Tall Dark and Wicked: The Wickeds Book 5

by Ayers, Kathleen

  After tossing up nine or ten rocks, something large blocked the light. “Petra? How the hell did you…are you hurt?” The strain and worry in his voice was evident.

  “I’m all right. I’ve found a cave,” she stated triumphantly.

  “Bloody Hell. Are you certain you aren’t hurt? Hang on, sweetheart.”

  “I’m fine.” Was it wrong under the circumstances to feel so pleased he’d called her sweetheart? “I landed on a small bush of some sort. Can you believe there was one tiny little shrub struggling to grow down here and I fell on it?”

  He didn’t answer. Brendan was still stomping about, his footsteps sending the dust swirling and bits of dirt dropping on her shoulders.

  “I’m coming down.” His face appeared above her.

  More pebbles bounced off her head. She brushed off her shoulders and found a tear in the shoulder. “That’s a total of two day dresses and one traveling dress ruined beyond repair,” she said out loud.

  “I can’t hear you. I’m coming down.” A rope trickled down through the hole to dangle just above her.

  “I was just saying I’ve ruined another dress.” She thought of Brendan’s broad shoulders and looked askance at the hole. “Perhaps you should just pull me up. I don’t think you can fit through the opening. You’re much too large.”

  “I’m coming,” he insisted.

  As she waited for Brendan to come down, Petra walked over to the other side of the cave, measuring the length with her footsteps. She’d read to do that in one of the books she’d skimmed on caves. Something glittered against the far wall and Petra looked up to see another hole in the limestone, with a bit of sunlight coming through.

  “Brendan, there’s another hole. Possibly a bit larger. Something is shining on the far wall. Does Blue John shine?” Although, if she found Blue John it would be on Simon’s property. “We don’t have to tell Simon.”

  Cursing echoed in the small chamber. Brendan was having difficulty fitting through the hole. She had warned him.

  “Petra.” Brendan grumbled somewhere above her. Another string of curses followed.

  Whatever was on the far wall glittered where the light hit it. She walked forward, careful to move slowly so as not to trip over anything on the floor of the cave. A circle of light appeared in the right-hand corner. “I was right, there is another hole.” She looked up.

  “What? Petra, wait for me.” She could hear him scrambling down the rope but instead of waiting she moved toward the bit of sunlight. Birds sounded above her and the floor inclined up. This portion of the cave couldn’t be very deep at all. Petra moved closer, but stopped abruptly, clapping her hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. Not that it would have mattered if she had screamed. Her companion in the cave was well past hearing.

  * * *

  The thing he’d feared the most had happened.

  The most sickening feeling had clawed up inside him when he’d turned and found her gone with nothing but the trickle of pebbles to announce she’d been swallowed up by the limestone. He immediately knew what had occurred. The area was laced with holes and small caves.

  He wasn’t very good at praying, feeling it an occupation best left to elderly matrons and vicars, but Brendan found himself pleading. Begging. He wouldn’t touch her again, he promised, just let her be all right. Brendan ran for his rucksack and the length of rope. His eyes searched between the tall grass and sprinkling of small bushes looking for where she could have fallen.

  I’ll even let her marry Simon.

  Possibly not the last part. He didn’t think he could allow that.

  When he heard the muffled sound of her voice coming from somewhere beneath his feet and saw the cloud of dust she was kicking up, Brendan almost wept with relief.

  The hole wasn’t very wide, barely big enough for him to lower himself down. After securing the rope from his rucksack, he rolled up his sleeves, twisted the length of rope around his arm, and slowly made his way down.

  His shoulders stuck, scraping against the edges of the limestone. One of the scrapes started to bleed. As he moved, the wind began to kick up, dirt rising to the air to stick to his still sweat dampened face and throat. Brendan glanced up at the sky.

  A storm was rolling in. He needed to hurry.

  Brendan could see the outline of Petra in the cave. She said something about another hole than moved from his sight.

  What the bloody hell…he was rescuing her. The least she could do was to stay put until he could do so.

