Rowan groaned, but Emma did not relent. Her mind was filling with irrational images of her father being swept from the rocks as he walked back from the chapel.
She stopped in her room only long enough to pull on her half boots and pelisse. It took several precious minutes to lace the boots, but she knew she could make up the time by walking faster and more surefooted than she could in her flimsy low-heeled slippers.
When Emma descended the stairs, she noticed Lizzie in the hall, sitting in a straight-backed wooden chair near the front door. Hearing Emma’s footfalls, she looked up from the Lady’s Magazine she’d been flipping through. “Where are you off to?” Lizzie asked.
The two young women had formed an uneasy truce since the incident with the bell tower, but Emma guessed the warm camaraderie between them was gone forever.
“To find my father. Have you seen him?”
“I saw him leave on one of his walks, but that was some time ago now.”
“Apparently he’s gone down to the chapel.”
“Really?” Lizzie’s brows rose. “In this wind?”
Emma swallowed. “If anyone asks, please tell them where I’ve gone.”
Lizzie nodded, and Emma turned to the door.
“Emma?”
Emma turned back. “Yes?”
Lizzie looked sheepish. “I am sorry. For everything.”
Surprise washed over Emma—surprise and relief. “Thank you, Lizzie. I’m sorry too.” She gave the girl a small smile and opened the front door.
“Emma?”
Emma turned back once more.
Lizzie hesitated. “Be careful.”
Emma hurried through the garden, out its gate, and across the windy headland. She took long strides just shy of a running pace, her eyes sweeping the coast path for any sign of her father. Or of Henry returning from his meeting.
She saw no one.
She was halfway across the headland before she realized she had come outside with neither gloves nor bonnet for the first time in years. Take hold of yourself, she silently commanded. This was no time to lose her wits. Tendrils of hair pulled loose and blew across her face. She looked up. Yes, the sky was growing greyer by the second, and the wind was strengthening. Surely her father would notice and make haste home.
She reached the point and looked out, briefly scanning the ocean to the horizon. No sign of a struggling ship, nor of any vessel at all. She looked down at the rocky finger and the chapel at its tip, noticed how the waves hit the sides of the narrow peninsula but did not wash over it. Yet the sea was definitely turbulent today, and with the rising wind, the waves would only increase. She saw no one about. Was her father still inside? It was difficult to judge from that height if the door was indeed closed, or if that appearance was just a trick of shadow on the recessed doorway. Perhaps her father had already begun his return trip, but she could not see him on the steep path hugging the cliff’s edge.
She turned and hurried down the path, recalling how she had done the same after ringing the bell, driven to make certain Henry was all right, to help him if she could. She felt a similar urgency, a similar dread now, but why should she? No ship lay breaking apart on the rocks. No lives were in peril.
At least she hoped not.
Emma steeled herself. The tide table estimated another two hours remained before the causeway was in danger of being submerged. And Henry had assured her the estimates were very accurate.
Still her heart beat hard and her stomach twisted as she made her way around the bend, hoping every second for a glimpse of her father coming up. Had he stopped to catch his breath? Gone into the village?
Where are you, Papa?
Henry slowed his horse at the crossroads. He had taken his usual shortcut to the main road. Left would take him into the village, straight ahead would take him into Stratton, and right would take him south to his meeting with Mr. Trengrouse about commissioning one of his lifeline-shooting devices for the Ebford Harbor.
Henry glanced at the signpost. He knew perfectly well what each carved wooden sign indicated, yet his gaze lingered, noticing how the uppermost signs trembled. The wind was rising. He was not usually put off by the prospect of a little wind and drizzle. He glanced up at the sky. Were they in for worse?
He became aware of a pinching in his gut, a nagging thought just out of recall, as if he were forgetting something. Something important.
“Whoa.” He drew Major to a halt and for a moment sat at the crossroad, thinking. Listening.
Turn back. Go home.
Was it his own voice—his conscience—or God’s still, small voice? He was not certain, but he had learned from repeated error not to ignore these quiet proddings, whether of conscience or of God. Mr. Trengrouse was expecting him, but Mr. Trengrouse could wait.
Henry turned Major’s head and made his way back toward Ebbington Manor. As he rode, he felt the urgency building within him. Was he still worrying about Miss Smallwood after the incident with the fake blood, and the strange tussle at the bell tower? Was that it?
Ahead of him, he saw Mr. Smallwood walking, stick in hand, on one of his walks south. When Henry neared him, he hailed, “Hello, Mr. Smallwood. Everything all right at home?”
“Yes, my boy. As far as I know.”
“Good. Well, don’t go too far. Looks like we’re in for some weather.”
“Just to the Upton cemetery and back.” He lifted a sketched map in his hand. “I don’t mind the damp.”
“Well then, enjoy your walk.” Despite Mr. Smallwood’s words, Henry felt unsettled and continued on toward Ebbington Manor. In the back of his mind he wondered why Mr. Smallwood would walk to the Upton cemetery, and especially at this time of day. Apparently his daughter was conducting the afternoon lessons in his stead.
Reaching the estate grounds, Henry rode to the stables. There the groom hurried out to take charge of his horse, appearing surprised and none too pleased to have him return so soon, causing him more work.
