Seacliff (28 page)

She sat alone in the dining room on the right side of the central hall. The vast, long oak table gleamed in the candlelight, and reflected the glint of silver and gold. A plate of mutton, gravy, and greens had been set before her, but though she was hungry she picked at it as if she were already sated. She was stalling. The longer she was able to remain at the table, the less time she would have to spend in her rooms. Over the weeks since Griffin had fled the mansion and Oliver had returned, she could not help feeling that the place where she had been born had turned fiendishly into her prison.

Though neither Flint nor Oliver had ever mentioned that fateful night’s episode, from the following morning she was followed everywhere. When she left the house, the man with the white patch—whose name she’d discovered was Nate Birwyn—would appear somewhere behind her, keeping his distance but making no bones about the instructions he’d been given. Inside, either Oliver or Flint contrived to remain either in the same room with her or in an adjoining one. And when she was in her apartments, there was Gwen to contend with.

Gwen had finally broken down one evening in hysterical weeping and, at Caitlin’s tender urging, had told her of all the abuse, physical and otherwise, she’d suffered at Oliver’s hands. And worse; the day Caitlin had gone to warn Griffin, Gwen had been with Flint. He’d taken her away from staff quarters on a pretext, practically dragging her into his own rooms, where he raped her. Repeatedly. Then he threatened her life if she ever told a soul, and did not release her until he learned there was a man in Caitlin’s room. “Yesterday’s ken.” That’s what her father had called the ability to understand an event long after it had happened. And now she felt she also had been raped by Mr. Flint. In Eton. Oliver must have known about that, encouraged it even, in order to bewilder and confuse her; just as he had known of Flint’s murdering her father. From the very moment he had ridden into the valley years ago, the retired major had known Seacliff was the perfect prize to make good his dreams of grandeur.

And he was supported not by an army, as Griffin had predicted, but by a large band of mercenaries modeled after the Prussians, available for hire to anyone who had the gold. English, French, it made no difference to him. All those so-called business meetings were actually spent in enlisting rapacious, soulless men whose loyalty to him would remain unquestioned; and Flint had been given the task of arming them.

The valley, then, was their goal: enclosed, small, guarded by cliffs and mountains, hidden away on the west coast beyond the truly effective reach of London’s law; David Evans, usually canny and this time gullible, had seen in the major only what the major wanted him to see; and Seacliff was for him nothing more than a continuous source of revenue until his band was ready to be launched.

For Caitlin the truth had struck home when, just after the first of December, she had seen him arriving at the head of a column of motley carts and wagons. They were transporting his troops. At first unbelieving, she ranted and despaired, but she had no means of resistance when, with a stern glance and a venomous smile, Morgan had laid down the law. His law. Morgan’s Law.

What gratitude she could find was reserved for his ceasing to maintain the sham of their marriage. Since the day he paraded in with his troops, she appeared at dinners when required or in front of visitors when summoned, and she played the role of hostess perfectly. To do otherwise would mean an “accident” like her father’s, and though she had wished for such an escape during those first dismal days, something happened to change her mind. It was neither dramatic nor, in the eyes of others, very important. But its significance to the salvation of a resolution nearly forgotten was incalculable.

Gwen had come to her one morning with news that a dozen of Morgan’s men had been spotted reveling near the ringstones. They’d been drinking, and before order could be restored by one of the self-proclaimed sergeants, the remaining standing monoliths had been toppled from their places. Two had shattered into chunks; the rest had been vandalized—desecrated, Gwen had called it.

Of all the relics in the valley, the stones of the Druids were the oldest. They had withstood the test of time and armies and had been a great source of pride to the villagers in spite of their superstitious avoidance of the area. Now even the sanctity of the ringstones had been sullied.

Caitlin was determined not to give in to despair.

She stared at her plate and forced herself to eat. Languishing would not give her strength, and she needed food to maintain her energy. And when she was done she pushed away from the table, gathered the folds of her skirts in her hands and walked toward the gallery with every intention of going to bed. The storm had worsened, but she tried to ignore the thrashing and thundering; by dwelling on them she only worried about how Griffin was faring and whether he was safe, warmly clothed, living in someplace other than a dank cave.

