The Nightingale Legacy (46 page)

Caroline had hated the service from the moment of hearing that tidbit.

“It’s cold,” she said to him as he gently placed the
service on a table and carried it next to her chair.

“It’s beginning to rain now. I dislike his lordship being out in such weather.”

“So do I. I should be with him. I would keep him dry. I don’t wish him to become ill.”

If Coombe thought that was rather illogical, he kept it to himself.

She sipped at her tea, then said, “Don’t go just yet, Coombe, if you don’t mind. Tell me, do you have any idea about who would have hidden the gold armlet in that old clock?”

“Not a clue, my lady. I asked both Mr. Tregeagle and Mr. Polgrain, but they are as mystified as I am, a circumstance none of us relishes.”

“If it was North’s great-grandfather, then why did he do it? Surely it would prove his theory about King Mark, at least an actual, quite tangible golden armlet with
REX
engraved on it would make his theory a bit more palatable. No, it makes no sense at all. It must have been inside the clock for years and years. None of the Nightingale men wrote about it, just North’s great-grandfather. I do hate mysteries.”

“Actually, my lady, there are more important things on my mind at present. I told his lordship, and now I will tell you, that the Plumberry servant was indeed here that fateful day when the vicious note was left in your bedchamber. However, to the best of Polgrain’s memory, the servant never left the kitchen. Indeed, the servant is a female sort of servant, a spinster named Ida, and enamored with Mr. Polgrain, thus causing him acute embarrassment as well as making him quite distracted.”

“In short, the female sort of Plumberry servant could have enjoyed tea in the drawing room and Polgrain wouldn’t have noticed.”

“I fear it is possible.”

“Oh, all right. As best as I can remember, the only people who didn’t visit us that day were the Carstairses.”

“Ah, but that fellow Flash Savory did. I don’t trust him, my lady. He’s too handsome, altogether too cocky, if you know what I mean.”

“That’s a theory I hadn’t thought of. I think Flash is safe, Coombe, but then again, who knows? He was here to see his lordship, and probably Miss Evelyn.”

“So the wind blows in that direction, does it?”

“The wind is always blowing. Thank God it blew his lordship to Dorchester to find me.”

“Once I would have said it was a foul wind, my lady, that blew him anywhere near you, but perhaps now, the wind that is responsible for you being here isn’t all that noxious, just a bit irregular.”

“Thank you, I think.” Caroline took a final sip of tea and rose. “I think I’ll snuggle under all those wonderful blankets Tregeagle spread on his lordship’s bed. You should retire as well, Coombe. We have no idea when his lordship will return, curse his hide.”

Coombe drew himself to his fullest height, which was still below Caroline’s eye level. “I am not carrying the Nightingale heir, my lady, thus, I will await his lordship’s return and have a brandy snifter warmed for him.”

She rather fancied a snifter of good smuggled French brandy rather than the bitter tea she’d just consumed, but she could just imagine Coombe’s reaction to a pregnant lady drinking spirits.

“Is Miss Marie feeling more the thing?”

“Aye, it’s just a little stuffy nose and a mite of a cough. Lady Cecilia, however, won’t leave her, as you know. She did tell me to bid you good night for her. I imagine she and Miss Marie both will be downstairs tomorrow.”

She was whistling as she walked up the staircase. She looked once at the empty wall space she’d cleared of one of North’s father’s paintings, the one where he’d looked so sour, so malevolent, he could have been the Devil’s right hand. It would one day soon hold Cecilia Nightingale’s portrait. And also a portrait of Marie, with North. Yes, it would be proof for all eternity that a Nightingale wife was faithful and loyal to her husband.

She felt exhaustion weigh her down. She felt as heavy as the statue of the god Mercury that stood in a deep niche at the head of the stairs standing on the toes of his winged feet. Each step she took became more of a chore. She shook her head and frowned at herself. The babe was making her tire more easily. She didn’t like it a bit.