“Leave him saddled,” Henry said. “I . . . forgot something . . . and will likely be on my way again in a few minutes.”
The young man nodded, and Henry hurried into the house by the rear door.
Suddenly Rowan rounded the corner, nearly barreling into him. “Henry!” He gaped in alarm, then quickly recovered. “Thought you’d left for your meeting.”
“I had. What are you doing down here? Why are you not in the schoolroom?”
Rowan stuck out his lower lip. “No one up there. We’re having the afternoon off, apparently.”
Henry studied his brother’s expression, part chin-high defensiveness, part sheepish blush and furtive eyes.
“Where is Miss Smallwood?” he asked.
“Gone to look for her father.”
“Oh? Why?” Henry thought of the grey skies and rising wind.
Rowan hesitated. “She thought he might have gone down to the chapel, but I don’t think he would.”
“To the chapel? Why would she think that?”
Rowan shrugged. “That’s what she said.”
“Dash it,” Henry murmured and took the stairs by threes. He didn’t slow his pace until he’d reached his study. He looked on his desk for the tide book but didn’t see it. That’s strange. He always left it on the desk, for convenience sake, since he consulted it whenever he went down to the chapel and regularly made new estimates. Had she taken it? He certainly hoped she’d consulted it.
He looked this way and that until he spied it on the bookcase. Emma . . . he inwardly chided. A place for everything and everything in its place—whether he liked it or not. He snatched the book from the shelf and flipped it open to the current week. He frowned, and looked at the preceding days to see if he had somehow made a mistake. Then his finger traced that day’s column once more and his heart seemed to skip a beat. The times marked for that day were incorrect. And not in his writing, though a close facsimile. He lifted the book and peered closer. Thunder and turf! Someone had scraped off the ink—taking a th
in layer of paper with it—then written in new times. Wrong times.
God in heaven. The tide was on its way in. And with the wind rising and a storm brewing . . . it was far from safe to be venturing out to the Chapel of the Rock. In fact, it was dashed dangerous.
He hurried downstairs. Noticing the darkening sky through the hall windows, Henry detoured to the lamp room for a lantern.
He lit the glass-and-tin oil lamp, then ran outside and back to the stables for his horse. He took the reins from the groom, gripped the lantern handle, mounted, and urged Major into a gallop.
Why on earth would Emma think Mr. Smallwood had walked down to the chapel today of all days, when he had shown no inclination to do so before? When, in fact, he was walking south toward Upton.
Something was wrong about all this. Very wrong.
Emma stood on the beach, at the place where the sand ended and the rocky peninsula began. She surveyed its length—the waves crashing against it from the open sea, sending white spray nearly up to the path at its center.
“Papa, are you there? Papa!” she called toward the distant chapel, but quickly realized yelling was futile. The wind swallowed her words as she uttered them, gobbling them midair, like hungry gulls diving for tossed breadcrumbs.
She should have passed her father if he had gone back, but she had not. She would never rest, or forgive herself, if something happened to him when she might have prevented it. She had to go. She would move quickly, bid him come immediately if he was there, or satisfy herself if he was not. There and back. Every moment she stood there, the water would only get higher. . . .
She stepped out onto the first rock.
As she walked farther out into the sea, the wind strengthened, whipping her skirts and loosening her coil of hair. She held the billowing fabric against her legs so she could look down and see the path in front of her, to gauge the flattest rock, the next step with the surest footing. She consoled herself that at least she was not getting soaked. The wind brushed mist across her cheeks and through her stockings, but the waves still broke several yards away. She hurried on.
Nearing the chapel, she climbed the steep steps, missing Henry’s guiding hand, his firm, confident presence. Ahead of her the door was closed, as it had appeared from above. She supposed her father might have shut it behind himself to keep out the worst of the wind as he surveyed the interior and perhaps prayed in relative peace.
She lifted the latch and pushed open the door. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dim light seeping in through the high slit windows.
“Papa?” she called, her voice quavering, echoing against the sandstone walls. “Are you in here?”
Only the roar of the sea and the cry of distant gulls answered. Had he fallen asleep on one of the rotting pews? Her gaze swept the baptismal font, the slumping benches, the moldering altar. She walked to the chapel’s far end, to the bricked-over wall that had once led to a larger nave, long lost to the waves.
Empty. No one was there. Then where was her father? Had he come here, but only briefly? Or had he decided against coming to the chapel and gone into the village instead for a bracing toddy or some such? Is that why she had missed him?
She heard something, a scraping sound of wood against stone and whirled. The door opened farther—someone was coming in. She tensed, hoping it was not a stranger—or worse, Mr. Teague. It took her a moment to recognize the figure standing backlit by the outside light, lantern in hand.
When she did, her heart rose in relief.
“Henry! That is . . . Mr. Weston.”
But no answering smile or friendly salutation greeted her in return. “What are you doing in here, woman?” he snapped. “The tide is rising.”
She didn’t like his superior, criticizing tone, the implication that she was feather-brained. “I came looking for my father. Your little book said there was plenty of time. Are you telling me you were wrong?”
“I was not wrong. Someone tampered with the numbers.”
