The Nightingale Legacy (13 page)

There came a quiet voice from the drawing room door, “And mine as well, Caroline.”

She turned, giving North a dazzling smile. She jumped
up from her chair and limped over to him. If he was surprised at her enthusiastic greeting, he didn’t show it. He took her hand and raised her fingers to his lips. She rushed into speech when his warm mouth touched her flesh. “Ah, North, you’ve come to visit. Do come in. How much did you hear me telling Mr. Brogan and Dr. Treath?”

“Enough. Well, gentlemen, what do you think? Shall we hire an assassin to go blow off Mr. Ffalkes’s head?”

“Yes,” said Dr. Treath. “He sounds like a thoroughly disagreeable fellow.”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Mr. Brogan said. “That mangy, miserable man. To think that he was her father’s cousin and look what he’s tried to do.”

“I should like to lock him in Mount Hawke’s dungeon,” Dr. Treath said. “Let him rot there for several weeks and I daresay he will learn his lesson.”

“We can put Mr. Bennett Penrose with him,” Mr. Brogan said. “It’s possible they’d kill each other.”

North assisted Caroline back to her chair. “How is your foot?”

“It’s just fine, thank you.”

“You did an excellent job, my boy,” Dr. Treath said. “There’s no more swelling and it’s healing nicely now.”

The three men now contemplated their hostess’s bandaged foot, and Caroline, looking from one to the other, took a deep breath and said, “Mr. Brogan, would you please be my solicitor? Would you please get all my funds and trusts and whatever from Mr. Ffalkes? I’m of age now and surely I should have control of my own inheritance.”

“He told you he was your trustee?”

“Yes.”

“He probably lied,” North said. “Don’t worry, Caroline. Mr. Brogan can get everything started. Sir, if necessary, you can work with my solicitor in London. Caroline, in the
meantime, you won’t be alone. If Mr. Ffalkes shows his face, he’ll surely be sorry for it.”

“I do hope he doesn’t bring poor Owen into it,” she said. “Owen does mean well.”

“If he does, why then, you can take him hostage again,” North said. “Now, ma’am, if Dr. Treath says it’s all right, I’m taking you for a ride. You look as pale as that white wall over there.”

Her eyes lit up. “I’d love that. Oh dear, I don’t have riding clothes.”

Dr. Treath gently cleared his throat. “Your dear aunt loved to ride. Her clothes won’t fit you exactly since she was larger than you are, but doubtless you can make do until you can have your clothes sent here. There’s a royal blue that is beautiful, with small brass buttons on the jacket and gold epaulets on the shoulders.”

She saw his eyes were misted with tears and quickly rose. “Thank you, sir. I’m sure it will fit me just fine.”

It didn’t, but North, who just stared at her bosom, said only, “I’d say that your aunt was a woman greatly endowed.”

Then he grinned at her, and she thought him the most beautiful man in the whole world.

C
AROLINE WANTED TO
ride to St. Agnes Head. When they neared the stark sweep of land that lay between the village of St. Agnes and the high coast cliffs, she threw back her head and breathed in the salty air. It was savagely beautiful here, a place like none other she’d ever seen or imagined. She felt as if she’d come home, surely odd since she’d never before been to Cornwall, but nonetheless, she felt the mystical pull of it, the magical agelessness. She looked northward toward St. Agnes Beach, an immense half-circle of sand with barren cliffs rising above it. She thought of her aunt, who had probably ridden here so many times, admired the beauty of it, and died here, in this beautiful, uncivilized spot. She wondered what her aunt’s last thoughts were, wondered if she’d fought the person who killed her. She closed her eyes a moment against the bright sunlight overhead and let the pain deep within swell and be recognized, and she let herself willingly suffer it.

Then North said in a prosaic voice, “Let’s pull up here, Caroline. I don’t trust the earth after that hard rain last night.”

She was wearing only one riding boot, one of her aunt Ellie’s, and even though the leather was soft, it still pinched her toes. Her left foot was bandaged. He took her arm and helped her to the edge of the cliff.

“Down below is a narrow ledge some two feet wide.” His voice was utterly emotionless and for that she was
grateful. “I had ridden here and was just standing on this spot, looking south toward St. Ives, and I happened to see this odd splash of color. I called out but there was no answer, so I climbed down and there she was.”