She was nearly trembling with the immense fatigue when she reached the master bedchamber. Even turning the doorknob was a mighty effort. She thought about calling one of the maids to help her undress, but decided it was too late. There was a nice fire set in the bedchamber, blazing brightly, casting shadows in the dim corners of the huge room, and she managed to make herself walk to it. She stretched out her hands to warm them. She looked at her hands. They seemed to fade even as she watched them. Lighter and lighter they became, the pale blue lines beneath her flesh brightening, then they too became vague and insubstantial as her hands themselves, like the shadows flickering in the corners, or maybe it was simply the firelight that was making her hands look so very strange to her.

Something wasn’t right. She turned slowly at the very soft sound coming from behind her. She saw nothing, but she was so tired, her legs so weak, she could barely stand, much less investigate the likely mouse that was scurrying about in the far corner of the room. She took the two steps to the wing chair and clung to its back. Again, there was a soft
rustling noise and it was coming closer now, just over there, next to the Chinese screen she never used because when she bathed North invariably turned up, all wicked smiles and wandering hands.

She stilled, trying to make herself pay attention. She was so bloody tired. There it was again, that silly sound that probably wasn’t anything really, just something out of her imagination, woven there by her fatigue. Yes, that was it.

She slowly turned back to face the fireplace. The flames were dancing like the Cornish piskeys now, scampering and waving to and fro, always changing, shifting, their heat reaching out to her but she couldn’t feel it. She raised her hand to her face, or she tried to. Her arm dropped to her side. She was too overwhelmed by fatigue to move.

The noise came again, but she didn’t have the strength to turn. It was closer now and she knew it. She was now just simply waiting for it. Like a rabbit looking down a hunter’s gun, she thought, just standing here, waiting for that noise to come and get her.

How could a noise hurt her?

There was a soft murmuring beside her. She whispered, “What is happening? What is it?”

Soft sibilant murmurs came close to her ear, meaningless sounds, just nothing, really. She would have sworn that fingertips lightly brushed her hair. “You’re a whore,” that sweet dreamlike voice said. “A whore and you’ll die now, just like the other whores.”

“No,” she said. Her mouth was dry; it hurt to say that simple word. “No,” she said again. She felt arms close about her. She breathed in an elusive scent, then ever so gently, she was lowered to the floor. At last, for an instant, she felt the blessed heat of the fireplace, then it was gone and there was only coldness.

“North,” she said, then her head fell to the side and she said nothing more.

The wind was howling. There were swirling grains of sand in the air; the taste of salt was strong.

Without really realizing what she was doing, Caroline huddled down into the velvet cloak, then wondered why she was wearing it. Surely she hadn’t come for a walk without wearing something, but she couldn’t remember, couldn’t seem to grasp preparing to come for a walk.

It was dark. There was a quarter moon high in the sky to her left. Dear God, it hurt to open her eyes, but she did and she saw that moon, tasted the salt from the sea on her dry lips, and felt the bone-deep cold. She shivered then and came fully awake. She was tucked as far as possible underneath the jutting ledge of a large black rock. She knew where that rock was. It was very close to the cliff at St. Agnes Head. She knew too how she’d gotten there. Someone had drugged the tea. Someone had come to the bedchamber and made those odd rustling noises, then whispered in her ear that she was a whore and she was going to die, and then that someone had carried her away from Mount Hawke and brought her here.

What someone?

She stretched about, realizing her hands were bound behind her back, her ankles bound as well. She was leaning back, the main force of the wind off her, but the cold was hard and deep.

Where was that someone?

She was quite alone.

She knew terror that froze her brain and numbed her body. She saw her mother then, quite clearly: her beloved face, her green eyes bright with laughter, eyes just the same color green as Caroline’s, but then her mother’s face faded
away and left only the memory of it. She’d not remembered that her mother’s eyes were green. “Mother,” she whispered. “Mother.”

She was alone in the dark of the night, the howling wind dinning around her. Surely it was a man who had brought her here, a man who had access to Mount Hawke.

Coombe? He’d come back, all smiles and sheepish looks, bringing with him North’s mother and sister, all to make him look like a saint, a reformed character, a man of conscience, to make all of them forget that he’d lied about Caroline meeting her supposed lover, Dr. Treath, that he’d possibly poisoned the oxtail soup that had made poor Alice so ill.

