The Pretenders (25 page)

Mirabelle and I galloped over the strip of causeway and onto the island. The finer sand on the north side was blowing into the mare’s face and I turned her west, toward the path that would take us to the rocky south shore.

The wind was throwing up salt spray from the water and was howling through the pines that formed the central part of the island. As we galloped along the narrowing beach, a particularly large wave crashed close to the shore, spitting up a cold foamy mist that sprayed Mirabelle and me. Then the wave came churning up onto the beach path, covering the mare’s legs up past her fetlocks. She screamed in fright and reared high in the air. I grabbed on to her neck, but when she came down, she went the other way, arching her back and bucking high. I was totally off-balance, and, after two such bucks, I came off.

I landed on the mixture of sand, gravel, and shells that formed the beach path on this part of the island, and Mirabelle galloped off, back the way we had come.

There was no doubt in my mind that she was on her way home to her stall in the cozy Wakefield stables.

I picked myself up.

I was wet and cold and horseless, but in my mind all I could hear was Lord Bradford’s voice saying over and over and oven
Who is Deborah’s father, Elizabeth? Who is Deborah’s father
?

Even worse came the constant repetition of Mama’s reply: /
don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know
.

What if John Woodly were my father? How could I face the rest of my life, knowing that I was the daughter of a monster like that? How could I be Reeve’s wife? The mother of his children?

Oh God, how could I even
live
?

I trudged on, unseeing, unthinking, along the shore of the island, noticing but not noticing that the water was coming in faster and faster and that the pathway between the water and the cliffs was getting so narrow that it was scarcely a foot wide.

I hardly even noticed that I was getting wetter and wetter. The salt water on my face was mainly from my tears.

At last, at a little distance in front of me, I saw the arched entranceway of Rupert’s Cave. Waves were already washing in through its opening.

For the first time, my misery lifted long enough for me to take a good look at my surroundings.

The cliffs of the south side of the island towered above me to my left. The storm-tossed water of the Channel raged to my right. And as I looked down at the narrow strip of scree upon which I stood, a wave rolled across it. The water withdrew, but within a very few minutes, the pathway would be covered as well, and I would find myself standing in the ocean.

I pushed my wildly tangled hair out of my face and drew a deep, steadying breath. The first truly rational thought I had had since hearing Mama’s confession crossed my brain.
Better get out of here before I drown
.

I turned westward, to retrace my steps.

And that was when I first saw the man on foot who was coming after me.

It took me exactly two seconds to recognize the broad, powerful form of Robert.

I froze.

How could I have been so stupid?

I looked around frantically, searching for someplace I could hide. I was under no illusions about Robert’s intentions in following me here.

He was out to kill me.

I looked up at the cliff above me. Could I climb it?

Not here, I couldn’t. A little bit farther to the west, the cliff was less steep, but here it was a sheer wall of rock. Unfortunately, Robert was to the west of me. To the east, the cliff dropped precipitously into the sea, which crashed around it in foamy fury, making all thoughts of a climb utterly impossible.

A very large wave came rolling out of the sea up onto the tiny path upon which I stood. It struck me in the thigh with enough force to knock me against the cliff wall, then receded in a swirl of foam. Ten seconds later another, stronger wave hit me again.

I couldn’t remain there. I could feel the drag of the undertow and knew that I would be pulled out to sea if I waited much longer.

Robert was still coming steadily forward. The beach near him was not yet underwater, as it was here.

With a horribly sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, I waded through the ever-deepening water toward the entrance to Rupert’s Cave.

Reeve had told me that the cave had been a favorite haunt of smugglers because, even though the entrance was underwater during high tide, deep within it remained dry. It looked to me as if my only hope of surviving both the storm and Robert would be to take refuge within the depths of Rupert’s Cave.

There were two serious problems with this course of action.

The first was that I wasn’t at all sure if the insides of the cave would remain dry in the face of a major storm such as this one.

The second problem was that I was utterly terrified of being trapped in small, dark, enclosed spaces. I had always felt that way, ever since I was a small child.

