The Taste of Innocence (54 page)

By the time they broke off for a late-morning ale supplied by the Crowcombe innkeeper, he’d learned more about the problems facing the local people, the whys and wherefores, than he had from hours of listening to their masters.

Leaning on the rake, his coat tossed over the nearby fence, he quaffed the ale, then blotted his brow with his sleeve. The day was cool but fine, with the scent of spring dancing on the wind.

He glanced around at the men; all had accepted his authority without question—more, they’d looked for it. To them it was right and proper that he, a Morwellan, an earl of Meredith, should be there, giving them orders, taking responsibility. That was how local communities worked.

Yet he hadn’t been there, not for years, and if it hadn’t been for Sarah, he wouldn’t be there now. Without his connection through her, dealing with the ruin would have been her father’s responsibility, and at his age he would have sent one of his senior workers; definitely not the same thing.

The Cynsters lay far to the south; the area around here looked to Meredith for their lead, and he was not only the earl but significantly younger and more bodily able than most of his neighbors.

His place was here, among these people. Being available to them, keeping an ear to the soil so he knew what troubled them.

His responsibility lay here, not in London.

What truly surprised him was how well that glove fitted, how comfortable he felt in the role.

Duty had always featured highly in his life, but he hadn’t before thought much of this facet. Yet he’d embraced one new aspect in his life, and was actively changing said life to accommodate it. Perhaps this was another aspect that—in light of that other—would now fit better. Better than the life he’d thought he and his perfect wife would live, mostly in London, cut off from what he now realized was an essential part of him, of who he really was, of the man he now wanted to be.

“M’lord?”

He turned to see one of the older men beckoning.

“We’ve found a section of the fence that’s burned through—looks like burning thatch landed on it. Can you come and say what you want us to do?”

Charlie straightened, laid aside the rake, and followed the man around the building.

A little after noon, Malcolm Sinclair, garbed in an elegant morning coat, tight buckskin breeches, and spotless linen, every inch the sophisticated London gentleman, strolled the short distance from his front gate into Crowcombe village proper.

Halting on the stone stoop of the local solicitor’s office, he paused. He rarely used local people as his tools, but in this instance, using Skeggs seemed both appropriate and wise.

Deliberately turning, he looked up at the broad shelf of land above the village—at the black, still smoking ruin of Quilley Farm. He considered the sight, debating whether some might think it a fitting symbol for the end of his ambitions.

After a moment, he turned and, opening Skeggs’s door, calmly went inside.

Sarah didn’t get a chance to write to the bishop until early afternoon, when they finally got all six babies fed and settled for their nap. She found the small, tiny, perfect people utterly fascinating—far more than she had a mere few weeks ago.

That, presumably, was another sign of her likely condition. She wasn’t sure…yet she hoped. Prayed. That, she felt, would be the crowning glory, the final perfect piece in her newly constructed life. But she wanted to be sure before she told anyone. Even Charlie.

Especially Charlie.

At their wedding she’d seen the look in his eyes when Dillon and Gerrard had spoken of their sons; she didn’t need to wonder what his reaction to her carrying his child would be. But because she knew how much it would mean to him, she had to be sure. Absolutely sure.

Her sitting room having been temporarily commandeered as a sorting room for linens, she took refuge in Charlie’s library; pulling up the large chair to the desk, she selected a pen from the set he kept nicely sharpened.

She found paper and ink, then settled to her task. As she’d prophesied, finding acceptable phrases with which to break her news was not a simple matter, but when the clock next chimed the hour, she’d achieved what she considered a satisfactory result. Sealing the missive with Charlie’s seal, she laid it on the blotter for him to frank.

A tap fell on the door; she looked up as it opened and Crisp glanced in.

“Ah—there you are, ma’am. A note from Mr. Sinclair, brought by one of the lads from Crowcombe.”

“Thank you, Crisp.” Sarah lifted the sealed note from his salver.

“The boy said no reply was expected, ma’am.” Crisp bowed and withdrew.

Hunting out Charlie’s letter knife, Sarah broke the seal and unfolded the single sheet.

“Oh! How wonderful!” Sinclair had written that he’d found her aunt’s diary—in “the most surprising place.” Sarah wondered where it had been, then quickly read on.

Unfortunately, Sinclair wrote, he had to leave on urgent business, and given the press of errands he had to complete before he left, he couldn’t allow himself the luxury of calling on her to place it in her hands. However, he wondered if she would have time to ride out and meet with him—he had promised himself that he wouldn’t leave the area before he’d taken in the famous view from the bridge across Will’s Neck falls. He would be passing that way at three o’clock—if she could meet him there at that time, he would hand over the diary and explain where he’d found it.

Alternatively, if she was unable to meet him, he would return the diary when he came back to the area, although he couldn’t say when that would be. Given its intrinsic value as well as its nostalgic value to her, he was reluctant to entrust its delivery to other hands.

Sarah glanced at the clock. It was fifteen minutes past two o’clock—plenty of time for her to change and ride up to the falls.

She wanted the diary, wanted to hear where he had found it, and with the taint of smoke still lingering in her lungs, the fresh air and exercise would do her good.

One of the easier decisions she’d had to make that day. Rising, she headed for the door to give orders for Blacktail to be saddled while she changed into her riding habit.

Twenty minutes later, Charlie was organizing a group of men with grapples and lines, testing the stability of the walls still standing, when a lad from Crowcombe village approached.

“Message, m’lord.” The boy tugged at his cap and proffered a folded and sealed sheet. “From Mr. Sinclair. Him as is staying at Finley House.”

Charlie accepted the letter. Hunting in his pocket, he found a coin for the lad and dismissed him.

