Lady Anne 02 - Revenge of the Barbary Ghost, page 16
As they rattled hither and yon, down valleys and up hills, across the countryside, Pamela having given Sanderson directions as they mounted, both women were silent, lost in their own thoughts. Perhaps too little sleep left her vulnerable, but Anne was melancholy as she thought of her brother. Many years before she had been the dependent, and her big brother was her protector from the bullying of a gang of vagabond gypsy children who taunted her for her timidity and small stature. Dear Jamey had struck the biggest boy, and sent them all running, then had carried her home on his back.
She’d never forget him coming to her rescue, her big, brave brother, but all he got for it at home was punishment. Of course, they had only been so far from Harecross Hall because of his wandering ways, but she had looked up to him then, and loved him still. Farfield Farm would be among her first visits when she returned home, to Kent.
“What is there between you and Lord Darkefell?” Pamela said, suddenly.
“I beg your pardon?” Anne asked, startled out of her reverie.
“Anne, you know what I mean. Please, just talk to me about something,” she said, her words jumbled and hurried, “for I cannot stop thinking of Marcus, the last time I saw him, as he hauled me to safety and then went back … back to the beach.” Her voice broke and she stared out the window at the countryside. She swiped a tear out of her eye and cleared her throat. “Just talk to me of anything … your dreams, your hopes, for I have so few of my own right now.”
Anne searched her mind for something to take her friend away from her troubles, but maybe her own troubles, as mild as they were compared to Pamela’s, would do. “I don’t know what to do about Darkefell. He’s followed me all the way here even after I rejected his proposal. What kind of man would do that after having been snubbed most firmly?”
“A man in love?” Pam said, with a ghost of a smile in the dim interior of the enclosed carriage. “Perhaps he loves you, my dear.”
“But how? Why? I’ve been so rude to him.”
“That must be a novelty to the man. I cannot imagine any other woman has ever been rude to him. He is utterly gorgeous, as you must know if you have eyes, and charming. Rich. Titled. I’d marry him myself if I had half the chance, but he has eyes for no one but you.”
“What? You would marry him?”
“Good heavens,” Pam said, staring at Anne. “Of course I would. I have flung my bonnet at him many times, my dear, but he fails to notice anyone but you.”
A thrill ran down her back, and Anne had to admit—to herself only—that the power of that thought excited her, that he loved her so devotedly. But God forfend that she become one of those ladies who exerted power over a man just because she could! Some women, denied any kind of authority in the world at large, satisfied their yearning for command by becoming household tyrants, petty despots, with a devoted husband their first subject.
Not that she thought Darkefell would ever become one of those henpecked men, a slave to his wife’s dictatorship. He was not the kind to be a willing servant to feminine whimsy. “It’s such a close bond, Pam,” she reflected, staring down at her gloves. “Marriage would mean he would own me, body and soul.”
“Stop being a dramatist, Anne. The man is besotted with you—”
“Even if that’s true,” Anne said, interrupting her, looking up and staring at her friend, “that besottedness could end in a fortnight, but I’d be tied to him forever. What then?”
“Then you would be rich and titled and comfortable for the rest of your life.” Pamela’s voice was clogged by unshed tears, the tone dark with animosity. She laid her forehead against the glass carriage window. “Is that not enough for you?”
Anne stared at her friend’s pale face in profile; her expression was icy and bitter. There was so much she didn’t know about Pamela, and the recent revelations had pointed that up brilliantly. “Pam, I’m sorry for your financial difficulties, but having money does not solve all of your problems, it only leaves others to plague you.”
Her friend shook her head and stared at Anne, her expression twisted with anguish. “How could I expect you to understand? You have a bullying mother who forces you into an engagement you do not want, and poof, your fiancé dies. Poor Reginald, not good enough for you, I’m sure. You yearn for independence, and poof, your grandmother expires, leaving you a fortune, of which you are mistress because of the indulgence of your generous father. You’ll never understand my life.”
Gently, refusing to take offense, Anne said, “I won’t discuss this with you right now, my dear, not while you’re suffering such bereavement. I haven’t forgotten that this is not your first sadness.”
