Should she just marry Darkefell, enjoy his lavish attentions, and when those faded—as inevitably they must—content herself with children and the limited sphere afforded her as a female?

She put out one hand and touched the rock wall of the tunnel, trailing her fingers along it as she walked, like the gray ghost of the sad woman who was said to haunt Harecross Hall. The spirit, a lady from the time of Queen Elizabeth whose lover pushed her down some stairs and broke her neck, after breaking her heart with another woman, walked the halls on the anniversary of her murder, people claimed. She had never seen it, but then, she didn’t believe in ghosts.

Her thoughts returned to marriage and the marquess. The idea of marriage to such a man, one for whom she felt some irritated affection, and much heated desire, was fascinating. And yet, Darkefell would surely not be faithful in marriage, not after the first rush of affection and glow of sexual attraction had faded, as it must, with time. And it would break her heart into a thousand bleeding pieces if he wed her, bedded her, and then went off and found pleasure with another woman.

She stopped, hand out against the chill stone. Why would it hurt so badly if he abandoned her?

There was only one answer. Her heart pounded. Damn her stupidity! Despite her intentions, despite leaving Yorkshire like a coward, despite every attempt to remain cool and detached, she had fallen in love with the man. It was more than the faint “irritated affection” she had just called it; it was love, adoration, a veritable flood of emotional attachment.

She took in a deep, trembling breath, her first as a woman in love. And yes, acknowledging it had changed her subtly. Some questions in her heart were answered so swiftly as the time between one breath and another. Would she ever fall in love? she had wondered. Yes, completely and fully, for Darkefell filled her mind with amorous thoughts and her body with amorous longings, but beyond that, his mind, intelligent without being scholarly, satisfied her in ways no intellectual ever could.

There was a precipice between like and love. She had not seen it, and fell before she could stop herself. She loved him.

She approached the tunnel door ahead, beyond which lay the cavern and ocean, as if she were an automaton. She had the key in her hand, and saw the lock, put the lantern down on the floor of the tunnel, her mind turning, her head spinning with new thoughts, new wonderment. She was in love. Had she ever felt thus before, the gladness at seeing him, the need to hear him say her name, the rush of pleasure when he did?

Never. Never with any man in her life. He was the one.

The roar of the ocean beyond the door filled her ears, and she fit the key into the lock, turning it, the heavy padlock snapping open and falling from the hasp. She swung the door open and picked up the lantern. When it shone down the tunnel, she did not expect to see Lord Darkefell.

“Tony!” she gasped.

He grinned and held up his lantern, too. In his other hand he had a crowbar. “Well, hello. This is an unexpected pleasure, my dear lady.”

Anne saw Osei come up behind Darkefell, and tried to assemble her face into an expression more suitable, but she still gawped and babbled.

The marquess gazed at her steadily for a long moment, then turned to his secretary and said, his tone casual, “Osei, be a good fellow and leave us alone? Take the crowbar away, since I will have no use of it.”

The secretary bit his lip, smiled, met Anne’s gaze over Darkefell’s shoulder and shrugged. “Very good, my lord. Shall I assume that I am to go back to the inn?”

“Yes. Do just go away.”

Anne, with the new discovery of her feelings raw in her heart and her mind, stammered to the marquess, “Where did you come from? Why?” Her heart felt like it was going to burst from her chest, and it left her feeling queasy and faint. “Mr. Boatin,” she called out to him, beyond Darkefell. Her voice rattled with desperation. “You don’t have to leave.”

“But I do, my lady.” The secretary bowed, picked up the crowbar, and turned to go, then turned back. “My lord, shall I order your supper at the inn?”

“Just go away,” Darkefell growled, staring into Anne’s eyes.

She looked away from his searching stare. Once they were alone, with the roar of the ocean in her ears and her lantern flickering, she met his gaze and said, uncertainly, “I should go back.”

“No, you’ve come this far—come all the way.”

Her heart pounded. Their words, the dual meaning threading through them, left her feeling sick and light-headed. But she let him walk her the rest of the way down the tunnel until it opened into the natural cave and she could see, through the cleft opening, to the gray sky and tossing ocean beyond. A single seagull sailed the briny blast of wind, wheeling and arcing in the sky, a dark, elegant V against the slate-tinted clouds.

