Lady Anne 02 - Revenge of the Barbary Ghost, page 8
“But when we’re alone.”
“All right. Let’s look into this cave, then get back up to Lolly before she suffers an apoplectic fit.” Holding firmly on to a rocky outcropping, she crept into the mouth of the crevice, to find it was only a few feet deep. But it was certainly worth looking within. There, in a pile on the cave floor, was a coil of rope, and an oilcloth sack. Anne darted forward and from the sack pulled out pantaloons, a white shirt and … she turned, holding up her prize discovery.
“What the devil is that?” Darkefell exclaimed.
She shook the hairy handful. “The Barbary Ghost’s beard and wig!”
They left the pile where it was; there was no point in depriving the ghost of his costume until they knew who it was. They climbed back down to the beach and did a little more searching around, but Anne confessed her weariness, and they climbed back up the cut. Once they were on the bluff once more, Lolly collapsed to her knees and closed her eyes, muttering what Anne suspected were prayers of thanksgiving for her safe return. But Anne strode directly toward the gnarled, hovering tree over the cliff face. Darkefell raced after her and grabbed her arm.
“Slowly, my dear,” he murmured, his mouth twisted in anxiety.
“Darkefell, don’t be tiresome, I’ll be careful.” She neared the cliff edge, while the marquess stayed well back. “This is it!” she crowed. “Darkefell, you must come closer and look!”
When he edged forward she pointed up into the thick piney depths. There, nestled against the trunk and secured with a thick chain, was a pulley, and a coiled rope.
“Part of the mechanism for elevating the pirate ghost. This is how the trick of the floating phantom was done!”
Six
Pamela was pensive, after her daylong excursion. Dinner around the small oak table was subdued without Marcus’s bright banter to enliven it, but he had his duties to his regiment. Lolly did her best to keep a flow of conversation going in the cramped dining room off the sitting room, but it seemed stiff and forced. For her own part, Anne was lost in thought, but her contemplation had little to do with the Barbary Ghost. She was having trouble remembering her objections to Darkefell and his proposal.
After discovering the floating ghost mechanism, she and the marquess had walked and talked, while Lolly returned to Cliff House, needing a restorative pot of tea after such an agitating morning. Darkefell had repeated to Anne his apprehension that Hiram Grover was not dead. The man, who had owned a neighboring estate to Darkefell’s, though he was in the act of selling to the marquess, had been accused of the murder of Cecilia Wainwright, Lydia’s maid. He was seized, but escaped the magistrate’s custody and tried to kill Anne. It was Darkefell who saved her, and in so doing inadvertently sent Grover over the precipice to his doom, in the swirling waters of Staungill Force, a high waterfall on the marquess’s land.
Anne had dismissed his concern at first, but when she looked over at him and saw his furrowed brow, she took it more seriously. They talked at length, and ultimately concluded that if Grover had not died in the fall, he must have been so badly hurt that he would have succumbed to his injuries. There was no proof he was alive, but it would have been gratifying to have positive proof that he was dead.
But any conversation with the marquess left her contemplative. Darkefell had been a puzzle to Anne since the first moment they met. Every time she tried to dismiss him as high-handed or arrogant, he would reveal a side that was unexpectedly thoughtful or sensitive. It was not that she wanted a weeping suitor, or the kind of gentle, poetical lad her friends swooned over. However, if she was ever to marry, her husband must talk to her as a rational human being, and on many occasions, Darkefell did just that. It was unnerving. Just when she decided he could never be the kind of man she should wed, he would do something that showed him in a different light, as one who would suit her in every detail.
The scrape of a knife on china brought her back to the present and the dinner table. Lolly was gazing down at her plate with genteel disgust on her softly wrinkled face.
Pushing an overcooked carrot around her plate, Lolly said, “Miss St. James, I wonder if it would be too much to ask if I could dabble in the kitchen on occasion?”
“Whatever for?” Pamela asked, mechanically sawing through a tough piece of lamb.
“Cooking, you see. I have become accustomed to cooking for myself and others,” she said, “for in my rooms in Bath, we share kitchen facilities.”
