The Marsh Hawk (20 page)

She decided to begin her search for the truth in Simon's dressing room off the bridal chamber, which was, in fact, the master bedchamber. The rooms several doors away that would, as was the custom, ultimately be hers when she returned from their honeymoon.

The chambermaids had already been and gone by the time she reached the suite. Though it was scarcely two in the afternoon, the room was in semidarkness. The rain had ceased, but the storm still generated bilious clouds that imprisoned the sun.

Holding a lighted branch of candles high, she poked her head into the dressing room. The flickering light revealed a large compartment with a definitive masculine presence, from the Turkish carpet in the center of the floor, similar to the one in the bedchamber next door, to the large mahogany armoire casting tall shadows in the corner. A mullioned window separated a matching chiffonier and dressing table, where the usual grooming implements were neatly assembled. Across the way, a horseshoe desk squatted by the hearth, and a small drum table beside the door held smoking tools, and a brandy decanter and glasses. A separate alcove on the east housed a tub, and boot chair, and beyond, Phelps's quarters.

Jenna took a deep breath. More than proving her suspicions, she desperately wanted to refute them. For a moment, as she stood scanning the room in the candlelight, she almost decided to turn and leave and close the door upon the entire mystery. Sadly, she knew that no matter what she discovered, it wouldn't change her love for Simon—only her ability to live with him. If he had done what she feared, she would have to leave him. But the point of no return had passed; she'd crossed the threshold, and so she carried the candle branch to the wardrobe and threw open the thick, carved doors.

Everything seemed in order. Simon's clothes were neatly hung inside. She ran her hand along the collection of frock coats, swallowtail coats, morning, dress, and riding coats, overcoats, and waistcoats. She fingered the assortment of trousers, cord breeches, pantaloons, pants—both loose and tight fitting—and shirts of cambric, linen, and Egyptian cotton for every season and occasion. Disturbing the clothes stirred the exotic scent of Simon's latakia blend laced with whiskey and rum that lingered about them. A draft lifted the aroma toward her nostrils, and she quickly closed the wardrobe doors. That provocative scent infiltrated her resolve and ignited her senses.

The chiffonier was the next target to suffer her scrutiny. One by one she opened the drawers, evaluating the neat piles of breeches, silk stockings, handkerchiefs and neckcloths. Aside from a velvet-lined gun case that held a brace of small flintlock pistols, nothing seemed out of the ordinary there, either.

She moved on to the horseshoe desk. The drawers and cubbyholes held the usual things—parchment, ink, quills, sealing wax, and the familiar scrollwork
R
seal. There were correspondences from the Naval Office, personal account books, and records. But one small drawer above the writing surface was locked. She searched the other drawers for the key but found nothing. Examining the locked drawer, she discovered that it had no keyhole. All at once she remembered a desk in her father's study with such a drawer that was accessed by pressing a button underneath the writing surface that activated a release spring. Bending, she groped beneath the desktop, running her hand along the smooth wood, and her fingers came to rest upon the mechanism that snapped the drawer open. She gave a start even though she expected it.

Holding the candles closer, she peered into the drawer, but all that lay inside was a large brass key on a faded red silk cord. The cord was crimped and open at the top as though it had been untied, suggesting that more than one key belonged on it, but though she searched the other drawers again, she found no other.

Jenna closed the drawer and glanced around the room again. She had overlooked nothing, and a flood of relief brought her posture down. It was accompanied by not a little guilt over her trespass, and she stole back to the bedchamber through the adjoining door and closed it behind her with a gentle hand, as though reverencing a sacrosanct cloister.

Nothing unusual was found during a similar search in that room, either, and she was just about to sink down on the bed and put her fears to sleep until the supper hour, when Molly came to tell her that Robert Nast had come to call.

“So much for not making a habit of it,” Jenna murmured in an undervoice, though she regretted the uncharitable thought the moment it left her lips. Aside from Phelps, the vicar was closest to Simon, after all. Perhaps he could shed some light upon the situation. Engrossed in that possibility, she'd sailed halfway down the stairs before she thought to wonder how he knew she would still be there.