Tears welled in Pamela’s eyes and trickled down her face. “I’m sorry for being rude. I’m just so tired! And we lost two good fellows in that fight.” She mopped her face with a dark-edged handkerchief.
“Oh, Pam, it is such a dangerous game you play!” Anne said, thinking of the lives lost, and the families devastated.
“But we all know the rules, Anne,” she said, a harder edge in her voice. “There is not a man there on either side who does not know the score.” But she sat up straight as the carriage pulled to a halt and gazed out, eagerly. Her tone lighter, brighter, she cried, “I think we’re here!”
They had pulled up to a thatched cottage, a neat but humble abode, and Sanderson opened the door for them and handed them down. Anne followed Pamela, who seemed in a hurry to enter. Her first view of the cottage made her think perhaps her surmise was correct; a mad aunt or crippled parent for whom Pam was responsible now, with Marcus gone? The cottage door opened and a very plump woman holding an armful of what looked like laundry walked out the door and waited.
Pamela moved toward the woman, who set down the bundle. It proved to be a baby, or rather a child, for the little one took a couple of steps before plunking down on the flagged walk.
“Oh!” cried Pam. “He’s walking so much better, just since the other day! Edward, my little darling child!” The infant held up his arms with an excited wail of recognition. Pam lifted him up into her arms and turned toward Anne; finally a smile wreathed her gaunt face. “Anne, this is my Edward, my son. Eddie, can you say Anne?”
“Amamamam,” the little boy cried, waving one pudgy fist in the air.
“Clever boy!” Pam said and hugged the child to her, kissing his forehead as tears streamed down her cheeks. She met Anne’s steady gaze. “This is why I do what I do. I need to create a life for my little boy, my poor fatherless babe.”
Anne gaped, unable to think of a single thing to say, clever or not.
They settled inside, in a tiny snug sitting room, Anne, Pamela and Edward, while Edward’s wet nurse, Mrs. Gorse, retrieved her own baby, Fanny, and set her on the floor beside the little boy. Pamela, in hushed tones, explained to the wet nurse about Marcus’s death. The woman sympathized, then moved off to make tea. She brought a tray, asking if they were all right for a time, as she had baking and laundering to do.
“I’ll look after Edward, Mrs. Gorse, and I’m sure my friend can take care of Fanny for a while, can’t you, Anne?” Pamela asked, with a mischievous grin.
Anne recoiled from the jammy hands of the little girl, a blond-haired charmer with dimples and pudgy fists. “I … I suppose—”
“Good then, I’ll be back in a tic, ma’am,” Mrs. Gorse said to Pam, then disappeared, shouting to her maid-of-all-work to hurry along with the wash.
“Talk to me, Pam,” Anne said, grabbing a cloth from a neat pile of clean laundry, spitting on it, and wiping the child’s grubby hands before the baby could soil the fine fabric of her dress.
“Goodness, you do that very well,” Pamela said, watching her clean the child up and tidy the bows on her dress. “Almost as if you’re ready to be a mother.” Then she sobered, with a doleful sigh. “You knew I was engaged.”
“Yes, I remember. I was so happy for you, and so sad when you wrote about Bernard’s death.” She set the little girl, who appeared to be several months older than Edward, down to roam the room. “Did you marry without telling anyone, then?”
“No, Anne,” Pam said, her cheeks pinkening. “If that was the case, as a respectable widow, Edward would be living with me. No, Bernard and I … we … we anticipated our vows.”
Anne felt her own cheeks heat as she thought of Darkefell’s impassioned kisses and her own temptation to go further, to ask for more, to discover what lay beyond a kiss. She could not think of condemning Pamela, not if she had felt the same way about her Bernard. It was simple to say one should control one’s baser urges, but perhaps without the excessively meddlesome chaperonage she always had, she would have fallen into such trouble. A man as intoxicating as Darkefell, plus time alone, may well have added up to trouble. “And then he died,” Anne murmured softly, imagining her friend’s horror when she discovered the trouble she was in.