Caroline was silent, trying to see what he had seen through his words, but she couldn’t. Her aunt was dead and she would never see her again. She sighed and turned away. Suddenly there was a burst of wind that whistled through the thick rock slabs and blew her riding skirt flat against her. She turned about and let the sting of the salty air slap harshly against her face, and yet it felt deeply satisfying, the feel of the air and the sound of the waves striking hard against the barren black rocks below. She breathed in the warm scent of the heather and scurvy grass that grew in profusion amid all the barren rocks and down the cliffs, poking out in wild tufts through craggy boulders as old as the earth itself. Lower down on the cliff face grew sea lavender, orange lichen, and green algae, flourishing in the face of the spewing, turbulent sea. There was so much vibrant color, such an abundant variety of plants, so much life in this seemingly bleak and barren spot. Such a harshly stunning place. Overhead flew the beautiful sleek kittiwake, fulmars swinging into flight beside them. She fancied she saw several puffins landed on a jutting rock, nestling down into a spray of buttercups.

Such an unlikely place for violence and death.

She turned to look up at North. “What happened to her horse?”

“I don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it. Jesus, I’m the bloody magistrate and I didn’t even think about her damned horse.”

“Her horse doubtless went back to Scrilady Hall. I’ll ask Robin, the head stable lad, indeed, now that I think about it, he’s the only stable lad.”

“I’ll ask him when we return.”

He sounded like an army commander, all stiff and aloof and colder than the winter wind off the Irish Sea because he’d missed something potentially important and was furious at himself because of it.

She only nodded, then said, “If she was already dead when she was pushed off the cliff, it doesn’t seem possible that she would have landed on that ledge.”

“I know. It took effort to grab at something to break her fall. There are several bushes protruding out of the rocks there. She must have landed on the bushes and managed to grab one.”

She ran her tongue over her dry lips, trying desperately to keep hold of herself. Her aunt Ellie didn’t need her weeping all over the ground; she needed someone to find out who had killed her. “That means, then, that she was still alive when she was pushed over and tried to save herself.”

“Yes, it seems likely. But she was very weak. I don’t think she suffered long, Caroline.”

She was silent a moment, the words stuck in her throat. Finally, she said, “I must know, North. How did she die, exactly?”

“She was stabbed in the back.”

“Who could have done such a thing? I mean, there’s Mr. Ffalkes and he’s a bad man, a desperate man, but even he wouldn’t stab someone in the back and shove them over a cliff—that’s evil, North.”

“Evil,” he repeated quietly. “Random evil or a great hatred or simple greed, Caroline.”

“Do you think anyone could have hated my aunt that much?”

“I don’t know. As for greed, you are the heir, Caroline, so that isn’t the answer. You weren’t here.”

“Evil,” she said. “Great evil.”

He frowned down at her for a moment, then said, “I’ve hired a local man to help me. Oddly enough, he’s a former pickpocket, but a smart fellow nonetheless. Sir Rafael Carstairs, a former ship captain and now a neighbor, swears by him, told me he helped him solve a mystery down near St. Austell and saved his hide as well. You’ll like him—his name is Flash Savory.”

“Flash, I assume, refers to the speed with which he picked pockets?”

“I would imagine so.”

She looked back out over the sea. “Dr. Treath was very fond of my aunt.”

“Yes, when I rode to see him immediately after I found your aunt, he was in shock, his grief palpable. I felt very sorry for him. His sister, Bess, has been taking very good care of him, I hear.”

“Here’s something you’ll not credit. Bennett Penrose told me my aunt was a strumpet and that she’d probably even had Mr. Brogan for a lover so he’d cook up a fake will.”

“A wastrel’s disappointment. Do you think he’ll cause trouble?”

“I don’t know. Right now he simply can’t credit what Aunt Eleanor has requested that he and I do together.”

“And what is that?”

“We’re to be the trustees of Scrilady Hall, a refuge for pregnant unwed girls.”

“Oh my God.”
He stared down at her, both appalled and fascinated.

“Well, yes, it’s difficult, but there it is. There are currently three girls in this condition, living in St. Agnes, under the vicar’s eye.”

“I’ll wager that old fool thinks they’ll go out and corrupt the village.”

“I haven’t yet met Mr. Plumberry. Is he truly a fool?”