The lamps and candles had been lit in the breakfast room. As bleak as the day was, that was still the cheeriest spot in the house, with the flowers peeking through the garden wall brightening an eerie green darkness that had settled like a pall over the coast.

Watching the vicar fill his plate, Jenna was glad that Mrs. Rees had left the food there after all. He was obviously hungry, and it certainly wouldn't do to let the poor man eat alone. She cut a slab of Cook's round cobbled bread, speared a sliver of smoked salmon, and took her place opposite him at the table, where she poured them each a cup of tea from the fresh pot one of the footmen delivered.

“You picked a dreadful day to call,” she said, taking in the festering sky bearing down upon the landscape through the window. “The storm isn't over, evidently.”

“Simon wanted me to keep . . . eh, to come 'round,” he said, stumbling over the words through a sip from his teacup.

He was about to say “keep an eye on her”—she knew it. Nothing had changed. Simon had taken Phelps, but the vicar had replaced him. She was still under guard. She was almost angry, but she didn't address it.

“You must have seen him earlier today, then,” she probed instead, “or you would have thought we'd gone on to Scotland.”

“Last night, actually, or rather early this morning. He had to pass by the vicarage on his way to the Pillsworths'. It was late, but I was still up, and he was most distressed about having to leave you like that. He asked me to stop by and cheer you up.”

“The Pillsworths',” she puzzled. “His cottagers?”

“One of the families, yes. You met them at the wedding breakfast.”

“I met so many,” she defended. “I fear I shall never remember them all. Do they live far? I would have thought he'd be back by now.”

“Not very. He tells me you two will be leaving for Scotland on Wednesday.”

She nodded. The conversation seemed stilted, strained, not at all the easy flow she had enjoyed between them on his previous visits. Was it her imagination, or was he a jot more paradoxical than usual?

“Robert,” she murmured, “when we spoke of my father last week, you said that the Marsh Hawk doesn't usually . . . that he doesn't brutalize his victims. How do you know that for certain?”

“I myself do not know anything ‘for certain,'” he replied, shifting uneasily in his chair. He shrugged. “It's simply common knowledge, Jenna. The Marsh Hawk's exploits are legendary in these parts.”

“But if he holds people up at gunpoint and steals—”

“Oh, he steals, but only from the very rich. And what he steals does not line his coffers; it finds its way to the needy—the poor disenfranchised who haven't a feather to fly with.”

“You sound as if you condone such a thing.”

“Of course I don't condone it,” he hastened to say. “I'm only trying to explain the man in simple terms. Brutality doesn't appear to be in his nature. He seems more disposed toward spreading the wealth amongst those folk who are down at the heels, in dire need.”

“Suppose he was opposed by one of his victims. Suppose they . . . resisted, as my father did. What then?”

“I cannot presume to get inside the man's head, Jenna,” the vicar said on an audible breath. “I only know that, to my knowledge, he has never harmed anyone.” He cleared his throat. “Yet.”

“Is that why the land guards turn a blind eye, do you think?”

“I don't know that they do.”

“Oh, yes! No attempt was ever made to apprehend the man responsible for my father's death.
None
. Either the man is paying them off, or they're afraid. If he is what you say, a gentleman bandit, some sort of . . . Robin Hood, what have they to fear?”

“Jenna, you have serious issues . . . because of your father,” he said haltingly, “but I sense that there is more to it than what appears on the surface. You haven't mentioned any of this to Simon yet, as I asked you to, have you?”

“No,” she said. “I haven't had the opportunity. There hasn't been time.”

“Something is deeply troubling you. I've known that since our first conversation. You need to confide in Simon. But if not that, I wish you would confide in me. You can, you know; I told you that. Whatever you say will remain between us two. Whatever you tell me in the guise of confessor is protected under canon law. You have my word.”

She pushed her teacup aside and shook her head no. Tears threatened, but she blinked them back, meanwhile toying with a piece of bread on her plate to avoid eye contact. How right he was about such conversations best indulged in over food.

