The Tutor's Daughter (29 page)

Emma was stunned by his confession. She also realized it meant anyone might have drawn the queen. Timidly, she asked, “Why did you take it?”

“To vex you. It was wrong of me, I know. I hope you will forgive me.”

“Very well.”

He bowed his head, then glanced up at her from beneath a fall of dark hair. “Did you really think I might have drawn that picture?”

Emma swallowed a self-conscious lump in her throat, then lifted her chin. “I own the notion did cross my mind. But can you blame
me? After all, you knew what the piece looked like and you gave me prodigious cause to suspect you in the past.”

He inhaled deeply. “I suppose you are right. But that was a long time ago. I have no interest in tricking you now. Nor in frightening you, nor any other dishonorable motive, I assure you.”

The warm tenor of his voice did odd things to Emma's stomach. She blinked, unable to meet his gaze.

“Emma, look at me.”

She forced herself to meet his remarkable green eyes and saw the sincerity burning there.

He said, “You have my word, Emma. I did not do this.”

He had called her Emma. She liked the sound of her name on his lips. Nodding, she said, “I believe you.”

“Good.” He exhaled. “Now let's figure out who did.”

Henry began by continuing on to Adam's room alone. But instead of the casual visit he'd intended, he decided he needed to ask Adam about the missing things and . . . possibly the other wrongdoing as well. He hated to accuse Adam of anything. But it could not be helped.

Henry knew he should have admitted to Miss Smallwood earlier that he had taken the chess piece. But he had put it off. She had just begun to trust him, and her faith in him was still a shaky, newborn thing. He had hoped he might figure out who was to blame before handing her the perfect reason to blame him. Ah well, it was a relief to have the confession over and done.

When Henry opened Adam's door, his brother looked up at him from a line of soldiers.

“Adam. I am missing something and I wonder if you can help me find it. Have you seen a slender green bottle about so big?”

Adam ducked his head, and his telltale look of guilt made Henry's stomach fall. Adam rose and minced across the room to a small valise on his side table—the belongings he'd come with—and opened the lid.

His back to Henry, Adam asked, “It was hers? Our mother's?”

“Our mother's . . .”
A shaft of pain and satisfaction pierced Henry to hear another human being say those words.

“Yes.”

Adam turned, the vial of perfume clutched in both hands. “Smells like her.”

“I know.”

Adam handed it back. “Sorry.”

Henry wanted to quickly tell Adam all was forgiven and to think no more about it, but he bit his tongue, determined to learn all. If Adam had taken one thing, might he have taken the other? Adam did, after all, possess the rest of the chess set. And if he was capable of taking the perfume—petty theft though it was—what else might he be capable of?

“Thank you,” Henry said. “Phillip wishes to see it. But then I shall return it to you. All right?”

Adam nodded.

Henry sighed. “I hate to ask, Adam, but did you also happen to take a chess piece from my room? The white queen that matches the chess set Miss Smallwood lent you?”

Adam looked up at him, blue eyes wide. “That piece is lost, Emma says.”

“Yes, well . . .” What a hypocrite he was, accusing Adam of anything! “I meant to return it to her . . .”
Seven years late.
“But it seems to have gone missing from my room. You haven't seen it?”

Adam shook his head. So immediately, so guilelessly, that Henry wanted to believe him.

He glanced at the drawings pinned to the wall and stacked neatly on the table. He paged through several. It was difficult to tell if they were of the same style as the decapitated queen.

He forced himself to ask, “Just one more thing, Adam. I know you are fond of drawing. Did you happen to, um . . . give . . . one of your drawings to Miss Smallwood?”

Adam's brow puckered in confusion. “Does Emma want one?”

“No. That is . . . Never mind.”

Henry thanked Adam again, then excused himself to return to his own room.

The Cornish Peninsula . . . that old death trap of sailing vessels, with its fringe of black cliffs and surge-swept reefs on which innumerable seamen have met their end.

—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Chapter 19

F
rom the schoolroom window two days later, Emma watched the activity going on in the distance along the coast. Henry Weston stood talking with Mr. Davies, the two of them consulting a large roll of paper—building plans she assumed—while several workmen unloaded lumber from a donkey cart. She wondered what they were doing. She had overheard Mr. Davies tell her father of Mr. Weston's plans to build something on the point, but he had not mentioned the details.

Her father finished the morning lesson, and excused the boys for a few hours' respite. Julian went off in search of Lizzie, and Rowan declared the light was just the sort he liked to paint by and would be going outside.

Feeling peckish, Emma went downstairs to the steward's office, hoping the coffee urn and cheese biscuits might still be out for tradesmen's morning calls.