Darkefell took off his coat and laid it on a rocky outcropping near the cavern mouth, but far enough back that they didn’t get sprayed by the waves or blown on by the wind. “Sit, you don’t look well,” he said, yanking off his neckcloth and tossing it aside, as if the constriction was annoying to him.

“Thank you very much,” she said, her tone as tart as she could manage, while her gaze wandered to the narrow V of skin revealed by his shirt. A curl of dark chest hair peeked from the gap in the snowy white linen.

He cast her a quizzical glance as she settled herself on his jacket.

Something had changed between them, but he couldn’t figure out what. He stood for a moment, undecided, then walked to gaze down the tunnel. “May I assume that this tunnel comes up somewhere in Cliff House?” he asked, then looked back at her.

“Yes, in the cellar. And what were you doing with a crowbar, my lord?”

He sighed. Back to “my lord.” He like it when she called him Tony, the intimate sound of his name on her tongue making him flush with desire. “What do you think? I found this tunnel, but the locked door made it impossible to investigate further, so I came back today to see where it led. I suspected Cliff House. Did you know that Captain Micklethwaite, well-known smuggler, owns Cliff House?”

She nodded.

“Now I asked myself, why would he rent this house to anyone when he could have access to this lovely isolated little beach, and the tunnel that would allow night landings of smuggled goods? If it was leased to someone who was a partner to him in the business, then it made sense. But a young lady?” He paced, working through the thoughts even as he presented them to Anne. “Ah, but Miss Pamela St. James is an unusual young lady, living virtually alone and unprotected, with just her brother as a nominal chaperon. Perhaps, then, it is she who is Lord Brag, and not her brother, as I was thinking?”

He turned and looked down at her. Though her expression was not as open as it had been, he thought he detected the truth. He crouched down by her. “That’s it, isn’t it? Pamela is involved, and deeply.”

“I cannot confirm or deny, Darkefell. Pam is my friend, a
good
friend … she has complications—”

“A fiancé who died, perhaps in the same business she is involved in. You’re worrying me, Anne.”

“Not deliberately, I assure you,” she said, her voice calm, her manner increasingly self-assured.

He thought about it a moment. “Why were you coming down here through the tunnel?” he asked, looking directly into her eyes. “This is it, isn’t it? You’re going to help her with a smuggling run.” He grasped her hand and held it between his. “Don’t do it, Anne,” he urged, kneeling before her, her hand clutched to his chest. “Think of your life, your reputation! Don’t assume your father’s title would protect you.”

She sighed and bowed her head.

“Anne, this is a dangerous business! Look what happened to Captain St. James.” He released her hand and, without prompting, told her the details of St. James’s funeral that morning. It was, of course, a solemn affair, with a dirge composed for the occasion played by the military band as St. James’s coffin rested on the lich-stone at the cemetery, waiting for the regiment’s vicar to read the service for the dead. Colonel Withington, poetical by nature, had written an elegy and read it. Anne wept for Captain Marcus St. James, happy that in the end his companions, those men of the Light Dragoons, had been his final friends.

“And the men who wished to fight you?” she asked, looking up into his eyes.

“We did not come to blows,” he said, gently. “We all were suitably impressed by the solemnity of the occasion, I hope, and ended by shaking hands. I am under no illusions; if we should meet another time on the streets of St. Ives, I think it will be a very different matter, but for now, there is peace.”

“Mors ultima linea rerum est,”
she said, her voice echoing strangely against the cavern walls. She continued, “Even, it appears, animosity.”

“‘Death is everything’s final limit.’ Quoting Horace, Anne? Why would I be surprised?” He smiled, faintly. “But do you not believe that something goes on beyond death?”

She shook her head, tears shining in her eyes, glinting in the lamplight. “I don’t know, Tony; I just don’t know. I know so little, I sometimes think.”

Anxious to distract her from the sad topic of her friend’s funeral, he said, “Tell me about it all. Tell me about what you have learned about the smuggling operation.”

He had guessed all of the important parts, so she told him the rest, how Pam’s fiancé had died, and after a break to recover, how Pam had taken over the smuggling partnership and become Lord Brag. She explained how St. James was the Barbary Ghost, with explosions rigged and fireworks. She even told him her own worries, that Micklethwaite was responsible for Marcus’s death.