She had almost reached the first step when Mrs. Courder bustled out of the side corridor and gave her Orin’s message. Immediately, Caitlin followed, accepting a hooded cloak in the common room and allowing the burly farrier to take her arm and guide her through the screaming wind to the cottage. She did not look back. Nate Birwyn would be out there somewhere, and she prayed fervently he would freeze to death before she returned.

“My goodness,” she gasped as Orin wrestled the door shut against the storm. “I nearly lost—” She stopped when she saw the vicar smiling wanly at her from the hearth. He was pale and perspiring heavily, and he held his Bible as if it were made of lead. She nodded to him brusquely and crossed immediately to Les. Davy was standing at the foot of the bed, cap crushed in his hands, eyes red though not tearing. She took his hands briefly, then turned to the old man.

At first she thought he was already dead, but when Orin leaned over and whispered something in his ear, the parchment eyelids fluttered open, and he stared at her without blinking. “Mistress?”

“Here, Les,” she whispered, taking Orin’s place beside him and laying a hand on his chest. “I’m here, you old fool.”

“It be the time, y’know,” he said, the words rattling in his throat. Her eyes burned. “You wouldn’t dare leave me before spring.”

“I canna hold any longer, mistress.” He coughed loudly, and she wiped his mouth with a comer of her cloak. “But I did want t’have a word wi’ you before I be gone.”

“M’lady,” Lynne protested from his place by the fire, “I really think it’d best for him if he were permitted to—”

“Ah, close your trap, y’bloody English swine,” Les hawked as loudly as he could. “I be doin’ my own affairs in my own house, if you please.”

“Well!” the vicar huffed, and held his hands out to the fire, glancing fearfully out the window every few moments as the wind shrieked through the eaves.

“Les,” Caitlin soothed, “you mustn’t permit yourself such excitement. I’ve told you I won’t allow—” She stopped when his bony hand touched her arm for silence.

“Mistress,” he said, “I knew your father when we was both lads, and I held ye not long after you was born. I built your cradle, and I sewed your saddle, and afore I took this sickness I … “ He gestured with his free hand, and Davy reached inside a grimy closet and pulled out something covered with a sooty sheet. At a nod from his father, he pulled the sheet off. It was a handsome cradle, carved out of driftwood and walnut. Its rockers were black oak inlaid with carved hawthorn.

Caitlin was not ashamed to feel the tears on her cheeks, and as the vicar gasped and Orin swallowed what might have been a sob, she leaned over and kissed him hard on both cheeks.

“I’ll not see your babes,” he wheezed, “but when they come, you must have a party for ’em. A grand thing it will be, and you must invite us for the christenin’.”

“Oh, Les…”

She stopped then, nearly frightened when his clawlike grip suddenly tightened.

“I hear things,” he whispered, his strength visibly failing. She leaned over the bed and tilted her head near his mouth. “Them boys of mine, they talk here at nights. I’m dyin’, mistress, but I know what’s goin’ on. And I know ye be thinkin’ how to…” His eyes darted to the vicar, who was struggling into his cloak and hat, muttering to himself. The old man spoke more rapidly, and Caitlin couldn’t catch all his words. “…to Marty Randall, he’ll know how to reach … Not alone, mistress. Don’t try it alone or…damned light’s so dim… way to save a tree is cut off the limb and… give the babe a party, I’ll come m’self, I swear it. You give… cut off the…”

He choked, and Caitlin leaned back, still holding her hand near his chin. Then his chest suddenly expanded and his eyes opened wide, his jaw dropped, his hands grabbed for the tattered blanket. A moment later, his chest sank, his lips shut, and the lids of his eyes finally closed.

She kissed his forehead and rose unsteadily, shaking off Davy’s helping hand. She barked a name, and the vicar spun around at the door. “You are to give this man a funeral the valley will never forget, do you understand me, Reverend? The children will sing, there will be flowers—I don’t care where you get them—and you will give the best sermon you have ever preached in your life. Do you hear me, Reverend Lynne?” The vicar’s head bobbed up. “I will let the major know—”

“Lynne,” she said, the name lashing out like a whip, “you do know who I am, don’t you?”