Pamela nodded, her eyes swimming in tears. “I was already two months along, and we were going to be married within days. When Bernard died, I … I lost my mind for a while. I moved to this remote cottage, with Marcus’s help, had Edward, found Mrs. Gorse, then … I … I floundered, Anne. I felt like I was drowning in sorrow. It was then, in the depths of my sorrow and illness, that Marcus came to me; I think he was worried that I would destroy myself, if not purposely, then through neglect. He sent me to you, made me go to Harecross Hall, for my own good, he said. And for Edward.”
Anne’s heart ached for all she hadn’t known. She reached over and touched Pamela’s slender hand. “You should have told me the truth! We could have had Edward and Mrs. Gorse with us.”
“No, that was impossible. Mrs. Gorse was already comfortable here, in this cottage. She was a widow before her baby was born, and she cared for Edward so well, I can never thank her adequately. It’s a miracle that Edward still knows I am his mother, she’s been so good to him.”
“But you should have told me,” Anne insisted. “We could have talked, I would have known more how to help.” Fanny toddled up to Anne again and put up her arms. “What does she want?” Anne asked, staring down into the little girl’s huge, round blue eyes.
“She wants you to pick her up,” Pam said, gently, cradling Edward in her arms. The little boy played with her necklace and contentedly patted her cheek.
Anne lifted the child to sit on her lap, and Fanny, in some mysterious baby way, taught Edward to play pat-a-cake. “So this is where you disappeared to so often,” Anne said, of the many times in the last weeks when Pam would be gone all day. She glanced around at the tidy cottage, small, humble, but neat and clean. “And this is what you need money for.”
Pam nodded. “I’ve almost got enough. Edward will be weaned soon, and needs a home, and eventually require schooling. I could have him stay with people until he’s old enough to go to school, but I’ll not lose him like that!” she said, her voice trembling. “He’s all I’ve got. I’m going to go away with him, maybe to Canada. Somewhere where I will not have to explain my life to people, somewhere where nobody knows us, and I can be a widow. Now that Marcus is gone, I have no reason to stay in England, no family at all.”
“Does that mean you intend to go on with the smuggling trade?” Anne asked, horrified.
Pamela nodded. “Just one more successful run, and I’ll have enough. Just one more!”
Her tone sounded almost pleading, and Anne wondered what she was being asked to do … turn a blind eye, certainly, but was there more?
“For Edward,” Pam said, caressing her boy’s silken hair, brushing it off his high forehead and kissing it once. “I’ll not let my son do without.”
“If you’re unsuccessful, Edward may have to do without his mother!” Anne stated, her tone acid. It was one thing for Pam to risk her own life, but knowing she had a dependent, a child who would be left in a foundling home if she died … it seemed selfish. “What if you’re caught? You could be hanged, or transported. Pam, really!”
“I have to risk it,” she said, and hugged her boy close. “I have to.”
Troubled, Anne watched them together, and at long last decided she could not judge Pam harshly. Her own life was so easy, she had no right to take her friend to task for making hard decisions and difficult choices.
A few hours later, after having a midday meal with Edward, they had to leave. Anne was moved to tears by how fiercely the little boy clung to his mother, tears coursing down his chubby face when she said goodbye. But they had to go back to St. Wyllow, and then to Cliff House.
“What I don’t understand,” Pamela said, idly, as they traveled back the way they had come, “is why Puddicombe raided us that night. He was to let us unload our goods in peace that night.”
“Tell me about your arrangement with the man. I cannot imagine what kind of scalawag would take a bribe to turn a blind eye to illegal activity!”
Pamela quickly concealed a smile. “You are such an innocent, my dear Anne, and such an idealist. All men in office are corrupt, one just needs to find what they want.” Her smile turned bitter. “We thought Puddicombe was satisfied with money, but lately …” She turned her face away to the window.
“Lately what? What else did he want, Pam?”
“That foul creature wanted me! Me! He thought I’d become his … his mistress. After all, I’m a fallen woman because I don’t live with the protection of a chaperone.”