He glanced at the men, but they knew what they were doing. Stepping back, he leaned against the fence, broke Malcolm’s seal, spread open the sheet, and read.

All animation leached from his face.

Devoid of salutation, Malcolm’s message was blunt.

I will shortly have your wife. As you read these words, she’s riding up the track to the bridge over Will’s Neck falls. If you wish to see her again you will do precisely as I ask. Don’t hesitate, don’t think—most important don’t imagine that you understand what I have planned. Don’t try to organize anything, don’t attempt to raise any alarm. Do remember that there is a direct line of sight between the bridge and Quilley Farm—I am presently watching you through a spyglass.

Leave the farm and ride to the bridge. Do as I say, and fair Sarah will still be yours, entirely unharmed, by the end of the day.

Act, and act now—or you will lose her.

We’ll be waiting for you on the bridge over the falls.

Charlie stared, unseeing, the black lines dancing before his eyes.

Icy dread welled within him; it coalesced, closing like a fist about his heart. He’d never felt so cold in his life. So chilled.

But he knew what he had to do. Precisely as Malcolm asked.

Drawing in a huge breath, straining against the iron vise locked about his lungs, he remained still, outwardly calm, and forced himself to consider…

But there were no alternatives. No one he could contact, no one near he could call on for help with this.

Especially as he knew Malcolm Sinclair didn’t bluff.

Stuffing the note in his pocket, he walked off, heading for where Storm was tied. As if pressed for time, he swung back and from a distance called to Kennett, “I’ve been called away—I have to go. I’ll try to get back later—until I do, you’re in charge.”

Kennett’s unconcerned, laconic wave would make it clear to any watcher that what ever he’d said hadn’t been any warning or alert.

Pulling Storm’s reins free, Charlie swung up to the gray’s back and set off as fast as the gelding could go down the lane to Crowcombe—to the track leading to the bridge over Will’s Neck falls.

21

Sarah walked Blacktail up the last steep stretch of track leading to the bridge over Will’s Neck falls. She didn’t hurry; she was sure she’d be in time. Swaying with Blacktail’s gait, she drank in the solitude of the upper reaches of the hills, punctuated by occasional glimpses of lush green valleys and the sparkle of the distant sea caught through breaks in the trees bordering the track.

The morning’s clouds had dispersed, letting sunshine wash the land. With each breath of cool, clean air came the promise of spring, and more, of new beginnings.

Sarah’s lips lifted; determination and confidence thrummed steadily through her. The orphanage building might be gone, but they’d all survived and would only grow stronger and better for the trial.

She and Charlie had found their way through the initial difficulties in their marriage—and they, too, were stronger for it, growing more so with each passing day because of the testing times.

A sense of peace and future purpose had sunk deep into her bones by the time she reached the clearing where horses were usually tethered while people went to see the views from the bridge.

A tall black horse bearing a gentleman’s saddle stood patiently waiting; Sarah tied Blacktail to a branch farther along the clearing, then, sweeping up the trailing skirts of her riding habit, walked on along the narrowing track.

The bridge, spanning the sharp, knife-slash of gorge down which the falls tumbled, lay around the next bend. It was possible to ride across it and on along the track coming up from the other side, but the track led nowhere other than to the bridge; most people came to see the view, then rode back the same way they’d come up.

She rounded the bend and there was the bridge—four yards of wooden planks lashed together and supported by stout ropes slung between massive wooden piers sunk into the rocky banks on either side—with Malcolm waiting, hands lightly braced on the rope handrail, looking down the gorge to the valley far below.

He heard her footsteps and turned; smiling, he raised one hand. The silver cover of Edith’s diary flashed. Delighted, Sarah smiled back, then gave her attention to the short slope leading down to the bridge.

Because it was slung, the surface of the bridge was lower than the banks. Horses could manage the steep connecting slope with ease, but when, as it almost always was, the area was damp, the descent was more tricky for humans. Luckily, someone had placed rough-cut stones to form a set of deep steps along one side of the slope; the train of her habit looped over one arm, Sarah carefully made her way down them.

The bridge was four paces long, but barely one wide; Malcolm was standing just beyond the center where the views were best. Stepping down onto the planks, Sarah felt them give a little, felt the bridge sway more than she’d expected, but it steadied immediately; perhaps it was her balance. Did pregnancy make one giddy?

Or perhaps it was the almost disorienting effect of the incredible roar surging up from the water raging and tumbling beneath the bridge. Swollen by the recent thaw, the falls were in full spate; the water was a living raging beast, gushing, crashing, leaping, savagely hurtling down the steep chasm of the rock-strewn cleft the bridge spanned.

Every now and then, a cloud of fine spume gusted high enough to envelop the bridge.

Malcolm was waiting, watching her with one of his nicer smiles on his lips—one she recognized as genuine. He was very like Charlie with his ability to charm, but she’d learned some time ago to tell truth from fiction. Smiling equally genuinely in reply, she joined him.

“Thank you for coming.” He had to bend his head and lean close for her to hear over the thunder of the falls. He handed her Edith’s diary.

Sarah took it, turning it in her hands, then quickly flipping through the pages. It appeared completely undamaged. “Where did you find it?”

She looked up at Malcolm’s face.

He met her eyes. His smile had faded, leaving a sincere but serious expression in its wake. “It was in the drawer of the side table in the library at Finley House.”

“How…” She broke off, frowning. “Finley House—isn’t that where you’re staying?”

“Yes. I put it there.”

He made the statement so baldly, she still wasn’t sure she understood. “You took it from the Park…” She suddenly remembered he’d called on the day she’d discovered the diary missing. He’d left her in the rose garden, having earlier left Charlie in the library, and had walked back to the stables via the terrace—past the open French doors of her sitting room.