She heard a low moaning sound, close, too close. She huddled in on herself, wanting to escape it, knowing it was frightening, and then she realized it was coming from her, from deep within her, and the terror was now a part of her. It was over for her. She’d found North, but now after only months he would be alone again. No, no, he had his mother now and his sister. He wouldn’t become a brooding dark man again who didn’t laugh or jest.

She didn’t want North to laugh without her. She was selfish, but there it was. She didn’t want to just sit here and wait for the someone to come and stab her and push her off the cliff. She didn’t want to die.

She felt clearheaded for the first time. She didn’t feel much hope but she didn’t feel like rolling over and simply waiting for the someone to come and kill her. She tested the rope wrapped around her wrists. It was secure. She tried to pull her ankles apart. There was only about six inches leeway, not enough to run, barely enough to hobble along.

All right, then, if she wasn’t just going to give up, she had to do something. She felt the edges of the huge black outcropping rock. Ah, yes, there was nothing but sharp
edges; she just prayed they were sharp enough.

She realized then that her hands were bare and they were cold, almost too cold now, and soon they would be numb. So her attacker had wrapped her cloak around her, but pulled no mittens on her hands. That wouldn’t be so bad, she thought, as she began to rub the rope vigorously against a sharp edge. Then she wouldn’t feel the pain, and she knew that was coming.

She gritted her teeth and sawed back and forth.

A black roiling cloud crashed against another, and the two of them covered the moon. It was terrifying, that complete, utter blackness. It seemed colder, the wind seemed louder. She could clearly hear the maddened waves crashing against the rocks at the base of St. Agnes Head, sending their freezing spray upward nearly halfway to the top of the cliff.

Move, dammit. She sawed faster. She felt stickiness and knew it was her blood. At least she felt it. That was something. She was breathless, with the pain from her hands, with the cold, piercing sharpness in her lungs. It hurt to breathe. She stopped a moment, drew a deep breath, and gently tugged at the rope.

It was loose.

She wanted to weep with the relief of it, the hope of it.

She went back to work. Soon the rope snapped and she was free. She brought her hands in front of her and stared down at them. They were red, abraded, and the outline of the rope was clear on her wrists. It didn’t matter. She was free and she was still alive. She quickly freed her ankles. When she scrambled to her feet she promptly collapsed.

Weak, she thought, she was too cold and too weak. She frantically rubbed her legs, her feet. Sharp stabs of pain shot through her legs. She ignored it as best she could.

She rose again, more slowly this time, hanging on to the
rock. She didn’t fall this time. She took a step, then another, and another.

It was then she heard a horse coming. Actually, she felt the pounding of the horse’s hooves rather than heard it. He’d come for her. She wouldn’t just stand here and watch him come.

The cliffs were barren. What to do?

The beach, she thought, and picked up her cloak and skirts and ran northward along the cliff edge toward the beach path, only another fifty or so feet ahead. She would find a weapon on the beach, a rock or a piece of heavy driftwood. She would be able to hide against the base of the cliff at the back of the beach. The killer would have to walk down the steep path and that would give her time to plan, time to find a weapon, the chance to see who he was. Perhaps she would be able to take him by surprise.

She heard a shout. She heard a cry of sheer fury, then a string of curses, wafted away in the wind, that same wind that was deep inside her now, for she was gasping for breath, a stitch in her side, doubling her over. But she was nearly there, nearly to the cliff path.

The horse was coming closer. She could hear the shouts now, the curses, hear them blur and become indistinct. The wind was becoming stronger. No wonder there were no trees here. They would never survive this wind.

Her babe. Her hands went to her belly, as if holding her hands there would protect the child. She nearly lost her balance, flung her arms out to steady herself, then nearly plummeted down the cliff path. She caught herself, skidding to a stop sideways, sending a spay of rocks and dirt flying from beneath her feet.

She righted herself, stood there a moment, panting, listening. The horse was coming closer. Soon the man would
be just above her, looking down, then climbing down after her. She had to hurry.

She skidded, ran, several times nearly going headfirst, but she had to be reckless, she had to or she could just sit down on the path and wait to die. Who was the man?