“My father and I were very close, Robert,” she said. “I am lost without him. Someone took him from me on a dark lonely road in south Cornwall. He was traveling at night in order to return from Truro in time for my birthday celebration. Do you remember when I told you that my father had a pistol similar to the one you frightened Rupert with that day out by the tower?”

The vicar nodded. He had lost his color, and his amber eyes were riveted to her.

“My father was carrying the pistol I spoke of the night he was set upon. When the highwayman tried to rob him, he drew it and the bounder took it from him, beat him with it, and then stole it, along with everything Father had on him, and left him for dead. He died in the wee hours on my birthday.”

“Are you certain it was the Marsh Hawk?”

“Our driver seemed certain it was.”

“Did the highwayman identify himself as such?”

“No, but—”

“Jenna, have you any idea how many highwaymen roam this coast? You cannot accuse a man without proof. Why, Simon himself was set upon just two months ago, and shot by a highwayman who was definitely not the Marsh Hawk.”

“W-where . . . did it happen?” she murmured. Paralyzed, she stared. The cold fingers of a chill crept over her scalp, and pinpoints of white light starred her vision.

“Out on the old Lamorna Road.”

“How can you be so certain that it wasn't the Marsh Hawk who shot him, Robert? Did Simon . . . did he recognize the . . . man?”

“Simon said not. He was younger, with a slight build—a newcomer evidently, and quite inept, though his blunder served him well enough for a novice. Simon would have bled to death if it weren't for Phelps, who came on just after. They were traveling together, but Phelps was delayed. His horse had thrown a shoe. Had he been at Simon's side, that highwayman would be dead today. Phelps is an excellent shot. He was Simon's batman while he served under Nelson, you know, and more than once he took it upon himself to step beyond his orderly duties, or Simon wouldn't be here today.”

Jenna's hands were trembling, and she returned the morsel of bread she'd unconsciously been shredding to her plate as crumbs. So it was Phelps she'd heard rustling the brush that night. That being so, the valet was well aware of the situation; he was
part
of it. Her mind reeled back to the morning of the duel and the valet's concern. When he'd warned that it was too soon, it wasn't Simon's leg injury that worried him at all. It was the wound
she
had inflicted. Still, she had to be certain.

“Robert, I noticed that . . . Simon has a fairly recent wound in his shoulder, is that . . .”

The vicar nodded.

“I asked him about it. He wouldn't tell me.”

“Because of your father. He didn't want to remind you. He worships you, Jenna.”

A dry sob died in her throat as she rose from the table, praying her legs wouldn't fail her.

“Forgive me, Robert. I . . . Forgive me,” she murmured, and fled the breakfast room with the words half-uttered before he had a chance to glimpse her tears.

Jenna refused the dinner tray Mrs. Rees sent up to the master bedchamber, and she sent Molly away when the maid came to undress her. Her heart was breaking and her brain was numb. Her worst fears were realized. There wasn't even any comfort in the knowledge that she hadn't committed murder after all. She threw herself across the counterpane on the mahogany four-poster and sobbed herself to sleep.

Her dreams were dark and troubled, of highwaymen garbed in black with smoking pistols drawn. Dreams of the night she'd left the man she loved to die in the dirt of the road just as he had left her father to die. Dreams of liquid sapphire eyes—blue fire—searing her through the holes in a black silk half-mask, and of those same eyes hooded with desire devouring her, quickening her pulse, igniting her passion.

She awoke in the wee hours still dressed in her sprigged muslin afternoon frock. It was wrinkled, the ribbonwork crimped and spoiled. It was doubtful that even a flatiron could save the delicate flowers and leaves that embellished the neckline and framed the décolleté. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore.

The storm had passed over, and a bright wafer moon cast slanted beams of silver light through the windowpanes. Dust motes danced along the shafts. They traveled back and forth as if they had a purpose. Would the night never end? It was the longest she had ever endured, and the loneliest.

Her eyes were nearly swollen shut, and the quilt beneath her face was damp and cold. That was what had awakened her: the cold, wet cloth against the fever in her cheek. Her hair had come down. The ivory combs that had held it in a neat high coil were lost somewhere in the rumpled bedclothes. She didn't bother searching for them.