  She reappeared a few minutes later, below him again, her face tilted up as he snaked down the rope.

  Brendan dropped the rope and fell to the floor of the cave. He immediately grabbed her, wrapping his arms around her slender form. Pressing a kiss to her temple, he held her tightly against him, telling his racing heart to cease its panicked beating. Petra was safe. Unharmed. And struggling.

  “Brendan.” Lips moved against his chest. “I can’t breathe.”

  He loosened his hold but didn’t release her. Instead he cupped the side of her face with one hand.

  “I’m fine, Brendan. I promise.” She assured him. “Nothing broken. A tiny tear in my dress. Much smaller than the one you made.” Her lips turned and she pressed a kiss to the palm of his hand.

  His head thudded. Hard. “You were stuck in a coach. What else was I to do?” Brendan looked back up at the hole he’d recently come through.

  “You needn’t have come down. You should have just pulled me up or told me how to get out.” Petra said. “Though now that you’re here, I’ve something to show you.”

  “It’s only a cave, and not a very exciting one, I’m sure. Besides, I’ve no lamp with me. And there’s a storm brewing across the moors. We don’t want to be caught in it.”

  She shook her head. “This will only take a moment. Then you may haul me to the top like a sack of grain. I could probably climb, but not in skirts.” She looked down at his leather breeches. “I’d need a pair of those. Jemma has several. She tells me His Grace seems to like them.”

  Brendan thought of Petra’s beautiful legs encased in leather breeches. His cousin probably had a point.

  She took his hand in hers and led him forward. “Do you see the other patch of light? Another hole? This one is slightly larger but there is quite a lot of vegetation around the opening. I heard the birds and looked up.

  Brendan did indeed see the sunlight dappling the far end of the cave. Something was glimmering in the shadows. “Have you found treasure?” He knew some of the caves had been used for smugglers in the past. A man in Castleton had found a cave several years ago filled with relics he thought were from the time the Vikings roamed the area.

  “I suppose you could say so.”

  The floor of the cave began to slope upward and the space became much tighter.

  Petra stopped below the tiny bit of sunlight. “The opening isn’t much larger than the one I fell through and with the tree above, well, I don’t think anyone would ever see the hole unless you knew it was there.” She squeezed his fingers. “The ring on his finger was sparkling in the light. It’s what drew me to him. I thought maybe I’d found Blue John, but instead I found him.”

  Brendan came closer, releasing her hand and falling to his knees before the skeletal remains of a man, bits of hair still clinging to his skull. The tatters of a hunting jacket hung on the bones of his shoulders and rotted bits of leather surrounded his feet. The boney fingers of one hand were stretched over his heart, as if he’d died in pain. A signet ring still encircled his pinky.

  “It’s him, isn’t it? Your father?” Petra said quietly. “He’s wearing the same ring in the portrait at Somerton.”

  The soft press of her fingers moved over his shoulder. “Yes.” He was finally looking into the face of his father. Reginald Lorne, former Earl of Morwick, had departed this world in the depths of a limestone cave within walking distance of Brushbriar. But how had he come to be here? Scores of men had scoured the countryside looking for
Reggie, but in the opposite direction, closer to Somerton, not near Brushbriar. No one would have thought he’d be so far from Somerton on foot. He would have had to ride here and leave a horse. But if he’d done that, wouldn’t someone at Brushbriar have known?

  “The fall must have killed him,” Brendan mused. “It’s not far, but maybe he hit his head?” He stood and Petra’s hand fell away. The skull was intact. He looked down at the way the left hand cradled the skeleton’s chest.

  Carefully, he lifted up what was left of his father’s hand, allowing the ring to slide off into his palm. As he did so the wrist bones gave way and the entire hand fell to the floor.

  Petra gasped from behind him. “Is that—”

  Brendan looked at the shattered bones of the ribcage, knowing exactly what such a thing meant. “A hole in his chest? Yes.” Someone had shot his father. The evidence was staring him in the face. What was left of Reggie’s jacket was torn and ragged around the hole. “He was shot and then left here to die.” His father, mortally wounded, had been flung into this hole, far from where anyone was looking for him. It could only mean one thing.