The thought of spending hours, in the dark, in the remote recesses of a cave, made my breathing double its normal rate, clammy sweat break out all over my body, and my stomach heave. The further thought of being trapped by water coming ever nearer to me and perhaps, eventually, covering me, was enough to make me seriously consider the alternative of tackling Robert.

But it would be too easy for Robert to get away with my murder. All he would have to do would be to hit me over the head and throw me into the sea. The grooms at the stable would vouch for the fact that I had insisted upon taking Mirabelle out in the storm. There would also be the return of the riderless mare to attest to the fact that I had had some sort of mishap.

It would all look so tragic. And Reeve would inevitably think that—somehow—he was to blame for what had happened to me.

I simply couldn’t let Robert get away with killing me. I had to fight to stay alive.

I waded with ever-increasing difficulty through the deepening, storm-roiled water to the entrance to Rupert’s Cave. By now foam was crashing into the cliffs to the east of the cave, and large waves were rolling into the entrance of the cavern itself. I hoped I had not left it until too late, that I would still be able to get inside without being drowned.

I pressed as close to the cliff wall as I could until I had reached the cave. I entered, once again keeping close to the wall, my fingers scrabbling to get a grip on any outcrops of rock I could find.

I looked inward. The cave was pitch-dark.

I shut my eyes and said a prayer.

You can do this, Deborah
, I said to myself.
You have to do this, or Robert will kill you
.

A particularly strong wave knocked me to my knees, and the cold salt water drenched my skirt even higher and trickled inside my riding boots. I kept going, deeper into the cave, deeper into the dark, following the cold, wet, rocky wall with my outspread hands.

The noise of the water at the mouth of the cave increased to a roar as I went deeper.

I strained my ears to hear the sounds of Robert following me, but all I could hear was the roar of water.

Would Robert come after me? Surely the entrance was impassable by now. I thought that he would be far more likely to retreat to where he could climb to the safety of the clifftop. He would come for me when the tide had receded, and the cave was open once more.

Meanwhile, the water within the cavern was growing deeper and deeper. I fought down rising panic as I wound farther and farther into the cliffside. Finally, the ground beneath my feet began to rise a little and the water, which had been at the level of my thighs, began to lower: to my knees; to my ankles; until finally I reached a place where the ground was freezing cold and damp, but there was no water.

The only problem with this “safe” area was that the ceiling of the cave was quite low, so low that I hit my head on it as I worked my way in. I would have to sit down, with my head bent on my knees, and wait until the tide went out and the water receded from the cave.

I could see nothing.

I thought about Robert, waiting outside for me, and realized that I would have to find some kind of a weapon to use against him. But for the moment I just didn’t care. The thing I was worrying about most was if I could possibly make it through the next six hours in this tiny, dark, enclosed place without going utterly and completely insane.

THE DANK, SODDEN, AIRLESS CAVE WAS SUFFOCATING ME.
 Even though there actually was enough air to breathe, my terror of enclosed spaces was greater at this point than my sense of reality.

Stay calm, Deborah.

This is what I told myself as I huddled there in the dreadful dark.

Stay calm. Don’t panic. Just concentrate on breathing.  In and out, in and out, in and out
. I pulled the air into my lungs and released it, trying to maintain an even rhythm, trying to think about nothing but the life-giving air going in and out.

I could feel panic rising, like bile in the back of my throat. I couldn’t even sit up straight in the spot where I was wedged. I couldn’t see anything. No matter how hard I strained my eyes, they met only blackness.

I felt as if I were being buried alive, waiting in the dark for the dirt to cover my face and smother me completely.

If I let the panic get the upper hand, I would surely go mad.

Occupy your mind with something else. God knows, you have enough to think about.

I was soaking wet and freezing cold, and the dripping stone walls of the cave were cutting into my back. My teeth were chattering already. What kind of condition would I be in six hours?

Think about the enemy
, I told myself.
Think about Robert and what you have to do next
.

I clasped my arms around my knees, buried my face in my wet, salty skirt, and forced myself to imagine what would likely be happening outside this horrible cave once I was missed at Wakefield.