Strolling down the passage, she drew up short at finding the room occupied. A man sat drinking tea and reading the newspaper. Emma had seen Davies outside with Henry—otherwise she would not have barged in.

“Pardon me,” she said, recognizing red-haired Mr. Teague.

He lifted his chin in acknowledgment and took a long swallow of tea.

“If you are looking for Mr. Davies,” she said, “he is outside working on something with Mr. Weston.”

“Fool's errand, that's what,” he said.

“Is it? I don't know what they are doing. Building something from the looks of it.”

“Aye. Buildin' an eyesore and a problem.”

“I am certain Mr. Weston would build neither.”

Teague shook his head. “He would indeed and congratulate himself for doing so. Youth and money don't mix, I always say. Too much self-righteousness in the young.”

Emma blinked and tried not to frown. She wasn't sure what the man referred to but resented the unkind remark about Henry Weston.

Mr. Teague went back to reading the paper. Not the news page, she saw, but the advertisements and notices.

Curiosity nipped at Emma. She said boldly, “We have never been properly introduced. All I know is your name—Mr. Teague. And I am Miss Smallwood. My father tutors the younger Westons here at Ebbington, and I assist him.”

“I knaw who thee bist.” His tone was not complimentary. He did not, as Emma had hoped, return the favor by explaining his connection to the family or what he was doing there now.

Hunger forgotten, Emma was suddenly eager to be anywhere but in that room, with that rude, unpleasant man. “Well, if you will excuse me,” she said, “I think I shall go and see what the men are building.”

“Trouble, that's what they're building. It won't last, I can tell 'ee.”

Emma collected her pelisse, bonnet, and gloves and went back downstairs and outside. She let herself out the garden gate and strode across the grassy headland. The sun was warm, but a cool wind yanked at her bonnet strings.

Ahead of her, she saw Rowan had already set up his easel and was uncorking his paints. The wind knocked the easel over, and he scrambled to pick it up and reposition it once more. She hurried over and caught the canvas as it tumbled across the grass.

“Hello, Rowan,” she said, handing it back. “What will you paint today?”

“The men working on the bell tower, I suppose.”

“Bell tower? Out here?”

“Some sort of warning bell, I gather.”

“Oh.” Emma looked toward the workmen as they sank the first post in its foundation hole. “Well, perhaps I shall take a closer look and leave you to paint.”

He nodded, and she walked toward the point. The workmen set the second post and carried over a crossbar. Looking up from the plans in Davies's hands, Henry jogged over and held the crossbar in place while the estate carpenter hammered it to one post, then the other.

Emma watched for several minutes as they repeated the process with the third and fourth corner posts. The crewmen paused to wipe their brows, and Henry stepped away. Seeing her, he lifted a hand in greeting and walked over to join her.

“Hello, Miss Smallwood. What brings you out on such a windy day?”

“I was curious to see what you were doing.”

“Ah. We are building a warning tower. From this height we are likely to see a ship in trouble before anyone down in the village. Sounding the alarm might give the port crews more time to mount a rescue effort.” He stepped over to take the plans from Davies and unrolled them, showing her a scaffold-like tower, railed observation deck, and bell.

“I have been campaigning for an official rescue service for the harbor for several years,” he continued. “But my efforts have come up against resistance from fishermen, villagers, and landowners alike—each for his own reasons. After the shipwreck earlier this spring, I decided I was done waiting. So for now, this is something I can
do.
”

Henry excused himself a moment. He called off work for the day, thanking the men and asking them to resume first thing in the morning. As the men began gathering their tools, he rejoined Emma.

“I admire your efforts,” she said. “But I must say I am surprised something like this is so important to you.”

“Then I shall tell you why—though it's not a story I'm proud of. In fact, the memory plagues me.” He gestured for her to take a seat on one of the pathside benches. He remained standing, looking toward the sea and gathering his thoughts.

“I was home from Oxford for the Easter holidays some five years ago, and I witnessed a shipwreck from this very spot.” He pointed to teethlike rocks jutting from the sea some distance from the breakwater. “I saw a brig, her sails in tatters, strike the rocks there. I tried to shout, but no one could hear me from this height, not with the near-constant wind. So I ran down the cliff path. But by the time I got down to the harbor and managed to rouse the port crew, the ship was breaking apart.”

He winced. “It was an Irish brig, I later learned, laden with butter bound for France. As soon as the vessel struck rock and grounded, one of the lads stripped off his outer clothes and jumped overboard. Usually that's the end of a man. Few can swim strong enough to overcome the undertow. Indeed, we lost sight of him beneath the waves and thought we'd seen the last of him. But then he popped up and swam to shore, like a duck in a pond. The rest of the ship's company, however, remained on board.