  “Someone shot him intentionally,” Petra whispered.

  He didn’t want to state such a thing, but it was obvious. Brendan could have assumed a hunting accident if Reggie had been found above ground. But tossed below, wounded in a tiny cave? His father had deliberately been placed here. Worse, the Earl of Morwick had still been alive, entombed in this cave and alone, probably in great pain. Whoever had done this had done so with malice and foresight.

  Pendleton, Brendan’s mind whispered.

  Petra crouched next to him. In spite of the dust and dirt, she still smelled of sugar cookies and roses, a scent Brendan thought the most intoxicating in the world. Her nose brushed against his arm as if she were nuzzling him.

  “Stop distracting me.” Brendan parted what was left of the hunting jacket and ran his fingertips over the ancient fabric. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but there must be some clue as to why his father was dead of a gunshot wound and hidden in a cave.

  “Ah.” A distinctive crackle sounded at the lower corner of the coat. A secret pocket. With great delicacy he extracted a small oilskin pouch.

  “How did you know to look there?” He could feel Petra’s breath against his shoulder. A strand of honey-colored hair trailed along his forearm.

  “My father was always picking up stones and other bits as he walked the moors. Every coat he had was layered with hidden pockets. He had his coats specially made for his excursions by a tailor in Buxton. Once, his valet lifted Reggie’s coat to shake off the dust and bits of ore, and a plover’s nest and a curious piece of limestone fell to the floor. Mother was still finding things Reggie squirreled away long after he died. He made a game of it, hiding trinkets he’d found for her. A lovely rock he’d say matched Mother’s eyes, a love note he’d written, or a fossil. He would beg to be searched and often she’d be forced to undress him in the process.” Brendan glanced at her. “A little shocking to think of my mother in such a way.”

  Petra had seen Lady Cupps-Foster wander off with Baron Haddon the evening before but thought better of mentioning such a thing. “Your father was an original. He loved her very much, didn’t he?”

  “He did. When I was a child, she would set Spence and I on some task to keep us occupied. Then she would sneak out into the garden and read something he’d written her. My brother and I found her behind a spray of tulips once, sobbing into the ground, a letter clutched in her hand. When you fell I—”

  He looked away not wishing her to see the truth in his eyes.

  Petra’s fingers snaked down his arm to take his hand. “Nothing happened to me, Brendan. Only a torn dress and a small scrape.”

  Brendan stood and released her hand, hearing the small sound of frustration she made at his withdrawal. When he glanced at her, she merely raised a brow. Not put off in the least.

  I don’t want her put off. He would rather live with Petra and no small amount of fear than with the emptiness of his life without her. Christ, he was even open to staying in London on a temporary basis. That had to mean something.

  He opened the pouch and withdrew a square of parchment, faded with age. A moment went by before he could breathe, feeling as if he’d been hit square in the chest. The parchment was thin, the writing faded, but it was still incredibly legible.

  “Did you find a love letter?” Petra asked.

  “No, it’s a survey map.”

  * * *

  “A survey map?” She was standing outside of the drawing room again, about to find Simon and try to persuade him to be passionate about her. What a waste of time. Lady Pendleton was coughing and drinking brandy in her tea.

  ‘There’s no map. No survey.’

  ‘If Morwick suspects he’ll go to his cousin, the duke.’

  “Brendan—”

  “Son of a bitch.” Brendan looked back at her. “The property line is all wrong.” Then he hastily folded the paper again, placed it back in the oilskin. “We need to go.”

  “He moved the property line, didn’t he? Simon’s father?”

  Brendan gave her a hard look. “How would you know that?”

  She hated the suspicion in his tone, as if she’d been in cahoots with the Pendleton’s, but Petra chose to ignore Brendan’s sudden mood shift. He had just found his long-dead father’s remains in a cave, likely murdered, and he was now holding the reason for that murder in his hand. And she was betrothed to the man whose father had likely committed the crime.