They would institute a search for me, I thought. They would see the sand on Mirabelle’s legs, the salt on her bay coat, and they would know that I had been on the beach. Reeve would come out to the island to look for me.

If he could get across the causeway in the storm. It was probably underwater by now.

I thought about the huge waves I had seen out on the Channel and knew that there would be no chance of him taking a boat out of Fair Haven either.

I could hear the sea roaring through the cave. The tide was continuing to rise, and it might yet reach my hiding place. I was still far from safe.

The thought of drowning almost panicked me into trying to force my way out of the cave. It seemed to me that nothing could be worse than to be trapped and suffocated, like a rat in a hole.

I would rather face a fatal blow from Robert any day than die like that.

It was only the realization that I would most assuredly drown if I tried to get out through the now-flooded cave that kept me in my place.

Oh God, oh God, oh God
, I thought.
Give me strength, dear Lord. Help me to get through the next few hours
.

Second by interminable second, the hours crawled by. The water in the cave continued to edge forward until it finally reached the very tips of my feet. I couldn’t see it, of course, but I could hear it lapping, and occasionally I would crawl a little forward to feel for it with my fingers.

I was cold through to my bones, and I struggled desperately not to think about what would happen if the water should eventually fill the entire cave.

When the flow finally reached my feet, it stopped and didn’t come any closer.

When I realized that the tide must have reached its height and I would not die horribly, trapped alone in this monstrous cave, I burst into hysterical sobbing. It was quite a while before the extreme discomfort of my physical condition overcame my emotion and brought my mind back to my still-dire present situation.

I was so cold that I didn’t think I would ever be warm again. My skirt was soaked, and my feet were wet and freezing inside my boots. My light wool jacket was wet as well, but it wasn’t soaked through and consequently was the only piece of clothing I wore that afforded me any protection at all against the bone-deep chill of the cave.

The panic about closed-in places was still there, hovering in my stomach and chest, like a beast ready to pounce.

I fought it. Again and again, I wrenched my mind back to my problems. I thought about Mama. I thought about the infamous thing that had happened to her, and the terrible way it had affected her life.

She had said that she was a cripple.

My mother. My beautiful, wonderful, loving mother. That man had done that to her.

That man—who
might
be my father.

But he might
not
be, either. I held on to that thought with a desperate kind of hope. Mama had said that she did not know which of the brothers had fathered me. It could have been Edward and not John.

It could have been.

But maybe it wasn’t.

How could I face the world knowing I had the blood of a man like John Woodly running in my veins?

If Mama truly suspected that I was his child, how could she have loved me the way that she did?

For that, at least, I never doubted. My mother loved me, had always loved me,
would
always love me.  If Mama could love me, thinking that perhaps I was the child of John Woodly, then perhaps I could … My mind shied away from the thought. I could not accept it I wasn’t ready to accept it. Not now. Perhaps not ever.

I remembered Mama’s face when she had come to my rescue the time Robert had tried to rape me. What horrendous memories that sight must have brought back to her.

Water dripped down the side of the cave onto my head and trickled down my neck beneath my jacket. I shivered and shivered.

I remembered how excited I had been about my first view of the sea. I thought now that if I never saw the sea again for as long as I lived, I would be perfectly content.

I rocked forward onto my knees and reached out in the dark to feel for the inch-deep pool of water that had been lying near my feet. I had been checking that pool of water for what seemed like ages, and this time all my fingers encountered was the wet floor of the cave. I crept carefully forward on my hands and knees until my fingers once again encountered a puddle of cold salt water.

At last, at last, at last, the tide was starting to go out.

The time had come to think seriously about what I was going to do about Robert.

I had recognized long before this that he had me trapped. All he had to do was wait at the entrance of the cave and he would have me at his mercy when I followed the receding tide out.

With great reluctance, I came to the bitter conclusion that, desperately as I needed to get out of this cave, it would be impossible for me to surrender to that need without giving Robert all the advantage. As I had learned before, he was much stronger than I, and if it should come to a physical struggle between the two of us, I was the one bound to be the loser.