“Seven or eight men and boys stood on deck, too afraid to jump overboard. And with good reason. The poor souls screamed for help, but no one on shore gave them the least assistance. They were too far out for any rope to reach them, and no boat could have made it out of the harbor over the high surf—even had some brawny sailor or Mr. Bray been on hand to try. Or so I told myself—as did the old fishermen and the crews on shore leave that night. That's how we all justified and comforted our aching consciences as we stood there and watched men die.”

He shook his head, eyes far away in memory. “When a part of
the ship broke off, the poor men would climb atop it, until a wave washed them off. At last the mast fell, and it was soon over, all the crew drowned. But that was not the end, no. Cargo and parts of the ship began washing up on shore. One of the unfortunate men had lashed himself to the mast and the rope had cut him in two.”

He grimaced. “No one should ever have to see what I saw that day wash up on the beach as if so much flotsam. I ducked behind an overturned fishing boat and retched, sick and ashamed. Casks of Irish butter split open all about us, mingled on the sand with . . .” His words trailed away, and he swallowed. “To this day, I cannot stomach butter.”

Emma felt bile burn her own throat.

“Sea gulls began circling and swooping down to take what they might,” Henry continued. “Then the wreckers began to appear, like sneaky crabs creeping forward on the sand, rejoicing at gold coins found in a corpse's pocket, a silver watch, or a gold ring wrenched from cold fingers.”

Again Henry shook his head. “Agents were dispatched and were soon busy saving as much of the cargo as possible—and staving off the attacks of the wreckers. About a thousand casks of butter were gathered and locked into our local fish cellars. Mr. Bray arrived and stood guard as our acting constable. Eight stout men approached and said they came for butter, and butter they would have. They were all noted wreckers, Derrick Teague among them. A fight broke out.

“I was worried about the one lad who'd survived, for because of him the butter washed ashore was not fair game under the common law. So I grabbed his arm and half-dragged, half-carried him up to the house.” He exhaled roughly. “It was the worst night of my life.”

Emma ventured quietly, “You saved him, at least.”

“That's all I did.” Henry's mouth twisted. “I should have done more.”

Her heart ached for him. “But you were young,” she soothed. “Only a lad yourself.”

“No, I was nineteen. A man. Or at least, I should have been.”

“But you said yourself there was little anybody could do. To risk your life under those odds . . .”

“We all of us die, Miss Smallwood,” he interrupted. “But we don't all of us make our lives count for something. How much better to die saving another soul than to stand safe on shore and do nothing while others perish? I promised myself then and there that the next time I was in that situation—and I knew there would be a next time, living here at a place infamous for shipwrecks—that I would not hesitate to act.”

Emma's gaze remained glued to Henry Weston's profile, fascinated and moved by the emotions playing over his face. “Well. You are acting now. And I for one am very impressed.”

“Miss Smallwood, impressed?” He gave her a sidelong glance, green eyes shining. “That is one for the history books.”

The next day, Henry was surprised but pleased when Miss Smallwood came out again to view the work on the warning tower. She was followed by Rowan and Julian, who had the day off from their studies because their tutor had gone with the vicar to a lecture sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society of Cornwall. Of the young people at Ebbington, only Phillip and Lizzie were not among them. And Adam, of course. How he wished Lady Weston would relent and allow his older brother a bit of freedom. Henry would not give up until he had convinced her, or at least his father, to do so.

For now, however, he would be satisfied with the progress on the tower. The risers, supports, and observation deck were finished, and the estate carpenter was busy fashioning the railings.

“Good morning, Mr. Weston,” Emma greeted him. “How goes the work?”

“Very well, thank you. I have ordered the bell from a nearby foundry, but it is not yet ready. Otherwise, we are on schedule for completion by week's end.”

She smiled at him. “Excellent.”

Her praise lengthened his spine, and her smile did strange things to his heart.

Beside her, his half brothers squinted up at the bell tower with distaste.

“Looks like a guillotine frame to me,” Rowan said.

Julian added, “Or a hangman's gibbet.”

So much for praise. Yet Henry had to acknowledge the justice of their comparisons—there were fundamental similarities. The structure was fairly rudimentary: a tower of wooden scaffolding, with a ladder to reach its deck ten feet from the ground.

When the bell arrived, he would mount it on the deck in a rocker stand. Henry pointed upward and explained where the bell would be positioned and how it would be rung.

Rowan asked, “Why not just run a rope to the ground?”

Henry had considered that. He explained, “I want a person standing on the observation deck to be able to sound the bell from up there as well. But perhaps I shall bore a hole and run a rope down so it might be rung from either the deck or the ground. Good idea, Rowan.”