  “I was eavesdropping. Accidentally. At the time, I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about, but now…well, now it makes sense.” She related the conversation she’d overheard, leaving out the part where Simon found her to be docile and boring.

  His lips tightened into a hard, unyielding line. “Were you ever going to mention such a thing to me? I suppose you couldn’t, Simon being your betrothed and all.” Brendan fairly seethed with anger. “I admire your protection of him.”

  “That’s rather unfair, don’t you think, Morwick? Especially after…” She blushed thinking of the night before. “Things.” She waved about her hands. “I told you I didn’t know what to make of the conversation. How would I know what such a thing meant? When was I supposed to impart such information to you? And for the record, I was not attempting to protect Simon.”

  The look on his face told her he didn’t believe her. My God. Could he actually believe she wanted to marry Simon? “You are not to mention you saw me today or what we found. Do you understand? It’s for your own good.”

  “You really think I withheld this information from you?” She walked past him to the rope dangling down from above. “No, don’t answer. I can see that you do. Fine. I’m ready.” Now she was angry as well.

  He came up behind her, looming over her smaller form. “I’m going to go up. Then I’ll send the rope back down with a loop in it. You’ll sit in the loop like you’re merely on a swing. I’ll pull you up very slowly. You stick out your feet and pretend you’re walking up the rock like this.” He moved his fingers to mimic what he wished her to do.

  “Got it. I understand,” she said pointedly, wishing she didn’t want to burst into tears. Brendan was behaving like an idiot. He’d told her he meant to have her and now…well, now he’d found a reason not to have her.

  Petra watched him crawl back up through the hole. Hurt, distraught, and filled with purpose.

  When he pulled her up from the rock, Brendan waited while she put herself to rights, using the water from a bottle he carried with him to wipe her face clean. His manner was polite and nothing more.

  Thunder grumbled again in the air around them. The wind had picked up since she’d fallen into the ground, and she could smell rain coming. The sky had gone dark, shadowing the moors. If she didn’t return soon, she’d be soaked to the skin.

  She’d seen no one this morning but her mother, so it was likely no one had noticed her flee
ing Brushbriar for the moors earlier. Her mother would be too embarrassed to admit to an argument with her daughter and had likely told everyone Petra was resting.

  “Go in through the servant’s entrance,” Brendan instructed her. “Go directly to your room.”

  “Of course, my lord,” she said, satisfied by the way his eyes narrowed. He clearly didn’t care for her attitude, which now matched his own.

  Without a backward glance, Petra set off for Brushbriar.

  27

  Brendan watched the streams of water running down the window and knew as much as he wished it, he and his mother could not return to Somerton tonight as he’d planned. He’d have to spend one more night under the roof of the family who had murdered his father.

  As soon as he had seen the survey map and his father’s remains, Brendan had wished to destroy Brushbriar and everyone in it. He’d lashed out at Petra, unfairly, and intentionally driven her away. At the time all he could think of was his mother’s grief and Pendleton’s treachery. He’d accused Petra of protecting Simon.

  Christ, I’m such an ass.

  The urge to confront Simon and Lady Pendleton made his skin itch, but he did not. There was no real proof save the map he held in his hands. His grandfather, Henry, would have cautioned patience, ruthless old bastard that he was. Henry, were he still alive, would have quietly destroyed Pendleton and Brushbriar brick by brick for the insult done to his daughter. He would have advised Brendan to do the same and get started on doing so immediately.

  He’d declined to go down to dinner, citing exhaustion and over exertion from his climbing. His host would be relieved at his absence. Besides, Brendan didn’t think he could look at Pendleton or his mother over roasted pheasant and not scream his accusation out loud. As he visited his mother in her room, thinking to tell her of the day’s discovery and its implications, he found he could not. She’d been humming and chattering about nothing in particular and seemed oddly eager to go down to dinner.