My only hope of surviving would be to use this hateful cave to my advantage, to lure Robert inside, where it was dark, and he could not see me.

Then, perhaps, I could be the one to prey upon him.

I would need a weapon, I thought. When the tide receded a little farther, I would see if I could find something to use against him.

I waited for what seemed like forever, and then I began to follow the cave floor down the incline that had saved my life. Water sounded everywhere inside the cavern: dripping from the ceiling, running down the walls, continuing to roar in the entrance. I slipped several times as I made my way along in the pitch-dark, and one time I felt as if I had cut my knee on something sharp when I landed. I reached down with my fingers, searching for the sharp edge, wondering if perhaps it might be something I could use as a weapon.

Finally I touched it. It was stuck into the packed sand and gravel of the cavern floor, and I dug around it trying to free it. Finally it came loose and I realized that I was holding a large shell in my hands. Its edge was sharp enough, but unfortunately it was too fragile to be used as a weapon.

I tossed it aside and continued on, using the wall as my guide through the inky darkness.

The fact that I could stand upright in this part of the cave helped my feelings of confinement immeasurably.

A few moments later, I heard water splash around the ankles of my boots. I had reached the edge of the receding tide and would have to wait until it went out some more.

I bent down and felt around the cave’s bed, looking for a good-sized rock.

It took me a while to locate what I wanted. The stone my fingers finally closed around was large enough for me to lift and maneuver yet heavy enough to render a man unconscious if it was wielded properly.

I thought bravely that if Mama could knock Robert out with a crystal vase, this rock would most certainly do the job.

My biggest problem, of course, was:
How was I to get at him
?

The ideal situation would be for me to stand along the cave’s wall, cloaked in darkness, and wait for Robert to follow the central channel past me. Then I could step forward when he was just past me, crack him on the head with the rock, and run for safety.

This, in fact, had been my plan, but the more I thought about it the more I saw that it had a number of problems. The chief one was that while Robert wouldn’t be able to see me hiding against the wall, neither would I be able to see Robert. It would be just my luck to end up hitting him on the shoulder, or missing him completely, and then I would be in very deep trouble indeed.

There had to be some way to make him vulnerable.

Could I try to slip past him in the dark? The cave was so noisy with the sound of water, that perhaps I might be able to do that.

Of course, when the entrance finally cleared, the roaring would die away. The only sounds that would be left then would be the more muted noise of dripping. Moreover, the ground underfoot was uneven and it was impossible to get over it without stumbling and slipping.

He would hear me.

On the other hand, I would hear him, too.

If I could not rely on my sense of sight to pinpoint Robert’s position, my sense of sound would have to do. I didn’t see that I had any other choice.

Clutching the rock in my icy hand, I made my way to the freezing wall, which still had water running down it, and pressed up against it, making myself as small as possible and trying not to shiver too uncontrollably.

I waited.

The roaring of the water in the entrance became quieter and quieter, softening into the sound of waves breaking normally. The opening to the cave had to be clearing.

How much longer until Robert came in?

He couldn’t afford to wait any longer than necessary, I told myself. He had to get this done and be out of the way himself before Reeve got to the island to rescue me.

I strained my ears to listen.

Then, at last, I heard it. The sound of feet scrabbling on the sand and pebbles and rock that made up the cave floor.

I listened intently and finally I realized that there was another sound too, a sound I had not expected to hear. I frowned, trying to decipher what it was that I was hearing.

I had a feeling that it was very, very important.

I pressed my back against the wall of the cave, and listened hard. What could it be?

Slowly, steadily, the steps came on.

What
? I thought.
What
?

Then I realized. It wasn’t what I was hearing that was alarming me, it was what I wasn’t hearing.

There wasn’t any splashing.

My plan had been that Robert would come up the central channel of the cave and that I would pounce on him from the side. But if Robert were coming up the center of the cave I would hear the sound of his feet splashing in the small stream of water that was still running out of the cave down the middle of its floor.

Stupid
, I thought.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. You used the wall to guide yourself in the dark. Why shouldn’t Robert
?

Now I had to get away from the wall and into the central channel myself without his hearing me.