“M’lady—”

“Exactly,” she said. “And you needn’t concern yourself about Sir Oliver. I will tell him myself.”

“As you wish,” he said unctuously, and was out the door before anyone could stop him.

“Orin,” she said then, “I would be grateful if you would take me home now.” But as she adjusted the cloak snugly around her throat she stared at him firmly. “I meant it, Orin Daniels. I meant every word I’ve just said.”

“Yes, m’lady,” he muttered, a hand quickly at his brow. “And one more thing. If I hear one more word of English spoken at Seacliff,
I
will have you sacked, do you understand?” Orin grinned. “Yes, m’lady.”

She softened at the smile and took hold of his shoulder. “Small things, Orin Daniels, and I know that full well. But there are starts and there are standings, and we’ll never get anywhere by simply standing about and moaning. You tell the others. I may have to stand beside my husband, but I do not stand with him. You know that; the others do not. They may not believe you now, but they’ll remember you told them.” She looked back at the bed and sighed. “He gave me a great deal, Orin. And tonight he gave me something more precious than anything in my life.”

He frowned his lack of comprehension, but she dared not tell him what had sprung full-blown to her mind while she’d been ordering the vicar around. It was an idea so daring, so foolhardy, she tried every imaginable way to dismiss it. But every time she found an argument, its absolute magnificence made her cheeks ache with a broad smile.

She hurried then to the house, only vaguely aware snow had begun falling, and returned the cloak with breathless thanks. The next twenty minutes she spent hunting for Oliver.

He was in the back drawing room. A full score of candles were burning, making the room illuminated to the point of near daylight. At her entrance, Oliver looked up from his chair where he’d been reading the open book on his lap. It was clear he was expecting an outburst of a sort, but his puzzlement grew when she only wandered about the room humming to herself and lightly dusting the pine panels.

“Caitlin?” he asked as if unsure it was her.

“Yes, Oliver?”

“Is there something you wish to discuss?”

“No, but… oh, Oliver, I’ve just been to the Daniels’s cottage. I’m sorry to tell you that old Les has died.” She managed a sorrowful expression. “The vicar was there, too. I’ve asked him to prepare the funeral; I hope you don’t mind.”

Suspicion narrowed his eyes, and she feared she’d gone too far. But she found her apprehension was unfounded; he nodded his approval, then leaned back to wait for more.

She took a deep breath and decided it was time to oblige him. “Oliver, in three days it will be January, you know.”

He grunted.

“And being with Daniels at his end has made me think.” She had finally reached her chair and dropped into it gravely.

Perching on the edge of the cushion, she stared at him with a small, shy smile. “January, as you know, is the month of my birthday.”

“I know that,” he said, barely restraining his impatience.

“I don’t like dying, Oliver,” she told him in such a flat tone his squint vanished and his suspicion returned. “And that’s what I’ve been doing since you returned, you know. Dying.”

“My dear—”

“Oliver, please, this is not the easiest task I’ve carried out in my lifetime.”

She held her breath; he searched her face, her eyes, for signs of betrayal, of chicanery, of manipulation for some secret end. But all he saw was contrition and he pushed himself straighter in his chair, allowing the book to slide to the floor. Magnanimous, she thought; he’s ready to grant a boon.

“Neither of us is a fool, Oliver. I have a fair notion of what you’ve been doing, and what you wish to do. I know why you need Seacliff. And I know, too, that to prevent open rebellion against you, you must have me on display at least once in a while.”

Suddenly, he appeared uncomfortable. As if, somehow, he had lost the advantage of intimidation.

“Oh, I’m not blind, Oliver. I know my life is yours for a whim, and please don’t interrupt; this is most difficult already. My life is quite literally in your hands, and I’ve no means to escape. But I don’t
want
to die, Oliver. I
refuse
to die. If you could have seen that dirty old man…” She gave a fierce shudder and hugged herself. “It was horrid.”

“You shouldn’t have gone, then.”

“I had to. It was my duty to be there.”

Stern approval in his expression almost made her laugh, but she held on to the brief silence just long enough for him to gesture for her to continue.

“My birthday, then.”

“You have a special gift you wish?” he asked.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, Oliver, I do.”