Anne felt an arrow of guilt dart into her heart. Lolly had been raised in gentility, and to be sunk to such an extremity as cooking for herself must mean her funds were very low indeed. She dropped her fork. “Oh, Lolly, I didn’t know you were so—” she began.
But Lolly forestalled her, raising one hand and saying, “Shush, Anne, dear, I have found that I quite enjoy cooking, and I’m rather accomplished, if I may say such a thing without sounding too puffed up with conceit. It is immeasurably more pleasing to provide for oneself than to be at the mercy of such a servant as I could afford, some horrid, dirty little drudge who knows nothing of food, nor even rudimentary cleanliness!”
Anne could understand Lolly’s wish to provide food for herself. Mrs. Quintrell’s cooking showed how inept hired cooks could be. Her skills were far below the standards one would expect, and her dishes were barely edible, and then only as a necessity. Even the fresh bounty Anne had ordered delivered to the Cliff House kitchen from local farmers had been so poorly cooked it was nearly inedible. It was a crime against the fresh food. Anne also suspected Mrs. Quintrell took the choice bits home for her family, leaving the rest for Pamela and Marcus. If it was her own household, Anne and Mrs. Quintrell would have had it out, but it was not her place to reprimand the serving staff.
“Satisfy yourself, Miss Broomhall,” Pamela said, with a little worried frown that created two vertical lines between her brows, “but please, please do not offend Mrs. Quintrell! She’s quite capable of leaving in a huff, and I could not do without her and her daughter.”
Kitchen politics, Anne thought, a woman’s province. While men decided international diplomacy, women placated ill-tempered cooks, even ones as slovenly and incompetent as that woman.
“I am very tactful, my dear, and shall tread carefully.” Lolly finally laid her cutlery down, gently, on her plate, a tacit sign that she could not bear to eat another morsel of such ill-cooked provender.
After some preparation, Pamela, Anne and Lolly set out in Anne’s carriage for the evening’s entertainment. Anne’s coach, horse and Sanderson, her surly driver, were stabled and kept in St. Wyllow, while Anne stayed with Pamela, for Cliff House had no suitable carriage house, and the stable was the merest shed, a shamble of a building that tipped sideways. Sanderson had been sent a message that his services would be required that night to take them to the structure just outside of St. Ives, where the officers’ assembly for the town would be held.
Anne and Pamela had already attended some parties and fetes at the regimental headquarters, in the past two weeks, so Anne knew what to expect, however, the hall was, this night, crowded. It was not a building intended for such a throng, being constructed of wood, with a humble step and rather dirty aspect. However, judging from the brilliance of the light shining from within, and the sound, which was a chatter of conversation and high spirits as Anne had never expected to see in such a place, it was enough to cause her some doubt as to what could have drawn so many.
As Sanderson handed them down from the carriage, Anne settled the skirts of her second-best gown, a lovely dark blue French serge fabric with bows of stiff silver lace, and asked, “Did they invite every soul in Cornwall, and Devon too? Are they all here to greet the new colonel?” It appeared, as they entered the hall, that every mother and daughter, and most of the men, from miles around were in attendance. Red coats, usually in the vast majority, made up only a part of the jacket hues, and the ladies were decked in best style, with a jewel-like profusion of colors in glittering array, and even some diamond and ruby necklaces and bracelets in evidence. It made Anne’s blue silk lustring robe anglaise seem too casual for the affair, but Anne knew it was she who was gowned appropriately, and the other ladies who were overdressed.
They stood at the top of the stairs, overlooking the crowded ballroom floor, searching for St. James, until an anxious person pushed them from behind. Anne turned, giving a cold look to the belligerent soul. A slim, angry woman stared boldly at her and said, with a flick of her fan, “Get along with you, now! Move on, I say!” She then turned to a younger girl, whose wrist she firmly held. “Becky, remember your manners. You’re to meet a real live marquess tonight, probably your one and only chance; you must not stammer, you must not tread on his feet, and you must not let your nose dribble unbecomingly. I’ll beat you thoroughly if you disgrace me.”