“I’m so sorry, my dear!” Anne said. “I’ve often wondered why, for my consequence and protection as a delicate lady, the presence of my darling, daft, dotty Lolly is considered necessary when Mary, my very own Scottish wyvern, who would tear the throat from anyone who threatened me with dishonor, is not thought sufficient. An older lady, spinster in her own right, is more fit to protect me when my fiercely loyal papist maid supposedly cannot?”
“Of course, it has nothing to do with the real situation, it’s all how things look,” Pam said, bitterly. “Marcus would have killed anyone who did that to me. He would have …” She trailed off, her face pallid, all the color she had gained from seeing her son drained away.
“What is it, Pam?”
“Do you think …? No. No, it’s not possible.”
“Are you asking if I think Puddicombe could have killed Marcus? That perhaps they clashed over you?”
Pam nodded.
Anne thought about it, staring out the window at the gloomy, overcast sky. “Did you tell Marcus what the man was doing, trying to force you into an affair?”
“No! I would never tell Marcus that, for he would certainly have done Puddicombe some damage.”
“Then that’s one thing we ought to investigate. We need to find out how much Marcus truly knew of Puddicombe’s treatment of you. It could explain why your brother went back down to the beach that night.”
Pam, with tears standing in her eyes, reached out for Anne’s hand and said, “Will you help me find out who killed poor Marcus?”
“If it is possible to find out, I will,” Anne said, patting her hand and releasing it. “But I think we ought to bring Darkefell into this, Pam, for he’s resourceful and intelligent, and—”
“No. Oh, no!” Pam gasped. “He and Marcus didn’t get along, and I couldn’t bear if the marquess knew about … about everything. Please, don’t tell him about my smuggling, and Edward and … and everything.”
“But Pam—”
“No! Please, Anne, don’t,” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Let’s figure this out on our own.”
“All right,” Anne agreed, reluctantly.
St. Wyllow was quiet, except for an unusual number of red-coated army officers. Anne and Pam got down from the carriage and Sanderson took the horses to be fed and lodged, for Anne said she and Pam could walk back to Cliff House. She did not want her carriage standing outside of the Barbary Ghost Inn if they needed to stop there to speak with Darkefell. She had promised him they would, but now she wasn’t sure what to do, with Pam’s injunction on telling him anything.
They strolled about St. Wyllow, while Anne thought things through. There were a few questions she needed to ask, she realized. “Pam,” she said, glancing sideways, “did St. James have a … a lover?”
Pam smiled. “I think so. He was very mysterious about it, but there was a lady in town he would visit.”
Anne thought back to market day, and the look exchanged between St. James and the lady she later learned was Miss Julia Lovell’s chaperone. It seemed a complicated affair, for the young man, Netherton, had apparently attacked St. James at the ball, too, though she hadn’t seen it happen. She stopped walking, and Pam looked back at her, a question in her eyes.
“What is it?”
Anne told her what she was thinking, and Pam agreed it was a promising lead that they could follow up. In the complicated triangle that was St. James, Julia Lovell and John Netherton on one hand, and St. James, Julia Lovell and Julia’s chaperone on the other, there was a situation rife with potential for violence, as that Netherton had already shown toward St. James.
Loud voices broke into their conversation, and Anne glanced around. “It’s coming from the livery stable,” she said. “Whatever is going on?”
The quarrel, for such it proved to be, spilled out from an alleyway beyond the livery to the open green, and Anne, horrified, could see Darkefell at the center of it. Three red-coated officers followed as he stalked away from them.
“C’mon, you coward,” one of the red-coated officers, a fleshy, red-face fellow, cried. “You could attack St. James, why not take us on? We won’t gang up on ye, just one at a time.”
“I will not fight a man with whom I have no quarrel!” Darkefell said, striding across the green.
Anne hurried toward the confrontation, as Darkefell turned to face his tormentors. “Leave him alone,” she cried. “He’s done nothing to you!”
A tall lanky officer laughed out loud. “He’s got a petticoat defender!”
Darkefell’s face turned brick red and his hands balled into fists. He glared over at Anne. “My lady, retreat, if you will.”