“You should have heard his eulogy for your aunt. If there were ghosts, then your aunt will come back and give him endless grief. He said things like… ‘Even though she was a lady, she was still an endearing creature. Even though she took in loose and worthless females, she still had a kindness that couldn’t be dismissed.”’

“I will stuff his scepter down his throat.”

To North’s surprise, he laughed. “The scepter is quite large.”

“It sounds like his mouth is even larger.”

“I still can’t get over your aunt asking you—who are barely nineteen—to be in charge of pregnant girls.”

“Evidently they’re not just any pregnant unwed girls. They’re girls who were seduced or raped by their employers. Girls with no father or brother to protect them are very vulnerable, North. And when the family is poor, I imagine protection is but a word bandied about, with no real meaning.”

“A lady surely shouldn’t know this side of life.”

“Why ever not? Aunt Ellie did. She helped. I’ll try to help too. There’s little enough any one person can do, unfortunately. I doubt I’ll be able to count much on Bennett.”

He sighed, raised his hand, then lowered it. “You are so very young, Caroline.”

She grinned at that. “Come now, North, nineteen is a grand old age. I was told often enough by Mrs. Tailstrop—she was my nominal chaperon at Honeymead Manor—that a girl who reached my advanced years was very nearly on the shelf and it was fortunate I had money to make myself more acceptable.”

“Shelf—what an odd word.”

“It is, isn’t it? Should I feel like a jar of preserves, perhaps? Or a poultry dish? Or perhaps an oatmeal bowl?”

“Well, forget that nonsense. You’re just fine as you are, quite acceptable.”

“How old are you, North?”

“Twenty-five.”

“Goodness, you are indeed on that infamous shelf.”

“It doesn’t apply to men.”

“That seems hardly fair, does it? But I suppose it does make some sense. I’ve noticed that men appear to need more seasoning than women do. Poor Owen, he’s but two years younger than you, yet I would say he needs many more years of ripening to make him remotely acceptable. You, my lord, on the other hand, are just right.”

“My seasonings are all at the right levels?”

“Yes, and like a summer peach, you’re of a perfect ripeness.”

He smiled at her but didn’t say anything, just stood shoulder to shoulder with her and looked out over the Irish Sea for a good long time. Finally, he said, not turning to look at her, “Look to your left down the coast. That’s St. Ives with all the bright cottages climbing up the cliffs and all the fishing boats there in the harbor. At low tide, the boats are sitting on wet sand. It’s a strange sight. Beyond is Trevose Head. Here on the north coast, everything is rugged and savage, any trees that survive are bowed and stunted from the harsh storm winds off the Irish Sea. It’s very different from the southern coast, where you can sit beneath a palm tree, enjoy a balmy breeze, and read poetry to your ladylove.” He paused a moment, then said thoughtfully, “I don’t recall having spoken like this to a female in a very long time. Other than exchanging inane remarks about the weather, taking her to—well, never mind that. What I mean is that somehow, for whatever reason, I seem to talk to you, and it’s easy and pleasurable. Actually, I haven’t smiled with a female in a very long time either. There was the Duchess, of course—she’s my friend Marcus Wyndham’s new wife, and a very fine woman—but even with her—”
He broke off, shaking his head, obviously, at least to her, very confused and uncertain about himself. “You’re different, I suppose.”

“I don’t understand. You never acted as though you didn’t want to be around me. I thought you quite witty from the moment I met you. Then you added kindness. And you’re a very handsome man, North. Don’t you like women?”

He looked momentarily shocked, then realized she had no idea what she’d intimated. It didn’t occur to him to soften what was the truth for him. “Women are vital, but quite unnecessary for a man’s daily contentment.”

“That sounded like a litany, something drummed into your head from your earliest boyhood. So you don’t like women. Bennett said you have a bad reputation, that you were dark and brooding and dangerous, but still took your pleasure with local maidens whenever it pleased you to do so.”

“What a fool this Penrose fellow must be. Remind me to plant my fivers squarely in his paltry mouth when I meet him. Unlike poor Owen, does this one have a chin? Just a small one, huh? Now, about women. I like women well enough. As I said, they’re vital. A man must have a woman to, ah, ease himself.”

“That sounds very odd, North. It sounds like you think all women are alike, that they’re all interchangeable. Does that mean that I should think of you the same way I think of Mr. Ffalkes or poor Owen or that sniveling Bennett, whose character would improve if he were smacked every day?”