Emma’s stomach dropped, and her irritation with Henry fell away. “Who?”
He crossed the chapel in long strides and held out a hand to her. Not in supplication but in command. “We shall debate theories later. Let’s go. My horse is tethered on the beach.”
She tentatively reached out and gave him her hand. “Have you seen my father?”
He turned, tugging her along beside him. “Yes. He—”
The chapel door slammed shut, followed by the sound of a key scraping in the lock.
“Hey!” Henry called. “We are in here!”
He dropped her hand, set down the lamp, and ran to the door, trying the latch in vain. “Open the door!” He pounded on it like a vengeful blacksmith at his anvil. “Open the door, I say!”
She added her voice to his, hoping its higher octave would pierce the wood. “Hallo! We’re in the chapel. Open the door.”
They listened for a reply. Nothing. Nothing save the wind and the waves. Even the gulls had flown inland.
“Hallo?” she repeated plaintively. “Is anybody there?” She glanced at him and said, “Perhaps it has just blown shut.”
Henry struggled with the latch once more. “And locked itself?” he said darkly. “Hardly.”
“Who would lock the door?” she asked, face puckered. “I thought you had the key in your study.”
“I did. But obviously someone took it.” He put his shoulder to the door and butted it like an angry ram.
“Careful!” Emma urged. “You’ll hurt yourself.”
He hesitated, intense green eyes locking with hers. “Do you not understand, Miss Smallwood. If we do not get out of here, we may do worse than hurt ourselves. We may even die.”
Fear flickered across Emma Smallwood’s face, and Henry immediately regretted voicing his ominous thoughts aloud.
“Surely you exaggerate, Mr. Weston,” she said coolly, clearly determined not to panic. “The tide was not so high when I crossed over and the wind is . . . Well, I have certainly seen worse wind since coming to Cornwall.”
He made no reply, choosing not to reiterate his prediction of doom, or Davies’s warnings of high tides and an approaching storm. Instead he began circling the chapel, looking out one narrow window, then another, trying to see someone to hail. To blame. Or to find some way of escape. But it was hopeless.
Even with Emma’s enticingly small waist, she would never fit through one of those narrow slits.
He moved instead to the bricked-up doorway that had once led to the rest of the church. Perhaps it might be weaker than the thick sandstone walls that had stood the test of years and storms. If only he had some sort of tool. He looked down at the oil lamp he had brought for light. The sturdy metal base might be used to bang against the mortar and loosen the bricks. But it was unlikely to work, and he would surely lose the flame in the process and had no way to light another. If only he had thought to bring a knife . . . or a pistol. He reached up and set the lamp in the window facing the village, hoping someone would see it, and kept looking for a way out.
“Besides,” Miss Smallwood added. “My father will soon guess where I’ve gone and sound the alarm.”
“How do you know that?”
“Well, when he doesn’t find me in the schoolroom, he will guess that I’ve gone looking for him.”
“Why did you think he had come here?” Henry asked as his long fingers continued to probe the bricks, looking for cracks, a weakness in the wall.
“Because he left a note.”
“Did he? Are you certain it was his writing?”
Doubt clouded her eyes and tightened her features. “Oh . . . I don’t know. Something did strike me as odd about it.”
“Miss Smallwood, I passed your father walking south when I rode back to the house.”
She gaped at him. “If he didn’t plan to come here, why would he . . . Why would anyone write a note saying he had?”
He looked at her grimly but did not voice his suspicions.
He saw
a chill pass over her. She said weakly, “Well, Lizzie knows where I’ve gone. As do Julian and Rowan.”
Pain lanced him. Would either of his half brothers lift a finger to help her?
She added hopefully, “And surely someone saw you coming in this direction?”
“Maybe. But I didn’t think to tell anyone where I was going.”
“That was not very wise.”
He whirled. “I had other things on my mind,” he snapped. “And may I say, your coming out here today was not wise either.”
She swallowed, and the offended retort he saw building within her fizzled away, unspoken. Her shoulders slumped. “You are right. I came charging down here without thinking it through. Like something you would have done.”
He huffed dryly and returned to his inspection. “Like something I did do.” Why had he not thought to look for the key? To be on his guard?
“Look, let’s not argue,” she said. “Let’s figure out a solution. We are both of us clever. I am certain we can think of something.”
“You think all you like.” He inhaled deeply. “I am going to pray.”
. . . behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea.
—Daniel 7:2
Chapter 24
When the first wave splashed through the westward window, Henry heard Emma gasp from across the chapel. It was soon followed by another whitecap, smacking the slit and sloshing onto the stone floor, wetting her half boots. Henry, who had been banging away at the bricks with a sharp rock he’d found, looked over at Emma, and for a moment both stilled, their eyes meeting in silent understanding. Then he resumed chipping with renewed zeal, and she ran to the door, tried once again to open it, and began yelling for help once more.
Henry’s mind whirled with thoughts of what might happen to them if a powerful storm struck during record-breaking tides. On one hand, Henry was ready to accept his fate if need be. He had enough faith in eternal life that he was not terrified by the prospect of death. Then again, he would prefer to live another fifty years first, God willing.
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