Pamela bit her lip, the first sign of good humor she had evinced all day. Anne, though happy to see that, murmured, “Darkefell has managed an invitation! How did he do it, and how has his attendance become such common knowledge?”
With great composure, Pamela said, “As I passed by the regimental office today, I stopped and spoke to Colonel Withington, suggesting that as the Marquess of Darkefell was in residence at St. Wyllow it would do the regiment honor to invite him. The colonel is apparently acquainted with the marquess, and thought it a grand notion. Darkefell’s your friend, Anne; I thought it would be only polite.”
Anne glanced grimly around at the company. “Well, that explains the horde of husband-hunting mamas, shelved spinsters, and green girls.”
“I didn’t think you’d mind, Anne,” her friend said, with an anxious glance. “He seems such a good man, and terribly handsome.”
“He’s overbearing, imperious and stubborn,” she said, though in the wake of their conversation that day her conscience prickled.
“Aren’t all men? But he’s also rich as Croesus.” Pamela surged forward with the crowd.
Startled, Anne watched her friend descend to the ballroom floor. She had assumed Pam had Darkefell invited for her sake, but was she really setting her cap at him herself? A twinge of something uncomfortably like jealousy bolted through her. Anne ensured that Lolly was happily settled in a chaperone’s chair, chatting with other middle-aged, lace-capped, gossiping ladies, and caught up with Pamela, who had found her brother.
The military band got up a spritely tune, and Anne and Pam both were beset with requests for dances from officers. Finally paired with Marcus, Anne relaxed, and reflected that just because Darkefell was invited did not mean he would come. He had never seemed, to her, the kind of man who would enjoy a crush like this.
But why did his possible attendance unnerve her so? She had become inured to his presence, she thought, and having spent several hours with him earlier that day, she should be completely uncaring of whether he came or not. But Darkefell could be quite intimidating in his best attire, and with his formal manners in place. It was not that he was forbidding, but the opposite. He was seductively beckoning, enticingly attractive. Would she ever stop noticing his looks? It irritated her that he was so good-looking and she so plain. They were unmatched, like a thoroughbred and a farm horse. Teamed up, they would make a ridiculous sight.
Perhaps that was one of the stumbling blocks to considering his proposal of marriage. As much as she wished it were not so, she feared the ridicule that would inevitably follow if she, a plain woman, were hitched in the matrimonial harness with the gorgeous Marquess of Darkefell. And did she fear his gaze would inevitably wander to the fresh specimens of loveliness that each year were introduced to society? She couldn’t bear it, she just couldn’t bear it, if she wed him and he wandered!
Oh. She took in a deep, shuddering breath. That was a new knot in her tangled feelings toward the Marquess of Darkefell.
“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said,” her dancing partner complained, tweaking her cheek as they came together in the pattern of the dance.
“I beg your pardon.” The dance continued. “St. James,” she said, as they came together once more and began a walking portion of the dance, “when you marry, what shall you be looking for in a wife?”
“Oh-ho, do you mean you are considering my constant offer of marriage, my dear girl? I’m pleased beyond anything. In fact I’m walking on clouds this minute, for you embody the very essence of—”
“Don’t go on like that, St. James,” she said, crossly. “I mean exactly what I say; what are you seeking in a wife?”
“Honestly?”
“Honestly.”
“Well, I would like a wife with a sense of humor. An adequate purse, a sense of style, good manners.” He smiled down at her. “And she should adore me above all others, and forgive me my peccadilloes.”
“Do looks not enter into it?”
“My darling,” he said, with a soft smile, “you are much more attractive than you consider yourself. You’re far too modest.”
Irritated that she was so transparent, she said nothing as they parted in the figure of the dance. When they came together again, she changed the subject. “I’ve been transfixed by all of this turmoil over the smugglers, and the poor excise officer who was killed last night. Did you hear about it?”
“Indeed I did, poor fellow. I hope he didn’t have a young family. Still, it’s the risk any man takes in the pursuit of his duty.”
“I suppose. Women and men have their separate spheres of risk, for women have childbirth, and that is a risky business in itself.”
They parted once more in the pattern of the dance, and Anne glanced around as she lightly touched hands with all the gentlemen down the line. Many of the young women, doomed to be without partners—the dearth of young men was monumental in the face of such a large female presence—stood along the wall staring disconsolately toward the door. It was among them that she first saw the stir. Mechanically floating through her part in the country dance, as she advanced down the line toward him, she spotted Darkefell at the top of the steps that descended into the ballroom; he was stunningly handsome in dark blue silk with a froth of exquisite lace at his throat. But also, she was overjoyed to see, he was accompanied by Mr. Osei Boatin, who stood just behind him, his dark face and glinting glasses giving him away, even though he tried to stay in the shadow of his employer.
The mayor of St. Ives rushed up to the marquess and made his obeisance, then with a sweeping gesture, seemed to offer to introduce him to some of the company. As if in pantomime, Anne could see Darkefell decline, and indicate with a negligent wave someone in the offing.
It was Colonel Sir Henry Withington who finally greeted Darkefell properly, and introduced him around the room. The dance ended, and Anne, suffocating in the crowded warmth of the ballroom, was led back to Lolly by St. James, who stayed to chat with them both.
But Anne could not attend. Where was Darkefell? Would he seek her out? And why did she care so much? She searched her heart. She liked him very much, and it pleased her vanity that he seemed to like her, and had followed her all the way to Cornwall.
He was intent on marriage. There was a part of her that shrieked that she was ungrateful. To have her hand sought by such an eligible man: handsome, wealthy, titled, but beyond that, with a heart worth having, brains, and a troubled goodness that she found intriguing. How could she ever do better than that, if marriage was to be her eventual fate anyway? If she tossed him away, she would never find a suitor so perfect, in the eyes of the world. And perhaps for her own heart.
She set those thoughts away, and greeted Pamela, who, her cheeks warm from the dance, approached, followed by her partner, Captain Carleton. They chatted, the topic of their conversation the raid of the previous night, and the fact that an excise officer being killed might lead to the army being called in to aid the customs officer, Mr. Puddicombe.
“Puddicombe’s here,” Carleton said, with a gesture toward a stalwart fellow watching a young girl, who spoke with a half circle of attentive red-coated officers. “That pretty girl he’s watching is his daughter. It’s said that he’s trying to marry her off to one of the officers. Ever since his wife died a few years ago, he’s been at loose ends what to do with the chit. He even took her to London, it’s rumored. She’s well known among the officers, I may say,” Carleton said, with a smirk.
Pamela laughed, lightly. Her voice brittle, she said, “Where would a man like that get the price of a London Season?”
But Anne gazed at the officer in shock. It was impolite to speak thus of a girl, to say the least—his implication had been sly, but quite clear—and she had judged him more of a gentleman than that. Frostily, she said, “I think, sir, that concerning a young girl who may have only her reputation of which to be proud, you should keep such gossip and implication to yourself, if you would show the colors of a true gentleman.”
His cheeks flamed slightly, and he bowed, silent.
“Ah, you’ve been caught out, Carleton, for the dog you are,” St. James said.
“You’re one to speak, St. James,” the fellow said. “There is your little shadow, the brewer’s daughter.”
St. James glanced around, and made eye contact with a young woman who stood with an amply proportioned lady of middle years. He bowed and smiled. The richly gowned lady looked familiar to Anne, and she realized that it was the woman with whom St. James had shared a look in the market. As St. James excused himself, Anne asked Pamela, “Who are they?”
Pam glanced in the direction Anne indicated. “Ah, Miss Julia Lovell, daughter of the brewer.”
“But who is the woman with her?”
“Her aunt, the wife of a local baronet, Lady something-or-other. Lady Foakes, I think? She’s chaperoning Miss Lovell, I’ve heard.”
St. James had approached and was talking to them both, then he took Miss Lovell’s hand and led her away while the older lady watched, a look of ill-disguised longing on her face. But Anne’s attention was pulled away by the dark, furious expression on the face of another young man, who stood watching Miss Lovell and St. James as they strolled around the perimeter of the room. “And who is that?” Anne asked, about the young man, but Pamela had gone off somewhere.
